Read Hero is a Four Letter Word for Free Online Page A

a frustrated hand through his hair, and gold fluffs up like dandelion down. “You’re not making this easy, Jennet,” he huffs.
    “What’s meant to be easy?” Jen counters. “Me?”
    “Oh, no,” he says, eyes immediately round and apologetic. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
    “Tell me how you meant it, then, and choose your words carefully.” She pats her back pocket expressively.
    “How is a man enchanted with a woman meant to behave, if not like this?”His arms spread in askance. The heads of the roses bob, as if to agree with his frustration.
    “Well, threatening the safety of a woman by behaving like a horrible creeper is right out of fashion, now-a-days,” Jen says, and she can’t help the lilt of tease that slips into her voice at the end.
    “And what then?” Liam asks, receptive to her smile. His frustration is ebbing, replaced with interest in her explanation.
    “Most guys chat up women in the grocery store, or in a bar,” Jennet says. “Somewhere public, you know? Sometimes they even call a girl. Or message them on the internet. Send them cards, or knock on their doors. Anything but skulk around, alone in the forest with roses and cheesy lines.”
    Liam grins puckishly and dips another theatrical bow. “But it worked, didn’t it?”
    Jennet snorts. “Only because I decided to listen to you instead of brain you with a branch. Which I may yet regret.”
    “Oh, no you won’t, Jennet,” Liam vows, his eyebrows and the tilt of his chin serious. “I’ll do nothing to make you regret giving me this chance.”
    Jennet snorts again. “Who says I’m giving you any chance? Cocky.”
    He holds out the roses. “Please?”
    Jennet reaches out and plucks the flowers from his hand. A thorn bites into her thumb and it feels good, feels real , so she lets it stay. She buries her nose in the topmost blossom, breathes in the fresh air, good sunlight, clean soil, crisp water. Life.
    His smile doubles, not in size but in brightness. “Will you allow me to escort you home, Miss Carter?” He crooks his elbow.
    “No,” she says. “You’re still a strange man who’s been staring in my bedroom windows. I should report you to the police.”
    “But you won’t,” he hazards, more hope in his voice than she thinks he knows.
    “I should.”
    “But you won’t .”
    Jennet twists her mouth into a moue of disapproval. “You’re a forceful fellow, and too young for me. Go home, Liam, and forget your stupid crush. And I’ll forget to report a trespasser on my property.”
    Liam bites his bottom lip enticingly. “Or you could meet me here again tomorrow and we could talk again.”
    “That’s not happening,” Jennet says, grinning as she waves the rose at him, “But good try. If I see you in these woods again, I will be calling the police. Good day, Liam.”
    “Good day, Miss Carter,” he replies, and turns back into the shadows, and vanishes.

    “How much time do we have?” Liam asks as he pops out from around a fir tree.
    “ Jesus! ” Jennet yelps, hand pulled close to her breast like a Victorian heroine. Liam laughs and bows a little hello and waits with hands folded behind his back for her to swallow her heart. “Time until what , you lunatic? ”
    “Until the police arrive,” Liam says, as if this is the most obvious answer in the world. “You said you’d call them, and you must have seen me out by the forks, or you wouldn’t have come down to the woods. So, how long until they arrive?”
    “Why do you want to know?”
    “So I know how much time to woo you I have left,” Liam replies. His mouth, his plush bottom lip, is serious; but his emerald eyes spark with mischief. “If it isn’t long, I shall have to forgo the longer poem for a sonnet. They’re not as good, but they’re quick.”
    “Oh, shut up,” Jennet says, pulling her shawl around her shoulders. She hadn’t thought to put on her pea coat this time, too peeved at having caught a glimpse of Liam from her library