by Laura Kenyon
“Well, I don’t know what you’re going to do in the meantime,” she said, trying a different tactic. “Braddax is pretty, but it’s also pretty boring. There’s really not much to do besides hike and maybe catch a concert at the university. But you know, Carpale’s just a few minutes away, and they don’t call it the kingdom that never sleeps for nothing. And now that summer’s ending, you could probably get a great deal on a hotel—”
“Oh, I won’t be bored.”
Belle could actually feel his eyes on her—those wacky, acrobatic eyes—as he said this. But when she looked up, he was scribbling a list on one of Snow’s papers, not looking her way at all.
“While you were partying it up last night—and yes, I do read the papers—I spent a few hours exploring the grounds. There are a million things that could use some sprucing around here.”
Belle’s head spun as he read off a lineup longer than her grocery list. In his opinion, evidently, their renovation budget had been a joke. And the inspector had overlooked half the property. And the former owner hadn’t done routine maintenance in years.
“Actually,” he hummed. “What are you doing right now?”
“Huh?”
Belle jolted as he hopped up from the stool and moved toward her. He grabbed two of Snow’s muffins on the way and offered one to her the way a witch might offer a poisoned apple. It was the first time she noticed the web of hairline scars running along his forearm. “Come on. You can eat it while we walk.”
She waved off the muffin (not bothering to mention they were egg-, wheat-, and flavor-free) and resumed scrubbing the same counter for the second time. She just wanted to hide in the kitchen and indulge her sorrows. And she was pretty certain he knew that. Aside from his apparent death wish, he seemed like a relatively intelligent guy. Emotionally detached and more than a tad arrogant, but intelligent.
“I’m actually quite busy,” she said, expecting to hear an instant protest. When none came, she spun around to see an empty room.
Good, she thought. But this was immediately followed by guilt (Why was she so short-tempered around him?) and anxiety (What if he “fixed” something she didn’t think was broken?). With a huff, she hurled the sponge into the sink and took three quick strides for the door … just as it flung open again and spit Gray straight into her.
They collided. His arms folded (on reflex) around her as her elbow jabbed (not exclusively on reflex) into his sternum. She leapt back as if she’d struck red hot metal.
When he finished gagging, Gray held his chest and blocked the doorway.
“Can I ask you a question?” He caught her eyes the moment she looked up—as if he’d been focused there, waiting. She felt a one-two punch in her belly. She still didn’t understand how his eyes could flash through a dozen emotions in a split second. “If I’m gonna stick around here a bit … I mean, with us working in such close proximity and all…” Belle’s heartbeat was racing. She hated herself for it. “I guess what I’m trying to say is … do people usually wear armor around you?”
Belle tried to hide her amusement at this, but the extra twinkle in Gray’s eye indicated that he’d seen it. He grinned and tipped his head towards the door. “This’ll just take a second.”
Reluctantly, Belle followed her squatter through the side door and around to the south side of the inn. He had a very confident stride, she noticed, though she wouldn’t call it a swagger. It was far more childish—the way he kicked his heels back before swinging them so far forward.
“I was thinking.” He pointed ahead at nothing in particular. “There’s a patch of trees behind the kitchen that would be the perfect spot for a greenhouse.”
Belle shook her head. All she saw were dollar signs. And like he’d said: there were plenty of more important things that needed attention around here. Cheaper things. Like giving the pavilion a third coat of paint, cleaning out the gutters, and fixing the bed frame in the Honeymoon Suite—which squeaked like nobody’s business.
“The guests don’t need a greenhouse,” she said instead. Then, despite her better judgment: “If you really want to help out, the gutters need to be cleaned before autumn.”
“No they don’t.”
“Fine, I’ll hire someone.” She hadn’t expected this answer. “I just thought you wanted to help out around here.”
“I do,” he said. “They don’t need to be cleaned because I did them last night.”
