Maybe she was thinking twice about her kindness on the beach and the mess of a man she’d let into her life. Disgruntled by my thoughts, I busied myself in the kitchen by browningsome ground beef. While that was cooking, I diced a pile of mirepoix for a simple Bolognese.
Had she fallen asleep?
I checked my room, but she wasn’t there. Knowing she was in my office put the first twist back in my belly. It was fine. She couldn’t hurt anything. I’d already shared all that was truly important.
I found her on the floor, chalk in hand again. She’d added a few flowers to the bottom of the black wall along the white trim and redrawn the dandelion seeds. This time adding more as they floated around my words.
She didn’t understand my shorthand, but her seeds reached for the most intriguing parts of my notes.
One by the jagged lines of my idea about the portal.
Another teasing the edges of my chaotic idea about how the monster came to be.
But it was the larger seed that floated above the last line that gave me the most pause. My throwaway line about how the monster could be defeated.
I stalked into the room and she dropped the chalk she was working with, her eyes wide. “Dutch, I?—”
I swooped her off the floor and into my arms.She gave a startled yelp when I spun her around then captured her mouth in a drugging kiss. When I set her back on her feet and dragged my desk back into place, she quickly moved out of the way.
“Phoebe, I love you but you need to get out of my office right now.”
“You what?”
Her eyes widened.
I framed her face, the realization of the words that had tumbled free almost derailed me. But it couldn’t stop the flow of ideas that were tumbling free like stacked dominos in my mind.
“I started dinner. I’ll be right out. I just need to get something down.”
“You’re not mad?”
I lifted her off her feet and set her on the other side of the threshold of my office. “You’re my shining light as always. This time with a dandelion seed.”
“Yay?” Her eyes were quizzical and hopeful.
“Very much a yay.”
Then I shut the door in her face.
TWENTY-THREE
Phoebe
Helovedme?
Had I heard him right?
I frowned at the door. Muffled sounds of rearranging furniture and furious scribbles on the wall eased some of the shock.
It all happened so fast. I wanted to replace the dandelion seed he’d mentioned earlier. Seeing him looming in the doorway had me ready to babble about how he told me to redraw it. Or maybe I’d offered. I couldn’t remember, there had been a whole lot of wall action going on at the time.
But for the first time since I’d met him, I saw a new flicker in his misty gray eyes.
I recognized it. The creative spark that turned everything off in the real world and activated something inside the brain no one else could see. Seeing it in Dutch somehow made me love him even more.
I wasn’t sure how that was possible since I was enamored beyond reason.
I left him to it, my legs a little shaky as I walked down the hallway toward the living room and kitchen. The scent of food cooking quickened my step. “Oh, crap.” No need to burn it.
