10
There is no such thing as magical glue. Any witch who tries to sell you magical glue is a lying hag.
—A Witch’s Compendium of Curses
We went to a restaurant called High on the Hog. It was careworn but well populated. The green pleather booths were sprung and peeling. The napkin dispensers consisted of paper-towel racks mounted against the oak paneling. Pictures of people holding up large fish and neon beer signs decorated the walls. I could barely see the kitchen through the smoke, but I could make out a huge brick pit in the middle of the space.
It was a bit like a pub, with the same happy, boisterous crowd, people drinking more they were supposed to and most likely flirting with people they weren’t supposed to. Loud country music blared from an old jukebox in the corner. The smell should have been revolting, nothing but smoke and grease and beer. But my mouth was watering to the point where I felt like wiping at it with my sleeve.
Jed ordered for me, because after the hamburger comment, I couldn’t be trusted to do it myself. While the meat was smoky and delicious, it was the side dishes I gorged on. There were things I remembered from my childhood. Corn on the cob and macaroni and cheese. But then there were hash brown casserole, collard greens, and hush puppies, which I had never tried.
“Wow, you are just throwing yourself into that plate, aren’t you?” Jed marveled.
“I know, it’s probably revolting. You’ve probably spent your adult life dating women who eat the cucumber from their salad and proclaim they’re just too full to go on, but I am starving. And this is really good.”
“Naw, hell, I was going to offer you my black-eyed peas if it means you’ll keep makin’ those little sounds in your throat.”
“I’m making little sounds?”
He nodded. “If you stop, I’ll cry. A lot.”
I drank the watery-but-no-one-knew-any-better beer, and I ate my fill. And when a stocky man in a Georgia State T-shirt asked me to two-step, I politely declined. He almost argued, but Jed gave him sort of a no-doubt-terrifying-to-the-male-of-the-species territorial glare, and Mr. Georgia State scampered away.
Two more, I thought. Two more, and I could go home. With the plaque locked up tight in Jed’s truck, I was well and truly relaxed for the first time in days. It was the same relief and euphoria I’d felt after finding the candle. I was getting a little bit addicted to that feeling, and it was leading to some dangerous thoughts.
Those thoughts focused on Jed’s lips and how they’d felt against mine earlier that day. And how relatively easy it was to sit here in this crowded bar and talk about nothing at all with him. I didn’t feel that constant nagging pressure to say the right thing or use the right fork. Because Jed had seen me having a possum-fueled panic attack wearing nothing but a towel. After that, there was nowhere to go but up.
After a bit too much Hank Williams, Sr., and far too much good food, Jed drove us back to the motel. The car park was dark, the night moonless under a cloudy sky.
“I had a really nice time,” I told him as we walked to the doors.
“Try not to sound so surprised,” he chided gently.
“I’m not surprised! All right, I’m a little surprised. Thank you for driving me down here and helping me. Thanks.” I leaned forward and meant to kiss his cheek, but he turned his head at the last minute, and I managed to catch his mouth instead. I gave an exasperated little huff. “Really, again?”
“You kissed me!”
“It was an accident!” I cried.
“There’s no such thing as accidents, only things you mean to do and put off until a moment of panic.”
“That’s awfully philosophical,” I mused.
“No, I’m not talkin’ about all mankind, just you in particular.”
I stared at him, long and hard. I watched as the smug little grin faded from his expression. And he was just a man, looking at a woman, as if he wanted her desperately. I don’t think anyone had ever looked at me that way.
I was not drunk. The beer we’d had was barely enough to give me a pleasant buzz. I was making a decision without thinking, for the first time in a very long time. It felt really good, but in the morning, I was probably going to regret it. At the moment, I did not care. I wish I could blame it on the drink or being tired or homesick or under the influence of some bizarre magical ritual. But I just wanted him. His skin was warm and smooth under mine. He was solid and strong, and he was looking at me as if I hung the moon and stars. I wanted to feel his skin against mine, to have him drag that stubble across my collarbone and bite at my throat.
“Oh, hell.” I sighed, shoving him against the door and attacking his mouth. I didn’t even care when our teeth clacked together. His tongue slipped past my lips, tangled with mine. Hands that had hesitated with uncertainty at my sides now curled around my back.
I hitched my leg over his hip, rising against him. Once again, his hands found purchase under my rear as he lifted me. He pushed into my room and whipped me around, pushing me against the door. He yanked my shirt over my head. I pushed him back onto the bed and unbuttoned his shirt, grinding down on the growing bulge of his lap. He moaned.
