AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I’m toying with the idea of making breakfast as a distraction when the front door bangs open, and big booted steps come thumping over the wood floorboards. “Nina?” I freeze at the sound of my name because the way Thaddius says it sends goosebumps up and down my arms.
God, he made me come yesterday, and not the kind of quick, half-hearted coming I’ve experienced in the past. Thaddius gave me that orgasm like he meant business and truly cared about my pleasure. He could have just stuck it in and done a few pumps, and okay, that probably would have made me come too, but he wanted me to come first. Without him. He wanted to give me pleasure, and gosh darn it, he was so freaking good at it that I’m never going to be able to forget what his tongue felt like on my…
Thaddius bursts into the kitchen. “We have a problem.”
We have all sorts of problems, so I don’t know which one he’s talking about specifically. “What kind of a problem?” I’m wearing the most normal piece of clothing I got so far, a floral dress that is total cottagecore but could also be very appropriately farmcore. It’s cute but not the kind of attire that lends itself to being good for solving problems. I don’t know what kind of problem he’s referring to, but I can already tell that a dress and whatever it is aren’t going to mix well.
“A chicken in the sky problem.”
“O—oh?”
“It’s in the sky, in a tree. At the top of that huge maple in the backyard. It’s either Henrietta or Cluckmuffin. I don’t know which one yet because when I stand on the ground and look up, all I see is a flash of white in the branches.”
“If she got up there, don’t you think she’ll be able to get back down?”
“I wouldn’t count on it. Plus, if she fell all that way, there would be mass carnage.”
“Oh my god!” I throw my hands over my mouth because thinking about that puts horrible mental images in my head. “Are you going to climb the tree? I don’t think that’s safe.” Great. Now I’m thinking about even bigger carnage if Thaddius falls out of the tree. “Shouldn’t you call the fire department or something?”
“I doubt they’d come all this way for a chicken,” Thaddius says with a sigh.
“If you went up and got stuck, they might come all this way for you.”
“I don’t want to test that theory.”
“I don’t want to test it either.” I don’t know what to do with my hands. They feel awkward and ungainly. Thaddius came in here to tell me because he needs help. He wants us to work together to figure out a solution to this problem. He came in here because he trusts me to have his back as he goes up a crazy tall tree to rescue a chicken he cares about. And that makes me feel all kinds of squishy inside, even if it also makes me ice-cold thinking about him dropping right in front of my eyes from the said tree. “We have to be safe!Youhave to be safe, Thaddius. Above all.” I think hard about how other people are safe when scaling great distances and doing the unthinkable. It might not be for a chicken, but an image pops into my head of a rock climber going straight up a sheer rock face. Most of them—the ones that don’t want a single chance of going splat—tether themselves. “Do you have any rope?” I ask him.
“I do. In the barn.”
“The kind of rope you can attach to a branch with one end and tie around your waist with the other so as to somehow prevent you from falling all the way if you slipped?”
“I think so.”
I put out a hand to steady myself. I don’t like the sound of that. Any uncertainty sends my heart racing. “Is this really worth risking your life for?”
“I can take loops of rope around my shoulder. As I go along, I can secure one end to a thick branch and tie the other end around my belt. Every few branches, I’ll switch it up and tie another one on. That way, I wouldn’t fall more than a few feet even if I did slip.”
“Are you confident in your knots?”
“I’ll make it so they’re foolproof.”
I still don’t like the sound of that, but Thaddius seems determined, so all I can do is support him. “What can I do?”
His eyes change, turning that soft butterscotch that is half-surprise and half-raw emotion. He didn’t think I was just going to watch from the window, did he? No, he didn’t. That’s why he came in here and told me all this. He wanted me to help. Heneedsmy help. This might be a small thing, but I’ve never truly feltneededlike this before.
“I’ll go up on a ladder. If you could hold it for me, I’d appreciate it. And spot for me. I won’t be able to see much when I’m in the tree with all the leaves and branches getting in my face. So if the chicken starts moving, I’ll need you to tell me. And maybe stand with a blanket at the bottom, in case it falls. I want it to have a soft landing.”
“Of course. I can do that. Just let me get changed.”
In his room, I throw on a T-shirt and a pair of jeans. I also scoop the quilt off the bed. I hear the door thump, and since it takes me a minute to find the pair of shoes I thrifted, Thaddius is outside long before I get out there. After I burst into the yard wearing the darn shoes, which are about a size too small and pinch like crazy but are at least closed-toed and not flip-flops or soggy cowboy boots which still haven’t dried out from the torrential dousing, I see that he’s already got loops of white rope around both his shoulders and neck. He’s also carrying a huge ladder like it’s nothing. Like it’s really all nothing, even though he’s about to perform a daring and dangerous rescue.
And that—all for the love and safety of a bird that most people consider to be a throwaway animal—is what makes my pulse thunder wildly.
Anyone who ever said this man doesn’t have a heart is so dead wrong.
Thaddius props the ladder up against the thick trunk of the tree. Then, he toes off his rubber boots and pulls off his socks. I stare at him blankly. “You’re going up there in bare feet?”
“I think that’s best. More traction that way, or at least I can feel what I’m doing.”
