Page 34 of The Vampire and the Case of the Cursed Canine

I stifled a smile. ‘That’s kind of you. Why don’t you take the plants to Anissa? I’ll go back to the office to relieve April.’

Sidnee nodded, ‘Sure thing.’ She got out her phone. ‘I’ll text Anissa to let her know we’re coming now. You hold the fort and I’ll get the rest of our troops up and running again.’ Now that hope had returned, Sidnee was bouncing again, all trace of her earlier pique gone.

I passed her my bag with the plant in and turned to Connor. ‘Can you drive?’ I asked, chucking him the Nomo SUV’s keys. ‘I want to ring Gunnar.’

‘Sure.’

We climbed in and headed down the rough country road. Once we were in phone range again, I called Gunnar. ‘Tell me good news,’ he answered, his voice tight.

‘We got both plants and we’re all safe.’

‘Thank God.’ The words exploded out of him.

‘We’re going to the office to relieve April; Sidnee is taking the plants to Anissa as we speak. Sigrid’s going to be okay, Gunnar.’

He blew out a shaky breath. ‘I owe you, Bunny Rabbit. You know that, right?’

‘You don’t owe me a thing. See you soon, boss.’ I rang off before I could get emotional. That was the other reason I wasn’t driving; now that we were safe I could process all we’d done and I was starting to shake. Man, that had been super close.

Connor noticed and pulled over. He turned off the engine, unclicked my seatbelt and pulled me into his lap. ‘You’re okay, doe. Everything is okay.’

I nodded into the crook of his neck as the floodgates opened and sobbed as the adrenaline drained out of me. When I stopped crying, I drew back. ‘How come you’re not all shocky and teary?’

He smiled. ‘I feel it differently to you, but I’m still affected.’

‘Differently how?’ I asked curiously.

A sexy smile tugged at his lips. ‘After a life and death situation like that, I like to remind myself that I’m still standing.’

I cottoned on. Oh. ‘And how do you do that?’ I asked innocently, toying with the top button of his shirt.

His smile widened. ‘You wanna have a quickie in a tree?’

I burst out laughing. When I recovered myself, I said, ‘Sure, I’m game. Now?’

He undid his seatbelt. ‘There’s no time like the present.’

Chapter 20

When we pulled up to the Nomo’s car park, April was waiting anxiously. ‘What kept you?’ she asked. ‘Sidnee texted a while ago to say you were en route. I got worried.’

‘Potholes,’ Connor said blandly. ‘And trouble with a tree.’

April’s eyes swept over both of us, missing nothing. She grinned. ‘Trees can be real pesky.’

I blushed a little. I distracted myself from the warmth in my face by picking up my sleepy feline. I carted Shadow inside. ‘I’m sure Sidnee mentioned, but we’re back and we found the plant,’ I said quickly.

‘That’s great! Is everyone alive?’

‘Yup!’ I confirmed. ‘All present and correct. How did it go here? Any trouble?’

She picked up several pink Post-it notes. ‘Nothing pressing enough to require an officer immediately,’ she reassured me, handing them over. She looked at her notepad. ‘Liv called. She said that she interviewed everyone and no one knew anything.’

I frowned. Liv wasn’t going to let us anywhere near the damned market; all we could do was hope that Jeff could somehow direct us to the curser so we could track them down and kick their asses for daring to harm Sigrid. Ahem: I meant arrest them and process them properly within the confines of the due process of the law.

Now that we had the ingredients for a possible cure, I could concentrate on finding the curser but Liv was standing securely in my way. There was nothing I could do that night, but maybe I could ferret the information out of Calliope the next day. For now, I was the only one here; April had put in ten plus hours and it was time to let her go home to her family.

‘Thanks, April. I appreciate all your hard work today. I’m on shift now, so you get yourself home.’

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