“Of all the…” he began, and then stopped himself, blowing out a breath.
Hank hopped up on the couch and shoved his nose in my face before moving in next to me to watch the show. His furry body was a comfort to me and I reached out to stroke his back, incredibly grateful he hadn’t been hurt by Horace.
“You did a good job, buddy,” I whispered to Hank, and he turned and licked my hand, his sandpaper tongue tickling my palm.
“What?” Cash asked, so caught up in his anger that he hadn’t heard me.
“Um, nothing. Just telling Hank he was a good boy.”
I waited for Cash to speak. I may be stupid sometimes, but I’m not stupid enough to pull the pin on a grenade. And Cash was one big grenade of emotions about to go off over there.
“I come over here to see some madman in horns being eaten by fire, is that correct?” Cash’s words came out clipped.
I considered them carefully and then nodded, still not willing to speak.
“Would you care to enlighten me?”
I thought about what Miss Elva had said about not hiding things from the people you love. I didn’t know if I loved Cash or not, but I did know there was a lot of potential there. Which meant I couldn’t start our relationship based on lies. Gently, I reached out a hand and patted the sofa cushion next to me.
“Why don’t you come sit down?”
Cash blew out a breath and ran his hand through his closely cropped hair, causing little pieces to stick up haphazardly.
“Got any beer?”
That sounded excellent right now.
“Yes, and could you get me a glass of wine too?” What? I could play the victim if I wanted.
When Cash finally settled in next to me and I had a cool glass of white wine to soothe my throat, I began to tell him about Horace.
“Wait, he summoned an evil spirit?” Cash’s beer was disappearing at an alarming rate as he took in my story.
“So it seems. Now, listen, you have to know this is not what Pagans are or do. He was just a fanatic,” I explained, sipping my wine. I didn’t want him to hear Luna talk about doing something Pagan-related in the future and have him fly off the deep end.
“Between Horace and the murderer, I’ve seen more magickal things in 12 hours of being back in Tequila Key than I have in my whole life,” Cash said carefully, leveling his eyes at me.
“That you know of,” I corrected him, enjoying the cool brush of wine that soothed my throat.
“What do you mean, that I know of?”
“Well, if you aren’t in tune with or expecting to see magick, you oftentimeswon’tsee the magick,” I shrugged.
Cash blew out a breath as he contemplated my words.
“So what happened to that guy?”
“I don’t know. That was Miss Elva’s magick. I should probably call her,” I said, realizing I might need to notify her in case Horace came back.
Cash reached into his pocket and handed me my phone.
“Hey, how’d you get this?”
“You dropped it on the beach.”
“My hero,” I sang out, delighted that he’d found it. What? Nobody wants to pay those stupid deductibles on the insurance for replacing a lost phone. Plus having to restore all those numbers? I shuddered at the thought.
“Miss Elva,” I said, when she answered the call. I could hear Jimmy Buffett in the background and voices laughing.
