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Yup. That’s what I was afraid of.
“He knows I’m here.”
“Did you tell him you’re sleeping with me?”
“No…” she says in that slow way she has, stretching the vowel.
“Why not?”
“Because until a few hours ago, I wasn’t sleeping with you.”
True.
“I like it when you laugh,” she says. “I can feel it start in your chest.”
My chest likes her face on it, too. The way she sometimes blinks into my skin and her lashes brush me like a feather. My chest likes her a lot.
I play with her hair. “You knew what would happen when you came here pretending to bring me salad and bread, didn’t you?”
“Don’t pretend you were the innocent boy. You expected me. Isn’t that why your bedroom is sparkling clean and your sheets crisp and fresh and smelling of fabric conditioner?”
“Why else?” I drop a kiss on her forehead.
“So…tell me what’s worrying you. Don’t” – she lifts her head and looks at me seriously – “pretend you’re not worried. So, why don’t you tell me?”
That she might accidentally touch my guarded, suspicious, unhealed wounds and things will change between us.
That I’m convinced Hedge LeFevre will come between us and ruin our happiness as he’s ruined so much else.
“I’m worried about the holiday cottages,” I say.
Her eyes search my face, not quite convinced. So, I try to convince her.
“We have a land dispute, don’t we. I need to have beautiful gardens and you want to leave the bushes as they are to protect the bees.”
She sits up, and the sheet falls off her but this time, her face is serious. Too serious. Elodie is determined, and she doesn’t duck problems. I swear she would walk right up to a sleeping dragon and poke it with a sharp stick.
Okay, here it comes. I sit up, bunching a pillow behind me so I can lean against the wall.
Where the hell do I begin? “Your grandfather… He hates us. A lot.”
“Hates you? That’s a strong word.”
“I don’t use it lightly.”
She looks up at me. “Please tell me it’s not because your grandfather and th—”
“Great.” I correct her. “Hector Hemingway was mygreatgrandfather. He had two children, Howard and Helen. My grandfather was his Howard.”
“A lot of H in your family.”
I let myself laugh, and she does too, sliding up to sit beside me, and I wrap an arm lightly around her.
“Yes, it’s a family tradition, not sure how it started but all our names begin with an H.”
She considers this. “So, your father was Henry?”
“He— Yes—” I frown. “How did you know?”
