“I know,” he said, setting his chin on the top of her head. “I know. I screwed up.”
“Yeah you did,” she said, letting herself breathe him in and realizing that the hurt she felt was because she cared more than she thought she did.
“Can I make it up to you?”
She started to say yes. It was reflexive and she had to stop herself. She couldn’t just give and give and give and never stop to see what she really felt. She couldn’t make the same mistakes again that she had with Grant. Not as a mother. Never as a mother. So she admitted, “I don’t know.”
Lex tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear and looked down at her. She reached up to pull off his mirrored glasses, she wanted to see those eyes even if they were incomprehensible blue chips.
“I’m sorry,” he said again.
She suspected he didn’t say it very often, and she wanted to believe it. She was surprised, in fact, by how very much she wanted to believe it.
“I wish I could believe that,” she admitted.
His lips twisted for a moment and then he dropped a kiss on her brow.
“I guess I’ll let you off with a warning this time.”
She grinned for a second and then said, “I’m pretty sure pulling me out of my car and manhandling me is ground for some sort of suit against the city.”
“Probably,” he admitted. He took a deep breath and then asked, “You don’t think that Amelie’s magic went haywire?”
“I think she didn’t even really damage my ovens. Not like having to replace them. Phil was surprised. She certainly didn’t kill some old guy she didn’t have reason to despise.”
Lex’s expression was suddenly so Dad-like. Like Scarlett’s ex, Grant, on the best of his parenting days. Like her own dad when she’d been little, and he’d seemed to care. Like Mr. Jueavas when he’d been dealing with his wayward grandchild. It was loving and hopeful and full of so much emotion.
“Tell me something about Amelie,” Scarlett said. She needed to hear love in his voice for his daughter. She needed to know that he was more than some bystander in his child’s life.
“When she laughs—really, really laughs—she snorts. She has since she was a baby, and it’s my favorite sound on the planet.”
Oh, Scarlett thought, oh she shouldn’t have asked that because it went right to the center of her. But he didn’t stop.
“She wants to play the piano professionally, and she practices every day. She’s good, Scarlett, really good. She likes My Little Pony, and her favorite is Rainbow Dash because Rainbow Dash can fly. She’s jealous of the little supernatural kids who can fly.”
Scarlett blinked, thought about how when her magic had been just right and she’d been able to fly and could see why. She thought about what it would have been like to be a little girl whose magic was destructive and see the other little girls fly. She fell a little bit in love with Amelie just listening to Lex talk about her.
“She plays soccer, and she’s good. But she plays because she knows I did. She hates math but loves comic books. Her favorite book is Harriet the Spy. She likes cheeseburgers with bacon and avocado. She hates ketchup on her eggs but likes it on tacos. She sings in the shower songs she makes up to tunes from tv shows. She was Velma from Scooby Doo for 3 years in a row on Halloween. And she went to sleep with her Power Ranger action figures for nearly a year and when she stopped it broke my heart a little bit. Still does.”
Scarlett nodded because her throat was tight with shared emotion. His throat had been tight. His voice had been tight with the love for his little girl, and Scarlett was sure he didn’t let anyone see as much as he’d just shown to her.
His hand cupped the back of her neck, but he didn’t pull her in for another unwilling kiss. She hadn’t forgiven him. Not even if she was softening.
“Are you all right? I heard about your dad.” His thumb rubbed against the back of her neck. He wasn’t normally so touchy with her. This seemed natural to him though. Had he been holding himself back before?
“My dad was friends with Leroy,” Scarlett told Lex. “Honestly? I don’t think I’d be surprised if he did it, Lex. He just got back to town and Leroy died? Surely that could be connected?”
“Is that what you really think?” Lex’s face was shocked and she shrugged. “He’s your dad.”
“Turns out when you abandon your kid when she was a little girl. She just might believe anything of you.”
He opened his mouth, closed it, and then opened it again, “What do you want me to do?”
