Chapter 12
Flame whomped up around the base of Jena’s cauldron, and she turned to rummage around in the cabinet for spell ingredients.
God, she was out of practice when it came to hooking up.
Birth control made her seriously rage-y, and she was kicking herself for not asking Chase to wear a condom.
Of course, the jerk hadn’t offered, either.
Weres didn’t get or transmit STDs, but had he been serious about getting her pregnant?
God, probably. Add that to the list of things they needed to talk about.
That item was not, nor had it ever been, on her bucket list, and it wasn’t going on as an addendum.
Not to mention she was still trying to wrap her head around everything else he’d said.
He might be all systems go, but she still had some serious reservations.
You know, little things, like his entire pack hating her. In particular, his stupid mother.
Jena sighed, still not knowing what the heck she’d ever done to deserve it, and set aside the empty jar of pennyroyal to search for the blue cohosh.
“You sure you want to do that?” Aggie wheezed from behind her newspaper.
Jena’s eyes flicked up, and she smirked at Crystal’s stupid face beaming at her from the front page. Bitch, I got your man… “Why wouldn’t I?”
“You’re not getting any younger,” Aggie said, turning a page.
Jena glared at her. “Says the woman who never had children. You need to get dressed. We’re going to Klineville General after breakfast.” Ah, there it was.
She pulled out the bottle of herbs out and uncapped it to sniff.
Jeez, how old was this? It smelled like the apartment after Chase had torn up Aggie’s bathroom floor.
“The hell we are, and I had you.”
Jena opened her mouth to say something and then closed it. Aggie had been in her early thirties when Jena had come to live with her. She vaguely recalled a steady progression of boyfriends, but couldn’t remember anything serious. Was that because of her?
“Stop over thinking it,” Aggie said. “Only man I had any interest in settling down with had zero interest in the same.” She coughed. “The rest were a good time until they weren’t. I have no regrets. Not about that at least.”
“Well, I suppose it’s a moot point if this is the only blue cohosh you have.
” Jena poked deeper into the cabinet, pulling out odds and ends.
She guessed it wasn’t the end of the world if Chase was right about her cycle.
Not that she totally trusted him. She should probably start paying better attention to that.
“And you’re going, even if I have to spell you unconscious and carry you there on my back. ”
“Don’t make me hex you with vaginal dryness.”
Jena glared at her. Aggie would do it, too. “Whatever. You’ve been so miserable lately, you can’t spare the karma. You’re going,” Jena muttered, flicking through bottles.
The paper crackled in Aggie’s grip. “No, I’m not.”
Jena ignored her. Most of these herbs were just bottled dust. Fixing the roof to get that greenhouse going was abruptly a necessity, especially if she was staying.
There wasn’t a chance she was going back to the ruins if she could help it, and taking a trip to the pharmacy for the morning after pill was just asking for trouble.
“Who was it you used to get your seeds from?”
“Abinathy’s.” The bell downstairs chimed as someone came in. “If that’s not Chase, ten bucks it’s Sweets. Woman’s first in line for everything.”
Great. Jena smoothed her t-shirt and cut the heat to the cauldron.
Aggie had sent out the all-hands-on-deck to the coven and everyone was meeting here.
The last time Jena had seen all of them together she’d been what?
Fifteen, sixteen? Hopefully this time she wouldn’t get another stern talking to about using hexes.
She blew out her cheeks, not holding out much hope on that front.
“Aggie Wright, where you at?” Sweets’s island patois filtered up the steps.
Damn. Jena had hoped to be caffeinated before anyone showed up. “Kitchen,” she called, cleaning up her mess. Last thing she needed was them sussing out what she’d been about to do from the spell ingredients on the counter.
A very squat dark woman in a massive headscarf and jewel-colored caftan waddled into the kitchen. “Uh uh,” she said, shaking her head at the chairs. “Not one of those will I be sitting on. You still got the wide chairs by the windows?”
“Forget your glasses again? You just walked right past them,” Aggie said, weakly fluttering a hand at the other room as she coughed. “I’ll be there when I get there—and keep your nose out of my grimoire!”
“I don’t need my glasses to see a doctor should be looking at that cough, and as if I’m needing to snoop through your poor pages of spells.” She squinted over at Jena like she was just noticing she was in the room. “That you, Jena girl? You got old.”
