Page 63 of Late Harvest

Sir Loin.

—From Bash’s dad joke collection

Bash

Bash could feel those sapphire blue eyes on him, and figured out very quickly that actually reading would be an impossible task.

Slowly, he removed his glasses and placed them on the table. “Something on your mind, my angel?”

“You’re not—” Arabella began and then closed her laptop, moving it to the table. “You’re not how I thought you’d be.”

“And how is that?”

“I don’t know,” she mused softly, scanning his face. “But not this.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“No, not at all. It’s good.” She pulled her legs away, shifting to sit crisscross as she faced him on the deep couch. “I have a question.”

“I’m an open book, since,” he waggled his brows, “I’m clearly not going to be reading mine any time soon.”

“Brat,” she whispered, her lips tilting up. “Why do you call me Scrub Angel sometimes and your queen at others?”

“Oh, that’s easy. You’re Scrub Angel when you’re working—Angel for short. But you’re my elegant queen all the time. Do you have royalty in your blood? You must.”

Arabella swallowed, shifting uncomfortably. “No, definitely not.”

“You sure?” he teased. “Maybe not British, because I see none of Charles in you. Thank God. Ooof.” He shuddered dramatically, then tapped his chin. “But maybe…a Spanish princess?”

“No. I’m pretty much a mutt. My mom was from the Midwest. I think a blend of German, Scandinavian, and Polish.”

“And your dad?”

“I don’t really refer to him as such. But he was half Latino—his dad was from Honduras. I’m not sure about his mom, but I know she was Caucasian.”

“You should do one of those spit tests. That’d be fascinating.”

Arabella made a show of removing something nonexistent from under her short, unvarnished nails. The beds were long though, giving the appearance of longer nails, and Bash never thought he’d find plain nails so intriguing. He wanted to suck those talented fingers in his mouth while he put his own fingers in all her tempting places.

“I don’t feel the need to learn anything more about…them…than I know.”

Interesting.

“Where are they?”

“Gone.” It was said with such stark antipathy that Bash’s heart panged. What had these people been like?

“Siblings?”

“None.” She reached for her glass of red wine and took a long sip.

Bash was more of a whiskey kind of guy, but had taken a proffered glass. It was fucking delicious.

“So your agent’s name is Slash?”

Ok. My angel wants to change the subject. I can respect that. “It’s actually Guinn Nelson Randell. He’s been my best friend since college. My buddies and I called him Slash because of his initials.”

She looked at him blankly.