“Jeez, fall out of bed one time and suddenly I can’t walk down the stairs alone?”
“Sounds reasonable to me,” he said.
“It’s the exact opposite of reasonable! And where are we going?”
“To the dining room to eat. Although it’s likely cold by now.”
“But isn’t the dining room that way?” She pointed back to where they’d come from.
Stopping, he shook his head at her. “No. I need to put a tracker on you.”
“Do not! No one is tracking me,” she announced as they walked into the dining room.
Drat.
She had really thought the dining room was in the opposite direction. How on earth was she ever going to find her way around this house?
“Who is tracking you?” Jared demanded.
North sent her a knowing look at Jared’s words.
“No one,” she grumbled. “North just thinks that I’m going to get lost or something.”
“Ahh, good plan,” Jared said. “You should make that happen.”
“What? I don’t think so. I draw the line at you guys tracking me.”
“That’s where you draw the line?” North asked.
“Yes.”
“Interesting.”
Huh? How was that interesting?
“Come. You need to eat,” North said when Jared didn’t say anything more.
In fact, he looked preoccupied by something on his phone.
“Is everything okay?” she asked as North helped her sit. She was getting better at sitting in a chair they held out.
“Yes. Fine,” Jared replied.
“I’m going to heat the plates up,” North said, picking up his plate and hers.
Jared’s looked untouched as well. She stood and reached for it. She might as well take it to the kitchen as well.
Only Jared reached out and grabbed her wrist. The movement was so sudden that it startled her, and she let out a cry, nearly falling back on her ass.
Jared scooped her up and drew her onto his lap.
“Holy heck. You’ve got good reflexes.”
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said. “Are you all right?”
“Oh, yeah. Fine. You just . . . startled me.”
More like scared the living daylights out of her. Her heart was still racing.
