“I could have knocked!” Gizelle realized. Then her face fell. “But you wouldn’t be able to hear it.”
“How long have you been here?” Conall asked.
Gizelle looked up. “The sky is always changing,” she said. “I can never tell.”
“Do you drink coffee?” Conall asked, running a hand through his ruffled dark hair. “Probably not,” he answered himself.
“I could try,” Gizelle offered.
He smiled at that, a slow, tired smile. “You are so beautiful,” he said unexpectedly.
“I am?” The words made Gizelle feel unexpectedly warm at the bottom of her belly, and all the way to her toes. That reminded her, “My nail polish is chipping.”
“I don’t care,” Conall said, and Gizelle had to believe him. He wasn’t looking at her fingers or toes, but at her face, like he was trying to memorize it.
“Tex has a coffee maker behind the bar,” Gizelle whispered, because it was not where guests were supposed to get coffee in the morning. Then she remembered that it didn’t matter how loudly she spoke and felt foolish.
“That is exactly what I need,” Conall said agreeably.
He stood and offered a hand to help Gizelle up, but she didn’t notice it until she had already bounced to her feet.
She wished she had seen it earlier, because she might have actually taken it this time. She thought about how his hand might feel in hers all the way to the bar.
Chapter 26
As advertis
ed, Tex did indeed have a single-serve coffee maker tucked away behind the empty bar. Conall, after only a moment of hesitation, made himself a cup of the strongest option, black. He offered Gizelle a sip, but she took one cautious sniff and shook her head.
“That smells like it will wake you up,” she said, sitting cross-legged on the floor behind the bar. “But I don’t want to be more awake than this.”
Conall slid down to sit across from her, cradling the hot cup in his hands.
“What do you want to do today?” he asked.
“Do you like to play backgammon?” Gizelle asked.
“Yes, well enough,” Conall said, but before he had finished speaking, Gizelle was scrambling up and gone in a flash of bare legs and bright sarong.
Before he had decided if he needed to stand up, or what to do with his coffee, Gizelle was back, a wooden box in her hands. “Breck taught me how to play,” she said eagerly, opening the game between them. “I’ll be black.”
She deftly set up the pieces, and placed dice across the board for Conall. There were no dice cups.
He tossed a die onto the board to roll for first play and Gizelle pushed back into the liquor cabinet behind her, hands over her ears.
“Too loud?” Conall asked in concern.
“Too sharp a sound,” Gizelle said, lowering her hands. “It’s all triangular and red. We usually roll onto a towel.” She crawled over to a drawer—her body tantalizingly close—where she found a bar towel and unfolded it next to the board.
Conall wondered if she had some form of synesthesia, or if she just spoke creatively. He rolled the die again, and she won the first move.
She played better than Conall expected, making clever moves and not hesitating to hit him when the opportunity presented itself. He began by playing generously, but regretted it as she swept her pieces from the board while he was still not fully on his home board.
“You weren’t even trying,” she scolded him. “You thought I couldn’t really play!”
“I... wanted you to have fun,” Conall said, abashed.
Dark eyes met his, solemn and sorrowed. “I can have fun losing,” she assured him.