I almost slept through the meeting. It was damn impressive I managed to get my ass up and dressed, teeth brushed, hair pulled back and out of a rat’s nest, and food in my stomach. Cricket hopped on the kitchen counter and pawed at the cupboard where I kept his tuna, and since he’d kept me company and cuddled with me during my nap, I figured he earned another can. He chirped and meowed, chatting about how much he loved me, and started devouring the fish.

I ate standing up in the kitchen, since there wasn’t any reason to sit at the table. It just reminded me there wasn’t anyone to sit with me. A few protein bars and a glass of water had to do for dinner, since I hadn’t been to the store and didn’t have time to make even the ramen noodles I kept in the pantry. No doubt Mercy had a lovely dinner all prepared and they were all eating together.

My car had disappeared; the last I remembered, it had been parked near the warehouse when I first healed Evershaw, and no one had bothered to tow it back to my house. Hopefully it hadn’t been impounded and didn’t have a shitload of parking tickets on it. I massaged my temples and started my mantra. I needed to focus to make it through the coven meeting without losing my composure or revealing where I’d been. No doubt Estelle would lose her mind if she knew I’d been working with not just the ErlKing but the animals. There was no telling what she’d do—quarantine me? Send me to witch jail? Disown me?

All of those sounded like more restful options than more coven meetings and going back to work. If I even still had a job. I smacked my forehead and sent a text message to my boss that I’d been taken ill and was very sorry I’d missed work. Shit.

I rolled my motorcycle out of the back garden shed and pulled on the helmet. I’d gotten it right after my mother passed away, when any risk seemed like a good one and I didn’t care how fast I went as I tried to outrun the grief. It hadn’t worked. But I still kept the bike, because some days I needed to live closer to the edge than others.

I drove the long way to Palmer’s house, taking the turns a little too fast and a little too tight, but at least I felt awake and alive by the time I kicked down the stand in front of the cookie-cutter house in the middle-class neighborhood. The whole place felt like some kind of a movie set for some retro look at the 1950s. It made me twitch; I couldn’t even imagine living there, much less choosing to live there. What had gone through Palmer’s head when he decided to buy the house that was precisely the same, down to the same color on the shutters and the door, as four other ones on the street?

The front door opened and Palmer appeared before I’d even made it halfway up the driveway and gotten my mask in place. His brow creased as he strode up to me, and he reached out both hands to catch mine, despite that I still held my helmet and bag. “Deirdre, thank God. Are you okay?”

I blinked, startled back a step or two. Maybe he had been worried. “Uh, yes. I’m fine. Thank you for asking.”

He didn’t release my wrists and instead squeezed them a bit. “I called and then drove past your house when I didn’t hear back from you. I was really starting to think something bad happened. Where were you?”

“I got…pulled away for a bit,” I said. I gently drew away and he released my wrists. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

Palmer took a deep breath and glanced over his shoulder at the house, where my aunt was no doubt watching from the windows and bitching about how I was delaying her meeting by loitering in the driveway with him. Then Palmer tilted his head at the porch and hovered his hand near the small of my back to usher me toward a bench swing on the other side as the door. “Would you sit with me for a moment, Deirdre?”

I didn’t want to. I couldn’t say why, but my chest tightened and an uneasy feeling bloomed from my stomach. It wasn’t at all like the irritation and fury that brewed when Evershaw tried to make me do something I didn’t want to, which was an odd thing to compare the witch to. “I’m sure Estelle wants us to begin, so maybe after we can—”

“I mentioned I wanted to speak to you about something, and she was more than happy to start the meeting without us.” He smiled, a perfectly pleasant expression, but it left me cold.

My excuse disappeared, so I trudged up to the swing and searched for a way to not sit next to him. But there wasn’t anywhere to go, so I set my helmet down and perched on the edge as he sat down. I sucked in a breath and braced for some other kind of accusation or demand, some other drain on my time and energy. Palmer smiled again, his blue eyes earnest in the flickering shadows of the porch light, and he took my left hand in both of his.

“We’ve known each other for quite a while, Deirdre.”

Oh shit. Oh shit.

My panic must have shown, even through the icy facade, because his gaze warmed even more. “I’ve always found you enchanting, literally and figuratively. I thought having you deliver flowers to yourself was a funny way of expressing my regard for you, but I know that fell flat. But the last few days, when I couldn’t reach you, made me realize how empty my life would be if you weren’t in it.”

A knot tied my throat up until I almost couldn’t breathe. He wasn’t about to say what I feared he’d say. He couldn’t. He wasn’t that foolish or stupid or misdirected. I’d never given him a hint I’d welcome a romantic relationship. I hardly talked to him outside of the coven meetings. He was one of the few people who’d stopped by and checked on me after Mom died, but that wasn’t really the foundation for some kind of relationship.

