“Never.”
She scratched the door again. “Then go ahead and knock. Get this over with.”
“Pushy, pushy.” But I did as she suggested and knocked. A moment later the door opened and Willard stood in the frame.
My eyes immediately filled with tears, and Willard pulled me to him without a word.
“Grandpa?” I whispered.
“It’s about time you found out.” He rocked back and placed his hands on my shoulders. “Come on in and let’s talk about things. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”
I wiped away the tears and stepped through the threshold. We certainly did.
I ended up spending a couple of hours at Willard’s, just talking about family that I didn’t know and being shown pictures that I hadn’t seen—pictures of my mom when she was young, pictures of Willard and Malene before they separated, or whatever it was that they had done. I still didn’t know all the ins and outs of their relationship, but I supposed that wasn’t my business, now was it?
The history of two people belongs to them, not to everyone else.
By the time I left his house, I felt better, lighter, as if my life and my world were coming together in ways that I could never have imagined.
Sounds corny, right? Like, super stupid, but it was true. I was a spell hunter, and it was about time that I started accepting that. I had a grandmother that I needed to know better and a grandfather that I also wanted to spend time with.
No, I couldn’t bring back all the years that I had lost, but I could make the most of the time that we had left together.
Which brought me to my last task of the day—finally telling Rufus the truth about his past. This time, if his phone rang, I would tell Rufus to silence it. There wasn’t another moment to waste.
When he did finally ring my doorbell and I answered, I sucked in my breath.
Rufus wore a dark blue T-shirt that hugged his biceps and showed the ripples of his chest. His jeans gripped his hips and thighs in a way that made my mouth water. He looked good in clothing made of cotton, and I told him so.
“I decided it wasn’t exactly a night for leather,” he said with a smirk.
“Cotton fits you.”
He glanced down. “You think?”
I know.My mouth watered. “Yes, it sure does.”
He bent down and kissed me lightly on my lips, letting his mouth linger over mine for a touch longer than it needed to.
“Ah, I wanted to show you something.”
“Very quickly,” I replied. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
“It will only take a second.” He pulled a small mason jar from his pocket, and inside glowed a dark brown spell. “It’s the target spell.”
“John—”
He unscrewed the cap, and the spell floated out. “This should work. It should let me find a memory spell.”
The target spell floated through my house. I knew exactly where it was going and had to stop it before it found the magic that I was hiding.
I jumped in front of Rufus. “I have to tell you something. You’ve been waiting for this.”
But he wasn’t listening. “Why is it floating in here? There must be one nearby. Come on, Clem, let’s follow it.”
“Wait, you have to give me a chance—”
Excited now, Rufus said, “It’s going into your room.”
