“She said she is well and will be all right, Zach,” Nathan said. He then clicked his fingers for Walter to follow them out of the opening and back into the lane. “Fret not.”
“I don’t fret,” he snapped. “Why would she go with that idiot and not accept my help?” He watched her walk slowly away from him. For all Plunge had said to not dirty his jacket, she had her fingers wrapped around his arm, and the man was talking to her. Softly, because he couldn’t hear a word they said.
When had Plunge ever spoken in soft tones?
Zach felt Walter’s body lean against his leg. He scratched the dog behind his ear, and he made a wuffling sound, which was what they had termed this particular noise.
“You should have bitten those boys, Walter.”
The dog let out a loud woof.
“Exactly,” Zach agreed.
“Perhaps the reason Mary went with Plunge is because she had no wish to argue with you any further today. After all, little brother, you and Mary are never civil to each other.”
“I can be civil when she’s hurting!”
“She told us she is in no great pain,” Nathan said reasonably, which did not cool the rage inside Zach.
Since that kiss, everything he’d ever felt for Mary Blake had turned on its head. He’d tried to rationalize it as a moment of madness. A moment that would never happen again and they’d never discuss. He was failing.
“And why would Mary choose to go anywhere with you, Zach? You have only to see her across a room and your hackles rise,” Nathan added, warming to the subject of his and Mary’s antagonism to each other. “Mind you, I would have escorted her to the carriage. But she seemed happy enough to go with Plunge.”
“I don’t understand how a woman of intelligence would want to go anywhere with that man.”
“He is not unkind, Zach, just stupid. And lately I’m not entirely sure about that either.”
“What does that mean?” Zach dragged his eyes from Mary’s retreating form to look at his brother.
“I saw something on Plunge’s face the other evening that surprised me. He looked calculating. It was so different from his usual dim-witted expression that it shocked me.”
“Surely not? Why would any man choose to behave as he is?” Zach asked.
“I don’t know,” Nathan said. “But right now, we need to get that book for Ella and leave.
They walked back into Lolly’s bookstore with Walter.
“Oh, now there is my fine boy,” Mr. Lolly said. “I have just the treat for you, Walter.”
Leaving the dog to the administrations of the Lollys, Zach and Nathan went back up to the second floor of the store and found the selection Mary had made for Ella. Handing it to Nathan he moved to where he’d found Mary when he’d arrived. She’d been determined to return that book to the shelf and not let him do it. He wondered why.
“What are you doing?” Nathan held the bottom of the ladder as Zach began to climb it.
“I don’t know. Just a hunch.”
Zach reached for the book Mary had replaced.
“Find anything?”
“As I’ve just started looking, no.”
He opened the cover and began to search through the pages that in the normal course of his life he’d never read.
“How about now?”
“No.” Zach kept looking with no idea what for. Why had Mary been holding a book titledThe Beginners Guide to Snail Farming?
“Zach!” Nathan snapped.