A rock grabbed Belle’s toe but she caught herself. “Last night?” She thought about the height of the roof—at least thirty feet. She thought about what time she’d left for Snow’s—close to sunset. “You went up there in the dark? Alone?” Forget what she’d thought about intelligence; this guy was a lawsuit waiting to happen.
“It’s okay. The moon was really bright.” Belle shook her head. “And as for the greenhouse, it wouldn’t be for the guests. More so you didn’t have to order all your produce. And so you’d have a nicer place to hide than the kitchen.”
“I wasn’t hiding.”
“No?”
“No, I was just—”
She came to a dead stop as they turned the corner. In the center of the back yard, which she’d just paid a professional to landscape, sat a huge circle of churned up dirt. The evergreen shrubs she’d chosen had been yanked out of the ground, and the purple flowers surrounding them were back in plastic pots. It looked as if aliens had come down overnight, burned a giant hole in the ground with their plate-like spaceship, spun it around a few dozen times, and disappeared.
Her legs began to shake, then her arms, then her heart. She smacked Gray in the shoulder and exploded. “What the hell did you do?” This time, she didn’t care if the sharpness of her voice could break glass. She wished Gray’s head was made of glass. “I just paid to have those plants put in! Where are they? What on earth were you thinking? What gives you the right?”
Belle could feel her eyes bulging from their sockets. Even Donner would have cowered a bit at this point. But Gray simply crossed his arms and waited for her to finish screeching. He appeared to be quite enjoying the show.
“Trust me,” he said when she ran out of breath. “Whoever planted those had no idea what they were doing.” Belle balled her hand into a fist but said nothing. She didn’t know where to start. “But don’t worry; I’m going to fix it. I’m going to redo everything around the fire pit.”
“Fire pit?”
“That’s what the circle’s for. They’re very popular right now.”
“But … but you don’t even have a car. How—”
“Materials are all on the way. Rapunzel took care of it. And don’t worry; I’ll replant all those shrubs—even though the annuals are half-dead. You should really stick with perennials or it’s like frosting a cake with colored water.” Belle stared blankly ahead. “See, annuals die every year, whereas perennials—”
“I know what perennials are!”
Gray raised his hands and backed up. Belle surveyed the yard as both fear and anger swirled inside her. The grand opening was supposed to be final. The guests weren’t supposed to be staying in a construction zone three weeks into the first season.
“How long is this going to take?” She hissed from between clenched teeth. “And what experience do you have with landscaping? I thought you grew up on a farm. Are cows really that picky?”
The entire left side of his face slanted together as he rubbed his boot into the grass. “I left the farm years ago, and I’ve tried almost every line of work since. Including landscaping.” He looked at his watch. “Look. It’s one o’clock now. Give me till seven and I’ll have everything finished. Just in time for dinner.”
“You better,” she said, not even asking where he expected his dinner to come from. She turned to leave, and then swung back around. “Why are you doing this?”
He squinted, though the sun was behind a cloud, and shrugged “Need to earn my keep.”
“Why?”
“Because you don’t want me here.”<
br />
There was that guilt again. “I never said I didn’t—”
“It’s okay, I get it. Gorgeous specimen like me hanging around when you’ve got all that baggage.”
“Baggage!”
Gray motioned to her belly. She wanted to strangle him then and there. “Well, you basically are a human suitcase right now, aren’t you? Or an oven.”
Belle felt like a wild animal preparing to pounce. But she also felt like a hot air balloon—or a whale—with a spotlight illuminating her massive lump of … baggage.
“I’m saying I understand why you’re cautious,” she heard him call as she stomped away. She was done with this conversation. “And I’ve got nowhere better to go.”
* * *
A few hours later, Belle rested in the thick arms of an oak tree, watching the sunset from the highest peak in Braddax. To the right, a hundred yards below, the West River was sucking down the bright yellow disc, confiscating the light until morning. Straight ahead, far in the distance, Carpale Castle and its surrounding skyline were poking the tangerine clouds with their spires—asserting their majesty for miles. Soon, they’d be lighting the sky in a whole new way. The kingdom that never slept. The unofficial world capital of luxury and style. Belle felt so far removed from that now.
