He took aim. Lifted his elbow. Pulled back on the bow. Narrowed his gaze. Release.
Zing!
Thunk!
The beastly arrow missed the bullseye again. By far too much.
“Bah!” Mimi couldn’t suppress the sound. Or so he assumed noticing her hand covering her mouth. She withdrew her fingers and said, “I thought you would be a challenge for me.”
Apparently she hadn’t been trying to suppress anything. The blasted chit said whatever was on her mind. And Sam, not usually an angry fellow, felt right furious in the moment.
With gritted teeth, he formed a few polite words. As many as he could muster. “Let’s see you try.”
Mimi laughed. “I could do better blindfolded.”
“I doubt it.”
With a toss of her hair, Mimi called back to Nobi. “Do you think I could do better than that if I were blindfolded?”
The helpless shrug of Nobi’s shoulders and her pitying eyebrows said it all.
“I’ll go retrieve my arrows and you can take your turn.”
“Don’t bother. They’re not in my way,” she tossed out and flicked him an annoying little grin.
“Just shoot,” Sam ground out.
Mimi took aim.
Bullseye!
Without a pause, she withdrew a second arrow. Load. Aim. Shoot.
Bullseye!
The smirk on her face when she turned to face him boiled his blood. Her eyes were closed. “I only closed my eyes, it’s not as though I doubled the distance. I didn’t want to humiliate you completely.”
“Ha ha.”
“Oh. You don’t believe me?” Mimi stood with a hand on her hip.
Wait. Was she actually claiming that she took those shots with both of her eyes closed? Her depth perception, balance, and everything would be skewed. It was impossible. No. She wasn’t saying that. She couldn’t be saying that. She couldn’t be that much better than him. Well, him at his worst, really. But still. A no-eyed woman was a better archer than him? It couldn’t be.
“Duke,” she nearly shouted, and he could hear the venom in her voice. “Are you calling me a liar?”
Speechless. That’s all that he was. What should he say to that? Prove it?
“Shall I prove it?”
Thank God she supplied the words for him.
“Stand here.” She motioned for him to stand beside her while she took aim again, lifted her bow and stretched it taut. Her body was preternaturally still, holding the shape of her shot. Closing her eyes, she let the arrow fly.
For a moment, Sam couldn’t take his eyes off of her. She was a hellion to be sure. Wild. Furious. Even reckless, perhaps. But when he slid his eyes over to the target, without much motivation if he was being transparent, he saw what he was loath to imagine.
Bullseye. Times two.
Damn it.
