Page 42

That’s what you said on Tuesday, I think with a mental smirk.

“I mean it this time! My ass is not leaving this stoop until you talk to me.”

I can hear the determination in her voice, and I sigh into the pillow, fearing this might be the end of my streak of luck. It seems that no matter how much I might like this problem to go away, she’s stubbornly decided to insert herself into the situation.

Maybe I really should have just let her be eaten, I think wistfully.

I chide myself for even thinking it; I definitely wouldn’t have let that happen, but I can’t help fantasizing about the quiet it would havegiven me. I swing my legs over the side of the small bed, glaring at the door across the room, where the squalling sounds of The Proclaimers start drifting through the wood, horribly off-key.

“—well I know I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be the man who wakes up next to you!”

Would have been nothing, I mentally grumble, shoving off the bed.Could have just looked the other way.

I stomp across the short distance.

“And I would walk five hundred miles, and I would walk five hundred more, just to be the man who walks a thousand miles to fall down at your—”

I wrench the door open. “Will you knock it off?”

She’s sitting with her back to the door, and she tilts her head back to peer up at me, a triumphant grin spreading across her mouth as her long red curls spill toward her waist. Her green eyes almost glimmer in the midmorning sun, and the light touching her lashes makes them seem to burn a golden red.

I hate how fucking lovely she looks when she’s being a pain in my arse.

“You don’t like The Proclaimers?”

“Be honest,” I huff. “That’s the one Scottish song you know, isn’t it.”

“I plead the fifth,” she answers with a shrug. She pushes herself upright, dusting off her jeans and turning to flash that same smug grin my way. “You ready to talk to me like a big boy, Nessie?”

“Keep your damned voice down,” I hiss, glancing around as if Rhona’s house isn’t more than a mile from the guest cottage. “And that isnotgoing to be a thing.”

“Sure,” she says sweetly. “Whatever you say…Nessie.”

I narrow my eyes. “I really wish you would just let this go,princess.”

She doesn’t reward me with her usual irritation, just clucks her tongue, shrugging one shoulder.

“Yeah, not gonna happen. So can I come in? Or would you like to talk in the doorway?”

I silently fume for a moment, fantasizing about throwing her into the bloody loch myself, finally moving to the side so she can push past me while I mutter under my breath.

“Pain in my arse,” I grumble.

She ignores me. “Oh, wow, this is so tiny! Do you even fit on the bed?”

“Ten seconds, and you’re already thinking about my bed?”

This does earn me a withering look, and now it’s my turn to grin in triumph.

“Cute,” she says flatly, just before plopping herself down into one of my kitchen chairs. She gestures to the one across from her like she owns it, cocking an eyebrow expectedly. “Well?”

I release a sigh that I feel down in my bones, closing the door and shuffling after her to drop myself into the empty chair across the table from her. I scrub a hand down my face, letting it hover over my mouth as my eyes drift closed wearily.

“Ask your bloody questions.”

“I have so many!” Her voice is bright and animated, full of genuine wonder. “How long has this been going on? How did it happen? Who was that other monster? Can you breathe underwater all the time or just when you change? Do you do any magic?”

I crack open one eye, frowning as I let my hand drop to the table. “That’s…a lot of questions.”