“Count yourself lucky. Siblings can be a curse.”
“Not when you don’t have a family.”
He froze. “How is it you have no family?”
“I was abandoned,” she said simply. “At a fire station when I was a baby. Nobody ever found out who my parents were. I grew up in foster care, moved a lot. Never stayed anywhere long.”
He frowned. “Foster care?”
She tilted her head. “You don’t have that here? It’s when the government pays people to take in kids without homes. Some are kind. Some aren’t.”
His jaw clenched. “You were mistreated?”
She smiled faintly, brushing his forearm again without seeming to realize how her touch made his skin heat. “I survived, big guy. Don’t worry about it. There are worse stories than mine.”
A low growl rumbled from his chest, deep and dangerous. “No child should be treated that way.”
Her hand stilled on his arm, eyes wide at the intensity in his voice. “I agree,” she whispered. “But I made it through. And Steve helped.”
“The rock.”
“Not this particular one,” she said with a rueful grin. “There have been others. But this one feels right. Maybe because it’s volcanic—born of fire and pressure. Stronger that way.” She traced a thumb over the stone’s ridges. “Nothing lasts forever, though. Not even rocks.”
Her gaze lifted to his, firelight flickering between them.
For a moment, neither spoke. The air hummed with magic—or maybe it was just the storm still raging somewhere outside, waiting.
Chapter
Four
Wren suspected the title of her autobiography—or at least one chapter—would beWren Taylor: Desperate People-Pleaser.
She knew exactly where that tendency came from. Therapy had drilled it into her head. Children raised in foster care, told often enough that no one wanted them, grew into adults who bent over backward for crumbs of affection. Some people learned to build walls. Wren learned to build herself into whatever people wanted, hoping someone might stay. No one ever had.
And yet, here she was, in a cave in Iceland, with a brooding, green-skinned troll whose scowl could curdle milk, and she still wanted to belong. In fact, she had never felt more like this was the place where she belonged. Now to convince Mr. Growly of the fact.
He sat near the fire, massive frame hunched over a block of wood and a carving knife, the firelight gilding the planes of his face. Each curl of shaved wood spiraled to the floor in a fragrant drift of cedar and smoke. He didn’t look up, didn’t acknowledgeher presence, but somehow she felt every ounce of his awareness tracking her movements.
Wren wandered the cave, trying to keep her fidgeting to a minimum. She stopped at each carving, tracing her fingertips over the smooth grain, the elegant precision of his cuts. She smiled at a seal caught mid-dive, at a stag with antlers like spreading branches. Every piece breathed life, humor, soul.
He carved like he lived—quiet, contained, yet impossibly intense.
When she couldn’t stand the stillness anymore, she began tidying. Straightening the carvings, dusting around the older ones, rearranging the small figures so they’d be better seen. She rescued a tiny penguin from where it had been wedged in a wall crack and set it front and center. She folded the drying towel, smoothed the furs, and adjusted the placemats on the table so they lined up perfectly.
Finally, Gunnar let out a sound that was half sigh, half growl. “When will you sit down?”
“When I’m done.”
“Doing what?”
She turned, only to find him right behind her. The air went still between them, warm and heavy. “Exploring,” she said faintly.
Before he could respond, the ground shuddered beneath her feet. The walls rattled. Loose shavings from his carvings danced in the air. Wren pitched forward, and landed hard against his chest.
His arms came around her instantly, solid and immovable, anchoring her to him as the cave trembled. “What’s happening?” she gasped, clutching his tunic.
“Minor quake,” he rumbled near her ear. “Iceland has many. Or,” his voice deepened, “it’s my mother, meddling again.”He raised his voice toward the cavern roof. “Enough, Mother! You’re scaring the human.”
