AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Lucky me. But you said I wasn’treallya girl, right?” She pokes my arm just above my wrist. “Jackass.”
“Woman, that was almost thirty years ago. You were barely a toddler then,” I point out with a snort. “You were a baby. Not a girl.”
“And you and Ethan couldn’t spell ‘girl’ to save your stupid lives,” she retorts.
I lift my head, eyeing her skeptically—only to find her watching me with this almost challenging smile that makes it impossible for me not to smile back.
For just a moment, I stop and drink her in.
So delicate, yet so grounded and down-to-earth.
She’s completely goddamned beautiful, and while she looks like her ma, there’s also something elsethere entirely.
Something I can’t pin down except knowing she probably inherited it from the unknown man who fathered both her and Ros.
With her blonde hair loose and cascading down around her face, her cheeks flushed, she looks like some kind of angel who crossed over into mundane life.
Yeah, I know how fucked up that is to say.
This sweet thing who’d give me a sugar rush forever instead of the bratty little hellion who occupies my thoughts every waking moment since she showed up again.
I’m a little helpless as I linger on her mouth.
That pink, soft mouth that’d feel like pure candy wrapped around any man’s dick.
I know.
I know I shouldn’t go there.
That lucky bastard who found out? He damn sure isn’t me.
Not after I trampled her heart and still can’t spend more than an hour with her without something combusting to shit.
I swallow a growl and remind myself to cool it, jerking my gaze away so I can dig through the kit until I find a little tube of anti-inflammatory cream.
“You want to tell me what happened? Start at the beginning.” I reach for her closest arm.
“Huh?” She blinks like she’s just snapped awake, then clears her throat and looks away. “Okay. Right. Um. So, I was out bringing in the trash bins and raking a few leaves because last I remember, Mrs. Appleberry will call the HOA if they’re out past sunset. I mean, if she’s still alive—”
“She is,” I snort, smoothing the cream on her bruises. I’ll photograph them after I’m sure the numbing cream is doing its work. It won’t have a visible effect at first to count as tampering with evidence. “Called the HOA on me last week because my grass was a quarter inch high, and she doesn’t evenliveon my street.”
“But she loves her evening walks, bless her heart,” Ophelia says dryly. “But yeah, I was just bringing the bins in and then there was thisguy. I don’t know where he came from. Really tall, scary-looking. Older. Grey hair. Crazy part is, he was wearing a suit. Almost looked like some kind of butler, but he was also wild. Totally rocked the mad scientist vibe. He scared the crap out of me. Thought it was some weird Halloween thing when he came barreling in looking like Lurch—until it obviously wasn’t.”
“Lurch?”
“The butler from The Addams Family?”
“Oh.”
That’s mighty interesting.
My brain snaps back to the man who was standing on the street staring at me the other day with Nell.
If there’s a connection, it’s not much relief.
If I’m right and that guy works up at the big house, I like it even less.
“What the hell did he want?” I ask, keeping my focus on my hands as I turn her arm to make sure I didn’t miss a spot before reaching to start on her other arm.
