Grim Offerings (Aisling Grimlock Book 2) Read online

  “Oh, he’s making that up,” Aidan protested.

  “Why would I make it up?” Griffin asked.

  “Because you got caught.” Aidan crossed his arms across his chest petulantly.

  I was confused. Part of me wanted to believe him. The other part wanted to kick him in his special place.

  “How come you didn’t tell Aisling you were done with your assignment?” Jerry asked.

  That was a very good question. I tilted my chin and watched Griffin, curious about his answer.

  “Because I was planning on surprising her with a bottle of wine and dinner tonight,” Griffin replied. “I didn’t expect to just run into you at a Middle Eastern restaurant in the middle of nowhere.”

  Aidan bumped shoulders with Griffin as he pushed around him and sat back down on the couch. “Don’t believe him,” he said.

  “You’re starting to piss me off,” Griffin said, extending his finger in Aidan’s direction. “This has nothing to do with you.”

  “Oh, right, my sister getting her heart broken has nothing to do with me,” Aidan said.

  “I didn’t have my heart broken,” I mumbled.

  “You spent the whole afternoon in bed, and Jerry could only lure you out of your bedroom with The Golden Girls and pizza,” Aidan countered.

  “Well, that explains the outfit,” Griffin said.

  “And the hair,” Jerry said, running his hands over my head to smooth the snarls.

  Griffin smiled. He could tell I was still leery, but he didn’t appear to be going anywhere. He shrugged out of his coat and dropped it on the chair by the table. “Is there enough pizza for me?”

  “No,” Aidan said.

  “Yes,” Jerry said. He prodded me with his hip. “Don’t you have something you want to say to him, Bug?”

  “Like what?” Aidan was still incensed.

  “Like she’s sorry for overreacting,” Jerry supplied. “And she’s sorry her brother is such a … tool.”

  “Hey!”

  I couldn’t help but smile. I was sorry. Kind of. I still blamed Griffin for keeping me in the dark.

  Griffin strode over to the couch and nudged Aidan with his knee. “Move over.”

  “No,” Aidan said. “I was here first.”

  “And I haven’t seen my girl in two weeks,” Griffin said. “I want pizza, and I’m even willing to watch The Golden Girls. I am not willing, however, to put up with your crap.”

  “You’re kicked out.”

  “You can’t kick someone out,” Griffin said. “It’s not your place.”

  “He’s right,” Jerry said. He patted the couch on the other side of him. “Come sit here with me. Let Griffin sit next to Aisling.”

  Aidan was furious, but he did as he was told. After a few minutes of quiet munching and television watching, I could feel Griffin’s eyes on me. I finally found the courage to meet them.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure,” I said.

  “Do you want to expand on that?”

  “I feel a little … stupid.”

  “It was an honest mistake,” Griffin said, resting his hand on my knee. He was testing me. He wanted to see if I would pull away.

  “I feel a little pathetic, too.”

  “Because you pouted all afternoon and look like you should be at a slumber party instead of on a date?”

  I scowled.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Griffin said. “I grew up with sisters. I’m used to stuff like this.”

  “Shh.” Aidan pressed his finger to his lips and pointed to the television.

  Griffin shot him a dark look and then held his hand out to me. “How about we get some sleep and start over with a fresh perspective tomorrow morning?”

  It was a gracious offer. He was letting me off the hook. I just had one thing to make clear to him. “If you ever cheat on me, I’ll burn your letterman’s jacket.” Griffin looked confused.

  “And your car,” Jerry said.

  Griffin shook his head, nonplussed. “Duly noted.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me to a standing position. “Not that this isn’t fun, but I haven’t slept in thirty-six hours and I can’t take much more of … this.”

  Despite the harsh looks Aidan flashed me as I crossed the room, I followed Griffin. Maybe some sleep would do us both good. It certainly couldn’t hurt.

  Four

  I woke up the next morning, for the first time in two weeks, with a warm body draped over mine.

