Page 33 of Only Forever

Chapter 12

Boss – someone who thinks he’s in charge of your life

Beckett

“Why are we here?” Cassandra asks.

We’re in Winter Falls for their Litha festival, but I’m not telling her the real reason we’re here. Instead, I avoid her question by asking one of my own. “You don’t want to go to a pagan festival?”

“You know I do. What I don’t know is why all three of us had to come with you today.”

“I get it!” Elizabeth proclaims before slamming a hand over her mouth.

Gabrielle giggles but quickly hides her mirth by tucking her chin into her chest and concealing her face behind her hair. I frown. My youngest sister has always been shy, but in the past year since we moved to Colorado, she’s been acting painfully shy. It’s almost as if she’s afraid of something.

I throw my arm over her and bring her near. “What are you giggling about?” I tease.

She points toward the crowd, and I follow her finger to discover Lilac glaring at me. When our eyes meet, she scowls before stomping over to us.

“You’re invading my private life again,” she accuses.

“Who says I’m here to see you? Maybe I brought my sisters to Winter Falls to observe the Litha festival.”

I hold my breath while I wait to learn if she bought my lie. Her shoulders relax. “Oh. Okay then.”

She whirls around to run away, but I shackle her wrist to stop her.

“As long as you’re here, though, maybe you can tell us what this Litha festival is all about.”

She stares at my fingers on her arm for a moment and I can’t resist rubbing circles into the soft skin on the inside of her wrist with my thumb. She yanks her hand out of my hold but not before I feel her shiver.

“I don’t think—"

“I want to know more about Litha,” Gabrielle says. Did my shy sister just act as my wingwoman?

“Me, too,” Elizabeth hurries to agree.

“Oh, I want to know about a little something-something,” Cassandra mutters.

Lilac frowns at Cassandra before explaining, “Litha is also known as Midsummer or the Summer Solstice. It marks an important transitional moment in the Earth’s seasonal cycle. Fertile energy is at its peak and new life is rapidly growing. Seeds have been sown and begin to grow in abundance until Lughnasadh, which is the first harvest.”

“And how do you celebrate Litha?” Gabrielle asks.

“Not by sacrificing one of my goats at an altar,” a man answers as he passes us with a goat on a leash. I fast blink, but I’m not hallucinating. He’s leading an actual goat around on a leash.

The goat bleats before lunging for Gabrielle. No, not for Gabrielle. For her skirt. She giggles as the goat latches onto the hem.

“You’re a bad goat,” she coos as she pets him.

The man rushes to her and pulls the goat away except the goat refuses to release Gabrielle’s skirt. She’s dragged forward as they both attempt to loosen his teeth from her skirt. “Knock it off, Pan, or you won’t get any watermelon.”

At the word watermelon, the goat releases Gabrielle’s skirt and she flies backward. The man catches her before she can fall.

“You okay? I’m sorry Pan accosted you.”

Gabrielle blushes but holds his gaze. “Pan didn’t accost me. She’s a sweet thing, aren’t you?”

Pan proves her wrong by butting her hand, but Gabrielle scratches behind her ears like Pan’s a dog and not a goat.

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