Page 79 of Wishes and Research

I wasn’t sure if anyone had mentioned what Kenzie actually did besides drive everyone crazy, so I leaned toward Paxton. “Kenzie restores antique toys. He does a beautiful job.”

Giving Paxton something safe to comment on went a long way in smoothing out the situation. He smiled and some of the stiffness eased out of his back. “That’s a fascinating career. I’m not handy at all, so I can’t even imagine all the work that goes into that.”

Kenzie wiggled excitedly and charged right into a lecture on how anyone could learn to do it and about how his father had started teaching him the skills at a young age. When he finally wound down, Paxton shook his head. “The only practical things my father taught me were how to order in a fancy restaurant and what to say at faculty events. My parents are both college professors.”

I loved how Kenzie’s and Lorne’s first reactions were to frown.

“That’s sad.” Lorne let out a sigh. “But we have lots of creative people around here if you want to adopt new parents.”

Neither of us was sure if he was serious or not, so Paxton handled it with his wonderful manners. “Thank you for the offer. You have a lot of creative people in town.”

Kenzie nodded, giving another wiggle as he reached for a cookie. “I don’t know if it’s the magic influencing the people or just the type of people who are attracted to the area. Maybe both?”

Blinking, Paxton slowly nodded as I started enjoying my juice. “That’s something to think about. A chicken and the egg kind of situation.”

And they were off.

It wasn’t little play but they had a lively discussion about the creation of the town and if magic could influence creativity. By the time Kenzie was lecturing everyone on what he knew about the new humans in the area who were creatively focused, Paxton had eaten several cookies and had done his best to give my nearly empty cup several covert glances.

He finally broke.

He wanted the juice.

Doing his best to subtly grab a cup, he rested it on his knee and just ignored it. “Do you think the humans in the area who aren’t supposed to know anything are actually that in the dark?”

It was a good question and one that had Lorne and Kenzie coming at it from two very different perspectives. So as Lorne debated the merits of pretending to be stupid and Kenzie thought people were just sweet and could ignore anything odd, Paxton studied them and discreetly took a sip of his juice.

The two naughty dragons were polite this time and pretended to ignore Paxton. There was no way they missed it but it was what Paxton needed to start relaxing again. It also opened the door for his little side just the tiniest bit because as he started giving his thoughts on what he’d seen around town, he slipped down to the floor and ended up right between my legs.

So I stroked his head, stole a few more cookies, and finished my juice as they got to know each other and picked apart the town. Eventually they came back around to the magic question and as Paxton set down his empty cup, he looked up at me and frowned. “Can they come on our walk with us, Daddy?”

The naughty troublemakers flashed happy grins as I nodded but the grins were gone before Paxton looked over at them again. “We’re going with Alick and Grady to see the portal tomorrow. We’re starting early but we’d love it if you came.”

Kenzie’s face went from excited to sad to happy to frustrated. “Mornings are very early.”

Lorne patted his head. “It’s okay. I’ll be annoying and make sure your Daddy knows you need to be up.”

Lorne was wonderfully helpful and gave Kenzie a beaming smile. “It’ll be fun.”

As long as Kenzie wasn’t a grumpy little dragon, he was right.

“We should go tell your Daddy about it and then mine and Carrick.” Doing a little happy dance, Lorne stood up. “We have to make sure we know where our backpacks are.”

Kenzie nodded. “And we need to make sure we have water and snacks. Oh, and that kit that has first aid stuff. There are bugs outside.”

Yes, there were…and somehow that wasn’t so obvious it didn’t need to be commented on.

But we were both patient as Lorne turned back to us and gave a curtsy. “Thank you for the tea party. This was wonderful and you have good cookies.”

“And they won’t tattle on us.” Kenzie thought that was the best part of the afternoon. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”

Then the hurricane that was Lorne and Kenzie whirled out of the house with Lorne calling out a promise to show Paxton his beetles next time.

Paxton was very quiet for a few moments before he let out a deep breath and collapsed against my legs. “That was hard, Daddy.”

“Oh yeah.” Leaning over, I kissed his head and wrapped my arms around him. “But you did it. You had your first tea party and your guests had a wonderful time.”

Paxton’s head cocked as he looked at the table. “I think we were their guests, actually.”

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