Chapter 11
Why—why!—had she agreed to do this?
Oh wait, she hadn’t. Her scheming sisters had. Brandy glowered at them as they packed up Aster on the morning of the solstice.
Over the last two days, she’d tried to contact Mac, to cancel on him, but he was working so hard at the park getting it ready. And she couldn’t quite bring herself to tromp down there and blow him off in front of all the guys on the crew. She would just have to tell him before the race.
But that meant they had to go to the jubilee.
Aster was excited about it, at least. Gin had told him it was an outside party and he was babbling about trees and cookies and using his outside voice. As they headed out to the VW, loaded with a picnic hamper of emergency snacks, a separate bag with a change of kid clothes plus wet wipes plus hand sanitizer plus plus plus, along with various purses and Rita’s satchel of things that would get her above-the-fold placement on News of the Weird if she ever accidentally spilled it, it felt as if they had enough supplies to recolonize the Four Corners just by themselves.
She wondered what the shifters on the mesa would think about witches staking a claim.
The town was eerily empty—like Angel’s descendants had given up—but only because everyone had trekked to the park. Gin managed to wedge the bus between two pickups, but they all had to pile out through the sliding door. Brandy was uncomfortably conscious of her butt sliding along the lemon-yellow paint as she wrestled the hamper out. She was happy with her post-baby body—miracle of creating life, yada blah etcetera—but maybe it wasn’t getting the workout it deserved.
She popped out between the back ends of the vehicles, and somehow her gaze landed instantly on Mac.
Not that kind of workout!
Oh, but he looked better than anything they’d brought in the picnic basket. Instead of the usual T-shirt and pale-worn jeans or Carhartt cargo work pants, he was decked out in western chic: pristine blue Wranglers dark as midnight and pearl snaps shining like stars. When he ambled across the gravel to them, his cowboy boots kicked up little puffs of dust that swirled away in the morning breeze like all her much contemplated and meticulously enumerated reasons why she wasn’t going to be his partner in the race, why he needed to stop seeking her out, why they couldn’t possibly have a round two of that first encounter that had changed her life…
When he lifted the hamper out of her slack grasp, she tilted her head up to meet his gaze under the shade of his Stetson. The blue felt was even deeper than his jeans, almost black, matching his dark eyes. He’d tidied up the scruff of his beard, but the finger-length locks of his hair fringed under the hat.
Ride a bear, save a cowboy and the horse…
A prickle of heat unfurled through every nerve in her body, and the sun wasn’t even at its peak yet. She smoothed her suddenly damp palms down the hips of her sundress.
“I love that dress,” he said in a low voice. “Might be a tad awkward to race in.”
Lifting her chin higher, she said, “About that—”
“Hat!” Aster announced.
“Sure is, kiddo.” Mac looked down at him. “Where’s yours?”
Brandy tensed. Nobody needed a Stetson in Manhattan.
But when her son stuck out his lip—kind of like her jutting chin, she acknowledged—Mac swept the cowboy hat off his head and plunked it on her son.
Too big, of course. The brim settled almost to Aster’s shoulders. He was delighted.
He raced back to show his aunts, and Gin grabbed his shoulders before he bonked into the side of the bus. When he offered up his hand—obviously preferring to be led blindly rather than lift the hat—Brandy glanced unwillingly at Mac. His unruly dark hair didn’t suffer from even a smidgen of hat-head smoosh. How unfair. “You didn’t want that back, did you?”
As if aware of her focus, he raked one hand over his head, rumpling the locks like he’d just gotten out of bed. “More where that one came from.”
More children. More bed… With Mac? Oh no, she couldn’t think that, not at all, not when she’d come here to get her life back.
But now she supposed she had to race with him, because she knew a cowboy’s hat was his pride and joy.
Maybe that explained the way he was watching Aster.
She swallowed hard, wanting to grab her son and run for real, all the way back to Manhattan.
Before she could take a step, her sisters bustled up beside her, boxing her in, and Aster surged ahead. Mac hefted the hamper to one shoulder—the muscles in his back flexing under the fine cotton of his shirt—and took the heavy diaper bag that Rita was juggling around her crutches. The embroidered circus animals on the side were a ridiculous counterpoint to the shapeshifters Brandy knew were lurking all around them.
And the beast she knew was within the man at her side.
She’d worn the sundress knowing the day would be hot and that she’d need an excuse not to race, but now the sleeveless, V-neck style and kicky skirt left too much skin exposed. Oh, she’d slathered the 50+ sunscreen on herself and Aster, but aaaaaall of her prickled—even the hidden parts, especially the hidden parts—from Mac’s nearness.
