by Cate Lawley
And now I was the confused one. “You can tell that? Just looking at me, you can tell I’m part faery?” I remembered he’d commented before that I wasn’t entirely human.
“Sure.” He shut his right eye and squinted with his left. “You have a really pretty mint-green glow.”
And now I was blushing. My magic was pretty? And mint green. I liked mint green. My mom might be a bit flaky, but she raised me right, so I said, “Thank you.”
“Nothing to thank. It’s a fact. Anyway, you have a magic glow and you feel like faery.” After a brief pause, he leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees. “Your mom didn’t teach you how to look for magic?”
Weird. How did he know...
“Don’t glare. I’m just trying to help.” With another sheepish look, he added, “And figure out how your magic works so we can get my curse broken rather than bent. But mostly help.”
I wanted to trust him. He seemed legit. “How do you know my mom is the magic one?”
“Just an educated guess. You have the feel of a touch of faery, less than half, but I’m guessing. Anyway, part-fae are usually women.”
I nodded. Fair enough. “My mom probably doesn’t have any more of a clue about magic than I do.”
“Really? She didn’t learn growing up?”
“No.” I shook my head and just kept shaking it. Because how would that have worked? “My mom was raised by humans.”
“I don’t understand.”
It didn’t seem super complicated to me. “My mom’s mom flitted off to faerie land—or wherever faeries live—but stayed around just long enough to dump her on my grandparents. My grandmother, saint that she was, raised Mom as her own.”
Don huffed out a harsh breath, somewhere between a laugh and a snort, but it lacked all humor. “I don’t think so.”
I waited for him to explain, because I was pretty darn sure that was what had happened.
“Fae have low fertility rates. They have sex with humans to increase the chance of procreating. I really doubt your faery grandmother dumped your mom.”
Of course she did. How else did my mom end up with cheating Grandpa Tom and Grandmama?
“Someone—your grandmother? grandfather?—paid a steep price to get their hands on your mother. I guarantee it.”
He seemed so sure.
But that wasn’t right. I hopped up and scanned the room for my phone. Where was my damn phone?
“What’s wrong?” Don crowded me, his hands on my upper arms. “Hey, it’s fine. Everything’s fine. I’m sorry if—”
“Where’s my phone?”
He let go of me and returned with my cell. Handing it to me, he said, “It was on the counter.”
What he didn’t say was “in plain sight.” What he also didn’t say was “calm down, crazy person.” Instead, he said, “How can I help?”
And that was when I really wanted to kiss him. Maybe I would—after I had a nice little chat with Grandpa Tom.
CHAPTER FIVE
Holding up a finger, I said, “Hold that thought.” Then I remembered that I did have a few manners, even if they were frequently buried under other, less-admirable personality traits. “Thank you.”
A blush stole across his cheeks.
This six-foot-four linebacker-sized guy was too adorable for words. I couldn’t help myself. I stood on my tiptoes and kissed his cheek.
He looked dumbfounded, but I didn’t give him an opportunity to say anything, because I needed to speak with my grandpa.
The phone rang once before he picked up. It seemed Grandpa Tom had finally started carrying his cell phone with him.
“Angel! How are you?”
Yeah, that was what my Grandpa Tom called me. And no, he didn’t mean it ironically.
“Hi, Grandpa. I have some questions for you. And I’m good. How are you?”
“Good, good. You know, creaky knees, but still walking every morning.” I could hear the smile in his voice. Yeah, I was a terrible granddaughter and I didn’t call nearly enough, and I was pretty sure I’d just made his day, which was a real guilt-stabbing stinker.
“That’s good. The doctor said it would help your arthritis, right?”
“That he did. You dating a nice fellow yet? Someone who’s gonna take care of you right? How about babies? You gonna give us some grandbabies before I’m all shriveled up in my grave?
Gah, with the babies? Really? And no, I was not going to find a man to take care of me. Sometimes my grandpa was a sexist twerp.
“I can take care of myself, Grandpa. I don’t need a boyfriend—”
“Husband.”
