Page 4 of Boats, Moats, & Root Beer Floats

I opened my eyes and blinked at her. “Why would weasels live in a tower?”

“What are–?” She shook her head. “Why is there a dusty man with great tomes in a tower?”

“Do you always answer a question with a question?” I snapped, pushing shaking hands onto my knees to conceal the tremor that burst on.

“Jesus did.”

“What?” I stopped fidgeting and stared at her. Hopefully she thought I was an over-caffeinated academic.

She shrugged. “I mean, he seemed a good role model at the time.”

“That’s not what I–Christ.”I pinched the bridge of my nose.

“Yes, he went by that name too,” she added helpfully.

My fingers curled in my hair, stopping shy of yanking at the strands. “The invitation was to leave.” I freed up a few fingers to point at the door.

“Oh.” She looked around, ostensibly for easels over weasels, or perhaps the missingcoo. “Are you here all season?”

“Season?”

“It’s Christmas soon.” Another sunny smile as unsuited to the climate and this place as she was graced me.

The level of brightness left me distinctly uncomfortable.

“It is.” I stopped short of making that a question, and turned it into a statement at the last minute.

“Yep.” She popped the ‘p’.

“Yes,” I echoed.

“Great. I’ll see you for breakfast.” She blessedly turned and headed for the door, shutting it behind her.

I stared at the space she had occupied a moment before, the room still echoing with the absence of her presence like a void had opened up behind her, sucking in all the energy of this place and depositing it in the place she had stood. All that, and I still had no idea who she was.

What sort of a spy are you, Covin Drysdale?

One more than a decade out of practice, apparently.

My confusion—not relief—was short lived as her head popped back around the edge of the door.

“What now,” I barked.

“Do you know how to milk a cow?” she asked.

“No!” I roared.

“Oh, good,” she said, relief evident in her tone. She ignored my ire, the fact I just yelled at a total stranger, gave me a finger wave and disappeared for a second time, leaving me alone.

Without her name. Again.

I returned to my dusty tomes as my mystery woman so eloquently put it, but my research didn’t fill my hours as it had in the days before her arrival at Witnot Castle. Nor did the fact I hadn’t given a thought to the blasted cow that was probably bursting at its udders by now as I had promised to milk the damned beast.

Giving up my papers as a bad job while the afternoon closed in I headed down to the kitchens with the hope of avoiding the castle’s newest occupant, to locate a coo, and hoped there weren’t any other unannounced visitors in the castle’s recent history in what was supposed to be a solo research trip.

Because I’d completely forgotten it was Christmas.

The cow hated me.

---