At least instead of her four-inch heels she’d chosen to wear her cute flipflop sandals with the pink flowers on the toes so she didn’t have to lean on him to cross the field to the festival grounds. Her anklet chain rubbed lightly on her skin, the tiny moon charm reminding her that she hadn’t gotten far from her witch ancestors.
Or the shapeshifter beside her.
The park was transformed from just a few days ago when she and her sisters had been there to spell Aster. Planked walkways elevated above the grasses led to the shade of white canvas tents edged with bright pennants fluttering in the breeze. Rollicking notes of zydeco poured from the five-piece tucked into the bandshell, and the smells of barbecue and churros vied for most mouth-watering. She’d need a taste of both—good thing she was racing.
Mac led them past the fairway game area to the toddler playground where a pyramid of haybales was enclosed in a ring of smaller bales, neatly corralling the youngsters. A half dozen kids were determinedly scaling the miniature mountain of hay to not much success. Aster took one peep from under his hat. “Up!”
Mac chuckled. “All the way up, kiddo.”
Before Brandy could say anything, Mac retrieved the Stetson and lifted Aster over the hay bumper. “There’s a treasure buried somewhere in the hay. See if you can find it.”
Aster bolted toward the pyramid and started climbing, pulling out handfuls as he went.
Brandy tilted her head. “You probably shouldn’t have told him that. He’ll destroy the place.”
Mac chuckled. “That’s the idea. When we pack up the grounds, we’ll reseed any bare spots and spread the straw for protection.”
She blinked. “That’s…pretty clever.”
“Well, gotta use our brains sometimes, even in landscaping.” He turned away to watch her sisters set up their family spot on the other side of the pyramid.
With a wince, she put her hand on his arm, stopping him. “Mac, I think I might have given you the wrong impression.”
He looked down at her hand. “Really?”
Under her palm, through the almost silky fine weave of his shirt, his muscles were tensed. She wanted to pull back—was she giving him another wrong impression right now?—but had to tell him. “I don’t think Angels Rest is tragically hick, or that you are.” When he angled the Stetson disbelievingly, she forged on. “If it seems like I left places like this behind, it’s not because I wanted to get away from them. I got a degree and went to the city to forget their beliefs about me.”
He frowned. “Because of Aster? Because you’re a single mom? But you were already on your way out when I met you.”
She shook her head. “I… My sisters and I grew up…unconventionally. And it was hard sometimes.”
He studied her. “You said your dad left. That must’ve been hard for your mom with three kids when he walked out.”
“Aunt Tilda was there to pick up the pieces when Mom couldn’t.” She was leaving out the wretched pain and confusion of being left behind, unwanted. Chewing at the inside of her cheek, she considered the man she knew from only one photograph and her sisters’ cocktail-inspired names. He would’ve felt—even without comprehending—that his lover was a witch and his daughters were their very own circle of three. And since going through this bear scare with Aster, maybe she could even understand her mother a little better; there’d been moments where she would’ve liked to run away.
Actually, she had left it all behind—the circle, her sisters, Mac. For a little while anyway.
“Live and let live,” she hedged. “But I just want you to know—it’s not you, it’s me.”
To her surprise, he laughed, a low rumble. “Darlin’, if that was supposed to make me feel better—”
A hot blush ran through her, though she wasn’t sure if it was annoyance at his mockery or embarrassment that she’d half-assed her explanation.
Or maybe it was the way he drawled darlin’.
As if she’d been scorched, she yanked her hand off his arm. “I wasn’t trying to make you feel anything.”
She grabbed the diaper bag he’d set down to lift Aster into the enclosure. Stalking toward her sisters, she went halfway around the circle before she stopped with a startled gasp.
“Since the kids are doing part of our work for us, we provide the babysitter,” Mac said as he passed her.
The white beast sprawled across two of the ring bales was so still she hadn’t even noticed it until its black eyes cut toward her, assessing. If she’d still been the happily ignorant girl of three years ago, she might’ve dismissed it as a livestock guardian dog belonging to one of the locals. But this creature was too big, too lean, those glittering eyes too intelligent. It had to be a wolf.
No, not a wolf. A wolf shifter.
Gin was watching the monster with keen interest when Brandy settled the diaper bag on the picnic blanket beside her. “No stranger-danger here.” She glanced up at her sister. “The race is at noon. You guys should go get registered. Rita and I will bring Aster over to the finish line when he’s done stuffing himself like a scarecrow.”
Mac lowered the hamper to the grass next to Rita. “You know, never mind about the race. It’s not a big deal. You gals just enjoy the jubilee.” He tipped his hat and pivoted on his boot heel, digging up a divot of earth.
Rather than watch him go, Brandy stared down at the raw scar until Gin kicked her ankle just below the moon charm.
Brandy jumped back with a mutter. “Knock it off.”
“Just wanted to see if you were a scarecrow, cuz letting him walk away sure was a brainless thing to do.”
