Chapter Twenty-three 3 page

?This is Patrick,? Ren said, her tone hard. Their earlier argument had not been forgotten. ?He?s just leaving.?

?Good evening,? he said dully. Though he spoke to Isabelle, his gaze was glued on Ren. Before Isabelle could return the greeting, he turned away and headed for the door. ?Will I see to it now?? He looked at Ren with doleful eyes.

She gave a sharp nod and dismissed him. Ren waited until the door clicked closed before giving Isabelle her undivided attention.

?Come and sit by the fire. Would you like something hot to drink? Tea? Cocoa?? She guided Isabelle over to the couch. ?I make good cocoa.?

?Cocoa would be lovely.? Isabelle was hungry. The mention of a hot drink made her stomach grumble, but she was too embarrassed to ask about food.

?And perhaps some toast? How does that sound? I can?t give you anything too heavy to eat just now.?

?Oh. Yes, please. I woke up ravenous.? She perched on a corner of the couch, holding her hands out to the fire, her toes wriggling in delight on the thick woolen rug. ?It?s wonderfully warm in here.?

?Do you want a blanket for your knees? I don?t want you chilled,? Ren said.

?No. To be honest, my temperature is all over the place. One minute I?m shivery, the next I?m boiling up.? She blushed as she recalled Ren?s body blanketing hers last night, providing much-needed warmth. She felt the keen gaze scour her face. Isabelle drew her legs up under herself and curled into a snug ball among the plump cushions with their tired velvet covers.

?You?ve had a high fever. I?m relieved to see you up and about so soon.? Ren?s voice was relaxing to listen to, and Isabelle melted back into the couch. ?You?re a quick healer. I?m pleased.?

She glanced up to see Ren smiling at her. A smile that played tricks with her temperature all over again. Waves of pleasure ran through her. It was luxury to be on the receiving end of that smile. No wonder she had a fever then the chills. She looked away and concentrated on the flames.

?I?ll be back in a few minutes.? Ren left for the kitchen, leaving Isabelle alone to contemplate the fire and her strange feelings. Well, a fever would explain why my head?s so fogged up. She had a hundred questions to ask, but she needed Ren to return with the cocoa and hopefully all the answers.

Isabelle?s gaze fell on the book lying open on the couch: Mary Shelley?s Frankenstein. She felt a surge of excitement. She knew this book. Her mind conjured up a tooled red leather cover, with gorgeous etchings?a cherished gift given to her at some point in the past. This was a cheap, mass-market student edition, ragged and dog-eared. A section of text was underscored. Isabelle peered at the underlined paragraph: ?I am alone and miserable; man will not associate with me; but one as deformed and horrible as myself would not deny herself to me. My companion must be of the same species and have the same defects. This being you must create.?

?Try this.? A steaming mug was thrust under her nose. Isabelle jumped, the book abandoned. She hadn?t heard Ren reenter the room. The drink smelled rich and wholesome and her stomach gurgled in delight.

?And this.? A plate with a toasted cheese sandwich also appeared. Isabelle nearly swooned with happiness; it was as if her mind had been read. Toasted cheese sandwiches were her comfort food, yet another recollection from out of the blue.

?Mmm.? Her first sip from the mug was nectar. ?This is gorgeous. It?s the best cocoa I?ve ever tasted. Is there licorice in it? I can taste something bittersweet.? She bit into her sandwich and gave another groan of appreciation.

Ren settled beside her, sitting a little too close considering it was such a roomy old couch. Her proximity made Isabelle nervous and she took another huge gulp from her mug, eyes wide over the rim.

?You?ve got the bluest eyes in the whole wide world.? Ren smiled at her. It felt as if the sun had broken through a brooding storm cloud. Ren?s smile lit up her entire face, the room, the cabin? the whole of Isabelle?s wide, blue-eyed world, in fact.

?They?re cornflower blue. Like summer,? Isabelle said, uneasy that Ren studied her battered face so closely. She was the absolute opposite of Ren?s dark, animalistic beauty. Ren?s face was keen, her eyes hungry, and she moved with the grace and purpose of a predator. But when she smiled it felt like sunrise after a long, haunted night.

?I?m not sure who told me that. But they?re cornflower blue,? Isabelle babbled on, ?when they?re not all black and puffy, that is.? Her answer surprised her. The memory had floated into her head and lingered, lost without context. She couldn?t remember who had said this, or when it had been said, but she knew the memory was a true and happy one.