Now, in her sneakers, yoga pants, and a puffy vest with too many pockets, she wondered how many people had perched in this very same tree over the centuries—and what sort of problems they had.
She was fully expecting Gray’s little exhibition to be a disaster. There was no way he could lay the foundation for a fire pit, build it up, and replant everything in six hours. She was pretty sure there was cement involved, and drying time, and all the little mistakes that made any project take five times longer than planned.
“I hope you know this is half your fault,” she said, turning to the spot where Beast was curled just seconds earlier. Instead, there was a half-gnawed stick and a taut leash running from the tree to a thicket of bushes. “Seriously? Do I have to nail your paws to the floor?”
“Who are you nailing to the floor?” someone asked as Beast unleashed a rapid cycle of howls and came crashing back into view. She jumped out of the tree just in time to stop him from attacking the Prime Minister of Marestam.
“Angus!” He wore a long red overcoat with black fuzz around the collar, and a matching fedora. Someone really needed to tell him that style had sailed centuries ago. “What are you doing out here?”
Instead of answering her question, he panned from her to the tree and back again. “I realize views have changed since I was young,” he said as two massive bodyguards came to a halt behind him, “but should you be leaping about like that in your condition? Or climbing trees?”
She assured him it was fine and inquired, again, as to what in the world he was doing in the Braddax Hills. “Crap. You don’t have a fundraiser at the inn I forgot about, do you?”
Angus let out a warm laugh and embraced her—in that fake political way that feels like hugging a flagpole—until Beast began to growl. He lowered his front to the ground and raised his butt in the air.
Angus stepped back and rubbed the top of his cane with both hands. They were both wrapped in leather gloves. What was he planning on wearing when it got really cold? Autumn hadn’t even officially arrived yet. “Is that a play pose or is he preparing to attack?”
“Oh, he’s never attacked anyone.” She knelt down to scratch him and got a fog of thick, hot breath in the face. “That I know of, anyway. He is a rescue.”
Angus cleared his throat in an “I see” kind of way and exchanged looks with his bodyguards. “Well, I just stopped by the inn to drop off the housewarming gift that finally arrived yesterday. And to see how you’re holding up. Horrible, what happened last night after I left Tantalise. Is the little one going to be all right?”
Belle forced a smile and poured all of her attention into untying Beast’s leash from the tree. “Oh, we’re both fine. It was an innocent mistake.”
“Yes, well.” Angus cleared his throat again. Was he trying to dislodge a tonsil? “Innocent would be not having illegal herbs to begin with. But I share some of the blame for letting Tantalise pick and choose which laws they’d like to enforce. I wasn’t stern enough. It makes me terrified for those children they’re supposedly adopting. I certainly don’t enjoy inserting myself into other people’s homes, but when it endangers respectable people like you or—”
“I’m fine.” Why couldn’t she have watched the sunset from a more secluded spot? Like a cave? “I really wish the media hadn’t gotten hold of the story. Those people think they’re defending me—and I appreciate that—but really they’re just creating a whole lot of pain for no reason.”
Belle didn’t think it was possible for Angus’s lips to get any flatter, but they essentially disappeared while he considered her statement. Finally, he nodded and rapped his cane against the ground. “Right. Well, what’s say I give you a lift back to the inn? It’ll be dark before you know it and—”
“What about Beast?”
“The dog?” His eyebrows fell inward. “It can’t find its own way home?”
Belle wrapped Beast’s leash so tightly around her fist that her fingers turned bright white. First, Angus disturbs her peace and quiet. Then, he accuses one of her closest friends of being neither respectable nor fit to have a family. And then he advocates abandoning Beast in the woods. Prime Minister or not, he was two words away from—she looked at his bodyguards—well, from something. She did have bear spray in her pack.
