~
“We should do it…” Angela had the kind of grin on her face that Dorothy just knew was going to lead to trouble.
“We should?” Dorothy frowned.
“Definitely.”
“I’m not so sure…” Dorothy replied tentatively and with a small shake of her head to back up her words; just in case her friend had taken to being deaf – at their age it was always a possibility.
Angela was always up for mischief, but that might have been a little mischief too far in her book. The way that Dorothy saw it; there was mischief and then there was mischief, and what Angel was proposing was mischief with a bit neon sign M.
Maybe Sarah wouldn’t like the idea.
Maybe, she’d end up out on her ear, not that Angela had any real worries about that. The woman had a mate, and although she still lived at the Inn with Lark, the man still had his place on pack land where Angela would land nicely on her feet.
Dorothy knew that she would have no such luck…
“It will be fine, and fun, and what’s wrong with a little fun? You like fun. You’re all about fun.” Angela said, goading her into agreeing. “I’m the old stick in the mud, remember, or did you go senile and boring overnight?”
“Now don’t you start with me, you old witch…” Dorothy pointed the butter knife she’d been using on her toast at the woman who sat across the table from her.
Angela was leaning in over the table top as she conspired to do something rather radical. Something that Sarah couldn’t, or maybe it was, shouldn’t, know about just yet…
“Good morning – good morning – what a fabulous morning…” Lark’s voice boomed out into the sudden quietness of the breakfast room and startled the both of them.
The woman eyed each other for a long moment as Angela’s mate stalked towards their table. Lark was more than ready for breakfast, and he clapped his hands together with enthusiasm as he made his way to the table with quite a spring in his step considering his age.
“Someone got happy last night,” Dorothy bit out, and got one raised eyebrow back from Angela for her trouble. Then Angela dropped her head and went back to buttering her toast.
The trouble with a mate was that they could sniff out mischief in a heartbeat, and she really only was kicking around the idea between her and Dorothy at that moment in time – she didn’t need Lark spilling the beans to Sarah about it…
“Yes, I did…” Lark chuckled.
He wiggled his grey, bushy eyebrows teasingly at her, before he lowered himself down into the chair at the head on the table, or at least, and because, the table was a square – he’d considered and announced that the seat was at the head; as only a male wolf shifter would.
“Well, good for you,” Dorothy shot back and gave the evil eye to her friend across the small divide of breakfast clutter when Angela lifted her eyes from the toast and squinted back at her.
“Yes, it was…” Lark’s deep growl rolled along under his words like distant thunder, and Dorothy couldn’t help but give a small chuckle at the man’s antics.
“Dot, you have a visitor,” Sarah announced from the doorway.
The elder witch looked more than confused and she frowned hard – then her eyes went wide as saucers as she stared at Angela…
“Oh no – the care home found me!” She exclaimed on a hissed out whisper, and Angela snorted her contempt for that.
“You paid the bill. You think they’re coming to drag you back so they can get the rest of your life savings?” Angela chuckled.
“But…? If not them, then who?” Dorothy turned in her chair; which wasn’t the easiest of movements at her age.
She took a moment to eye the woman standing beside Sarah in the large arched doorway. Her mind whirled…
With a sharp intake of breath; Dorothy’s trembling hand went to her chest, and all of the blood drained from her face as she stared at a ghost from her past.
“Hello, Grandma,” Fallon announced, making the moniker sound like a dirty word…
“I…” Dorothy was lost for words – literally – she couldn’t think of one thing to say as her mind spun … at least, not one that she wanted to repeat in polite company.
“Grandma?” Angela bit out, louder than she’d intended, and as confused as hell. “Geez, what did I miss?”
“N..o,” Dorothy said with a slow shake of her head and a lot of disbelief in her voice.
The colour still hadn’t settled back into her cheeks as she sat there; staring back into eyes that looked exactly like her daughter’s.
“How did you find…?” Dorothy whispered.
“Find you? It’s called magic,” Fallon tossed back.
“Why now?” Dorothy asked to no one in particular.