?They?re my best feature,? she said trying to spin out this little thread, see what it might weave. The memory made her feel good about herself and she instinctively felt this was a rare thing. Whoever had paid her this compliment had a fondness for her. Somewhere, someone once cared, perhaps still did. She was pleased at this little series of remembrances. Favorite food, the gift book, her eye color?she was beginning to fill out from the vaporous ghost she?d awoken as.

?They?re one of your best features. You have many, many more.? Ren reached over and casually adjusted the neck of Isabelle?s robe where it gaped open a little. ?I take it your memory?s still a little vague? It will come back soon. I promise it will.?

Her innocent gesture scraped the cotton across Isabelle?s nipple. It hardened against the friction. Isabelle flinched, but Ren seemed unaware of her reaction. Ren held a sexual charisma that confused her. She was hypersensitized to her simplest words and gestures. Yet Ren seemed curiously casual, even relaxed around Isabelle?s tense, scrawny body with its multitude of inhibitions and screaming defense mechanisms. Isabelle pulled away and curled up at her end of the couch tighter than a pink prawn.

?What happened to me?? She cleared her throat, clinging to her empty mug. It gave her something to do with her hands and placed a small physical barrier between them. Ren?s nearness swamped her. A spicy heat rolled off her body, and Isabelle?s senses sucked it all up greedily until her head swam. ?I remember a car crash. Did I hit a deer? I remember a deer with an injured leg.?

?Your car went into a ditch. You didn?t hit a deer, but you may have swerved to avoid one.?

?Where am I? How did I get here??

?You?re near the Bella Coola valley. I live in the Coast Mountains, and I found you on a branch road off Highway 20. I checked you over, and apart from your shoulder and this temporary memory loss thing, you seem fine. When the snow thaws I?ll get you to a hospital for a proper checkup.?

The names were familiar. She?d heard of Bella Coola and the Pacific Coast Mountains. Was she local to the area?

?So you?re a medical person? A doctor or a nurse?? Her wound had been treated professionally.

?A veterinarian. But wounds are wounds, and stitches are stitches. I was more concerned with the bang you took to the head, but you seem to be mending well.?

?It?s only temporary. I?m already beginning to recall some things, as if my memory is on a sort of trickle drip. Things like my eye color, and toasted cheese sandwiches. And Bella Coola sounds very familiar?? She trailed off. There was such a long way to go in reclaiming her identity. She touched the small scar at the corner of her mouth. Not every memory would be a welcome one, but she would deal with that when it happened.

?You know my name.? She looked up. ?You called me Isabelle. But Isabelle who? Do we know each other??

Ren nodded. ?I know you, Isabelle Monk. I know you very well.?

?Monk?? Her surname was Monk. Isabelle frowned. It didn?t sound right; it didn?t fit. ?So we?re friends?? she asked, then blushed, recalling she?d asked this before when they were curled up in bed together.

?Yes. I think of you as a friend.?

?How do we know each other?? It bothered her that she had to drag these answers out of Ren. A real friend would tell her all she needed to know; instead, Ren was holding back. Isabelle?s anxiety levels began to rise.

?Do I live near here? Near you?? She pushed on. ?Are we neighbors??

Ren shifted slightly at this last question. It was the first sign of discomfort Isabelle had seen in her. She waited for an answer, watching every flicker on Ren?s closed face.

?No.? The answer was snapped. ?You live somewhere else.? This was added almost grudgingly. Isabelle frowned at this sudden mood swing. She realized that up until now this had been some sort of game to Ren. Now she was truculent when the questions weren?t so easily answered, or rather, answered to her liking.

?Well, where then?? Isabelle pressed, aware of the change in atmosphere, as if the temperature had dropped imperceptibly by degrees as her panic rose. ?Where do I live?? Ren had to tell her. Then the thunderous thought struck?what if Ren was not a friend after all?

There was a moment of silence as Ren contemplated her answer.

?I don?t want to tell you,? she finally said.

?What? Why?? Isabelle was shocked.

?Because I don?t want you to go back there.?

?What?? Isabelle turned to fully face Ren. She was confused and angry at this response. This was no time for games. She needed to know these things. Ren reached out and held her chin in a firm grip.