Instead of accepting the ride, Belle walked the bony old man back to the road, where his limo was waiting. She couldn’t help but notice that he smelled like grapes—when they grew weepy and shriveled and encased in that gross white webbing. After another quick hug, she promised to keep him updated on the baby’s progress, and he promised to go easy on Snow. She suspected that neither vow meant a thing.
“Again, I’m sorry the gift came so late,” Angus repeated through his half-open window.
Belle pasted on a smile. An offering from Angus Kane was the last thing she cared about at the moment—though he did have surprisingly good taste when it came to gifts. Cindy had raved incessantly about the wristwatch he gave her for her thirtieth birthday—the one inlaid with an ancient Elladean stone.
“It’s rather large,” he continued, “so I hope you haven’t completely finished decorating yet. I left it with a young man I don’t recall from the grand opening. Cheerful chap. You must be doing well to have hired a groundskeeper already.”
She tried to let this go without showing any reaction, but she was probably the world’s worst liar. All she managed to get out was a preoccupied, “Mmmhmm,” and “I’m sure I’ll find a place for the gift.”
“Oh, wait!” she exclaimed, just as the window began to close. “I should ask while you’re here. Have you heard from Aaron or Cinderella at all? I know they’re barely halfway through their trip, but it’s not like her to be so out of touch. Rapunzel sent emails a weeks ago and—”
“If I were you, I’d consider their silence a good thing,” he said with a smirk. “For once in their lives, they’re relaxing. Plus, I know firsthand that it’s nearly impossible to find a good Internet connection in Ellada. And cell service for that matter. But I know they spoke to their children a few days ago. Heard it directly from Cinderella’s stepsister.”
“Priya?”
“No. The nice one.”
“Oh, Grace.” Belle nodded. She felt a layer of fear evaporating off her body. With everything else going on, she hadn’t even realized how much Cindy’s silence was actually bothering her. It wasn’t much relief in the grand scheme of things, but she’d take it.
The light bounced off Angus’s ring as he gave a mock salute and finally disappeared behind a blackout panel of bulletproof glass. The car wasn’t even out of sight before Beast whined and began to pull her toward the Phoenix.
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the
dark,” she joked, knowing full well that he was whining for his dinner. “Okay, we’re going.”
They were only a few hundred yards away when he started whining again. Belle shivered as something cold pressed against the back of her neck. A wet leaf, probably. She reached back to pull it off but nothing was there but air—air as cold as ice.
“You shouldn’t be out here alone.”
Belle felt her bones jump three feet in the air before her skin had a chance to catch up. She thrust her fist into her pack for the bear spray, but only succeeded in knocking the entire thing to the ground, which hit Beast and sent him galloping up the drive and out of sight. She let out a holler, heard it echo back at her, and then spun around. A disheveled woman with frizzy hair and a glittery gown was stumbling in circles, as if someone had just shoved her off a carousel.
“Good gracious, lady!” Ruby Welles clutched her heaving chest with one hand and fanned herself with the other. “You’re going to cause the first fairy heart attack in history. Bring the hysterics down a notch, would you?”
Belle bent over for her bag, using the moment to steal a longing glance towards the inn. Beast was probably sitting beside his dinner bowl right now, whining and wondering why it was empty. Rapunzel was right. Some guard dog he was. She could have been getting raped and murdered right now.
“What are you doing here, Ruby?” she asked when she straightened back up. Her hands automatically rested at the base of her back. Pregnancy calling card. “Just because you can pop out of thin air on people doesn’t mean that you should. I don’t want to talk to you about anything right now.”
The mental exhaustion of the past forty-eight hours was taking its toll. Or maybe that was just the effect Ruby had on her now. For all of the fairy’s sparkle—her feel-good talk show with millions of desperate-for-love fans; her gushy, self-help exposés that sold out before they even hit the shelves; her moral superiority that paled only in comparison to her magic—maybe Belle was finally seeing who she really was: a needy old lady wearing too much perfume.
