Bewitched (Betwixt & Between #2) - Darynda Jones Page 0,70
I have to find Annette before she eats all the donuts.”
He stepped aside to unblock the door.
“Would you mind if I come back. You know, from time to time?”
The smile that stole across his face was all the answer I needed. I tiptoed to him and made a soft kissing sound on his cheek. Bona fide dimples appeared at the corners of his mouth. What a heartbreaker he must’ve been in his day.
I turned and hurried up the stairs, but not before saying over my shoulder, “I love the bracelet.”
He was already gone, but the vine at my wrist tightened ever so gently.
My life was so strange.
Leaving the basement, I strolled into the kitchen in search of sustenance in the form of roasted bean juice and fried rings of flour dipped in sugar. I found neither. At least I could do something about the roasted bean juice. I put on a pot of coffee then ran upstairs to grab my laptop.
My dads had gone back to bed, sleeping in their designated guest room at Ruthie Goode’s Broom and Boarding House. I couldn’t help but wonder where the wolf was. If he was resting too.
After retrieving my laptop, I sipped the bean juice and dug into Salem’s murky past. That time in the Witch City that even Salemites regretted. A time when fear and superstition were at an all-time high. When the persecution of their own became the norm. Who knew? Perhaps I’d run across a drawing of the Puritanical revenant now residing in my crystal ball. Did that make my ball possessed? Was it okay to have possessed balls? A few choice, and inappropriate, images brought Roane to mind.
Two hours and three cups of bean juice later, I emerged from the rabbit hole a veritable wealth of information but no closer to finding the truth about the things I went in for: Samuel’s family, the witch hunter’s name, and the smuggler’s cave underneath our house.
Generally, when I fell down the rabbit hole, I fell hard. Today was no exception. I’d fallen so far so fast, I’d failed to realize Annette never came back with the donuts. Alarm shot through me until I remembered I had to take three things into consideration.
One, Annette loved to shop and most likely found a little store full of bobbles and trinkets to keep her occupied for hours.
Two, she’d worked at the donut shop for a couple of weeks. She could be hanging out, chatting with her acquaintances. Or, knowing her, helping with the morning rush.
And three, our lives of late were anything but normal. At this point, a freak rockslide or a vampire attack could’ve slowed her down.
There was a fourth option, as well. Annette could’ve tried to enter The Witchery again, and Love could’ve bludgeoned her to death with a jar of wolfsbane. But that one was a stretch, even for me.
I took out my phone and texted her. Then I looked out the window and got sucked into watching the wolf stack wood in the backyard.
He wore a tobacco-colored hoodie with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. His forearms corded as he worked. His breath fogged in the air. He must’ve felt me staring because he turned, his powerful gaze meeting mine. He nodded a greeting before going back to the task at hand.
Ink jumped onto the table.
I nuzzled him, and then texted Annette again—three times in a row to make sure she felt the vibration if she had her phone on silent, which she rarely did. My dads came in, and we chatted a while but even they noticed how fidgety I’d become. Well, when they weren’t ogling my man.
“Dads,” I said, appalled. “You can’t lust after my guy.”
“The hell we can’t.” Papi raked a hand through his thick silver-streaked hair.
Dad chuckled. “What’s wrong, cariña?”
“Something’s wrong?” Papi asked.
“Annette went out for donuts, like, three hours ago.” I stood to get my jacket. “Would you mind calling the chief, just in case? See if there’ve been any accidents?”
Papi sobered. “Of course, sweetheart.”
“I’m going to drive the route.”
Roane walked in the backdoor, a gust of cool wind following in his wake. “Not without me, you aren’t.”
“Holy cow, you really do have good hearing.”
He didn’t react. He just stood there, staring at me like he’d caught me doing something bad. When I did something bad, he’d be the first to know. And the second. And the third.
“I’m not going out to save the world. I’m just driving to the donut shop and back.