Read Online Once Upon a Rose by Laura Florand - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Laura Florand
Tags: Romance fiction
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biology for you. It insisted on reminding a musician that she had to eat.
There proved to be only one Petit Écolier left in the package on the passenger seat, too.
Rats.
She went back inside and for the first time that morning tried to turn a light on. Nothing happened.
All right now. What had happened to the electricity? She shot a fierce, suspicious scowl in the direction of the Growly Bear below and took her shower in freezing cold water—hardly the first time in all those festivals and shoestring road tours that she’d had to do that, but she’d really never developed a love for it. If she found out he’d done something to her electricity, she’d…she’d…well, she’d do something. It would be devilishly punitive, too.
The last thing—the very last thing—she wanted to do, hair dripping and skin covered in goose bumps but fingers tingling pleasurably and not from a hand grip exerciser, was ask Big Grumpy Jerk for help. But she thought she spotted some other faintly familiar heads below. Maybe one of the nicer cousins could help her? Wasn’t that Allegra’s boyfriend, Raoul? Given Allegra’s overt, ready friendliness, how bad could he himself be?
And as that box of rice was resolutely refusing to restore life to her phone, it was either ask them or make her way toward the church steeple in the distance and start asking for help in whatever café Layla found there. She needed groceries and an electrician, or to find out how to contact the local electric company. Maybe she could find a phone and set up a meeting with that lawyer, Antoine Vallier, so she could closet him in his office and find out more about this inheritance.
She drove down to the harvest crew, stopping on the edge of the dirt track by the two cousins the farthest from the Big Grump. Allegra’s boyfriend Raoul stood with another whose name she hadn’t caught, a leaner man with black hair and a kind of elegant mercilessness to his movements that made her think of James Bond playing cards with some terrorist spy. Damien? Was that his name? Unfortunately Layla didn’t spot Allegra herself anywhere. Maybe she was one of those rare graduate students who actually treated her dissertation like a full-time job and was busy writing it.
Raoul and the other cousin were at the end of a row, laughing as they dumped pouches of roses into a burlap sack, having apparently been in some kind of competition as to who could clear their row the fastest, but when Layla stepped out of her car, they turned toward her, their faces growing neutral.
The scent of roses swirled all around the twin punch of masculinity from the two.
Over at some distance, Growly Jerk’s head turned. He still hadn’t figured out how to put his shirt back on, she noticed right away.
Noticed it kind of deep in her body, where the noticing clenched.
Layla did her best to ignore it, and him. “Excuse me,” she said carefully to Raoul, her best bet. At least he had a nice girlfriend. “I wondered if you could help me with directions.”
Raoul bent that unusual russet and charcoal head of his to look at her map. Hesitating, he glanced toward his grumpy cousin in the distance and then cleared his throat, a rumbling sound. “I’m sorry. I’ve, ah, only recently moved back here. I’m afraid I wouldn’t be much help. But you know who’s good at directions?” He nodded toward Matt.
Oh, no way in hell did she want to talk to Growly Bear. Hear “to you?” roared over and over again as if “you” was a lowly worm.
“Couldn’t you at least tell me where I am ?” she demanded, holding the map toward Raoul again.
His amber eyes flicked over it with obvious recognition. But then he squinted across the rose fields as if the thing had been written in ancient Egyptian. “I, ah, tend to rely on my phone,” he said apologetically. “Matt’s your man.”
Maybe these guys were all jerks. Layla looked at the other cousin, the controlled, elegant James Bond one, whose hair was
There proved to be only one Petit Écolier left in the package on the passenger seat, too.
Rats.
She went back inside and for the first time that morning tried to turn a light on. Nothing happened.
All right now. What had happened to the electricity? She shot a fierce, suspicious scowl in the direction of the Growly Bear below and took her shower in freezing cold water—hardly the first time in all those festivals and shoestring road tours that she’d had to do that, but she’d really never developed a love for it. If she found out he’d done something to her electricity, she’d…she’d…well, she’d do something. It would be devilishly punitive, too.
The last thing—the very last thing—she wanted to do, hair dripping and skin covered in goose bumps but fingers tingling pleasurably and not from a hand grip exerciser, was ask Big Grumpy Jerk for help. But she thought she spotted some other faintly familiar heads below. Maybe one of the nicer cousins could help her? Wasn’t that Allegra’s boyfriend, Raoul? Given Allegra’s overt, ready friendliness, how bad could he himself be?
And as that box of rice was resolutely refusing to restore life to her phone, it was either ask them or make her way toward the church steeple in the distance and start asking for help in whatever café Layla found there. She needed groceries and an electrician, or to find out how to contact the local electric company. Maybe she could find a phone and set up a meeting with that lawyer, Antoine Vallier, so she could closet him in his office and find out more about this inheritance.
She drove down to the harvest crew, stopping on the edge of the dirt track by the two cousins the farthest from the Big Grump. Allegra’s boyfriend Raoul stood with another whose name she hadn’t caught, a leaner man with black hair and a kind of elegant mercilessness to his movements that made her think of James Bond playing cards with some terrorist spy. Damien? Was that his name? Unfortunately Layla didn’t spot Allegra herself anywhere. Maybe she was one of those rare graduate students who actually treated her dissertation like a full-time job and was busy writing it.
Raoul and the other cousin were at the end of a row, laughing as they dumped pouches of roses into a burlap sack, having apparently been in some kind of competition as to who could clear their row the fastest, but when Layla stepped out of her car, they turned toward her, their faces growing neutral.
The scent of roses swirled all around the twin punch of masculinity from the two.
Over at some distance, Growly Jerk’s head turned. He still hadn’t figured out how to put his shirt back on, she noticed right away.
Noticed it kind of deep in her body, where the noticing clenched.
Layla did her best to ignore it, and him. “Excuse me,” she said carefully to Raoul, her best bet. At least he had a nice girlfriend. “I wondered if you could help me with directions.”
Raoul bent that unusual russet and charcoal head of his to look at her map. Hesitating, he glanced toward his grumpy cousin in the distance and then cleared his throat, a rumbling sound. “I’m sorry. I’ve, ah, only recently moved back here. I’m afraid I wouldn’t be much help. But you know who’s good at directions?” He nodded toward Matt.
Oh, no way in hell did she want to talk to Growly Bear. Hear “to you?” roared over and over again as if “you” was a lowly worm.
“Couldn’t you at least tell me where I am ?” she demanded, holding the map toward Raoul again.
His amber eyes flicked over it with obvious recognition. But then he squinted across the rose fields as if the thing had been written in ancient Egyptian. “I, ah, tend to rely on my phone,” he said apologetically. “Matt’s your man.”
Maybe these guys were all jerks. Layla looked at the other cousin, the controlled, elegant James Bond one, whose hair was
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