Chapter 8
Iwas in the middle of a physics lecture, which made it all the more humiliating, when a delivery person entered carrying a massive vase of red roses. Massive enough to completely hide the person’s upper body and face from view.
At first, I thought it was for one of my students, which annoyed me a little, but mostly I could shrug it off. Young love and all that. Someone was pulling a romantic move and had chosen a very inappropriate time to do it.
But when the delivery woman—I finally made out her outfit, hair, and face as she set the vase on the table in front of the white board—looked up at me and smiled, I was overcome with confusion. Then my insides went hot at the embarrassing realization that it was for me.
“Delivery for…” She glanced down at the note in her hand. “Professor Rebecca Miller?”
I cleared my throat. “That’s me.”
“Dang Professor M! You have a secret admirer?” Sonny shouted.
My first thought went to Axel. Because…who else could it have been? There were no other males in my life in Redding. He’d been unusually…nice to me on Sunday, following me around while I searched his property—
“Going to need you to sign here.”
“Uhm. Just a moment.” I reached for the card sticking out of the roses, flipped it open, and promptly shut it. “I think there’s been a mistake.”
“You are Professor Miller?”
“She’s professor Miller,” someone shouted, not bothering to disguise the giddiness in their voice. I shot my students a glare.
“Then I’m going to need you to sign.”
“But I don’t want them.”
“Just doing my job.” She was older than me by a decade perhaps. And it’s not like this was her fault.
“Fine.” I quickly scribbled my name and she promptly departed.
“Who are they from?” Tyler asked.
“Someone not worth mentioning.” I bit the words out.
“Ohhh, burn!” Someone snickered, though I wasn’t sure who. I had thirty students and I was too close to a meltdown to care.
“Let’s just finish up with this example problem and call it a day, huh? I know you guys are probably drowning in homework.”
There came a chorus of excited agreement.
I rushed to the board and fumbled my way through the rest of the projectile motion problem for rockets.
Then I promptly dismissed the class. Maybe they knew I was upset because for the first time, no one lingered behind.
I took a moment to read Ambrose’s note again.
Since you don’t want to come home, I’ll come to you. I hear Redding is beautiful this time of year. Perhaps that little bungalow of yours has a guest bedroom?
—Ambrose
Over my dead body.
Grabbing my things, I hoisted up the flowers and promptly delivered them to the admin office. The young man behind the desk eyed them with confusion. “I’m allergic,” I supplied, setting them down. “Perhaps someone here can make better use of them.”
His face lit up. “Sure thing, Professor Miller.”
I turned on my heel and strode out, crumpling the note and tossing it in the nearest trash bin.
Autumn had officially begun, and most of the storefronts on Main Street were now decorated with displays and painted windows.
I knew I shouldn’t—because I certainly didn’t have much time, and the majority of the recreational reading I did was on my eReader—but I slipped into The Last Page bookshop.
I needed a little something to calm me before heading over to The Roost. So I let myself get lost in the aisles, gravitating toward the romance section.
It was a guilty pleasure of mine, reading the blurbs on the back of each book.
There’s always enough to dream up a story without having to pick up the book.
Somehow, an hour slipped by, and I found myself rushing to purchase two that I’d probably never get around to reading.
I didn’t want to miss Axel’s appearance, so I hurried into The Roost to claim my favorite table, then headed to the front to order.
Something drove me to go for Axel’s favorite cookie.
I paired it with the chamomile vanilla tea and headed back to my seat, but not before Iris gave me a pointed look, to which I lifted my brows and dared her to challenge me.
Ten minutes passed, and I failed miserably to focus on my grading.
Tyler’s assignment was a mess. He missed half the vector notation, incorrectly balanced his equation, and forgot the units on three separate answers.
With such clear mistakes, it should have been easy to delegate which points were awarded where.
And yet, my mind kept wandering to a certain werewolf.
Every time the door chime rang, my gaze furtively darted up.
At last, just as Iris promised, Axel strode in at 3:30pm.
Trying not to appear overeager, I slowly looked up and met his gaze.
What I saw there had me backpedaling. Instead of familiarity, I saw cold detachment.
His eyes flicked over me for the briefest moment before moving away as he walked up to the counter.
I couldn’t help it. My jaw dropped in shock. I was rooted to my seat, trying to decide if I should go over to him and demand an explanation, or if maybe, just maybe, I had imagined whatever thawing happened between us on Sunday afternoon.
I tried to catch his gaze the entire time he waited for his order at the counter, but he didn’t look in my direction a single time. Something heavy and hot slipped into my gut. I didn’t like it.
I especially didn’t like that I cared.
Today had already been a shit day, thanks to Ambrose’s flowers and note. I didn’t deserve to deal with two men who couldn’t behave with decency. So why was I letting it affect me?
I shouldn’t. That was the short of it. So, I clenched my teeth and returned to my grading. I didn’t look up a single time. Not when I heard his boots cross the floor, or the door chime when he left. Even though I could have sworn I felt his eyes on me on his way out.
My irritation stayed with me for the remainder of the day. Made worse by a text from another unknown number.
Unknown number
Did you get my flowers?
Which I ignored and blocked.
By Friday, I was determined not to care about Axel’s weird reaction. Ambrose’s blatant antagonization. I needed to focus on the task at hand. Getting the knife. That was all that mattered.
