by whatever frustration he'd found hiding behind her shoulder blades. "The best mind witch we've got couldn't calm her down. And she doesn't eat chocolate." Nell wasn't sure which was more disturbing.
"Ah." He nodded, clearly making more sense of that mystery than she did. "Fetched a different kind of witch this time, did you?"
"She was definitely a little strange."
"We all have our quirks." Her husband's hands were doing magical things to her biceps now. "But that's not what I meant."
His voice had that tone that said he was about to throw an important pitch. Nell swiveled her chair around to face him. "Okay..."
He perched on a box of comic books, his eyes looking up at hers. "Think about the witches you've fetched. Lauren is one of the steadiest people in a crisis I've ever met, and I know quite a few."
Yup. Any woman who could handle being married to Devin definitely qualified as steady. Nell tried to follow Daniel's line of thinking. "Elorie was more shaken up."
"She was - but you didn't yank her out of her life like you did Lauren. Her stay in Witch Central was very temporary. And Sierra didn't have much of a life to lose."
"We rescued her." From a fate that still gave Nell occasional nightmares.
"Yeah." Daniel's hand brushed her cheek - he knew she had a big soft spot for the once-lonely teenager who had practically become their sixth child. "And she was never afraid of us."
She was still struggling to follow, something that happened only rarely in their marriage. "So you think this time is different because of how badly we scared Beth?" Her fingers itched for her keyboard again. There had to be another safety spell she could put somewhere.
"No. Well, maybe."
This was turning into a darned wobbly pitch. Nell raised an eyebrow, amused. "Which one?"
"Doesn't matter." Her husband's fingers were back on the ball. Literally. Apparently there was more hanging out under her desk than comic books. "My point is, I don't think that's why this is hard for you."
She waited. It was usually worth it.
He tossed her the ball. "You understood Lauren. And you adopted Sierra practically before she arrived, but more importantly, she made sense to you too."
Ah. As always, her hacker made stunningly good sense when he finally got to where he was headed. "And I don't get Beth." Truth.
"Not yet." His thumb stroked along her fingers, much the same way as he felt up a baseball. "Let your need to do something rest for a bit until you get to know her a little better. Give your formidable instincts something to work from."
She hoped it was that simple. "And if that doesn't work?"
He tugged her into his lap. "One step at a time."
"That's not how I fight." She grumbled into his shoulder, feeling the weariness settling in. "There could be surprises behind the bushes."
His laughter rocked them both. "Don't I know it."
She snuggled in closer. All guns blazing. That's how real warriors did things.
First thing in the morning, she'd get right on that.
Chapter 4
Normal people didn't make decisions this way. Beth moved shiny rocks and tiny crystal creatures around on a shelf, well aware that she was making a mess of Liri's neat display, and tried to figure out how to start a conversation about a decision that had already been made in the wee hours of the night.
Liri looked up from the arcane contents of a small silk-lined box, a gift she was assembling for Mellie's grand-daughter. "It would be good if you started talking before you undid all the merchandizing in the shop. You have the fire dragon next to the water lily there."
Beth looked down at the shiny bits of nothing in her fingers, perplexed. "What, conflicting elementals?" Fire wasn't usually a fan of water nearby. Merchandizing had weird rules, and they got weirder if you were a witch.
"Nope." Liri grinned. "They just look funny together."
Argh. That was the kind of nonsensical reasoning that drove her crazy and did wonders for the store's sales. "I'm going to California."
"Of course you are." Liri slid another trinket into the box, mumbling something in old Irish as she did it.