Chapter 291 Chapter 291
Deacon looked over to see Giana was still sleeping. The seat was reclined, she was curled up, with her legs tucked under her. She looked so small, so fragile with her hair spread out on the seat and her face was so peaceful.
He wanted to open the window and take fresh air into his lungs but didn’t want her to get cold. There was frost on the ground, that glistened in the moonlight. Her scent was driving him nuts, to constantly be inhaling it with each breath. He’d given up on the mint-scented toothpicks about a hundred kilometers ago, even the strong taste couldn’t prevent him from feeling like she was coating his tongue in her essence. Taking off his hat, he dropped it between the seats and rubbed his hand over his hair to prevent it from falling in his eyes. His gaze strayed from the road again to look at her. She was so lovely. It made his chest ache.
His animal wasn’t doing much better than Deacon was. Wanting their mate but are not able to do anything about it. More often than not in the last twenty-four hours, his creature had also demanded to be out. When they’d stopped for Giana to go for a quick run, Deacon had paced back and forth beside the vehicle having to fight the whole time to keep him inside and almost under control. He’d told her he didn’t want to chance it and should keep watch, and she’d accepted that answer, even offered to do the same when she came back. His excuse then was they should keep moving and she accepted that as well. She didn’t remember that there was no way of tracking the vehicle. Illias’ team made sure of that. Deacon didn’t like lying to her, and it was a struggle to keep his answers or explanations with some sort of truth-ism to them. He glanced at her again—truthism, was that even a word? He had no idea, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a word, somewhere in the world.
Looking out the window, he glanced around to gauge how much longer until they reached the yard where he left his truck when he was out working. What was she going to think when they ditched this smooth ride for his old truck? She’d probably never ridden in anything other than comfortable vehicles. His truck wasn’t bad, in his opinion, a little rough riding, but he’d been working on that when he could, of course, its appearance seemed the perfect image of what he was. The mismatched panels that covered it were different colors as he’d replaced them as he found them, it wasn’t pretty to look at, that was for sure. Like him, he supposed, his animal wasn’t pretty and sleek either.
He just wanted to get home, go for a long run and kill something. Home. That was another problem, his house if you could call it that, wasn’t going to be anything she was used to either. The basic cabin, he and Calum had built was small, not meant for comfort, with an enclosed porch larger than the building itself. Deacon spent more time in the porch than in the building, except when the dead of winter was here. There was no power or running water, everything was set up to work off a generator. He rubbed his beard briskly, hoping the old shifter that kept an eye on things had refilled the fuel cans while he was away.
He didn’t know much about Beckett, only that he’d fallen off the grid a long time ago and wanted to keep it that way. With Calum’s land and cabin twenty minutes from Deacon’s smaller plot, the old man watched over both for them. He glanced back at the supplies and decided he’d leave him some of them when he picked up the truck. Juice and some of the snacks were always appreciated.