Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Two weeks later, Wren stood on the bank of the lake, unable to believe that it was mid-July and that H-Town was halfway through its Summerween program.
Luna was being Luna—demanding and bossy, but getting shit done—her teenagers were getting the hang of her routine, and spending time with Dane, in bed and out, was simply amazing.
The residents had had a minor break from the Summerween chaos and busyness last weekend, but this weekend was second only to the celebration on Lammas Eve in crazy, and it felt like most of the East Coast had descended on H-Town to attend the lake-based Boos and Bash costume party.
Another, possibly even bigger drawcard, was the Witches and Warlocks Paddleboard Parade later.
The sun was about to fall behind the trees, tossing ribbons of molten gold over the already dark lake.
Boats, rafts, inflatables, canoes, paddleboards—anything that could float—drifted lazily on the water, most decorated with fairy lights, candles, and lanterns.
Colored laser beams shot from the bank, while watermelon jack-o’-lanterns grinned like lunatics atop polystyrene rafts, glowing from the tea candles within.
A witch, a black cat stuffie toy tied to the front of her kayak, paddled past, calling hello. Wren didn’t recognize the person beneath the green makeup and oversized hooked nose.
“Are you taking part in the parade?” Wren asked her.
“It’s a little-known fact that members of the coven have a terrible sense of direction, so I’m one of the marshals to make sure they don’t end up down the lake,” she cheerfully replied, and gestured to her green face. “Got to look the part, you know.”
Of course, she did; it was part of H-Town’s code. Wait, hold on, she knew that voice. “Marigold? Is that you?”
“I’m not only good at making coffee, Wren dear.”
The bank, where food trucks fed the hungry and watered the thirsty, heaved with people.
Luna, dressed as a zombie, and a few of her Summerween Festival committee members wandered around with clipboards, trying to decide the winners in the various categories, which included the Best Costume and Best Floatable categories.
Everyone else, residents and tourists, were half-drunk, half-dressed, and having the absolute time of their lives.
Hayes’s raft, a collection of logs bound together by rope, bobbed a little way offshore.
Hayes and Thom had built it when they were in their early teens, helped by Poppy’s grandad, and as a group, they’d spent many summer days and nights hanging out on that raft.
It was lovely that it was still being used.
Wren looked down, thinking that her Drowned Bride costume, which had started as a clever joke, had ended up …
she grimaced, a little too convincing. She wore a tulle skirt over a white bikini, and, because she needed to wade out to the raft, the material was now waterlogged and clinging to her legs like seaweed.
Her spotted with “blood” veil was pinned crookedly into damp hair, and her pearls—illegally borrowed from Luna, who would absolutely murder her if she saw them right now—were sticking to her neck.
She’d meant to look ironic, but now looked like a ghost who’d come back for revenge and, possibly, wine and snacks.
Dane sat on one end of Hayes’s big raft, his feet dangling in the water, a beer in his hand.
She tipped her head and took him in. Of course, he was the one man in town who could make a lab coat and boardshorts look good.
His “doctor” costume was half-hearted, like he’d put in the bare minimum effort and still managed to outshine everyone else’s.
The white coat fluttered in the warm breeze, revealing his tanned chest, and a bright pink kids’ stethoscope hung around his neck like a dare.
He caught her looking and grinned. The kind of grin that made heat crawl up her throat and made her remember every deliciously dirty move he’d made over the past two weeks. She’d loved every second of being with him. How was she going to say goodbye? She didn’t know, but she would have to.
Why was she even worrying about how this would end? Keeping things light and fun was what she did best. But the moment it became complicated and real effort and decisions were required?
That’s when she started eyeing her running shoes.
“You look like a crime scene,” Dane said when she reached the raft, her skirt waterlogged and floating on the surface of the lake.
She arched a brow. “You look like malpractice waiting to happen.”
His laugh rolled over the water—low, rough, and entirely too satisfying.
Around them, the party pulsed with music and laughter, but when she looked at him, the world turned a little softer, a little slower.
Maybe it was the heat, or the beer, or the way he was still looking at her, like she was his Drowned Bride who’d come to H-Town just for him.
And maybe, in ways big and small, she had.
He held out his hand, hauled her onto the raft, and she settled beside him, her legs and skirt dipping into the warm lake water. Dane cupped the back of her neck and, with his thumb on her jaw, tilted her head. His mouth covered hers, and his tongue slipped between her lips.
