go up, grab a shower, and change. I’ll just ask Boyle to swing by and get me. The four of us can put our heads together on it, and talk it to death with you and Fin later.”
“That would suit me very well.”
Evasive, Branna thought when alone again. She preferred evasive to deceptive. She hadn’t absolutely said she expected Fin. And it would give her brain a rest not to have to talk it all through, to give it all a day or two to stir around in her head first.
Maybe she’d rest her brain with the telly instead of a book. Watch something fun and frivolous. She couldn’t think of the last time she’d done only that.
“I’m heading out!” Iona called back. “Text me if you need me.”
“Have a good time.”
Branna waited until she heard the door close, then, smiling to herself, got out a container to freeze all but a bowl of the soup.
A bowl of soup, a glass of wine, followed by a bit of the apple crumble she’d baked earlier. A quiet house, old pajamas, and something happy on the telly.
Even as she thought what a lovely idea it all was, the door opened.
Fin, with Bugs on his heel, came in with a ridiculously enormous bouquet of lilacs. The scent of them filled the air with spring and promise. She wondered where he’d traveled for them, and arched her eyebrows.
“And I’m supposing you’re thinking a forest of flowers buys your way into dinner and sex?”
“You always favored lilacs. And both Boyle and Connor did mention going off tonight to give us the cottage to ourselves. Who am I to disappoint my mates?”
She got out her largest vase, began to fill it while Bugs and Kathel had a cheerful bout of wrestling. “I’m after a bowl of soup in front of the telly.”
“I’d be more than happy with that.”
She took the lilacs, breathed them in—remembered doing the same on a long-ago spring when he’d brought her an equally huge bouquet of them.
“I baked an apple crumble to follow.”
“I’m fond of apple crumble.”
“So I recall.” And so, she thought, this explained why she’d had a yen to bake one. “I had myself a fine plan for the evening. An all but perfect one for me.” She laid the flowers aside a moment, turned to him. “All but perfect, and now it is. It’s perfect now you’re here.”
She walked into his arms, pressed her face into his shoulder. “You’re here,” she murmured.
• • •
BRANNA THOUGHT OF IT AS REFOCUSING. WEEKS AND WEEKS of studying, charting, calculating had brought her no closer to a time and date for the third and, please the gods, last battle with Cabhan. She rarely slept well or long, and she had eyes to see the lack of sleep had begun to show.
Pure vanity if nothing else demanded a change of direction.
Now that she was bedding Fin and being bedded by him, very well, thank you very much, she couldn’t say she’d gotten more sleep, but she’d rested considerably better in those short hours.
Still, she’d gotten no further, not on the when or precisely the how. So, she’d refocus.
Routine always steadied her. Her work, her home, her family, and the cycle that spun them together. A new year meant new stock for her shop, meant seeds to be planted in her greenhouse flats. Negative energies should be swept out, and protection charms refreshed.
Added to it she had two weddings to help plan.
She spent the morning on her stock. Pleased with her new scents, she filled the containers she’d ordered for the Blue Ice line, labeled all, stacked them for transport to the village with the stack of candles she’d replenished from the stock Iona had decimated for Fin’s party.
After a check of her list, she made up more of the salve Boyle used at the stables. She could drop that by if the day went well, and thinking of it, added a second jar for the big stables.
A trip to the market as well, she decided. Despite it being Iona’s turn for it, Branna thought she’d enjoy a trip to the village, a drive in the air. The dinner with the rest of her circle after their night away hadn’t accomplished much more than emptying her container of soup, so the stop by the market was necessary.
With a glance at the clock she calculated she could be back in two hours, at the outside. Then she’d try her hand at creating a demon poison. Wrapped