“Are you sure about this?” he asked, lightly pulling at the ends of my hair. “You’re not drunk, are you?”
I laughed. “No! On that beer? Don’t be silly!” I kissed him again. “No, I’m not sure about it. But I’m going to do it anyway. It’s a new thing for me.”
He chuckled. “Well, thank you for experimentin’ on me.”
“You’re so pretty!” I exclaimed as I pulled his shirt away. “It’s just not fair. I mean, really. You’re just . . . so damned pretty! Do you get that a lot?”
“Not nearly enough,” he said, shaking his head. He pushed my hair from my face and grinned up at me. “And you’re pretty, too.” He kissed the tip of my chin, nuzzling my neck. “The first time I saw you, I couldn’t look away from your face.”
I slipped my fingertips up the length of his spine, twisting them into his hair and pulling his head back, so we were eye-to-eye. “You mean, when I was naked?”
He grinned wickedly. I jiggled my hand slightly, forcing him to nod. “Yes.”
I bit my lip, keeping my head tilted even as he turned and lowered me to the mattress. “I don’t know whether it’s a compliment that you could only look at my face when I was naked.”
“I will stare at your breasts right now if it will make you happy.”
I considered it for a long moment. “I think it would.”
He helped me unclasp my bra and threw it over his shoulder. He sat back on his heels, pursing his lips and squinting as if he was considering my nipples very carefully. After a few moments of this, I became uncomfortable and tried to cross my arms. He caught my wrists, shaking his head. He dipped his head to mine as he pressed my wrists to the mattress.
“I still like your face,” he muttered, making me laugh as he nuzzled my cheek.
“Can I ask you something?”
“I don’t think I could stop you if I tried.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry,” I said, kissing him again. “I’m not going to talk myself out of this. I am going to have sex with you. Like the dirty, nasty, make-the-priest-drop-his-Bible-during-confession sort of sex. I am very bendy. You wouldn’t know it to look at me, but . . . very bendy. And if I start talking again, I will talk until you lose interest or I start snoring. And if I start snoring, you definitely won’t have sex with me.”
“You snore?”
“Rumor has it.”
He unzipped my jeans and tugged them down my hips. “I like snoring.” Suddenly, he was back at face level and drawing his cheek along the width of my collarbone as my panties seemed to disappear into thin air. “Love it.” I wrapped my legs around his hips, and he planted a kiss on the hollow of my throat. “Think it’s the sexiest thing ever.”
As I was laughing, he closed his lips around mine and slowly, but surely, slid between my thighs. I could feel him smiling against my mouth as he rolled his hips. I giggled shamelessly, nuzzling against his neck until he ducked away.
“Ticklish,” he murmured.
Every nerve, every cell in my body seemed to sizzle to life. I could feel everything—skin, lips, hands, warmth, comfort, home. This was right where I should be. I could feel it in my bones, the magic working its way loose from my marrow and warming me down to my toes. It wound around the two of us, like a golden ribbon only I could see.
That was new.
Our legs wound together under the rough sheets as we moved. An aurora of sunny light drifted around the bed while I was trying to concentrate on the slow, steady pace Jed was setting. It was a bit of a distraction, taking on a life of its own, flashing and moving as we did, sharing Jed’s playful energy as he nibbled at my jawline. But somehow we managed to slide along until Jed’s chest was heaving and my skin felt too hot and tight.
Every part of me pulsed, and the light pulsed with me. Jed moaned over me, tilting his head against mine. Just before I closed my eyes, Jed’s skin changed in my light, rippling into scales, golden oval scales like you’d see in medieval illustrations of dragons. I blinked rapidly, eyes wide, running my hand down his shoulder. And with that, it was his normal, smooth skin again.
Jed chuckled and rolled to his side, dragging me with him. The golden ribbon faded from sight as I slumped against his ribs, slightly boggled.
Clearly, mind-blowing sex combined with hash brown casserole had hallucinogenic properties.
* * *
We lay there in the dark, wrapped around each other, Jed’s chin resting on my shoulder. I was so relaxed and content that I was drifting on that line between sleep and waking. And Jed suddenly nudged my cheek with his nose and said, “What were you going to ask me?”
I yawned. “Before you so rudely interrupted me with sex?”
“Yep.”
