Page 3 of Woodland Web

She means it, I thought. She means every word.

I leaned across the table and took her hands. “I miss you, too. So maybe you can help me figure out how to get Ari and me back together. Because as much as I’d like that, I can’t just come out and tell her to stop being an idiot. That wouldn’t go over well at all.”

And just like that, we settled in with our drinks, and began to scheme.

CHAPTER TWO

An hour later, invested with a jury-rigged plan, I headed for the grocery store.

I was halfway through shopping when I realized I was bored. I’d been off work for a couple of months. I had started writing a book about my experiences, but at heart, I preferred writing articles. I thought about starting a blog, which I was still playing around with, but that wouldn’t take up all my time. And I wasn’t geared to be a housewife.

My phone alerted me and I paused in the baking aisle to see who was texting me. It was Tally, my sister-in-law.

Since Ari had turned her back on me, Tally and I’d grown closer. At first, I thought I might be trying to prove that I was safe to be around with if you had children, but Tally and I had always gotten along, and the longer we hung out, the closer we were growing. I genuinely enjoyed spending time with her. She wasn’t my BFF, not like Ari had been, but we had formed a comfortable friendship over the past few months. That made Killian happy, too, so it was a win-win-win situation.

january, do you and killian still want to get together for game night? i need to know so i can call a babysitter.

why hire a babysitter? bring the twins with you. killian loves his nieces to pieces. ha, there’s my inner poet coming out. I snorted as I texted back.

you know we love that you guys watch victoria and leanna for us, but i want a night away from the babies. so i hate to disappoint you, but it’s going to just be us!

no problem. what do you want for dinner? i thought i might make lasagna.

les loves your cooking—and so do i. i don’t care if we eat shoe leather as long as i don’t have to cook it, but lasagna sounds fantastic. see you tomorrow night at around seven, Talley said.

I grinned at the phone. Tally loved being a mother, but she wasn’t ready to give up her everyday life to play nursemaid, and she wanted to find a job outside the house. They couldn’t afford a nanny, though, so when Serena and William—Killian and Tally’s parents—offered to move to Moonshadow Bay to help out with the grandkids, we all pitched in with house-hunting and found the perfect house for them. They had just closed on it and moved in. There had been no difficulties because they had bought my old home and were now our new neighbors.

“Are you sure you want them next door?” Killian had asked. “I know you all get along, but…”

“But nothing. They want to be in town to help your sister, and I hate seeing my house sit empty. I never thought I’d sell it, but given they agreed to let me make the first offer if they ever want to sell it, I’m fine.” I paused, then added, “You don’t know how good it feels to have family next door, even if they’re technically not my blood. I know I have Rowan and Aunt Teran, but your parents treat me like one of their own. They treat me like I matter, and I’m so grateful for that.”

“If you don’t mind, I think it would be great.” Killian had been so happy that I worried it might not work out—that maybe something would happen to disrupt everything. But Serena and William had lived next door for a month now and everything had been fine. Serena was taking a sabbatical from working to watch after the grandchildren, and William had expanded his business. He was an accountant, and while he had lost some of his clients by moving, he had also added a number of new ones.

I slid my phone back in my purse and added a box of lasagna noodles to the cart. I already had the makings for sauce at home, and I just needed more ricotta and some mozzarella. I thought about dessert for a moment and decided on lemon poundcake with a blueberry compote.

After adding a cake mix to the cart—I didn’t usually make pound cake and I wanted it to turn out right—I stopped in the frozen foods aisle for berries. We still had a few months till berry season and, after eating the ones grown locally, it was hard to buy imported ones. They always had that leathery feel blueberries get when they were a little too old. So frozen was a good way to go, and would make a delicious compote.

I finished the shopping, then headed home, thinking about Meagan. It didn’t surprise me that she was involved in sports—she was the dean of women’s sports at a local college—because she was more brawn than brain. Oh, she was smart enough, but her first instincts were to go the blunt, direct route. And that was true of most bear shifters. They were direct and honest, and you knew up front what they wanted from you.

As I arrived home and put away the groceries, I noticed something out back. There was something hanging on the gate that separated the two houses. We’d left the gate up when I agreed to sell, to give some semblance of privacy. I’d also insisted on keeping half the lot—the back half that buttressed the Mystic Wood. Given neither of Killian’s parents were only marginally interested in gardening, they had willingly given up the extra quarter acre in exchange for a reduction in price.

I put away the frozen foods then headed outside, squinting as a ray of sunlight hit my eyes. The weather in western Washington dithered in May, sometimes deciding we were on our way to summer, sometimes deciding to return to the blustery chill of spring. Today, we were getting the warmth. I stopped by the side gate where I saw a red sparkling ribbon tied to the post. I knew what that meant.

I glanced back at the house. The stove was off, and the door was shut to keep the cats in, so I untied the ribbon and headed toward the back of the lot. There, a bench sat at the trailhead leading into the Mystic Wood. The woodland sparkled with magic, and odd and sometimes dangerous creatures made their home within the boundaries. In the past few years, I’d come to know the woodland a lot better, but that only made me keep my guard up even more. Not all monsters wore frightening guises, and some of the most charming were more than willing to feed on grown witch women.

But I knew who had left the red ribbon. If it was tied on the gate, it meant Rebecca the imp wanted to talk to me. If I tied it on the bench by the trailhead, it meant I needed to talk to her. That we’d managed to come as far as we had astonished me. I’d always assumed she’d been trying to kill me when I was a child, but recently I’d figured out that she’d been trying to keep me from harm—to keep me safe from darker creatures lurking within the Mystic Woods.

I sat on the bench by the trailhead and waited. A moment later, Rebecca peered out of the thicket. She looked like a golden-haired ten-year-old girl, so perfect that she couldn’t be human. Rebecca was a minor demon—an imp—but we’d come to a meeting of the minds and while I wouldn’t say we were friends, we were the next best thing. Allies.

“Hey, what’s up?” We hadn’t talked in several weeks, but that wasn’t uncommon. Usually, Rebecca contacted me when something odd happened, or if there was danger around. Whenever I got a message that she wanted to see me, I spent my time waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“I have a message for you.” She looked so serious that it took me aback. Rebecca usually started with some semblance of small talk—hello, how are you, or whatnot. That she dove right in didn’t bode well.

“What is it? From whom?” It wasn’t like we ran in the same social circles with mutual friends.

“I bear a message from Briar, the Overking.”

Briar? Crap. Briar was one of the Overkings, or as we knew them—the Fae. And the Fae were not to be trifled with. They could be cruel and vicious, and the last thing anybody wanted was a run-in with them. And I owed him a favor.

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