Never Been Witched (17 page)

He knew damned well they didn’t.

Damn, slam, he needed to relax. Sex would help. With Destiny, he could get addicted. How had he relaxed for the first thirty years of his life?

There you go. He had never relaxed, not when sex was a one-man show.

As he pulled on his jeans, he spotted the calendar with Wednesday circled. What the flipping day was it? He buttoned his jeans, turned, and walked into the bedroom door. “Ouch.” Creeping crenellations; good lesson. Never think sex and walk at the same time. He opened the door, and Caramello raced inside—the reason it had been closed in the first place.

She passed him, slid across the floor at warp speed, and hit the wall. Yowling she took a slippery turn to chase him and got caught in his legs, tripping him, until he picked her up. “There. Are you satisfied now?”

She chatter yowled her appreciation and rubbed her head against his neck.

Morgan shook his head and carried the lovesick cat into the kitchen. “What day is it?”

“Wednesday, I think.”

“I was afraid of that. Can’t do a picnic. I have to call my parents.”

“There’s no landline or cell phone service on the island.”

He tapped her nose. “Precisely why I’m going to town to call them. I’ll take you to breakfast. The water taxi’s coming in ten, no, twenty minutes. Get dressed and come with me. Get a move on.”

“I could stop and see Reggie and Jake, and see how Reggie’s managing with the shop. Sweet sassafras tea, I could get some fresh clothes that aren’t stiff and scratchy from seawater. Unless you’re still trying to get rid of me.” She batted her lashes like a sex kitten.
His
sex kitten.

He kissed her, didn’t want to stop, but resisted her pull. “No, I’m addicted to you. If you stayed in town, I’d have to stay there with you, because there’s still so much for you to teach me. So you’ll be coming back with me later, and I’ll hear no arguments about it.” He set out to slap her fine ass but turned it into a caress. Then he took her by the shoulders and turned her to face the stairs. “Get a move on before I throw you on the parlor rug and have my lusty way with you.”

“Hold that thought,” she said, running up the stairs.

The water taxi arrived on time. Destiny did not. “Hurry up,” Morgan called up the stairs. “You’re gonna change when you get home anyway.”

“That’s true,” she said, coming down, trying to pull her hair into a ponytail.

Morgan grabbed her hand and dragged her out the door.

“Wait. I lost my scrunchy. I won’t be able to put up my hair.”

“Good, I like your hair down and dancing in the wind the way it is.”

“It’s a mess.”

“Yeah, wild, like you coming in my arms in an outdoor shower.”

She stopped and crossed her arms. “So you’re saying my hair makes me look like a wild woman?”

Morgan picked her up, carried her to the water taxi, and waited until they were under way to speak. He sat them out of earshot of the driver. “I’m saying you look alluring—”

“Sinsational, fantasmaglorious, seductive?” she offered. “So do you.”

“Yes to how you look,” he said. “Me? I’m just a prime stud.”

She raised her brows.

Somehow, her expression became a source of pride. He grinned, not even sure why she looked that way.

Destiny shook her head as if he might be a lost cause, but a
charming
one. Oh, the power.

He owed his growing self-confidence to the scorching sorceress because of her scintillating sex lessons, which set him free of his sanctified shackles, made him less inhibited and more himself. He’d finally shed his confining cocoon. He whistled and placed an arm around her, turned them to face the wind, and kissed her.

He felt alive for the first time since . . . Meggie’s death.

Destiny must have sensed the change in him. “Your satisfaction did a quick backpedal,” she said as he helped her from the boat. “Did you forget something?”

He paid the driver and added a tip big enough to remove her bad impression of him, then he turned to the source of his former high spirits. “A wildcat with the instincts of a fortune-teller. You freak me out sometimes.”

“Then I’m right.”

“You’ve been right too scary often. I just hope your roll comes to a quick stop, short of the tower collapsing.”

She caught his arm, leaned into him, and regarded him earnestly. “So do I.”

Arm in arm, they walked to his car, which he paid to park on the dock.

“I never pegged you for the toy car type. It’s a nice old Mustang.”

“Nice! I refurbished it myself. It’s a king of the road Cobra, a ’68 Shelby Mustang Convertible, GT500 KR, 428 Jet V-8 engine, one of only five hundred and thirty produced. Note the racing stripes. I’m talking
deep
rebellion.”

