Witches in Flight (38 page)

It took all of Caro’s self-control not to snoop.
 
“So long as it’s not a yarn store down
the street, how can we help?”

Elsie blinked.
 
“Why
would I open a yarn store?”

Caro grinned.
 
Good—Jamie was going to lose the betting pool.
 
She was pretty sure he’d picked that
choice just to tweak her, but still.

“This place isn’t about just the yarn,” said Elsie softly.
 
“I couldn’t make anything half this perfect
if I tried.
 
And besides—“ Her
eyes brightened.
 
“I’m going to
need all of you.
 
You’re in my
business plan.”

“Oh goodie,” said Helga dryly—but her eyes twinkled.
 

“Plans can be very useful things.”
 
Elsie’s prim retort gave Jodi the giggles.

Caro grinned—Elsie imitated her old self very well when
she wanted to—but her mind hadn’t radiated that awful, tightly wound
feeling in ages.

“Not much I can do besides knit.”
 
Marion held up her needles.
 
“Any chance you could use a blanket or two?”

Elsie planted a huge kiss on her cheek.
 
“Absolutely.
 
A couple of your brightest, happiest ones.
 
Pillows too, if it wouldn’t be too much
trouble.
 
Nice, big, squishy ones.”

Caro chuckled quietly as a very pleased Marion bustled over to
the part of the store that contained most of the eye-popping colors.
 
Elsie would have her blankets and
pillows as fast as Marion’s hands could churn them out.

Helga tapped her needles on the counter expectantly.
 
“Ahem.”

Elsie grinned.
 
“Some nice cozies for cups and mugs and teapots?
 
In soft, pretty yarns—things
people will want to touch.”
 
She
turned to Jodi.
 
“And some cuddly
toys and stuffies for the little ones.”

Caro smiled and waited for Elsie’s knitting army to move off on
their yarn-scouting missions.
 
“What am I making?”
 
There
wasn’t much left, if she was correctly guessing where this was headed.

“It’s not your needles I need.”
 
Their newest knitter looked tentative now.
 
“I’m hoping you can help me pull it all
together.
 
So it feels right.”
 
Elsie waved her arm around the
store.
 
“You know how to create a
space people don’t want to leave.”

It was the nicest compliment she’d had in a long time.
 
“You just tell me when.”
 
Caro heard the gruffness in her
voice.
 
And started planning the
artwork for Elsie’s walls in her head.

~ ~ ~

Lauren walked into the Headbeater Cafe, snickering at Josh’s
choice of home turf for his showdowns with Witch Central.
 
Maybe he felt better with biker
baristas at his back.

He didn’t know she’d sold the owner his house four months
ago—she was one of about three people in Berkeley who actually got decent
service at the Headbeater.
 
She
perched on a stool beside Josh and waved at Mike behind the counter.
 
It was all she needed to do—her
coffee desires never changed, and he had a mind like an elephant.

Josh blinked as a cappuccino slapped onto the counter in front
of her moments later.
 
“Wow.
 
You Mike’s loan shark or something?”

She grinned.
 
“Something like that.”
 
A
good negotiator never gave up an advantage.
 
For now, Josh could think this was his place.

It never disturbed her to bring the action to someone else’s
turf anyhow.
 
“So, I hear you
offered my assistant a job.”
 
Always paid to be friends with the bus driver, although Freddie had been
rather circumspect on the details.

“Not exactly.”
 
Josh
had a pretty good poker face.
 
“I
offered her a partnership.
 
A
chance to join our team.
 
We’re all
part owners in the company—she would be too.
 
You here to beat me up for trying to swipe her?”

She wasn’t sure yet.
 
“Why’d you make her the offer?”

His eyebrows zinged up.
 
“She’s smart, creative, works until she drops, and the rest of the team
was threatening to go kidnap her if I didn’t.
 
Danny even offered to throw in his restored vintage Pac-Man
console to sweeten the deal.”

Lauren assumed that was a good thing.
 
“So this was purely business?”

His eyebrows crawled up even further.
 
“What is it with you mind witches?
 
Lizard would be seriously pissed if she knew this
conversation was happening.
 
You
know that, right?”

Damn, she liked him.
 
Lauren grinned.
 
“We have a
born need to poke our noses in where they don’t belong.
 
Let’s go back to the part where you’re
trying to swipe my assistant.”

He grinned.
 
“I can
probably find you another delinquent to replace her.
 
Danny knows people.”

She managed not to laugh.
 
Barely.
 
“I’m pretty fond of
the delinquent I have.
 
You might
not get her.”

“I know.”
 
His voice
was just a shade too nonchalant.
 

Cripes.
 
“I didn’t
mean on the personal front.
 