“Right, I don’t need a husband for that.” I turned toward the corner of the living room. The last person I needed in my direct field of vision was a guy who made my ovaries tingle with lust. He could probably impregnate me with a few heated glances while I thought about babies. Forget biology.
Very quietly, Grandpa Tom said, “But a husband makes it easier, Angel.”
“Riiight. That’s not why I’m calling. I met a man—”
“Hoo-wee!”
“No, Grandpa. Not ‘hoo-wee.’ Not that kind of man.”
He grunted. “Well, you shouldn’t have anything to do with any kind of man that isn’t that kinda man.”
I opened my mouth and let out a silent scream. Sexist, stuck in the last century, and baby obsessed: that was Grandpa Tom. Even if he hadn’t been a dirty, cheating scoundrel, I still wouldn’t call weekly like Cricket did, because I would eventually let loose with a real scream, and that wouldn’t be good for anyone.
After a handful of calming breaths (five; usually it took three), I was composed enough to begin. “Okay, so moving on, I have a question about my grandmother.”
“Your grandmama is doing just fine. You want to talk to her? She’s sitting right—”
“No!” I hollered before he could pass the phone over to Grandmama. “Sorry, no, not today, but give her my love.”
I waited while he passed along my message and listened as she called out a greeting from the background. My patience was fizzling away to nothing, so when I had Grandpa Tom’s full attention again, I jumped right in. “Not Grandmama, my grandmother.”
“Oh.”
Silence followed. Grandpa Tom wasn’t really one for silence, so I double-checked he was still on the line.
He sighed. “Yep.” After a few twitchy seconds in which I revisited the wisdom of this phone call a dozen times, he finally said, “What do you want to know?”
“My friend said that a faery wouldn’t have just left Mom with you.”
“That’s right, angel. There was a lot of luck and a lot of bargaining, but in the end, we won your mother.”
“You ‘won’ her?”
“Your grandmama and I won the right to raise her, yes.”
“But how—”
“Angel, I love you, but how your mother ended up with us and not her biological mother is a matter that will stay between me, my wife, and that woman. Suffice it to say, it wasn’t an easy task.”
“But I thought she dropped Mom on your doorstep. Grandmama always says that was one of the brightest days of her life, the day Mom landed on her doorstep.”
“It’s a saying, sweetheart. A turn of phrase. Don’t think we didn’t fight for your mother. We did. We wanted her very much. We were very lucky—and thankful—to learn that she existed when she was just barely born, and after that, we moved heaven and earth to keep her.”
Huh. That was a pretty significant shift in the landscape of my family history. But it didn’t change the fact that my grandpa was a cheating cheater who cheated.
“We don’t know where she is today.”
“Huh?” That had been so far from the direction my thoughts had traveled that I wasn’t sure I knew what he meant at first. “My biological grandmother?”
“That’s why you’re calling, isn’t it? Sounds like you’ve met someone who knows about magic. It was bound to happen sooner or later. Oh.” He stopped talki
ng abruptly, and I could feel the tension crackling on the phone. “Does that mean that you have magic? Like your mother?”
“I think I do. But no, I wasn’t calling to find out the whereabouts of Mom’s biological mother. It’s just that the story I knew wasn’t jibing with the facts as presented by my, uh, my new friend.” Funny. Calling Don a friend didn’t seem like a lie.
Before I could make an excuse and get off the call, I heard Grandmama in the background saying, “Tom, hand me that phone or I will give you a nurple the next time you’re running around the house shirtless.”
What had Grandpa been thinking, having this conversation with her still in the room? But then the word nurple registered. Nurple?
First, I was appalled at the image of my sweet grandmother twisting my grandfather’s nipple, because that was so many kinds of wrong. Second, I was even more shocked Grandmama knew the word. And third, I couldn’t believe that sweet little old lady threatened him at all, let alone with physical violence. But if she said she’d do it, she’d do it. That was how Grandmama rolled.
“Hi, dear. How are you?”
“Um, I’m good?” I swallowed and asked carefully, “How are you?”