I turned over to face him, balancing on my elbows as my hair fell back over my shoulders. “Why are you so weird around me?”
He frowned and paused midnuzzle. “What do you mean?”
“You’re nice one minute, and then the next, you’re running into your house like your arse is on fire to avoid me. When we do talk, you’re funny and charming and sweet, but then I haven’t been able to talk to you that often over the last few weeks, because you hide out in your side of the house.”
“I thought you were going to ask me if they looked real,” he said, nodding toward my chest. “Which they do.”
“And when I ask you anything the least bit personal, you deflect with a dirty joke.”
“Force of habit.”
“Well, cut it out.”
“I’m used to having my family living on all sides. I’ve never had a hot neighbor before. I don’t know how to act when I like someone and she’s living so close. I figured if I was always at your door, asking you over for dinner, I would come across like a crazy stalker.” His face was suddenly so serious, little worry lines forming around his mouth in an expression like regret. “I like you, so much more than I expected, and it’s made things more difficult than they should be.”
“So you like me too much?” I asked, skeptical.
“I think so,” he said, his tone surprised, as if he hadn’t thought about this until now.
Well, it was a reason. It wasn’t a good reason, but I would accept it.
He shifted on the mattress, running a hand down the length of my side to curve over my hip. He ran the tips of his fingers over the small of my back, stroking the base of my spine. “Now I have a question for you.”
“Is it about my snoring?” I asked.
“No.”
“Then go ahead.”
“Why the hell are you here?” he asked. “Why would a girl move from the big city to Middle-of-Nowhere, Kentucky? And don’t tell me change of scenery. Because no scenery could be that bad that you’d move to the Hollow.”
I’m a witch on the hunt for magical artifacts that will guarantee our continued magical domination over an evil former branch of our family.
Well, I should probably phrase it some other way.
I looked up at him, tracing the contours of his cheekbones with my fingertips. I’d omitted or outright lied to him about so many things. Lying to Jed weighed on me more than I’d expected. I wanted to tell him the truth for once, about this one little thing. I didn’t have to tell him about witchcraft or where I was really from, but I could give him this tiny bit of truth.
“I have family in the Hollow,” I said, carefully lacing my fingers through his. “I only found out about them a few months ago. My mother never knew her dad. It was always this big family secret we were never even supposed to ask about. My grandmother died recently, and right before she passed, she shared his name with me. Have you heard of Gilbert Wainwright, the man who owned the house before Dick?”
Jed’s eyebrows rose. “Really?”
I nodded. “It turns out my grandfather died a while ago but left behind other relatives. Aunts and uncles and cousins,” I said, thinking of my vampire friends and the more trustworthy branch of the Lavelle clan. “And I wanted to get to know that side of my family.”
“So you never knew this whole section of your family existed, and bam, instant aunts and uncles?” he asked, propping his head against a pillow. “What’s that like?”
“Bizarre,” I admitted with a sniffle. He was quiet for a long moment, staring at me and running his fingertips down the length of my cheek.
“Family can be that way. Bizarre, I mean. Have I ever told you about the time my brother Jim threw a dart at my head and put me in an eye patch for two months?” he asked, rolling me onto my side and pulling my back against his chest.
“How would you have possibly told me about that?” I chuckled.
“Don’t laugh. I made that eye patch look good,” he grumbled, jostling me. “Had to wear the damn thing on school picture day. So this is the story of how Jed learned when Jim says, ‘Duck,’ to take him seriously.”
“Are you telling me an absurd, painful story about your childhood to make me feel less awkward about this postcoital confessional?” I sniffed.
“Yes.”
“All right, then,” I said, turning and nestling my forehead against his collarbone.
* * *
I didn’t remember falling asleep. I remembered Jed telling his eye patch story (I found out later this was one of several incidents involving his brother that ended in Jed wearing an eye patch), and then I was walking along a fern-choked trail in a jungle with a figure in front of me, chopping through vegetation with a machete. The air was sticky and hot, smelling of rotting plants. And in the distance, I could hear church bells over the din of a thousand squawking tropical birds.
“Hi there,” Mr. Wainwright called over his khaki-clad shoulder.
“Aw, hell, again?” I sighed. “Do you know how off-putting it is to fall asleep in the arms of a naked man and wake up on a field trip with your grandfather?”
“Oh, come on, dear,” he admonished, leaning against a tree for a breather. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”
“I’m staying at the Sleep-Tight Inn, aren’t I?” I muttered. “That’s adventure enough for me.” Glancing up the trail, I saw a decrepit whitewashed church in the distance. Its bell clanged loudly, although there was no one to yank the pull.
