Page 8 of Monster Among the Roses (Fairy Tale Quartet 1)

I frowned and slid my finger along the silken petals of a blood red rose. Perfectly pruned, weeded, and watered. It was as flawless as a flower could get.

But I couldn’t go tell Mr. Nash they didn’t need anything, could I? What if he fired me for lack of work to do, or because he thought I was lazy and lying about the roses not needing care?

I looked around again, searching for anything to water, or clip, or re-soil. It was crazy how every single flower seemed to be thriving.

Maybe this was some kind of test, and Mr. Nash wanted me to fail. What if he’d never intende

d for me to work for him, and the contract I’d signed to save my mom was being burned in the fireplace in his office as I stood here like a dumbass with nothing to weed?

Confused and worried, and growing a little angry, I scowled at a wall full of pink vine roses growing to my right. But they were honestly too pretty to be glared at, so my mood settled.

I bet Mom would love them. She was a fan of pink. And flowers. Plus, these were the good-smelling kind. I’d be a good son if I brought home such a flower to her. And it seemed as if they grew in abundance, not as if they were one of the rare breeds Mr. Nash had spoken of. So I reached for a bloom to pluck it from the vine without even thinking beyond how much it’d make my mother smile.

Behind me, a voice growled, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Jumping half out of my skin because I’d been certain no one had been in here with me, I whirled around only to gasp, “Shit!”

The creepy cook’s son hadn’t been lying.

In front of me stood an irate woman with half her face melted off.

chapter

THREE

Had to be a burn wound, I decided. One half of her was perfectly fine, beautiful even. I doubted anyone would be aware she had the scars if they saw her from the good side. The other half was full of puckered and stretched skin that looked as if it had been heated to liquefy and then cooled again all wrong. It wrinkled down her neck, then was briefly covered by her short-sleeved shirt, only to continue down to the end of her arm and over the back of her hand. I wondered if it extended lower, but pants and shoes concealed the rest of her.

She appeared to be around my age, maybe a year or two younger, with a full head of dark hair, super-blue eyes and the longest eyelashes I’d ever seen. Except the look in those exceptionally lovely eyes was anything but friendly.

“I asked you a question,” she reminded me, her tone truculent. Couldn’t say I blamed her; I had been gawking pretty rudely. But she’d shocked the crap out of me, popping up out of nowhere. Seriously, where had she come from? “What’re you doing in my garden?”

“Your…?”

Oh! This must be Mr. Nash’s daughter. What had he called her? Elizabeth? No. Izz…Isobel! That was it. But all the pictures I’d seen in his office showed a younger girl. I hadn’t gotten close enough to pick out details or even remember if this was her face, but I didn’t recall any of the photos showcasing a scarred child. Which meant the scarring must’ve happened after her teen years…and maybe Mr. Nash hadn’t updated his pictorial collection since then.

It would be a shame if he’d been too disgusted by her wounds to hang any more pictures of her after she’d gained them. I’d just started to think I might like Mr. Nash; I didn’t want a reason to be disappointed in him. And him suddenly growing disinterested in his daughter merely because she’d been hurt would kill my respect dead.

“Hello? Are you deaf?” she hissed.

“What? No! I…” Damn, what had she been asking me, again? Roses! Why was I in her rose garden? I frowned, confused. “I was told to come in here.”

She snorted. “Not likely. Get out.” Her long, silken hair was pulled up into a ponytail, boldly showing off her wounds, but she shifted to the side, hiding them from me.

When she pointed toward the exit that led back into the house, I glanced that way before turning back to her. “I…but I can’t go,” I started, not sure what else to say. I didn’t want to piss off Mr. Nash’s daughter and get myself fired. But I didn’t want to disobey Mr. Nash either, because coming in here and fiddling with her stupid flowers was the only job he’d given me.

Isobel narrowed her eyes and stepped closer. “What do you mean, you can’t? Your legs seem to work just fine to me.”

God, there was something alluring about her that made me draw in a sharp breath when she stepped right up into my face like that. She was a head shorter than me and slight of frame, but her challenging demeanor, showing me how little she feared me, made her personality big and vibrant, almost as if she had to puff herself up deliberately to hide everything small and insecure inside her. She had a delicate bravery about her. Plus, she smelled good, like her roses.

“I can’t leave,” I told her, trying not to like her nearness but failing. “Didn’t you hear me? I was told to come in here.”

“By whom?”

I tugged my hat off only to jam it back onto my head, refusing to reveal my nerves as I answered, “Mr. Nash.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Mr. Nash as in Henry Nash?”

“Yeah. Yes, of course. Who else?”

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