She was still visibly shocked at the appearance of her granddaughter out of the blue like that and being able to find her in the middle of nowhere. Even magic needed a base to start from.
What could Fallon have possibly used to track her to a mountain in the back of beyond?
“Maybe we should…?” Lark nodded towards the exit and Angela snorted her contempt at the man for even thinking such a ridiculous idea.
“Are you crazy? Leave? Now? Not if hell froze over and Satan came to warm up at the fireplace,” Angela tossed back.
“Silly me.” Lark grumbled.
“I need to…” Dorothy pushed up to her feet…
“Leave? I hear you’re good at that,” Fallon bit back…
“Hey – hey, watch the tone…” Sarah hissed, turning her upper body towards the woman and scowling in annoyance.
“Watch your mouth, kid, or I’ll show you what real magic can do,” Angela warned and berated her for good measure.
Dorothy held up her hand on a shake of her head. She understood where her granddaughter was coming from, even if the woman didn’t have a clue what the full story was…
“No, she’s got every right, I guess,” the elder said.
Angela noted that her friend suddenly looked visible older since the young witch had arrived, and she didn’t think that she was seeing things. She didn’t like it.
It would take an idiot not to notice how upset she’d become, and Angela didn’t like that either. They’d had each others backs for years in the senior living facility, and she wasn’t about to stop now.
Kin or no kin – that young witch needed to watch her tone and words with her friend, and she wasn’t the only one who thought so. Lark’s low, deep growl rumbled through his chest.
“Nobody has the right to talk to an elder like that,” Sarah said, scowling at the woman beside her. “And your grandmother to boot.”
“The same grandmother that kicked my mother to the kerb when she was pregnant with me? Because she was pregnant with me…” Fallon put her hands on her hips and sneered over at Dorothy.
The elder couldn’t look her in the eye, and right there and then – she knew that she had won that argument.
“Now hold on…” Angela pushed up to her feet, annoyance bristling to get out in a few choice words.
Dorothy was a lot of things, but a bad person wasn’t one of them.
Angela got that there was some kind of a family story there, but that little minx needed to hold her tongue and show some respect to her own damn kin in Angela’s book.
“You know what? Forget it. It’s not worth my time.” Fallon bit out, turning on her heels and stalking away…
“Hey!” Angela called out after her.
Dropping a bombshell like that and then walking away was akin to pulling the damn trigger. It must have been worth her time to hunt her grandmother down in the first place, so what had changed?
But Fallon didn’t hesitate in her step; she just kept on going for the front door as Angela bit down on a stream of curse words from behind her.
“Let her go. She won’t believe me…” Dorothy muttered.
The elderly witch turned and started for the back door.
“What in the name of the Goddess is going on here?” Angela said, tossing up her hands in frustration.
“Just eat your breakfast,” Dorothy tossed back over her shoulder as she pushed open the back door and stepped out into the morning sunshine. “And don’t hide your bran muffin – eat it!”
Dorothy used her magic to toss the back door closed behind her, and she started for the gardens. Angela watched her go through the glass window before she turned and looked at Lark.
The elder just shrugged his shoulders with a look of helpless surprise on his face.
“Don’t look at me, I’ve known fart’s longer than I’ve known Dorothy,” he frowned.
“My mate … such a catch,” Angela berated him.
“You go after her and I’ll go after the other one,” Sarah said, turning on her heels and speeding up to catch Fallon before she disappeared out of the front door.
“Let’s go…” Lark said, pushing up to his feet, and already missing the breakfast that he’d never got to have.
“I’ve got this…” Angela assured him as she started for the back door. There was little chance that Dorothy was going to open up with Lark there anyway, and she knew the old broad couldn’t outrun her…
“Not with Satan claws Chloe and her minion Monty, out there, you don’t.” Lark growled at the thought of the two resident vampires; the newbie one in particular…
He wasn’t about to let his mate out of his sight until Monty assured him that the woman could control her bloodlust and was no longer a threat to the witches.
However long that might take.