Chapter One
The woman sitting opposite me was plump, with merry blue eyes and purple-tinted gray hair. She was one of the café’s regular customers, and came in at least three times a week. If Belle—the café’s co-owner and my best friend—wasn’t helping her to communicate with the daughter she’d lost five years ago, I was using my psychometry skills to find whatever item she’d misplaced that particular week.
I crossed my arms on the table and leaned forward. The candles flickered at the small movement, sending a warm glow across the older woman’s pretty features.
“What can I do for you this week, Mrs. Potts?”
“I need you to find my husband.”
Amusement twitched my lips. “You’ve misplaced him?”
Her expression became cross. “No, of course I haven’t. I’m not that forgetful.”
The growing number of visits stated otherwise, but I kept my mouth shut. We’d only just reopened after the bomb—which had been an act of revenge for the rat infestation I’d left two fellow witches after they’d run us out of “their” town—had destroyed part of the first floor’s roof. While that area was still being renovated, we’d finally been given clearance to open the café. The last thing we needed three days out from Christmas was me losing us a very good customer.
“Then why do you want me to find him?”
“Because the bastard’s run off with that floozy of his again, and I’ve had enough.”
I blinked. Mrs. Potts was eighty-three, and her husband five years older.
Meaning he probably didn’t exactly run, came Belle’s amused comment, but I’m seriously impressed he has the time or energy for a floozy at his age.
Although I wasn’t telepathic, the ability to share thoughts so clearly was one of the many benefits that came with Belle not only being a witch, but also my familiar. If witch records were to be believed, it was something that had never happened before, and had caused much consternation to my high-profile, blueblood parents. Not only did I have the audacity to be severely “underpowered,” but I’d gone and gotten myself an even lower-powered witch as a familiar rather than the more acceptable spirit or cat.
I’d like to have that sort of energy now, I replied, let alone when I get to their age.
She snorted. The sound rattled loudly through my brain, making me wince. Your problem is more a lack of opportunity than energy.
True. Between my natural wariness of relationships, Aiden’s initial distrust of all things witch, and the more recent complication of concussion—which he’d gotten saving my life—opportunities to do anything more than kiss had been few and far between. It didn’t help that fate herself seemed determined to interrupt my pursuit of satisfaction.
But at least Aiden had a doctor’s appointment later today, and should finally get the all clear to resume normal activities.
Is “normal activities” the new code word for hot monkey sex? Belle mused.
Hardly. He’s a werewolf, not a monkey. I did my best to ignore the images that nevertheless rose at her comment, and said, “Perhaps you should be consulting a lawyer, Mrs.—”
“I have,” she said curtly. “But I need you to find Henry so I can serve the papers in person.”
“I don’t think that would be a—”
“Maybe not,” she cut in again, “but I want to see the bastard’s face. He never thought I’d have the guts, you see. Not after putting up with his behavior for so long.”
“If he usually does come home, why not just wait?”
“Because I’ve had all his stuff thrown onto the lawn. If he doesn’t collect it before the storm hits, it’s going to get ruined.”
“You could always throw a tarp over—”
“Why? He deserves ruination after all these years of legging it with other women.”
I do like her style, Belle commented, even if she’s taken entirely too long to do something about the situation.
She’s eighty-three, Belle. I wouldn’t want to be starting over again at her age.
You didn’t want to start over again at twenty-five, she said. I’m just thanking the stars and the spirits that we decided to come to a town where there’s a hot ranger to tempt your recalcitrant hormones. I couldn’t have stood another three years of bitching about a self-induced lack of sex.