Chapter 18

Chapter

Eighteen

T he rest of the week went by slower than the weekend before it.

I delivered Sexton's artifact, took some lavender and a few charms to Beau, Bronwyn, and the café, and started a demon-grown belladonna seed in a small pot in a security-spelled area of the garden room.

Because I didn't want to risk losing it, I used some soil I'd brought in from Sexton's cemetery—with his permission—rather than any I had on the property. I'd had to carry the seed and pot in a pouch on my chest for the first forty-eight hours, but after that I was able to permanently leave it in the spelled area. It hadn't sprouted, but I had all my fingers crossed that it would soon.

Saturday afternoon found me in my garden room relaxing in a folding chair beside the baby belladonna plant singing the chorus to "Lotta Love" by Nicolette Larson as I flipped through an herb magic book I'd picked up at Beau's last year. I was on the hunt for a faster and more complete healing of head wounds spell—no particular reason.

It was a warm day, and I was wearing black-and-pink polka-dot cotton shorts, a black tank, and nothing else. My hair was pulled back and braided, and my face was bare. I hadn't even put on lipstick. I was feeling casual and chill and centered.

Cecil let out a squeaky-trilling scream.

"What's wrong?" I set the tome down and padded to the front of the garden room.

A brand new tablet computer lay face down on the tile floor.

"Where did this come from? Cecil, you're not supposed to have unmonitored computer access, and you know exactly why." I scooped up the computer and headed back to my chair. "So what if they cancelled your order of a recurve crossbow ? Wait. What the hell? Did you hack my Amazon account again?" The gnome couldn't write in English, but he could damn sure read it.

"Cecil?"

No response.

"We need to have a talk about the perils of recidivism. You can't keep doing bad things." I looked around the room for the gnome and my gaze landed on the belladonna pot. I gasped. "Cecil, come here! Hurry!"

The seed had sprouted.

The gnome poked his purple hat out from around a pot of succulents. He squeaked and scurried up the leg of the table where the plant was.

Joy folded over me like a hug. The seed sprouted. I felt like a proud parent.

"Keep a close eye on him for the next few days, okay? We're in the most fragile stage of his development."

Cecil gave me a bland look.

"Fine. Sorry. Yes, I know I'm saying this to an expert. I'm just excited." Tears itched behind my eyes. "It's been so long since I've had a win like this. I needed it."

The gnome chittered.

"You're right. We both needed it. Teamwork." I bent down and held up my index finger. He high-fived it. "Speaking of which, have you seen Fennel?"

Cecil shook his head. Pollen scattered everywhere.

"Probably napping on Ida's porch again. She gives him tuna. We'll tell him later."

There was a knock on the garden room door.

I wasn't expecting anyone except Ida, and she rarely knocked. Probably a tenant coming to tell me something was broken or worn out or something else bad. No matter what it was, I wouldn't allow it to cancel out my happiness. This moment was too good to not enjoy it thoroughly.

Cecil made a grab for the tablet, and I snatched it back. "We're returning this. My gratitude only extends so far. No hunting weapons."

The gnome stamped his foot and shrieked at me.

I ignored him and went to answer the door.

" Ronan ?"

"Uh, hey." He blinked, backed up a few steps to give me room to walk all the way out of the garden room. "You look … different."

"Yeah, yeah. I know. I'm not wearing makeup. Don't make a big deal about it."

"No, you, uh, you look beaut—unexpected." He cleared his throat. Tucked his hands into his jeans.

Thwack ! The garden room door swung open, smacking into the wall of windows opposite. If the glass panes hadn't been protected with magic, they would've shattered.

Ronan pulled me behind him and glared into the garden room. "What the hell?"

"It's just Cecil. He has a way of making an entrance." I circled around Ronan and wagged my finger at the door. "Dial down the drama a notch." I glanced over my shoulder at Ronan. "You okay? You look kind of pale."

"That's my normal look—my people don't do well in sunlight. And by my people, I mean bartenders. Also, yes, I'm fine."

Music poured out of the open door of the garden room. Cecil had cranked the radio volume to ear-splitting. Thankfully, it was a good song.

