Margot
Izzy
IT WAS EXACTLY two weeks and one day after Johnny and I ended what had never begun.
I’d gone home from work, let the dogs out, changed from heels to boots, checked the horses but left them in their paddock, put my heels back on, grabbed up my purse and keys but also my journal, selecting a few colored pens to go with it, and I headed out.
I was going to The Star. A very nice but not fancy (I was told) steak joint about ten miles out of town that Deanna and Charlie had been rhapsodizing about for years.
Deanna demanded all her birthdays be celebrated at The Star and Charlie hogged her birthdays, letting people celebrate it with her on the weekend (or the next weekend day if her birthday fell on a weekend), so I’d never been there.
And instead of continuing to mope about coming to terms with the fact that I would not ever be my sister or mother and thus be able to grab on to life and take what I wanted without giving too much in return, simply enjoy myself and what life offered without wanting more, I was going out to have a nice steak.
In other words, continuing to mope about the fact that Johnny and I had ended something that could never begin.
Or precisely, moping about the fact that what I wanted with Johnny could never begin.
The last steak I’d eaten, Johnny had cooked for me.
I didn’t allow myself to think about that.
That said, I knew part of me was breaking that seal or I’d get to the point I’d never eat steak again.
My mother would smile down from heaven at that.
But as much as I wished I didn’t, I loved steak.
So I needed to break the seal.
In the time since it happened, I also hadn’t allowed myself to spend too much time in town.
I’d been in Matlock for months, but steaming into summer, it was waking up. People were out and about, the big square was setting up to have what Deanna and Charlie had explained were nearly weekly weekend events of bands or festivals or open air plays, or whatever (I’d even been to a concert in the past, and their Memorial Day food festival, which was happening that weekend). And if he happened to be one of those people waking up, out and about, I didn’t want to run into Johnny.
Instead I’d caught up on my chores and planted my big garden and given up on the idea of a chicken coop, because Johnny was right. I should save up to build a garage. I’d be happy I had one for a variety of reasons and chickens just offered up fresh eggs.
I was nearly at the restaurant when it came on the radio.
And it was just my luck it would.
Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me.”
I pulled into the parking lot of The Star, my fingers on the steering wheel adjusting to change the channel or completely wind down the volume.
Something made me not do that.
Instead I parked and sat in my car with goose bumps on my arms, staring unseeing out my windshield toward the rough, unpainted clapboard at the side of The Star, listening to the whole song.
When it was done, I switched off the car and said to the windshield, “It was two breakfasts, two dinners, one phone conversation, one text exchange and lots of sex. Get over yourself.”
With that, I grabbed my clutch, my journal and got out of my car.
I went in.
I asked for a table.
I got one.
I selected a seat with my back to the door so I could focus on my journal and not people watching.
I perused the menu and ordered a glass of Malbec.
I put my journal on the table and pulled out a couple of the pens.
I opened it up to the crazy doodles and wonky writing that slanted this way, then that, or went straight across, or curled around word for word from a circle in the center. Short notes, long meanderings and drawn flowers or balloons or whatever sprang to mind.
My journal was the only thing I allowed to be truly disordered in my life.
My mother’s journals had looked like that. Just like that. Except without all the colored pens because the only pens we had were ones she picked up wherever they gave out free pens, and she didn’t have the luxury of bringing color to her innermost thoughts.
The wine was served, I ordered my filet with no potato but instead steamed broccoli and roasted asparagus and had been bent back to my journal for maybe two minutes before I heard an achingly familiar, “Izzy?”
My head shot back and I stared into Johnny’s black eyes in his beautiful face staring down at me looking stricken and searching and gentle and gorgeous.
Those eyes slid to the empty chair opposite me then back to me and he asked, “Are you here alone?”
Was he?
Oh God.
Or was he there with Shandra? She was back and they were celebrating their reunion with steak at The Star.
“I . . . uh . . .” I stammered.
“Who’s this?”
My attention zipped to a woman who appeared at Johnny’s side.
She was in her sixties, maybe seventies. Hair dyed a light, becoming red and set in a lovely, soft style that suited her immensely. She had makeup on even though the battle against wrinkles the rest of her put-together-self told me she’d valiantly fought was the inevitable loss it was meant to be. Regardless, her makeup was subtle and attractive. She was wearing a pretty shirtwaist dress with a full skirt in a green and white pattern with a fabulous rectangular bag with a short strap on her forearm.
And she was wearing pearls, real ones it seemed to my inexpert eye. A string of them at her throat and one at her wrist with plain but large and magnificent pearl studs in her ears.