“Fine, fine. But I have something to say to you.”
Oh, my. This was going to be good. First nurples, and now she was getting that “I’m about to make a proclamation” voice. “All right. I’m sitting down.” And I made darn sure I was before she started speaking. One never knew which way her proclamations would go. I wouldn’t have guessed to the land of nurples—that was certainly a new one—but she could come up with some wacky stuff.
“I married a boy,” she said.
I shifted to the end of the sofa so I could lean on the armrest, and I waited for the rest...but it didn’t come. “Sorry, I don’t really know what that means.”
“It means I didn’t marry a man. I married a boy. I recommend saving yourself a lot of grief and marrying a man.”
Confusion settled firmly into all the crevices of my brain, because...what the what? Grandpa Tom had been in the military and released from service before he ever married Grandmama. They hadn’t exactly eloped at sixteen.
“Sorry, but I’m really confused. What exactly do you mean?”
“I’m saying what I mean. This fellow you met, is he a boy or a man?”
The tips of my ears burned and the room felt ten degrees warmer. “Um, yeah, he’s not that kind of guy. To me. I mean, we’re not dating.”
“Man or boy, don’t think about it, just tell me.”
She could be a persistent old bird, so I just popped out with an answer to pacify her. “A man.” My gaze slid to Don, who’d been quietly sitting on the ottoman, waiting for me to finish my call.
Her tone changed, and suddenly she was my sweet granny again. “That’s lovely, dear. I’m so happy for you.” She cleared her throat. “Now listen. When I married your grandfather, he was a boy. But he made sure his baby girl, our baby girl, came home to stay with us, and that’s when I knew he’d grown into a man. A fine man.”
The light was slowly dawning.
“But Grandmama”—my voice trembled, but I couldn’t stop—“he cheated on you.”
“You don’t have all the facts. But that’s not the point. The forgiving was for me to do, not you or anyone else. And I did forgive him...after I made him suffer a little.” She sighed. “I’m not saying I did anything to encourage his bad choice or that he wasn’t wrong, but we were both so very young when we married. Maybe not so young in years, but neither of us was very mature at the time. We were more playing at grown-up than we were making adult choices. That changed when your grandfather came to me and told me about your mother.”
I choked. When he told the woman he loved he hadn’t been faithful, and—oops—he had a daughter.
She didn’t let me make the inappropriate comment that was on the tip of my tongue, just kept on talking in that calm, sensible tone. “All I’m saying is that you can’t, shouldn’t, hold a man responsible for the mistakes he made as a young boy, especially not a man like your grandfather. And especially when you don’t have all the facts. He’s a good man.” She cleared her throat. “Enough of this. I’ve said my piece. Been meaning to for some time. It was overdue. When are you bringing your gentleman friend by for pie?”
The sudden change of topic had me laughing. It was a watery, small laugh, but filled with real humor. “Enough already. Don’t you start with the grandbabies.”
“Pie, Kayla. I asked about bringing him by for pie. Should I be asking about grandbabies?”
Rolling my eyes, I apologized and promised that if Don was interested in pie and happened to be in Idaho, I’d be sure to bring him by. Seemed like a pretty low commitment, given the variables.
But then I caught Don grinning at me and wondered what exactly I’d just promised.
Once I hung up, I pointed at him and frowned. “Quit grinning. You live in Texas, right? Not like you hang out in Idaho. No pie for you, mister.”
“I’m a demon. Geography isn’t that challenging.” He crossed his arms. “But we can talk about that later. Do you feel better now?”
I could have feigned confusion, but that wasn’t fair to Don. He was in crisis, and I was his only known fix. And instead of figuring out how to permanently un-bronze him, I was dawdling with my family’s deep, dark secrets.
“I’m not sure. You know how you hold on to an idea and get comfortable with it, even if the idea is yucky and hurtful?” I pressed my lips together and tried to think of a better to say what I meant.