When I didn’t speak, Palmer took a deep breath, gearing up for something big. “I very much want to get to know you better, and I want to make your life easier. I want you to be safe and happy. You carry so many burdens on your own, Deirdre. It’s really not fair for someone as young and talented as you are.”

He was right about the burdens and it not being fair. My eyes prickled, because at least someone had noticed how hard it was. He’d realized the difficulty of the last year and how I’d struggled. Maybe he saw me better than the others did, even my aunt. He at least seemed to care about whether my life had ended up the way I planned at twenty-six. But still I couldn’t speak, and Palmer didn’t make me.

He just squeezed my hand and ran his thumb along the back of my knuckles, over and over and over. “I’m not foolish enough to think you’d want to get married or even to date just yet, but I wanted to offer you something so you can get your feet under you and relax and... take a breath. Share the burden for a while.”

Mom always said to beware of strangers bearing gifts. I took a shaky breath. What if he’d already talked to my aunt about this, and the whole coven was inside waiting to hear whether I’d accepted whatever it was Palmer planned to offer? God, that was so embarrassing, like parents peeking out at their teenager’s first date and awkward first kiss. It made me want to immediately get back on the motorcycle and get the fuck out of there.

But Palmer still held my hand. He moved and the swing swung a bit, distracting me as I stared out at the yard and the almost-full moon. “Come and live with me for a while, Deirdre. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like. I’ve got more than enough room. You can bring Cricket and all of your plants; I’ll build you a greenhouse in the backyard, or you can turn one of the spare rooms into a hot house. Whatever you want. Let me take care of you, let me deal with all the cooking and cleaning and bills. You can relax and regroup, then we can maybe move into a different kind of relationship. No pressure, no obligations.”

“That’s very…generous,” I said. Nothing else occurred to me as I looked at where he held my hand. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Just think about it.” He smiled warmly. “I know you love that house but it’s so old that things will just keep going wrong and it must be expensive to heat and cool it, in addition to replacing everything that breaks.”

The thought left me cold, but not because he was wrong—because he was right. And I couldn’t afford to fix the next thing that broke. The hot water heater was on its last legs, and so was the furnace. If one of those went... I shivered. “I’ll have to think about it.”

“That’s all I ask.” Palmer got up and helped me stand. “Let’s get inside and get you something to drink. I’ve already told Estelle that I have an early meeting downtown tomorrow morning, so I don’t think she’ll keep us here terribly long.”

I shook my head and muttered, “Unbelievable. I tell her I’m exhausted and she demands that I show up, but you’ve got an early meeting and suddenly the coven business isn’t that important?”

Palmer chuckled. “Between you and me, she’s prodded me to ask you out for years. So when I said I needed time to convince you, suddenly she was very much in favor of whatever it took.”

I stopped in my tracks, grateful that the front door wasn’t open just yet. “You’re fucking kidding me.”

“No,” he said. Although there was a hint of a flinch when I swore. I wondered if people who said “fuck” were allowed in that neighborhood. Palmer brushed the sandy hair out of his face as he glanced at the door, then back at me. “She’s fixated on having more witches in the city, and she sees you and me as the future of the coven.”

“You and me?” I almost dropped my helmet. “She thinks—are you kidding?”

And that time Palmer did wince, though he covered it with a laugh. “Careful now, or you’ll hurt my feelings.”

“No,” I said, absently reaching to touch his arm. “That’s not what I meant. Just…her meddling. Her unbelievable meddling. She isn’t a spider sitting on her web, pulling strings and shooing the flies around. I can’t believe— That’s it. That’s the very last straw.” I shook my head, getting angry despite my mantra, and prepared to sever my relationship with Estelle forever. She had no right to talk to Palmer about dating me and her goals for us spitting out a bunch of little witch babies, just so she could sacrifice more witches to her precious coven.

Palmer caught my arm and pulled me up short. “Take a deep breath, Deirdre. Just ignore her. She’s a miserable woman who’s clinging to whatever semblance of control she can. Don’t let her control your reactions like this. I can tell her whatever you want about what we talked about; it might get her off your back if she thinks we’re dating, but I’ll leave that up to you.”

“I’ll think about it,” I said grimly. “Let’s get this over with.”

He was still chuckling a bit, bemused, which just set my hackles up more as he opened the door and we stepped inside to face the coven. What the hell did he find so funny? But then Palmer deflected all the questions from the nosy coven and my horrid aunt and cleared the way for me to the comfortable living room and a perfectly mixed rum and coke. The ice queen shield settled back in place and I resisted the urge to scowl. I’d find a way of demonstrating to my aunt that I didn’t appreciate anyone—not her, not Evershaw, not Smith, not anyone—making decisions about my life for me.