Page 78 of Bought for Blood

The grass where she was standing is empty. I try to focus on where she’d been, but there’s nothing. I set my hand on the shutter frame and look at nothing at all for four seconds.

Then she’s back, ten paces further on, walking toward the house without a stitch of clothing on.

Her strength is coming back. That’s worth confirming.

I stand at the shutter for another minute, which doesn’t confirm anything.

She’s in my doorway before I’ve heard her in the passage. Her hair is tangled. Her hands are filthy. There’s cut grass on one shoulder, and she smells of a thing I gave up before her grandmother’s grandmother was born.

Sunshine.

“You’re back.”

“I am.”

“There’s a strange man at the top of your drive,” she says without asking where I’ve been.

“There is.”

“He smells like the city, and he’s carrying something under his coat.” She drops into the chair across from me. “And there’s another one who was at the south wall at about two in the morning.”

“You were out at two?”

Merde!

“I was out at two.” She isn’t apologizing for it. “Who are they?”

“They work for a man I trust.”

“Why are they here?”

She waits. I let her wait. It doesn’t last long.

“You could tell me,” she says. “Whatever it is. I’ve had worse news than most people.”

“I know you have.”

“Then tell me.”

“No.”

She sits back. Her hands are on the arms of her chair, and one thumb is working at the dirt on the other, over and over.

“Fine.” She stands up. “But I’d rather know what’s going on than be locked away and kept ignorant.”

She’s at the door before I have anything worth saying to that.

“Serenity.”

She stops.

“Put on my jacket,” I say. “Yves is old, and his heart may not handle a naked woman walking through the halls.”

Tell her.

She isn’t finished looking at me.

“Yves can handle anything.”