Page 7 of Remmen

His brow eased. “He does that.”

“He’s not wrong. That’s the annoying thing.” I blew out a breath. “I need something to do. Something real.” The words came fast, before I could dress them up. “Nobody’s going to walk into my office. I know that. Otho just spelled it out with very small words. But I can’t help men I’ve never met, and I don’t understand the first thing about how you actually live out here, what the jobs are, what they’re afraid of that isn’t in any file.” I looked up at him. “You know this town better than anyone in it. Show it to me. The place, the people, all of it. Let me at least know the world before I fail at the job in it.”

He stared at me, his jaw shifting once.

“I have a full day,” he said.

“Then let me shadow you. I won’t get in your way. I’ll just be there, all shadowy.” All shadowy? Really? I tried to keep mortification off my face. Why wasn’t my tongue working?

Remmen studied me for several more heartbeats. Heartbeats that got quicker and quicker by the second. The man had intensity down to an art and my palms were sweaty with the weight of it.

And that was the only reason. It had nothing to do with the fact that he was a seven-foot-tall slab of beefcake with horns I wanted to⁠—

Was it insulting to think of a minotaur as a beefcake?

“Tomorrow morning,” he said, thankfully breaking my train of thought. “I have to check on some things. You can come with.”

It shouldn’t have felt like anything. A busy official taking pity on a new contractor. It landed warm anyway, low in my belly, and I couldn’t talk myself out of it.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Don’t thank me yet.” He was already turning back to his day, the town closing over him like water. “Wear boots, it might get muddy.”

CHAPTER 3

REMMEN

“You should go back to your office.” Even as I said the words, I knew the enticing little human at my side would ignore me.

Not enticing.

Off limits.

I stared down the street and did my best to ignore her before I did something to give myself away.

“You agreed to show me around town,” Anne reminded me, as if it hadn’t happened yesterday afternoon. “I just want to get a feel for this place. I think it will help. Where can a girl get a cup of coffee around here?”

That made me huff. “Good question.”

Her eyes widened and she looked as horrified as a man facing down two gladiators. “I’ve been patient for a week, please tell me this planet has coffee.”

“Something that passes for it, I suppose.”

She liked coffee, did she?

It was none of my business what she liked. I kept walking.

“The apothecary keeps something bitter the old crews used to boil in the pits, when there was nothing else and a man needed to stay awake through a dark night,” I said. “It’s the nearest thing we have. It tastes like a punishment.”

“One man’s punishment is another woman’s dark roast. Tell me more.”

I looked away to hide a smile. “I’m being honest. You asked me for the town, counselor. This is the town.” I nodded up the muddy length of it, where the mist was lifting off the roofs in the first real light. “Bad coffee. A great deal of mud. Men who will not talk to you.”

“You really oversell the place.”

“It’s home.”

Her almost-laugh got in under my guard. Heat spread low in my gut. I put my eyes back on the street where they belonged.