Page 24 of Monster Among the Roses (Fairy Tale Quartet 1)

“Really?” Holy shit, she wasn’t going to ream me up one wall and down another for checking her out. Thank you, God. Clearing my throat again—man, I needed a drink of water or something, for all this throat clearing—I forced myself back to the conversation. “When do you run? I’ve never seen you—”

“Early in the morning,” she cut in, thankfully stopping me from more uncontrollable jabbering. “Before you get here. There’s a trail around the lake. When the sun comes up, it reflects off the surface of the water. Sometimes there are ducks or geese swimming in it.”

“It sounds beautiful.” And she looked beautiful while she described it.

Isobel shrugged and turned away. “It’s peaceful.”

I nodded. “I don’t run, like ever…unless something’s chasing me.”

Grinning at the joke, I cleared my throat when she didn’t laugh back.

God, I was such a dork.

“It’s a good cardiovascular workout,” she said, opening the tape measure to measure the height of the bookcases.

Again, I stupidly bobbed my head up and down. “I should try it then. You think I could run with you some morning?”

She whirled around to stare at me as if I’d lost my mind, the tape measure snapping back into its shell as if equally shocked by my question.

I flushed, feeling like a moron. “Sorry. That was a stupid question. Ignore me.”

After a couple blinks, she returned to measuring. But every time she bent down to tuck the end of the tape measure into the very bottom of the bookcase, her hair would fall into her face. She’d try to spit it out, then wipe it away so she could see what she was doing, only for the tape measure to pull free of wherever she was securing it to.

“Here,” I offered, stepping forward to assist, but she hissed, “Blast it,” and yanked a hair tie from her pocket before pulling her long, silken dark locks back and securing everything out of her face.

I pulled to a stop, shocked she’d done that. Then a ball of warmth grew in me, realizing she felt comfortable enough around me to expose her scars. As if hearing my thoughts, she shot me a hard glance and narrowed her eyes, her expression daring me to say a single word.

With her glare, she let me see the skin that had been marred and distorted, but she also reopened her defiant, I-will-crush-you, snooty attitude. It was amazing, really. She hated people seeing her scars so much that she cloaked this self-protective anger around her as if bubble-wrapping her vulnerabilities. The only problem with that method was instead of hiding her tender spots, she actually brought more attention to them.

It was sad, and made me want to hug her until all the pain inside her went away.

“What?” she demanded, narrowing her eyes.

Smiling, I offered a thumbs-up. “Much better. Now that you’re done fiddle-farting around with your hair, let’s get some shit measured.”

chapter

EIGHT

We couldn’t finish our measuring without the use of a ladder. So I returned to the supply room and dragged my window-washing ladder back to the library. Before I reached the entrance, however, I noticed some guy ahead of me approaching the door as well.

Frowning, I slowed to a stop.

Who was this?

He wasn’t Mr. Nash or Lewis. He was younger, around my age with dark hair and mirrored sunglasses. When he stepped into the room, I hurried after him, because seriously, who the hell was he?

When he caught sight of Isobel with her back to him as she stood at the study table, studying our “blueprints,” his face lit with a mischievous grin, and he snuck up behind her.

Not sure if I should alert her to his presence, I paused in the doorway to watch him say, “Boo,” just before he tapped her on the back.

Isobel yelped and spun around. She appeared irritated until she focused on his face. Then she transformed, springing toward the stranger and flinging her arms around his neck with a happy laugh. My eyes narrowed as he picked her up and spun her in a circle.

Something solid and nasty plopped hard into the base of my stomach. It swirled and frothed as Isobel cheekily smacked the man’s arm until he returned her to her feet and took a step back. They both continued to grin at each other.

She liked him—whoever he was—she really liked him. I’d never seen her show genuine affection for anyone before, and it didn’t sit well with me, mainly because she’d never seemed to like me that well.

Ah, hell, I was jealous.

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