Her eyes were locked on me.
“Leave it to you to find the prettiest lady in the place.”
This came from a man who materialized at the woman’s back. He was bald on top, his gray hair cut very short on the sides. He was wearing a shiny blue golf shirt and nice trousers. He was also in his sixties or seventies, very tall and quite good-looking. Sharing that, shave a decade or two off him, he’d been exceptionally handsome.
And speaking of exceptionally handsome, Johnny was wearing clothes I didn’t even imagine he could own. Black on black—a delectably tailored black shirt over deliciously tailored slim-fit black trousers that made my mouth water more than anything I saw on the menu (way more).
“Johnathon, darlin’, who is this fetching creature?” the woman asked.
“Margot, Dave, this is Eliza,” Johnny rumbled.
“Iz or Izzy, my friends call me,” I whispered, sounding like someone was choking me.
Johnny’s gentle gaze came back to rest on me.
First Bonnie Raitt and now this?
Bonnie was hard enough but Johnny in that shirt (and those trousers) might be the end of me.
All right.
I was never leaving my acres again.
“Izzy. Now isn’t that sweet? Unusual. But sweet,” Margot declared.
“You know this gal?” Dave asked Johnny.
“Yeah, we—” Johnny started.
“We’re friends,” I put in firmly, straightening my spine and finding my inner Daphne, the piece of my mother she left me that could make it through anything. “I’m kind of new to town. We met at On the Way Home a few weeks back and Johnny kept me company helping me break in the local tavern.”
Both Margot and Dave turned speculative eyes to Johnny.
Unfortunately, Margot got over her speculation way too quickly and looked back at me.
And when she did, she declared, “No girl as cute as a button as you are wearing a dress that pretty eats alone. You’re joining us for dinner.”
Oh God.
No!
“I’ve already ordered,” I told her.
She turned directly to the tall man behind her. “David. Find someone and tell them to hold this pretty girl’s dinner and serve it with ours.” She turned back to me. “If you’re hungry, darlin’, we’ll order you an appetizer.”
“I—” I started.
But Margot now had her attention on the hostess who was hovering with them, holding their menus. “You can take us to our booth now.” Her attention came back to me. “We always get a booth. They’re roomy.”
“You can also ask the chef to hold making this lady’s dinner, if you would,” David said under his breath to the hostess as Margot spoke.
“Of course,” the hostess muttered.
Was this happening?
“Help Eliza out of her seat, Johnathon,” Margot ordered, turned her head, tipped up her nose and flounced after the hostess.
This was happening.
I had a feeling Margot got what she wanted, but it was a definite it would be tremendously rude if I didn’t join them even if the very last thing on earth I wanted was to join them for dinner.
More aptly, to sit at dinner with a Johnny with gentle eyes wearing that shirt and those trousers.
Seeing as I had no choice, I closed my journal, dropped my pens in my clutch and slid out of my chair only to run right into Johnny.
“You don’t have to do this, Izzy,” he whispered, his lips at my ear sending that damnable tingle down my spine.
And it got worse.
He was wearing cologne, and it was amazing cologne so he even smelled fantastic.
I turned my head and caught his gaze.
“It’s okay, honey.”
His eyes melted with warmth and regret and compassion and all that looked good on him before he reached out and grabbed my journal off the table.
He handed it to me, reached again and nabbed my wine, then put his free hand to my elbow and guided me after Margot and David.
“She seems like she’s a firebrand,” I muttered to Johnny.
“David and Margot, my dad’s best friends. Dave started working for my granddad when he was about seventeen. That’s how him and Dad met. Dave’s about a decade older than Dad and he took him under his wing back then. And whatever grew between them meant they were inseparable until they had no choice but not to be. Dad was fifteen when he was best man at Dave’s wedding. Dave said the eulogy at Dad’s funeral.”
How beautiful.
And how sad.
“Right,” I said softly.
“Margot’s a pistol and I don’t remember a time when she wasn’t. She’s the only mom I ever really knew. She was a tough one but the best a kid could have.”
My head turned, and I stared at his profile in shock at getting this news about Margot and his apparent lack of his own mother as he guided me the rest of the way.
He stopped me and I turned to see Margot scooting into a booth. She barely got settled before she was sweeping her hand imperiously across the table.
“Get in. Get in. Johnathan knows better than to seat a lady on the outside of a booth to be brushed by waiters and busboys and patrons as they pass,” she announced.
