things. I like designing. I like building.” I glanced over and smiled. “I guess I just like it all.”
“Hmm, I wonder what I like,” he murmured.
A jolt of anguish raced up my back. Perhaps I should tell him, just go ahead and blurt it out. You like playing Frankenstein. You once attempted to steal my powers! But now you seem like a nice person, so please don’t return to those ways or else I’ll have to fight you.
Right. As if.
He sighed. “I think that’s one thing I yearn for, knowing what I used to do in my old life.”
“What do you like to do now?”
He tapped an orb, and it spun out, flitting through the night. “Apparently I like to spend my free time searching for spells.”
“Perhaps you are the new spell hunter.”
Rufus gazed at me earnestly. “That would mean that both of us are.”
It was my turn to chuckle. “I think I’m okay. I prefer to renovate buildings.”
“As you wish.” He paused. “But I wonder what makes it so that we can both see these?”
I hesitated. “I think it’s something to do with you. I don’t think it’s me. Somehow”—I plucked a yellow orb and held it in my palm—“all of this is connected to you.”
“Perhaps it’s because of my amnesia. I’m a clean slate, as it were.”
I flicked the ball into the air. “Maybe I’m not the only one who can see the orbs with you.”
He strode over and plucked a blue orb from the night and held it in his palm, studying it. “They’re beautiful, aren’t they?”
The ball shimmered different hues of blue, flashing from one to the next, twinkling in his hand. “They are.” I glanced up at Rufus, expecting him to be staring at the ball, but found him gazing at me. A knot formed in the back of my throat, and I stepped back. My heel caught on a root and down I went, falling.
Quick as lightning, Rufus’s arm coiled around my waist and righted me. My breath hitched as I stared into his dark eyes.
His brow quirked. “Seems I’m good at something.”
“Yes,” I whispered, feeling the moment build in intensity. Suddenly I wondered what his lips would feel like, what his mouth would taste like.
I wanted to scream.
I was supposed to want to scratch his eyes out, not plant my lips on his.
He glanced away, giving me a front-row seat to his profile—a strong brow, eyebrows etched so beautifully that they looked like an artist had painted them on one at a time.
And don’t even get me started on those eyelashes.
I wriggled from his grasp, and Rufus’s hand fell away. “Sorry, for a moment it felt like we’d melted together.”
A laugh tittered in my throat, and I refocused on the orbs, trying to push away all the thoughts and feelings that zoomed in my body at the speed of a roller skater doing tricks on a Friday night at Skateland.
Yes, we had a Skateland in Peachwood, of all places.
I turned away, not wanting him to see my red cheeks. They blazed as if burned by the sun. I needed a moment to get control of myself.
A green orb flitted by, and I wrapped it in my hand. An electric current jolted through my body as I recognized the spell immediately.
“Have you found anything?” Rufus asked.
Before I could answer, a shotgun clicked shut behind us. My heart jammed into my throat.
Dooley’s voice rang loud and clear. “Get your hands up and turn around slowly.”
I moved to place a hand in my pocket and Dooley shouted. “No sudden moves. I ain’t playing.”
“It’s just me, Dooley.”
He saw my face and lowered the shotgun with a sigh. He stood in silhouette, lit by my truck’s headlights. Dooley cussed as he pulled a handkerchief from his overall bib and wiped his brow.
“Doggone it, Clem, what the heck do you think you’re doing out here?”
I grimaced. “Sorry, Dooley. We were looking for old wood or something that we could use in your new barn.”
He strode forward, the thin lines of his scowl making parentheses on both sides of his mouth. “Why the heck didn’t you tell me? You ’bout gave me a heart attack. Not only that, but you almost got a butt full of lead.”
I made my voice real thick sounding with apology. “Well, to be honest, I didn’t want you to know. I wanted it to be a surprise.”
He rubbed the back of his neck in frustration. “Next time you want to do something like that, you