“I’m not a shifter,” she confessed with a little sigh.
“Then you wouldn’t know that you were my mate.” Robert was watching Felicity’s face, but he heard the murmur of speculation and a few delighted squeals from their audience.
Felicity’s eyes got big and very hopeful, and she gazed back at him in wonder. “Am I? I am? I mean, I know about mates, but I thought I just had a terrific crush on you, and I never dreamed it would happen to me, and oh, Robert, you were so sad, and I was so sorry for you, and I had no idea what to do! How can I make you happy again? It’s almost Christmas, and I don’t even have a gift for you!”
Robert reached for her hands to find her already reaching for him, and pulled her willingly, straight into his lap so that he could kiss her at last, to wild cheers. Theodora burst into tears and protested quietly that they were happy tears.
“I think you should take the remainder of the day and tomorrow off, Felicity.” The owner of the resort had a quelling voice that brooked no disagreement. Robert wasn’t even sure when she’d arrived, she was simply standing among the others very suddenly.
“Oh, but will you be short-handed?” Felicity asked meekly, picking herself carefully up from Robert’s lap.
“I don’t want to risk losing another meal or crate of wine,” Scarlet said severely. “You are to remain out of the kitchen and restaurant until it is determined that you are not going to inadvertently spoil anything else.” Her voice gentled. “And I think you have something better to do with your Christmas. I will wait the tables myself.”
This earned her a long, speculative look from Breck and Theodora. Robert couldn’t imagine Scarlet flirting with guests or charming the customers or serving coffee. She was more like a bouncer than a barista.
A very elegant bouncer.
Chef only asked, “What is your singing range, Scarlet?”
CHAPTER15
Felicity wasn’t going to look a gift day off in the mouth, to mangle a few metaphors, but she finished cleaning up the horrible mess she’d made—giving all the tables a very wide berth—and gave Theodora a swift hug. “Good luck with Scarlet,” she whispered.
Theodora clutched her tight. “I’ll miss you!”
Felicity realized with a thrill that she probably wasn’t going back to her little room in the staff housing that night. Should that embarrass her? She was a confusion of emotions. When she came back to Robert from throwing away the last of his ruined meal, she found that he had made up a platter of food from the buffet for them to take out with them.
“I’ll let you carry that,” Felicity said, eyeing the rolls of meat and cheese, cut fruit and fresh bread. “I think I won’t hurt it any more, but we don’t need to take the chance.”
“Were you the one causing all those problems?” Robert wanted to know, as they left the restaurant. It was a beautiful sunny Christmas Eve morning, and the wind was musical in the trees. “The wine and the lettuce?”
“And a whole fridge of seafood. I feel awful for all the waste I caused.”
“You’re not a shifter,” Robert said in wonder. “What are you?”
Felicity drew herself proudly to all of her diminutive height. “I’m a brownie,” she said. “A house elf. At least a quarter. My mother is part house elf, and my father is a mouse shifter. All of my brothers are mice, and I wasn’t sure how much of the brownie gift I’d inherited until now.”
“It’s...a gift?”
“Usually,” Felicity laughed. “I can see how this wasn’t the best introduction to my kind. In a harmonious house, we can make good food even better, and make a bottle of wine last longer, and a bed more comfortable. But in a broken home, we’ll bring rot to the surface, and no one will be happy until it is healed.”
“Was Shifting Sands a broken home?”
Felicity hopped up onto a low landscaping wall so that she could look Robert in the face. “It was our house that was broken. You and I. We were supposed to be together, but I didn’t know I was your mate, and you wereafraid.”
“I wasn’t afraid,” Robert said thoughtfully. “I was too...frozento be afraid. I was sure that happiness was not for me, and I couldn’t see how to get past the walls that I’d put up.”
“Well,” Felicity said practically, “does kissing help?”
Robert gave a slow, sweet smile. “I assure you it does.”
Felicity gave a dramatic sigh. “Well, Iguesswe could do that…”
Then Robert was kissing her, so passionately that the buffet platter slipped. Felicity pulled away from his mouth to catch it. “Oh,look!” There was an edible flower garnish on the plate that hadn’t been there before, and the bread, baked that morning, was steaming again. The butter that had been spread on it was melting.
Relief made Felicity giddy. Well, that and Robert’s kiss. She wasn’t cursed any more, and she felt like everything in her life had slipped into its perfect place. Everything, except… “You’re leaving in two days.”
Robert had one arm around her, and his hand spasmed, drawing her closer. “I can’t leave you,” he said.