“Lucky for me.” Her grin made him want to make love to her in his car, convertible top down, in broad daylight.

He resisted and drove the short distance to Destiny’s house, a Victorian that also housed the family business, painted in colors he couldn’t have chosen better: eggplant, sage, and buttercream, the colors he’d painted his latest birdhouse. Hmm. Something more in common? Or something else psychic on her part?

“Aunt Destiny!” Jake whooped as he came running down the porch steps to meet her.

Destiny got out for a hug, and to Morgan’s surprise, after Jake embraced Destiny, the kid grabbed his legs in a tight bear hug. “Hey, Uncle Morgan.”

Touched, Morgan took the boy up in his arms. “Hey there, buddy. How do you like helping your mom in the shop?”

“I’m no help. I’m a pest. She said so.”

Morgan ruffled Jake’s dark hair. Hard to believe Jake was King’s grandson. “Bet your mom grins when she says it.”

Jake rolled his eyes. “Not all the time.”

Reggie, Jake’s mom and King’s daughter, followed a departing customer as she came out to greet them. Destiny’s sister, Harmony, had married King, which made Reggie . . . no relation at all. But in Destiny’s family, any connection made her a sister. Every sister—half, whole, identical, or in between—worked at the Immortal Classic, the Cartwright family business, at one time or another.

“Thanks again, Reggie,” Destiny said, “for filling in for me here.”

Reggie looked from one of them to the other. “What are you two doing together? Des, I thought you stayed home from Scotland to keep from being paired with Morgan. Oops, sorry.” Reggie clapped a hand over her mouth, catching Destiny’s wide-eyed warning later than he did.

“Let me,” Morgan said. “I went to the lighthouse to keep from being paired with Destiny in Scotland.”

“How’s that workin’ out for you?” Reggie asked, her gaze flitting between the two of them, her eyes growing wider by the minute, as if she’d discerned the inconspicuous fact that they were sleeping together. “What is it with the women in this family?” Reggie asked. “Do you all have some kind of skewed man radar that you
ignore
?”

Destiny nodded. “Exactly. That’s why Morgan and I are ignoring each other.”

Reggie chuckled. “Sure you are. And that invisible fireball you’re juggling between you is a figment of my imagination?”

“What fireball?” Jake asked.

Reggie looked them up and down. “The kind that flares fast and hot,” she said, “and leaves a path of destruction behind.”

Chapter Twenty-five

“I don’t see no fireball,” Jake said.

“Adults only,” his mother said, which made the boy shrug.

Morgan chuckled. “Hey, we’re doing our own thing, separately, except when we’re doing it together, if it’s convenient, like now. I needed to come to town and call my parents.”

“And I needed fresh clothes.”

Reggie chuckled. “You brought a shipload of clothes.”

“I know, but they went down with the ship.”

“You wanna run that by me again?” Reggie asked.

“Later,” Destiny said.

“Okayyyy.” Reggie cleared her throat. “Well, I’m glad you’re here. I could use a business consultation.”

Morgan was glad they were here, too.

“Perfect,” he and Destiny said together, which caught them in Reggie’s super radar. Slam.

“Uncle Morgan,” Jake said. “Will you take me for a ride in your muscle car?”

Morgan looked at Reggie. “Where does he get these things?”

“Television. Books. He’s a sponge.”

“Can I take him for a ride? It’s okay to say no.”

Reggie looked at Destiny, who gave a nod of approval, then at Morgan. “Are you sure you want to put a car seat in that beauty?”

“What good is a car this rad if I can’t take a connoisseur for a ride?”

Reggie knelt in front of her son. “Company manners. Bathroom before you leave, and don’t ask Uncle Morgan for anything.”

“Can I take a—”

“
One
toy. No food.”

Jake ran. “I’m bringing my mustang!” He returned with a mini Mustang, over which he and Morgan totally bonded.

“Are you sure this is okay with you, Reggie?” Morgan asked again as he strapped Jake into his seat.

“This is a blessing.” She leaned in and kissed her son’s cheek, before she shut his door. “Thanks, Morgan, Jake needs the occasional distraction, especially with a male influence. He’s too smart and gets bored easily.”

