Fairytale Come Alive (Ghosts and Reincarnation #4)(12)
Author: Kristen Ashley

Fiona floated back into the bedroom. It was dark, Isabella motionless in bed, her eyes closed but with her super keen, supernatural senses, Fiona saw that her hands were clenched so tightly they were mottled red but white at the joints.

Fiona watched Isabella a long time, not knowing what she was feeling but thinking something pretty colossal had changed in the way she thought about Isabella Austin Evangelista.

She only knew it had changed when Isabella finally fell asleep, her hands relaxed to open and Fiona saw the deep grooves that her fingernails had made in her palms.

It wasn’t even the new, angry, purple grooves.

It was the overabundance of white, fingernail-shaped scars that surrounded them.

Chapter Three

Ginger Snaps

Isabella

Isabella sat next to Prentice the next morning as he drove them toward Fergus’s home after they’d dropped the children off at school.

She had carefully missed the pre-school preparations, although she heard them because she’d opened her door so she could. Mostly Sally’s ceaseless chatter but also Jason’s low mumbles and Prentice’s deep rumbly commands. It sounded manic but fun.

She’d come down at what she’d hoped was the last minute (and she’d been correct) and did her best to be cool and detached from Sally and failed miserably. She couldn’t be cool and detached from the sweet, high-spirited, brown-eyed, brown-haired girl who looked startlingly like Fiona, a fact which had to be both heartbreaking and easing for Prentice.

Then she’d asked for a ride to Fergus’s to which Prentice agreed.

While on their way to school, Sally asked approximately one thousand questions about what “Mrs. Evangahlala” was making for dinner that night give or take a question or two. Then she’d stood at Isabella’s door of Prentice’s Range Rover, slapping it and waving madly until Isabella smiled and waved back. Only then did she turn and run toward the school.

Now, Isabella had her hands clenched tightly in fists, feeling the calming pain, her eyes looking out the window.

“This is the last time you’ll have to do this. I’ve a rental car being delivered today,” she told him.

“Aye,” he replied shortly.

Isabella forged ahead in her attempt to be polite. “I know Annie has a goodly number of guests coming this week but I’ll call around to some B&Bs and –”

He cut her off, “I wouldn’t do that.”

Isabella persevered, “Maybe there’s a cancellation or –”

Without taking his eyes from the road, he interrupted her again, “Don’t do it, Isabella.”

She found this vaguely surprising. He’d made it perfectly clear he didn’t want her in his home. He’d made it infinitely clear he didn’t want her around his children. Why wouldn’t he want her to find alternate accommodation?

“It’s no bother,” she went on. “They have cancellations all the time, I’m sure something will come up.

He glanced swiftly at her then back to the road. “Likely, aye.”

“So, I’ll make some calls.”

“No, you won’t.”

She turned and looked at him.

Age, she thought, had not been kind to him.

It had been generous.

How he could be more beautiful now than when they’d been together when she thought he was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen (because he was) was a cruel twist of fate.

He still wore his thick hair (which she described to her girlfriends at Northwestern as “exactly two shades lighter than the darkest, dark brown”) a little long. Sun and laughter had given him attractive lines radiating from the sides of his eyes. His jaw had lost none of its sharp angularity, nor had his cheekbones. His eyes were the same unusually beautiful every-color as they’d always been. Even his body had become better; he was bigger, more muscular, more powerfully-built.

She took her thoughts off her latest cruel twist of fate and stated, “I don’t understand.”

“You’re no’ unknown around here,” Prentice said by way of explanation.

She was not unknown everywhere thanks to Laurent and her father and, well, freaking Laurent (the jerk).

“I’m used to that,” Isabella explained softly.

“Aye, I’m sure you are. Perhaps I should have said you’re no’ liked around here.”

Silently, Isabella pulled in breath. She hadn’t expected that.

She should have, especially after what Debs said the day before, not to mention what Prentice had said, both of these instances scoring at her heart.

Luckily, her heart had been lacerated beyond feeling much of anything anymore so she didn’t feel like tossing herself off the nearest cliff, of which there were a fair few around here.

But still, she hadn’t anticipated that.

Once upon a time (in other words, twenty years ago), Prentice’s village was the only safe haven Isabella had known in her life.

Now, it was a place where she was reviled.

She tightened her fists further and looked out the window, murmuring, “I won’t make the calls.”

“Aye, smart,” he muttered and she got the impression he was barely listening to her.

Which he probably wasn’t.

She stayed silent until he stopped in front of Fergus’s house. She didn’t look at him when she expressed her gratitude for the ride and put her hand to the door.

“Isabella,” he called, she stopped and turned to him.

He was holding up a key.

“To the house,” he said, dropping it in her palm when she lifted her hand for the key.

His eyes started to move away but all of a sudden they jerked back, slightly narrowed and focused on her palm.

Instantly, her hand closed over the key.

“I’ve decided I’ll make dinner and then I’ll explain to the children that I have a raging headache,” she blurted, wanting to divert his attention as his still narrowed gaze followed her closed hand.

His eyes shot to hers, his mouth was tight and he looked very angry.

“Why in the f**k would you do that?” he bit out, his voice proving she was so, very correct about him being so, very angry.

“Um –” Isabella’s mind went blank at his anger.

She remembered a great deal about him (in fact, pretty much everything) but she’d never seen him angry (well, not this angry). She didn’t know what to say, she didn’t even know if she could speak.

Then she remembered what to say.

“So I can leave you to dinner and get to my rooms.”