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Jeannie studied the room, as if looking for the ghosts of long ago Grahams. “I suppose they had some rather splendid battles here.”
“They did,” said Grant. “Bloodthirsty ones.”
Kade nodded. “Gruesome beyond belief. Heads chopped off and everything.”
Jeannie brightened. “Can you tell me about those battles?”
“If you like,” Kade said with a kind smile.
“You can tell Jeannie about it on the roof,” Grant said as he consulted his pocket watch. “We’ll have to start back soon, and we don’t want to miss taking in that view.”
With a flourishing bow, Kade indicated the narrow staircase up to the top floor of the tower. “Shall we, Miss Jeannie?”
She giggled and started up the steep staircase, with Kade in her wake. Grant and Kathleen followed.
The next level was a duplicate of the lower room but devoid of any furniture. Another set of narrow stairs led up to a small trapdoor in the ceiling.
Kade glanced at his brother. “Who should go up first?”
“Why don’t we all go up?” Kathleen suggested.
“There’s barely enough room for two,” said Grant.
“Much less a giant like you,” his brother joked.
“But you’reeverso tall yourself, Kade,” Jeannie said.
Kathleen swallowed a sigh.
“I’m a scrawny beanpole compared to my brothers,” Kade cheerfully replied. “Here, Jeannie, let me go up first and open the door. Then I’ll help you onto the parapet.”
From the expression on Jeannie’s face, one would have thought Kade had just asked her to marry him.
Kathleen started for the stairs. “Dearest, I think—”
Grant reached out a long arm to snag her wrist. “Don’t worry. Kade will take care of her.”
“It’s not Jeannie I’m worried about.”
He smiled. “Kade won’t let anything like that happen, either.”
“My sister isverypersistent.”
“That she is.” He glanced up at Kade, who had unlocked the trapdoor and thrust it open. “Kade, keep that door open, and make sure you stay close to it, all right?”
His brother glanced down, a wry expression on his youthful features. “Understood.”
Grant gently squeezed Kathleen’s wrist before letting go. For a brief moment, she wondered what it would be like to actually hold hands with him.
Nice.
She firmly put that image out of her mind. “Jeannie, be careful, all right? Do everything Kade tells you to.”
“I’m always careful,” Jeannie shot back before clambering up to disappear through the door.
Kathleen grimaced. “She’s actually the opposite of careful.”
Grant propped a shoulder against the wall at the bottom of the staircase. Kathleen knew he was standing in that spot to keep an eye on things up above.
