AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“There’s some of that too,” she says. “Death, violence, overindulgence. Take your pick. It’s all there.” She taps the front of the book.
“Sounds familiar,” I mutter, and she winks. I think she might have picked this book for a very specific reason.
As soon as we are settled at the table with Connor again, she leans to grab one of his hands.
“Now, tell me what is bothering you,” she says.
Connor clears his throat. “Sylvia has taken Lilliana,” he says.
Miss Lulah gasps. “Here?”
Connor nods, and she starts to mutter under her breath.
“You have come to take her back?”
He nods again.
“Be careful, my boy. I cannot see clearly, but there is treachery in your future.”
“Don’t tell me that,” Connor says, leaning his elbow on the table, Miss Lulah still grasping his other hand.
“I don’t deal in untruths, only what I know. I won’t tell you something to make you feel better,” she says, and I watch the exchange with wide eyes.
Is Connor really listening to her advice? To her purported ramblings of his future?
I wouldn’t have thought him to be a believer of anything beyond himself.
“I know. I don’t want her with the Leoni family.”
“Is she any better off with you?” Miss Lulah asks.
Connor jerks his hand back, giving her a look I know well. His temper is flaring, and I grab my teacup and sit back to enjoy the show. Something tells me Miss Lulah can handle her own.
“She’s better off with me than with them. Sylvia shouldn’t have gone back, and she damn sure shouldn’t have taken her daughter with her. She knows what it’s like for women in that family.”
“And why should she stay with you?”
“Because I can keep her safe,” Connor says.
Miss Lulah raises one eyebrow. “Can you? What are you keeping her safe from?”
Connor is quiet for a moment, mulling her words over, and then he raises his head. “I don’t know. I want to keep her safe from everything.”
“Figure out how to make your world safer before you go in, guns blazing, and take her from her mother,” Miss Lulah says. “Have you announced your visit?”
“No.”
“I would recommend that,” she says before standing and collecting the teapot.
She disappears into another room and then comes back for our cups. Once she leaves again, I lean forward.
“Why does she know so much about everything?” I ask him, and he pierces me with his stormy eyes.
“Miss Lulah knows everything,” is all he says.
I sigh. I know I’m not getting anything else from him.
“We have to be going,” he says as she bustles back in the room.
