Page 31 of Monster Among the Roses (Fairy Tale Quartet 1)

“It’s not even six yet,” Isobel said, jarring me from my thoughts of how best to hide my erection.

I glanced her way and lifted my eyebrows. “What?”

She flushed and waved a hand. “It’s still over three hours until you’re supposed to start work, but it’d be counterproductive for you to walk all the way home. You’d just have to turn around and start right back once you reached your door.”

“Oh…. Yeah. I hadn’t thought of that.” Actually, I had. I’d been hoping to sneak inside her house and find some place to nap until nine. But now that she’d realized the time discrepancy, I wasn’t so sure I could sneak a nap anywhere.

I couldn’t be too upset about my ruined plans, though. I was a little too pleased she’d considered my situation enough to realize my dilemma. How very thoughtful of her.

I liked being on her mind.

“I bet my dad would be fine with you leaving at two today if you want to start work at six.”

“You think?” I liked how she wanted to help me.

She nodded. “And tomorrow…I mean, if you still want to keep running, I can wait until seven. Then you could work from eight to four.”

And I liked how she was willing to readjust her own schedule to fit me into her plans.

I liked all of this new side to Isobel, actually. Once she dropped the bitterness, she could be extremely nice. She was quite the dichotomy.

Flashing her a roguish grin, I couldn’t help but tease. “So you’ve decided I make an acceptable enough exercise companion, huh?”

Her eyes went wide and she turned her face away before murmuring, “You’ll do.”

For Isobel, I considered those two words to be an endorsement for sainthood. It was a far cry from who’s the idiot in my rose garden. Actually, it was hard for me to register this as the same woman who’d chastised me for trying to steal a flower from her.

I sent her a sideways glance. Since the sun was up, I saw her better. And damn, she looked fit and adorably sexy in the black yoga pants, long-sleeved running top and perky ponytail. She walked on my right so I couldn’t see her scars from this angle, and it made me wonder if she’d done that on purpose. She did that a lot, I realized, sneakily maneuvering herself to keep them hidden.

I wanted to be insulted. I mean, did she really think I would treat her any differently because of them? But honestly, I got it.

Everyone had issues about themselves, parts they thought were ugly or humiliating, and aspects they wanted to hide away because those things made them feel vulnerable. People didn’t generally let others see their vulnerable parts until they felt safe. You never knew if someone else would be disgusted, or think less of you, or if they’d use your weakness as leverage to hurt you. It was purely human nature and self-preservation to vet a person first before letting them prove to you that you could trust them enough to see if they’d continue to like you in spite of, or even better, because of your flaws.

So it must suck that the most vulnerable part of Isobel was right out in the open, on display for everyone to see. She didn’t get to decide who saw her—well, I guess that wasn’t true. She’d become a hermit to keep most everyone away. But the point was, having something she clearly didn’t like about herself on full display took away a lot of that control and self-preservation. And it seemed to make her want to close other parts of herself away even tighter.

Which only made me more determined to gain her favor. One day, she’d look me straight in the eye without ever worrying about hiding anything. That was my goal.

“Here,” she murmured, motioning in

front of us.

I looked up, paying attention to where we were going, only to slow to a stunned halt. I didn’t know why anything about Porter Hall should surprise me anymore, but this…this shocked the shit out of me.

“You gotta be fucking kidding me?” I blurted.

We’d just cleared the gravel path through the trees that led from the pond, only to step into an entirely new world. The pool…okay, the pool was actually not that impressive. It was smaller than I’d pictured it being and curved into a cute kidney bean shape. It was the pool house that left my jaw dropping. Not that house was an accurate word for the cave in front of me. And I’m talking a real, freaking cave here. They’d amassed an enormous pile of clay boulders, large enough for a small evergreen tree and some plants and bushes to grow up the side, to make the house. A waterfall gushed from over what looked like one entrance into the place with another round tube opening that had to be a slide.

I didn’t know how I never caught sight of this before when I’d been helping Lewis work outside, but shit…I was thinking it was about time to take the full tour of this place.

“There should be towels and toiletries in the bathroom,” Isobel told me as she pushed a button posted on the side of the rock wall.

My eyes grew wide as the wall separated to display the abundance within. It was nothing but rock floors, rock ceilings, rock walls and a rock bar that ran the length of the room. Even the twelve-foot hot tub was made of rock. With a fish tank, television, and fireplace embedded into the far wall, there was still enough room to host a doorway that led into what appeared to be the bedroom.

A gasp of pure awe left me.

“I could live here,” I said, turning to gape at Isobel, wondering why she didn’t live in here. “I mean…can I live here?”

She blinked at me, to which I felt the need to lift my hands and say, “Kidding,” though really, I wasn’t. I could seriously live here. No problem. This place—the entire property of Porter Hall—was pure awesomeness. I was beginning to wonder why Henry Nash was so worried about why his daughter wanted to hang out here all the time. Hell, I wanted to hang out here all the time.

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