Heart Choice Read Online Free PDF Page B

“Quite so,” he choked out.
    â€œThanks. Merry meet,” said Straif.
    The butler’s face fell into serious folds, “And merry part.”
    â€œAnd merry meet again,” Straif ended. They both knew it was a lie. There was no merriment in the Holly Family, but they themselves had to learn how to deal with their changed circumstances. Straif could no longer help.
    Straif nodded, cut the call, and walked away from T’Holly Residence. It was a couple of miles to his home.
    Drina revved up her purr. Mitchella Clover likes you. I saw.
    Now that was a cheerful topic. “I like the looks of her, too.”
    She will do well by T’Blackthorn Residence.
    â€œI agree.”
    She is a good friend of Danith D’Ash. I know much about her.
    â€œOf D’Ash?”
    Drina gave a delicate snort. Of Mitchella Clover.
    Straif knew exactly what the cat was doing. She was repaying him for the pillow. Cats tended to take favors seriously. He was surprised to hear himself say, “I think I’d like to find out about her all on my own.” The Blackthorns were hunters and trackers, puzzles appealed. And a woman they had to track and find and unravel was a challenging prize.
    The little cat settled more comfortably—for them both—on his shoulder.
    Very well. She continued to purr all the way home.
    Â 
 
Mitchella was in the tiny space that served as her den, surrounded by papyrus, when the door to her small house slammed and her twelve year old ward, Antenn, banged in.
    â€œThere’s a hot furrabeast sandwich for you and crunchies for Pinky in the no-time,” she called. After grove-study with all the other Clover boys, he’d stayed to play sports in the courtyard of the sprawling Clover homestead. Mitchella heard the faint hiss of the no-time shield falling, the clatter of a plate, and her ward’s tromping.
    â€œYou’re in the den,” he mumbled around a mouthful of sandwich. He shoved a bunch of books aside and plopped his damp and slightly muddy self down on the twoseat. Mitchella didn’t even wince anymore. Her furnishings had taken a battering when she’d accepted Antenn as a ward three and a half years ago, but after just a month she’d realized the boy gave back in companionship much more than the value of any inanimate object.
    He swallowed, slurped at a cylinder of cinnamontea, then grinned. “You look happy. We have a job?”
    Mitchella set aside the drawstick, rolled her shoulders, and smiled back at him. “The best, the very best.”
    â€œGuess I’ll be able to stop ducking the Clover boys’ questions, then, huh?”
    Mitchella stiffened. “Have they been . . . pestering you?”
    Antenn waggled his eyebrows. “All the Clovers gossip a lot, and since we don’t live in the compound, they like to talk about us. I can handle the boys, and everyone else, too.” He threw out his skinny chest. “It isn’t as if the Clovers are Downwind Triad gangs.”
    That he could speak so casually of the past pleased Mitchella, and she relaxed, then picked up the drawstick and fiddled with it. Naturally the other Clovers would gossip about her. She had her own business instead of working at the family furniture concern. She rented a house instead of living in the large jumble of Clover homes on Fabacay Square. She was sterile.
    Antenn angled on the sofa, putting his feet, sans boots, she was glad to see, on the cushions, knocking off more papyrus. Pinky, his small cream-colored tomcat, trotted in and hopped up on Antenn’s lap. “Tell me more about the job,” Antenn said.
    Mitchella passed over a holostone on which she’d copied various views of T’Blackthorn Residence, inside and out. The egglike stone also held images of the furnished rooms and floor plans. Antenn stuck his thumb in the indentation and flicked through the holos.
    â€œBeautiful house. Must be a