Page 6 of Wolves' Midlife Reunion
“Really?” With her thumb and finger, she carefully picked up the pendant. Even on this gloomy day, it flashed in the light.
“Yes, ma’am.” He hadn’t thought about it in the moment, not until after they’d gotten back from their shopping trip. Dex still had Marie’s earrings in a little box, tucked away to be given to Sage when she was old enough not to lose them. It felt like fate that Tina happened to pick out something so perfect, so relevant.
But he had to stop thinking about fate.
“Thank you, Daddy.” On her knees in the car seat, Sage launched herself at Dex. She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his neck.
He rubbed her back and held her close, enjoying this moment. There was no better feeling in the world than a hug from a child who loves you. “You’re welcome, baby.”
She sniffled, and something warm dampened his shoulder.
“Sage? What’s wrong, honey?” Dex pushed back a little so he could see her face. “I thought you liked the necklace.”
“I do,” she assured him with hiccupping breaths. “It’s just that what you said made me think of Mommy, and I miss her.”
“I know, sweetheart.” He pulled her back against his chest with one hand, reaching for some leftover fast-food napkins to dry her tears with the other hand. “It’s hard not having your Mommy around, huh?”
She nodded against him, no longer caring if she messed up her braid.
“I’m sorry, baby. I’m really sorry.” He held her tight as rain began to fall in earnest against the windshield. “I miss her, too.”
3
“Don’t get me wrong,”Kristy said, shuffling a deck of tarot cards as she spoke. Her fingers moved nimbly, pulling out sections of the stack and slipping them back in at a different spot. “I’ve had readings that’ve gone poorly before, but this girl absolutely freaked out on me.”
“What happened?” Chelsea asked. She held a glass of wine in one hand and had been slowly paging through a vintage book on astrology that Lucille had brought her. Now she looked up, interested.
Kristy sighed, and for once, her hands stilled. “She got up and slapped the cards right off the table. She started yelling at me, asking me who set her up for this.”
“Whoa.” Jamie looked up from her phone, her eyes wide.
“Set her up?” Amanda echoed.
Kristy separated the deck into two halves and then shuffled them back together as she sucked air in through her teeth. “I guess it was a little too accurate. She told me she didn’t believe in tarot right at the beginning of the session, and she was only doing this to make her friend happy. The situations I describedto her were a little too on point, and that made her decide her friend had filled me in ahead of time.”
Iris laughed as she gently sank her fingertips into her cat’s pale orange fur. He closed his eyes and rumbled. “She was hoping to prove herself right, and that you wouldn’t know anything!”
“What I do know is that I didn’t give her a refund,” Kristy asserted. “She tried, but I’d put my time and effort in.”
“Good for you,” Tina said approvingly. “The customer is always right, until they’re wrong.”
She enjoyed nights like this at the Artemis Eclipse Sisterhood covenstead. Although they had some planned nights with specific events or rituals, there were also evenings when the sisters gathered simply because they felt the need. They could kick back and relax a little while spending time together. It was in these moments that Tina felt closest to the other coven members, whether they were sisters by blood, shifterhood, or magic.
Kristy shrugged. “I don’t want anyone to leave unhappy, but I don’t think there would have been any way to please her. Her friend apologized, and they left. I’m glad I won’t be back over there for a few weeks.”
“You know you’re welcome at my place any time,” Tina reminded her. Kristy had started her tarot business by setting up in established stores. The Crystal Cauldron had been one of her first stops, but she’d soon expanded to other retailers, events, and even tattoo shops. What had begun as a way to save up for a permanent spot had become lucrative enough that she was content to travel.
“You only like me for my marketing value,” Kristy teased, putting her chin in the air. “You know how your foot traffic increases when you can advertise that you’ve got a tarot reader in the house.”
Tina tented her hands over her collarbone in pretended dismay. “What do you mean? I genuinely love having you there. It’s not my fault that your gigs make money for both of us!”
As they laughed, Tina noticed her oldest sister, Chelsea. She was sitting straight-backed in a chair, frowning so hard into a notebook that the two vertical lines between her eyebrows were beginning to deepen. That either meant she was doing research or planning something, both of which she took very seriously.
Tina cleared her throat. “Chelsea, dare I ask what’s on your mind?”
Chelsea’s head snapped up. She blinked and looked around. “Yes, actually. I’m glad so many of us are here. We need to finalize our plans for Samhain. It’s coming up fast, and we haven’t even talked about it.”
Maeve, the coven’s High Priestess, shrugged a little, making her long beaded necklaces clack softly. “There shouldn’t be too much to plan. I figured we would keep all of our usual traditions.”
