My heart was racing, my eyes were stinging, my stomach hurt and my head was filled with loads of junk none of which I could sort. I really, really, really needed to talk to Stephanie.
Or maybe Edwina because I had the sneaking suspicion she knew more about everything than she let on.
Or even, possibly, Avery.
I turned and walked up five steps, shutting out their murmurs while deep breathing.
When I had myself under control, I bounded down, shouting, “Found you guys a guest house!”
Their murmurs stopped. I sauntered in like I’d heard nothing.
“That’s great, honey,” Mom, sitting on the couch, said and since I was close to her, she grabbed my hand. She gave my hand a squeeze. I gave her a squeeze back.
“Are you still disowning me?” she asked, giving me a cheeky grin because she knew my answer.
I had, of course, in my efforts at being sarcastic, bitchy and obnoxious, told my mother I disowned her.
“I haven’t decided,” I replied but she knew I wasn’t serious.
She gave me another hand squeeze.
I saw movement outside and looked out the windows. One wall of the kitchen was made of floor-to-ceiling windows making the indoors seem kind of outdoors, which was really cool. And I saw Lucien and Stephanie stroll out of the woods.
So Stephanie and Lucien had gone for a stroll which was why he couldn’t hear my family’s mind-boggling, earth-shattering, Leah’s place in the family and all her foundations and everything she ever thought about life herself and the world as she knew it rocking conversation.
They were walking slowly even for mortals and I watched Lucien’s body move.
It was a sight to behold.
Even walking slowly across a yard, he looked imposing. Not like he was walking across a yard but as if he was strolling broodingly across a battlefield, pre-battle. A battle he’d eventually win, of course, soundly.
As I had this thought, his head came up, and he looked right at me.
I hoped he didn’t hear my thoughts.
Then his lips tipped up in that sexy way of his. Not smug or arrogant, just smiling at me.
He didn’t hear me.
I smiled back.
Then I felt something strange and I looked toward its source and saw Avery was watching me musingly. And somehow I knew that he knew I’d heard every word of the earlier conversation.
But it was something else. And that something else was somewhere I did not want to go.
I wrinkled my nose at him and he grinned.
Lucien and Stephanie walked in.
I went to sit down on the arm of the couch next to Aunt Kate which, incidentally, had the added benefit of being closer to Lucien. Then, I couldn’t help myself, I bent and kissed the top of Aunt Kate’s head.
“What on earth!” She batted around her head, her hands getting nowhere near me. Aunt Kate, by the way, hated public displays of affection or affection at all for that matter. “What’s the matter with you, Leah Buchanan?” she snapped.
“I’m trying to find new and interesting ways to annoy you,” I informed her.
“Well, you found one,” she retorted.
“Good,” I returned. “Next I’m going to force you to cuddle with me and a tub of ice cream and tell me about all your secret crushes as a teenager,” I hesitated and finished, “in minute detail.”