Page 25 of Wild Scottish Fortune

“Two bottles of Cabernet for the table, please, Graham.”

“Right away.” Graham left, his face a mask, and myeyebrows rose as Agnes threw her head back and laughed, dropping a casual hand on the shoulder of one of the lads.

“Is it just me or could you cut the tension with a knife between those two?” I asked, wincing as soon as the words were out. Here I was, not wanting to talk about Finlay paying me for a date, and now I was sticking my nose in someone else’s business. This was not like me, as I’d learned to not ask a lot of questions growing up.

Don’t ask questions you won’t like the answers to.

I’d learned that little lesson very quickly.

Not that it necessarily applied here, as I had no interest in Graham or stepping on any toes in that direction. But it felt intrusive for me to ask about a relationship between two people I didn’t know very well.

“With my sword,” Sophie assured me. Nudging Shona, she nodded toward me. “Orla met Brice today. What do you think she’ll think of Gnorman?”

“Gnorman?” I asked and Shona’s sunny face lit up.

“He’s my garden gnome.” Shona pitched her voice lower, leaning in. “In fact, I have two of them. As in real-life gnomes. It comes with being a garden witch.”

Heat flushed through me, and I sat back, my world recalibrating around the knowledge that not only did magickal beings apparently frolic left and right all through Loren Brae, but that for the first time maybe I wasn’t alone in my oddity.

It’s not easy being an orphan.

It’s even harder being one who sees ghosts.

Agnes returned to the table, a smug expression on her face, and I just looked at these women, so varied in their appearances. Shona wore a simple blue jumper and had dirtunder her nails, Sophie was in a UCLA sweatshirt, Willow was in her sparkles, Lia was in a leather jacket, and Agnes had on a pretty red blouse. And there was me. In canvas pants and a cream, ancient woolen jumper that kept me warm against the damp. A mismatched group we were, if I’d ever seen one, yet somehow those very differences soothed me. It was as though anything would go here, and they’d still accept you into their fold. I certainly hoped so, as a quiet yearning for acceptance filled me.

“Lovely lads. Traveling through,” Agnes said as she dropped into her seat. Graham returned with two bottles, opening both with a flourish, studiously ignoring Agnes as he poured.

“Food tonight, ladies?”

We put our orders in—mac and cheese with a side salad and chips for me—and settled back with our wine.

“So, Orla sees ghosts. I think that’s going to be the power that manifests for her. She’s a house witch,” Sophie said without preamble, and I jerked, spilling wine on my jumper.

“Damn it,” I said, switching out the wine glass for water and dabbing at the jumper with a damp napkin. It wasn’t the jumper I was much fussed about, it was the fact that she’d just exposed me, casually, to an entire group of women that I didn’t know that well. One being my client, as well.

“Welcome to the Order,” Shona said. “It’s an adjustment, isn’t it? Being part of something bigger?”

“I…” I wasn’t sure how to answer that. I still felt like the kid standing outside the playground, watching the other kids play together. “I honestly don’t know what to think.”

“Neither did I.” Lia held up her wine in commiseration. “Not until I found my spell book and saw my grandmother’s name in it. Then the connection came through for me and I felt I was where I belonged. Hey, I wonder if your family will be in there too. I can look. What was your grandmother’s surname?”

I froze, unsure how to respond, not wanting to spill my dirty past all over these lovely smiling women. What was I supposed to say? That I didn’t know my own grandparents’ names? How my mother ditched me at an early age before succumbing to her drug addiction and her half-sister barely raised me? There were no family albums to pore over, fun stories of the past, or memories of those who came before me.

“I don’t have family.” It came out fast, the words whipping across the table, and I saw the expression I hated the most on people’s faces. Sympathy. It fell like a wave, crashing across the women, and my stomach churned.Now comes the pity party. This was my least favorite part, next to the inevitable questions, and my shoulders hunched.

“That’s just fine then, isn’t it? You’ve got one now.” Agnes squeezed my arm, nodding to the women around the table.

“Yup, that’s part of it,” Lia agreed. “Annoying as these bitches can be at times. They’remybitches.”

“Has ladies’ night taken a dominatrix-y turn?” Graham appeared with a basket of bread. “If so, I fully support this direction you all are taking.”

“If we do, men won’t be invited to watch,” Sophie promised him.

“That’s certainly a loss.” Graham disappeared and the knot of tension inside me loosened slightly.

“I lost my mom when I was young,” Willow said, reaching for a piece of bread. “I think my favorite thing about the Order is not only do you get to be magickal, but you also get to be magickal along with other cool women. Plus, I mean, how freaking cool is it to know there’s so much, like, weird and amazing things that exist out there? It’s kind of blown my head off to know all these things, like, justexist, you know?”

“Listen, I thought I was well on the way to losing my marbles when gnomes started talking to me,” Shona assured me.

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