Page 47 of Bait N' Witch

“Yes!” Atleigh jumped up and down.

“Dang,” Lachlyn groaned.

Chloe, however, ran over to give her sister a hug. Then she turned to Rowan and flung her arms around her middle, squeezing her with an exuberant embrace. “That was fun, Rowan. Can we do it again?”

Rowan laughed. “If we grow those plants any longer, your aunt will think you cheated.”

“What is going on here?” Grey’s laughing voice interrupted their fun. They all jerked their gazes to find him standing by the door, arms crossed and with a fierce glower ruined by twitching lips.

A different man from the one she’d met the first day. That man would’ve been serious in his glowering. This one almost looked as though he wanted to join the fun.

“Rowan was helping us practice our magic by making it a race.”

“I won, Dad!” Atleigh bounced over to him, tugging on his hand to pull him over to see.

After inspecting the results, Grey hugged Atleigh. “Good work. To all of you! Persephone will be pleased, I’m sure.”

Gathering their plants, looping the tendrils of green-leafed vines over their arms, the girls giggled and chatted all the way back into the house.

“What did she win?” Grey asked.

Rowan pasted on her most innocent expression. She hoped it came across innocently, at least. “A skip day from magic practice.”

He snorted a laugh. “I see.”

She peeped at him from behind a fall of her hair. “You’ll allow it?”

“I shouldn’t, but I haven’t seen them that excited about magic in ages. Yes. I’ll allow it.”

That was easier than she’d expected. Rowan blew out a relieved breath and moved to follow the girls into the house, but Grey surprised her by stepping into her path, closing the door and leaning against it. “Did you stop to consider what might happen if their magic got out of hand? Heightened levels of emotion—including excitement—can trigger a spell to go horribly wrong.”

Damn. She hadn’t, because any magic gone wild she could handle. But that was the true Rowan, not weak-magic-user nanny Rowan. The question had been put gently, so she checked his expression, which gave her no clue as to his thoughts.

“Of course I considered that.” Think fast.

His brows drew lower, while his gaze remained so intently on hers, it suddenly got more difficult to breathe. “Really? Because last time you used magic you turned pink.”

If she hadn’t known he was angry, the way he was looking at her might be interpreted as…

She cleared her throat, cutting that thought off. “I figured at worst you might have to dig your house out from under a mountain of philodendron vines. Worth the trouble if it got them more motivated. Don’t you think?”

Did his lips twitch? “It’s…nice…to hear them laughing so much again. Thank you for that.”

Warmth slipped through her defenses and into her heart. She bit back an answering smile. At the end of the day, she shouldn’t be getting so attached.

He studied her for a long moment, and Rowan resisted the urge to shuffle her feet, holding his gaze. He’d been doing that more since Lachlyn’s words in the woods. Watching her.

“Your day off is tomorrow.”

The comment came so far out of left field, it took her a moment to catch up. “Err… Yes.”

“Do you have any plans?”

Where was he going with this? “I—”

“As it happens, work is a tad slow for me. With the girls at my parents’, that leaves me free as well. Would you like to join forces?”

He wanted to spend the day with her? The part of her that quickened every time he entered the room, like the world had been dull and gray without him directly in view, the same part that right now reveled in the spicy scent of his aftershave and the woodsy scent she associated with his magic, screamed Yes! The cautious side, however, the side that worried over the fact that she had the strangest urge to confess all and put herself in Grey’s capable hands, had her holding back.

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