AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I should be happy. This should be me making a plan as to how I’m going to convince Thaddius to give me what I want now that I’m stuck here without a car. It should also be me seeing that he has a heart because he got my car from the side of the road, and he’s probably getting it taken into town, where it can be fixed. He has a heart. This just proves it.
But instead, I’m kind of freaking out. All my things were in the car. My phone, my wallet, and my freaking ID. What little I had left of my life was in there, and now it’s all gone. Out of the yard. Out of sight. Away from me. I’ve never felt more displaced in my life, and this is coming from someone who just found out about a mystery beloved, someone who drove all the way across the country and was so exhausted that she passed out on a stranger’s bed with wet hair.
I’m paying for that now.
I bring one hand up and scratch my scalp madly. The other hand has to join.
Ahhh. That’s it.
Yup, this is what my life has boiled down to. Standing on a deck with frizzy hair, wild eyes, a week with basically no sleep, no personal belongings to tether me down, braless in borrowed T-shirt and shorts that are way too big, blisters between my toes from walking so far in flip-flops, sore legs, soreeverything,and a dozen sheep, one ornery-looking donkey, and a great big white hairy grinning dog staring at me.
Oh, and one betrothed, who is slightly smug, kind of pissed off, seriously annoyed, a smidge triumphant, and hella handsome in an ovary-exploding kind of way. He’s ogling me too.
Right in the braless region.
I gasp, get my hands out of my hair and cross my arms over the T-shirt. Thank goodness it’s black, or he’d be getting a full damn show out here. Nipples galore.
“Where are they taking my car?” I bark out again, my voice coming out hoarse from worry, lack of sleep, and eating about two point seven pounds of gravel dust after my car hit that hole, forcing me to walk here. “And how long was I out?”
My pulse kicks into overdrive at the sight of those lips turning themselves up at the corners into an annoyed sort of mocking grin. “Oh, only about three hours. Inmybed.”
“Sorry.” My face flames hot. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I was just so exhausted, and it was right there. I honestly only meant to sit down to catch my breath for a minute.”
“A hot minute turned into a full nap, more like.”
The bed thing isn’t my fight. If I’m going to pick my fights, then I better start picking the ones that count. “Where did they take my car?”
“Just to Upperhand. Believe you were already there, Miss Bloodhound. I know a good shop there. Whatever is wrong with your car, they can fix it.”
Is he calling me a bloodhound because I tracked him down or because my soggy shower and nap look does weird things to my face? “So you are going to…to think about what I said? Find a lawyer to protect us against our family?” That’s a more important question.
“Nope. But I did figure that the sooner your car is fixed, the sooner you can be on your way.”
I can see his butterscotch sundae eyes dancing—and not in the funny, he agrees with me, kind of way. They’re sparkling with annoyance and aggravation and the deep realization that until my car is taken care of, I’m his problem.
“Why didn’t you send me to that little town with my car?”
He grunts. “Not my job, princess. You’re not my problem. At the same time, I find myself stuck between a rock and a fuck of a place. If something happens to you, no one is going to be happy with me. That’s the kind of heat I don’t need, so I’ll pay for your car to get back on the road. Then you can be gone with it, and we’ll never see each other again.”
“I agree. But only with some sort of paperwork in place.”
“I’m not going to the city to see a lawyer.”
“I have to go and get my stuff out of the car! You didn’t think to do that. Maybe they have a lawyer in that town.” My brain and hormones are still battling it out, and I’m not sure half the things I’m about to say are going to make sense, but I don’t want to stand here thinking them over forever before I put them out there.
Thaddius shakes his head. “You’re crazy. You know that?”
“Why? Because I want definitive legal proof? I don’t think that’s crazy. I think that’s smart.”
“Coming all this way.”
“Yeah, you’ve said as much.” I scratch my head again, a long, satisfying amount of nail-rubbing against my scalp, then drop my hands and arch my back into a long stretch. “I’m starved. Do you have anything to eat around here?”
Thaddius’ eyes go from dark to stormy in an instant, like asking for food is a major crime. I take him in, a tarnished sort of knight expelled from his kingdom of the city—self-expulsion— wearing dung and mud-covered rubber boots, faded jeans, and a T-shirt that puts theholy sweet Jesusinto him. Thaddius has the kind of body that is a lot ofholy sweet Jesus.It makes my ovaries sit up and pant. I don’t think they’ve ever done that before, and I lean hard into the porch railing, hoping to keep the butterflies exactly where they should be—non-existent. I have to remind myself that while this man might have wowed me in my regular life, nothing about my life is regular anymore.
“There’s err…sheep cheese.” His smile turns devilish.
He has to be having me on. Isn’t he?
