They all looked at him curiously and he frowned at their attention. “It’s a standard business tactic,” he said stiffly. “Poach the best players away from the competition.”
“What competition?” Breck asked curiously. “Scarlet’s got a kind of a narrow niche here.”
“And our offers were from all over the place,” Travis added. “Not just one rival resort.”
“Beehag has been trying to sell the island, and Scarlet’s been giving him nothing but trouble over that,” Tex suggested thoughtfully. “Maybe he’s trying to whittle away at the resort to get her out of here?”
“Beehag isn’t smart enough to come up with something like that,” Breck scoffed.
Travis looked concerned. “Jenny says his lawyer is a smart cookie. Maybe it was his idea.”
They all sat around musing that idea for a moment, and Breck finally asked Conall bluntly, “So can you hear now or what?”
Conall laughed humorlessly, thinking about how oddly he must be coming across—deaf but not always. “I can only hear when I’m touching Gizelle. And it’s not really hearing... it’s... hearing through her ears. Sort of.”
Slow, puzzled nods answered him, and he felt compelled to add. “It’s honestly not all that comfortable. I thought it was just that I’d forgotten what hearing was like, but she’s got a lot more input than most people. It’s really rather overwhelming, with so many voices. She can hear the voices of our animals. All of them at once.”
The silence that met that was clearly each of them consulting with their own inner animals and meeting astonishment.
“It’s almost all just whispers, like trying to listen to a hundred radios turned down really low that are just slightly out of tune, all at once,” Conall was quick to explain. “It’s not like either of us could eavesdrop even if we tried; I’ve been able to pick out just a few words at all. She says it’s clearer if she makes skin contact, but she doesn’t like to do that.”
“Sweet daisies,” said Tex. “No wonder she doesn’t like touching people.”
“Remarkable,” Bastian said.
“I’m not sure I want Gizelle hearing my leopard,” Breck said, amused. “He has some very dirty thoughts.”
“Dirtier than yours?” Travis needled him.
“You’d be surprised,” Breck said with a grin and a wink.
Chapter 41
“I’m getting in the shower before lunch,” Conall called from the bedroom. He had just returned from using the noisy machines in the little fitness center near the pool. “Want to join me?”
Gizelle was perched on the deck railing, looking out over the tiny lawn. She hadn’t put her dress on yet, but that didn’t matter if she wasn’t wandering about where the guests were. “I’m afraid of showers,” she called back. Then she remembered that Conall wouldn’t be able to hear her, so she hopped off the railing to tell him.
He already had the water running, and it was just starting to steam.
Gizelle crept into the bathroom with her hands over her ears, but when she went to repeat herself where Conall would be able to see her, she stopped and simply watched him.
She had seen him without clothing several times, though not as many times as the other way around.
But she had never seen him quite like this, not looking at her, unconsciously graceful and so incredibly sexy as he groomed himself.
He was so marvelous, with his broad, muscled shoulders and his strong arms as he stood under the cascade of water in the open shower. Talented fingers poured shampoo into the opposite hand, then massaged it into his short hair, causing a cascade of bubbles that followed all the tantalizing planes and crannies of his splendid body.
He turned then, and smiled, and if he had been dazzling before, it was nothing to what he was when he looked at her like she had just hung the stars in the sky.
“I’m afraid of showers,” Gizelle repeated faintly, but when he put out a hand to her anyway, she tentatively uncovered her ears and followed him into the far end of the open shower, carefully skirting away from the falling water.
The sprinkles from the stream felt cool as they evaporated slowly off her skin. It was noisy, but not as overwhelming as it always had been before.
r /> Nothing was as overwhelming as it had been before Conall, and when his hand remained out in invitation, she finally crept a few steps forward and took it.
She braced herself for the worst as he pulled her gently into the stream, then gave a gasp of relief and delight.
It was amazing.