Free All for the Heiress by Cassidy Cayman Page A

then felt a horrified stab at voicing his thoughts. And right when she’d been acting normal, now she’d think he was taking the piss. He rushed to fix it before she hit him. “And so capable. Oliver would be stupid to pass ye up.”
    He hated that it took her a second to process that he’d been sincere, and the way she clearly didn’t believe him anyway.
    “I hope you’re right,” she said, getting into the bed.
    He wrapped the blanket tighter around him and lay down on the floor, imagining the other bugs that lived under the bed dancing all over him the second the candle was blown out.
    “Don’t be foolish,” she said, thumping the straw mattress. “Come on up.”
    “Oh, thank God,” he said, scurrying to get on the bed. He leaned against the plank headboard and wrested around his brain for something else to say so things wouldn’t get awkward when she realized they were in bed together. “Tell me about that lovely lad, Oliver, so I know what I’m up against. What’s so special about him?”
    He frowned as she closed her eyes, a dreamy smile taking over her face. Surely Oliver wasn’t that spectacular? He wished he could have got a glimpse of him before he’d stolen Catie back to her own time, or had a chance to fight for her back when she was in his. He knew he and Catie had made a connection, even in the short time he’d known her. He got so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t realize Mellie hadn’t said anything, and was now looking at him with a frown that must have rivaled his own.
    “Oh, I don’t know,” she huffed. “I was only around him for a few hours.” Keeping her blanket cocooned around her, she wriggled to lay down, turning her back to him.
    “Did ye come all this way for someone ye canna even describe?” he asked incredulously.
    Perhaps her quarter-life crisis was more serious than he’d given credit for. Had she only pretended to like Oliver and risked her life solely to help him? He reached out to touch her, pausing with his hand raised above her shoulder.
    “Shut up and go to sleep,” she groused.
    He almost laughed aloud at how brainless he was. Of course that wasn’t the reason she’d come. She was just being grouchy as usual. He made a face at her back and rolled over, staring at the door until he fell asleep.

Chapter 9

    Mellie woke up, so tangled in her blanket she thought she might suffocate. It only took about three seconds of being awake to realize her entire body was aflame with itchy bug bites. Flinging the filthy blanket off her, she saw Shane sitting by the fire in his shirt and socks, leaning over and inspecting the small red welts that covered his legs.
    Keeping his face resolutely turned away, he tossed her long underwear at her. “I think the bed gave me scabies,” he said sadly. “I should have taken my chances with the roaches on the floor.”
    “Oh, this is horrible,” she said, unable to dig her fingernails into all the places that needed scratching at once. “And I didn’t even think to bring any hydrocortisone cream. Have you tried the lotion?”
    He motioned to the little glass bottle next to him. “It didna do anything for me.” He handed it to her and she began dabbing all the bites she could see. He stood up and yanked on the rest of his clothes. “I’m going to settle up and see if there’s any breakfast, then we should get going again.”
    She nodded miserably at his angry tone, but once he was gone she relaxed. As awful as being treated like an all-you-can-eat buffet by the inn’s microscopic residents was, it had at least distracted them from any awkwardness over sleeping together. Of course, it had meant nothing, and they’d both been wrapped in their own blankets, but he’d been so sweet to her the night before, it had thrown her.
    He’d even called her pretty, and the look on his face when he said it … she didn’t understand it. When he asked her about Oliver, his voice sounded almost lost, and then she got irritated