So she did, neatly folding her napkin and placing it next to her plate, and then telling him about the peasant girl, and the king, and the moon’s bargain. When she finished, she waited for him to show his disappointment or, worse, his revulsion at the thought of becoming involved with a woman who was destined to doom her own daughter to the curse of the black swan.
His face was cast in hard lines, and he crumpled his own napkin into a ball in his fist. “What a bitch,” he said grimly.
She blinked, utterly confused. “What? Who?”
“The moon. Or the moon goddess, depending on your beliefs. Whoever or whatever made that bargain was not playing fair. One saved life in exchange for a thousand years of servitude? I don’t think so.” He slammed his fist on the table, rattling the salt and pepper shakers. “We have to find a way to break the curse.”
She sat back in her chair, nonplussed. Of all the reactions she’d expected, this wasn’t even on the very bottom of the list. Break the curse? Nobody had even considered that, as far as she knew, in the entire history of her family.
“It’s the moon,” she said, enunciating carefully. “How do you break a curse cast by the moon?”
He shrugged. “You find a witch who’s bound to the moon goddess and ask him or her. This is Bordertown. I’m sure we can figure it out.”
She was already shaking her head. “I don’t want you to have false hope. The moon is too powerful. I plan never to have children, because I don’t want to do this to my daughter. The curse will stop with me.”
“Okay,” he said blandly, and then he picked up his sandwich and took a huge bite.
“Okay? What do you mean ‘okay’?”
After he swallowed and took a drink of water, he grinned at her. “Okay. We’ll find a way to break the curse, or we won’t. Either way, I’m not planning to let you out of my life, so just deal with it.”
“Deal with it?” Her voice came out sounding unnatural, and she realized she was echoing him like a stupid parrot.
“You forget, we have something that your ancestors didn’t have all those years ago,” he said, his rich brown eyes sparkling with humor.
“What is that?”
“Birth control.”
Her mouth fell open. “I know we have birth control, you idiot. But I couldn’t ask you to be content with a woman who can never give you children.”
“I want you, Brynn Carroll,” he told her, shoving his chair back and rounding the table to pull her up and into his arms. “We’ll figure out the curse and the children later, and in the meantime we can adopt a dog or three. They’ll be the cleanest, best-groomed dogs in Bordertown.”
“But—”
* * *
Sean stopped her by the simple means of kissing her until she gave up and kissed him back, but his conscience prodded him with its sharp blade until he reluctantly pulled away from her.
“There’s something else, though,” he said, steeling himself to tell her the truth about his fire demon heritage, hoping that she could understand and accept him.
Hoping she wouldn’t run screaming or throw him out of her house.
Before he could figure out a way to begin, the antique rotary phone on her counter rang, and they both looked at it as if it were an alien artifact.
“I should answer it,” she said apologetically. “It’s the number I give out for customer emergencies.”
“Like wolverines in the pickle vat?” He grinned at her. “Skunk encounters?”
“Exactly.” She picked up the phone and had a quick conversation about, from what he could decipher, a garage mechanic’s dog who’d rolled around in automotive oil. The owner couldn’t get it out and was worried.
“Yes, I’ll be glad to come in early. I’ll meet you at my shop in twenty minutes,” she said, ending the call.
“You have to go,” Sean said, resigned and more than a little relieved. A reprieve, then, until he had to admit that half of his DNA came from the most hated and feared species of creature in Bordertown.
“I have to go,” she confirmed, already cleaning up and getting ready to leave.
He stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “I need to tell you a secret of my own, Brynn, before we go any further.”