Monster Among the Roses

   chapter ONE   I nervously twisted my ball cap between my hands, the frayed bill skimming across my calloused knuckles with each pass. The room where I waited was bigger than my entire apartment, and the seat on which I gingerly perched myself probably cost more than everything I owned.It smelled rich in here. Like money. Like the walls had been papered in fresh, crisp hundred-dollar bills straight from the bank. I glanced between my knees to my shoes, hoping I hadn’t knocked any dirt onto the opaque marble floor, only to discover a small clump of dried mud did rest by my right sneaker. Shit. I quickly kicked it under the chair to hide the evidence just as the door beside me opened.A gray-headed woman in a blue pantsuit—the same one I’d spoken to, announcing myself when I’d arrived twenty minutes earlier—peered out. “Mr. Nash is ready to meet with you.”Feeling caught in the act, I stopped messing with the dirt clod and jerked to my feet,

   chapterTHREE   Had to be a burn wound, I decided. One half of her was perfectly fine, beautiful even. I doubted anyone would be aware she had the scars if they saw her from the good side. The other half was full of puckered and stretched skin that looked as if it had been heated to liquefy and then cooled again all wrong. It wrinkled down her neck, then was briefly covered by her short-sleeved shirt, only to continue down to the end of her arm and over the back of her hand. I wondered if it extended lower, but pants and shoes concealed the rest of her.She appeared to be around my age, maybe a year or two younger, with a full head of dark hair, super-blue eyes and the longest eyelashes I’d ever seen. Except the look in those exceptionally lovely eyes was anything but friendly.“I asked you a question,” she reminded me, her tone truculent. Couldn’t say I blamed her; I had been gawking pretty rudely. But she’d shocked the crap out of me, popp

   chapterFIVE   I didn’t see Isobel again for the rest of the morning. She wasn’t in the theater, which I found after washing the library windows, and I didn’t spot her through the French doors that led into her garden. I meandered my way back to the kitchen just in time for lunch, but neither she nor Mr. Nash showed to eat.So I sat down with Constance, Mrs. Pan, and Kit, wondering, “Where do the Nashes eat?”“Mr. Nash has already taken a tray in his office,” the cook replied.I nodded and waited to hear what the rest of the family did or would do, but no one spoke again.Just as I began to feel awkward from the brutal silence and bit into a homemade roll to combat the feeling, Constance said, “I noticed you were cleaning the windows in the library earlier.”I lifted my eyebrows and chewed before wiping my mouth. Mrs. Pan’s rolls tasted good, almost as good as one of Mom’s creations. Then I answered, “Yeah. Was that okay? I didn’t steal y

  chapterSEVEN   Back in the library, paper and a pencil in hand, I began to draft.I was scribbling my idea for the third wall when I heard her.“Let me guess. You’ve never built a bookshelf in your life, have you?”My heart gave a crazy, massive ka-pow before I could even lift my head. Then my breath caught in my throat. She wore her hair down, one half covering her scars, as well as long sleeves and thin black gloves. It was impossible to tell she’d ever been wounded. But not being able to see her scars wasn’t why she looked so beautiful to me.The fire was back inside her. She was ready to spar again. It made her sizzle with a sparkling vitality.Sending her a crazy grin, because holy shit, there she was, in person, I chuckled. “What gave me away?”She sighed heavily and wandered closer. “What exactly have you done to inspire my father to hire you as our handyman?”“I have mastered the art of begging,” I answered, lifting my nose as if supre

  chapterNINE   It was early. It was way too fucking early for me.I’d left the house at three thirty to get here by five, and I felt dead on my feet. After spending most of the weekend taking care of my mom, who’d caught the flu, reading up on carpentry, and finishing Brisingr, I’d already gotten to bed late on both Saturday and Sunday nights, but waking up at three in the fucking morning was what was going to lay me flat.When I reached the gate at the end of the drive, I almost wept, ready to curl up on the ground and sleep for a couple decades. Except I’d told Isobel I’d run with her this morning.Run.Right.I could barely make my feet keep walking.Since about my third trip to Porter Hall, I’d stopped ringing the intercom at the gate to ask for permission to enter. There wasn’t a fence around the property; it seemed bothersome and time-consuming to call someone to open the gate when I could just walk around it. And since I was beginning to