Page 54 of Peak’s Code

“Most of them are closed off because I don’t use them,” he defended.

“How many bathrooms?” she asked.

“Six.”

“You live alone in an eight-bedroom house with six bathrooms?” She sounded as though she was accusing him of some kind of wrongdoing.

“It sounds worse than it is when you say it like that.”

“It sounds exactly the same,” she defended.

He smiled. “My grandfather refused to sell it. I guess I inherited the family stubbornness.”

“Why didn’t you sell it?” she asked.

Peak looked toward the ceiling. “I almost did after my grandfather died.”

“What stopped you?”

“My grandmother,” he admitted.

“What did she say?” Maeve asked.

“That a house isn’t empty just because some of the people who lived there are gone.”

Maeve’s expression softened. “She really was smart.”

“Don’t let her wisdom fool you. She was mean as hell,” he said.

“I would have liked her,” Maeve said.

“She would have loved you.” The words slipped out before he considered them. Maeve grew still. Peak could have taken them back, but he didn’t. His grandmother had appreciated strong women, especially ones who refused to bend for men who assumed they should. She would have taken one look at Maeve and recognized exactly what she was—a fighter.

“You don’t know that,” Maeve said.

“I do,” he insisted.

“What would she have liked about me?” she asked.

“The fact that you argued with me within ten seconds of meeting me.”

“That’s a strange qualification,” Maeve breathed.

“She worried nobody would ever challenge me,” Peak said.

“Your grandmother thought very highly of you.”

“She thought I was an arrogant pain in the ass,” he grumbled.

Maeve smiled. “See, she was a smart woman.”

Peak pulled the blanket higher over her shoulder. “What about you?”

“What about me?” she asked.

“Where did you live before all this happened with Wren?”

The smile faded from her face. “A little house outside Annapolis.”