So Margot was the reason I got the seat with the view at Johnny’s house.
I scooted in and tucked my purse and journal against the wall beside me as Johnny followed me in.
“You journal?” Margot asked in a way that made it more like a demand I offer up this information she already had to know since she’d seen me doing it.
“Yes,” I told her. “I never did until my mother died. She did, journaling, I mean, and after she died, I took it up. I don’t know why but it makes me feel closer to her.”
Margot’s piercing regard completely disintegrated and her commanding voice was nothing of the sort when she queried, “You lost your momma?”
I nodded. “To cancer.”
“I’m sorry, darlin’,” Margot murmured.
“Me too,” Dave put in quietly.
I nodded to him and gave him a little smile.
Margot’s head jerked up and turned left and she then hit David’s arm lightly but repeatedly with the back of her hand. “Get that boy. We need bread. Izzy needs something to snack on since we’re delaying her meal.”
David’s eyes searched for “that boy” as Margot looked back at me.
“We’ll order some of their stuffed mushrooms. They’re divine. Have you been to The Star before?”
I looked around at the interior that didn’t fit the unfinished clapboard exterior. It was mostly decorated in rich reds and golds, the décor unobtrusive, just classy and warm, and then I looked back to Margot.
“This is my first time,” I shared.
Her pretty face split into a smile. “How wonderful we get to share it with you.”
I felt Johnny’s fingers drift down my thigh, there and gone, sharing he was sorry and he knew it wasn’t so wonderful for me.
“So, are you a lawyer?”
This question, which I’d heard before, coming to me from David startled me.
“No. I work for a data management and security firm,” I told him.
“How exciting!” Margot declared as she clapped her hands elegantly in front of her.
I grinned at her. “I think you and I are probably the only ones who think data is exciting.”
“You get to wear that dress to work, and those shoes, darlin’, are fabulous. Any job you get to dress like that has to be exciting,” she returned.
“Gotta say, it’s a knockout of a dress,” Dave muttered.
Johnny made a noise in his throat that was muted and low, but it was the kind I’d only heard when he was in bed with me.
This so surprised me, my head floated around to look at him but I was arrested in this endeavor when Margot asked, “Now you said you were new to town. Where did you come to us from?”
“The city,” I shared.
“So not far,” she replied.
I shook my head. “No.”
“I bet you like it out here better than there. All that dirt and noise and graffiti, and all those people,” she stated, like people meant muddy, stinky livestock and she might eat beef, but she had no interest in how it came to be on her plate.
“I do.” I nodded. “I have some land, and I can have my horses close and my dogs love it and it’s calm and quiet. So yes. I very much like it here.”
Her eyes slid toward Johnny when I mentioned my horses and dogs but came back to me before I finished.
“You got kin close?” Dave asked and I looked to him. “Said you lost your momma, child, but hope you got blood around.”
“I have a sister but she got married and moved south. She’s about a five-hour drive away so not too far but a lot farther than I like it. We’re close but now it’s more, after she had my nephew.”
“Ooo, a nephew, lovely. How old is he?” Margot queried.
I looked down to my clutch and pulled out my phone, answering, “He’s seven months now. He’s adorable. His name is Brooklyn.” I came up with my phone. “I call him Brooks.”
“I’d call him Brooks too,” Margot murmured delicately, sharing while not sharing she disapproved of my nephew’s name.
I turned on my phone, went to All Photos and found a picture of Brooks that I took. I turned it around to show Margot.
“That’s him a few months ago. I’ll have to pull up Addie’s texts to get one that’s more recent. But I love that photo. It’s my favorite of him. He’s been a goof since birth and he’s being a goof in that picture.”
He was, giggling so much his chubby pink cheeks took over his eyes so all he looked like was pink cheeks, pink mouth, pink gums and blond baby fuzz.
Her shimmery-bronze tipped fingers came out and snatched my phone out of my hand.
“My, oh my, look at this child. He’s adorable.” Her head turned to Dave. “David, my love, find a waiter and get me a martini. I don’t know what’s taking them so long but Izzy is going to get a bad impression of The Star if they don’t sort themselves out.” She looked back to my phone and went on like she hadn’t interrupted her compliments to my nephew by giving her husband another order. “You could just eat him up with a spoon,” she cooed.
I started giggling.
I stopped giggling when Johnny rested an arm behind us on the booth.
Uninvited, Margot started flipping through the photos on my phone by sliding her finger across the screen.
“I see your horses. They’re gorgeous. And this cat is so sweet. Now who’s this? Is this your sister’s husband?”