“Are you volunteering to foul up this case for my dad?”
“I—” Lex started, and his hesitation made her feel a lot better.
“My dad is not your daughter. I would help you save Amelie. If my dad killed someone…he’s a full grown man. Let’s just solve this. We aren’t getting past this madness anytime soon.”
“I hate being a sheriff so much more than being a P.I. You could just walk away from P.I. cases,” he said. “It was so much better than this.”
“I’m going to Leroy’s place.”
“I’ve been there already, Scarlett.”
“I can use my druid magic,” she said. “Can’t we just get this case over with? Let’s get it over with and…”
She was about to say move on, but she couldn’t. Not telling her about Amelie…by the stars, that hurt.
He took a deep breath and said, “I don’t like you in all these cases.”
“Get over it,” she suggested.
His expression said that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. He tried for the final word, “At least your Gram and Henna aren’t involved in this one.”
Chapter 7
Scarlett followed Lex’s SUV to Leroy’s single wide trailer. The good news was that he had a pretty good piece of property with lots of trees and nature around—lots of fodder for a druid. The bad news was that his trailer was a dump and her skin crawled just looking at it. She did not want to go inside.
“We’ve already looked through the trailer pretty well,” Lex said. “We’ve pretty much torn it apart.”
Scarlett nodded. The trailer was on the border of a good patch of woods, and the trees were very old there. She headed towards the trees, bypassing the trailer entirely.
Lex followed her. Was he trying to keep her out of trouble? She wanted to get mad about it because she had this underlying layer of fury with him, but of course, he’d been here before. What else was he going to do?
She paused about halfway to the woods. There was something…the squirrels over that way…the crows. It was the crows that pulled at her. Scarlett couldn’t talk to animals like Luna—not in conversation, but those birds were excited about something. She veered and Lex asked, “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” she said, “But…something.”
She felt a chill and the knowing spiked and she said, “I think you better go first.”
He gave her a sharp look and then stepped in front of her. “What way?”
“Follow the crows,” she told him. They cawed down at her, and she tried to use nature magic to link with them, but they weren’t interested.
He walked ahead of her and she let him go. She’d seen a few dead bodies and that was enough for her. She wasn’t sure just what it was that told her that someone was dead instead of something, some animal, but she knew her instincts enough not to ignore.
“Oh,” Lex said and cursed. “Stop Scarlett. Back up. Now. Don’t contaminate the scene.”
He pulled out his cell phone and started calling for help and Scarlett backed away. There was enough of an edge in his tone with the ‘now’ that had Scarlett thinking this body was particularly nasty. She wanted to leave Leroy’s place entirely without waiting, but she didn’t think she should until she checked with Lex.
Who was dead? She didn't even want to know. How did she end up in these things? This never happened to Scarlett when she lived in Spokane. In Spokane, among mostly normal humans, Scarlett’s big is
sue was her girls peeing outside, never being able to find fresh ginger in the store, and the fact that her husband, Grant, was a cheating jerk.
Tripping over bodies certainly put the day-to-day problems of before in perspective. Not that having a cheating spouse was easy, but it was certainly normal. How sad was that? Scarlett walked towards the old trees, greeting them, but they were shut down. She paused, frowning as she tried again to connect with them. They rustled in her mind—but as if a distant wind were ruffling only the edges of the borders. The woods here were…dark.
She stepped away from them, chilled by the feel in her mind, and pulled out her phone to call Henna.
“Hello, dear, I hope you don't mind, but I’ve stepped into the bakery. I thought I’d just get some dough running. There’s something about murders in Mystic Cove that really just makes me want to knead dough. It really gets the anxiety out.”
“You know I don’t mind if you bake, ever. I miss baking with you. But, I’ll be there soon. What happened with Jeb?”
“We only found Jeb. I’d hoped we’d find Peter. Always was Jeb’s shadow. But Jeb wouldn’t say a thing. I guess your Gram wasn’t so nice to those boys back when your dad was running around with them.”
