Chapter 12 Furyon
Furyon
Lemon and I sit on the porch and talk for hours.
We blow through an entire pitcher of summer sangria and a trayful of cactus shooters talking about my work and hers.
She’s light on details, but it sounds like Letitia hasn’t been the most welcoming of managers.
Doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. The pixie female isn’t friendly, but she’s haven-renowned for her potion skills.
She’s turned out quite a few master potioneers over the decades I’ve been here.
Eventually, our waiter gives me a look that screams for us to get the table back into rotation. I slap down cash and rise to pull Lemon’s chair out for her. When she stands, she’s close to me, and against my better judgment, I breathe in.
“You don’t smell like lemons,” I say softly.
She looks coyly at me over her shoulder. “No? What do I smell like, Furyon?”
I bury my nose in her hair and take a deeper whiff, not giving a fuck who around us might be watching with interest. It’s a small town, after all.
“Sunshine. A little bit like mustang slobber.”
She snorts and spins against me, slapping my chest. “Stop it this instant… I do not. I fully bathed and reapplied antibacterial cream and everything.”
I flash her a smile as I take her hand and guide her away from the table. We head back down the steps, and I slip her hand through my elbow. “You wanna do a little tour of the garden? It’s a must-see, and we can mark something else off your list.”
She beams at me, and it’s breathtaking. Those tiny white fangs. The way the smile pulls little wrinkles to the outside edges of her eyes. I love what a deep ruby red they are and those silver and gold specks spiraling out from the center.
“Have dinner with me tonight.” The words are out of my mouth before I’ve even realized I’m gonna ask them. “Please.”
She shrugs playfully, acting like she’s about to tell me no. “Oh, I don’t know, Furyon. Are you any good at cooking? Do you happen to have bags of blood on hand? I could kill for a bloodtini, you know.”
I laugh as I drag her to one of the maze’s many entrances. “I’m a better cook than you might think. Even Echo says so, and she’s picky as hells.”
Lemon looks down at her outfit. “I need time to go home and freshen up.”
I shake my head. “You don’t. You look gorgeous, and it’s Saturday. I’m stealing all of your time unless you get tired of me.”
She stops in place, planting both hands on her hips with a wry look. “Furyon, what are we doing? I mean…surely this is a conflict of interest or something, unless you’re planning to drop the investigation.”
“Naw.” I drag my knuckles along her jawline. “I gotta do my job, Lemon, but in my heart of hearts, I believe you. And nobody’s interested me in decades. To be honest, I think you had me with them pink boots. I just can’t get ‘em outta my damn head.”
She snorts and slaps my chest. “Don’t blame the boots for your behavior. You told me they weren’t practical.”
“They ain’t,” I say with a laugh. “But they’d look good on the floor in my bedroom.”
“Stopppp,” she says, cackling. “Just stop.”
Shrugging, I join her in laughter. “I’m a little outta practice with pickup lines, Lemon.”
Her laughter slowly dies as I lead her to the maze’s entrance. I pause right inside, pointing above us.
Ahead is a long tunnel fashioned of wood and wires. Olive-green gourd vines climb up both sides and the top, turning it into a leafy, shaded hallway of sorts. At the end, it branches off in three different directions.
“Okay, so the maze garden holds sixty-two varieties of gourds and pumpkins. Nearly half are homes for our pixie community.” I shoot Lemon a quick look.
“Speaking of which, Pine Gulch has the largest pixie community in the entire haven system, and it’s thought that the garden is a huge reason why. Lotta options to pick from.”
Lemon stares ahead. “Damn, it’s beautiful. Is there a gnome village here as well? I noticed the stall where they were selling gnome homes.”
“Center of the maze, and there’s a secondary neighborhood in the far west corner. Wanna see?”
She nods excitedly. As we start along the hallway, she’s all oohs and aahs, pointing at the beautiful gourds.
At the end of the hall, the gourds have holes for front doors.
Pixies in their small form flit between the row homes, waving and talking, their voices tiny.
Like this, they could fit in the palm of my hand.
Lemon looks a tad fretful as pixies zip around our heads.
“Letitia don’t live here,” I say into her ear. “In case that’s what’s got that furrow between your brows.”
She shoots me a thankful look. “Am I that transparent?”
“Dark elf,” I remind her. “My literal power is reading others and understanding how they feel. I learned a lot from my family before I declined to be employed by them.”
There was a time I thought I’d get into the family business, but as it turns out, I don’t love answering to clients. My work with animals is far more fulfilling. Animals are easy…they make sense.
By the time we walk through a few more hallways and across swirling terraces of vining pumpkins, she’s fully enthralled. “Okay, so specific hallways are homes, and some are just for growing the produce. I see. So is that future expansion or…” She smiles up at me.
“Actually, we do a huge harvest festival at the end of September, and a lotta the gourds and pumpkins will come down then for the festivities.” I shrug.
“You obviously haven’t seen much of this yet, but the Gulch is huge on parties.
