Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 91373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Aria leaned across the table toward me. “Does your cousin have to be so attractively rugged? Farmers are supposed to be jolly old men.”
I chuckled at that and waved off her concern. “Jared would never.” He was a player, but he had lines he wouldn’t cross.
Theo ducked his head into our conversation. “Are we talking about the flirty Lolita?” He gestured comically with his hand.
I squeezed his thigh under the table. “Try not to be so obvious.”
“And don’t bring up Lolita in any sense of the word.” Aria threw a peanut at him. “It’s creepy.”
Theo laughed, raising his hands in surrender. “Apologies.”
“You could be helpful and rescue Jared from the conversation,” I whispered.
My boyfriend smirked at me as if I were adorably naive. “My love, I do not think the good farmer wants to be rescued from this situation.”
I frowned and cut a look at Jared. He was staring a wee bit too intensely at Allegra as she smiled and chatted to him about wanting to see the farm, if he might let her set up her easel on the land so she could paint. Jared shrugged noncommittally as he scrubbed a hand over his perfectly trimmed beard.
Allegra stopped talking as if waiting for a proper answer. The rest of our table chatted on, Theo joking with Aria and North about the article that had just come out in which Angeline Potter denigrated Ardnoch. Aria took his teasing easily, considering it hadn’t harmed Ardnoch. Everyone in the know knew Angeline’s membership had been cancelled after I’d told Agnes Hutchinson what had occurred during my time there. To my surprise, a new housekeeper had come forward with similar complaints. Theo had been right. Angeline had found someone new to bully.
My thoughts drifted, however, and drowned out the conversations at the end of the table as I watched Jared and Allegra stare at each other. Goose bumps rose on my arms as I witnessed something silent pass between them.
And then Jared shook his head slightly, as if coming out of a daze, and he suddenly turned to Walker. “Mate, can you let me out?”
Walker and Sloane slid out of the booth to grant Jared’s exit, and I saw Allegra follow his movements as my cousin cut across the bar toward the restroom.
For a while, I fell into discussion with my friends, Allegra engaging with us too. But then I noted after some time that she noticed Jared hadn’t returned. I watched her look for him and find him at the bar, flirting with a local named Sadie. She was a hairdresser at Ardnoch’s only salon, a single mum, and about ten years older than Jared. I knew from rumors that they’d slept together a few years back.
Apparently, Sadie wasn’t sore that it hadn’t turned into anything because she and Jared left the pub together.
He never looked at Allegra again.
Aria’s pretty sister frowned at the table, lost in her thoughts.
I opened my mouth to speak, but I didn’t know what to say.
Theo covered my hand with his and smiled tenderly down at me. “Leave it, my love.”
Aye, he was right. There was no point making something big out of nothing.
“Sarah, you have to tell me what happens in the next Juno book!” Monroe suddenly yelled down the table. “We were just updating Brodan and Walker on the cliff-hanger you’ve left us all on.”
I laughed at her disgruntled expression. “I’ll tell you soon once I know. I start writing it next week.”
“Oh, you must have an idea, though.”
“I do.”
Theo chuckled at my smug secretiveness.
Monroe huffed. “Do we not get the friendship sneak peek? Come on.”
The friendship sneak peek. That sounded nice. “Well …” I heaved a dramatic sigh. “Since it’s you, I can tell you that Juno will live.”
“We know that! It’s the Juno McLeod series.”
Chuckling, I leaned into Theo. “Should I tell them?”
“Herrings,” he whispered in my ear. “Tell them just the red herrings.”
“Don’t listen to whatever he is whispering in your ear. I can tell he’s not on our side.” Sloane pointed a pretend angry finger at Theo.
Theo chuckled. “She knows me well.”
“Not as well as I do,” I murmured.
“No one knows me as well as you do,” he offered with casual surety.
I stared at him in awe, disbelieving that this once closed-off, cynical aristocrat’s son could make me feel like I was the most important person in the world and do it every day. As I stared up at his handsome face, with my friends begging to know more about my books because they were genuine fans, I didn’t think I could get any happier than I was at that moment.
ONE WEEK LATER
Gairloch, Scottish Highlands
“In other headlines this evening,” the radio newscaster announced as we drove the winding, dark roads toward Gairloch, “serial killer Quinn Gray, sentenced to life in prison back in May of this year for the Hangman murders, died today from multiple stab wounds. Paramedics were unable to resuscitate him as he succumbed to his injuries before reaching hospital. Police have yet to name suspects but have released a statement confirming Gray was attacked by a fellow inmate.