Page 57 of The Beast's Heart

“Thank you.”

“He thinks you’re 60.”

A laugh jerks out of me quite against my will.

“He thinks you’re an old man who loves poetry and has like six kids.”

“Zane, stop.” I’m still fighting back laughter. It feels really good actually.

Zane sobers. “You know, someone very wise—someone who is around 60 and has six kids in fact—once told me that it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. If there’s one thing this pandemic is showing us all it’s that life might be shorter than we realize. You don’t want to miss out.”

I fold my arms and gaze back towards the house. Once again, I find myself turning over the moment when Adam’s fingers brushed my neck. Then I shake my head to clear the thought.

But Zane has given me another idea. Something that I can do in the name of friendship, if nothing else.

I knock on the control room door and my heart jumps into my throat when Adam’s deep voice calls for me to enter.

I poke my head in. “Do you have a minute? If you’re busy I can come back?”

Adam is at his oversized wooden desk. Behind him, one of the screens shows the children clustered around the playroom TV while they wait for dinner.

“Take a seat.” Adam kicks out the chair opposite him and gestures for me to sit.

My stomach a tangle of knots. I pull the book from my pocket and set it on the desk.

“In Memoriam A. H. H., Alfred Lord Tennyson.” Zane unknowingly quoted one of the famous lines from it.

I went looking for it in the library and, naturally, Lloyd had a copy. If there’s one thing I can rely on in this strange house, it’s Lloyd’s good taste.

“When Tennyson was in his early twenties, he lost his dearest friend to a sudden brain hemorrhage. Over the next seventeen years, he wrote these poems about his grief and… I’m sorry if I’m overstepping. I thought maybe…” I clear my throat, avoiding looking at Adam. “It’s one of the few works that I believe truly captures the feeling not just of grief itself but of the world continuing to move on around you, of feeling adrift and left behind. Our conversation the other—” What am I doing? I’m making so many presumptions. And who brings a man a book ofpoetryin this day and age? “Sorry, maybe I shouldn’t have…” I reach for the book, but he covers my hand with his own.

He’s silent for a moment and my heart thunders at how his skin presses against mine for the time it takes for him to find words. “Thank you,” he says eventually.

His voice is so soft, his touch is so warm. I’m nearly overcome with desire. I take my hand back and stand, possibly a little abruptly. “I should go see to the children before they cause any mischief.” Even though I can see on the screen behind his head that they’re behaving perfectly well.

As I reach the doorway, he calls out, “Jonathan, wait.”

A shiver rushes through me as I turn back. He used my first name.

He’s holding the book in both hands. The slim volume looks so small and out of place against his massive frame.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about our picnic.” It’s suddenly difficult to breathe. “I’d like to do more. With the children. For them. I’m just not sure what… I could use your help?”

I nod and wet my lips. “Well I… I did have one thought.”

He lifts his bushy eyebrows in encouragement.

“Their rooms, they’re all quite plain, aren’t they? Nice but all exactly alike. I thought… well I thought it would have been nice if they were maybe a little more unique? It’s probably a silly idea.”

He smiles. “You angling for a shopping spree, Belle?”

I duck my chin, “Just a few items for each of them. It could be a nice way to make them feel more at home.”

Someone raps on the door and before Adam has a chance to say anything it opens and Geoff strides in, looking down at some papers. “The advertorial just came in, want to give it a—” he looks up, sees me, “read?”

“I was in the middle of something, as a matter of fact,” Adam says, nonplussed.

“Oh, it, uh, wasn’t important,” I say, wishing I could disappear.

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