Page 62 of Truly Madly Magically

“I can’t. I have plans.” I could leave it at that. I could let him think I have a date, the way I normally would. “Brynleigh’s cheering at her high school’s football game tonight. It’s her first time, so I promised her I’d go.”

Because I have a relationship with my half sisters that has nothing to do with my dad. Like it or not, and mostly I like it.

Or maybe I like that he doesn’t like it, and sticking knives into good old Bill Wallace—the metaphoric kind because humans are so breakable—is one of my favorite parlor games.

Zander nods. “I’ll go with you.”

I want him to come with me, and that’s a truth I don’t feel like addressing. “What about the bar?”

He is watching me a little too closely. A little too intensely. “Grandma Rivers has the cousins jumping in to help since they’re here. She said Dad and I are required to take three days off ferry and bar duty and let them handle it.”

He’s clearly a little irritated by this, but he shrugs. You don’t argue with Grandma Rivers, this I know. She was the only reason Zander had any time off around Litha, or after Zelda’s death.

“Emerson wants us in pairs,” he says, so innocently. As if he’s spent his entire life up to this moment doing exactly what Emerson—or anyone else—tells him. His eyes get grayer. “Besides, if you’re going to tell your dad and Stephanie about the baby, I should be there.”

I hadn’t exactly been planning on that. For one thing, I can hide it from them easily enough. It’s not like we’re in each other’s pockets. They live just far enough away, over by Lake St. Louis, that I only have to worry about the occasional weekend ambush here in the store.

From Stephanie and my sisters, not dear old Dad. He never sets foot in St. Cyprian if he can help it. He doesn’t have to remember that his ex is a witch to know he doesn’t want to run into Tanith.

As Zander stares me down, looking entirely too patient, it occurs to me that trying to hide the baby in the first place wasn’t, maybe, my best idea. I really do love my sisters. It would hurt their precarious little teenage and preteen feelings if I didn’t tell them. No matter what memory spells they’ll be under later, they’ll remember if they had to find out by accident.

“Fine,” I say, begrudgingly. “Okay.”

Zander takes his time grinning at me, and he can still light me on fire. Just like that. Just...that easily.

There’s not a lot of thinking when he’s around, and less by the second.

There’s that look on his gorgeous face and that grin and all the thunderstorms we make together, one rolling into the next and the two of us all alone here in my shop on a quiet morning.

And me made of nothing but deliriously jumbled thoughts and wants and yes—

But Zachariah and Elizabeth pop through the walls then, as if they’ve been hanging around in the alley outside.

I take that as the freaking life preserver it really is, letting me break the spell that’s always been my downfall where Zander is concerned. That bright, hot fire between us that I wish really was a spell, because spells can be broken.

This thing between Zander and me, on the other hand, is eternal.

Maybe that was why we fought about it and around it so much, back when we were kids and it about flattened us.

Whatever it is, I take the life preserver and duck back behind my long counter, happily using it as a barricade and not caring that, judging from the way Zander’s mouth curves, he knows exactly what I’m doing.

“I told you she was a merchant,” Elizabeth is saying to Zachariah, like she’s settling a bet. Then they start arguing about what constitutes a merchant, but there’s no animosity to it. They’re smiling, and there’s a little sparkle in Elizabeth’s eye that I recognize all too well.

“I suppose we need to talk about sending them back,” I say, because they’re starting to freak me out. I think the bickering was better. Easier.

Better than hope that tends to crash and burn when it’s just within reach.

Zander says nothing for a few moments, watching them waft about the store, arguing about which teas are better. I wait for him to jump on what I said. To say we should give it a shot right now and be done with them.

For reasons I don’t choose to examine, the thought of letting the pair of them disappear into the ether of the afterlife makes me think I might...sob, maybe. Just like the notion that Zander will want to send them away, because I brought it up.

Because I am nothing if not the architect of my own despair.

He shrugs instead. “It can probably wait.”

“Yeah,” I say, though I have to clear my throat. “It probably can.”

And when he looks back at me, he smiles.

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