22. Resa

Chapter 22

Resa

T he drumming has stopped as I walk down the stairs. Vaughn must have gone to bed. But there's a faint flicker of light coming from one room, so maybe he's still awake.

It's only when I stop in the doorway, spot the figure sitting in a light blue checked armchair, hunched over a table in front of a fireplace, that I realize it isn't Vaughn at all.

There's no mistaking his bulk. Garrison.

I weigh up what to do.

Stay or leave.

"It's warmer by the fire." I jump when he softly calls.

I mentally berate myself for being so on edge. To prove I'm not afraid of this alpha, I subtly pat my sweatpants pocket to reassure myself that my knife is still there, then I stride over to the armchair opposite and I grind to a sudden halt.

I'd assumed he was playing chess. Don't ask me why. Just something about him made me think he was the type to beat someone in five moves.

I did not expect to be confronted with a puzzle.

"Feel free to help." His fingers hesitate over a pile of tiny puzzle pieces. "I seem to have hit a sticky point."

I drop into the cream armchair opposite him, a similar design but a different color, lifting my legs and wrapping my arms around my knees.

It's closer than I would ever want to be to an alpha, but the options are retreat—in which case he would know I'd left because I was scared—or take a seat on the couch in the far right hand corner of the room, and he'd think the same thing.

But here? Here I can show him I am not afraid.

I rest my chin on my raised knees. "I didn't think alphas did puzzles."

He picks up a red piece. "This one does," he says, sounding distracted.

After a long moment, he returns the puzzle piece to the table and strokes his chin.

The logs in the fire crackle. Heat sweeps over me, and I regret sitting this close to the fireplace. This house runs on the cool side, temperature wise, but it's not exactly throw a couple of logs on an open fire weather, though I do like the ambience.

I watch him for several seconds, bemused at the intense level of concentration he's paying his puzzle.

Talk about focus.

"How many pieces?" I eventually ask after he fits three pieces near the right corner.

"Two thousand."

My eyes pop. "Two thousand ?"

He nods, head still lowered. "It's very relaxing."

When I think of how long it would take to finish a two thousand piece puzzle, relaxing isn't the first thing that comes to mind. It's how quickly I would lose patience and toss the lot in the fire.

Probably a week.

"How long have you been working on it?"

"Four months."

My mouth falls open.

He lifts his head slightly, giving me a brief flash of hazel, flecked with amber. "It's not continuous. When I have a lot on my mind, I work on this for an hour or so. Helps relax me enough to sleep."

With my frequent bouts of insomnia, maybe I should start.

He slots in another teeny, tiny puzzle piece.

An old castle library is slowly taking shape. He must have another four months ahead of him at the glacial pace he's going.

My fingers itch to just get it over and done with. I don't, because I know myself. The second I start on that puzzle, frustration will beckon, and it's going in the fire. And so will I because Garrison won't take too kindly to four months of work going up in smoke.

Between the fire and watching him put this puzzle together, I can see myself falling asleep in this chair. Or I would be if the hilt of my knife didn't keep jabbing me in my hip.

I lean to the side, pull the knife from my pocket, but I leave it on the chair beside me. Close. Just in case. Garrison doesn't lift his head or even ask what I'm doing, though he must notice the way I'm squirming around in my chair.

He's busy with his puzzle, and this fire is slowly becoming unbearable to me.

Except my feet. My hands and my feet are always cold, no matter how hot the rest of me is. My doctor said it was Raynaud's disease and there is no cure for it, just ways to improve poor circulation. Mom would always say, "Cold feet, warm heart."

"Can I not have both?" I'd ask her. "Because needing to wear socks in summer while the rest of you cooks is no fun."

She laughed and pulled me in for a hug, and I smiled, leaning into it, inhaling her warm toffee scent, as comforting and familiar to me as my childhood. I got used to wearing socks all the time and sticking my freezing hands under my armpit in winter to heat them up when I'd forget my gloves.

"Why do you start with the corners?" I ask, mostly to stop myself from falling asleep.

I hadn't thought there was any science to puzzles other than open a box, empty the pieces onto the floor, and drive yourself crazy digging through the pieces to create something.

"Always easier to start with the outside edges. I sort first. Dig out the corners and sides. Then arrange the rest of the pieces into colors so I know which pile will belong in which section. The rest is about patience."

And that right there is why I will never complete a puzzle.

"That doesn't sound the least bit relaxing." It sounds like homework.

"You'd be surprised."

I nod, though I don't believe him.

My mind slips toward how noble he looks, leaning forward in his chair, dark hair sweeping his forehead and his right elbow crooked, resting on his bent knee.

And his scent… I keep having to remind myself to breathe through my mouth and not my nose because otherwise his rich cedar scent would take over my ability to think clearly.

I remind myself who he is.

What he is.

