“I missed you. Sorry I ruined the party of the year.”
“Please, it was a Knox party, there’ll be others.”
Just then Kalen interrupts by placing breakfast down in front of both of us. Okay, I’ll give him bonus points for that. Begrudgingly.
“Thanks, Kalen.” Elsie smiles at him as she tucks into pancakes that smell so good, I’m drooling.
“Thanks, you can go now,” I tell him with an insincerely sweet smile. Am I being a bitch? Yes. Do I mean to be? No. It’s a self-preservation thing. I don’t want my resolve weakening around him. And some sexy cologne and pancakes for my bestie are not enough to make me forgive him.
“I said I’m your escort, not your slave.”
I can’t help it, my mind goesthere:to that sexy dark place where Kalen is a willing slave...in the bedroom. My thighs clench and my cheeks heat, which of course Kalen catches, and he smirks at me.
“Naughty, naughty, sis.” The bastard tuts at me.
I finish my breakfast lightning quick so that I can get out of here, and I spy my opening when Baxter enters the dining hall. Shooting to my feet, forgetting my injuries and yelping like a damn dog that just got kicked, I tell Kalen to take my bag to assembly and then I flee from him and race over to Baxter. It’s more of a pained hobble, but the intent was there.
“Hey,” I pant. Whoa I’m seriously out of shape. I need to start running again. “Can we talk? Somewhere private?”
Baxter gives me a funny look, but nods and leads the way back out of the dining room. I follow him along the corridor and into a deserted classroom.
“Shoot, little sidekick, what’s the problem?”
“I want to ask you about your tattoo.”
“Which one?”
“You know which. The Celtic Knot.”
“Go on…”
“Tell me about it,” I press. Baxter takes a deep breath and starts rattling off some generic bullshit facts about the symbolism of Celtic Knots. “I can find all of that out on google,” I snap.
“Then what do you want to know?”
“Why do you, and all of the Knox brothers have the same tattoo? Sawyer said it was a family thing, but you’re not family.”
“It’s a symbol of belonging to something bigger than this.”
“What?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why did Sawyer lie to me?”
“You’ll have to ask him.”
“Why did he freak out when he saw this?” I demand, yanking my pendant out from under my shirt. Baxter’s eyes widen infinitesimally, but other than that, he gives no reaction for a moment.
“May I?” he asks, a strange tone to his voice. I nod. He reaches out and runs his thumb over the knot, before pulling down his shirt collar to show me his tattoo. It’s an exact match, not a similarity like I first thought.
“What does it mean?” I ask, awed by the way Baxter is caressing the pendant with reverence.
“I can’t tell you. I like you, Amelie, but it would be more than my life’s worth. If you want answers you need to find Debbie Doyle.”
I smirk because this has to be a wind-up, right? Who in their right mind would name their kid Debbie Doyle?
“You’re joking, right?”
