Chapter 2 #2
“There’s a dropbox by the mailboxes. She won’t use it.
” I blew on my coffee and took a drink. It was already cool, so the blowing was unnecessary, but it was habit.
“She says she feels better putting it into my hand. Of course, I’m rarely here, so she leaves it on the door as a passive aggressive reminder of her disappointment in me. ”
“At least there’s no risk of theft.” He chewed a bite of omelet, swallowed. “Your protection spell keeps out any thieves.”
“True. Neither the spell nor the saguaros would allow anyone with criminal intentions into the park.”
“They let Cecil in,” Ronan said, lips tilting into a lazy grin.
I grinned a little, too. “Like the spell, the saguaros don’t have much nuance. Cecil is passionate about protecting the earth. The saguaros view him as a warrior protector rather than an enemy combatant. Were it sentient, the dumpster might view him in a less charitable way.”
Ronan chuckled. He drank a little coffee, ate a little egg. Watched me. “So, what happened last night? You said you’d tell me over breakfast if I let you have your wicked way with me, and I did.”
“And I thank you for it.”
“You are welcome. So, did you get Cecil’s cutting?”
“Yeah. I’m stopping by the garden room this morning to make sure everything is okay, but since he didn’t sneak in last night to complain, I imagine it’s going well.”
“Sounds like your night went better than mine.”
“Unfortunately, it didn’t.” I set my fork down beside my plate, wiped my mouth with my napkin and set it down, too. “I ran into Dominick the ghoul caretaker of Peaceful Dunes Cemetery.”
He eyed me over the rim of his mug. “You said you probably would. Did something happen?”
I thought about what Ida had said, tried to put it into words that wouldn’t alarm him. “Apparently, I, uh, disappeared for a while.”
“Disappeared?” Ronan got up, poured us some more coffee. “What does that mean? Where’d you go?”
“Another realm? Limbo, maybe? Pocket dimension? Oh, and it gets worse, because, of course it does.”
“Worse than a ghoul spiriting you off to Hell?”
“Ah, you know, that’s the thing. Ida doesn’t think Dominick yanked me into the underworld. She thinks I yanked him.”
Ronan froze in the act of returning the pot to the machine. “Did you?”
“I … don’t know,” I whispered, then cleared my throat and said, “If I did, it wasn’t intentional.”
He put the pot away and slowly turned back around. “Maybe this is something you can do now that you’ve accepted your demon side.”
Accepted seemed like a strong word, but I guessed it was true. Sort of. I’d adjusted to the part of me that was Demon Betty. I hadn’t come to terms with the idea that I was a being like Dominick or Sexton. Not sure I ever would.
“Maybe.” I shrugged, trying to act like it wasn’t a big deal when we both knew it was. If Ida was right, and I’d done something like this without any conscious effort on my part, what else was I capable of unconsciously doing?
The question chilled me.
“Have you considered,” Ronan appeared to weigh his words, “talking to Sexton? He might know what’s happening.”
“No.”
“You’re angry, and you have every reason to be, but he’s the one person who could explain—”
“No.” I gulped down a too-hot drink of coffee and tried to play it cool while my eyes watered. “I drew a line in the sand. I can’t cross it.”
He nodded a little too quickly. “Understood. I just thought maybe you could use him for once instead of the other way around. But…I get it.” He held up both hands in a conciliatory gesture. “Believe me, nobody understands having shitty family more than I do.”
I stirred cream into my coffee and stared at the spinning elixir until it wound down.
Ronan leaned against the counter and stared into his mug, too.
KLXX had gone back to normal programming and the innocuous “The Things We Do For Love” by 10cc played in the background. Guess the empaths were on break.
I sighed. “Terrible segue, but Mason and I are meeting at Pallás Place at twelve to go through Floyd’s creepy office. Want to come? You can blow up some stuff with Cecil.”
“Tempting.” He held his coffee to his lips but didn’t take a drink. “Not sure I’m ready for that.”
“Me neither. I’ve been ignoring it while the boys and I worked on the garden room, but as acting Alpha, I should take a look. Admittedly, I’ve kind of been wanting to dig into his files. See what he thought he had on me.”
“I don’t need to see. I can guess.” He gave me a nod that was a twitch shy of being a shake of the head. “Taking on the bar, huh? Sounds like you’re really settling into being Alpha.”
“I’m just worried someone else might get their hands on Floyd’s blackmail files. We know he had stuff on people in the pack.”
“And you want to protect the pack.” He set his mug on the counter behind him without taking his eyes off me.
“The pack deserves to be taken care of. This whole security thing shouldn’t be a one-sided arrangement, even if it is temporary. It’s unfair to the wolves who’ve put their trust in me.”
He grinned.
I leaned back in my chair. “Come on, Ronan, we both know I’m not the true alpha of this pack. You are.”
The grin disappeared. He opened his mouth to speak but appeared to change his mind and closed it again. He crossed his ankles, tucked his hands into the front pockets of his jeans and murmured, “Maybe I’ll stop by for a few minutes.”
“Only if you want to. No pressure.” I lifted my gaze to his, willing him to believe me. “I mean that. This whole situation sucks for you in so many ways.”
“Not only me. Rory, too.”
“Yes, but she’s back in school and living her life without the specter of violence hanging over her. You’re still here, dealing with all this stuff.”
He did the twitch-nod again. It was obvious he wanted to discuss his father about as much as I wanted to discuss my grandfather.
August had just begun, and I was already ready for it to be over. Today the temperature was going to hit a hundred and five, and that was downright chilly compared to last weekend when temps topped out at one-fifteen. Summer in low desert Smokethorn was not for the faint of heart.
I dashed from my air-conditioned house directly into the climate-controlled garden room and still managed to sweat through my T-shirt. On the plus side, my shower-damp hair was now bone dry.
“Cecil?”
My tiniest partner was sprawled on his back in Fennel’s bed, bare toes poking over the edge, snoring loudly enough to rattle the windows. Fennel was nowhere to be seen. Probably due to the snoring.