wondering if
his son, Great-Uncle Gard, was finally having Kaleidoscope Folly renovated with
an eye to selling it. It would certainly explain all the trucks over the
recent few days coming and going. If so… well Charisse had become rather
partial to the eccentric monstrosity after almost fifteen years of looking at
it on a daily basis. Perhaps she should give Auntie Kath, Gard’s wife, a
call… hmmm, but in the meantime, where was the golden Adonis? He’d been
there the last five days in a row, she hoped today wasn’t his day off or he was
working inside. She needed a little eye candy pick me up.
Oh
there, up on the roof again, well not quite on the roof, more like hanging off
the roof by what looked like a harness and ropes, dismantling the rusty
guttering on the upper most, third tier of the house. She allowed her
eyes to drink in his form. He had to be tall, even from this distance she
could figure that out, and thanks to his propensity to work without a t-shirt
she knew he was golden tanned and ripped.
Today,
like every other day, he’d tied a bandana around the lower half of his face,
smart, you never knew what types of building materials were used in old
houses. His hair shone golden blonde under the harsh rays of the
afternoon sun. Hmmm, if she weren’t afraid of ruining the fantasy by
actually speaking to the man, she’d hunt him down and test her theory that the
up close visage was just as fantastic as the faraway.
Seriously,
who could this guy be? Perhaps he was one of the artisans from Reverie
Valley, the artistic community, one town over inland. He had to be, no
one from outside the Sanctuary would surely be allowed to work on one of the
family homes.
Charisse
winced as Bettina gave an extra hard yank on the bond. Hmmm, she supposed
she should be going… maybe in a few minutes. To placate the demanding
diva she absently begun to hum the Star Wars theme, okay perhaps placate wasn’t
the right term, but it was a fact Bettina bitched less when she was making some
use of her Siren powers, even if it was tuneless off key humming.
Mmmm…
back to the hottie. Who it seems had company she noted, as a cloud of
dust rose from the circular driveway at the side of the house. Despite
the dust, the bright red paintwork of the car gleamed, reminding her of Darcy’s
car.
A
flicker of movement to the right had her refocusing on the handyman, who was
using his legs to push off from the roofline, dropping like a stone three
storeys to the unkempt garden. Squinting she watched as he began to run,
sending the harness and ropes flying to the ground as his booted feet ate up
the ground with impressive speed.
Where
he thought he was running to, she wasn’t sure. There was dense forest
land to the right of the house but that was five or so miles away. If
that really was Darcy on his tail, then he didn’t have a hope in hell of
escaping the wrath of the Council Special liaison when she was in bounty hunter
mode. Except hottie handyman wasn’t headed for the forest, he was headed
for the cliffs. Oh Goddess, he wasn’t seriously going to clamber down to
the private beach was he? He’d be trapped for sure. Except he
bolted past the pathway to the beach and kept running along the edge of the
cliff towards Corkscrew Point, where the winds swirled and surged so
unpredictably.
Goddess,
he couldn’t seriously be considering… she’d only begun to contemplate the
horror when he launched himself out into the air. Charisse squeezed
her eyes shut, she couldn’t watch. Of course that meant five seconds
later, when she opened her eyes to search the choppy waters cresting against
the rocks under Corkscrew point, she had no idea where he’d landed.
Stupid woman, she berated herself, running to the far edge of Bettina, trying
desperately to pinpoint his location. If he was hurt perhaps she could
call for help or paddle out and get him.
Up
on top of the cliff