Scarlett wasn’t surprised to hear that. Her Gram was barely nice to the people she loved.
“You’d think she’d have mentioned it,” Scarlett said sarcastically thinking she’d need to sic Lex on Jeb. Or maybe just bring Lex with her when she tried to find out more.
“We didn’t even try to find Peter after Jeb…well…his Mama needs to wash his mouth out with soap.”
The first of the cop cars were pulling up, but Scarlett paused as she saw that shiny silver land rover. Gus got out of the car, saw her, and hesitated.
She told herself to find her backbone and waved at him. He waved back and walked slowly to her.
“Hey,” she said, not mentioning the numberless slew of messages she’d left on his voicemail. She told Henna, “I gotta go.”
“You find the body?”
“I noticed the crows.”
“And your knowing,” he said.
“Yeah, I guess.” By the stars, she thought, this is so awkward. She wanted to throw herself into his arms and hug him, but the last time she’d seen him….recap. Backbone, Scarlett, she thought and said, “I missed you.”
He smiled at her, just the corner of his mouth, but the ice started to crack and he said, “I missed you too.”
Another awkward pause.
“You brought a lady friend back?”
“She’s just visiting,” he said. He didn’t quite meet her eyes that time, but he wasn’t being shy. Their last time together had been him wanting to be more than friends and Scarlett not able to move on from her marriage. Not then. She’d been getting there, but he’d left town.
Scarlett had to wonder if it was true. Only visiting? Scarlett had seen the way his friend had looked up at him. And who could blame her? Gus was a vampire in full health with all the appeal you might imagine. “You don't have to sidestep.”
“I’m not. It’s still true,” he said, and there was something in his gaze that said things hadn’t changed between them. But, of course, they had. Of course they had. He’d left. He hadn’t answered the calls. She’d left him so many messages it was pathetic, and he hadn’t responded to a single one. Who was this girl? Scarlett was not the other woman, and she would not be part of crushing anyone. As long as Gus had a girl in town, whatever they had or could have wasn’t happening. Plus, she had feelings for Lex. For Lex…and as she looked up at him and realized how much she’d missed him, for Gus.
She was such a mess. She was such a mess. How messed up were you when you had feelings for two men?
“What about you and Lex?”
“We’re…not a we,” she said, honestly. But she and Lex had been getting closer and closer to a “we” before she found out he had been—if not straight out lying—hiding things from her.
“That’s not what I heard,” Gus said. His gaze searched hers, and she didn’t glance aside. Not like everyone had been doing to her for the past 2 days. Not like Amelie, Lex, her mom, her dad, and Gus. Scarlett wished someone would just be bluntly honest rather than this sidestepping, lying, and hiding their feelings.
Not that she wanted to tell Gus that she’d missed him, that she realized she could easily love him, but that she could also easily love Lex, and she hadn’t crossed the line with either of them. She’d also realized that it was so easy to tell Gus everything because she had for the entirety of her life until she’d left Mystic Cove and slipping back into old habits had been thoughtless. Maybe habits that weren’t so wise. After all, she’d carried on telling him everything on voicemail, and he hadn’t responded. Why had she done that? To see if he would? To somehow get him to come back? Because she needed someone to talk to?
“I heard about you and your friend, too,” she said.
“Fair enough. How bad is it?”
She was grateful he changed the subject. She was grateful that he was her friend. She told herself again to find her backbone and she walked over and hugged him. “I missed you. A lot.”
His arms were so strong when he hugged her back. “I missed you too.”
Someone cleared his throat from behind them, and they turned to find Lex. His face was smooth. His sunglasses were back on, but Scarlett felt the weight of his gaze on her despite those glasses.
“We need you,” Lex told Gus. “Glad you’re back. This one is nasty.”
Scarlett told Lex, “I’m going to get the girls and get to work. Who died?”