“Thanks, Ms. Sweets. Aggie was just telling me the same thing,” she said to the woman’s back as she disappeared into the other room. “See, even she thinks you should see a doctor.”
Aggie brushed her off. “Of course she does. Woman goes to an orthopedist every time she stubs a toe.”
“Umm…maybe because she’s a diabetic, and it’s the responsible thing to do?”
“More like paranoid. I’m fine. It’s just the must from the work in the bathroom disagreeing with me.
” The older witch glowered at her, muffling another cough.
“I suggest you stop playing mother hen and start boiling water for tea before the rest of them get here,” Aggie said, her arms shaking as she pushed herself up to stand.
Jena went to help her, and Aggie shooed her away, begrudgingly grabbing her cane.
Well, at least there was that.
Felix came in next and leaned against the island in a houndstooth suit and loosened his plaid tie. God, where did he find these things? It was in shades of bright teal and mustard. “So tell me everything…” he prompted, a sly smile on his face.
She eyed him over her shoulder before going back to washing teacups at the sink. “Not without margaritas and a cone of silence. Put the water on to boil for me?”
“It better be worth the wait.” Felix rolled his eyes with an exaggerated sigh and brought the kettle over. “And you know this is seriously pushing my culinary ability.”
He wasn’t overstating it. Felix was a menace in the kitchen. “It is, and I’ll make sure you don’t set anything on fire. You here as proxy for your mom?”
“Yes.” He frowned, somehow managing to get an entire sleeve wet filling the kettle. “She’s got my sister’s kids again, and one of the little urchins is sick. She didn’t want to risk passing anything to Aggie with her compromised immune system.”
“I appreciate that,” Jena said, glancing toward the other room as more people arrived.
Hopefully the rest of them took the same into consideration, if it wasn’t already too late. Dust from the renovation could be the culprit, but Chase was so clean and had all those fans set up…
Someone in the other room cackled, and Felix rolled his eyes.
It sounded more like a reunion in there than a coven meeting, though she supposed Aggie had become reclusive since her diagnosis.
Not without cause, but it was a shame. The older witch had always been the life of the party. Their meetings had to be boring as—
“Ahaha!” Sweets’s laughter boomed above the hubbub. “Matilda’s stuck outside. Sour old biddy can’t get past your wards. You should see her face!” There was a general shuffle as everyone moved to the windows and more laughter.
“God, that’s still a thing?” Jena asked.
Felix nodded, the two of them sharing a smile at the ongoing joke. Matilda Hanson was the most negative person Jena had ever met. Everything was doom and gloom and there wasn’t an ill-intent ward she could pass within a hundred feet without setting off—
But Chase hadn’t.
A lump rose in Jena’s throat. If he’d been planning on tricking her—if his intentions hadn’t been pure—he wouldn’t have gotten past the front door of The Witchery. She steadied herself against the counter, her knees about to give.
“Are you okay?” Felix asked, putting a hand on her back.
Jena just nodded. It was real.
She was Chase Montgomery’s mate. It wasn’t a dare; he wanted to be with her. She bit back a watery laugh and put her fingers to her lips. Could everything he’d said really be true? How was that possible?
“You in there growing the tea or drying it?” Aggie wheezed from the other room.
Damn. Right, the coven. It was showtime. Jena wiped her eyes, shooed Felix from the kitchen, then took a deep breath and finished loading up the tea tray.
Just as she’d expected, everyone was at the window making faces down at the street below—Except for Sweets, who was twerking against the glass. Not bad for a woman who had to be in her late sixties. Felix lounged at one end of the couch, shaking his head at their antics.
Jena set the tray down on the coffee table. “I’ll go let Ms. Matilda in.”
She started down the steps with a weird sense of déjà vu…or maybe it was just nostalgia. When she was younger, Aggie had always sent her downstairs to let the sour witch in. Jena checked the line of salt at the threshold and stepped over it to open the door—
“It’s about damned time.” The tiny blonde woman sniffed, adjusting her cat’s-eyed glasses and shouldering past Jena. “You know, you used to be a lot quicker.”
“I guess that’s what happens when you get old,” Jena said, her gaze on the empty spot where Chase’s truck had been. Why would he drive it around the corner to Cups? It was only drizzling out.
Matilda eyed her over her shoulder, removing her clear plastic rain bonnet and sending her platinum bob of pipe curls bouncing. “You did at that, now didn’t you? You got fat, too.”