My step falters. It’s been months since she called, and I hoped she’d given up trying.
Before I can steel myself, the sharp cut of betrayal washes over me. It’s so profound, so sudden, it feels like my chest is being ripped open. It takes everything I’ve got to push it aside, to breathe through it and not let rage worm its way inside me.
She lied to me for the better part of my life and somehow thinks a simple phone call will solve everything.
I push the button to end the call before it can even begin.
There’s nothing she can say to change what she did.
The guys stop and it’s only then that I realize I’m not walking. “Sorry.”
“We found it over here,” Isaac tells me as we reach a line of trees that hasn’t been cleared.
“Found what?”
“This.”
Ron steps into the brush and when he comes out, he cradles a small white creature with a stubby golden horn shooting out from the middle of its forehead.
Isaac gestures to it like a game show host. “We present your very own lambicorn. Found on-site and now the property of one Stone Maddox.”
“No thanks.”
My brother discovered one the night he got married. Wasn’tthatenough? Why does Mystic Meadows need two of them?
Besides, the creature looks like a tiny wet goblin. “Sorry, guys. Not interested.”
Ron pets it lovingly. “But it’s a magical creature that just appeared. You gotta take it, Stone. Give it to Pane and Rowe.”
“First”—I tick points off on my fingers—“my brother and his wife are on their extended honeymoon. Second, I wouldn’t know where to put it. Third, I’m not interested in the responsibility. What if I let it down? What if it thinks I’m its real father and years later discovers the truth, that I’ve been lying to it its whole life?”
I admit that last part sounds pretty bitter.
The men’s mouths fall open.
“What?” I shrug.
Isaac blinks. “Not a thing, boss.”
Ron gazes at the creature lovingly. See? He’s a natural Dr. Dolittle. Unlike me.
“I can’t take it, either. Jennifer will kill me. Have you seen how much these things poop?”
“All the more reason for you to put it back where you found it. How’d it get here in the first place?”
Isaac hitches one shoulder. “How do any of the creatures get here? The unicorns? The piggycorns? They just appear.”
“Next thing you know, magical people will be walking out of the bushes.”
“No, boss.” Isaac crosses his arms. “Mystic Meadows has a strict no-people-with-magic policy. The town won’t tolerate them.”
“Why’s that?”
“Something that happened a long time ago. But”—he grins, showing off a row of gleaming white teeth—“lambicorn.”
I shake my head. “Why don’t you take it?”
“Because I don’t have time to watch it—between being here and the bar, there isn’t space to nurture it the way it should be.”