She turned the phone around and showed me a picture of Kent.
I instantly tensed.
Johnny instantly tensed beside me.
“No,” I forced out.
“So, your brother?” she asked, shaking my phone side to side in front of me. “Do you have a brother?”
“No,” I pushed out.
“Margot,” Johnny rumbled at the same time Dave said the same thing.
Her face changed, her hand with my phone moved back slowly, and she whispered a disappointed, “Oh.”
I didn’t like her disappointment or her face falling so I stated quickly, “That’s Kent. My ex.”
This was not a good move.
Not in the slightest.
And it was only going to get worse.
She brightened but looked to me and asked, “If he’s your ex, darlin’, why do you keep his picture? I always say, if you’re movin’ on, move ’em out, leave ’em in your dust and start with a blank slate.”
This seemed not only directed at me, but even if her eyes didn’t slide to Johnny like they had when I talked about my animals, it was not lost on anyone it was mostly directed at someone else.
“Margot,” Dave growled, and Johnny shifted uncomfortably beside me.
But in order to comfort me, he wrapped his hand around the back of my neck.
Which did not comfort me at all.
“Well, I—” I began.
“Do you want me to delete it?” she asked helpfully, finger poised.
“Margot,” Dave clipped.
“No!” I cried.
A death pall spread over the table.
“I can’t delete it. It’s evidence,” I said swiftly and felt something else spreading over the table, coming from all directions, but especially Johnny.
I’d started it and from the avid attention I was getting from all quarters, I had no choice but to carry on with it.
“The police told me to save it. That milk glass he’s holding was my mother’s. Actually my grandmother’s. He broke in, stole it, sent me that picture and then sent me the next one where he’d smashed it.”
Woodenly, Margot shifted the picture to the next one and I watched her face pale.
“I should have put it on my cloud but I haven’t gotten around to it. But, um . . . he’s a big reason I moved to Matlock,” I finished weakly.
As I spoke, all the time I spoke, Johnny’s hand on my neck got tighter and tighter . . .
And tighter.
“Evidence,” Margot whispered, staring at my phone.
“He kind of didn’t want me to break up with him,” I told her.
“Oh, child,” Dave murmured.
But Margot’s eyes narrowed.
On me.
“What else did he do to you?” she snapped.
“Excuse us,” Johnny growled.
And they had no choice but to excuse us because Johnny was out of the booth and his hand capturing mine and dragging me meant I had to get out of the booth too.
Once I made my feet, he twisted our hands so they were held tucked to the side of his chest, which meant I had no choice but to be tucked tight to his side as he marched me out of the restaurant, straight out the front door, down the walk to the far side of the front where he whipped me around. He let my hand go, put his to my belly, shoved me against the clapboard and moved in so the rest of the world disappeared and the whole of mine became Johnny.
He then made a noise that I’d never heard come from any human before, a low, rolling, reverberating, hushed—what could only be described as—roar.
My eyes drifted up his throat to his just as he bit out, “Kent?”
“Did you just drag me out of a restaurant?” I whispered.
“Your ex broke into your house to steal something that meant something to you just so he could destroy it?”
I turned my head to look down the path and ascertained for myself that he did, indeed, just drag me out of a restaurant because there I was.
Outside the restaurant.
“Look at me, Izzy.”
My eyes snapped back to his at the unerring command in his tone.
“Why didn’t you tell me that shit?” he demanded.
“I—”
“Are you safe now?”
“Well—”
“You said the cops know. Did they do something about this fuck?”
“It’s a little—”
“Do these friends know? The ones you say live close to you.”
He was in such a state, I couldn’t stop myself.
I arched into him, putting the fingers of both my hands to both of his bristly cheeks, and whispered, “Johnny.”
A blaze of black fire continued to sear me for a moment before his eyes closed.
They opened and he asked a lot less terse now, “Did he hurt you?”
I dropped my hands from his face.
“He was just a nuisance.”
“A nuisance doesn’t break into your house and steal shit from you. A psycho does that.”
I decided against telling him he’d broken down my door to steal Dempsey.
Or any of the other stuff.
“The cops know. I have a restraining order against him. Deanna and Charlie also know. The last time I saw him, Charlie was in my doorway with a baseball bat explaining that if I saw him again, Charlie would cave his head in with that bat. I think he took Charlie at his word, which is good because I have a feeling Charlie was serious and I don’t want him in trouble. But I haven’t seen or heard from Kent since. I’m not even sure he knows where I live. It’s been months. It’s over.”
