Midlife Blues - Victoria Danann Page 0,52
is exactly what I mean.”
“Right. I get that. So, here’s what you have to do.” He had a plan? I was paying attention. “You have to balance those feelings with the justice you delivered. Like a horn-wearing Valkyrie driving two white flying goats. When she comes.”
I gasped. “You’ve been eavesdropping on me singing in the shower.”
He chuckled silently, which always made his abs move in a beguiling manner.
“Just a little. I don’t know who she is, but I know she’s coming.” He wiggled his eyebrows.
“You made innuendo of ‘She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain When She Comes’. That’s sacrilege to Americans.”
“Made you smile, though.” I shrugged. “So, you’re going to balance the justice with the very great things. You got justice for a kid who was abandoned and forgotten in a foreign land. You got the German queen to build a new bridge for that ogre and made her live in a tent under the bridge for a week.” He stopped to laugh at that. “Because of you, phoenices are able to protect themselves from sadists. And one of those perpetrators now works for the bureau to fight cruelty.”
He ran his hand up my silk-clad thigh. “Soft,” he said seeming momentarily distracted. “And I’m all about the poetic justice. You don’t need me to do a ‘previously in Hallowstide Court Meet’ review. You were there. Just remember all the good things you did and the fact that you have, for the first time, begun to implement penalties that actually real consequences and maybe discourage repetition. Remember your radiance of phoenices and the look of gratitude on Bulent’s face.”
I looked at him sideways. “That was gratitude?”
Keir laughed. “I choose to think so.
“There are things I feel good about.” Keir’s optimism was catching.
“And think about all the great things you have coming up. Tomorrow, after court, I’m taking you to the fair. The pups will be ready to come home next week. John David is planning a Winter Masquerade Ball.”
“He’s not.”
“He is.”
As a thought occurred to me, I began to perk up a little. “I wonder how John David would feel about being punked?” I wiggled my eyebrows. “Turn abouts.”
“Oh, no. The payback monster’s been awakened. What are you going to do?”
“Forget it. After the murder mystery, I no longer trust you.”
“Then you shouldn’t have told me about your plan to punk.”
“Promise right now you won’t say anything to anybody. Or else?
“Or else what?”
“There’s another word that stars with p what will be summarily withheld until your promise is tagged and bagged.”
Keir chuckled. “I surrender with another p word. Prejudice. And! Your daughter is coming for her holiday break from school. Right?”
I groaned out loud. Not that I didn’t want to see her. I really, really, really did. But…
“I wonder if Esmerelda has a spell that will magically uncomplicate my life while Evie is here.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN Jersey Devil
I dreamed I heard thunder, but didn’t wake until a rumble shook the bed. Thunderstorms do occur in that part of England, but not nearly as often as in the southeast. I looked over at Keir’s sleeping form. Maybe I’d imagined the noise because he was unbothered. At rest, his face looked more like it belonged to a cherub than to one of the most powerful fae alive.
A minute or two passed with me trying to wish myself back to sleep, but I was forced (mostly by my bladder) to accept that wakefulness wasn’t giving up easy. I swung my legs off the side of the bed and started toward my bath, pulling on my Black Watch flannel robe as I went. I could tell the house to turn the heat up a bit, but I didn’t want to wake Keir.
After the obligatory visit to the toilet, I headed toward the kitchen feeling ‘out of it’. So much so that I wasn’t entirely sure I wasn’t still dreaming. That idea earned an exclamation point when I switched on the under-counter lighting.
There was, sitting on a stool at my kitchen island, a hideous Baphomet-like creature. For all the world he appeared to be waiting for me.
I did what most people would do and said, “Who are you? What are you? And why are you in my kitchen in the middle of night?”
“You know.”
“No, I don’t know.”
He lowered his chin and insisted. “You know.”
There was something about him. I couldn’t put my finger on it at first. Then I remembered. My cousins from New Jersey had visited when I was a kid and told me all about