Total pages in book: 254
Estimated words: 240032 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1200(@200wpm)___ 960(@250wpm)___ 800(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 240032 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1200(@200wpm)___ 960(@250wpm)___ 800(@300wpm)
And how did he keep getting more handsome every day? I wondered before my brief conversation with Matti swept that aside. It was something and nothing at the same time.
This wasn’t going to go well for me.
Henri’s bone-deep sigh was the first sign he’d hung up, followed by the way his hand dropped to his side.
I raised my eyebrows. “People driving you nuts?”
He released another breath that seemed like it came straight from his soul. “It’s been a long day.”
I looked at my phone’s screen. “It’s ten in the morning.”
He rubbed his hand over his mouth before slanting me a look. “Exactly.”
“Poor, Fluffy,” I told him with a grin. “Anything I can do to help?”
“It’s all good. I’m off from work the next two days,” he tried brushing it off. “Margaret’s having a problem with her hot water and thinks it’s faster to call me than it is to call our maintenance man.” His gaze moved over my face, down my white shirt, black shorts, and fanny pack. A little notch appeared between his eyebrows. “What are you doing out here? Where’s Duncan?”
I scratched my cheek. “He and Agnes are with Phoebe and Shiloh. I just dropped them off, got sad on the walk back, and I called your cousin to cheer me up. I forgot he’s on a work trip in New York.”
Henri made a face I wasn’t sure how to interpret before looking me over again. Just as he seemed to be about to say something, that ringtone, the one I had memorized by that point, went off. He closed his eyes, made a hum in his throat, then very visibly—and only halfway failing—tried not to snarl, “One sec,” before bringing his phone to his ear. “Henri,” he answered, all traces of whatever frustration or irritation he’d been feeling gone, at least from his voice.
His face on the other hand? It was a good thing he wasn’t taking a video call.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he snapped into the phone. His features were like thunder, all dark and sharp. Henri’s body became tense.
He was angry.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He was already stepping back. “Someone smelled something that doesn’t belong, and there’s only a few things that come across the way it was described. I need to check.”
“You think the Jenny Greenteeth is back?” That little b better not be back with her BS.
“I don’t know, but I need to see for myself,” he explained, taking another step backward.
I didn’t even think about it. “I’ll come with you.”
He stopped. “You don’t need to—”
“I want to.” I smiled. “I’ll be your bodyguard.”
Henri’s head jerked at almost the same time as amusement glimmered in his eyes.
But I wasn’t going to give him time to tell me why I couldn’t protect him. I reached for his wrist and started pulling him toward the golf cart building. “Two sets of eyes are better than one, and I would rather hang out with you than do nothing in my room. I’m trying to not helicopter mom Duncan while he’s with his friends. And if it’s the Jenny Greenteeth again, I want to tell her what I think about her trying to eat my friends.”
The cutest little expression twisted Henri’s mouth and even touched his eyes as he let me pull him for a minute, at least until he was walking right beside me. When he got there, he didn’t tug his arm out of my reach.
I didn’t let go either.
In less than a minute, we were on our way in one of the newer electric UTVs, and the coordinates for wherever we were going were on the screen of his cell phone, which he held in his right hand while he drove with his left. What we were going to find, I had no clue, but I could tell he was concerned by his tenser-than-normal body language, so I kept quiet and let him concentrate.
I looked up at the sky while we drove by the clearing in front of the clubhouse and parking lot.
It had been over a week since someone had tried talking to me in my dreams. Since Henri and I had sat in the forest, wrapped in shadows and silvery moonlight, talking about things that still felt like a secret and probably always would. Since that incredible yearning I’d felt in my soul had me hoping for things that weren’t destined for me.
I cut that thought off at the knees and focused on the rest of what had happened that night, because that was a safer topic than the latter.
I peeked at the latter out of the corner of my eye. Now wasn’t the time. No time was the time, no matter what Matti had said.
Anyway.
The gnomes.
I had purposely tried not to think about anything that had to do with my past or with anyone I could potentially be related to by blood over the last week. Because the more I thought about someone waiting thirty years to find me, the more it pissed me off. What excuse could anyone have to justify that?