  “Morning, baby.” Griffin pressed his lips to my neck as he cuddled me. “Feeling better?”

  That was a loaded question. Unfortunately, I am not a morning person. It takes me time to digest anything before I’ve had a cup of something caffeinated. “I’m fine,” I murmured.

  Griffin’s hands were on my waist, and he forced me to roll over so he could study my face in the early morning light. “You look better,” he said. “Your hair is out of control, though.”

  “It always is.”

  “You usually braid it before you go to sleep.”

  “I’m surprised you remembered that.”

  “I was gone two weeks, Aisling,” he said. “I didn’t fall off the face of the Earth.”

  “That’s not how it felt to me,” I grumbled.

  Griffin snuggled closer. “I know. I didn’t know I would be out of touch that long. I’m sorry. The assignment was only supposed to last a few days, a week tops. Once I was in, though, I had to stick it out. I wanted to call you, but every time I got a chance it was in the middle of the night. I didn’t want to wake you.

  “If it’s any consolation, I dreamed about that braid every night,” he said.

  It was some consolation. Good grief, when I did I become the kind of girl who gets a thrill out of a boy saying gooey things?

  “I missed you, Aisling.”

  I sighed. Here was my opening. “I missed you, too.”

  “Good,” he said. “Now, how about we forget about yesterday and you can welcome me home with something a little nicer than your brother’s incessant whining?”

  I smiled. “What did you have in mind?”

  “I’m glad you asked.”

  AN HOUR later, we made our way to the kitchen. We were both still in our pajamas – well, boxer shorts and a T-shirt for Griffin – but I had managed to run a brush through my hair.

  “Well, good morning.” Jerry greeted us with a mischievous smile and two mugs of coffee. “And how are you two doing this morning?”

  “Good,” Griffin replied, sitting on the opposite side of the table from a glowering Aidan. “We’re both good.”

  “Aisling doesn’t need you to answer for her,” Aidan said.

  “Oh, please, we heard the headboard against the wall,” Jerry said. “We know they had a good morning.” He cuffed the back of Aidan’s head lightly. “Eat your pancakes. I made them special for you.”

  “No, you didn’t,” Aidan said. “I like peaches in my pancakes. You put blueberries in these. That’s Aisling’s favorite.”

  “Why are you being such a sourpuss, Snickerdoodle?”

  I couldn’t stop from laughing as I sat in the chair between Griffin and Aidan. “Yes, Snickerdoodle, why are you so sour this morning?”

  Aidan arched an eyebrow. “So you’ve just forgiven him?”

  I shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I? It was just a misunderstanding.”

  “That’s exactly right,” Jerry said. “Griffin, do you like blueberry pancakes?”

  “Sure. That sounds good,” Griffin replied.

  “Bug, yours will be ready in a minute.”

  “Good,” I said. “I’m starving.”

  “I bought you pizza last night,” Aidan pointed out.

  “What’s your deal?”

  Aidan stiffened. “Nothing.”

  “Well, you’re acting like you have a deal.”

  “You are,” Jerry said.

  “I don’t have a deal,” Aidan said. “I’m just surprised that you automatically
believe that woman was his sister. He could be lying.”

  “I’m not,” Griffin said. “Maya is my sister. She’s been my sister for, oh, twenty-six years now.”

  “And I’m sure you have proof of that?”

  “Are you asking whether I have her birth certificate in my wallet?” Griffin challenged.

  “That would be helpful.”

  “I don’t,” Griffin said.

  Aidan shot me a triumphant smile.

  “However, when I told Maya about Aisling – which was before she ran out of the diner yesterday, mind you – she insisted on all of us getting together for dinner,” he said.

  I faltered. “She did?”

  “She wants to meet you,” Griffin said, smiling as Jerry slid a heaping plateful of food in front of him. “This smells wonderful.”

  “I aim to please.”

  “And you do,” Griffin said, forking a bite into his mouth. “This is great. I can’t believe you’re all not fat with food like this.”

  “We go to the gym a lot,” Jerry explained.