“Where are we?” I asked as he adjusted his dark-blue neckerchief.
“South America?” he guessed. “I hate to belabor the point, but it’s your dream.”
I hissed as a banana leaf snapped back and thwacked me across the face. “So what nonhelpful advice do you have to offer me this time?”
“Never trust a man with the middle name Wayne,” he said.
“What?”
He grunted, hacking his way through a clump of banana leaves. “You never said the advice had to be related to the Elements.”
“Why am I even bothering?” I sighed, following him. “You know, I managed to find two of the Elements on my own. I don’t need your help.”
“Of course you don’t,” he said as a large yellow butterfly fluttered past his shoulder. “But you’re the one who keeps bringing me back here.”
“Mr. Wainwright,” I growled.
“You’re still not going to call me Grandpa, are you?” he said sadly.
“Not for a while,” I told him. “I don’t know you that well yet.”
“I hoped that spending time at the shop would help you get to know me.”
“I thought you were a figment of my imagination. Do figments hope?”
He snickered. “Touché. You know, this might go a bit faster if you used a little . . .” He waggled his fingers as if casting a Las Vegas magician’s spell.
“Really?” I scoffed. “You want me to use magic because you’re having trouble with some landscaping?”
“No, I want you to use magic because it can be fun,” he said, gesturing to building-scale trees towering over our heads. “Maybe just peel all the greenery back like curtains. Or make the trees dance around like those ‘Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ mops in Fantasia. I just want to see what you can do. It’s not like I ever got to watch you perform in a ballet recital.”
“I never took ballet. And didn’t Nana tell you anything about our magic?” I asked.
“She said your family’s talents were a gift, not that you were only allowed to put them toward practical purposes,” he said. “Just think of how boring life would be if you received gloves and car-detailing kits every Christmas.”
I thought back to my grandmother’s many, many lectures on magic. She had never told me that magic wasn’t supposed to be fun. In fact, I remembered several lessons in which she taught me to create shapes in colored smoke through concentration. Or to make fire dance. But the fire-dancing lesson had ended in tears and damaged drapes. So we’d stuck to the area in which I excelled, which happened to be healing. There aren’t a lot of laughs to be had in curing rashes and boils.
Come to think of it, in addition to the motel sleeping bag, Stephen had also given me gloves and a car-detailing kit for Christmas.
“I think you’re being too hard on yourself,” Mr. Wainwright said. “I think the search for your Elements is a bit like keeping a grip on that altar plaque. If you try too hard to hold on to it, you’ll break it.”
“So I need to relax.” I snorted. “In the face of an impossible task and a looming deadline, I’m supposed to relax and have fun.”
“It couldn’t hurt.”
“I’ll try. Thanks, Mr. Wainwright.”
“Still not budging on that ‘Grandpa’ issue, are you?”
I shook my head but grinned at him and squeezed his hand. “No.”
Mr. Wainwright squeezed my hand tightly, then turned on his heel and commenced chopping through the jungle plants again.
“Nola?” he called as he pushed into the brush. “Take it easy on Dick. He means well.”
* * *
Muttering to myself about unhelpful figments, I woke up with my head propped on my arm and the bare expanse of Jed’s back turned toward me. He was up on one elbow, holding something, shifting it back and forth in his hands.
“Are you all right?” I asked. Startled, he turned, and there was a strange, unfamiliar expression on his face. Sadness, regret, a touch of anger. I’d never seen those emotions on Jed’s sunny, open face. He looked down at me, a quick grin spreading across his features, chasing the sad expression away. “Yeah, just fine.”
“So this is incredibly awkward,” I said. I sat up, with the sheets pressed to my chest. I looked over Jed’s shoulder to find that he was holding the altar plaque in his hands, turning it over and over. “What are you doing?”
“I just didn’t get a very good look at it last night,” he said, turning onto his back and pulling me with him so I was splayed across his chest as he toyed with the plaque. “It’s just a chunk of clay. I was tryin’ to figure out what was so special about this that Jane Jameson would send us all the way down here for it.”
I carefully retrieved the plaque from his hands and wrapped it in the unbleached cloth I’d packed for just such a purpose. “I think it was the principle of the thing. Jane got really pissed at the idea that Mama Ginger had not only stolen from her but had also used ill-gotten goods to get out of shopping for a present. Reclaiming the gift would embarrass Mama Ginger, so the effort was worth it.”
