Page 16 of A Murderous Crow
“Questioning Syn’s ability to lead?” I asked.
He scowled at me. “Fuck no! But after this? I’m starting to questionyours. Don’t make me doubt you, bro.”
“When have I ever before?” I demanded.
“First time for everything,” he said.
“The foreigner?” I asked.
“Handled,” he shot back. He slid through my side gate and out onto the night-darkened street, whistling as he made his way down the block, turning to go back behind my carriage house on a brisk walk back toward the Manse.
I wasn’t one hundred percent that I was the one who shit in his Wheaties. Requiem always had several things to be irritated about at once – my little dust-up and slightly left-of-center behavior may just be a straw too many for his camel’s back.
Still, I would be sure to handle little miss thing in my bed, and then get back with him to touch base.
I was usually the dependable one to keep myself out of any drama, so yeah, tonight had been impulsive and out of character.As I reentered my house and returned to my room, I couldn’t help but think that Little Miss Savannah Kittridge had gotten under my skin, and I hadn’t even noticed when it’d happened.
Chapter Nine
Savannah…
I was warm, and slept on a cloud, but it definitely wasn’t my bed at home, and it definitely wasn’t a familiar arm around my middle pulling me back into an equally unfamiliar hard chest.
Itwas, however, a familiar voice in my ear as a man nuzzled my hair just behind it.
“Welcome to your indentured servitude, Ms.Kittridge.”
I closed my eyes and went very still in Corbett Prescott’s arms.
“So, you learned my legal name, so what?”
“Why did you hide it?” he asked, and I rolled my eyes and twisted in his grasp to meet his whiskey-colored gaze.
There was a coldness to them, an empty guardedness, that set my teeth on edge.
“I’m a woman who lives alone in Savannah, Georgia, with my face and name splattered in the paper, and on bus stop benches. What woman in their right mind in this day and agewouldn’toperate under an assumed name under those set of circumstances?”
He chuckled lightly and said, “Touché.”
“Why can’t I remember how I got here?” I demanded, and a thread of panic threatened to choke me.
“You had a rough night,” he said, and I swallowed hard.
“So did you,” I observed, and he lifted one shoulder in a shrug and let me turn in his grasp. I lay on my back in his bed, and had no idea how I’d gotten there, no matter how hard I tried to think. It was like a gray-black haze, worse than the time I’d gotten blackout drunk on a pilfered jar of my pa-paw’s peach shine.
“It wasn’t rough for you at all, was it?” I accused.
“I’ve been through rougher,” he confessed, and I blinked.
“I don’t know what to say,” I finally said after a protracted silence in which we simplystaredat one another.
“’Thank you,’ is a good start,” he said dryly.
“Thank you for saving my life.” I could concede that one. “But what the hell did you just say? Indentured servitude?” I raised an eyebrow.
“For a while,” he said.
“So, I owe you for saving my life?” I demanded and tried to remain focused on his impassive face and those cold and contemplative eyes that should have been so warm for their color.