Johnny stared into my eyes before he looked at the clapboard over my head.
“It’s very sweet you’re concerned but—”
His gaze cut down to mine and he interrupted me.
Shockingly.
And breathtakingly.
“You look good. You smell good. That dress is so fucking hot I want to haul you around to the back, shove the skirt up, rip your panties off and fuck you against The Star.”
My mouth dropped open.
Johnny wasn’t done.
“Eat dinner beside you knowin’ you can’t put on your torn, useless fucking panties and I’ll keep them in my pocket while you eat steak that isn’t half as good as the one I made you, sitting beside me feeling thoroughly fucked.”
“Johnny,” I breathed, not right then feeling thoroughly fucked, alas, but definitely suddenly thoroughly wet.
“I thought I’d give it some time and come back, build something different with you, but I’m not thinking this friend thing is gonna work, Iz.”
“Please don’t say that,” I begged.
His forehead came to mine, one hand went high on the wall beside me and his other hand slid down my side over the ruched, soft, stretchy white fabric of my dress that skimmed my figure from neck to knee, had no sleeves and even I had wondered if it was too sexy to wear to work (guess I had my answer).
“He comes back, you call the cops then your next call is me,” he ordered.
“I can’t promise that. Charlie already made me promise my next call would be him.”
“Then you call this Charlie guy and then you call me.”
“He won’t come back, Johnny,” I assured.
“You call the cops, Charlie and me. Say it, Izzy.”
I stared up close into his eyes.
“I call the cops, Charlie then you, Johnny.”
He didn’t move.
I didn’t either.
But eventually my mouth did.
“Is she back?”
“Oh no. Hell no.” His forehead rolled on mine as he underlined a negative I thought I understood, but when he went on I would find I did not. “She doesn’t get this. She doesn’t get us. We’ve talked about her all we’re ever gonna talk about her. She doesn’t get to be a part of whatever it is that’s gonna be the me and you we become.”
My breath caught.
What did that mean?
“How’re the dogs?” he asked.
“They’re good,” I forced out.
“The horses?”
“Good.”
“Wesley still singing?”
He was killing me.
I nodded.
“Good, baby,” he whispered, his gaze no longer focused on mine.
It had dropped to my mouth.
Oh God, he was going to kiss me.
Oh God, I was going to kiss him!
This couldn’t happen.
I wanted it, boy did I want it.
But it took a huge effort of will to survive it ending after two breakfasts, two dinners, one telephone conversation, one text exchange and lots of sex.
If there was kissing, more sex or more anything like that, I might not.
We needed to be friends.
We could not be lovers.
“Oh shit, son, sorry.” Both our heads turned (and I will note they did this without our foreheads disconnecting) to see Dave walking backward, hands up. “Could see you were shaken up at gettin’ that news about Izzy. Margot could too. She sent me out to check on you but now I’ve done that and you two look like you’re, um . . . good. You, uh . . . just get back to what you were doing.”
Johnny made another noise, kind of like his subdued roar of earlier, but this one was not indication of enraged fury but instead indication of enraged frustration.
After making it, he lifted his forehead from mine and called, “We’re coming back in, Dave. Tell Margot it’s good and I hope you all ordered the mushrooms.”
“Got you a beer, boy, mushrooms ordered, just take your time,” Dave replied, moving sprightly back to the front doors and through them.
There was a couple standing outside the doors, both looking our way.
“Hey, uh . . . Johnny,” the man called.
“Trev,” Johnny returned and it sounded like a grunt, a loud one that carried, but a grunt nonetheless.
The woman Trev was with gave a hesitant wave.
Johnny ignored her.
I waved hesitantly back.
That got me a hesitant smile.
I hesitantly smiled back.
“Babe,” Johnny clipped.
I looked back to him to see that he might have lifted his forehead but he was still close.
“That’s Francine and she’s the biggest mouth in Matlock,” he shared.
“Oh dear,” I murmured.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “She’s good people but good people with a big damned mouth.”
“Hmm,” I mumbled not wanting to be the talk of the town linked with Johnny when Shandra came back (if she wasn’t already).
“I’m thinking we need another conversation about where shit’s at with us,” he declared.
Oh my.
“Johnny, it’s the man you are to be protective but don’t let what happened with Kent color where we—”
“Kent is whatever the fuck Kent is. That dress is why we need another conversation.”
It really should be noted that I liked how much he liked my dress.
Even noted, I shouldn’t and furthermore, couldn’t.
I needed to tell him where I was with this.
