“Oh yeah?” She pressed her luscious body up against him, setting off all sorts of danger alarm bells that his hard lusting body overrode. Her leg hooked around his and before he knew it, he was flat on his ass with Veronica towering over him, hands on her hips and a smirk on her lips. “See you at the bottom.”
Quick as a pixie on speed, she took off down the beanstalk.
“Babe, you have no idea.” He stood, dusted the cloud fluff from his jeans and followed the only woman he’d ever loved.
Chapter 6
A blade of grass poked Veronica in the back of the neck, but she refused to move. Safe at last from the mindless, brain-eating zombies, all she wanted was to lie back in the prickly grass with her eyes closed and meditate until she no longer wanted to throttle Antoine.
She was going to be here for a while.
Her belly expanded with each deep breath, then sank until she swore she could feel it touching her spine. The whole time, she pictured the peacock-blue hammock in her backyard swaying in the breeze. It swung forward as she inhaled and backward when she exhaled.
“Are you still alive?” Jax asked.
Keeping her eyes closed, she fought not to let the hammock disappear. “Just taking a quiet moment.”
“Afraid you’ll string him up by his nose hairs?”
“Something like that.” She smiled despite the fast-fading hammock.
The air shifted around her as something–or, to be more precise, someone–settled next to her. She didn’t need to open her eyes to know it was Jax. A tingle broke out across her skin, perking up her nipples and a ripple of excitemen
t washed across her nether regions.
Poof! The hammock vanished.
Shifting a few inches away from him, she prayed the distance would minimize his impact on her. The man had already hurt her once; she’d be damned if she let him do it again even after his heroics–and that kiss–this afternoon. She was plenty grateful, she just wasn’t a glutton for punishment. Forcing her jaw to unclench, she sank, trying to conjure the hammock from the deep, dark corners of her imagination.
Forward, inhale. Backward, exhale. The coiled muscles in her shoulders unwound. Her scowl melted. The hammock reappeared. But this time Jax relaxed in it. He smirked at her as it swung back and forth. Her thighs clenched and her body turned to liquid gold–hot, melty and exactly the last thing she needed to be feeling around Jax Taylor.
“Get out of my hammock.” She yanked out the blade of grass scratching her neck and rolled up off the ground.
“Excuse me?”
She glowered down at him. God, he just looked so edible. He’d changed into a pair of basketball shorts, which he wore slung low on his hips. His smooth, brown skin looked downright lickable. She could start at his hipbone, slither across to his abs and nibble her way up to his neck. He had always shivered when she kissed that spot at the base of his throat. Usually, he’d tossed her onto her back then and there, but if she anchored her body low enough and straddled him, she could keep him right where... Stop that right now, Veronica Catherine Kwon!
Jax held up his hands, palms forward. “Simmer down–” He swallowed whatever else he was about to say as Antoine strode out of his tent and headed straight for them.
Reminding herself of all the good things that had happened in her life because of Antoine, she unfurled her fists. The man had taken her in when her father disowned her because she’d refused to give up treasure hunting. He’d been her mentor and friend for more than ten years, and this one-last-adventure was the only thing he’d ever asked in return. The least she could do in return was listen to him before she told him there was no way in hell she’d go back up the beanstalk and face down a horde of flesh-eating animated corpses.
A red flush extended from Antoine’s second chin all the way up to the line of his snow white hair. He looked like a very apologetic Santa. That is, if the jolly old fat man had ever led his elves into a zombie ambush.
“I can only imagine how upset you two are with me at the moment.” He focused his gaze on the sun setting in the distance. “But I didn’t know one hundred percent that they were up there. When I found Sir Cravish’s diary, even he wasn’t sure what had happened to the giants who had survived his cure. His favored hypothesis was that the shrinking his elixir started never stopped. The giants continued to shrink until they were too small to be seen.”
Antoine clasped his hands behind his back and rocked on his heels. The gold, orange and pink sky reflected off the glasses perched on his head. He sighed and locked his gaze on Veronica. There was something new in it she’d never seen before, an almost maniacal determination touching on the delusional. He shifted his attention back to the long blades of green.
“But Sir Cravish had a second theory, one he scarcely could write about. He scribbled his thoughts in the margins, a word here and phrase there. It took me years to put the puzzle pieces together. But still, if I hadn’t seen it for myself today I never would have believed it. His elixir did indeed shrink the giants into a size that made it easier for them to navigate the world. However, it also killed. Those who survived had a mutation in their chromosomes. At first Sir Cravish thought they’d make it through unscathed. Then one of his subjects cracked Sir Cravish’s cat’s skull like a walnut and sucked out the brains.”
His normally pink-tinged skin had a distinctive green sheen to it and his hands shook as he drew a small blue book from his shirt pocket. He thumbed through the pages until coming to the information he sought.
“In an entry dated June twenty-fourth, Sir Cravish writes, I can no longer deny the truth. My magic won’t protect me any longer and science has long since turned its back on me. I must lead them to a place where they cannot hurt another living soul. The solution came to me today in the form of a boy who had just sold his family cow. I’m taking the giants home. I do not expect to return to mine.” Antoine softly closed the book and held it to his lips a moment. “There aren’t any more entries.”
It took a moment for Veronica to break through the fog of shock. “You thought there was a chance there were zombies up there? A chance?”
“I should have told you both everything from the beginning. Let me make up for that error now by sharing all my dirty little secrets. The bank is taking my shop and everything inside. I got caught up in an investment that turned out to be a Ponzi scheme. I’ve lost everything. The only blessing to this is, my beloved Chloe isn’t alive to see how far I’ve fallen.” His fingers curled into fists at his side. “I refuse to spend my last days on earth begging for my bread. The beanstalk is my salvation.”
Damn. On one hand, she was still pissed as shit at him. But on the other, who was she to hold a grudge against a dying man who’d lost his entire world?