Shotgun Sorceress - By Lucy A. Snyder Page 0,12

wasn’t making standard drugs. Maybe he was selling memory enhancers and love potions and stuff like that, too. I mean, seriously, kids would go crazy over love potions in high school.”

“It’s possible,” Pal replied. “But I wouldn’t try any of that to find out. It’s so old by now it’s probably unstable, assuming it was ever stable to begin with.”

“I wasn’t planning on it.” I dropped the kilo into my flame palm and closed my fiery fingers around the package; it burned with a quick blue flame and disappeared into ash and acrid smoke that I did my best to avoid breathing.

“Know what I’m happiest about right now?” I coughed, stepping away from the smoke and fanning the air with my flesh hand.

“No, what?”

“I’m really damn happy I didn’t find little Ricky’s corpse stashed out here. ’Cause it’s been just that kind of week.”

chapter

four

Raising the Tent

“Hey, I found a tent for you in the attic,” Cooper called from the patio. A green nylon bundle was slung over his left shoulder and he gripped a wooden mallet in his free right hand. He grinned at me, and I felt myself melt.

It was the first time he’d looked genuinely happy since I’d brought him back from his hell. The man had a great smile. Anybody can have nice, straight white teeth these days; it’s what the smile says that matters. And Cooper’s grin told me that, yeah, we’d been having an epic bad week, but everything was gonna be okay, and once we’d put things right, he had lots of delicious plans for making my toes curl.

“Aw, you’re a sweetie!” I hadn’t even realized I needed a shelter; it was one of those things I’d probably have thought of right around the time I was too exhausted to do anything other than crawl into the sleeping bag on the open grass and hope that Mother Karen had an antimosquito charm working.

“Well, I want you to get as good a night’s sleep as you can out here.” Cooper looked at Pal and chewed the corner of his mustache. “Do you want a tent, too? I think I saw a pup tent up there that I could magic up to make big enough for you.”

Pal blinked his four eyes at Cooper; I wasn’t sure, but I thought his expression was slightly indignant. “Please thank him for his kind offer, but I prefer the open air. And also I am quite capable of working my own spells.”

“Pal says he’s good, thanks,” I told Cooper.

Cooper carried the tent over and we opened the big drawstring bag. We pulled out the fiberglass poles, hard plastic stakes, tie-down ropes, then the green nylon tent body, fly, and thick waterproof tarp. We spread the tarp on a nice flat spot in the middle of the lawn and got the poles threaded through the fabric to pop the tent into shape.

“It looks pretty stable,” I said as we set the assembled tent in place on the tarp with the entrance facing the patio. It was basically just a one-person model, though two people could fit in it if they didn’t mind close quarters. “I don’t think we need to stake it to the ground. Unless there’s supposed to be a rainstorm or wind tonight.”

Cooper gave me a look. “With the luck we’ve been having?”

“Right. Better stake it down, then.”

I started tying the ropes through the tent grommets as Cooper stripped off his borrowed T-shirt and began pounding stakes into the lush sod. The muscles in his shoulders and his abs seemed unusually defined; I suddenly imagined myself running my tongue through every hard groove on his belly, kissing his navel, gnawing gently on his delicious hip bones.

Pal sniffed the air. “Jessie, whatever you’re thinking about, please stop thinking it.”

I didn’t reply; I just focused on putting the fly on the tent. Which took a whopping two minutes, so it wasn’t much distraction. Cooper was still driving hard, thick plastic into the moist, yielding lawn. A slight sheen of sweat gleamed on his smooth skin. My knees were starting to quiver.

“Jessie …” Pal warned.

Cooper stood up. “The grass seems pretty springy, but if you think you’ll need an air mattress—hey, what’s the matter? You’re all flushed. And you look so sad.”

He gazed down at me with concern. It was all I could do not to grab him by the ears and stick my tongue down his throat.

“I need a … hug,” I replied. “Can we cuddle on my sleeping bag in

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