“I’m not sure I can do just sex,” I whispered.
“Right,” he muttered.
I kept whispering. “I could do just friends.”
“Right,” he repeated.
“So maybe you can unpin me from the wall and we can go have dinner with Margot and Dave,” I suggested.
His hand that was resting on my hip slid up and I thought it would slide up but it only got to my waist before he squeezed in, let me go and moved away.
I guessed he was going to make a stab at being friends.
That devastated me.
It shouldn’t.
That didn’t change the fact that it did.
But he caught my hand and held it as he led me back to the table, and I found it odd as just friends that Johnny held my hand and when we were lovers, he hadn’t.
He stood solicitous to the side as he let me scoot in and he followed me immediately, but Margot wasn’t wasting a second.
“Do you have the situation with this unsavory ex-boyfriend of Izzy’s in hand, Johnathon?”
“It’s in hand, Margot. Izzy has it sorted and we have an arrangement if something comes up. So you can chill,” Johnny replied.
Her irate eyes turned to me. “I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve shared with Johnathon and his brother Tobias that I have not, do not, and never will chill. If a woman is upset they should listen and assure her and do whatever they can to sort the situation that’s troubling her. Not simply tell her to chill.”
“I do kind of have it sorted, Margot,” I shared.
“Kind of is not sorted, Eliza,” she retorted in a tone that made me fight back laughter, because she sounded like she’d known me all my life, not maybe twenty minutes, and she had the right to boss me around.
“Well, Kent’s proved to be a guy who does what he’s going to do but now I’m calling Johnny should he do more of it, so I think I’ll be all right, don’t you?” I assured her, not adding the cops and Charlie because I got the impression she thought Johnny could handle just about anything and that would help her to chill.
“Well then,” she huffed, reaching to her martini glass that was nearly frosted the liquid was so chilled and had three big fat olives in it, making me wish I wasn’t driving so I could have a martini. In that moment I sure the heck needed one. “I see it’s actually sorted so fine.”
“Is that vodka or gin?” I asked, reaching for my wine.
“Vodka,” she answered.
“If you like flavored vodkas, I make them and they’re really yummy. If you want to try them, I’ll bottle some and get them to you.”
She took a sip with her eyes on me the entire time I talked, and when I was done she slid my phone across the table to me with one hand, the other hand swinging her martini to the side like I would imagine a sultry bombshell from the sixties would do the same thing.
Except cooler.
“Then it’s good I already programmed myself into your phone. I also called myself so I have your number. So there’ll be no delay in you phoning me to invite me over for a vodka tasting.”
I hadn’t invited her for a vodka tasting but I didn’t share that because I loved the idea of doing that. Deanna would too. And she’d think Margot was a hoot.
“I’ll set that up right away,” I said.
“Excellent,” she answered, lifting her glass to me.
I lifted mine to her and we both took a sip.
“That right there, Johnny boy, you witnessed it. Your girl here accidentally just participated in the ritual that enters her right into the coven,” Dave declared.
Johnny chuckled.
Margot sliced narrowed eyes to her husband. “I wish you’d stop referring to my circle as ‘the coven,’” she stated.
He bent his face to hers with a smile on his. “The voodoo that you do, sweetheart, I’ve been addicted to for forty-eight years. That wasn’t an insult. But I’ve been a man bewitched for nearly five decades. Johnny here hasn’t even lived that long, so it was a warning. And you and me both know that when that voodoo you do spreads to your acolytes, he needs that.”
Johnny draped his arm across the booth again.
I felt a tingle again.
I also sighed.
Margot’s face softened as she looked into her husband’s eyes.
The waiter arrived at our table with the mushrooms.
Margot looked to him. “Well, finally.”
I giggled.
Johnny’s hand curled around the back of my neck again.
I let out another sigh.
Margot looked to me. “Now, Eliza, do tell me where you got that dress and those shoes, because I’m thinking we’ll go shopping at these places first and then return to your home to taste vodkas. Don’t worry. Dave is a very experienced designated driver. He comes to pick me up after a lot of coven activities, his way of referencing them, not mine. So we can be thorough in our sampling.”
I grinned at her.
She grinned back, her blue eyes sparkling.
Johnny reached for the mushrooms and served me first, pushing four of them on my appetizer plate, before he handed them to Dave who pushed four of them on Margot’s, and only then did he take some for himself then hand the remainder to Johnny.
I reached for my fork.
And made plans to go shopping and drink vodka with the only woman who’d been a mother to Johnny Gamble.