“Oh. I’m…sorry to hear that.”
I grinned. “Don’t worry about it. Not telling you for sympathy points. But now you know why I’m not about to stand aside and let you pitch a perfectly good apple into the woods.”
I took a few more bites, getting every last bit of fruit off the core. When I was done, there was nothing left but a very thin core, the two parts connected by the barest of fiber.
“See?That’show you eat an apple.”
“I suppose it is…if you’re a donkey.”
I chuckled as we walked along. “Trust me, you could eat this whole thing if you really wanted to.” I whipped the bit of core into the woods where it vanished with a slight rustle.
We made our way around the property. The tree line had been marked by a long, wooden fence, and as we walked, I took note of the structural integrity. It was built solid, which meant it wouldn’t be too hard to rig it with electrical wire. Or, at the very least, an alarm system.
I noticed something else as we walked. Victoria was paying attention to the fence, too. Now and then she’d stop and squat down, placing her hands on one of the posts.
“Taking an interest in construction?” I asked during one of her checks.
She flashed a hard look at me over her shoulder. “Don’t you worry about it. I’m not required to explain my every move to you, am I?”
I raised my palms. “Hey, just making conversation. It’s a long walk around the property, you know.”
Victoria rose, leaning in toward the purple flowers that grew up around the bushes, and took a good, long sniff.
It was strange to see her do that. It was…normal. She’d close her eyes as she brought her face close to the flowers and take in a long, slow smell. As she did, a warm, pleased smile would spread across her face.
It was nice to see. Victoria might’ve been a royal brat, but in those moments I knew just by the look on her face that there was another side to her, one warm and gentle that could be touched by something as simple as the scent of summer flowers.
During one of her stops, however, she caught me looking. The sweet, innocent expression on her face vanished, turning hard and annoyed.
“What are you doing,Kid?”
I laughed, the way she used my nickname with such a mean tone was funny to me.
“Nothing. You just caught my eye, is all.”
“Hmph.” She turned away from the flowers and marched past me. “Come along. And let’s keep the talking to a minimum. I have a lot on my mind.”
She walked off, my eyes lingering on her perfect ass in those short shorts.
“That makes two of us, Princess.”
10
PYKE
It was around dinnertime when all of us seemed to come to the same conclusion—Victoria was about the biggest pain in the ass that we’d ever worked with. Her saving grace was that she’d spent most of the day up in her room, the door shut.
Thank heaven for small miracles. All the same, the few times she had decided to grace us with her oh-so-royal presence, she’d had nothing to say other than whatever complaint was on her mind at the moment. Hud, Ajax, and I were gathered in the kitchen, Kid out in the outhouse panic room working on getting the security systems up and running. I was at the oven manning a big stock pot full of the red meat sauce I had created, the food filling the air with all kinds of delicious smells.
“What the hell are we going to do about the lass?” Hud asked, exasperation on his face. “Part of me doesn’t mind if she’s going to spend all damn day upstairs. At the same time, we need to be keeping an eye on her.”
I stirred the sauce, swatting away Ajax’s hand as he tried to stick his finger into the mix. “We could tell her to keep her door open, let her know that we’re going to be popping in from time to time checking on her.”
Hud laughed. “Tell her that whatever little bit of privacy she’s got is going away? That’d go over like a pregnant pole vaulter, as me ma says.”
Chuckling, I wiped my hands on a cleaning rag and leaned back against the counter. “You got a better idea? Because if anyone’s watching us, they’re going to find out really quick that we’re not paying attention to her while she’s up there. She could be gone now for all we know.”
Ajax and Hud both gave the matter some thought.