Page 29 of Torin and His Oath (Torin and the Princess #2)

LEXI

I had a TV tray in front of me, with new warm soup in a bowl, more saltine crackers.

I smiled at Cooper for having gone to the trouble, and said, “Let’s see if this time it works.

” I took a bite and said, “Yum. Delicious.” And then said, “Ugh,” I leaned my head back on the cushions. “I’m not ready for food.”

He said, “You will be, a bit every day… and all that. You’ll be good in no time.”

“How’s Ferrari?”

“The horse is great. Grazing out there. I guess that’s okay. As long as the authorities don’t notice.”

I said, “I don’t know what I’m doing with that horse, at all, but I just want to keep him.”

He nodded.

He shifted in his chair.

Opened and closed his mouth, then leaned forward. “At the risk of sounding like an ass?—”

“Uh oh.”

“Where was Torin sleeping all this time?”

I blinked.

He leaned back. “No, forget I asked, I don’t want to know.”

I chewed my lip.

He added, “Sorry, didn’t mean to come off as the jealous boyfriend.”

He looked really uncomfortable.

“Things got really life and death out there.”

“Yeah, I get that, and you’ll probably never see him again, right?”

“Yeah…” I exhaled. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“You had to do what you needed to do to survive, and I’m really grateful you got home, although I thought for sure you were going to die, and that was scary as hell, but we don’t really need to think about it, right?”

I nodded, picking at the blanket drawn over my legs. “Right.”

“You time traveled, I mean, we could write a book, go on a speaking tour, tell the world about it, but are they going to believe you?”

“Probably not. Better not to.”

“So no need to dwell, it’s just something that happened and now it’s over. Like alien abduction.”

“You don’t believe in aliens.”

“It’s not a perfectly aligned metaphor. I don’t really believe in time travel either, except I saw the results, people lying in puddles on our — I mean, your, lawn.”

I said, “I don’t really believe in it either, but I was there in the past, a hundred percent true. It was brutal, unrelenting.”

“I can imagine.”

“I’m not arguing, because yes, you can imagine, but it’s so much worse, Coop, it’s dark at night and there is no stopping it, just darkness, no light anywhere to turn on.”

“That sucks, kinda like camping, but for eternity.”

“Yeah, camping is awesome, but after the fun, you know how great it is to come home?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. You were always happier to come home than I was.”

“Yeah, true.”

He said, “So you learned to ride a horse?”

“Nah, not really, I rode, Torin um… he held the reins. So I don’t really know anything but how to sit there and let it carry me, but we went for miles and miles. I never really got comfortable, Dude was a lot more comfortable.”

“So basically it was just one long journey, just you and Torin, on horses, day after day, him keeping you alive. Sounds great.”

I looked away.

“Something you need to tell me?”

“Can we maybe put this off, I’m not feeling that great and…”

He was shaking his head.

“I don’t know what there is to talk about, I can see it, Lexi, you’re acting really different.” His feet were jiggling, he was upset.

“I have been sick, I’ve barely been back.”

“You hardly know him.” He shook his head. “That’s all I’m going to say.”

“Can we talk about it in the morning?”

“Yeah, I’m going to go check on your horse.” He got up and left the living room.

I curled up on my side on the couch and fell asleep.

The next morning I was able to get up. I went to go have some tentative sips of coffee and found Dude sitting on the table beside a note from Cooper:

Lexi,

Went to get oats and a trough for your horse. Andrew is out on the porch, keeping watch until I get back.

He hadn’t signed it.

I sighed. It was going to get bad, wasn’t it?

I didn’t know what to do. I had just gone through a big thing and kinda wanted to not have the drama.

I wanted to just putter around the house, getting well, having my friends fuss over me, I needed no confrontation.

I hadn’t had a chance to compute that Torin thought I was a princess, that my parents weren’t who I thought, that this house, my money, my ancestors weren’t mine.

Or were under false pretenses.

I had a lot to think about.

I kinda wanted to do that.

But also Cooper was still two days out from having had such bad news, maybe three, the days had gotten confusing. He needed support too. I needed it, we both needed it, but…

I kinda didn’t want to.

I went out to the porch. Andrew said, “Hey Lexi!

“Hey, whatcha doing?”

“Apparently I’m your guard, not sure why… you were in the hospital?”

“Yeah, I got a stomach bug so bad that I got dehydrated and here I am barely eating anything, recovering.”

“I think now I’m relieved I didn’t come to dinner the other night, what the hell did you put in the spaghetti?”

I laughed. “Yeah, I guess that’s a good point. Next time it won’t have botulism in it, promise, but in my defense, Cooper and Jen didn’t get sick.”

“Some other guy was over here?”

“Yeah, Torin, visiting from Scotland, he went back.”

“You got a horse?”

“Yep, Ferrari, speaking of, I should go say good morning.”

I walked off the porch and around to the small fenced side yard. “Hey, boy!”

He stomped his feet. I petted his face and stroked my hand down his neck and along his withers. “You like your new digs? I think Coop is going to build you a stable. Did you meet Coop?” The horse nuzzled my cheek.

“Here’s the thing, I do not know how to take care of you, I need to learn, but right now I don’t feel that great, so it’s not a lot of attention, sorry about that. Rest up, I’ll feel better and then we’ll do some riding.”

I couldn’t actually believe I was saying it.

“I gotta go back to the house, I’ll come visit you in a bit.”

I returned to the house.

Andrew asked, “So why do you need a guard?”

I tried to think of what to say. “Not entirely sure, there was a stranger on my property a few times this weekend, better safe than sorry.”

He said, “That sucks, you called the police? You’re out here on the edge of town…”

“Yeah, I think that’s why Coop is nervous about it, I’m out on the edge of town. I’ll probably hire some security until I can?—”

“Coop told me he already did.”

“Oh, really, he did?”

“Yeah, he said that the security team was coming at 11.” He looked at his watch.

“Well, good, you’re just filling in until then.”

“Keeping the bad guys off your lawn, that’s my job.”

“I need to go sit down, you cool?”

“Yeah.” He went back to sitting on the porch, staring out at the grass.