Third Time's a Charm (Holland Springs #3)(37)
Gravel crunched under his boots as his long strides ate up the distance between the house and his Mercedes. He couldn’t start his car fast enough. He couldn’t pull out of the drive fast enough.
It didn’t matter that the leather seats were ruined and the interior smelled like chicken shit. It didn’t matter that David Turner would haul his ass to jail for even thinking about speeding. Glancing up at the rear view mirror, the lights of the dashboard gave him an evil glow. This was why he’d never be a hero. Heroes left in defeat and smelling like chicken manure.
While villains…villains snatched victory out of the jaws of defeat. They got the job done and went off to their lair to plot their next moves while minions awaited their decisions. And villains never, ever worried about getting the girl in the end.
Not even one who smelled of jasmine and let him chase her with chicken feathers. Not even one whose greatest desires in life were uninterrupted sleep, friends and cheesecake. One whose infrequent smiles made his gut clench and his heart beat faster.
Looming on the right was the familiar red octagon whose message he wanted to ignore, but he stopped anyway and let his head fall to the steering wheel. His cell vibrated and he picked it up, touching the screen and scanning his latest messages. The last one made his blood run cold.
Time’s running out.
The picture attached was of his mother, lying unconscious and helpless in a hospital--while his Uncle Vladimir sat by her side, somehow managing to look menacing and caring all in one.
Lead coated his guts and his palms began to sweat. His vision blurred and he couldn’t take in enough air, his throat closing.
Breathe, he silently ordered.
“Bugger it.” He stomped on the accelerator.
Chapter Eleven
Unlike her baby sister, Rose had never been a morning person. She was, for all intents and purposes, a creature of the night. Long after the moon made its journey in the midnight sky, she would still be hard at work in their basement kitchen, adding and subtracting ingredients until it was perfect. Whipping up creams and lotions to keep a woman’s skin glowing, smelling heavenly. All to capture the object of her desire.
As a small child she had learned that every Holland woman was practically born with the knowledge. Still Rose was completely grateful that in 1885 the fourth Poppy Holland had decided to preserve her most successful concoctions for future generations and had written down the recipes in a large, heavy tome. There were two main ingredients for every Holland product: the first, specially grown flowers and herbs from the forcing house. The second was such a well-kept secret that only Rose knew of its existence. Not even Skye and sure as hell not Summer.
Four nights before her sixteenth birthday, Rose’s mother had taken her down to the basement kitchen and into the passage ways carved by former slaves and the third Poppy Holland to assist in the Underground Railroad effort. There were three different routes that shot out from the house. One led to the greenhouse, the second to a cottage and the third to a place Rose had never been.
A place she had considered sharing with Sasha before he’d kissed her. Before he had touched her so intimately and with such blissful skill that she could still feel him within her. His elegant fingers sliding over her thigh, not even skipping over the birthmark on the inside. Not like…She shook her head. She wouldn’t think of her former lover and his dislikes. His preferences.
Lifting her arms above her head, she stretched and sighed lustily. Morning had never been greeted so eagerly before. Sunlight poured through the French doors and long, narrow windows of her room. A room that at one time she hated. Hated what it meant. What it stood for. But now in the morning light, it looked like a woman’s room. A woman who was completely and whole heartedly in—
Ivy gurgled and rolled around in the middle of the large bed, distracting Rose and making her smile. “Oh you, sweet, sweet thing.” She scooped her up. “I’m going on a date tonight. It’s going to be an honest-to-goodness real one, with music and amazing food—and wine. Knowing his royal snobbiness, it won’t be around here.”
Ivy’s brows raised, her little lips pursed.
Rose snorted. “You’re as bad as Blackbeard over Sasha. All he has to do is walk in the room and you light up.” As did she. Even if she had to hide it most of the time. “Maybe I’ll ask him to take me dancing.” The last time she’d danced with the opposite sex had been in middle school when they were learning how to Square Dance during P.E.. It had been forced upon both parties by a man wearing shorts so tight and short that it should have been illegal, or students should have been allowed to wear blinders so as to not look at him directly.
She gazed dreamily out the window. Autumn leaves in every color imaginable greeted her and if she sat up straighter she could see the carefully tended garden surrounding the forcing house. Familiar sights. Ones that always welcomed her home, and now Sasha was a part of that.
Last night had been amazing. So amazing that she’d fallen asleep in her bed with Ivy on her chest, she reflected ruefully. The baby had fussed the rest of the evening, so much so that Rose hadn’t heard Sasha return. She’d spent most of the time pacing and patting Ivy’s back before finally settling down in bed with her. Only on what seemed like the hundredth rendition of “My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean”, a song that Azalea had sung to her and her sisters at night, had Ivy’s eyes finally drooped.