Page 85 of All My Witches
“Go to sleep, sweetie. It will be morningsoon.”
“Don’t we have to listen?” My eyes felt ridiculouslyheavy.
“And not only am I smarter than all of you, I dress better, too,” Aunt Tillie added. “I should have my own fashion line I’m such a snazzy dresser. No, really, I could totally be a fashion designerprofessionally.”
“I think we’ve already heard everything we need to hear.” Landon wrapped his arm around me. “Go to sleep, Bay. We’re almosthome.”
I realized the second I closed my eyes that he was right, the tug to slip under so strong I couldn’t fight it. So I didn’t. I pressed my eyes shut, exhaled heavily and slid into sleep … and thus ensured myescape.
* * *
Love in the afternoon?Pfft. I would rather have a nap in theafternoon.
– Thistle makes her disdain of soap operasobvious
Twenty
Iboltedto a sitting position in the dark, Aunt Tillie’s voice still droning on and on … and on and on and on … in the back of my head. Something about “being young, restless, bold, beautiful and enjoying the days of our lives because we only have one life tolive.”
Yeah, she’s not exactlysubtle.
“Landon?” I reached out instinctively, hating how dry my throat was as I tried to get mybearings.
“I’m here.” Landon sounded as rough as Ifelt.
I turned to look at him. It was dark in the room, the only light coming from the moon through the window. He rested on his back, his hand on his forehead. His shirt was off, which seemed somehow poetic given where we’d spent our night. I couldn’t read the expression on hisface.
“Are youokay?”
“Areyou?”
“Other than the world’s worst case of cotton mouth and what I’m sure will grow into a raging headache tomorrow, I’mokay.”
Landon grunted as he forced himself to a sitting position. “I could use some water. I’ll grab us a few bottles from therefrigerator.”
“You’re goingdownstairs?”
“I won’t be gone long.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead and headed for the door. I was thankful to see he was wearing boxer shorts, because in his current mental state there was a real possibility he wouldn’t remember tocheck.
Once he disappeared into the quiet hallway, I slid my legs from beneath the covers and walked to the window. Thanks to the fresh snow – and there was a lot of it – the night seemed somehow brighter even though we were still hours fromdawn.
That’s where Landon found me when he returned five minutes later. He had four bottles of water and a bottle ofaspirin.
“Are you okay?” He left the water and aspirin on the nightstand as he shuffled behind me, sliding his arm around mywaist.
“I’m fine.” I leaned against him. “So, it turns out all we had to do to escape was fallasleep.”
“Now I’m betting you wish we’d stayed in bed when we first woke in that gaudymansion.”
That seemed like a lifetime ago. “Please don’t remind me of that. If it had been thateasy… .”
“I don’t think it would’ve been that easy.” Landon moved my hair from my shoulder so he could rest his chin there. “Are you sure you’re okay? You seem …off.”
“Honestly? I was looking for snowsharks.”
Landon chuckled. “Anything?”
“It just looks like a mountain ofsnow.”
