Chapter 20

On the driveback to the farmhouse, everyone was in high spirits despite feeling exhausted, except Shari. She stared out the window, eyes glazed as she listened to her audiobook, her skin still pale. Daphne had gotten her to take one of her pills, but she was still on edge, her fingers stroking down Ame’s spine in a rhythm that could only be described as obsessive.

At my request, Daphne touched Shari on the arm and asked her to lower her headphones, or at least free up one ear. “I know Flora’s voluntold me to make something for an early lunch,” I said, glancing at Shari through the rearview mirror. “Is there anything special you’d like, Shari?”

Ame purred louder when the question seemed to fluster her. Perhaps Shari’s mind was spinning and it was difficult to make a decision?

“You don’t need to decide right this second,” I said quickly. “We have a little time left before we get there. Just think about it.”

“Tater tot hot dish,” she blurted. Then she gave one of her tight-lipped smiles and a firm nod. “Tater tot hot dish.”

Flora made a sound like she was about to protest, because tater tot casserole wasn’t macaroni and cheese or another of her preferred comfort foods, but one look from both Daphne and me shut her up fast.

She slumped back in her seat, squishing in against Sawyer, but only for a moment before she lunged for the passenger window. We’d just turned onto the road that paralleled the western border of Sweet Cider Farm, the arching sign and the little bakery stand nearby quickly coming into view. And sprinting along the split rails, racing us to the farmhouse, was a streak of golden white.

“Jumping hop-toads,” Flora shouted.

“Oh look!” Daphne clapped her hands together once with delight. “He looks like he’s settling in so well. Misty, you never did tell us what you named the dog I gave you.”

“Daphne, you said your intake was a Great Pyrenees/golden retriever cross,” the garden gnome blustered.

“He looks like it, doesn’t he?”

“That’s not a dog, that’s a werewolf!”

Thistle thorns, thistle thorns! I hadn’t anticipated Grumpy racing us home; he usually remained incognito on the opposite side of the farm until he determined I was alone. Perhaps he was just trying to intimidate Sawyer with the promise of immediate scruff nibbles and head slobbers. His tail was certainly wagging and he was yapping up a storm. With the sedan windows semi-tinted, he couldn’t know I was bringing guests with me. One of them being the very garden gnome whose property he’d been snooping around.

“I beg your pardon,” Daphne said, a touch snippily, “but I am the one with the drop of druid blood in her. You know, which makes me attuned to the animal world? Plus I’ve been running that animal shelter for the past forty years. I think I would know a—”

“You need glasses, woman! At your age, you don’t know what you’re seeing anymore.” The garden gnome spun to me, but she pointed an accusing finger at the window. “Is that a carnivorous clematis bite I see on his shoulder?”

I had the gall to look sheepish. “Umm…”

“Excuse me? At my what now?” Daphne lurched forward to grab Flora’s ear for a twist, but the garden gnome fended her off. Sawyer hunched down in the passenger seat, tucking his tail in tight and trying to make himself small.

“Are you harboring that nosy snooper who set of my wards, Misty Fields?” the garden gnome screeched.

As I drove up the driveway, I seriously wondered if we’d get to the farmhouse all in one piece, or if the car would burst like an overfilled balloon from all the shouting.

“Forty-year-olds wish they were me,” the elegant older woman shrilled, still trying to swat the garden gnome.

“It’s true,” Shari agreed, holding Ame out of the way of the warring women. “I’m forty-three and I wish to be like Daphne when I grow up.”

“Thank you, dear.” Then Daphne renewed her attack on Flora. “My skin is as soft and supple as calf leather, my hair more luscious than silk!”

Flora forgot all about me to defend herself against Daphne. “Yeah but those crow’s-feet—”

“Are a badge of honor, missy!”

I slammed the car into park and wrenched open the door. “Grumpy, run!”

From the way the werewolf skidded on the gravel, halting his momentum, it was clear my prediction had been right: he’d chased us home to gum on Sawyer some more. His amber eyes flashed as the Crafting Circle ladies—strangers, possible threats to his anonymity—spilled out of the car, still hollering at each other.

“Not so fast, snooper!” Flora bellowed, yanking her wand free.

The werewolf was fast, but magic was always faster. A green bolt zapped him on the tip of his tail, a net of flowering vines erupting to life and trussing him up tighter than a Thanksgiving turkey. Grumpy crashed onto his side, sliding across the grass and shoring up against the white picket fence. Howling, he began to thrash, but the green tip of Flora’s wand only grew brighter, constricting the net.

“Flora,” I said sharply. “That is enough.”

“You have some explaining to do, witch! You both do,” Flora said, crouching down so she could slam a glowing hand against the ground. More vines sprouted from the grass, encasing Grumpy’s net and cinching it tight.

The werewolf writhed and thrashed in the green cocoon, whining. Not from fear, but from frustration. For every vine he cut or bit through, dozens more took its place. Though, he’d be right to be afraid; the garden gnome was pretty terrifying when she was angry.

“Well good luck getting him to say anything,” I said crossly. “He can’t change back with that seed stuck in him. I’ve been giving him temporary sanctuary and the antidote, and in exchange, he’s keeping the farm free of predators and vermin, and he was going to tell me what he was doing snooping around your yard! A-and… other things.”

“More secrets,” Shari muttered, holding Ame tight and out of the way.

I ignored her.

“So aside from the fact that he’s actually a werewolf who seems like he got cursed into staying in his wolf form because of one of Flora’s more vicious plants, he’d been a good farm dog, yes?” Daphne asked.

“Yeah, actually,” I answered.

“Ha,” she told Flora. “Druid blood for the win, garden gnome.”

Flora rolled her eyes. “Well with that fiáin and those magic hunters lurking about, I’m not going to wait for an antidote to run its course. I want answers now.”

She plunged a glowing hand into the mess of vines, and Grumpy howled in pain.

Sawyer and I both lurched forward. “What are you doing to him?” the tabby yowled.

“Calm down, Stripes. I’m taking the seed out. But like any living thing, it’s resisting leaving its home.”

“You can do that?” I asked, crouching low and commanding the vines before me to part so I could at least pet Grumpy’s neck.

“Yep. It’s my plant, after all. It knows its momma.” Then she dug both hands into the vines with a grunt, the werewolf whimpering. “Jumping hop-toads, it’s dug in there like a tick.”

“It’s okay, Grumpy,” I soothed, stroking his fur.

“Grumpy?” Daphne tsked. “Honestly, Misty, that’s the best you could come up with? Not something regal and commanding like Maximus, Darius, Apollo, Blaze, Reese—”

Shari shifted her headphones back onto her ears. “Somebody’s overdosed on romance novels.”

“Gotcha!” Flora crowed, raising her fist into the air with a seed no larger than a pinhead pinched between thumb and forefinger.

Under my hand, Grumpy’s fur rippled. Flora severed the magic binding him to the ground, and as we backed away, the vines shredded. The golden-white wolf I’d come to know was replaced by a man with tan skin, steel-colored hair streaked with platinum, seven days’ worth of stubble on his jaw, and piercing golden eyes.

He was also completely naked, his body compact with muscles built over four decades of strict discipline and physical activity.

“Woah,” Flora breathed.

Even Shari was staring. From the corner of her eye, of course.

Daphne cleared her throat with a coquettish sound, lifting a hand to cover her smile. “I really did do a good job with those trimmers.”