Close to You by Kara Isaac Page B

there. Was he a dwarf? An Elf? A wizard? A monster? He directed unkind thoughts toward the long-gone J. R. R. What kind of person conjured up books with more characters than days of the year?
    He carefully kept his face neutral. “Lucky me.”
    Her smile turned into a face-splitting grin. “You have no idea.”
    He should never have told her anything yesterday. He’d already spent the entire time feeling like he was trying to breathe through a straw, and yet, in a moment of stupidity, he’d dropped his guard and let her slip underneath. The one person who had nothing to lose by throwing him under the bus every chance she got. He should’ve left her to get herself out of the mud. Since she obviously thought she was all that, she could’ve just levitated or something.
    â€œIt’s a type of orc.” Allie spoke so quietly he almost missed it.
    â€œSorry?” He blinked at her. Was she helping him?
    â€œAn Uruk-hai is an advanced breed of orc created during the Third Age. And the scouts were the elite variety. In the movies . . .” She paused and tilted her frizzy red head at him. “You have at least seen the movies, right?”
    He gave her his best death stare. “Yes, I’ve seen the movies.”
    â€œJust checking. Can’t be sure with you.”
    What was that supposed to mean?
    â€œSo in the movies they were the ones that killed Boromir and kidnapped Pippin and Merry.”
    That rang a bell. Not that the cathedral wasn’t full of ugly villains who all merged into each other. He pictured the scene from the movie she referred to and visualized the fighting that had taken place. “Tall guys, blackish, bad teeth, weird-looking ears, right?”
    She shrugged. “Close enough.”
    â€œOkay.” Over her shoulder he could see Spinster One hurrying out the front door.
    â€œYour missing client is back,” Jackson pointed out.
    Allie turned, just in time to see the lady almost tripping over her own feet in her eagerness to rejoin the group.
    â€œI’m fine, I’m fine,” the elderly lady called across the lot before anyone could even open their mouth to ask.
    â€œOh, and Allie?”
    She half turned and looked at him over her shoulder.
    â€œThanks.” He forced the word out. As much as he hated to admit it, she had done him a big favor.
    â€œYou’re welcome.”
    Though, from the look on her face, she was as uncertain as he as to why she’d helped him at all.
    * * *
    A llie idly watched as the blue skies and lush green paddocks of Waikato rolled by her window in a never-ending view that could star in a New Zealand tourism campaign. Behind her, the minivan was filled with exuberant chatter. Even the small frames of the usually grim Misses Barrett were almost humming with anticipation.
    Glancing over her shoulder, she caught a glimpse of Jackson attempting to hold an expression she guessed was meant to be somewhere between excited and interested.
    She shook her head. What had made her give him a leg up out of his hole? If it hadn’t been for her, the guy would’ve had no clue his boss had fitted him up to be a breed of orc. Oh well, she was pretty sure he still didn’t completely understand what he’d been set up for. He was going to flip out when he found out—though who knew when that would be. Most of the forty-minute journey would find them with sporadic cell coverage, which would prevent him from his practice of trying to surreptitiously get the answers he desperately needed from Google via his phone.
    She hoped she was around to see it, especially following hisreaction in the car park after he found out this wasn’t an ordinary sightseeing trip around Hobbiton. The guy took himself way too seriously. His face when he learned he would be spending three hours in makeup and costuming—two hours longer than anyone else—would be magical!
    Better yet, Kat would get to