“Well, I’ve said it a thousand times, but you know you are always welcome here,” Ricky said.
“I know,” Lu said. “It always feels like home when I return.”
Ricky grinned, those dimples popping, and I knew this was a life Lu had built without me. A place she fit, she belonged. A place that had no room for me.
If I didn’t want to ruin it for her, if I didn’t want her to regret me coming back to life, I had to get out of there.
Chapter Eleven
Iturned to leave, and Lorde trotted down the hall, her tags jingling, pushing past me and drawing Ricky’s and Lu’s attention my way.
“Hey,” Lu said, looking like sunlight and love, and all the things I’d ever dreamed of. “Come on in, the brownies are almost done.”
“Look at you, pretty.” Ricky bent and waggled her fingers at Lorde. “I hear someone likes rolling in smelly dead things.”
Lorde wagged her tail and grunted happily as Ricky scrubbed her face and behind her ears.
“Brogan?” Lu said. “Chair right over there, if you want.”
And what mere mortal could refuse that offer?
“Smells amazing.” I emerged from the shadow and strolled into the room. If it were even possible, her smile got brighter.
“You’re going to love them,” she said, excited. “Coffee?”
“I’ll get it,” Ricky said. “All around, or ice tea?”
“Ice tea sounds good.” I walked behind Lu and dragged my hand across her lower back. She leaned into the touch. Then I took the chair on the opposite side of the table from our host.
“Feel like I’ve been hearing about you for years,” Ricky said.
“Because you have,” Lu said.
“Because I have,” she agreed. “And now I get to meet the legendary Brogan Gauge.” She placed a stoneware cup in front of me, then took the chair to my right, putting herself directly across from Lu.
Lu returned to the pies, gathering bowls, spoons, and fruit, moving around the kitchen like it was hers. In some ways it was.
“Nothing legendary about me.”
Ricky’s gaze lingered, as if waiting for a punch line. When I said no more, she raised a dark eyebrow. “Humble? Or just underestimating yourself? I’ve never met another person with the curse you’ve been living with. And for so many years? Most people would buckle.”
I drank tea, cold and barely sweetened. Delicious.
Ricky had done her best to look for solutions to our problems. She’d dug up everything we knew about the magic pocket watch Lu wore. She had helped us figure out how long we could let it count down before the curse kicked us in the teeth.
She had been a loyal friend.
“Not every day was a joyride,” I said. “But we’re here now and some of that is due to you.”
Ricky didn’t look nearly as surprised at my comment as Lu did.
“You know a Crossroads helps anyone who darkens their doorstep. But when my Lu-lala, and you,” she added, “first showed up, I knew you were something different than I’d seen in a long time.”
“Oh?”
“Yep. You were the kind of people I could befriend.”
Lu ladled fruit into the pie pan: cherries, fresh picked or maybe frozen from last year’s crop. Then she tugged over a muffin tin stuffed with smaller circles of dough, and filled those with cherries too. Individual pies. Likely for Ricky to freeze back and eat later.
