The Cowboy Genie's Wife: A Paranormal Romance (The Dirty Djinn Series) (3 page)

And she didn’t need him.

She’d learned. Taken night classes. Bettered herself. Her work wasn’t easy, but it was honest, and she was fine with it.

Mostly.

She was less fine with being coddled and spoken down to. Her love for Fazil birthed a mad, crazy existence, full of outrageous moments. That was the problem. In a life of magical absurdity, they’d abandoned the “little” moments other couples took for granted.

There was nothing mundane in a baby’s snore or sitting on a balcony and letting the breeze hit you. Yet, all that was a touch too boring for Fazil.

Which made this ranch of his even more insane. A place like this allowed for ... well ... moments.

“You coming? Here’s the living room.”

A proper tour of the place revealed Fazil hadn’t completely turned over a new gold-encrusted leaf. “I can honestly say I’ve never seen a log mansion.”

“It’s not so big.”

“Yeah, right.” The living room’s massive fireplace was second in size to a television which popped out of a concealed wall. How many log homes had a pool in the back and a movie theatre in the basement? She wasn’t sure.

He pointed out the stairs to the wine cellar when his face scrunched up. “What?”

“It’s a little much, don’t you think?”

“I’m in the middle of friggin’ nowhere. I ought to be able to relax. So, no. I don’t think it’s a bit much.”

“Course not.”

He sighed and led her through a back door. Now
this
place fit her imagination, as if it were something out of a Wild West show. Two stables emerged with fencing buttressed against each other, though only one stable had its massive red doors open. “Okay, barns. Got it. What are the other half dozen buildings for? More unnecessary djinn excess?”

Fazil slapped his hand across his jeans. “I don’t even know why I try.”

“Let me guess. That barn holds two machines of every type. That one has them in silver. And that one has them in gold. I’m not far off, am I?”

He looked over and arched his eyebrow. “Sheep shelter, greenhouse, cow shed, chicken coop, and yes, unbedazzled machinery. One harvester. One tractor.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m...”

“Sorry?”

“Shocked.” But he kept going. Fazil also pointed out a beehive, a vegetable garden, pasturelands, and an orchard. “This is totally self-supporting, isn’t it?”

“Yep. I’ve got solar and wind power running through. I, or rather, the animals make my own fertilizer. I cheated in the beginning and hired all kinds of folks to help. But I learned. I consider it a big-ass Zen garden.”

“This isn’t like you.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I was married to you.” And still was, but he got massive points for keeping that to himself. She followed him to the barn.

Spotted, snorting pigs ran up to the fence line, and she gave their juicy noses a pat. “You’re serious about this, aren’t you?”

“These guys need to be fed at exactly the same time. They’re smart and ornery like you.”

“Funny.”

“Just saying.” His fingers dotted the air, counting. “I’m missing one. Rosa? Rosa!”

She tapped his shoulder. “Stop screaming. I’m right here.”

“Not you. The pig.”

“You named your pig after your wife?” Equal parts rage and amusement battled for dominance within her. In the end, legitimate surprise won out. “The least you could do is lie about it.”

“She’s a mean sow who screeches for no damned reason.”

“Oh, you!” She took a swipe, but he ducked, grinning, and pulled her toward the barn. “Something isn’t right. She never misses food.”

What was not right ended up being something good. The three-hundred-pound, wiry-haired creature tiptoed soft as angel hair around five cuddly piglets. Rosa reached for one, but Fazil stayed her hand. “Too soon?”

“Rosa’s got a mean streak with strangers. She only comes for me.”

Whether he’d intended the double entendre or not, she didn’t know, but she sure didn’t have the nerve to look up and check. He hovered beside her for a few seconds and sighed, but soon, the heat of him was gone. She kept pace several steps behind.

Fazil disappeared to a workstation of sorts. A tall, long table had an assortment of bags and bottles. He waved her over and pointed to several see-through vats. “Horse, pig, goats, and chickens.”

“Goats?”

“I’m sure as hell not going to mow the lawn. They’re on a little looser schedule than the pigs. Just watch out for the black one. His name’s Tig, and he likes to head-butt.”

