Page 27 of Valentine Nook
You’d think I’d have gotten used to the really annoying face Miles pulls when he’s shit-stirring, but I haven’t. Especially when I’m the target.
“How would I know?”
“You’ve met her.”
“So—”
“So what’s she like?”
“She’s . . . I dunno. Blond. What do you want me to say?”
Iknowwhat he wants me to say.
He wants me to say that she’s the most insanely beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, with curves that Renaissance artists would have killed each other to paint. That while it should be her dripping wet body I can’t stop thinking about, what’s reallyseared into my brain is the way she glared at me, arms rigid over her chest while enough anger blazed in her eyes she could have melted me if she’d glared any longer.
I was with Caroline for four years, and I never saw that level of emotion.
But I’m not telling Miles that. I’m not telling anyone. It will stay my secret until I’m dead and buried.
“Is she hot? Marriage material?”
“Marriage material? Jesus Christ, you sound like Mum.”
Miles throws his head back and barks out a laugh. “I just wanted to see if I could get that vein in your temple to pop.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Why are you such a dick?”
He doesn’t answer, just takes a sip of his coffee and leans back against the wall next to Hendricks. The pair of them stare at me with their arms crossed, and it’s almost impossible to tell them apart. In fact, very few can outside of situations where Hendricks is elbow-deep in a cow or Miles is galloping down a polo field swinging a mallet.
“C’mon, Lan, go back to what you were telling us before we got rudely interrupted by Elsa giving birth.”
To be honest, I can’t remember where I’d got to. The annoyance I’ve been feeling since she moved in is bubbling too near the surface of my skin to allow me to think clearly.
“Did I tell you about the waterfall?”
Hendricks’s eyes slice to Miles, and he’s doing his best to keep a smile in check.
“Waterfall?”
I nod. “Yeah, you know, the waterfall over on the edge of the village? You can cut through from the back pasture, but the path is pretty overgrown. There’s a track leading from Bluebell, which I used to use.” I stop talking because the twins are staring at me like I’ve grown two heads, and Hendricks is no longer holding down his smile. “What?”
“Nothing. We just know the waterfall, is all.”
I frown. “Why are you saying it like that? I’m talking about my waterfall.”
“It’s notyourwaterfall.”
Technically it is because it’s my land, but whatever. “I’m the only one who goes there.”
Hendricks shakes his head and laughs. “No, you aren’t. We used to go there all the time. It was our favorite party spot when we came home from school.”
“What? When? I wasn’t invited.”
“That’s because you’d have told us to stop.”
My gaze flicks between the pair of them. Sometimes it’s impossible to tell when they’re joking, and it would be so typical of them to wind me up for no reason. It’s times like these when the eight-year age gap feels so much bigger, and it takes so much more effort on my part not to resent their freedoms when my teenage years were spent preparing for leadership.
“Are you serious?”