“But why send you?”
“I’ve spent a lot of time at the shop lately, and I haven’t stolen anything from her yet. It fostered a sense of trust.”
“Not for me,” he said. “I plan on pattin’ you down after you get out of my truck.”
“Well, I was also one of the few people she knew who could make the trip down here,” I said. There was a pause, not awkward, just pleasant. I pressed a finger into the little divot in his chin, making him dip his head and bite down on my fingertip. I laughed and drew it away, but not before his rasping tongue on the ridges of my skin sparked some rather pleasant tingles between my thighs. “So last night . . .”
“. . . Was not a one-time occasion,” he informed me. “That was new for me. The whole talkin’ and actually tellin’ you what I think, instead of what I think you want to hear—I don’t do that with everybody. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever done that before. This is a beginning, not a brush-off, understood?”
I nodded. “Still, it is incredibly awkward.”
“Did you have a good time?” He leaned across the sheets and pushed my hair back from my face. I nodded. “Do you think I’m easy?”
I burst out laughing. “No.”
“Good. I don’t think you’re easy, either. I think you’re sexy and fun and bendy in all the right places.”
“I told you, ‘bendy’ is a selling point.”
“Honey, I saw all kind of potential in you last night.”
* * *
The drive back was pleasant enough. I ended up sleeping for a good portion of it, which made Jed snicker about having worn me out. I snarked back that I was just trying to avoid further trauma from Atlanta traffic. We only made a few stops for coffee and Sno-Balls, and by midafternoon, we were rolling back into town.
I liked that despite the fact that we’d seen each other naked, nothing seemed to change. He still made inappropriate jokes. I made vague threats to his manhood. It was lovely, relaxed. But I felt strange that I didn’t feel worse. I’d fought with Stephen, but I wasn’t sure if I’d broken it off with him officially. He’d left me ten voice-mail messages, most of which I’d ignored. As far I knew, he was ordering bloody apology flowers and sending them my way. If so, I was a terrible girlfriend. But what bothered me the most was that I didn’t actually feel bad. Physically, I felt good—balanced, limber, and untroubled. The last time I felt this loose was after getting a massage at one of those day spas when Penny got married and insisted on a girls’ do.
I was a morality-free zone.
Still, it was hard to feel bad, knowing that the plaque was resting comfortably in my overnight bag. Jed pulled the truck into the driveway and slowed to a stop. “So, frankly, I’m sick of the sight of you,” he told me with a distressingly straight face. “Get out of my truck, and definitely do not come to my side of the house for dinner.”
“You are truly a bizarre man,” I told him.
“Is pizza OK?” he asked, grinning.
“Fine, pizza, with a potential side order of repeat sex.”
He climbed out of the truck and craned his head back through the door. “If I place the order that way at Pete’s Pies, the lady who answers their phones will pass out.”
“But she will remember the order.”
“I’ll get the bags,” he called from the truck’s tailgate. “Can you grab my mail?”
“Sure!”
I was halfway to the door-mounted mailbox when I heard Jed yelp, “Shit!” and then a crunch. When I rounded the truck, I saw him standing over my suitcase, which was lying on its side in the gravel.
“What happened?” I asked, fumbling with the zipper. I’d placed the plaque inside a zippered pocket on the outside of the bag. I could only hope that Jed hadn’t dropped the bag on that side.
Jed’s expression was stricken. “It just slipped out of my hand.”
I scrambled through my overnight bag to find the cloth bag I’d wrapped around the plaque. My heart sank as the bag tinkled and crunched in my shaking hands. The clay was shattered. There were three or four pieces the size of my thumb, but everything else was practically dust. It wasn’t surprising, I supposed, considering how old the clay was. I took deep breaths and tried to keep myself centered. I couldn’t risk having a meltdown and blowing up Jed’s porch lights.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, his face ashen. “How bad is it?”
“Bad,” I told him, holding up the clay shards. I took a deep breath and forced my voice to stay steady. “Accidents happen, Jed. It’s not your fault.”
Jed bent to examine the bits in my hand. The outsides of the larger pieces were distressed and old, but the interiors were just as bright and fresh as a new penny. Maybe the hum of magic that had cloaked the plaque all those years had formed some sort of stasis?
“How angry is Jane going to be?” he asked, taking one piece and turning it over in my palm. “I can tell her it was my fault.”
