With no stops for heartbreak.
ChapterTwenty-Seven
OLIVIA
One dayI’d have a job that didn’t require more costume changes than a Harry Styles concert.
At eight-thirty the next evening, on this first week of October, I returned home a tired, bone-weary shell of a woman. I’d worked another thirteen-hour day, most of it spent in a witch’s costume. Do you want to know why witches were such angry, villainous ladies? Because their uniforms were impractical and uncomfortable. Maybe if they’d worn yoga pants, they wouldn’t have felt like turning people into toads.
I stepped into the kitchen and kicked off buckled heels that looked like they’d been stolen from Hester Prynne’s closet.
Lachlan entered the room and noted my attire with an arched brow.
My purse slipped from my shoulder and plopped to the ground as I sat my tired body on a barstool. “Not one word about my outfit.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
I’d left at four-thirty in the morning for a spin class and had missed our daily breakfast time. “Do you have anything to eat? Crackers? Cheese? A porterhouse steak?”
Lachlan removed my wilted hat and set it on the island counter. “First of all, I have a whole kitchen stocked with food, because unlike you, I don’t have trouble remembering to eat. But second, why are you dressed like you took a very wrong turn off a yellow brick road?”
Frissons of awareness glimmered across my scalp as Lachlan restored a lock of hair the hat had displaced. “I’ve…” Where had I been? Oh, yes. Work. “You said you wouldn’t remark on my clothing.”
“I thought I could stay strong and honor your weary request, but I can’t. Don’t keep me in suspense any longer, Professor McGonagall.”
“We had a Halloween party at Flair. Celeste required costumes, of course.”
“This early in the season? Is this a requirement of your work coven?”
I plucked a tissue from my pocket and blew my nose. Seasonal allergies could be grueling in an Arkansas fall. “We did some team building at the haunted house that just opened for the season, and two of the zombies crashed into one another and took me down with them. They didn’t mean to. First day on the job.”
Lachlan reached out and traced a red, aching spot above my forehead. “Give me names, and I’ll beat them up.”
My mind went absolutely blank, and my entire body froze. Oxygen suspended in my lungs and my heart paused midbeat. I silently counted backward from five as Lachlan slid his hand over my brow again. My eyes locked on his, and I saw it—that millisecond of recognition and surprise. As if he, too, felt the combustion and had been taken aback.
I wasn’t the only one affected. Why did I take some sort of perverse pleasure in that? This should make it even more satisfying to nip it in the bud.
But it didn’t.
Lachlan’s hand dropped, and he cleared his throat. “You do have the makings of a bruise there. Need some ice?”
“No.” The percussion of my heart returned, though the beat remained drunk and erratic.
“Where is this haunted house?” Lachlan filled a glass with water and handed it to me.
“The Renaissance faire grounds.”
“Man, I love a good Ren faire.”
Now that I knew Lachlan better, that did not surprise me a bit. “Maybe Sugar Creek is the town for you after all.”
“You have doubts that it’s not?”
I questioned daily why Lachlan was here, but I didn’t want to dive into that tonight. “I believe you texted me about an emergency?” The message had included lots of GIFs, so I knew it wasn’ttoourgent.
“When’s the last time you ate, Sassy Sullivan?” Lachlan’s hands rested on my shoulders and gently massaged.
I closed my eyes as his fingers worked their own magic on my tired muscles. “This morning.”
