Damsel Under Stress (Enchanted, Inc. 3)

“Oh, nothing unusual?”

“You mean like the restaurant catching on fire?”

“Heavens! Is that what happened?” She seemed so stunned that either she was innocent or she was Dame Judi Dench in costume and makeup, turning in another Oscar-caliber performance.

“Yeah, but it was a minor fire and nobody was hurt.”

She fanned herself and looked like she was having heart palpitations. “A brush with disaster! That doesn’t happen to my clients!”

I grew suspicious again. She was pouring it on awfully thick. “It’s okay, really. Everything worked out.”

“It did?”

“Yes, it did, so relax.”

“That’s good to hear.” She finished her dessert, the empty plates vanished from the table, and she said, “Do you need anything else from me?”

I hadn’t actually needed that much from her, but I said, “That’s it. I hope I didn’t waste your time.”

She waved a dismissive hand. “Pish tosh. Time spent with my clients is never wasted, and I needed to eat. Are you sure you don’t need anything else?”

“Nothing. My roommate’s already loaned me her cashmere sweater collection, so I don’t need any wardrobe help. I don’t need you to turn a pumpkin into a glass BMW. We’ve got our next date planned, and I think I’ll be okay. Yeah, I’m a little nervous, but that’s part of the fun of a new relationship. The butterflies only intensify everything.”

“Well then, you know how to reach me if you change your mind.” She got up, and I followed her out of the tavern, where she abruptly vanished in her usual burst of glitter. I was halfway tempted to sneak around to Owen’s street and see if his lights were on. Both his study and his bedroom overlooked the street. But, knowing my luck, his Katie radar would be working and he’d look out the window just in time to catch me, and then I’d feel like an idiot. Instead, I hurried home, wondering what was missing from those blank pages Ethelinda mentioned.

Owen was at a meeting and I was sitting at my desk in the makeshift office in Owen’s lab the next morning when Rod stuck his head around the whiteboard. “Hi!” he said. He was still wearing his hair the way I’d seen it on Sunday, and his skin looked better than I’d ever seen it before.

“Are you exfoliating?” I asked without thinking about what I was saying.

Before I could apologize, he grinned and said, “Yeah. You can tell the difference?”

“You look fresh and well rested.” I thought that was a diplomatic way to avoid saying his skin usually had pores you could drive a truck through.

“Then I guess getting sucked in by that saleswoman at Bloomingdale’s was worth it. I thought maybe she’d give me her phone number if I bought enough stuff. Is Owen around?”

“Departmental meeting,” I replied. “It could be an hour or more. Did you need something?”

He patted the fat envelope he carried. “I’ve got those results on employee magic use for his comparison project.”

“Oh yeah, that. I can take them and give them to him when he gets back, unless there’s something else you needed to talk to him about.”

“No, that’s fine. I can leave them with you.”

He turned to go, but I said, “Can I talk to you a second?”

“Sure. What is it?”

“I don’t know if you know this already, but I’m going home with Owen for Christmas. I was hoping you could give me the scoop on his foster family.”

He gave a low, long whistle. “Oh boy. That’s a topic for a dissertation.”

“That bad?”

“I wouldn’t say bad, but yeah, there are some things I should warn you about.”

That sounded even more ominous than Ethelinda’s blank pages. “Pull up a chair,” I told him.

He grabbed a chair from the lab outside, then turned around and waved his hand at the lab doorway while muttering some words under his breath. “An alarm, so he can’t sneak up on us,” he explained before sitting down. “I don’t know the whole story because I was a kid when James and Gloria took Owen in. They were good to him. There was never any sign of physical or emotional abuse. But they never really warmed to him. I’m not sure why they agreed to bring up a child when they seemed to have no interest in children whatsoever. I don’t even think he was related to them in any way.”