She glanced over her shoulder to the stall of the mother and her children. “Shouldn’t we call a doctor?”

“About?”

“The newborns.”

He snorted, an
almost
cute grin on his face, and handed her a billion-pound feed bag. “It’s not like they need birth certificates. Motherhood is the most natural thing in the world.”

“Oh, my gosh. You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”

He withdrew some tablets and pulverized them with a mortar and pestle. “Vitamins,” he said. “And yes. Ehh, I was rusty after a few centuries, but I got the hang of it. Back then, it was camels, goats, and falcons. I’ll admit the bees scare the hell out of me. Getting ‘don’t sting me’ wishes out here takes more prayer than magic. The fresh honey’s worth it though.”

“I bet. Fazil, I had no idea this was out here.”

“If I’d have told you, you wouldn’t have believed me.” He mixed the vitamins with a handful of food and dragged the bag over to the sow. “And if you had believed me, what would you have thought about it?”

That he’d planned the whole thing, just to get her back. She didn’t dismiss that outright, but still...

Still, to say she wasn’t impressed would be a bold-faced lie.

He moved with a surety that whispered Fazil had plenty of experience with this. She almost asked what had happened to her tuxedoed city boy but bit back her tongue. Her Fazil preferred high-rise condos and urban life to anything like this. “You always told me to blend in. Can’t really do that out here.”

“Yeah, well I distinctly remember you telling me the East Coast wasn’t big enough for the both of us. You told me to go to—”

“Fazil—”

“I chose Arizona instead of fucking myself. You’re right though, the thing about living in the middle of nowhere is that the second you head to the closest
somewhere,
everyone’s in your business. I’d forgotten that along the way. It’ll stay in the family though. When, uh, if we have kids, they can run it and their kids and by then, we can come back.”

Lotta nerve. Who jumps from not speaking to planning for grandkids? “I wondered where the cocky bastard was.”

Fazil jumped from the squealing pig and recapped the syringe before throwing it across the way into a bin. “I’m not being ... listen ... what do you expect me to do?”

“Respect my decisions, for one. I didn’t come here to rekindle anything. I’m here because ... because...” She didn’t have the words to finish it. The weak, insipid ones sprang to mind. She came because she was scared. She came because she panicked. She came because... “I came because I didn’t have anywhere else to go, and that’s your fault too.”

“’Course it is. Why don’t you sit your pretty little ass in the house and think of reasons to hate me, while I finish up out here. When I’m done, I’ll come in and play superhero again.”

“Fine. I don’t want to be out here with you anyway.”

“Message received.” He shoved by her, arms full of feed. She beat back the guilt at watching him work by himself. This was his farm—he ought to do this. Every single thing she said had been the gospel truth. He was still a smug, overconfident, rich jerk who...

Who scratched beneath the beardy thing on one goat while kissing another between the ears?

Nope. She wouldn’t buy into that. She knew him too well.

Her stupid eyes watered for no good reason. Must be allergies. She refused to shed another tear over this man, so she turned around and headed back to the large table in the rear of the barn. He had to have tissues or towels somewhere.

He did, above a small sink.

And a mirror.

Good.

Right?

She could clean herself up and see what she was working with.

Great plan.

Until ancient, blazing, and very disembodied green eyes stared back at her from the oblivion.

Don’t panic.
Try repeating that a half dozen times while keeping your heart from running out of your chest, but whatcha gonna do? Eyes without heads are freaky as hell. After pretending to fix her hair in the mirror, she dropped her gaze and washed her shaking hands. The eyes continued to bore into her—almost burning, but she pretended not to notice. Her mind jumped with best guesses of what to do next.

Back when they first met, Fazil told her not to acknowledge anything she even suspected as magic. People would do anything to get their hands on a genie and his lamp. She had every protection when he was around and next to zero when he wasn’t. That meant years of never turning when she thought she saw something out of the corner of her eye and forgoing every double take of things that didn’t make sense.

This time must be no different.

She reapplied her lip gloss, backed up, and once she’d rounded the corner and was out of the mirror’s line of vision, ran as if the devil himself chased her.

H
e couldn’t win. All the annoying things she’d harangued him over, he fixed. Or tried to fix. He’d Grizzly Adams’d himself for her, but she still copped an attitude. “I give up. I swear.”