  “I don’t,” I said.

  “Aisling doesn’t,” Jerry corrected. “She just has one of those metabolisms that allow her to eat a horse and not have it land on her hips.”

  Griffin smirked.

  I was still dwelling on the dinner bombshell. “What did you tell her?”

  “What did I tell who?”

  “Your sister,” I said.

  “I told her we would have dinner with her,” Griffin said, pouring more syrup on his pancakes, seemingly oblivious to my newfound panic. “It was right before I got my assignment. I figure we can pick out a time and get together in the next few days.”

  “But … .”

  “What’s the problem? I’ve had dinner with your family,” Griffin pointed out. “I’ve had breakfast with them, too. Your family is a lot more hostile to me than Maya will be to you.”

  “People don’t like me,” I said.

  Griffin frowned.

  “Especially other women,” I added. “I think it’s because I was raised with men. I don’t have proper social skills with women.”

  Aidan snorted. “She’s not lying about other women not liking her. I can’t think of one friend she’s ever had who was female.”

  “She didn’t need female friends,” Jerry said. “She had me.”

  “I’m sure it will be fine.” Griffin wasn’t ruffled.

  “But … she saw me freak out in that restaurant yesterday,” I said. My mind was whirling with scenarios. Had Maya laughed when Griffin explained the situation? Did she think I was pathetic? More importantly, how had my hair looked? I searched my memory.

  “So? I told her what I thought was wrong. She understood. She didn’t understand Aidan’s little fit, but she understood why you ran out.”

  “Little fit?” Aidan glared at Griffin. “Little fit? Standing up for my sister is not a ‘little fit.’”

  “Do you have something you want to say to me?” Griffin asked pointedly. “If you do, I really wish you’d just say it.”

  “Fine,” Aidan said, leaning forward.

  “Aidan,” I warned.

  “It’s fine,” Griffin said, waving off my concerns. “I want to hear what he has to say.”

  I wasn’t convinced, but Aidan wasn’t going to be dissuaded.

  “The first time we met you, I’m not going to lie, I didn’t like you on sight,” Aidan said. “You were a cop, and where we come from you don’t hang around with cops. Still, you seemed to genuinely care about my sister.”

  “I do.”

  “Then you had sex with her and bolted the next morning,” Aidan continued. “When you showed back up, you were all business and you didn’t even apologize.”

  “I did apologize,” Griffin said. “I was just confused. It was a lot to take in.”

  Aidan blew an inelegant raspberry. “I actually thought you might be a decent choice for her, but then you took off for two weeks and couldn’t even bother to call her,” he said. “You abandoned her.”

  “I couldn’t call her where I was,” Griffin said. “I was … being watched … every day.”

  “And what were you doing every night?”

  “Wishing I could call her and missing her,” Griffin replied, guileless.

  Aidan’s face shifted, if only marginally.

  “The only time I was alone was the middle of the night,” Griffin said. “I thought about calling her, but I didn’t want to wake her. Did I make the wrong decision? I’m starting to think so. Waking her would have been better than letting her suffer. I didn’t realize that’s what I was doing. The assignment was supposed to take only a couple of days.”

  “Still …. .” Aidan wasn’t ready to admit defeat. “You should have called her the minute your assignment ended.”

  “I thought she was at work,” Griffin said. “I was planning to go home, take a nap and then surprise her last night. What else have you got?”

  Aidan’s jaw worked, but no sound came out.

  “I don’t think he has anything else,” Jerry said, rubbing Aidan’s shoulders to soothe him.

  “Good,” Griffin said, returning his attention to his pancakes. “These are really outstanding.”

  “What should I wear?” I asked.

  Griffin slid his eyes in my direction. “For what?”

  “For dinner,” I snapped. “What kind of outfit will make your sister like me?”

  Griffin barked out a coarse laugh. He leaned over and cupped the back of my head and gave me a quick kiss. “I love that your mind can handle only one thought at a time. I find it very … refreshing.”