Ronan sang along with "The Joker" by the Steve Miller Band. When he mimicked the guitar twang solo with his voice, I nearly swooned. It was, after all, the only proper way to sing that part.

"I introduced Cecil to seventies music when he came to live with me," I said, raising my voice above the volume of the radio. "He still prefers classical and speed metal, but it's starting to grow on him."

The gnome poked his head through the doorway and chittered in my direction. Shook his fist.

"What do you mean, where are the orchid bulbs? They're in the drawer where Fennel and I put them. You were there with us. Buzzed out of your little purple hat on boysenberry wine, but you were there."

Cecil whipped his head around, his hat twitching right to left. His nose pointed toward Ronan, and he made a production of sniffing the air. Then he spat in the grass, made a rude hand gesture, and stomped his foot.

I smiled brightly. "Cecil said ‘hi.'"

"My ass, he did." Ronan said. "That gnome has a bad reputation. I can't believe you let him move in permanently."

"We understand each other," I said. "Kind of."

I went inside and turned down the volume. Cecil pelted my bare legs with small rocks then buried himself in the English lavender planter.

"C'mon, stop pouting," I said in a sing-song voice. "You can come into the trailer and watch videos with me tonight. We'll do a garden show marathon."

A muffled screech was my reply.

Ronan eyed the planter. "He seems upset."

"I took away his tablet. He likes watching gardening videos, but I can't trust him with these sorts of devices because he also does bad things when he has access to the internet—and alcohol."

"Don't we all?" Ronan murmured. "May I?" He held out a hand for the tablet.

I shrugged, handed it to him.

"Give me the site addresses of the more benign places he likes to visit."

"There are a few," I said, and rattled off several.

He made a few deft movements on the screen and handed the tablet back to me. "I installed a parental control lock. Cecil now has to get permission from you to go anywhere on the web except his favorite gardening sites. I'll give you the password when we're out of hearing."

"Huh. A child lock. Why didn't I think of that?"

"Because you don't think of Cecil as a child," Ronan said. "It's probably the beard. Or the deviancy."

I knelt in front of the lavender plant. "All right. I'm going to give you back the tablet. You can visit all your favorite gardening sites, but you have to get permission to go anywhere else, and that includes the dark web. If you abuse it, I'm taking it back."

Cecil's purple hat poked out of the dirt. I set the tablet next to it, tucked under the lavender flowers so as not to crush them. I backed away, waiting until the tablet disappeared beneath the plant before exiting the garden room with Ronan.

"Does he live in there?"

"No," I said. "He hangs out near the roots. Lavender soothes him the same way it does the rest of us."

"He should probably spend more time there," Ronan said.

"It's lavender, not Clozapine," I said. "It can only do so much."

"True." He walked beside me, matching his pace to mine. "Thanks for the bud you left me. It helped."

"You're welcome. Thank you for helping me with the tablet." I stepped around Red's grave, accidentally bumping into Ronan. He put his hand on my back to steady me and I forced myself not to lean into the warmth of his touch.

"How do you know about parental controls?" I asked. "Do you have kids?"

"Not yet."

"Yet? You want kids?"

"Someday, if things work out, it would be nice." He tucked his hands in his jeans pockets. "I used to be solidly against the idea, but being around my little sister changed my mind. She's pretty amazing."

"No guarantee your child would turn out like her, though."

"There are no guarantees for anything in life." He watched me dust my feet off before climbing up the front step and toed off his sneakers. "Do you want kids someday?"

I thought about it. "Not a houseful or anything, but maybe one. A daughter."

"No guarantee you'd have a girl."

"All Lennox witches have girls. It's how our magic is passed down. We do give birth to males, too. After the female line's been secured. One of those paranormal biological imperatives."

"No male children have ever inherited the Lennox magic?"

"Not a one." I gestured for him to sit at the table. I'd left the radio on while I was out, and it was playing "Get Closer" by Seals and Crofts when we opened the door. "That's not to say our boys don't have magic. Only that they don't have the power of the firstborn female."

