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)
I scrunched up my nose, taking in the scruff along his jaw and cheeks that had grown in from when we’d first seen each other. He’d stuck around the whole meeting, but right as the elder had offered to take us for a tour, his phone had rung and Henri had disappeared.
“Matti and I showed up, I volunteered to handle the situation so he wouldn’t have to fight it in front of the kids—”
“He agreed to let you handle the situation?”
Did he have to sound so suspicious?
Yes, he did. He had no idea what one, or both, of my parents had passed along in their DNA. Henri didn’t know who I was. Neither did I, exactly, but I had more information on the matter than he did. So I nodded. “Yes, I would’ve been fine, and he knows that.”
I could see that it was on the tip of his tongue to ask how Matti knew that, but he didn’t.
I kept going with my story before he asked more questions. “I went and talked to the river bully… Jenny Greenteeth. She wasn’t nice. All I did was take off my bracelet, and that settled that.”
His jaw did that flexing thing again. “You took off your bracelet?”
Couldn’t he sense I wasn’t lying? “You can ask the kids. Shiloh paid attention. He saw the whole thing.”
Right there, without the slightest effort in being discreet, he took another whiff of me. A crease formed between those dark, full eyebrows. A muscle at his cheek went stiff as he processed whatever his senses and brain were both telling him.
He had more questions, that was obvious. Ones I wasn’t really ready to answer unless I absolutely had to. But I didn’t want to be put into the position of laying all my cards out this soon, not when he was being like this already, expecting the worst from me, or at least being so wary.
There were other things we needed to talk about.
As much as part of me wanted to let this go and pretend like he wasn’t being all over the place with his behavior toward me, I couldn’t. Henri was important here, and if he wasn’t comfortable with my presence, then we had to figure this out. And it sure didn’t seem like he was going to initiate it.
So I went straight for it. “Do you not want me to be here?” I blurted out.
Those light-colored eyes narrowed so much that they were basically slits on his striking face.
That wasn’t a great nonanswer. “If you aren’t, it’s all right, but I’d like to know why.” I lifted my shoulders. “I know it was a long time ago, but I promise I’m still the same Nina.”
That didn’t get me anything.
I tried again, hoping he wasn’t preparing some speech on why he didn’t want us to move here. “Is it what I turned out to be? Or is it something else?” My eyes slid toward Duncan, who was still going at his low, baby growling, implying with that look exactly what that “something else” was.
My precious, droopy-eared boy.
Henri’s frown found a way to get even deeper. “I haven’t seen you in almost twenty years,” he answered in that husky voice, nothing about his tone giving anything away.
He had a point, but for whatever reason, I would have still trusted him. Trusted whoever he turned out to be. Because I might not remember a ton, but I did have clear memories of Henri making Matti and me snacks after school when he was the only one home, peeling and cutting an apple for me specifically because I hadn’t liked the skin back then. Of him running off older kids who had picked on us. I had one particular memory of him giving me advice for riding my bike while I’d been learning.
I had thought a lot of young, teenage Henri.
Mid-twenty-something Henri, I had wanted to kick in the balls after what he’d done… even though I could look at his actions as an adult now and understood why he’d handled the situation the way he had.
But forty-ish Henri? I would give him the benefit of the doubt. I could believe in him, especially after watching him interact with the kids after they’d done something really stupid and communicating with their parents afterward. There had been genuine respect in those adults’ faces, and those kids hadn’t been scared of him. I didn’t take that lightly.
“I have no problem with you.” His gaze moved toward Duncan for a microsecond before returning to me. “Either of you.”
“You sure about that?” I wanted to make it real clear that I couldn’t sense lies the same way he could, but I wasn’t unobservant. Body language said a whole lot where words wouldn’t.
He frowned even more. “We have to be consistent with the rules in place,” he started to explain, his tone somewhere between cool and polite. “Rules are bent before they’re broken. What we do for you, regardless of your connection to Matti or me, can’t be different than what we would do for anyone else.”