“Someone named Peter. You know him?”
Scarlett knew the name. One of her Dad’s old crew of felons. “He used to get into trouble with Leroy and my dad,” Scarlett told Lex, feeling like she was betraying her dad and feeling furious that was how she felt.
“Your dad?” Gus’s voice was shocked, but of course, as her life-long best friend, he too well knew how she’d dreamed of her dad coming back into her life.
“He’s in town,” Scarlett said flatly.
“Oh,” he said, understanding immediately. “Are you ok?”
“I don’t know,” she told both of them. “Probably not. But I need to get the girls and get back to the bakery. Thanksgiving is killing me post the big-baking of Halloween.”
“Would you get Amelie?” Lex asked, “I’ll call the school.”
“I am not your daycare,” she told him. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gus’s mouth twist. He seemed a little too happy at Scarlett’s reply.
“Please. I’ll figure something else out.”
Someone is dead over there, Scarlett told herself. Someone who deserved to be taken care of. “I’ll take care of it. Henna’s daughter has a daycare. I’m sure she’d be good for Amelie.”
“I’ll call her about it. Thank you, Scarlett. I’m sorry to ask.”
She paused and then said, “You need to be here.”
She wasn’t gracious when she said it, but Amelie’s existence hadn’t stopped being a sore spot, and it wasn’t going to be. He was still the only real cop in Mystic Cove that could handle something like this and as much as she was mad at the world, these men who'd been murdered deserved their justice.
Scarlett started towards the Suburban and Gus towards the body. To her surprise, Lex followed her.
“He brought a girlfriend back,” Lex said without a smidgeon of emotion in his voice.
“He’s been my closest friend since I was 5,” she told Lex. “I don’t care.”
She couldn’t see Lex’s eyes, but she could feel them, and they were cold on her skin.
“Give me a chance, please.”
“As long as Gus will be my friend, I’m his friend back. That’s part of my package. Just like Ella and Luna and Gram.”
Lex cleared his throat and then opened the Suburban door for her. “All right.”
It was such a simple statement, but it made her wonder what he mea
nt by that. Was it the deal breaker? Was her friendship with Gus something he could accept? She was so jumbled up inside that she didn’t even know what she wanted.
“Thank you for taking care of Amelie. I’ll try to come get her soon.”
Scarlett climbed into the Suburban and said, “It’s ok. Listen…there’s something up with the woods here. I can try to send out my mom or Gram to figure out why it’s all wonky.”
Lex considered for a moment, and she could see that he did not want them around. But she could also see that he needed them. No one but a druid would figure out what was happening in the woods here. If he called the Circle, the chances were pretty high they’d send Scarlett’s mom or Gram regardless. Lex might not know that but Scarlett did.
“I’ll try for my mom,” she offered and he relaxed just a bit. Gram was just nasty. She was very, very good, but there was no way she wouldn’t poke all of Lex’s buttons while she was around.
“Thanks for that.”
“Gram would probably be better though. And I can’t keep my mom from bringing Gram.”
“Fine,” he said, a lot less pleased. He shut the door of the Suburban while Scarlett started it up.
Chapter 8
By the time Scarlett reached the school, Amelie had been brought to wait with Ella and Luna. The trio of girls melded together like they'd spent hours upon hours together instead of having just met. Their heads were tilted together like 3 petals from the same flower. The school teacher standing with them was Ella’s teacher, Miss Simpkins, and her eyes were avid with curiosity.
Great, Scarlett thought, certain she'd be plagued with questions and innuendos. Lex had the women of Mystic Cove taking notice. Someone they hadn’t grown up with who was also single. Half of the single ladies in Mystic Cove had been praying for just that. The other half hadn't thought to wish it up, but they were interested. It didn't matter that Lex and Scarlett spent so much time together. What mattered is that they weren’t—and maybe never would be—official.
Hobgoblins and Homework Page 5