?I don?t want you to go home,? Ren repeated slowly. ?You?re not safe there. You?re safe here, with me. You have to stay with me.? She leaned in and her mouth covered Isabelle?s in a hard kiss. Isabelle jerked as a tingling rush thrummed across her lips. Her heart hammered. Scalding heat rolled through her veins. Ren kissed her thoroughly and with lazy authority until Isabelle?s entire being lurched, fluttered, and disintegrated like a cherry blossom. She was captured inside this sweet, blossom-scented, and dangerous kiss. Warnings howled inside her head. She?d heard these cries before?She twisted away, breaking the kiss, and pulled her face free. She had to save herself. Isabelle didn?t need anymore fog-fueled moments. She was fractured enough.

?Don?t,? she gasped in dismay. She did not kiss women. This she knew for certain. And not like that! ?You can?t kiss me like that.?

Ren leaned back. The muscles of her face were hard as flint, her eyes drilled into Isabelle?s until she shrank back against the couch. She felt woozy and hot and glanced at her empty cup with suspicion. Ren reached toward her and she flinched, but Ren merely tucked a damp curl behind her ear. ?When your memory returns I think you?ll find I can,? she said.

Chapter Five

?What do you mean you can? What does that mean? Because let me tell you right here and now, you damn well can?t.? Isabelle?s explosion had them both blinking in surprise.

Ren moved back, irritated. She gave Isabelle a sweeping, calculated look. Her cheeks bloomed under her tan and her eyes sparked dangerously, but she said nothing.

?What?s going on here that you think you can just lean in and kiss me?? Isabelle said. ?Are you trying to tell me we?re lesbians, because let me tell you right here and now that I am not a lesbian!? She was very firm about that. Definitely not. Ren gave her a big, black-eyed blink and her knees liquefied. Okay then?

?What I mean is?? Isabelle blustered on, ideas and theories and guesswork bursting out of her. ?What I mean is, well, I may not be totally into men?? That felt true. ?But that doesn?t make me a lesbian either. In fact, I suspect I?m not very sexual at all. Why, I could be a nun!? She was grasping at straws and she knew it. Ren narrowed her eyes at this hypothesis, and Isabelle shut up. She was being ridiculous.

A huge yawn caught her unawares. For the second time, she eyed her empty mug, sure it contained more than just cocoa.

?No. You are not, and have never been, a nun.? Ren rose and held out her hand. ?It?s time for bed.?

?I am not going to bed with you.?

?I?m putting you to bed, not taking you,? Ren thundered in exasperation.

?Oh.? Isabelle accepted the offered hand and was pulled to her feet, a little embarrassed at her assumption.

Ren led her back to the bedroom. Her head swam and her legs felt leaden. The sleeping drug in the cocoa had kicked in. She was spilling toward sleep and it annoyed her. She wanted answers for her millions of questions, but her head was so fuzzy she was unsure what mattered more, her questions or Ren?s bizarre behavior.

?You never answered me,? she said, remembering the thread of their earlier conversation.

?I did. You?re not a nun.?

Moonlight spilled through the windows and illuminated the room in irregular blocks of soft light.

?That?s not what I meant and you know it. You avoided my questions.?

They stood by the bed, Isabelle unwilling to get back in it. She?d spent eons in that bed. It was the last place she wanted to be. She fought down another yawn. Ren reached over and casually tugged her closer by the sash of her robe.

?I?? Isabelle clasped Ren?s muscular forearms, as if that would stop her if she chose to kiss her again. Ren lowered her head. Isabelle held her breath and closed her eyes in anticipation, her fingernails dug into Ren?s skin. Ren?s breath brushed across her cheek, and then her lips grazed her ear, so delicately every hair on the nape of her neck rose.

?I want you to remember us,? Ren whispered. ?Not be told how it was.?

Isabelle gave a delicious shiver. She tilted her chin. Her lips were so close to Ren?s jawline that the merest pucker would?The room spun as she was lifted and laid down on the bed. Ren chastely drew the blankets up to her chin and withdrew, leaving a chasm of chilled air and confusion between them.

A knowing smile played on Ren?s lips.

?I have to go out tonight, and you need to sleep. It will help you heal,? she said. ?You shouldn?t be running around so soon after your accident. You need rest.?

?I don?t want to sleep. I want to talk.? Isabelle wriggled upright. She was embarrassed at her urge to kiss Ren, and relieved she?d not given in to it. She suspected Ren was quietly laughing at her, and tried to read the sly smile, but the moon glowed behind Ren?s shoulder and cast her face in shadow.