If she heard him, he wasn’t sure. Safe money said “no,” considering all the hoofing she did on the way out the door. He grabbed ahold of the streaking flash of neon pink that was his wife as she ran by.

“Eyes,” she whispered.

“Huh?”

“What kind of weird, jacked-up magic are you running up in here?”

“Baby—”

She fought against him, struggling and kicking. “Let go. There are eyes staring at me from the back of the barn. I’m not crazy.”

“You are.” But that didn’t mean she was lying. “If I put you down, will you stay?”

“Hell no. Why are you so blasé about this? Eyes, man. There are eyes chilling by the faucet. I have a problem with that. You should too. Now, let me go.”

There was a better than good chance she didn’t see what she thought she did, but he wasn’t in the mood to argue. “If there’s something back there, all you’re doing is wasting my time in finding out what.”

“I’m not doing anything other than trying to get away.”

“And if there is something, we kinda need each other to fix it, don’t we?” The bundle against his chest stopped its twisting, exchanging kicks for grunts and sighs. Good. As a djinn, his magic came from the hopes of humans. He couldn’t do jack-crap without her. He still didn’t trust her not to bolt and threw her over his shoulder as he headed to the back. He’d expected more kicking, at least the obligatory fists against his back, but she sagged against him like a wet noodle. “Nothing?”

“Nope. I’ll just hang here like dead fish.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” But the harsh words didn’t resonate in his heart. The last time he’d had her like this, he carted his giggling wife to their bedroom in the lamp.

How had they strayed so far away from their happiness? What would it take to get back to where they belonged?

“Fazil? Why have we stopped moving?”

“Sorry. Just ... thinking...” As much as it hurt, he put her down when he reached the back and put his game face on. Until he saw what they were dealing with, he didn’t want Rosa in direct line of harm. “On my word, wish it away,” he whispered.

He turned the corner to peer into the mirror, coming face to face with, yep, green, nosey eyes. Eyes he knew well. They flashed and blinked at his arrival before disappearing in a swirling haze of smoke. “All clear.”

“No!” Rosa rushed forward, kicking up dirt and shaking her head toward the now empty mirror. “Something was there. I saw it. You’ve got to believe me.”

“Oh, I do. That
something
would be Janet Dickey.”

“Another djinn?”

“Hardly.”

Rosa redid the fallen bun atop her head, eyes shifting from the mirror to him and back again. “I wish...”

“Careful. Wish for the protection of my lamp and all my property.”

“Done.”

“And done,” he said, hearing the hollow relief in both their voices. “Janet’s the old lady who owns the next property over.”

“A witch?”

“Not quite.” How best to explain this? Human vocabulary didn’t allow for the wide range of Others that existed. “The Northmen said it best. She’s a klok gumma. Wise woman. In the old days, she would have been the equivalent of ... well ... midwives bring in new life with a touch of magic, see? They know healing and how to use the land and herbs. She’s human, like you, but also, like you, a little more.”

“Witches create power, like your in-laws in Galveston.”

“Yep.” His eyes crinkled at the mention of the crazy wives of Tig and Faruq. He might have called them up at this, but with both women preggers with their third kids, he’d have to deal with Janet on his own.

“But klok gummas can’t? You sure about that? Glowing eyes in mirrors and all.”

“Klok gummas can see magic. Some of the amazing ones can command it. This ought to be a little beyond her. I’m not worried, but—”

“Concerned?”

He shrugged it off for her benefit, but he would keep a better eye on the old woman. “Anyway, you can’t get up here without passing her land. I almost never get visitors, at least not ones in sports cars.”

“She can’t spy on you whenever she likes. Call her out on it.”

“Can’t.”

“Oh, this better be good.”

“She thinks I’m something but doesn’t know what. I need to keep it that way. I don’t think she’s evil, just stupid. But if I’ve learned one thing in all my years, fear and small mindedness cause more harm than evil. She came up to me one day last year and basically said that she didn’t appreciate my type of magic here. She’s got a good thing going, blending in and all. The lady thinks I’m here to cause trouble.”

“So, tell her you’re not.”