Chapter 25
twenty-five
Noah
Willow looks a tad insane and a lot desirable with her hair falling on her naked shoulders, spaghetti straps barely holding together the fabric tensing on her breasts, waving a smoldering bundle in a house mainly comprised of wood.
“Go back to bed, I got it,” she says as she turns on her heels and moves the thing three times in the air in one corner of the parlor, billows of smoke in her wake, before she goes to another corner and repeats the process.
“Got what?”
She shrugs. “The spirits. I’m showing them who’s boss. They need to go back into the netherlands.”
“The Netherlands is a country.”
She rolls her eyes. “Not those Netherlands.”
“You’re going to set the place on fire.”
She snorts. “I’m sageing. Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.
” She comes toward me, glancing at my bare chest as I move aside to let her out.
“Aren’t you cold? You should put a shirt on if you’re going to stay here.
Or a sweater.” She licks her bottom lip, then turns her back to me as she slides to the hallway, then into the dining room.
Holding my smirk, I follow her. “I’m not cold.” When Willow is around me, it could be freezing—I wouldn’t know.
She’s already in one corner of the dining room, then she runs to another.
“I need more sage,” she mumbles. Then she turns to me, and her eyes slide down to my abs before hopping back up to my eyes.
“Well, you’re distracting me. And you need some sleep.
You have a big day tomorrow.” She’s still sageing the place, three strokes in each corner of the room, the smoking herbs leaving a sweet scent in their wake.
I follow her into the study. “What ghosts are you trying to chase, exactly?”
“I’ll let you know if they tell me their names.
Although I’m told that stuff from Cass is pretty effective.
Used it on my great-grandfather when he wouldn’t stop tickling Ms. Angela’s toes at night because her grandmother had refused to marry him.
Said he’d haunt her whole family tree—and he held to his promise. ”
“Please tell me you don’t believe that shit.”
She stops, her jaw dropping. “No wonder they live here! You’re giving them free rein.”
I don’t know if she’s insane, or if she’s messing with me. Because no one—no one—outside my family knows how to deal with our ghosts. We don’t talk about them, not amongst ourselves, and certainly not to others.
The last time someone brought them up, I lost a fiancée. Not that I regret it—it was a baptism by fire. She didn’t pass the test.
The thing is, Willow wasn’t supposed to pass the test. At all. Now that I think about it, this was probably my guess all along, when it came to why our marriage would end. She’d tire of hearing her name called in the night when everyone else was asleep.
I mean, what woman could stand that? Only Mom did.
All the other reasons I came up with were only to give her acceptable excuses. Seeing her now creates an even deeper longing for her. She’s so close, yet so unattainable. So perfect for me, yet so not mine.
Willow is done with the study, and she goes to the kitchen.
“You have a meeting with Zach from Coding Club tomorrow. Seven in the morning. If you want to get a run in before, and a shower, and a healthy breakfast, that leaves you—maybe five hours of sleep.” She puts a fist on her hips.
“You need to go back to bed. Chipitty-chop.”
My chuckle stays strangled in my mouth. Mom used to say that, but never to me. When she came into my life, I was already older, or acting like it. No one ever babied me, and although it’s not something I want, it moves me deeply.
She’ll be a great mom some day.
Unable to deal with the feelings overtaking me, I follow my wife’s orders and turn to go back to bed.
“You again?” Willow exclaims, frustration in her tone. Is she actually talking to the ghosts? I stop on the first step and listen. “All that hotness he parades around,” she mumbles barely loudly enough for me to hear. “No wonder you don’t want to leave.”
So she thinks I’m hot.
I teeter on the staircase. Should I go back down and… and what?
Hmm. Any other woman, I’d go back down there and just… watch her, knowing what she thinks. Try some light banter. Offer to sit on the porch and watch the stars and if she says yes, read her body language. Slide my arm around her shoulders.
Kiss her.
Read how she kisses me back.
See where the night takes us.
But this is Willow. Who’s doing me and my family a solid. Going out of her way to save our small town.
Just because she thinks I’m hot doesn’t mean anything.
She only agreed to be my wife.
Okay, and to sleep in my bed.
And maybe I’ve told her my intimate secrets.
But that doesn’t mean I should get carried away.
I’m reading this wrong, I know I am. I’m losing sight of the reason for all this. And I can’t afford to lose everything simply because I now have feelings.
Because if Beck is right, Gail is back in town, stirring up trouble.