It was a sweet kiss, sexy too, a hello, I missed you smooch.
Ignoring the hoots from the other occupants on the boat—and Hayes’s rude comments about not allowing PDA on his raft—he kissed her thoroughly, unhurriedly.
Man, his mouth could be classed as a dangerous weapon.
Eons later, Dane pulled back, kissed her nose, and picked up her beer.
It took Wren a minute, maybe two, to remember where and who she was.
Blushing, she greeted Hayes and Hadley and a few of their other friends, and she took the beer Dane offered her.
“Where’s the Popsicle?” she asked. As she’d promised, Poppy was joining them tonight. Benji, no surprise, was not. She didn’t have her phone but knew that Poppy’d probably let Hayes know her ETA.
“She’s in H-Town and should be here soon. She said she’d jump into her kayak and paddle down from the inn,” Hayes replied.
Wren frowned. “But the inn is locked up,” she said. And had been since Poppy’s grandfather’s death. The inn was part of his estate, and nobody, to Poppy’s fury, was allowed access to it until the estate was wound up.
Hayes winced. “She knows that, but she said she needed the exercise and would launch her kayak from the beach.”
Wren looked in the direction of Solstice Deep and saw the lights blazing from spotlights set up on the beach a little way up from the house.
If the McMasters were still alive, or if Poppy had her way, every light would be blazing from the three-story Victorian.
The house was Poppy’s favorite place in the world, and it upset her terribly that she couldn’t access it, especially since the inn would, soonish, be passed on to her father.
Wren picked up Dane’s wrist and squinted at his watch. “She’s late. If she doesn’t hurry, she’ll become part of the Witches and Warlocks Paddleboard Parade,” she said.
Luna’s latest madcap idea, a challenge to see how many witchy people—real or pretend, all dressed appropriately—they could get out on the lake on paddleboards, had gone viral, and they were expecting hundreds of witches and warlocks to make their way across the lake.
With so many witchy people in town, Wren was surprised that Luna hadn’t organized a convention. When she’d made the offhand comment to her godmother this morning at breakfast, Luna had merely stroked Morrigan (bored, unimpressed, waiting for snacks) and told her that she’d considered it.
Of course she had.
Hayes—he’d pulled on a pair of overalls, knotted them around his waist, and smeared grease across his chest, again, no points for creativity—nodded to a fairy princess rather competently paddling a kayak to where they bobbed.
Wren slapped her hand on Dane’s thigh and squealed in excitement.
Poppy, the creative she was, looked stunning, like she’d stepped out of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream—or maybe crash-landed there after one too many glasses of strawberry wine.
Her costume wasn’t the glittery, store-bought kind; it was something softer, wilder, a made-by-Poppy homemade original.
She’d woven pale green ribbons into her blonde hair, loose curls threaded with sprigs of baby’s breath and a few wildflowers she’d swiped from someone’s, probably Luna’s, garden.
Her dress—or, more accurately, a whisper of one—was made of layered chiffon in shades of sage and blush, the fabric so light it moved like mist when she did.
Her wings—homemade iridescent things that caught the light and threw it back in rainbows—were slightly crooked, held in place with what was unmistakably duct tape.
Typical Poppy. Beauty, chaos, and a little rebellion.
She saw the raft, caught Wren’s eye and waved enthusiastically, and when she laughed, the sound carried over the lake, light and reckless. “I’m here,” she called, speeding up.
As Poppy approached, Wren turned her head to look at Dane, to clock his reaction, and her eyes widened when she saw his eyes on her, the small smile on his face. She placed her fingers on her cheek, wondering why he was looking at her and not at the vision a few yards from him. “What?” she asked.
He gestured to her costume. “Blood and guts turn me on,” he told her, his words and expression deadpan.
She laughed, instantly reassured. “Good to know,” she said. She clinked her beer bottle against his and watched Poppy cross the last few yards to them.
“Bird, you look amazing for a dead chick,” Poppy said, tongue-in-cheek.
“Ha-ha.” Talking about costumes, Wren turned her attention back to Dane. “Seriously? A lab coat and a toy stethoscope?” she asked. “Aren’t you just a walking cliché?”
Dane clutched his stethoscope in fake shock. “Hey, I had to shell out seven dollars for this!”