Page 48 of Bait N' Witch

Bad idea. Horrible. Delilah would kill her if the Syndicate didn’t.

“Um. Thanks for the offer, but I already have plans.” Damn. Did that sound as lame to him as it did to her?

“I see.” His smile faded, and suddenly before her stood the intimidating warlock she’d first met when she’d arrived to be the girls’ nanny.

“Maybe next weekend?” she tried.

But he didn’t unbend. “It’ll depend on my schedule.”

Right. Had she hurt Grey with her casual rejection? The problem was, she couldn’t put off her very real plans—not any longer—and she couldn’t invite him along.

“I’ll take the girls over to my parents’ around eight. What time do you plan to leave?”

“About the same time.” She pointed her feet toward the house, taking one reluctant step after another. “I’d better get inside now. Dinner’s probably done baking.”

“No more burned dinner fiascos?”

She glanced over her shoulder, surprised at the laughter lurking in his voice, given his stoic reaction to her rejection moments ago. “It’s easy when no one is messing with you.”

He laughed outright, a deep, rich sound that shot straight to her heart. “I guess that does make things go smoother.”

“You should do that more.” The words escaped her guarded lips.

He cocked his head. “Do what?”

“Laugh.”

His expression stilled, turning more serious, though warmth lingered in his dark eyes. “I have been…lately.”

Lately as in since she’d arrived?

Stop wishing for things you can’t have.

With a creak, Grey opened the screen door and held it for her.

“Thank you—”

As she glanced at him in passing, Rowan caught a glimpse of movement in the trees behind his right shoulder. Rather than draw Grey’s attention, she turned and kept going, but she knew exactly what she’d seen. A large male elk, the rack on his head massive, stared at her from the shadows. Above him, perched on the branches of the tall pine tree, had to be at least twenty chipmunks, squirrels, marmosets, and birds of varying types, also staring her way.

Rowan’s heart shriveled like a raisin in the sun.

Danger.

How could she have dismissed the hummingbird’s warning so easily, distracted by Grey and the girls? But the question was, what danger? The Syndicate closing in? Something else?

It was never a good sign when animals started to gather around her in large numbers. The first time it happened, her parents were killed in a car crash she mysteriously survived. Tanya had speculated that was no accident but a Syndicate-sanctioned execution. Not that they’d ever found proof. The most recent time had been right before Kaios had showed up, killed Tanya—no mean feat—and kidnapped Rowan, using her, getting her into this mess in the first damned place.

The danger they’d been warning her of must be getting closer.

How long before Grey, or the girls, noticed the unusual behavior of the animals in their woods? And was Rowan the only one in danger? Or was something coming that could put this family—who’d already been through so much, and who’d managed to creep into her heart and take up permanent residence—in peril?

She’d find out tomorrow.

Chapter Eighteen

“Dad?”

Chloe’s tentative question pulled Greyson’s thoughts away from the red-haired, bewitching nanny who’d driven away in her beat-up Chevy that morning, earlier than she’d originally indicated. Rowan hadn’t even paused to eat breakfast with them, though he’d made plenty. And despite the fact that the girls—whom he could tell had become quite attached to their nanny—begged her to. She hadn’t said where she was going, or with whom, and he hadn’t asked.

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