“Jane won’t be angry at all,” I told him honestly. I tried to manage a smile for him, so he wouldn’t beat himself up over this. “It’s just an ashtray.”
* * *
Later that evening, I tried to piece the plaque back together like a jigsaw puzzle. I managed a flat, vaguely round shape, but that was it. I even tried to use the plaque’s own magic to get the pieces to call out to one another, to re-form to its original state, but it didn’t respond the way I thought a magically infused item would. They were just bits of clay. Instead of contaminating those bits with the fumes of Super Glue, I decided I would take them to the shop, put them in an unbleached cotton bag, and close the lot up in a drawer full of good Kilcairy soil. That was the extent of what I could do.
I heard Jed walk out his front door and listened for the sound of his truck, but I got distracted when the phone rang. My dear Penny didn’t have an opinion about whether the plaque would “work” when it was broken. It was possible it wouldn’t work, but at the same time, I felt sort of free. The Kerrigans couldn’t get all four items. They couldn’t bind us, which would ease my family’s anxiety and keep the clinic running smoothly. Of course, we couldn’t bind them, but that was another problem entirely. Still, I’d failed to protect centuries of family history. And I was depressed beyond the telling of it, and Jed was embarrassed. The evening I’d hoped would be spent having the aforementioned bendy-straw sex was spent in separate quarters. I sat in the kitchen, staring down at the dust, trying to figure out what to do.
Penny did, however, think it was rather hilarious that of all the people in the family, I’d been the one who inadvertently destroyed our heirloom.
“You are hereby the worst witch in the family!” she hooted. “I mean, clearly, it’s a tragedy, but the fact that you did it, and not me—”
“Too soon, Penny.”
“Stephen came by the clinic,” she said, in a quick change of subject. “It was rather shocking, him just showing up out of the blue. I know he avoids coming here unless it’s absolutely necessary. Anyway, he seems to think you’ve lost your mind. Did you really break it off with him?”
“I’m not sure. The conversation didn’t end with kissy noises, that’s for certain.”
“Well, if you did, I, for one, am glad. I was getting tired of talking to him. And I didn’t even have to sleep with him.”
“So, other than casting doubts about my mental capacity, what did Stephen have to say?”
“Nothing memorable; it was a conversation with Stephen. You know I only pay attention half the time he’s speaking. But do us a favor, and call him to settle things, so he stops pestering us? Uncle Seamus’s hexing hand is getting itchy.”
“I’ll call him and clear things up,” I promised. “Just not today.”
“And who, may I ask, is the person you are choosing to spend time with instead of our dear Stephen?” As I made an indignant squawking noise, she added, “And don’t try to deny it, I can hear that ‘I just did naked things’ quality in your voice.”
“I didn’t do naked things,” I said primly. “We were only seminude.”
It was true. Jed had left his socks on.
Penny gasped noisily. “Seminude as in shirtless?” she cried. “As in your shirt-hating neighbor? You got seminude with the gorgeous, shirt-hating neighbor?”
“I will neither confirm nor deny.”
“Well, it’s about time you started making stupid decisions. It was getting lonely out here on the ‘screw-up’ limb of the family tree.”
“And who told you that getting your boyfriend’s name tattooed on your ankle was a good idea? You were limited to men named Dave until you saved up enough to have it removed. Now, if all you’re going to do is mock my not-so-youthful indiscretions, I’m hanging up.”
“No, wait!” she cried. “Just tell me one thing.”
“What?”
“The last time you saw him, was he wearing ripped jeans and a muscle shirt?”
“No!” I exclaimed, before adding, “Not today . . . Did you know they call them ‘wifebeaters’ here?”
“Well, that’s off-putting.”
“Tell me about it.”
“No.” She pressed me. “You tell me about it. What’s this Jed like?”
“He’s just a nice man who lives next door.”
“And he’s good-lookin’?”
“Ridiculously so.” I sighed. “But nothing serious is going to happen, because that’s not why I’m here.”
“Right, the whole family expects you to shut yourself off from the waist down.”
“No, but I’m pretty sure Stephen would want me to,” I muttered.
“Well, that would be the only way I would survive sleeping with Stephen.”
“Shut up, Penelope.”
After several very expensive minutes’ worth of harassment from Penny, I hung up on her. But she did ask whether I would qualify Jed’s arse as “squeezable.” The woman had it coming.
