But the beast did get the girl in the end.
And I’m feeling quite beastly in this moment.
Maybe a little kidnapping wouldn’t be out of order. If I’m to fall apart and become a madman, then I might as well do it right.
“You’re losing your mind,” I mutter beneath my breath. “Pull it together, man.”
“What’s that?” Savannah asks, sounding a little breathless from our hard push down this idyllic country lane.
“Nothing,” I snap back. I should regret my tone, but I’m at my wit’s end with this hunt and wanting to tell her how I feel and being terrified that she won’t return my affections. I don’t know how to be the rational, in-control man that I generally pride myself on being.
She huffs. “Right. I, um… I think we should talk.”
“Why should we talk? Why stop this insanity now? By all means, let’s keep racing toward the conclusion of this farce of a race so you can find true love. Heaven forfend I keep you from the completion of your course.”
“I’m not sure what ‘forfend’ means because I was a child star and educated poorly on a television set, but I can read your tone,” she says, huffing harder as we start up a small hill. “And that tone isn’t a sunny, happy tone, Colin.”
“Well, I’m not feeling very sunny, Savannah.” I’m practically shouting now. The damned American-ness of this place is rubbing off on me already. “I’m frustrated and confused and unsure what you experienced back there. I, for one, experienced one of the best kisses of my life.”
She sucks in a sharp breath, and her front wheel wobbles a little before she regains control of her bike. “Me too. The very best ever, but there are things you don’t know about me, Colin. Things that you aren’t going to like.”
Bloody hell. Why must women always be so confounding? How on earth could there be a single thing about Savannah Sunderwell that any man could object to? “What sort of things? I know you aren’t a fugitive from justice. I had your background checked before I offered you the position as Bea’s nanny. And I don’t see that you’d have had time to commit international espionage or start a drug cartel on your one day off a week since then.”
She glares at me over her shoulder. “I’m very good at causing trouble for myself and absolutely could become a spy in my spare time if I wanted to.”
I snort.
“I could,” she insists. “I’m a very good actress. But no, I’m not involved in espionage. And I hate drugs. At least bad drugs. Wine and pot are pretty great in moderation, especially when you’re stressed. Like now, for example. Maybe we should swing into Jace’s bar after we win the hunt and grab a beer or something before we talk. Doesn’t a beer sound like it would make everything better?”
“No, it does not. And I don’t like that man. He’s handsy.”
She looks back at me again, but this time, her expression is different, as is her tone. She’s grinning, the minx. “He’s married, quite happily so, to my very best friend. But it’s cute that you were jealous. You were jealous, correct? I’m reading that super grumpy growl that just came out of your mouth correctly?”
I answer her with a glare that makes her laugh, though her glee fades as she speaks. “You were jealous. I probably shouldn’t be happy about that. But I am. But I also know we need to talk. Really talk. Neither one of us has done a very good job of communicating lately, Colin. Or possibly ever.”
My scowl softens as I admit, “You’re right. And I’m not mad at you. I…adore you.”
“I adore you too,” she says, her voice soft and a little sad. “I adore you so much that I can’t let this go any further until you know the truth.”
I’m about to demand, yet again, that she tell me this forbidding truth—I can’t imagine there’s anything that could dissuade me from doing whatever it takes to make her mine—when an errant hell-beast double the size of a Sunday roast bursts out of the underbrush beside the lane, squawking and flapping its mutant wings right in front of Savannah.
She shrieks and swerves, and for the second time today, I do the same, sending my bicycle skidding and myself tumbling into the dirt.
“Nutquacker!” Savannah cries.
The blasted beast circles me, honking and flapping while my nanny, Bea’s favorite person, the woman I’ve fallen desperately in love with, once again comes to my rescue, chasing the animal—the bird?—until it’s honking at the side of the road.
“We do not chase people off of bicycles.” Savannah shakes a finger at the creature as I pick myself up off the dusty lane and survey the situation. The animal looks rather like a half-plucked goose. “You know what happens when you terrorize the people who feed you. And what have you done with your feathers? Were you fighting with George again? Do I need to tell Hope what you’ve been up to?”