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“I think you get to make the decisions now, though,” I say gently.

“For someone who wants me to sleep, you sure talk a lot.”

I smile. “Okay. I’m going to tell Griffin to call it quits with the hammering. We’ll be back here tonight with some groceries, okay?”

But he’s already closed his eyes.

CHAPTER35

Sasha

That night, we come back with groceries as planned, along with a carton of fried rice and sweet and sour chicken we ordered for Chester at the end of our dinner. Turns out Griffin has a key.

“The animals’ll get the food if we leave it out here,” he says. He has no qualms about walking right in.

But inside, it’s not just the hallway light that’s off. The whole house is dark. The hallway and kitchen, both of which Griffin helped me tidy up after Chester fell asleep, are just as we left them hours ago.

Panic grips my chest. “I don’t think he got up again.”

But Griffin sticks his finger up against his lips, then uses it to point to a lump on the couch. The light’s dim in the living room, but I see now that Chester migrated out there at some point. A paperback lies open on the table I cleared, along with his reading glasses.

I should be relieved, but I whisper, “Can you check on him?”

Griffin squeezes my hand, then goes over to him and crouches down. A beat passes, then he gets back up again. “He’s fine. Just sleeping.”

Relief floods over me.

“It feels weird not locking it,” I say, still whispering as we walk away a few minutes later.

“It’s a small-town thing,” Griff says.

“What about your place?”

Griffin has a half-dozen locks on his front door alone.

“Occupational hazard.”

We reach the end of the yard. He points his flashlight down the path. A breeze glances over my bare legs under the marigold dress I changed into this afternoon when we went into town for dinner.

I put a hand on Griffin’s forearm, too distracted with worry to dwell on how good it feels under my fingers. I look back at Chester’s dark bungalow. “You think he’s going to be okay?”

“I think you shouldn’t worry about him.”

“That’s not an answer.”

Griffin takes a moment to answer. “I’ll get the doctor to come back. And I’ll see about getting him a housekeeper. At least then there’ll be eyes on him when we’re not around.”

I can’t help but notice his use of the wordwe.Like this is my home too. Something soft and warm spreads through my chest.

“You know he’ll say no to all that,” I say as we walk along the darkened path.

“He won’t get the opportunity if someone just shows up. That’s how I got him doing grocery delivery.”

“Okay.” Satisfied, I lean into Griffin as we walk, enjoying the big, hard warmth of him next to me. This time last year, if you’d told me that I’d be walking through the woods at night in the country right now, I’d have told you that you were crazy. But with Griffin’s easy stride and absolute lack of worry, I don’t even think about it.

I’ve come a long way for a city girl.

We’re coming through the back door of the cabin when I remember to tell him about the locked room. “He doesn’t want anyone near it. Says his grandfather never wanted anyone to touch his stuff.”