“Yes,” she snarled. Her clenched hands trembled at her side. It had to be from the force it took to keep them there, instead of folded across her chest… Her lace-covered chest that took every ounce of Daniel’s willpower to keep from ogling. Her tone softened slightly. “Thank you.”
“What are you doing?”
“Read the sign. Then go away.”
He glanced at the folded cardboard with scribblings on it. The insignia, he recognized, but the words written on it meant nothing to him. “What does it mean?”
“It’s an initiation thing,” she supplied.
He didn’t miss how fast she was blinking back tears.
“I didn’t know Animos took in women.” Mild surprise colored him. Even without the insignia-stamped sign, this had all the makings of an Animos initiation. Nudity. Public humiliation. The swirling specter of possible accidental death by hypothermia. He’d never seen a woman involved before. Not as a candidate, anyway.
“They don’t. But they will.” For the first time, her voice tilted up. She was past crying. Daniel counted it as a small victory for himself. Maybe it meant she trusted him, even if only a little bit. “What are you doing here?”
The guitar case slid off of his back. With great care, he set it down on the stone pathway, snapping open the latches to reveal the instrument to the stars. He did everything as matter of fact as he could. He’d be damned if he left her out here to the wolves, but he’d be even more damned if she realized he was trying to protect her. She didn’t seem the type to want pity.
“I came out here to play.” The body of his guitar lay against him like a shield. Once it was in place, he extended his hand, careful to keep his eyes on hers and nowhere else on her body. “I’m Daniel, by the way. Daniel Best.”
He’d been right about her eyes. Arresting. The ends of her lips twitched upward in the softest hint of a smile.
“Sam Dubarry.”
Removing his hand from hers, he shook it out to rid himself of the tingles she zapped through him.
“Dubarry.” He directed the conversation as smoothly as he could, scraping his internal movie catalogue for some hint of what to do. What would Leo DiCaprio, James Cagney, or Jimmy Stewart do if he were standing here instead of Daniel? “You must know my boss. Thomas the…I don’t know, seventy-eighth?”
She rewarded his joke with a chuckle. It broke the silence of the greens like a tinkling of wind chimes.
“He’s my dad,” she admitted.
Daniel searched his pockets for a pick. Always the most difficult part of getting ready to play, it at least afforded him some cover of casualness.
“The rumors are true, then.”
“What rumors?”
“The rumors that Old Man Dubarry has a beautiful daughter.”
A breath of silence. She ducked her head.
“No one called me beautiful.”
“You have sisters?” he asked.
“No.”
“Then they must have been talking about you.” God, if Angie could see him now. His face was brighter than Fifth of November fireworks. He dipped his head to tune the guitar, toying with the strings until it sounded right to him. “I saw you. Today at the house.”
He couldn’t help the hopeful glance he shot her from under his eyelashes. Maybe she had been playing coy. Maybe she didn’t want to remind him she was his boss’s very not-dressed daughter and he was nothing more than a servant. Her head remained bowed.
“I’ve been doing my fair share of drinking this weekend.” She raised her eyebrows, but the joke was weak. “Can’t remember further back than ten minutes ago, to be honest.”
She shivered.
“Shit.” Daniel lost his guitar and coat faster than she could respond.
“What are you doing?”
