CHAPTER 14 GIGI
GIGI
For the past couple of hours, Gigi had chosen to operate under the assumption that Rohan and Brady’s Bayou Adventure had been out there unfolding like some kind of perfectly harmless, madcap buddy comedy.
Knox and Savannah had not been so convinced, and if even ten more minutes had passed before Brady’s reappearance, Gigi might not have been able to put either of them off for much longer.
Fortunately, Brady was now present and accounted for, looking only a little worse for the wear as he quietly closed the door behind him and met Knox’s gaze with a silent message that Gigi heard loud and clear.
“You didn’t find anything,” Gigi said. You didn’t find her. Calla.
That was, of course, assuming the Woman in Red had been the one to leave the flower.
All Gigi knew for sure was that the calla lily hadn’t been there when she’d tread that path the first time, so the person who’d left it had to have put it there while Gigi was in the clearing with Brady and Knox.
Maybe it had been placed before Savannah and Rohan had stepped into the clearing and they just hadn’t noticed it, or maybe it had been placed there less than a minute before Gigi found it.
Either way, whoever left the calla lily had been close.
“I looked everywhere,” Brady said. To Gigi, that sounded like an accusation, one that said that Knox hadn’t looked at all.
“You’re lucky you didn’t catch an arrow,” Knox told Brady flatly.
Brady’s gaze went to Knox’s collarbone, where his scar was covered by his shirt. “You should have told me.” Brady’s voice shook slightly. “Years ago, Knox. I deserved to know.”
“Told you?” Knox repeated, his voice dangerously soft.
“About the way Calla warned me not to try to find her? The way she reinforced that warning by pressing the tip of an arrow to my neck?” There was something almost animal in Knox’s eyes.
“Maybe I should have given you a play-by-play of the way I leaned forward into that arrow, forcing the first cut as I swore to the woman I loved that I was not afraid of her.” Knox’s voice was nothing but darkness now.
“Calla didn’t even flinch. Neither did I.
The two of us just stood there, not flinching.
But you’re right, Daniels, I owed you a detailed description of the way she pushed that arrow in deeper and deeper as she ripped my heart out and threw it away, because at the end of the day, despite everything that had passed between us, she was a Thorp, and I was nothing but Landry trash. ”
A barely literate, backwoods nobody who’s broken inside and always will be. Gigi’s heart couldn’t take it, but all Brady said was “You could have told me.”
“You loved her.” Knox said that like it was a thing he’d always known, like he hadn’t loved Calla, too. “And I was okay with you hating me if that was what you needed to do.”
“You were okay with being hated because that’s what the dark place tells you that you deserve,” Brady shot back. “Don’t put that on me.”
“Speaking of the dark place,” Gigi said, eyeing Knox warily, “would anyone like to take a deep breath and share their favorite woodland creature and/or upbeat song lyric?”
Before anyone could respond, the door swung inward. Rohan. Gigi breathed an internal sigh of relief, because the second British von Saucypants graced them with his presence, Brady’s gaze swiveled from Knox to Savannah—or, more specifically, to the necklace Savannah was now wearing.
“That isn’t yours,” Brady said roughly.
“I’d be happy to give it back it to you,” Savannah replied. “In England.”
They’d come here to find Brady, and they’d found Brady. For Savannah, maybe it really was that simple, but for Gigi, nothing felt simple right now. In the past two hours, she hadn’t even managed to set down calla lily number two.
Warning number two.
“I can’t leave,” Brady said roughly. “If there’s even a chance that Calla is here, that she’s close, I can’t leave.” He looked to Gigi, to the lily in her hand. “This is me asking you to tell me everything you know about that.”
Everything Gigi knew wasn’t much. “I was told it’s a warning of sorts.”
“What sort?”
“The floral sort?” Gigi guessed.
The scholar in Brady wasn’t satisfied with that. “What good is a warning if the recipient has no idea what she’s being warned about?”
“Valid point,” Gigi replied.
Brady’s gaze flitted from the calla back to the necklace Savannah had claimed. “Fleur-de-lis literally translates as ‘flower-of-lily,’” Brady commented.
“Because what we really need right now,” Knox muttered, “is a French lesson.”
“Where did Calla get the necklace?” Gigi asked. “And on a related note, who named her? Because I’m really sensing a theme here.” Fleur-de-lis. Calla lilies. The Lily. Calla.
“Helena Thorp gave Calla that necklace for her fourth birthday,” Brady replied. “Calla never took it off. Given the way that family operates, I’d lay a lot of money on the family matriarch having been the one to name Calla as well.”
Gigi pondered that.
“Perhaps, instead of aimlessly theorizing about all of this,” Savannah said, “we should consider going to someone who has actual answers. The person who gave you that necklace, Brady. The person who told Gigi that calla lilies are warnings.”
The duchess. Savannah, as always, kept her eye on the prize.
“It’s too late to go anywhere tonight,” Rohan pointed out. “I believe some rest is in order.”
The look Savannah sent him in reply to that was what Gigi would have described as genital-withering, but Rohan seemed to be fully immune. He was also, Gigi suspected, her best bet for an ally in what she was about to propose.
“Before we lock down for the night,” Gigi said brightly, “can we all just agree that I would make excellent bait? Maybe this lily of doom was for me, maybe it was more of a broadly targeted, pseudo-threatening hello—but either way, look how helpless I can look!” Gigi demonstrated.
“And my talent for being kidnapped, surviving without a scratch, and kind of enjoying the experience is pretty much unmatched.”
“No.” Knox did not seem compelled to elaborate on that.
“I understand where you’re coming from, but it worked when Zella did it and—”
“You are not using my sister as bait,” Savannah told Rohan, cutting Gigi off.
“Wouldn’t dream of it, love.” Rohan’s tone made it perfectly clear that yes, yes, he would.
Excellent! Gigi raised her hand. “Does anyone have a small and easily camouflaged GPS tracker? Hypothetically.”
“No.” Knox punctuated that by stomping to the ramshackle closet and pulling out a mound of faded blankets, which he dumped unceremoniously in Gigi’s arms. “You and your sister can take the loft bed.” Knox crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ll sleep outside and keep watch.”
“Keep watch for mysteriously cloaked figures?” Gigi asked. “Or keep watch to make sure I don’t mosey off anywhere?”
“Both.” Knox’s tone strongly implied that moseying anywhere would not go well for Gigi.
“I’ll join you on watch, Mr. Landry,” Rohan volunteered. “You can take ground level, and I’ll take the platform. The intrepid Mr. Daniels can sleep in here on the floor.”
In other words: Rohan wasn’t about to let Brady mosey off anywhere, either.
“Oh, I can, can I?” Brady sounded contemplative, but Gigi was pretty sure that what he was contemplating was a very zen punch to Rohan’s solar plexus.
Rohan flashed his teeth in a wolfish smile. “None of us knows what tomorrow holds, Mr. Daniels. I suggest you and the ladies sleep while you can.”