?You?re so beautiful,? Ren said. She traced Isabelle?s cheek.

?No, I?m not.? Isabelle pulled away. ?I don?t understand what?s going on, Ren. How are we connected? This doesn?t feel real to me. I have so many questions and you won?t answer me straight.?

?I?ll answer when you?re well enough. I promise to. But you?ve had a serious accident, Isabelle. You were lucky I found you. Everything else is just?complicated.? Ren gently pushed her back onto the pillows.

?And what makes you think I can?t deal with complicated?? She knew instinctively that she could. Complicated was no stranger, Isabelle was definite about that.

?And where are you going? You can?t just tuck me up in bed like a child whenever I get in the way.? She wasn?t so definite about that. She felt more childlike than ever at being abandoned. She wanted Ren?s company.

Where Ren was concerned, she knew very little but felt a lot. She?d awoken into a world that confused and scared her as much as any nightmare. The only answers she had were those she scraped together from errant memories and Ren?s cryptograms. She was in the middle of nowhere and she disliked the sight of herself in the mirror. What else did she know? Nothing. She was a vacuum. It was all a mess, and the one person who could help was walking away. At that moment the only certain thing was she wanted Ren to stay, to curl up beside her and hold her and keep the nightmares at bay. To stay and simply talk to her and help her make sense of it all.

?Hush. You need rest.? Ren soothed her, even as she made to leave.

?Don?t hush me. I?m your lover, aren?t I?? Isabelle?s anxiety put her on the offense. She watched Ren?s eyes narrow. ?Are we having an affair? Running around behind someone?s back? Tell me the truth. Something isn?t right.? She pushed herself up to sit in the center of the bed. ?Tell me. I can feel the truth writhing inside me, trying to get out, and it?s not a nice feeling.?

Ren bent over her until their faces were inches apart, her brow dark and frowning. Her eyes caught the moonlight in a weird amber glow.

?All you need to know is that you?re mine,? she snarled. ?Everything about this is right.? She straightened and glared at Isabelle. ?So start feeling it.?

A distant howl wavered from the woods, loaded with troubled melancholy. Ren stiffened, then abruptly strode from the room leaving Isabelle in bed, bewildered.

?Don?t you tell me what to feel,? she shouted with hollow bravado at the empty room. But she did feel it, in her own way. Ren was hers.

Now she was determined not to go to sleep. Despite feeling heavy-limbed and wooly-headed, she padded along the hallway on bare feet looking for the kitchen. A fresh pot of tea and a seat by the fire would help. She could sit and think and try and sift through the events of the past few days. Ren disturbed her. She drew out such a tangle of emotions in Isabelle. The liberty Ren had taken with that kiss, for example. Isabelle knew beyond all doubt they were lovers. She could feel it the moment they had touched; yet another part of her was uneasy with this insight.

?I?m a lesbian after all,? she told the planked floor in the hallway, watching her bare toes move along the warm pine. It didn?t feel wrong. In fact, it felt exhilarating and dangerous. ?And I think I?ve fallen for the lesbian version of Heathcliff. ?My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath, a source of little visible delight, but necessary,?? she quoted and froze mid-step.

?I can quote from Emily Brontë?s Wuthering Heights? Wow.? It thrilled her she knew the classic well enough to quote from it, and that it was a favorite book. Another piece of the jigsaw fell into place. She loved books. First Frankenstein and now Wuthering Heights. She knew the classics, she adored the Brontës? oh, oh, and Austen and Browning, and what about Eliot and Dickinson? Their names rattled through her head along with a dozen others. How strange: she could remember authors and book titles, and even prose and plot, but not her own address? It cheered her up, though. Her memories were returning. She was finally forming into something solid.

She tried to dredge up some other quote to build on the first, to underpin her discovery. Her mind went blank. Okay, so I can?t force it. She thought again of the book Ren had been reading. Frankenstein. How fantastic that they seemed to like the same books.

?I felt emotions of gentleness and pleasure, that had long appeared dead, revive within me,? she quoted from Shelley, much to her delight. The classics were a linchpin to her identity. Somehow she had turned a corner.

