Gizelle looked at Conall in consternation.
Scarlet had shown her photographs of Boston. It was big, and busy, and full of people and buildings and streets and she didn’t have to be told that it would be loud.
“Scarlet doesn’t even think I should go to the mainland,” Gizelle tried to explain. “I don’t want to go to the mainland.” Was Boston on the mainland or was it on another island? She had looked at maps with Travis, as he tried to explain how Alaska wasn’t an island even though it was shown surrounded by water. Was Boston like that?
She wondered if she could go to Boston. She wanted to follow Conall, but the whole idea of a city made the urge to flee rise in her throat.
She didn’t realize she was shaking until Conall reached for her, and she jumped back, just out of his reach. His hand fell back to his side.
“I’m not asking you to come to Boston,” he said firmly.
“Not now, or not ever?” Gizelle asked suspiciously.
He was silent with consternation.
He didn’t know what he wanted, Gizelle realized with unexpected clarity.
He was clearly drawn to her, the same, strange, gut-deep way that she couldn’t stop thinking about him, and her gazelle couldn’t stop sighing over him.
But he couldn’t want the rest of her, like she couldn’t want the Boston and business that he came with.
She couldn’t bear the idea of traveling over the ocean, or seeing a city, or leaving the only safe place she knew in the world.
He could clearly not bear the idea of leaving his business, and Gizelle knew she was nothing to look at, and that her broken mind would test any bond.
What must he look at her and think?
She was a clumsy disaster, with no memories, no social graces. She looked up at the staff announcement board without seeing it. She couldn’t even read.
“Gizelle...”
Even his voice was perfect.
She had to look at him, Gizelle reminded herself. Otherwise, he wouldn’t understand her.
But when she looked at him, he was so handsome and confusing that all her words got tangled up together and she didn’t have anything to say.
She screwed her eyes shut and tried to think. What had everyone else done when they met their mates? Neal led Mary off for a romantic hike in the rain. Tex took Laura to the mainland to visit the market. Travis taught Jenny build a deck. Bastian showed Saina his hoard. Wrench arranged a picnic on the beach.
Gizelle hated the beach.
But she didn’t know what else to offer. “Do you want to have a picnic on the beach?” she blurted.
She opened her eyes to find Conall staring. “A picnic?” he said helplessly.
Now she was stuck with it. “It’s food, you take it in a basket,” she explained. “Like for lunch. And you sit on the beach and eat it. I guess.” She had never done it herself.
“That sounds nice,” Conall agreed, dashing her hopes that he’d refuse and come up with something better.
“I’ll get the basket,” Gizelle offered. “You get the beach.”
She turned and escaped, wondering what on earth she’d gotten herself into this time.
Chapter 22
Conall realized that there was a wry half-smile on his mouth when actually-Wrench wandered by to check the board and he was still standing at it bemusedly.
He pulled his face into a more familiar frown at Wrench’s glower, and went off to ‘get the beach,’ as directed.