I wrapped my arms around his waist and rested my head against his back. “I love that you give back. Thank you.”
“My parents taught me early on. You always give back to the Pack. Moonshadow Bay may not be my actual Pack, but it’s my adopted home, and so I intend to give back to it in the best way I can,” he said, glancing over his shoulder with a smile. He turned and caught me up in his arms, kissing me soundly. “I missed you while I was at work. I missed your voice, your scent, the feel of you in my arms.”
I nodded, greedily accepting his kisses. “I missed you, too. You’re a good man, Killian O’Connell.”
“I do my best, January Jaxson,” he whispered, pressing his forehead to mine. “All right, now about this sandwich—”
“Oh I can do better than that. My aunt and Ari came to dinner, and Teran brought corn chowder and corn muffins. Let me heat some up for you.”
“Point the way and I’ll fix my own. You don’t have to wait on me,” he said.
Once again, feeling like a very lucky woman, I sat down at the table. “The chowder’s in a plastic container—the one with the blue top—and the corn muffins are in the zipper bag.”
Killian ladled out a large serving, then popped it in the microwave, along with two muffins. A minute later, he removed the muffins and set the soup to heating for the remaining time. After spreading butter on the muffins, his chowder was ready and he used a potholder to carry it to the table, along with a bread plate containing the muffins.
“This smells so good after a long day,” he said, sitting down opposite me. “So, how was your day?”
“Problematic. But let’s talk about you, first.” I wanted to hear something other than my own voice for a change.
“Well, I did six free spays tonight and neutered two toms for free. Oh, my sister called. She’s out of the hospital and has moved back in with my parents until she’s up and around.”
His sister had been in a bad accident a few weeks before. Even though shifters healed faster than humans, she had been pretty beat up and had sustained multiple broken bones and a punctured lung, but she had managed to survive.
“I hope she’s up and around before long.”
“When Tally is on her feet, she’s going to come for a visit. She wants to go shopping with you.” He said it so offhand that the words didn’t sink in for a moment.
Then, I started. “With me?”
“Yeah, I talk about you a lot and she wants to meet you. So do my parents.”
My heart skipped a beat. Meeting the parents was panic-inducing. Ellison’s parents had been unhappy with me, and I always had the feeling he had married me partly to get back at them. My former in-laws and I had had a tenuous relationship, and it had only declined as time went on.
“Oh, all right. They do know that I’m a witch and not a shifter, don’t they?” With Ellison’s family, either one would have been unacceptable; they were human and overly proud of it. But I also knew that, among some shifter clans, marrying outside the Pack or Pride was tantamount to turning your back on your heritage.
“My parents aren’t old school,” he said, holding my gaze. “They’re not prejudiced. Actually, you’d be surprised. Our Pack is one of the more progressive ones around. We still live according to Pack honor, but that doesn’t exclude marrying outside the Pack, nor does it exclude magic. It also means that the men of my Pack are all taught to fend for ourselves—women aren’t expected to wait on men hand and foot. Or paw and paw, so to speak.”
I relaxed. “All right, as long as they know in advance. I don’t need any more surprises like the one I got when Ellison introduced me to his parents and rubbed their noses in the fact that I was a witch.”
“So, what was your day like?” Killian asked, digging into his meal. He ate with a gusto it was good to see. He was a physical man. He liked his food, he loved being outside, and even though he was smart as a whip, he liked to move. He went to the gym several times a week, religiously. And best, he loved sex. He was very touchy-feely.
“Well…” I hesitated. If I told him about Val and the flower debacle, he might go off half-cocked, especially after the other night in the restaurant. The last thing I wanted was for my boyfriend to end up on the wrong end of a vampire. Wolf shifters were strong, but vampires were stronger. But the thought of hiding something from him bothered me. I waged war, trying to decide what to say. Finally I opted to tell him about Rameer. Rameer hadn’t made a move on me.
“I found out what happened the night before my birthday. When Ari and I got together?”
“Oh, what?”
I told him about the wishcraft ceremony and Rameer, and then about finding the owner of Rameer’s bottle. “So, while he added energy to our ceremony, he didn’t really cause the problems.”
Killian set down his spoon. “You’re telling me that a djinn is in that bottle near the sofa? That you actually set all three of those things in motion and he supplied the gasoline?”
“Um, yeah.” At first I thought he was angry, but then he began to laugh, snorting soup through his nose so that he had to get a tissue.
“Oh, pardon me, love, but that’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in a while,” he said, trying to stop laughing. “You really did a number on yourself.”
“Well, you might be a little sympathetic,” I started to say, but then ruefully added, “Yeah, I did.” I was just grateful he wasn’t upset. “Rameer will be gone as soon as we get the bottle, so I guess I did something good, too. He gets to go home to his world.”
“Well, I don’t know much about djinns, but I was taught to distrust them. But if you say he’s all right, I’ll believe you.” He sobered, wiping his eyes again as he went back to his soup. “What about Ellison?”
“I don’t know. I guess he’s going to have to pony up some cash. We didn’t have that much to begin with. I got a decent settlement but it wasn’t enough to retire on, I’ll tell you that. Which is one reason I found a job as soon as possible. With the way he blows through cash, I’m thinking he may actually have to sell the house. Since he managed to cheat me out of the magazine and everything was in his name, I’m not liable for any of the damages. He might end up going bankrupt. Oh, and his trophy girlfriend apparently broke off the engagement and left.”
“You said he tried to talk you into going back to him?”
“Not really—he doesn’t want me back. Maybe the sex goddess spell hit him long-distance, but I’m inclined to believe that the reason he’s trying to cozy up to me now is because I always solved all our problems. He just doesn’t want to wade through this mess by himself. But too bad, he can handle it on his own.” I leaned back in my chair. “The haunting we’re investigating is a doozy. Real spook-show stuff.”
“What have you found out?”
“The restaurant was once owned by a member of the Covenant of Chaos, so I’m waiting on more information from Rowan Firesong. But we’ll manage it.” I stood, still debating whether to mention the flowers and Val, but Killian was in such a good mood that I decided to put it off for a while longer. “Do you want to spend the night?”