Glowering at her sister, Brandy angled toward Rita’s corner of the blanket instead. “I didn’t let him.” She didn’t need to let anyone walk away, not when they did it on their own anyway. “I came here for Aster,” she reminded them as she started to kneel. “Not for whatever it is you think—Hey!” She jerked upright when Rita flicked the blanket out from under her.
“This is my home for the next three months while Aunt Tilda is away,” Rita said. “If you don’t want to enjoy it…”
Brandy put her hands on her hips. “I don’t want to enjoy Mac!” Then she glanced surreptitiously over her shoulder at the wolf shifter. Animals had good hearing, but the beast seemed focused on the children.
Gin smirked. “Is my big-city sis too stuck up to enjoy a big Mac?”
“You don’t get it.” Brandy let her hands fall limp to her sides. “I’m not like you. I can’t…” She fisted her hands in the pink flowers of her skirt. “I would’ve happily stayed in any of the small towns we lived in when we were kids. But we kept having to move every time the neighbors got suspicious about ‘the weird Wicks’.”
Gin sat straighter, her smirk fading. “I liked moving. And those neighbors didn’t know crap.”
Brandy squinted one eye at her sister. “Oh, they knew all right. Any house that decorates that much for Halloween should be questioned.”
With a cough, Rita covered her smile. “I like Halloween.”
Throwing up her hands, Brandy glared at her sisters. “I liked Halloween too. Until first grade. Remember first grade? First chance to make an impression. New town, new school, maybe a chance at new friends. And then before we even wore the erasers off our new pencils, we tried that Halloween spell.”
Rita picked at the Hulk sticker that Aster had stuck to the cuff of her crutch. “It should’ve worked.”
Gin nodded vigorously. “Should’ve doubled everyone’s candy, tripled even.”
“It turned everything into candy corn!” Brandy cried. “Everything! They hated us after that!”
“I got the proto-Celtic inflection wrong.” Rita let out a fretful sigh. “But Halloween was a tradition about the harvest, about preserving the crops and animals against the spoilage of winter. And really, nothing keeps longer than candy corn.”
“Because nobody eats it,” Brandy snapped. “Hence the hatred when everyone looked in their plastic pumpkins and pillowcases, and all their Milky Ways and KitKats and Reese’s were candy corn.”
“I’m sorry,” Gin muttered, “but dark chocolate is better anyway.”
Outrage deflating, Brandy shook her head. “It wasn’t your fault. Between Dad leaving, and Mom coming and going, and Aunt Tilda bouncing us around, we never had a chance to be normal.”
Rita watched her with solemn steadiness. “And because of us. Because Gin and I were always right there, making you another weird Wick sister.”
“No. Because I was weird.” She tried for a smile. “But I’m all better now.”
They looked away from her, and the summer sun seemed to dim. Dammit, she’d made a hash of everything. Mac had walked away. Her sisters were hurt, after all they’d done for her. And Aster… At least he was a little boy again, currently hooting in triumph from the top of the pyramid, both fists full of straw.
As dry and brittle as she felt, and hollowed out inside. She stared at the wolf, so white it made her eyes water. Or maybe she was just mad at herself for making everything worse. She knew most people didn’t believe in werewolves or witches. Their existence was a secret to all but a few. But really, most people secretly thought themselves weird, in some way.
If all the weird people just got together…
She glanced around the festival where the town of Angels Rest had gathered to celebrate the longest day of the year.
Oh. Duh.
The realization was like a cartoon gong from Aster’s classic “Road Runner” favorite going off in her head. She put her hands over her face, her eyes hot and damp against her palms. “I like candy corn.”
“What?”
She looked at Rita sideways through the bars of her fingers. “I actually like candy corn. And Peeps. And Tang, the breakfast drink of astronauts.”
Her elder sister slowly wrinkled her nose. “That’s just weird.”
Brandy glanced the other direction at Gin. “Can I borrow your shoes?”
Kicking off her black Doc Martens, her younger sister smirked again. “Good thing we’re the same size.” She tossed the shin-high boots across the blanket and grabbed the flowered flipflops that Brandy tossed back.
Rita looked at the all-black ensemble and the pink flipflops. “That is even weirder.”
“I think it’s cute.” Gin stuck her feet out and waggled her black-lacquered toes then grinned at Brandy. “All the way up, girl.”
Lacing the boots, Brandy turned with her hands on her hips to survey the crowd. Mac wasn’t the tallest guy or the biggest, but she’d find him.
If she wanted to figure out the weird, winding ways of her life—minus her father, multiply her sisters, add her son—she had to work it like she’d solve a mathematical equation: Simplify it down to one number that would be the right answer.
Lots of people couldn’t bear to do math, but maybe she had to run the numbers for one particular bear.