Page 70 of The Reluctant Reaper
Yes. The latter. Definitely.
“Your mom,” Gray was saying beside her in bed, because he wanted her to enduretwosleepless nights. “She let me watch her make lefse. You know how experts make a task look easy? Your mom is an expert who makes it look hard. I was seriously worried she was going to burn herself.”
“She does. All the time.”
“I figured.” Gray propped himself up on an elbow. “There’s so much to keep track of! There’s that long stick, first of all, and she’s got to thread the hot lefse on the stick.”
“Gray. I’ve observed the procedure. I’ve even helped.”
“But first she’s got to roll it all out with a fancy roller that makes stripes, which takes forever, and meanwhile, the lefse grill—it has its own grill!—is getting hotter than Hades. That’s not me exaggerating. Hank told me! Hotter than Hades!”
“All right, I’m going to ask you to calm down.”
“It’s like a slo-mo nightmare that eventually ends up slathered in brown sugar and butter! How can I enjoy lefse knowing your poor mom is nursing second-degree burns?”
“You’ll just have to reconcile yourself, I guess.”
“Yeah, well, I got off track.”
“Noooooo.”
“Kindly shut the hell up, Amara. While I was slathering salve on your mother’s palm, she mentioned you’d come looking for La Croix.”
“Hmmm. She’s ever the helpful font of info these days, isn’t she?”
“Which is weird, because he’s not exactly your favorite person in the world. Or even your favorite death god. Do you mind telling me why you wanted him? I promise not to get jealous. Or, if I do get jealous, I won’t show it... yeah. Let’s go with that last one. I’m only human, for fuck’s sake.”
“Why would you be jealous of Baron La Croix?”
“Exactly! No reason, no reason at all!”
“Are you all right?”
“Fine! I’m fine!” In the darkened tower bedroom, his shouting seemed louder than usual. “Nobody’s jealous! Seriously, why did you want him?”
“He said something yesterday. And again today. I’m still trying to figure... never mind.”
“Oh, come on!”
“My point is, the one time I actually wanted to see him, he was nowhere around. Probably holed up in a furnace somewhere. He doesn’t do well with cold.”
“Amara.”
“Nighty-night.”
“Amara.” Gray sat up in bed. “Yougottatell me what’s happening. I’ve seen you furious and hurt and drunk and flirty and dreadful and sexy and giddy and vengeful and pissed, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so apprehensive and scared.”
“And... and you’re not now. Seeing that.”
“And not just apprehensive, but mysterious, too. You’ve answered every one of my dumb questions over the years, even the weirdly personal, but suddenly you’re a clam. A great-looking clam, but still.”
“You think I’m an attractive bivalve?”
Gray would not be swayed. “You didn’t seem this freaked even when you were staring down the barrel of the dreaded fax machine. I mean,Iknew you were freaking out, but you kept a lid on it, especially when we were in the field. Please, please tell me what’s wrong. I won’t make you laugh with the ‘maybe I can help’ routine, but I need to know why someone I love is terrified.”
Love?
Yes. I knew that. Of course he loves me.As a friend. As a friend. As a friend.
