Page 44 of A Little Red
It was a nice little farm. Tidy and well organized. He ran across the crunchy snow and made his appointed pit stops before racing back up to the house. He avoided the chicken house on the way. The coyote was not wrong—the chickens did smell like lunch.
He changed back to manage the back-door handle and then slammed it quickly closed against the cold and hurried back into clothes.
“Liam,” called Scarlet’s grandma as he entered, “did you want biscuit or cornbread?”
“Cornbread, please,” he called back. He entered the kitchen and saw that Paxton was setting the table, while Scarlet fetched glasses and her grandmother dished chili into bowls. He thought it was a venison chili from the smell and his mouth began to water once more.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said as she looked up. “If we were introduced last night, I don’t remember.”
She smiled and he caught a flash of Scarlet in her face. “I’m Diana Lucas. You can call me Diana.”
“Liam Grayson,” he said. “And you’ve met my brother Paxton.”
“Ah, yes, Mr. Doesn’t-Know-How-to-Knock.”
“Sorry,” Paxton said blushing bright red. “I only wanted…”
He trailed off looking at Liam desperately and Diana chuckled.
“Not to worry. But next time you visit, come to the front door. You’ll save everyone a bit of embarrassment I think.”
“Mm-hmm,” said Scarlet, plunking the glasses down with extra emphasis.
“Yes, ma’am,” said Paxton and grimaced apologetically at Scarlet.
The meal was one of the most pleasant Liam had ever experienced. Diana and Scarlet caught up on local gossip, with Scarlet gasping in shock at the news that Dan Weyers had installed not one, but two windmills and was now preaching the gospel of wind power at his neighbors. And then doubling down with abless her heartat the news that Mrs. Winderling had left her husband after twenty years of marriage when someone finally spilled the beans about the girlfriend he’d kept on the side. Paxton’s eyebrows flew up when Diana also casually mentioned that Azure’s coven had been thinking about funding one of their members in her run for the state senate.
“Well, I think they should,” said Scarlet. “I said it ten years ago when she tried to drag me to those stupid meetings—they either needed to do more magic or get more involved.”
“The meetings are not stupid,” said Diana calmly.
“Yes, well, there was a shocking lack of eye of newt. I’m just saying that if you’re going to have a coven, I expect less tea and more general cursing of people. I’ve had more conniving and backstabbing from a gathering of cheerleaders.”
“I’m sure that goes without saying,” said Diana. “But the focus of the coven is environmental change, not cursing people. And having one of their members in a very public position is a risk.”
“They should join Albert’s super pack,” said Paxton and Liam kicked him under the table.
“What?” demanded Paxton looking offended. “If there are actual witches somewhere, they sound right up Albert’s alley. If you’re going to go political, why stop at wolves? You and Albert want to think big, well, here’s your big.”
“Someone’s forming a Supernatural super PAC?” demanded Scarlet. “Yes! I want in!”
“Maybe,” said Liam. “It’s early days. He’s still building support.” He looked at Scarlet’s excited grin. “I’ll talk to him,” he promised and Scarlet clapped her hands in excitement.
“And we’ll talk to Azure,” said Diana, dampeningly. “As I said, I’m not sure the witches are ready for the level of publicity that politics brings. But it would be good to talk.”
Liam nodded. At the moment all he could think was that witches, real witches, not the crap-jewelry, neo-pagan, peyote-pushing wannabes that seemed to be everywhere, would be a real benefit to his pack. As long as he could get his mother to see that. As if on cue, Paxton’s cell phone rang with the Darth Vader theme song.
“Well, that’s Mom,” said Paxton. “Excuse me. I’ll step out on the porch.”
Scarlet glanced nervously at Liam, and he tried to smile reassuringly. Not that he had much reassurance to offer. He thought that this entire situation was going to drive his mother to declare a lock-down and bring everyone back to the house. He was probably going to have to spend a week talking her out of making him quit his job and move home.
Paxton came in a few minutes later, looking grim. “Mom says come home.”
“Yeah,” agreed Liam, shoveling the last of his chili in his mouth. He hadn’t expected anything else.
Scarlet
Scarlet sat on the low rock wall outside the Grayson homestead, watching the sunset, and tried not to feel like forgotten luggage. She had known from Paxton and Liam’s expressions that her arriving home with them was not going to go well, but she hadn’t been prepared for the fact that the pack wouldn’t even let her in the house. She didn’t know a lot about wolf culture. She understood it as very pack oriented with everyone living together or in near proximity to each other. She supposed that made Liam an iconoclast. She liked that he was a rebel, but at the moment she didn’t like that he was having to be a rebel over her.