But Don surprised me. “Yes. I do. Give it time. Changing how you feel about someone can be hard, but it’s worth the effort if you’ve based those feelings on false information.” His eyes met mine, and a herd of butterflies went to town in my stomach. It was like they had both wings and hooves. “And he’s your grandfather.”
Before I went all gooey inside over the fact that Don seemed to get me, I turned my attention to the bronze problem. “So about your curse...”
“Right. Touching you—or you touching me—seems to keep it at bay. I can feel that it isn’t gone. It’s waiting in the background. Will you help me? I’m getting tired of being shat upon by vindictive pigeons, and my minions are likely getting restless. No one wants restless minions.”
“Of course I’ll help you.” I had the feeling Don was a sweet guy, even if he had been cursed by his ex for his overzealous romantic pursuit. People made mistakes, and as Grandmama had pointed, sometimes those mistakes needed to be forgiven. Surely that applied to demons too.
“Wait...” I shot Don a suspicious glare. “What’s going on with your minions? And what the heck is a minion?”
CHAPTER SIX
“You know, minions.” Don looked at me like I should know what those were.
I didn’t.
He did that thing where he closed one eye and squinted with the other, then he gave a little sigh. Whatever he’d seen had put his mind at ease. “Right. Minions are denizens of hell. Mischief-making little twerps that need a firm hand or they’re constantly blowing each other up.”
“That sounds...violent. How do they not wipe each other out?”
“Oh, no. Blowing each other up is a pastime. It doesn’t kill them, just creates an awful mess. And they’re not tidy creatures on a good day. Janitorial costs go through the roof when I’m traveling. I can’t even imagine what my patch of hell is looking like right now.” He shook his head. “Being the master of a million minions is no picnic. It’s like herding cats and toddlers at the same time. They don’t listen and they’re into everything.”
That sounded a lot like a more violent version of my job. I used to tell people I wrangled cats for a living. Although recently I’d whipped the office staff, suppliers, and contractors into better shape, so it wasn’t quite so bad.
“So we need to get you fully de-bronzed and back to hell to manage your minions.”
“Yes.” But his response lacked an iota of
enthusiasm.
Someone was tired of his minion managing. Or maybe it was hell he had no interest in revisiting. I’d have to quiz him later, because I wasn’t about to assume hell was a fiery pit. Demons didn’t seem to have horns, tails, or carry pitchforks, so stereotypes didn’t seem to be running true where hell was concerned. Oh, and that whole evil thing—apparently that wasn’t universally applicable, either.
This magic world was an entirely new landscape, and making assumptions didn’t seem smart. Don had smashed just about every demonic stereotype I could bring to mind, leaving me with no clue when it came to all things hellish and demonic.
I snuggled further into the corner of the comfy sofa and eyed Don. Dejected, that was the best description. Poor guy.
Curious if his closed-eye, squinty-eye combo would work for me, I gave it a try. He caught me and smiled. “Any luck?”
“No. Is there something else to it?”
He shrugged. “Be open to the possibilities.”
I blinked. Waited. Blinked again. “That’s it? That’s all you’ve got for me? ‘Be open to the possibilities’? That’s pretty hokey.”
“Hey, most humans aren’t. But you’re not one hundred percent human, and you seem pretty open-minded, so...” He shrugged. “Maybe switch eyes.”
Feeling like a fool, I did as he instructed. This time I closed my right eye and squinted with my left, while part of me tried to be “open to the possibilities” and the other part of me tried not to giggle like a little kid telling fart jokes.
And I about peed myself when I saw a soft glow surrounding Don. I whooped. But in my excitement, I’d opened both eyes and lost the warm, rosy glow that had enveloped Don.
“Success?”
“Yes!” I pointed a finger at him. “You’re pink.” Which got me laughing. Don’t ask me why. It just seemed funny.
“Really? That’s interesting.” He grinned, flashing perfect teeth to go along with his perfect jaw line, and his perfect arms and his perfect everything.
Gah. I needed to not dwell on his perfection. He was a demon. I might not know exactly what that meant, but it did mean he wasn’t human. Also, he’d been bronzed by his ex. Hardly an endorsement of his relationship skills.