"Interesting," he said, in a way that made me worry I'd shared too much. It was far too easy to relax around this man.

At least emotionally. My body was anything but relaxed around him.

"Would you like some iced tea?" I asked politely, suddenly feeling awkward. After all, our last conversation had not been comfortable.

"Sure." He grinned, fatigue pulling at his eyes.

"You look exhausted."

"I could use a nap," he admitted. "I spent my evening at a pack security meeting then worked a full shift at the pub. Gladys was under the weather, so I worked the morning shift, too. No idea why mornings are getting more popular at my place, but I'm not ungrateful. I can use the business."

"It's Gladys. She has a following."

"That's why the crowd is predominately senior men ordering coffee. I wondered."

"Even after we get Gladys sorted, you might want to pay her just to come in and socialize. Maybe set up a senior kaffeeklatsch or something." I handed him a glass of tea. "Have you eaten? I don't have much, but I make a mean PB&J."

One side of his mouth tugged up. "I love PB&Js."

"You are obviously a man of exquisite taste." I reached for the bread from the cabinet above the sink.

"Obviously." He leaned against the trailer wall and hiked his legs onto the bench seat, feet dangling off the edge. I felt his gaze on me as I moved around my kitchen. "I can't get over how soft you look today. Feels like I'm seeing you naked."

"Trust me, you aren't." I grinned. "It gets even better."

"Godsdamn, Betty." His wolf flashed in his eyes. "You really do check all the boxes."

I set his sandwich in front of him, added some pita chips, a banana, and a plate of Mexican sweet bread I'd picked up at the panaderia in La Paloma. Cecil had requested conchas yesterday, and since he was taking on the brunt of the weeding in the garden room, I'd obliged him. "Boxes?"

He picked up his sandwich, took a bite, chewed. "Don't act like you don't know what I mean."

He was right. I was being purposefully obtuse, and it was beneath me. "Thanks for the compliment."

"You're welcome." He took another bite, chewed, swallowed, and squinted up at me. "How many times have I asked?"

"Five times," I said, this time not even playing at misunderstanding. "You've asked me out five times."

"You counted?"

"Yes."

A slow grin spread across his mouth, curling up one corner and sending a shine into his eyes. "I don't mind a little punishment in the right situation, but I'm not a masochist."

"Good to know." I popped a pita chip into my mouth. "So, you're saying you want to be friends ?" I slapped emphasis on the last word, reminding him of how we'd left things last time.

"The thing is, I don't like it when someone tells me they want to be my friend then make a move on me. Because they never wanted to be friends, it was only a steppingstone to getting into my pants." Ronan gave me a cheeky smile. "It's that ‘friendzone' bullshit. No one gets ‘friendzoned.' People pretend to want to be friends then they ‘sex-zone' you."

"On this we agree," I said.

"So, I'm going to tell you right now that I consider you a friend. However, I want to be clear about my intentions. I like you and want more, but I want friendship, too. If we aren't on the same wavelength, it's cool. I just want to know, is all."

I stared hard at him. "I don't know what to say, and this isn't me being coy. It would be stupid to pretend there isn't an attraction between us, but it would be equally stupid to pursue it considering my antagonistic relationship with your father, who's also the alpha leader you serve."

There. That was honest. And I got the whole thing out without my voice trembling. Because the truth was, I wanted Ronan. In fact, I would've liked nothing more than to push him onto my bed and give my trailer's stability jacks a run for their money.

But it wasn't a good idea for us to get involved, and I didn't think it ever would be, even without the wolf-shaped obstacle between us. I was leaving Smokethorn as soon as I could. And something told me Ronan wasn't the sort of guy you walked away from without a second glance. Everything about him screamed "forever."

His smile faded, and he nodded grimly. "I get it. I'm not going to ask you out again."

It was for the best. Damn me for being disappointed.

" Buuuut if you were to ask me out, I'd say yes. I'd expect a nice dinner and no funny stuff on the first date. I'm a respectable man."

I couldn't fight the smile that curved my mouth. "I'll keep that in mind."

"You do that, Betty."