Page 19 of Blood and Magic
He nodded. “I’ll see ya around, Maeve.”
His boots heel-toeing across the hardwood echoed through my body long after he closed the door and went outside.
Ugh, I was such a mess. I couldn’t even hold a civil conversation with the man. How in the world would I spend two months living in close proximity to him?
The nine-year-old girl inside me screamed in both mortification and delight as the twenty-six-year-old woman rubbed her hands over her bloated puffy face and internally screamed.
CHAPTER 6
Maeve
I didn’t see Vermillion again that day. I showered, dressed, and meandered into my father’s office to do the work Sol had left for me. I approved some invoices and replied to a few emails, but running the ranch didn’t fill my soul the way it had my father.
He’d been a hard man, more likely to chastise his children in the name of discipline than to show us a kind word. I had only a few memories of my mother, but I didn’t remember her being very happy. The only people the Vanderbilt siblings had were each other, and even that rested on shaky ground.
Percy had grown to be an evil maniac, Liam had a spine made out of Jell-O, and the jury was still out on Galahad. Though he did seem to be shaping up well enough. Guin, Sol, Ava, and I were the glue that held this family together, even if I still suspected Guin and Sol were keeping something important from the rest of us.
Once the bills were paid and I’d finished my meetings, I wandered around his office, admiring the ancient tomes on the bookshelves and reminiscing about the photos scattered around. Judging by these mementos, one might believe the old man cared about us. Perhaps he did, in his own way. He was never the touchy-feely type, made even colder by our mother’s untimely death.
Some people shouldn’t be allowed to have children, and he was one of them. Growing up, I often wondered what life would have been like had our mother survived. Would she have softened him? Would she have been a rock for him to break himself against? Or would this world have dimmed her light, too?
A few hours later, I forced myself to eat lunch on the veranda, sketching in my notebook and watching as the ranch hands worked the barn and corralled the horses. An unbroken stallion jumped in the training pen while two men circled it, trying to bring it to heel. Mill stood on the outside, arms over the metal barrier, his hat covering his eyes. But I could tell from his height and stature it was him.
I shouldn’t stare. It was incredibly rude to watch someone while they worked, especially when that someone happened to be an employee. But something about him drew me in like a tractor beam. His broad shoulders gave way to a narrow waist and hips, his jeans complementing the muscular curve of his ass and legs. Almost as if he could feel my gaze, he turned and looked up at the balcony.
We were several hundred yards away from each other. There was no way he could have known I’d been looking or even that it was me eating all alone. But when our eyes connected, a shiver raced down my spine and landed between my legs, reminding me I’d once adored him and that young girl inside still did.
I’m ridiculous. Truly and utterly ridiculous.
Here I was, ogling some poor man while he was trying to do a favor for his buddy. He didn’t want to be here any more than I did.
Feeling a strange pang of shame, I finished my iced tea, stood, and went back to work. Only after I sat at my desk and looked at my sketchbook did I realize I’d drawn a replica of his intense gaze at the breakfast table that morning. Disgusted, I ripped the page out, crumpled it into a ball, and started throwing it in the trash.
Just as I would have released it, something stopped me. I didn’t want to throw it away. I wanted to keep working on it. I wanted to cherish it, even if I kept it in a deep, secret part of my notebook. Hating myself for it, I smoothed the page out, stuffed it between the last page and the back cover, and told myself I’d get to it some other time.
At the end of the day, I ate dinner alone. Damn near at my wits’ end with this quiet house, I begged Ellen to sit with me.
“Please.” I gestured to the food and the empty seats around the obnoxiously long dinner table. “There’s more than enough. Gather the rest of the staff. I’d love to get to know you all better.”
Ellen only shook her head. “No, ma’am. I can’t. It wouldn’t be proper.”
Whatever that means.
“We’ve already eaten,” she explained, “and our shift is almost over.”
I accepted her excuse and drummed my nails on the wood while I chewed the oven-roasted chicken she’d prepared. I’d never considered myself an extrovert. I’d lived alone in my apartment for several months, and some people could be entirely draining. But never had the ache in my chest been so impetuous as it was in this enormous house with no one to fill it.
One day in, and I wanted to jump out of my skin. How would I make it an entire two months?
My phone buzzed, and I glanced down at it, furrowing my brows when I saw a text message from an unknown number.
“Hey, Big Sis,” it said.
“Who is this?” I wrote back.
“Your real brother-in-law.” A chill went down my spine, but I ignored it.
It’s probably someone playing a prank, or maybe a wrong number.