Alpha. And not just any alpha. My scent match. One that I am biologically susceptible to more so than any other. Noticing things like the way his dark hair falls over his forehead is a slippery slope to me noticing other things about him.

"I hope the others aren't too loud." He picks up another piece, eyes it for a beat and returns it to the pile. "Breakfasts are usually the loudest, then they get quieter throughout the day. Except Vaughn. He has an internal battery that never seems to run low."

"Yeah, I got that." I left him drumming at eleven. Brushing perspiration from my brow, I wonder how he can handle sitting so close to the fire in a shirt and pants.

And it's the middle of the night. Why isn't he wearing pjs?

Naturally, pjs leads to thoughts of beds, and thoughts of bed leads to…

Dangerous places.

"They're okay." Other than nearly getting hit in the face with a pancake, I like the noise, the laughter, and the conversation. It beats spending my days cursing alphas from behind a locked door or pacing a room in silence.

I hadn't realized how quiet my life has been since now.

"Lex calls you Boss Man. Why?"

There are so many things I'm curious about. How Blaine got his scars. Was Violet Blaine and Garrison's lover? After Vaughn's vague responses, this is a question I might actually get an answer to. The others feel too personal to ask.

Garrison must be smiling from the wrinkles pulling at the corners of his eyes. I'm almost disappointed when he lifts his head, and he's serious.

"Lex has a few names he likes to use," he explains. "Boss Man is the one I find least offensive."

"Names like what?"

"My name is Garrison Brewster." He sits back in his seat as he steeples his long fingers together.

He looks like he belongs in a gothic romance. All that's missing is the rich scent of tobacco, one of those floor to ceiling bookcases with the rolling ladder, and maybe a butler at his elbow offering him a glass of amber liquid, with a drawled out, "Your brandy, Sir…"

As the image sinks into my mind, I almost smile at the thought of him in a velvet suit with a cigar in hand.

"Gary, Boss Man, Brew Daddy, The Brewster." He shakes his head before adding dryly, "And my personal favorite, Big Dawg!"

I can't help but laugh.

Then my face freezes because I should not be laughing with an alpha.

"Anyway," Garrison continues as if things haven't just gotten awkward. "Other than the nicknames I wish he would forget, Lucas Security would not be what it is without Lex. If there's anything you need, he can usually find a way of making it happen."

An alpha admitting he isn't the best thing ever? That maybe he needs help occasionally?

Have I fallen asleep in this chair to be dreaming up this impossible thing?

"And the reason he doesn't call you by your name?"

"You'll have to ask him. I've tried, and all he says is I need to have a nickname."

If Lex will tell me instead of taunting me with vague half-answers the way Vaughn likes to, then maybe I will.

"He seems young to do everything he says he does."

His smile is faint. "Lex met his girlfriend Marie at college. A recruiter headhunted them for a big tech company from college, and we met when I was looking for an assistant. He applied."

"But why would he apply to be your assistant ?" Honestly, I don't mean it to sound as offensive as it comes out. It's only when amusement—not my expected response—flares in his hazel gaze that I realize I just made it sound like Lex was signing up to wipe his ass.

"He quit his tech job after a couple of months. Lex is brilliant, but he doesn't do well with rigid rules and he gets bored quickly. I give him free rein and he likes the challenge of coming up with creative solutions to problems."

"I thought he was like a housekeeper." At least, it had seemed that way in the kitchen.

He shakes his head. "He is not my housekeeper, though he does manage a cleaner who comes once a week. I have few specific tasks for him so it's not unusual for him to pick up a case and have it solved in ten minutes. Finding people isn't something he has any interest in, but ask him what he thinks about your Dexter Pieter case. He might have an observation that will surprise you. He's surprised me often enough over the years."

Pick up a case and solve it in ten minutes ?

Lex doesn't sound brilliant. He sounds like he's a genius.

I wonder about Garrison Brewster, and his ability to build a team of people with these incredible skill sets. I've gotten used to alphas like Nathaniel Lang. Men who order, control, and dictate. Yet Garrison doesn't seem shy about admitting he needs help with something or that someone might know more than he does about some things.

Alphas never admit they are wrong, even when they are.

He peers at me, his expression patient, as if waiting for me to ask any more questions I might have. Before I'm tempted to do just that, I unwind my arms from my legs and place them on the floor. "Well, it's late."

I shove myself up and my legs collapse under me.

It will forever be a mystery how Garrison got up so fast, around the table with what looks like a million puzzle pieces, to catch me before my knees hit the ground.

"Are you okay?" he asks,

"You can let go. I'm?—"

Then I see it.

I forget about telling him to let me go. That there's no reason for him to be holding me up. I'm not going to fall.

Dark droplets. There was no stain on the chair before I sat. Now there is.

"—bleeding." His voice is gravel.

The longer I look, the more I wish those marks would disappear, because I know exactly what it means.

Something is wrong with my baby.