Page 63 of Starry with a Chance of Nightshade

“What time is your lunch break today?” he asked. “I could swing by and take you to lunch if you want.”

Yolanda began to bounce up and down in place, clearly excited.

Peggy shook her head at her granddaughter. “Now is agreattime to interrupt with when her lunch hour is.”

“Oh!” said Yolanda fast. “It’s at one. Can you have her back by two-thirty?”

“Can do,” said Stratton with a sexy grin.

“No,” I returned. “I’m good. I don’t need everyone going to all this trouble. And Stratton doesn’t need to stay at the house with me. I’ll be fine with my dog.”

Peggy crossed her arms over her chest, the towel still in her hand. “That settles it then. You’ll come stay with me and Marvin.”

I paled. “I pick Stratton. Erm, I mean, I’m fine with him…never mind.”

The way Peggy’s smile widened said that had been her goal all along, getting me to accept Stratton’s offer.

Angela and Faye high-fived.

Faye then glanced at me. “And you’ll go to lunch with Stratton?”

I gave in and nodded.

“Then it’s a date,” said Stratton. “I’ll be back here at one for you.”

Torid picked then to vanish and appear by me once more. He reached an arm out toward Stratton. I swatted at it, no doubt looking as if I was flailing my arms around for no reason. “Sorry, bug.”

With a hiss, Torid pulled his arm back but stayed locked in on Stratton.Can I eee-at him?

I shook my head emphatically.

Torid crouched and then sprang up and over the counter, landing behind it. He glanced at me as he reached out to one of the cappuccino makers and flipped a button. He then spun and knocked over several of the syrups. It was his version of a tantrum.

As far as goblins went, he was young, even though I knew he had hundreds of years under his belt. His kind didn’t fully mature until they were around eight hundred.

My jaw set and I clenched my fists. When we were done today, he was so grounded. I tapped the pendant again. The second I was out of earshot of everyone, he was going to his room.

Dana gawked. “What happened?”

Peggy grunted. “Another damn ghost is my guess. I’m frankly sick of them.”

“Same,” said an older man.

“No one asked you, Shieber,” she returned with a grin.

ChapterTwenty-Two

Stratton

Stratton satin one of the two chairs that faced the chief’s desk. He obsessively checked his watch for what felt like the hundredth time today. He planned to keep his lunch date with Astria without making a big deal of it with Brett. But so far, all he’d been able to think about was Astria.

For the past few hours, he’d gone over and over their encounter this morning, wishing he’d have acted normal and not like she was the first beautiful woman he’d been near. Wishing that he could figure out why she seemed so familiar to him. Moreover, he wished he could have a do-over and not be tongue-tied and end up wearing Jeffrey’s coffee.

When Stratton got to work, he’d changed into one of the backup outfits he kept in his locker and then asked one of the other officers to drop his coffee-stained clothes by the dry cleaners since it was on their patrol route anyway.

“This is a piece of crap,” said Brett as he sat behind his desk, trying to work on his computer. He wasn’t the best with technology and had plenty of officers on staff who were far better, but pride left him trying to access autopsy files himself.

Stratton could have offered to help but he knew Brett would turn him down, so he sat there, doing his best not to laugh.

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