The kitchen fascinated her. Ren obviously spent time in here. It had a lived-in homely feel like the living room. Although the cupboards were battered and the paint chipped and scratched, like the rest of the cabin it was a well-loved, well-used space. Pestles and mortars, measuring cups, and stirring spoons littered the work surface. Dried herbs hung from hooks fixed in the low ceiling beams. Enormous, dented copper pans sat washed and ready on the huge, cream enameled stove that looked like a relic from the fifties. Rows and rows of jar-lined shelves filled the far wall over a scoured work counter. Most were filled with herbs and oils, and all were labeled in a scrawling, uninhibited handwriting she assumed was Ren?s.

A thick, dog-eared volume on medicinal herbalism lay open on the countertop. Isabelle hovered over it, compelled by the beautiful plant illustrations to leaf through it and examine the pages in detail. It was an old almanac, a mixture of First Nation medicines, moon cycles, botany, and horticulture. Its spine gave the year as 1961, an exclusive, limited edition judging by the fine quality of the paper and the richness of the binding and illustrations. The flyleaf showed an inscription from the author: ?To my darling niece, Dalia, with much love?? The name was heavily scored out with a sharp instrument, like a knife, but Isabelle could just make out enough letters to guess at ?Sylvie.? The book had been written by a Sylvie Garoul. Isabelle wondered if it was a gift from the author. It was a first edition collectable if only for the illustrations alone. They were quite superb, the work of one George Brookman, a name that rang a bell with her, but she couldn?t remember any details. The book was too precious to be lying around a messy kitchen. Already it had stains all over it.

Isabelle reluctantly set the book aside as the kettle whistled. She picked a lemon and ginger tea from a home-blend mixture she assumed Ren had made, and cup in hand, set off to explore the rest of the cabin. If she wanted answers she?d damned well have to provide them for herself.

The living room was cozy, and she whiled away a pleasant half hour sipping tea and examining the books in the wobbly bookcase. Most were secondhand and were much read. But their covers had a creased softness and the subtle smell of a million fingerprints and a hundred shelves. The old bureau was crammed with invoices and paperwork for Ren?s veterinary practice and what looked like a farming venture she ran nearby. A door to the left of the chimneybreast drew Isabelle?s attention. She drifted over to it, cup in hand, and gave it a gentle push.

Ren?s bedroom was tucked away off the main living room. Isabelle stood inside the doorway drinking in the detail. It was a total mess. What clothes weren?t hanging out of the chest of drawers lay in a tangled ball on the unmade bed. The armoire door hung open, its full-length mirror catching the light from the hallway behind her. A jumble of shoes and shirts spilled from it onto the floor. Only the dressing table gave a clue as to the usual order of the room and reflected the general tidiness of the rest of the cabin. Though the drawers hung open, the surface was uniform and neat. Combs and brushes lay beside handcrafted wooden bowls filled with loose change and stray buttons. An antique leather manicure set and a few colored glass bottles took up the rest of the space. The only closed drawer in the dresser was locked. This was curious in itself, given the general upheaval of the other drawers. Isabelle shook the handle several times and looked for the key in the small bowls on the countertop, but to no avail. She gave up and turned her attention to an empty suitcase wide open on the bedside chair.

Had Ren been hurriedly packing to go somewhere? The thought made Isabelle anxious. A road map lay unfolded inside the case. Pushed on by her unease, Isabelle lifted it. A red marker pen traced a journey from Lonesome Lake, over to Bella Coola, and down across the U.S./Canada border straight to Portland, Oregon. She set it back and frowned. The journey meant something to her. She?d traveled that way before. But Lonesome Lake? That was miles east of Bella Coola in the middle of Tweedsmuir National Park. Ren had said they were in the Coast Mountains, but given the sheer size of the mountain range, they could be anywhere.

Isabelle dropped the map back in the suitcase. It wasn?t that much of a clue after all. She turned her attention to the bottles on the dressing table. All held homemade lotions and looked medicinal rather than cosmetic. There was a heavy, languorous scent in the bedroom and she tried to identify it. She unscrewed a bottle top and sniffed the contents. It reminded her of the ointment on her shoulder, but it wasn?t the smell she was now fixed upon. That scent was stronger on the hairbrush, and she realized it belonged to Ren. It was her scent.

Isabelle drifted over to the wide unmade bed. She lifted a shirtsleeve and pressed it against her nose to confirm the scent was definitely Ren?s. The cloth was crisp and clean and held a thousand stories. Like fine wine against her palate, the flavors exploded onto her senses and her imagination galloped.