I
think you’re actually doing pretty well there—and if you tell her I said
so, I’ll have Mike put nasty things in your coffee.”

He sighed.
 
“It’s
all tangled up.
 
I want the woman
with brains and genius, and the woman who gets all gooey when Bean smiles, and
the woman who threatens me with scrambled eggs.”

There had to be a good story behind the scrambled eggs.
 
And she was so not getting
distracted.
 
“You think prying her
out of my office will get you all those things?”

Josh smiled slowly into his coffee.
 
“Nope.”

Lauren studied his profile.
 
And then she knew.
 
“You expect her to turn you down.
 
The business offer, I mean.”

“Maybe both,” he said ruefully.
 
“But yeah.
 
I
do.”
 

She knew why—but she asked anyhow.
 
He deserved the chance to answer. “Then
why did you ask her?”

He looked up, eyes intent.
 
“Because she’s never had two really good choices before.
 
She deserves them.”

Damn.
 
She
really
liked him.

Lizard walked in the front door of her office, a lime-green
folder in one hand and emergency coffee in the other.
 
This early, her boss wasn’t guaranteed to have had her
required caffeine yet.

Lauren looked at the folder and grinned.
 
“I’ve seen one of those before.”

Curse her boss’s insanely good memory.
 
“This offer’s smarter than my last one.”

“I should hope so.”
 
Lauren leaned back in her chair, negotiator face sliding into
place.
 
“What do you have?”

Oh, no.
 
She was so
not falling for that.
 
Negotiator
faces weren’t all that different from delinquent scowls—they covered up
the human being inside.
 
She wanted
to make this deal woman-to-woman.

Lizard sat down at the desk.
 
“Josh offered me craploads of money and the chance to spend
all day geeking out.”
 
And pits
full of superballs, but Lauren might not think of those as a job benefit.

Lauren nodded, voice casual and mind totally locked down.
 
“I heard.
 
It’s a great offer.”

“I’m going to do it.”
 
Lizard waited a beat, hoping to see a crack in her boss’s armor.
 
“Very part time.
 
I told him I’ll come in and be the
ideas girl two days a month, for one-fifteenth of a crapload of money.”
 
From a safe distance, via late-night
text.

For just a heartbeat, Lauren’s lips quirked.
 
“Sounds like a reasonable
counteroffer.”

To hell with this.
 
Lizard dropped her mind barriers.
 
“I want to be here.
 
Long
term and not just as your intern.
 
We can squabble about the details and negotiate the hell out of this, or
you can say no.
 
But that’s what I
want.”
 

Up front and straight out.
 
Lizard Monroe was done with bullshitting the world about what she
wanted.

It was pretty cool to watch Lauren’s poker face get all melty.

Her boss fingered the edges of the green folder.
 
“Why?”

Lizard rolled her eyes for form, but she’d expected the
question—and spent the last twenty-four hours getting the answer word
perfect.
 
Reaching under the other
stuff in her folder, she pulled out a ratty piece of paper—one of the
last from the notebook she’d carried onto Freddie’s bus for ten years.
 
“Because I like what we do.
 
And because of this.”

She watched Lauren’s eyes tracing the words—and knew
exactly what they read.

You looked at me and saw brains while I yelled “stupid.”

You
shared what you love—and waited.

You
fed me witch-sized portions of linguine

and
woman-sized portions of respect.

You
expected me to get it right.

You
looked past the crap and told me the truth.

You
claimed me as yours.

Lauren looked up from the paper, eyes bright.
 
“You know you could ask for pretty much
anything you want right now, right?”

Lizard grinned.
 
“I
learned from the best.”
 

~ ~ ~

Elsie had a plan. A bold, audacious, carefully annotated
plan—written in three hours.
 
It warmed every side of her heart.

And very little of the plan could happen without help.
 

Her knitters were underway.
 
The next stop was Berkeley Real Estate.
 
She pulled open the door, a plate of
brownies in her hand.
 
Copious
amounts of chocolate greased the wheels of Witch Central, even before
breakfast—and she had a lot of people to invite into her corner.

But first, she needed a corner.
 
And Lizard was the perfect person to help with that.

She dropped the brownies on her roommate’s desk.
 
“I need a place to live.
 
One where I can run my new
business.”
 
She slid a sheet of
paper in beside the plate.
 
“Here’s
a list of the features I’m hoping for, in descending order of priority.”

Lizard blinked and ignored the sheet.
 
“You’re moving out?”

That tugged on achy strings in Elsie’s heart.
 
“The townhouse doesn’t have enough
space for what I need, and it’s not zoned for business.
 
Besides, our time at WitchLight is
almost up.”

“Caro’s happy for you to stay as long as you want.”
 
Lauren leaned against the wall, eyes
sharp.
 
“What kind of business are
you looking to run?”