Page 63 of Sweetwater and the Witch

Sweetwater Scion Spends Night with Elite Matchmaker Escort.

Has Ottoway Found a New Way to Service Clients?

Stunned, Ravenna could only stare at the newspaper. She groped for some way to explain the unexplainable and finally gave up.

“I understand,” she managed finally. “I’ll clear out my desk immediately. I’m so sorry, Ms.Ottoway.”

“There you are,” Ethan said from the doorway. “I hope I’m not too late. Have you already told Ms.Ottoway the good news?”

Harriet chortled a greeting and closed her hunting eyes. Ethan ambled past a frozen Bernice Ottoway and went to the desk to pat Harriet on the head.

Bernice unfroze. She lowered the paper and turned to stare at Ethan. “Mr.Sweetwater. I didn’t realize you had an appointment today.”

“I don’t,” Ethan said. “I just came by to tell Ravenna that I changed my mind about waiting to share our good news. Not much point now, is there? Not with those headlines in theCurtain.”

Ravenna pulled herself together. “What good news?”

Ethan winked. “Ms.Ottoway deserves to be the first to know. After all, if it hadn’t been for her, you and I might never have met, although I like to think that fate would have found a way.”

“What good news are you talking about?” Ms.Ottoway said. Her eyes were blank with bewilderment. “Are you saying Ms.Chastain found a successful match for you?”

“That is exactly what happened,” Ethan said. “She and I are hoping to be married.”

Bernice Ottoway stared at him. So did Ravenna. Ethan appeared oblivious to the tension in the room. Either that or he simply did not give a damn about the stressful atmosphere. Ravenna’s intuition told her the latter was the case. Ethan and Harriet had a lot in common, she decided. If the situation looked like it was under control, why sweat it?

“We planned to hold off announcing the news until after we told our families, but given the headline in theCurtain, there’s not much point keeping it a secret, is there? You can be the first to congratulate us, Ms.Ottoway. Don’t worry, we will make sure everyone knows.”

“Knows what?” Bernice demanded.

Ethan smiled. “That Ravenna and I found each other the right way—the Ottoway.”

Ravenna wondered why the floor did not simply open up under her feet and plunge her into some uncharted sector of the Underworld. That would have been so helpful. But stuff like that never happened when you really needed it to happen.

Ms.Ottoway blinked. “Oh.” Comprehension struck. Her eyes suddenly sparkled with excitement. “Oh, my.”

“Well, that’s it for now.” Ethan leaned over and gave Ravenna a quick, affectionate kiss on the nose and headed for the door. “Got to go. I just dropped by to thank you, Ms.Ottoway. I’ll pick you up for lunch, Ravenna.”

With a last pat on the head for Harriet, he was gone.

The engineer of the apocalypse.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“Don’t get me wrong,” Ravenna said. “I understand why you did it. You felt guilty for dragging me into the Spooner case. You were trying to be gallant. Noble. Good intentions and all that. But now we’ve got an even bigger problem. Surely you can see that.”

“The way I see it, things are actually back under control,” Ethan said. He dipped a chunk of battered-and-fried fish into a small container of hot sauce. “We would be in a much worse situation if I had not made an executive decision.”

She opened her mouth to outline the full extent of the catastrophe he had wrought, but there were no words, not for such a monumental disaster. Flabbergasted, she munched a fry instead.

They were sitting at a picnic table in a park eating the take-out order of fish and chips that Ethan had provided. Harriet was perched on the table, working her way through a pile of fries. The day was pleasant, sunny, and warm in the way that only the desert can be warm in thespring—full of the promise of oppressive summer heat, but tourist-bureau perfect for now. Under any other circumstances she would have been savoring the day and enjoying the company of the man sitting on the other side of the table. But today she was consumed with the vision of oncoming disaster.

“Try looking at it this way,” Ethan continued. “The problem isn’t any bigger than it ever was. The only difference now is that it’s more clearly defined.”

She glared at him. “Spoken like an engineer.”

“I am an engineer,” he said around a mouthful of fish. “Look, you and I are still scheduled to do the fake date thing for your grandparents’ anniversary, right?”

“Yes, but it was just a fake date, not a fake engagement. There’s a difference.”

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