Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 92996 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92996 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
“I’ll make it really good for you, Mom.”
She smiled as she watched her baby, and then Toby presented her with her lavender, eucalyptus, sage, and daisy bouquet.
“Oh, sweetheart, I love it.”
He beamed with pride.
Once Lorne reappeared, he walked over and went to one knee by Toby’s chair. When Toby turned and hugged him, I saw how Amanda was looking at the man I loved, like she was terribly fond of him as well. So many people grabbed Toby because he was gentle and quiet, but Lorne always let the child make the decision to embrace or not.
Amanda’s youngest was next, and when Lorne went to the other side of the table, he repeated his movement, taking a knee, and JJ flung themself at Lorne the same way they did with their father and me, knowing that we were more than happy to receive hugs however JJ was in the mood to give them. Other people in their life, their grandfather, Eddie’s dad, as well as Eddie’s brothers, sisters, and their husbands, all told JJ to slow down, be careful, and take it easy. And then they wondered why JJ shook hands now. Yet another reason that Amanda was not enamored of her husband’s family.
“Nice of you to kill dinner for me,” she grumbled, looking at the spread.
“We’re eating broccoli.” JJ showed her, dipping a floret into homemade ranch dressing.
“And carrots and baby tomatoes,” Toby chimed in as he speared one with his fork.
“This little feast makes zero sense,” she told me. “But I don’t care. You guys keep eating, watch something on your tablet, and the grown-ups are going to talk for a bit.”
“May I have a biscuit with honey too?” Lorne asked JJ.
“Yes, you can. I’ll make it for you, Uncle Lorne.”
“Thank you, buddy.”
As I had always been Uncle Xan, and now Lorne lived with me, of course he’d become Uncle Lorne very quickly. Since he had a niece who already called him the same thing, he was good with it.
The three of us went over to the couch and leaned around the coffee table as JJ delivered biscuits with honey on dessert plates with cloth napkins. Toby was right behind his sibling with two glasses of mint iced tea, one for his mother and one for his uncle. Moments later, I got a glass of ice water with berries in it that we’d made earlier.
“The service in this establishment is excellent,” Lorne commented as the kids left, laughing because he was so funny.
“It certainly is,” Amanda agreed, taking a bite. “If I live to be a thousand, my biscuits will never be as fluffy or flaky as yours.”
I waggled my eyebrows for her.
“It really is your magic because I have your recipe and follow it to the letter.”
Lorne chuckled. “I’ve seen him make biscuits, and there’s no to the letter about them. Things just get thrown in.”
“Maybe that’s it. I need to be more haphazard about it.”
I glanced from one to the other. “Are you kidding? Enough with the biscuits. Tell me all the news already.”
They shared a look then, and neither spoke.
“Seriously?”
Lorne said, “The ME concluded that Kathy fell off something high, she’s thinking a ladder, even though they didn’t find one, because the injuries she sustained are consistent with a fall from a height of at least ten feet.”
“A fall?”
He nodded.
“But you said her neck was—”
“Yeah, I know. But it turns out, it can also read as a fall.”
“And the arson inspector?”
“The second she saw Kathy’s wet specimens from her store, she concluded the fire was caused by the ethanol.”
I looked from him to Amanda and back again. “So the ME has ruled this an accidental death. No murder, no foul play.”
“Correct.”
“And the arson inspector said no arson—which, I must say, I didn’t think so either—but still, no murder, no arson in Osprey on your watch, so…that’s great.”
Amanda smacked the back of my head.
“Ow,” I whined loudly, then lowered my voice so as not to alert the kids their mother was throwing hands. “What the hell?”
“Kathy Hayes was murdered,” Lorne snapped at me. “And the ME did her job and concluded that she wasn’t, based on what whoever killed her made it look like.”
“Yes. Which is great for us.”
“How is that great?” Amanda asked me, sounding exasperated.
Originally, I’d thought to keep from Amanda everything that went on last autumn. Her worrying more than she already did as a mother didn’t seem fair. But what also wasn’t fair was keeping parts of my life from her. Lorne and I needed more of a support system than each other. We needed someone who knew everything, and there was only one person to choose, and that was Amanda. Up to a point.
The part about me being a branded witch and my lord Arawn didn’t need to be shared, but everything else, like the fact that Corvus could and would defend itself, that I told her. Only to be outdone in that moment by my grandfather, who, it turned out, had told her years ago that he didn’t simply talk to the land, but communed with it. Literally.