Page 44 of Which Witch is Willing?
“Wait a minute.” The yokel thumbed the straps of his overalls, aiming a querulous look his niece. “You know this fella?”
“Sometimes,” she said.
Nick was encouraged by her sly smile. A smile that remembered, and not altogether unpleasantly, the more intimate details of their acquaintance.
“I know why you’re here,” Sal said.
“You do?” Truly, Nick had to try to keep his face empty of surprise at the suggestion that a man like Salvador Malveaux could know anything.
“Sure do. And just so you know, the answer is no.”
“No?” Nick bit down hard on the surge of rage driving up from his belly. Only two people had ever dared tell him no over the course of his long life, and they were both standing in front of him.
“No, you can’t have Moira Jo.” The man draped a possessive arm around his niece and squeezed.
Nick brought his hand to his eye to stop the sudden twitching. “I don’t think that’s your decision to make.”
“Of course it is. She belongs to me and now that we’re together, I’m keepin’ her.”
Nick glanced at Moira, shocked that she’d endure such patriarchal posturing without complaint. “Don’t you think she should have a say in this?”
“Why the hell would she get a say?” Sal asked. “I mean, she’s purty, but it’s not like she has a brain.”
“You listen, and you listen good,” Nick said, grabbing Sal by the front of his bib overalls and shoving him against the dock railing. “Moira Malveux de Moray is one of the smartest, most cunning, most wickedly clever women I’ve ever met, and believe me, I’ve met a lot. If you dare insult her intelligence in my presence again, so help me gods, I will strip the skin from your bones and wear it like a Brioni suit. Do you understand me?”
“Oh I understand you, all right.” But far from the fear and cowering Nick had expected, Sal broke out into a smile that took over his whole face.
“What?” Nick said, releasing him. “What are you grinning about?”
Sal’s shoulders shook, rhythmically jerking toward his ears with a hyuk hyuk hyuk sound before he doubled over, slapping his denim-clad knee. “You were talking about Moira Jo the person. I was talking about Moira Jo the boat.”
Nick glanced at Moira, and from the half-pleased, half-amused expression on her face, gathered that she had known what both men were referring to the entire time.
“Right.” Nick smoothed his tie and cleared his throat. “Of course. I knew that. We made a deal and I have no intention of reneging on it.”
“Good,” Sal said. “We have an understandin’. Now point me in the direction of the nearest grub shack. I’m starved.”
Siren’s gastropub wasn’t the nearest, but it was the nearest they could come to a compromise on. With Sal insisting that he couldn’t eat “none of them fancy vittles on account of it gave him the galloping squirts” and Nick insisting that he’d not set foot in an establishment where at least two kinds of top shelf scotch weren’t on offer, the upscale gastropub seemed to be the best option.
What followed was sixty-seven of the most painfully awkward minutes in Nicholas Kingswood’s life. And considering he’d been present at the Lisa Marie and Michael Jackson kiss at the Grammys, that was saying something.
Moira said little, folding and refolding her napkin, focused on feeding French fries to the pig-formed familiar hunkered between her and her Uncle’s hips.
The aforementioned pig-familiar mostly glared at Nick, aggressively chewing scraps in his general direction.
And Sal Malveux, determined to make small talk, asked Nick a series of utterly inane and irritating questions.
Examples of their pained exchange:
Sal (wiping tartar sauce from his chin with the back of his hand): So what is it you do, young fella?
Nick (while sipping his scotch): I’m in acquisitions.
Sal: Of companies and such?
Nick: Of kingdoms. Of countries. Of continents. And occasionally the will to live.
Moira (clearing her throat, staring daggers across the table): He’s kiddin’.
