Witcha Gonna Do? (Witchington #1)(74)
“So, is it true?” I ask Tilda, pulling her close.
“Yes.” She nods. “I love you too.”
There aren’t four words in the world more magical than that.
Part of me wonders how I went from being such a cynical jerk to the biggest sap on the planet, but really, it doesn’t matter. All that does is that Tilda loves me as much as I love her. Life doesn’t get better than that.
“You ready to get out of here?” I jerk my chin toward the nitro-powered magic carpet floating nearby. “I know this place that serves great tea and happens to have a private table next to a really friendly, very smelly, and very lonely dragon’s blood tree.”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
We make a run for it and are gone before her family even realizes we’ve stolen one of their magic carpets. Not that we’re going to make a habit out of thievery, but, well, we do have a certain talent for it.
Epilogue
Tilda . . .
Five Years Later . . .
The hottest man I’ve ever known is heading my way with a double paper plate loaded down with enough food to feed six of me. Needless to say, Gil takes his job as husband to the pregnant witch very seriously. Meanwhile, I am happy just to be able to keep food down again in time for the annual Sherwood Samhain BBQ, complete with limbo contest, my dad in a ridiculous Kiss the Pit Master apron at the grill, and various relatives and friends laughing, eating, and having a great time.
“I wasn’t sure what you’d be craving,” Gil says—he gave up know-it-all-ness with my first pregnancy, smart man. “So I brought some of everything.”
“What I could really use is a kiss.” I lower my glasses and give him a flirty wink. “You know how the second trimester is.”
He shoots me an evil grin. “I love the second trimester.”
Yeah. Him and me both. There’s just something about being amazingly horny all of the time that puts a woman in a damn good mood—especially when there are so very many orgasms.
Priorities.
I’ve got ’em. The family I love. The social media management company I started that is about to open up a satellite office in Salem. I’m definitely living my best life and even using my spellbinding powers when needed, which isn’t that often since my sister Bea delivered the absolutely most perfect death blow to the Council. Who would have ever thought her rooster familiar could ever be helpful in any situation, let alone one as massive as that? Well, he was and now we’re all big Barkley fans around here.
Any thoughts of obnoxious roosters fly out of my head though the second Gil leans down, hands me my plate, and gives me a toe-curler of a kiss.
Deviled eggs and phenomenal kisses, really, does life get better than that?
“Can you two keep it down over there?” Vance grumbles from his nearby lawn chair where he’s holding my firstborn in his huge hands. “The baby is trying to sleep.”
Griselda sidles up to the unicorn shifter and tiny toddler to get a closer look at the half-asleep child, but Vance shifts Marisol to his other side and shoots Griselda a so-there grin. Those two have been like that with the girls since the night they were born. Coincidentally—or not—that night there had been some of the most fantastic lightning storms over Wrightsville, as if the whole sky had gone electric.
Yeah, labor is like that.
I take a bite of potato salad and watch the fireworks of the metaphorical kind between my godmother and the triplets’ godfather.
“Who appointed you the nanny overlord?” she asks.
“I appointed myself.” Vance continues to rock back and forth in a move guaranteed to put even the most stubborn child—even a half Sherwood—to nap. “You can’t expect just anyone to be able to handle a baby like Marisol, she’s special.”
Griselda gasps and gives him the evil eye. “What about Thea and Zita?”
“Just as special,” Vance says. “Triplets are always extra luck.”
“For once, you aren’t completely wrong,” Griselda grudgingly admits. “Triplets are always lucky, but these three, oh the fates have something fantastic planned for them.”
“What’s that?” he asks.
Now it’s Griselda’s turn to so-there him with a don’t-you-wish-you-knew smirk. “A good witch never tells. The fates will unravel it all when it’s time.”
“Bunch of riddles and poppycock,” Vance grumbles. “These three are perfect and they’ll be telling the universe what’s good, not the other way around.”
Griselda rubs her hands together with glee. “Bet on it?”
Vance doesn’t hesitate. He sticks out his hand to shake on the deal. Griselda cackles in triumph and uses her considerable magical powers to snatch Marisol from his burly arms and disappear in a poof only to appear again a second later on the other side of the dragon moonstones, cooing and making faces at the baby. Vance—who has three new names tattooed over his heart in a scary font—glares at Griselda as if she wouldn’t mow down heaven and earth to protect the girls from any and all dangers.
Good luck to both of them on that. Trouble always tends to find us Sherwoods—and we handle it. Okay, fine, it may take us a while to do it and we make a ton of mistakes in the process, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that there is a core of power within each of us, we only have to get out of our own way and figure out how to tap into it. After that? Witchingdom doesn’t stand a chance.