Page 48 of Brushed By Moonlight

“It was so peaceful. Grandma used to take a walk every evening, and it reminded me of all the times I walked with her.”

Bene gave me a thumbs-up, though I was still confused. Gordon was their boss. Wouldn’t they want to inform him of the intruder?

I frowned at the thought. Not my intruder, dammit.Theirs. I had nothing to do with this.

Except, of course, I did, because the intruder had been lurking inmymess of a garden.

“The garden? At night?” Gordon practically shrieked.

I winced, holding the phone away from my ear.

Gordon was one of the steadiest, least excitable people I knew. He’d been visiting the day I’d told my grandmother I’d accepted a summer volunteer position in Senegal, and while she had flipped out, he hadn’t batted an eye.

The girl has a good head on her shoulders,he’d said, perfectly calmly.Let her go learn about the world.

Senegal was all right, but my garden wasn’t?

“My dear, the world isn’t what it used to be,” he cautioned.

“Gordon, this is rural France. And I have four big, tough boarders now.”

Bene tapped his chest immodestly, while Roux hit a stiff, military pose that said,Damn right, you do.

“Boarders or no boarders, I urge you to be more cautious,” Gordon said.

“On my own property?”

“A very large, very remote property,” Gordon pointed out. “If anything happened there, no one would know.”

Yikes. Now he was creeping me out. Large…remote…no one around to observe what was going on…

The very reason he’d chosen it as a base for his bodyguards, maybe?

“Well, I’ll be more careful from now on,” I said, as if I needed convincing.

“Regarding the boarders…” Gordon switched gears. “I trust they are behaving themselves?”

To a man, they all tensed.

I hesitated, letting them sweat for a few seconds, then chuckled into the phone.

“It’s like I told you. Teaching fifth grade prepares you for anything.”

Roux and Henrik looked affronted. Bene stifled a laugh.

Marius quirked his lips, and I grinned. Boy, would I love to see him flash a full smile.

But he wrestled it back, whispered something to Roux, and disappeared down the hallway. A mournful wolf howl went up in a corner of my soul, as it always did when he left the room.

“They’ve settled in,” I continued, trying to concentrate on Gordon. “I think they have everything they need.”

“And what about you? Do you have everything you need?”

I looked at the door Marius had exited through.

Yes? No?

“All fine,” I fibbed, fiddling with the upholstery of my chair.