  “That wasn’t an answer.”

  “We’ll go shopping, Bug,” Jerry said. “I’ve been dying to update your wardrobe. We’ll donate all those Converse shoes to Goodwill.”

  “Don’t you dare touch those shoes,” I growled.

  “See, her mind does work when it wants to,” Jerry teased. Aidan was still pouting in his chair, so Jerry opted to continue engaging me in morning conversation. “What are your plans today? We could go shopping this afternoon.”

  “We have four names,” I said, reaching for the iPad on the baker’s rack. “I’m not sure how long it will take. I’ll try to be quick.”

  “Can’t you and Aidan split the list?” Jerry asked. “We’re going to need a few hours. You need a pedicure, too.”

  I thought I’d just been insulted. “Hey!”

  “You’re a beautiful girl, Bug, but your feet look like claws sometimes.”

  Griffin smirked. “I think her feet are cute.”

  “Thank you,” I said. I glanced at Aidan. “Can we split the list today? Is there anything bad on it?” Technically, I was still in training. Once I passed my father’s rigorous final test I would be on my own every day.

  Aidan sighed as he took the iPad from me. After perusing the four names, he shook his head. “There’s nothing on here that looks too hard. We can split them.”

  “Yay!” Jerry clapped his hands and jumped up and down.

  “Is that safe?” Griffin asked. “I’d much rather envision Aisling shopping all afternoon than whatever it is that you guys usually do, but I’d also rather she have backup if she needs it.”

  “She’ll be fine,” Aidan said. “She’s capable of collecting a soul on her own.”

  “Yes, but what about the … ?”

  “We haven’t seen any wraiths since the incident at the cemetery,” Aidan said. “I think they fled after Genevieve died.”

  Genevieve Toth was a centuries-old witch who had lived off the essence of innocents. She’d employed wraiths – fallen human beings who prolonged their lives by sucking souls from others – to do her dirty work. Detroit, with its many abandoned homes, provided a great hiding place for them.

  After a bloody showdown, one that ended with my father killing Genevieve, the wraiths that remained had scattered. I couldn’t help but be a little relieved.

  “That’s good, right?”
Griffin pressed.

  “It is,” I said.

  “Good,” Griffin said, clasping my hand. “I’d hate to think about you running into trouble.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, most of the time collecting souls is really boring,” I said. “The guy we got yesterday was more worried about leaving his stuff behind than anything else.”

  “I told you he was a hoarder,” Aidan said, his eyes flashing.

  “I don’t think he was technically a hoarder,” I said. “It was more that he simply liked to collect stuff.”

  “Oh, jeez,” Aidan complained. “Now that Detective Dinglefritz is back and you’re fornicating like bunnies you’re back to believing you’re never wrong.”

  I grinned. “I never am.”

  “Of course you’re not, baby,” Griffin said, shooting a smug look in Aidan’s direction. “No woman ever is.”

  Five

  I parked my car a block from my second client’s apartment building and killed the engine. I had a half hour to burn before he expired, and rather than returning home I opted to wait it out with my iPad.

  What a difference twenty-four hours makes. At this time yesterday I was cursing Griffin’s existence and crawling into bed to sleep my pain away. Today I was trying to finish work early so I could go shopping with Jerry – a terrifying extravaganza no matter what we’re looking for – and I was actually basking in Griffin’s return.

  I had no idea how it had happened but somehow I’d become … a woman. I couldn’t help but wonder if that meant I would start crying at those sappy Christmas commercials.

  My phone rang. The screen told me it was my father. Uh-oh. “Hey, Dad.”

  “Where are you?”

  “It’s good to hear your voice, too.”

  There was a momentary silence. I could practically see him rolling his eyes and collecting himself. Cormack Grimlock had raised five children. Four were boys, and he understood how to deal with them. There were fist bumps, high fives and the occasional screaming throwdowns. He tried to take a different approach with me. It didn’t always work.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “How are you, my beloved daughter?”

  “I’m great, thanks. How are you?”