Free Kiss of the Goblin Prince by Shona Husk Page B

daughter. But he wasn’t. Matt never even met Brigit. She’d been six months pregnant when he drowned. She’d almost lost Brigit out of grief.
    Since then, Brigit was the center of her world.
    It had been enough. But she was restless like she wanted more even though she was unsure how to get it, or even what it was. She went downstairs, looking for a distraction. She wasn’t tired, and she didn’t want to be alone with her thoughts and fears. At the back of her mind she knew the police didn’t catch every criminal. They may never catch Flynn. If they didn’t, would she be safe?
    Eliza was watching TV, curled up against Roan. Amanda hesitated in the doorway, then turned away. She couldn’t intrude.
    In the kitchen, Sheriff looked up from under the table. The dog spent most of his time under the kitchen table, a habit from when Brigit was little and food had rained from the highchair. He’d made himself at home in Eliza’s house very quickly.
    Her laptop lay dormant at the other end of the table. She flipped the screen up and restarted it. Almost everyone could be found on the Internet. Maybe she could find the something Dai was hiding, and a reason not to trust him. Something that would kill her interest.
    She expected to have to do some digging, but all she had to do was type in his name. Dai King. Language expert, collector of rare books and translator. He’d been to outer Mongolia, Africa, Iceland, and other places to research local legends and lore. He was well traveled, well-educated, and notoriously reclusive.
    At the end of an article there was a mention of his parents’ and sister’s death, but it didn’t say what had happened. Amanda bit her lip and stared at the image on the screen. Even on the computer, she could see his eyes held more secrets than the oceans and were twice as dangerous. There was more to him than a deceased family and a bunch of dead languages.
    Her life was much simpler if she wasn’t distracted by handsome, dark-haired strangers. She should be walking away. She’d made promises to Matt. She had Brigit to care for. But she couldn’t ignore the flutter in her stomach when Dai had first looked at her in the church. She wanted to revel in the dizzy thrill and breathless rush of attraction, the tingle of a first kiss. There’d been no one since Matt, and until Dai appeared out of nowhere she’d been fine. Maybe she’d been alone too long. She thought Matt was the one, and if he were alive, he would’ve been. But he wasn’t. And she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life by herself. She wanted someone by her side. She pushed her fingers through her hair. What was she going to do?
    She didn’t need any of the complications a relationship would bring. Hell, she wasn’t even sure she wanted a relationship. She just wanted…something. Amanda eased out a slow breath. Maybe she just needed to get laid. Laughter bubbled up; it had been so long she’d forgotten how to do it. Her smile faded. Casual sex wouldn’t fill the growing vacuum of emptiness.
    ***
     
    Dai paused in the kitchen doorway. Amanda was laughing at something on the computer. Her long brown hair was loose for a change. She looked younger, more carefree. Then she looked up and saw him. Her eyes widened and the grin left her lips.
    He had that effect on people, but usually only when he’d looked like a goblin. He almost checked his hands to make sure he was still human. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
    She closed the laptop. “You didn’t. I was just…wasting time on the Internet. You know those videos of cats being silly.”
    Dai nodded and caught sight of her bare feet tucked under the chair. He’d never seen her so…undressed, even though she was still in her work pants and shirt. It was as if some of her armor slipped and she was a little less walled up.
    “You’re not into Roan’s Bollywood films?”
    “Not my thing. I thought you must’ve been in bed already.”
    “I went for a