Aunt Liz’s gaze cut through me at the obvious lie I’d told. Something was wrong with these cards, but if I didn’t have enough time to sort through my bills, I definitely didn’t have enough time to figure out what these little mysterious cards meant.
I turned to Aunt Sophia and caught the look between my aunts. Yes, I was lying, deal with it. “Would you like to see the book?” I asked Aunt Sophia, I needed them to focus on the urgent matters.
She shook her head. “No. First, I’m making cabbage rolls.”
Dave groaned from the next floor up.
Bella slunk down the stairs and eyed the newcomer with a wary expression. She stuck her tail in the air and showed us her ass as she padded toward the still open front door.
“That’s a strange cat you have,” Aunt Sophia noted as Rebecca disappeared up the stairs, Hudson following her. Where was everyone going?
“She has a thing for the males,” I explained.
Aunt Sophia tilted her head. “No, that’s not what I mean, but you already know she’s not an ordinary cat.”
I did know that, but it wasn’t like I could ask her to explain why she turned into a beast in the face of danger. She wasn’t a shifter, because she had no human form, and no amount of searching through the records had shed any light on Bella. She’d protected Rebecca, and that meant she had a place in my home for as long as she wanted.
“I can’t translate on an empty stomach,” Aunt Sophia said. “And the meal they served on the plane?” She shuddered.
Aunt Liz gave me a small smile and began ushering Sophia toward the kitchen. “You’ll not be here for cabbage rolls,” she said to me over her shoulder just as Dave came down the stairs.
“Lucky you,” Dave grumbled.
“Why, where am I going?”
Rebecca reappeared with a dress bag in her hand. Hudson came down the stairs behind her with a large overnight bag which looked to be bursting at the seams. My overnight bag.
Hudson grinned. “We are going on a date.”
My mouth popped open and Aunt Sophia paused just outside the kitchen. “I can’t go on a date, we have shit to solve.”
“Language,” Aunt Sophia chastised. “It will take me all night to translate even a few parts of the book. Eunice didn’t write in just one language, she had many, and enjoyed mixing them up to protect her spells. Go enjoy yourself, treasure the stolen moments of peace and pleasure. I don’t see many of them in your future, so when presented with an opportunity, grab it with both hands and don’t let go.”
Hudson’s hand grasped mine and he pulled me out of the door and into the night to steal that moment. My heart raced with anticipation and a flush of excitement tingled my skin. Steal the moment, I could do that.
Chapter Twenty-One
I share everything but dessert.
Dashingalong the road in my Bugatti, Hudson drove like he was trying to beat the sundown.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
He darted a look my way. “It’s a surprise, we have another hour of driving, get some sleep.”
“I don’t need sleep.”
He smirked. “You will.”
Oh, aren’t we confident? “Perhaps I should drive and you sleep?”
He huffed a laugh and put his foot down. I turned in my seat and just stared at him. I was too wound up to sleep.
He side-eyed me. “What are you doing?”
My lips twitched. “Staring.”
“Why?”
