Page 47 of The Beast's Heart

“Mal, please keep an eye on Ben and Enrique for a moment? I want to go check on Alisha.”

I feel like I’m telling him to watch his brothers and my heart hurts, knowing that’s not true. He blinks at me, as if surprised I’d give him the responsibility. I second guess myself as I walk away. There are so many ways for children to get hurt out here. But he is nearly a teenager and me hovering would do him few favors.

I find Alisha and Adam in a clearing not far away, kneeling in the dirt, shoulders close, peering at something between the tree roots.

“Now the way you know they’re poisonous,” Adam’s saying, “is that red color. It’s red like a warning sign. Other things to look out for include?—”

I clear my throat and they both sit up.

“I may have gone a wee bit off script,” he admits with a lopsided smile that goes straight to my core. The combo of that look and him playing up his Scottish heritage does something to me.

I settle on his other side. My knees sink into damp soil.These trousers will probably never be the same.“What are you looking at?”

“Just some fellas that’re great to have at parties,” Adam says.

I duck to look. There’s a cluster of red-capped mushrooms there. “Oh, are they hallucinogenic?”

He snorts. “They’re fun guys.”

I look back at him so fast my neck clicks. Alisha falls back giggling.

I just stare. “You… you made a dad joke.”

He nudges me and smiles.Smiles. A proper, full smile. My insides turn into a gooey mess. It may just be the best smile I’ve ever seen. The warmth shining in his eyes, the way they crinkle up, and there—I can just see it where his beard hair is thinnest— the dimple.

He laughs. “No need to look quite that horrified. There are worse puns where that came from, believe me.”

“I look forward to hearing them,” I say weakly.

Mal is swinging from a branch, high up a tree when we return. “Bet you can’t do this!”

“Can too!” Ben scrambles up the tree after him and my heart lodges in my throat. Mal hauls himself onto the branch and starts singing a taunting song.

“You’re not even that high up!” Alisha calls.

“You couldn’t climb this high!”

Alisha takes this as a challenge. She pulls off her trainers and strides towards the tree. She’s incredibly nimble as she pulls herself up onto a branch, then another, passing Ben and quickly gaining on Mal.

Enrique peers up at them and then attempts to follow, although his small hands struggle to gain enough purchase for him to clamber very high.

I step forward, opening my mouth to call them down. Adam places a steadying hand on my arm. I can feel the warmth of his hand through the fabric of my cardigan.

“You never climb a tree, Belle?” he asks in a low voice.

I practically lived in my treehouse when I was Mal’s age. “They seem so much smaller than I was.”

Adam laughs, deep and rumbly.

“I mean, one of those branches could break.” Like the one we passed. “Or they could slip. God, how did my father allow me to do this? By myself. Without supervision.”

“I think you need a distraction.” His hand’s still on my arm and he gently guides me over to the picnic basket.

“I asked Ray to pack us a little something extra,” he whispers. He reaches into the basket and draws out a bottle of wine and two plastic tumblers.

My heart skips.Wine? For us to drink? Together? “I’m sort of on the clock.”

Hetsks.“I’ll grant special dispensation. You’ve just passed your probation after all.” He presses one of the tumblers into my hand.

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