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Kindly?
Was she a fool? It wasn’t kindness she was feeling. It was the stirring of attraction coupled with passion. Something that she hadn’t felt in ... she couldn’t remember when.
“Tara?”
She shook her head, realizing she had gotten lost in her thoughts.
“I’ve been trying to tell you that you’re paying me handsomely for services rendered, so no thanks are necessary, but you seemed far away in your musings.”
She purposely ignored his remark about her lack of attention. She certainly didn’t want to share her thoughts with him.
“Your kindness needn’t have been part of our agreement, and yet you treated me thoughtfully, and for that I am grateful.”
He turned a grin on her. “How could I have treated you any other way? My mother would skin me alive if I acted improper to a lady.”
“Your mother taught you well.”
“She taught my brothers and me whether we liked it or not,” Reeve said with a laugh. “None of us dared disobey her, or we would feel her mighty retribution.”
“She wielded a heavy hand?” Tara asked.
Reeve shook his head. “Mum never raised a hand to any of us.”
“Yet you obeyed her?”
“She had other more wicked ways of punishing.”
“She doesn’t sound very nice,” Tara said, not wanting to think of him as a small lad made to suffer harsh punishment.
“Mum may be blunt and makes sure she’s heard, but one thing she isn’t and that is cruel. She’s a good person with a good heart. I think you’ll like her.”
“You have me curious,” Tara said. “In one breath you praise her, and in another you tell me she made you suffer wicked punishments.”
Reeve laughed. “There are far worse punishments to make a young lad suffer than to raise your hand to him.”
“I must know. Tell me.”
“One that had my brothers and me thinking twice was that she would cook for us.” Reeve shook his head. “Her food is barely eatable, and we would be made to eat every bit of it.” Reeve scrunched his nose in distaste.
Tara laughed. “It truly stopped you and your brothers from doing something you shouldn’t?”
“We would argue amongst ourselves, reminding one another how bad the last meal was we were forced to eat, and if that wasn’t enough, my father pleaded with us not to make our suffering his.”
Tara laughed again.
“Perhaps I could teach her to bake—”
“No!”
His shout made her jump.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized. “It’s been tried, and we lost a reasonably good cook in the process. We now have a great cook, and my father and brothers will do anything to keep her.”
“What other punishments did your mother employ?”
Reeve rolled his eyes. “God help us, she would sing.”
“Her singing is not pleasing?”
