Scarlet sat on the grass, her legs neatly together in her narrow skirt. Gizelle circled her twice, warily, then sat cross-legged to face her.
“There are some things you should know,” Scarlet said evenly.
Gizelle gave a noisy sigh. “Breck told me about that.”
“About your mate.”
Gizelle held her breath. She wanted to know everything about him.
Scarlet had papers. Papers with words that made Gizelle wish she was already good at reading, not barely able to remember the alphabet sounds. But they had pictures, too, and Gizelle looked through them curiously. One of them was a picture of the man with blue eyes. He was sitting on a car holding a guitar and he was smiling. He hadn’t been smiling when Gizelle met him.
She liked the smile.
“His name is Conall Wright. He’s deaf.”
“What does that mean?”
“He can’t hear anything.”
That sounded wonderful.
Scarlet continued. “He can speak, and he can read your lips. If you look at him when you speak, he’ll be able to understand what you’re saying.”
“Even in the dark?”
“No, probably not in the dark.” Scarlet sounded like she was trying not to laugh, but she kept going. “It’s important that he be able to see you, to see your mouth when you speak, so look up; you can’t hide in your hair.”
Gizelle had been doing exactly that and made herself brush it back from her face and sit up straight.
“What else?” she asked eagerly.
“He’s from a city called Boston,” Scarlet explained, and she showed Gizelle a map with the city circled. “He owns a chain of high-end music supply stores and a clothing line, among other things.”
Scarlet looked like she expected Gizelle to be impressed with that, but Gizelle didn’t like the sound that chains made, and the rest of the sentence made no sense to her.
Scarlet continued, gravely relaying things she clearly thought were important.
But only one thing really mattered to Gizelle.
She leaned forward to interrupt Scarlet when the red-haired woman paused. “Will he like me?”
Chapter 8
We should pursue her, Conall’s elk insisted, pawing impatiently.
We have to give her the space to come to us, Conall reminded his elk and himself equally.
If the resort had seemed like a glittery disappointment before, it was a hundred times more so now that Conall had met his mate.
The grand pool didn’t seem as impressive as the gazelle’s brief gaze had been, and the rich food was tasteless when he made himself eat.
The woman’s recognition of him, and her subsequent flight, had escaped no one’s notice, and if Conall couldn’t hear the whispers, he could
see the appraising looks as he woodenly went through the motions of being just another guest at the resort.
He skipped the special dinner menu to pick an unappetizing plate from the buffet, and successfully avoided meaningful contact with everyone simply by glancing away if they tried to talk to him.
After dinner he prowled the resort from the salon, where he waved away the cheerful offer of service, through several gardens with too many shadowed places, all perfect for a vacation tryst. The empty event hall had an open box of Christmas decorations that Conall only barely held himself back from kicking. He stalked past the pool to look down over the dark beach and the ocean, picturesquely reflecting the nearly-full moon.