AllFreeNovel
Share Us
His eyes shifted to the window, where snow flurries had started falling. “I’m going to be heading out to ride all morning, so you can stay there by yourself and get some rest. Nobody will bother you.”
“Oh, Griffin, I can’t do that,” I told him, unsure what excuse I could possibly give him.
“Why not?”
I didn’t have a good reason. “I don’t know. I just… you don’t really know me, and you’re going to trust me to stay in your camper without you there?”
“Are you planning to steal from me?” he asked.
“What? No!”
Griffin let out a chuckle at the same time his hand came to rest on my thigh. He gave me a gentle squeeze and insisted, “Relax, Indy. I was just joking with you.”
“Oh,” I rasped, unable to think about anything beyond the way it felt to have his hand touching me where it was.
“Come on,” he urged me, squeezing again. “I can’t go out and ride all day if I know you’re going to be here feeling this miserable.”
I stared at him, unwilling and unable to respond.
Not only did Griffin refuse to be swayed, but he offered words to entice me further. “It’s warm and quiet. I have a bed that’s much bigger than this bench you’ve been sleeping on for the last couple of days, too.”
“It sounds like paradise,” I declared.
His lips twitched. “I’m not sure I’d call it that, but it’s certainly an upgrade from this.”
I considered his offer for a minute. While I couldn’t be sure, I had a feeling I’d get the best few hours of sleep I’d gotten in days. Griffin had assured me he wasn’t going to be there, so it wasn’t like I had to worry about him trying to take advantage of a situation. Though, if I was honest, I didn’t think he was the kind of guy who had something like that in him.
And though it was possible he could have been a crazed lunatic who knew all the right things to say and do to convince me he was a good guy, what were the chances that was the case?
I’d had the thought before, and it still held true now. How much worse could things get for me?
“Are you sure you don’t mind?” I asked.
“I’m sure. In fact, I’ll feel a lot better knowing you’re there,” he answered.
Following a beat of silence, I nodded. “Okay. Let me get my shoes on and grab my things.”
A proud look washed over his face before he released my leg from his hold and stood to give me the room I needed to swing my legs off the bench so I could get my shoes on. Not even two minutes later, I had my backpack slung over my shoulder as I walked beside Griffin toward the exit.
The next thing I knew, I was climbing the two stairs into his camper. “What about my feet?” I asked. “I don’t want to get snow all over.”
Jerking his head off to the side, he indicated a plastic tray and said, “You can take your shoes off and put them there.”
I did as he suggested and stepped back to give him room to come inside. Griffin did the same with his shoes before stepping close, putting a hand on my elbow, and shifting past me to move toward the back of the camper.
“The bed is back here,” he started. “You can dump your things on the table or seat up there, climb up, and get comfortable. There are sheets on the mattress back here, even though I generally climb fully inside the special sleeping bag I bought for cold weather camping. You can do the same with it, or unzip it, open it completely, and use it as a blanket. I have another one I can pull out later, but you can just use mine for now.”
My ears heard him say the word later, but it didn’t register what he meant when he said it. Maybe delirium had started to set in.
Pointing to a door on the side just in front of the space where the bed was, he revealed, “This is the bathroom. Feel free to use it if you need it. There’s a lever on the front part of it that’ll open the flap to flush it, and there’s a blue button behind it to add water from the tank to clean it out. I have the system running to heat the water, so there is hot water for showering and handwashing, but I’m assuming, at this point, you just want to sleep.”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
He offered a sweet smile and said, “Okay. With the exception of my boots, I’ve got all of my gear on. I’m going to close this up, and I’ll lock it from outside, so nobody can mess with you. I’ll ride for a few hours and come back around lunchtime. Will that be good for you?”
I set my bag and my jacket on the seat by the table and replied, “It’s sounds wonderful, Griffin. Thank you for doing this for me.”
Griffin reached his hand out to me. Cautiously, I placed my hand in his. “I’ll help you up into the bed, because I’m not convinced you have enough energy to do it on your own right now.”