Ren?s hot, peppery scent was subtlety layered with cherry and cool notes of vanilla. It drifted through her like opium smoke. She closed her eyes and saw sweat-slick skin, tight and tan, stretching in the sun, then contracting and twisting into swaths of ink-black fur that rippled like waves of prairie grass. She felt dense muscle weigh down her bones and heard the snap of twigs as her feet sank in heavy loam. Wind rattled the leaves and hissed through fir needles, and ran through her coat like a million stroking fingers. Fine rain misted her face and she flicked her ears against the damp. Her lungs expanded as she drew in more and more of Ren?s scent and the heady visions that came with it.

Her heart hitched into a tight knot of want, and suddenly she needed Ren. Why had she left her? Why hadn?t she told her where she was going and when she?d be back? Isabelle frowned, and a discontented growl rumbled in the back of her throat. She pulled her face away from the cotton shirt and scowled at it. She didn?t want to sleep alone; she wanted the heat of Ren?s body. She wanted to drift into dreams with this scent wrapped all around her. She took a corner of the cuff into her mouth and sucked, her teeth worrying the fabric.

Wire grass crackled with summer heat. The drooping heads of lady?s slipper and clumps of purple violet shivered in a lazy breeze. Insects droned in a crown around her head?Isabelle spat out the fabric and stared at it in disbelief. She had been chewing on the sleeve like a pup on a slipper. What the hell was happening to her? Had she lost her mind?

Her tongue smacked against the roof of her mouth, wanting more. She recalled the images that had flashed through her head, as exciting and vivid as if she had really been sprawled out in a hazy summer meadow. It was addictive. She raised the shirt to her nose and breathed in. She felt sunshine dancing against her eyelids and heard the high-pitched trill of waxwings circling above.

A flicker of movement from the window startled her. The flicker was followed by a rustle as something dropped out of sight under the windowsill. Isabelle crept cautiously toward the window, her bare feet silent on the floor. Something or someone was outside. She heard the crunch of footsteps on fresh snow and held her breath. Pressed against the wall, she angled her head to peek out, but the glass tricked her and reflected back the light shining from the hallway. She could see nothing but the shadowy bedroom mirrored back at her?and then, she saw it. Distorted by the weak interior light, two eyes, elongated and slanted, glowed like burning embers as they glared through the glass. They darted from side to side searching the room for her. Isabelle began to make out other details?a pointed ear and a curved canine tooth, and a wet snout. She was alarmed that a wild animal would come so close to the cabin, but she felt safe enough inside the stout walls.

The animal?s ears flattened, and with a sharp hiss, the face was gone from the window. Isabelle started, but saw what had spooked it. Across the room, she stood reflected in the armoire mirror, clearly visible from the window. Pressed against the wall, wide-eyed and fearful, she looked like some sort of half-crazed animal herself.

She glanced out the window and stared into the night. She could see nothing. Isabelle shivered. She was about to give up and turn away when a blur on the edge of the tree line caught her eye. Something crouched in the murk. As she watched, it lifted its head toward the cabin as if sampling the air. It hesitated for a moment, then slunk into the underbrush and melted away. From what she could make out it looked like a small wolf or a wildcat. Whatever it was, it moved like a predator and was bold enough to come right up to a human dwelling.

A wavering, reedy howl echoed close by in the darkness and was answered by a distant chorus from the hills beyond. A chill ran through her. It was wilderness out there, and she was miles from civilization. She had best remember that and hope the thaw came soon. She had to get out of here and find the missing pieces of her life. The questions were mounting and the answers were few?and selective.

Chapter Six

Isabelle was curled up on the sofa when Ren came back. Frankenstein lay open on her lap and Ren?s shirt was pillowed under her head. The quiet click of the door jerked her out of her fire-gazing stupor. She sat upright, groggy and disheveled. Ren appeared at her side and reached out to touch her shoulder. The night air clung to her clothes.

?Hey. Why are you sleeping out here? Is the bedroom too cold? I can put a heater??

?There was an animal at the window,? Isabelle said. Ren?s hand stilled.

?An animal??

?Yes. It ran off when it saw me.? Isabelle felt awkward. What if Ren asked more questions and she had to admit she was snooping in her room? sucking on her clothes and acting weird.

Date: 2016-06-12; view: 63