Morgan got into the driver’s seat. “Let’s go, Baby Einstein, I’ll let you teach me about Salem. I’ve never taken the tour.”

“Can you drop the baby part of my nickname?” Jake asked. “Einstein is fine.”

Once again, Morgan bit off a smile. “Einstein it is. I’ll follow the trolley but
you
can tell me about Salem.”

Turned out that the Parker Brothers invented Monopoly in Salem. Who knew? Jake made fun of the touristy haunts, but he knew a lot about the history of the city, the witch trials—big surprise—the Counting House, and the House of the Seven Gables. Jake gave an enchanting tour with his small voice and big words. Morgan grinned with pride and amusement the whole way.

When he spotted a pet store, Morgan pulled into the parking lot. “Jake, I’m not buying a pet for either of us,” he said unbuckling the boy. “I couldn’t get you one without your mother’s permission, anyway. You understand that, right?”

“Sure.” Jake pulled on his hand, too curious and eager to let his caution stop him from exploring.

“As long as you know that we’re here to bark at the pooches and yowl at the cats.”

“Cats don’t yowl. They meow.”

“Have you met Caramello?”

“That’s one strange cat,” Jake said. “Are you here to buy a dog?”

Morgan ruffled his hair. “Someday, I wanna buy a schnoodle, but not today.”

Jake giggled. “Schnoodle, noodle, doodle.”

Once upon a time, Morgan had been trying to earn enough money to buy a schnoodle for his sister’s thirteenth birthday, which she never celebrated. Meggie had passed too soon. Way too soon.

After checking out the guinea pigs, cats, and gerbils, with Jake wide-eyed and happy, they found a pen of take-me-home adorable teddy bear schnoodles. Jake fell for a black and brown male, but Morgan preferred the silver, curly haired girl pup with white eyebrows. She seemed to go for him as much as he did for her. “Boy, I’d like to take this one home with me right now,” Morgan said. He and Jake were being licked to within an inch of their lives.

Jake’s giggles were contagious. “Buy her.”

Morgan laughed. “What would I do with her on a construction site?”

“Can’t you take him to work with you?”

“Her. This one’s a her,” Morgan said.

“Is mine a girl or a boy dog?”

“That one’s a boy.”

“How do you know?”

Holy crap. That’d teach him. And there was no fooling Einstein, here. Morgan picked up the black and brown so Jake could see beneath it. “Anything under there look familiar to you?”

“Ohhhh,” Jake said. “He’s got a peanut.”

Whew,
Morgan thought. Not as bad as he expected.

“Show me the girl dog, Uncle Morgan.”

Okayyy. Morgan showed him, and Jake scrunched his brows. “Girls don’t have peanuts, do they? People girls or doggie girls?”

“Right.” Please let this be the end of it.

“When you work on a house, your puppy could play outside,” Jake said, and Morgan released his breath.

“Maybe. C’mon, let’s go. Your mom and Aunt Des are probably finished doing business by now.”

“Bummer,” Jake said, hands in his pockets, head down as they left.

It might have been a tactical error, taking the boy to a pet shop, Morgan thought. Hindsight is so clear.

Back at the Immortal Classic, Jake said he needed to talk to Destiny alone, so Morgan stayed in the bright vintage clothing shop with Reggie. He looked around at the shelves of antique curios and understood why Destiny could identify all the old junk at the lighthouse.

Then he faced Reggie and cupped his neck. “I, ah, took Jake to a pet shop, and he fell in love with a black teddy bear schnoodle with a brown mask.”

“Morgan Jarvis! How could you?”

“That’s not the half of it. He now knows what boy dogs have that girl dogs don’t, and he made the connection to people.”

“Of course he did,” Reggie said. “I’m surprised it took him this long. Then again, he’s never had such a clear comparison. Thanks loads.”

Morgan felt his ears warm, but Reggie waved away his embarrassment.

“I thought he’d like the pet store. I’m thinking about getting myself a schnoodle when I buy the lighthouse.”

“Did you find a pup you liked?”

“I did, a bit precipitously, a silver, curly haired girl dog. A real sweetie.”

“Are you going to get her?”

“I’m seriously considering it. Have you heard from your dad?”

“They’re having a good time in Scotland. I miss him. I didn’t know him when I was growing up, but now I can’t wait for him to come home.”