CHAPTER FOUR #3
Reaching for my soft drink, I discovered that his electric blue eyes were watching me—very closely.
“What?” I asked.
“You look different with your hair down.”
I had to stop myself from reaching to smooth it back. Instead, I blew up at my bangs to get them out of my eyes and told myself not to fidget under his scrutiny.
“You always have your hair up,” he said quietly. “Either in a ponytail or a twist...”
“Wearing my hair up keeps it out of my way while I’m working.”
He continued to study me.
“What?” I asked again.
“That’s your natural hair color, isn’t it? I thought perhaps it was dyed, but it’s not. There’s too many gorgeous shades of silver mixed in with the brown for it to be anything other than natural.”
Dropping my chin in the palm of my left hand, I rested my elbow on the table. “Was that an actual compliment? You flirting with me, Montgomery?”
He simply raised an eyebrow. “Darlin’ I don’t flirt. If I was interested in you romantically, you wouldn’t have to wonder. You’d know.”
“Great.” I toasted him with my soda can. “Thanks for the warning.”
He sat back in his chair. “Lorna I’ve never met anyone as prickly as you are.”
“Montgomery.” I placed the can on the tabletop and gave him my sweetest smile. “I’ll have you know that I am considered to be the very soul of amiability.”
“My given name is Charles,” he pointed out. “Why don’t you ever use it?”
To give myself a moment, I chose another slice of cheese pizza. “Perhaps, I don’t feel that I know you well enough yet to be that informal with you.”
He nodded as if in agreement. “I suppose we’ll have to work on that then.”
“Ooh, I’m all aflutter,” I said before biting into the slice.
That made him chuckle. Once he stopped, he said, “Tell me how you learned of Shelby taking the money from the Witches Ball account.”
We ended up talking for the next hour while sitting at my kitchen table.
“I’m glad that your chairwoman, Ruth, contacted the police and filed a report,” he said as we finished.
“It doesn’t look good for Shelby and Sawyer does it?” I sighed. “First he steals the grimoire, Shelby cleans out most of the Witches Ball account, their roommate gets murdered, and they’re both missing.”
“No, it doesn’t look good,” he agreed. “Will the community try and hold the ball anyway?”
I nudged my empty plate back. “We’ve had someone come forward and generously make a donation. It was sizeable enough to cover the majority of what was stolen, and then some.”
His arched eyebrows shot up. “I can’t believe it.”
Now my eyebrows rose. I had been planning to tell him about my attempt to communicate with Tadd’s spirit at Sawyer and Shelby’s house…but now I thought better of it.
“Who,” he said, “in the Witch community is that comfortable financially to be able to do such a thing so quickly?”
I folded my arms across my chest. “You might wanna tone down the condescension, Montgomery.”
“That came out all wrong,” he said quickly. “I do apologize. I was simply caught off guard at the news.”
“You ceremonial guys always look down your noses at the Witches and Pagans on the south side of town. Why is that?”
“I have never thought less of any practitioner because of where they live. That would be very bigoted.”
“Seriously?” I peered at him from over the top of my glasses.
He seemed taken aback at my reaction. “While our magickal practices may be different, a ceremonialist does have more than a few things in common with the simpler earth religions.”
Simpler? I rolled my eyes at him. “And you wonder why we don’t like y’all.”
“Lorna,” he said patiently. “One of my first magickal teachers was a member of OBOD.”
“The Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids.” I nodded. “Sure, I’ve met more than a few Druids over the years.”
“My teacher had a connection to the natural world, and to earth magick unlike anything I’ve ever seen before or since. He was a wise tutor and a great man.”
“So, you’re telling me that you didn’t start out your occult studies with ceremonialism?”
“No,” he said. “I did not. For several years I walked the path of the Druid.”
Intrigued, I tipped my head to one side. “So what changed?”
His phone chimed and the unexpected sound of the text message made me jolt. He slipped it from his pocket and glanced at the screen. “Excuse me,” he said and proceeded to send back an answer.
While he did, I closed the pizza boxes.
Once he was finished texting, he looked back at me. “I need to go.”
I nodded. “Thanks for dinner,” I said as he rose to his feet.
“We’ll have to do it again sometime,” he said.
Wisely, I did not agree to that suggestion. Instead, I stood and escorted him to the front door, then pulled it open for him. “See you around.”
“Good night.” He nodded and stepped onto my porch.
As he went down the steps and moved over the sidewalk toward the curb where he’d parked, I stood there and pondered. So the man could be charming when he put some effort into it. He’d been easy company, and I could privately admit that it was nice to have someone else in the house for a change…
Catching myself watching and wondering over him, I shook it off, stepped back, and closed my door.