There’s an annual parade and barn dance for moving the cattle from one side of PG to the other.
There’s the harvest festival, a spring festival too.
We celebrate human Halloween for our human constituency.
We also do Christmas up pretty big on account of the number of humans who live here.
” I laugh. “And that’s just off the top of my head. ”
“My girlfriends came into town for the Fall Ball, actually,” she says with a bright smile. “I stayed home. Didn’t think it would be my vibe, and I was so busy with work stuff. But my best friend Shadow’s dating a guy who used to live here. Dain?”
I chuckle. “Oh, yeah, I think I recall meeting them at the welcome tent. She a pretty black-haired witch?”
“That’s Shadow,” Lemon says with a laugh, then, more softly, “Damn, I need to call and catch her up on things.”
“Why, hello there, Lemon.”
She and I spin in place to find the ancient pixie twins standing there grinning at us. Bryony’s eyes drop to where Lemon’s hand rests on my forearm. I swear she looks positively giddy.
“Hey, ladies,” Lemon says brightly. “Thank you again for that pound cake, by the way. It was excellent.”
“Of course,” Bryony says smoothly, looking at Lemon’s hand again. “Well, we were just passing through. Good to see you two.”
Her sister’s nostrils flare as she beams at us.
When they go, whispering with their heads close together, Lemon spins and watches them disappear up one of the gourd-filled hallways.
“That was weird.”
“Weird don’t begin to cover it,” I muse, suspicious of the twins’ motives.
We spend two hours in the maze. Lemon asks a million questions, and without intentionally doing so, I get a better read on her. I’m hard-pressed to see this woman hurting that moose or the horses. I suppose it’s possible, but I just can’t see it, not with how delighted everything seems to make her.
She’s all bright sunshine with a personality as cheerful as can be.
Even with that, a deep well of sarcasm runs through her.
It’s a deadly combo for me, and by the time we’ve visited the exterior of the gnome village and said hello to a few friends, I’m half in love.
Maybe Echo was right, and this city girl’s got me confused.
But if this is confusion, I don’t want it to end because I’m having fun.
Lemon sparks something in me that I’d let die—the desire to connect with a woman. I wear a charming mask in my half-ass role as PG’s welcome committee, but I purposefully keep most monsters an arm’s length for my sanity.
This woman makes me want to flip the script on that tendency ‘cause all I wanna do is hold her hand and show her off in every business in town.
We leave the garden, and I walk her back to my truck.
Lemon insists again on going home to freshen up, so I drop her at her cottage and head to my office for an hour.
Nothing new from the lab or Letitia, and Echo’s in a snit over it, grumbling and stomping around the office as she reviews results that tell us nothing.
Given we’ve seen this problem several times now, we make a plan to head out to the gulch in the morning to check on the mustangs.
Then I’d like to do a tour around the outer edges of the gulch, maybe even take a trip out to the Sidewinders’ compound to see if they’ve noticed anything weird up north.
Mykel mentioned his cattle had been up north, and that’s verging on the motorcycle club’s territory.
Shit, come to think of it, wouldn’t surprise me at all if those assholes were somehow responsible. That’s an unsettling thought, but I cast it aside as I head home and clean up my place.
I hop in the shower, deciding that freshening up is probably a good idea.
When I get out and wrap a towel around my waist, the doorbell rings.
I’d laugh at Lemon’s timing if it didn’t make me hot to think about opening the door with nothin’ on.
After striding across the worn wood floor, I swing the door open.
She stands there, blonde waves flowing beautifully over one shoulder. She’s got on a pink and yellow ruffled dress that’s fitted around her tits and stomach and flares out wide over her hips. Shit, the dress ain’t just yellow. The yellow is a delicate lemon pattern.
I let out a pleased chuckle as my eyes drift down to her perfect little feet. She's wearing hot pink heels with ruffled straps that tie halfway up her lower leg.
“Godsdamn, Lemon.” I bring my gaze back to those ruby-red eyes. “Didn’t realize when you said freshen up you meant kill me with this dress.”
She beams mischievously as she darts a glance at my towel. “I didn’t realize you meant you’d be showing up nude. I could have matched your vibe.” She tops the tease off with a wink.
I drop the towel, letting it pool around my feet as I take a step closer to her. “I ain’t fussed with nudity, Miss Knox. Hope you ain’t either.” I bend down and brush my lips over hers, the softest hint of a kiss, a reminder of what we did last night.
Her chest heaves as she kisses back. But I’m a big fuckin’ tease when I’m courtin’ a woman.
Which is what I’ve decided I’m most definitely doing. I don’t care about the optics. I can’t believe there’s a world where Lemon’s responsible. She can’t be guilty simply because I don’t want her to be.
And that feeling she sparks in me? I wanna chase it until it catches on fire. Then I want this pretty little thing to burn up with me.
Turning on my heel, I walk across the living room to my bedroom, knowing full well she’s staring at my ass. I grin as I disappear into my bedroom and hear a “hot damn” muttered under her breath.