Page 15 of Treasure and Tarot

“Yeah, I think this goes back down to where we were before. You need to find out why it is that your people were so convinced that…Whatever, I don’t know.” Sebastian looked like he was about to cry. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. That ship has sailed, and there are not a lot of ships or sailing here. Lots of mines and mountains though. And the ghosts. We got ghosts out the wazoo.”

“Well, that’s what I’m good at.” God, he wanted to go all alpha and grab Sebastian and take him to his alpha cave. But that would be a mistake. “So, dessert. And you can stay up here tonight?”

“I can. So I can meet you after breakfast.”

“You could both come here for it. With me.”

Sebastian shook his head. “I’m not ready for that.”

He nodded, trying not to be all tight and angry. This wasn’t Sebastian’s fault. It was his. He should have fought harder, should have been there.

They dug into their pie, and he made a plan in his head.

Skewer his parents and tell them to stay the hell out of his life.

Fix the ghost problem at the house.

Meet his daughter and spoil her rotten.

And get Sebastian back.

Colton was always happier when he had a plan.

Chapter

Seven

“Daddy. Can I go play on the swings?”

“Uncle Xander is going to take you because I have to go to a meeting.” With the biggest, grumpiest, most gorgeous alpha alive. “And Uncle Xavi has to work at the coffee shop.”

And their house was going to be overrun with ghost hunters.

“Likes coffee, Daddy!”

“I know.” He liked when Xavi gave Abby ‘coffee’ too, because at Xavi’s place coffee meant chocolate milk with absolutely no coffee in it. He didn’t know what he was going to do when she finally figured that out, but right now, he was safe.

Xavi had been up since four a.m. making pastries and muffins and shit for his little coffee shop. And then, because it was the only coffee shop in town, everybody who had to drive over the mountain pass to go to work somewhere else stopped there and everybody who was in the hotel stopped there, and, well, the town might only have three hundred people in it, but if all three hundred people showed up at the coffee shop before nine in the morning, and sometimes they did, Xavi had a very busy little thing going.

“I go have coffee with Unca Xavi?” she asked, pulling on her favoriteBlue’s Cluessweatshirt, her hair a mop of curls.

“We are totally going to have coffee with your Uncle Xavi. I want a chocolate croissant. And you want?”

“Gingie piggy!”

“Okay! Put on your shoes!”

Xavi did make an empowering gingerbread pig.

Once they were both dressed, he grabbed Abby’s little backpack and they wandered downstairs into the shop.

Sebastian had to admit he loved it down here. It was a mixture of junk store and kitsch and gift shop and games and coffee shop. It was just this warm, wild, wonderful mishmash of crap, and honestly?

It suited Xavi to a tee.

“Unca Xavi! I here!”

“My own Abby! I’m here too.” Xavi called out, and Sebastian heard a couple of fond chuckles from the freshly caffeinated. “Would you like some coffee? Do you have your daddy? I bet he needs a hazelnut latte with two extra shots.”

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