Getting my magic back. My family’s magic back. Breaking the curse.
Which was what fueled me Saturday morning when I pulled off the road and headed into the forest on Axel’s property. I wanted an early start. It was the only reason I arrived an hour ahead of my usual time.
Unfortunately, the sky decided to spite me. Halfway through the day the clouds rolled in and opened up. I got caught in a monumental downpour. Axel never appeared. I didn’t even feel his gaze—not a single time.
I was forced to slip and slide back in the direction of my car, with no cave discovery to show for it—
And promptly twisted my ankle.
“Mother-fucking-fuck,” I gritted out, sliding to the ground.
There I sat for a solid five minutes, sopping wet, shivering, and furious. What did I expect? For him to show up like some knight in shining armor? Whisper calm reassurances as he massaged my injury and carry me the rest of the way to my car?
I snorted, then hobbled to my feet.
By the time I made it back, the rain had stopped, but I was miserable.
I cranked the heater and drove back to my bungalow in record time, drawing myself a bath, and pouring a very large glass of wine.
Sunday was a little better. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky. Small mercies.
I wrapped my ankle, which was mostly fine after a good long soak the night before. It warmed up after a bit of walking.
The sound of rushing water reached me before I saw it. I pushed through a curtain of ferns and stopped short. A waterfall, maybe fifteen feet high, tumbled over a stone ledge into a shallow pool below. For a moment, I just stood there and blinked, taking in the picturesque scene.
Then my eyes fixed on the waterfall. Behind the cascade was the dark outline of a cave entrance.
My heart leapt.
I was less careful than I should have been as I picked my way down to the pool’s edge, boots slipping on the wet rocks.
The ankle I’d twisted yesterday gave a sharp protest and I hissed, dropping onto a flat boulder at the water’s edge.
My excitement was short lived. The cave was shallow—a pocket, really.
No connecting passages, no lunarium readings worth noting. Just a dead end.
Disappointed, I marked it off my map and tried not to let the disappointment settle too heavily.
This place was too beautiful to be sad. So I unlaced my boots and peeled off my socks, rolling my injured ankle experimentally.
Tender, but functional. I removed the wrapping and dangled both my feet into the pool. The cold water was immediate relief.
I groaned, planting my hands behind me and leaning back, taking everything in. The sunlight filtering through the trees. The patches of blue sky above. The birdsong.
I sat there longer than I should have, letting the cold do its work. Then I decided to call it a day.
The entire hike back and drive home, I thought about Axel. He never appeared. And I couldn’t understand why he’d pulled a one-eighty.
Would he be angry if I drove to his cabin and demanded to know why?
The thought was tempting, and when I passed the dirt road leading to his cabin—or where I presumed his cabin to be—I was tempted. But I kept on driving, granting him his privacy. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if he was home, and what that home looked like.
Over the next several days, what little free time I had was spent with Basil and Sage, or putting up my autumn decor.
Since it was my favorite season, and Halloween was my favorite holiday—a cursed witch is still a witch—I had tons of stuff to put out.
Paper bats fixed to the walls like they were flying out of the windows, fairy lights, leaf garland, light-up pumpkins.
I still needed to do something about my porch, though.
I’d never had one back in Walton, living in an apartment.
So I used the nights I couldn’t sleep to scroll Pinboard and save a bunch of inspiring porch decor.
Pumpkins cascading down stairs, big ribbons tied to bannisters, hay bales artfully arranged with cute signs welcoming the fall season.
I probably wouldn’t do anything quite so elaborate.
Most of my pins were of gorgeous cabins with beautiful wrap around porches, laden with flowering pots of autumnal mums and sunflowers, flannel throws, porch swings, and pumpkins of all sizes.
The kind of designs you see in magazines.
A girl could dream.
I finally asked Iris about the pumpkin patch.
It was at a local farm just outside of town.
They pulled out all the stops in the fall.
There were the usual activities you’d expect, like hay rides, a corn maze, games, and more.
But there was also a harvest festival that happened the second Saturday of October.
“You have to go,” Iris told me. “They transform the old barn until it looks like it barfed up fall. There’s free food, live music, dancing.” She leaned closer to my table. “You might even meet a few cute locals. Some of the farmhands that work the surrounding ranches.”
“Oh?” I lifted my brows in feigned interest. Truthfully, there was only one man on my mind lately. Which was really freaking annoying. It had been a week since our last encounter. Or…non-encounter since all I got was the cold shoulder.
And that was exactly why I found myself sitting in The Roost Thursday afternoon an entire week after said cold shoulder, hoping he’d come in at his usual time. Because when he did, I planned to confront him.
“I’ll be there,” Iris added. “We can get all dressed up, hang out, have a few drinks, do some dancing. You’ve been working so hard. You need to let loose a little bit.”
“You’re right, I have, haven’t I?”
“So?”
“I’ll go.”
“Perfect!” She grinned. “If you want to go together we can carpool. Otherwise, I can just meet you there.”
“That would be great. I’ll let you know.”
She headed back to the counter. It was only 3:20pm, so I dove back into some of my grading, knowing how punctual Axel was.
Which was why I sucked in a sharp breath when the chair across from me was pulled out a few minutes early.
Except when I looked up, it wasn’t Axel sitting down. Everything in me went rigid. It was Ambrose Blackthorn. And he was smiling like he’d just won a game.