God, I hated that he couldn’t call me by my real name withthat beautiful voice of his.
I looked back to him.
“This will be over soon.”
“Okay.”
“There’s that word.What does it mean again?”
Man, I needed to keep my guard up.
And that, too, sucked.
“It’s a language Mom and I made up.It means ‘all right’ or‘fine’ or ‘good.’At least it does this time.”
There you go times two.I was getting good at lying on thefly (Lord help me).
His lips curled up.“Okay.”
Yes, he was killing me.
I smiled at him.
He bent and kissed my forehead, which was outrageouslyadorable and sweet.
When he backed away, he bid, “Enjoy your reunion.I’llreturn for breakfast at nine.”
“Righty ho.”
He shot me a hot smirk, a fabulous wink, and then he tookoff.
I couldn’t spend a lot of time with Maxine because shedidn’t need to be overstimulated while she was getting used to being out ofbasement prison and in this house with me and Mom.Mom was her constant, so Momstuck with her.
Though, before he left, the doc assured me that with time,she’d warm to me.I just had to be patient.
As for me, I went about checking out the house, making sureIdina was good, and casing the joint for stuff we might be able to sell or justplain steal so we could have our own pocket money (and then some) shouldanything go south, or we found a witch for hire, and we’d need the cash toactually hire her.I scored by finding two books that taught French/Fleuridianin the library.I also dealt with the fact thatthe servants were practically dancing on air (there was a definite feel of“Ding Dong, The King is Dead, Long Live the Queen!”).
Eventually, I shared dinner with Mom and Maxine (who wastimid and quiet, but I was right, really sweet), then preparing for bed.
Which brought us to now.
And me telling Mom I was marrying Loren.
“Okay, babe,” Mom said while pacing, “the man is gorgeous,like, whoa,what?gorgeous, but this is not a good idea.”
“I know.That’s why I have an alternate plan.”
She stopped and gave me her look that said,Spill.
“We’re going to steal a few of Dad-not-Dad’s things we cansell, and otherwise purloin whatever we can so we have a stash so we’re notdestitute should he cut us off, which Loren tells me he can, and consideringhe’s a massive douchebag, he will.”
“Damn,” Mom mumbled.
Good to know I wasn’t dim.She hadn’t thought of thateither.
“Then we’re going to find a witch.”
“How are we going to do that?”