Eager to shake off the images of Penny sexually harassing my neighbor, I went to the sink to start tea. There was a squarish window over the sink, with a pretty blue flower box outside overflowing with white impatiens, thanks to the work crews. I was loath to admit it, but I was afraid to look out the window into the back garden. The clouds had cleared, and even the half-moon was bright. And I was convinced that the moment I looked up, I would see a Chupacabra pressed against the window like a suction-cup Garfield doll. But damned if I didn’t accidentally look up anyway.
I shouldn’t have.
Near my brand-new arbor, I could see something moving. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. It stood on two feet and seemed human. The shape seemed thinner than last time, larger, but I was viewing it from another angle. It crept past the arbor toward the house. Gasping, I dashed toward my kitchen door and flipped the lock. I fumbled for the light switch, and the room plunged into darkness. The outlines of the trees stood in sharp relief without the interference of the kitchen light. The shape stilled, swinging its head toward the house. I backed away from the door, wondering if it was smarter to run upstairs or out the front door. Of course, this had to happen on one of my “powerless” days, so I couldn’t even work up the juice to neutralize whatever it was if it broke into the house.
A voice sounded behind me. “What are you doing?”
Shrieking, I pivoted on my heel and swung my fist as hard as I could.
“Ow!” Jane cried, dropping to her knees and clutching her chest. She glared up at me and wheezed, “Why did you punch me in the boob?”
Jane and Jolene were standing in my kitchen. Well, technically, Jolene had collapsed to her knees, cackling with laughter. And Jane was crumpled on the floor, hit by friendly fire. I looked toward the back garden, but the shape had disappeared.
“You startled me!” I exclaimed.
“How does ‘startled’ end with me getting punched in the boob?” she griped as I helped her to her feet. “If this is about Jed driving you, that was Andrea’s idea, not mine. Personally, I don’t really like the guy. His thoughts are all cloudy. Makes me uncomfortable.”
“You have vampire strength and speed. How could I hit you in the first place?” I countered while Jolene continued to hee-haw.
“I don’t use my vampire speed when I’m around human friends, whom I expect not to punch me in the boob. And how is superstrength supposed to make this hurt less?”
“How did you even get in here?” I demanded.
“Your front door was unlocked,” Jane said, wincing as she settled into a kitchen chair. “We came by to see how your little dip in Mama Ginger’s freaky gene pool went and to give you hell over spending twenty-four hours in a truck with your hot neighbor. Andrea would have come by, but I think she was afraid you’d be mad at her for setting you up. We knocked. We called for you, but I guess you were so busy staring out your back window that you didn’t hear us. What are you staring at, anyway?”
“I think I’m going crazy,” I groaned, pouring a cup of tea for Jolene.
“Why would you think that?” Jolene asked.
“I think I saw someone in my back garden,” I told her. “I’ve seen it before. I think it’s a Yeti or a werewolf or something.”
Jolene cleared her throat. “Yeah, that would be . . . nuts.”
“I keep seeing this weird shape outside in the yard,” I said. “It seems to be watching the house but never comes close enough for me to get a good look at it.”
“It’s probably just an animal,” Jane assured me. “We get all sorts of weird critters around here. And some animals, like deer, don’t think twice about coming close to a house. Hell, if you’re not careful, they can end up in your house. Just ask my cousin Junie.”
“It was on two legs. It looked human. Just dark and hairy.”
“OK, then.” Jolene squared her shoulders and pushed the back door open.
“No, Jolene, wait!” I hissed as she stepped onto the back porch. Jane put a hand on my shoulder and shook her head. I heard Jolene take a deep breath through her nose and hold it. She looked back at Jane and shook her head.
What in the hell was going on?
Jane turned to me. “The Kerrigans. Those people you were talking about before. They wouldn’t know to look for you here, right?”
“I don’t think so. I mean, they have more resources than we do, financially. I suppose it wouldn’t take much to track me through customs, though it wouldn’t explain how they would know I’m renting this place.”
“Well, no more jaunts out of town without vampire escort. And no jaunts into the backyard after dark. Basically, you will do no jaunting of any kind. And we’ll talk to Dick about putting some extra security lights back here.”
I groaned. “Must we?”
“Yes,” Jane insisted. “And you two are going to have a long, clarifying chat. He’s let you stew about this too long. He’s wasting precious time being afraid of freaking you out.”
I frowned. “Beg pardon?”
“The other bruised boob owes you an explanation,” Jane deadpanned.