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“Shut up.”
Kira laughed before going onto her toes to kiss Ronan. “Catcha later, Daddy.” The tone made me want to crawl under a rock. Then she wiggled her fingers at me. “Uncle Beck.”
Then she was gone.
Looked like a lot of things were going to be changing around here.
Chapter16
Helena
Idiot Boys
I stumbled back on the edge of the flagstone, my ballet shoes not made for this kind of path. I quickly ducked back around the corner before they could see me.
I didn’t want to hear anymore anyway.
“Always gotta be the hero. Save the day, get the thank you bang, and then off into the sunset as the Lone Ranger.”
My heartbeat thundered in my head.
I hadn’t meant to eavesdrop. Cara had zipped away to find someone to talk to in the taproom, leaving me to wander around the grounds. Then I’d heard Beckett’s deep voice coming from the secondary building, and I’d been like a bee to a flower.
The woman’s throaty laughter and the deeper, rumbling voices were like static as I tried to get my breathing under control.
A moment later, the statuesque dark-haired woman from the photo on Beckett’s mantle swaggered through the massive sliding barn door. She was supremely confident and radiated happiness. Her long legs ate up the steps as she descended them from the taproom.
Her words still rang in my head as I turned and stumbled blindly along the path.
Words I wished I couldunhear.
She wasn’t wrong. Beckett had saved me, and he’d been well rewarded.
Absolutely no lies detected.
I was so stupid to have said yes to doing this favor. What had I been expecting?Oh hi, can we pick up from where we left off for another week?
God, I was such an idiot.
Now I was about to look even more pathetic. Again.
Would I never learn?
“Can I help you?”
I whirled around, my hand to my throat, and came face to face with a half buttoned fuchsia chef’s jacket. I tipped my head back and goggled. The familiar rugged face and wild beard was so unexpected, my voice came out in a squeak. “Kain?”
“Haleigha? What the hell are you doing here?”
My gaze dropped to his chef’s jacket then back up to his face. “Back at you. Wait.” My brain caught up to the second shock to my system in as many minutes. “You’re the Kain Laverne told me to meet?”
He wiped a big palm along the leg of his pants. He glanced around, then he looked back down at me. “Shit.”
“What’s going on?”
He gently wrapped one of his big paws around my upper arm and hustled me along the path toward a swing at the top of the hill. “Just my fucking luck. I swear, what is it about this damn orchard?”
A question I asked myself often, but for a very different reason. Unless Kainoa N’ai, famous freaking architect and now sole owner of N’ai Construction, was also hiding out from a disastrous love life. “What are you doing here?”
