AllFreeNovel
Share Us
That time was difficult with Kiara barely being on her feet without a mother in sight. Romance wasn’t in the books for me. Hell, I had barely gotten laid at that point in time. Now, if I wanted a taste of a woman, I had to go to the dive bar in town and try to pick someone up.
Even then, I didn’t have much luck. Tonight might be different if I just try to smile like everybody says, but I didn’t have much of a natural smile in me. I was too troubled. Though I did my best, it seemed to scare women off to see whatever passed as a smile on my face. Just not much luck there.
Eh, it was a Tuesday, anyway. Work would be full of tasks, and then I would go snoop around my daughter’s apartment building to see who in the world had arrived at a ripe hour of the morning when everyone else was still asleep. She looked familiar. I couldn’t put my finger on how exactly, but I would tinker with it as I got ready for work.
While scratching my head, I wandered to the bedside table, tapping the lamp back on. I grabbed the brass handle of my bedroom door, pulled it open, and shuffled into the hallway. To the left was the bathroom, and to the right was a guest room with its own bathroom. The stairs were right across from my door. There were a few times I tripped and fell down the stairs, damn near tumbling out the front door with how perfectly the paths were positioned.
I knew better now. My body knew better. Just as it had learned with consistent training, it knew the layout of the house. I could walk this place with my eyes closed—and often did.
After flipping on the bathroom light, I squinted at the white bulbs above the wide bathroom mirror, sighing at the wrinkles under my eyes. Too many shadows, both physically and metaphorically. Maybe a shower would cheer me up and prepare me to greet the day with that speck of light I was always hoping to find to carry me out of my shadowy nightmares.
At the very least, I could have a little hope.
Chapter 2 - Regina
“Thanks for taking me into town,” Kiara said, leaning her olive forehead with sepia-brown freckles against the passenger window of my Honda Civic. “Dad works too much.”
I shot her a quick grin. “Yeah, of course.”
“It’s been a minute since you’ve been back.”
“You know, family stuff.”
She snorted. “Witches.”
“I could have the same attitude about wolves.”
We shared a laugh.
Ah, it felt so good to laugh. So many nights had been spent lately in a pit of despair instead of laughing. Even now, as I gripped the steering wheel at ten and two like my father taught me, I felt the way grief warred in my chest.
But he wouldn’t want me to pout and kick the ground like a toddler; he’d want me to soldier on. Like any good Navarro witch, I would keep my chin up with proud tears and handle the affairs of my late Papa.
Even if it meant presenting an ominous-looking wooden box without any symbols on it to Kiara’s broody father.
I reached for the box instinctively, tapping the top of the cherry-colored wood with the tip of my long, unpainted nail. “Thanks for not judging me.”
“For what?”
“For using magic to hide my ugly, snotty crying back there.”
She rested her hand over mine—over the one laying on the box between us on the beige leather center console. Comfort trickled from her palm to the top of my hand, and then suddenly, it was like I was sitting in front of a warm hearth with a delicious cup of hot cocoa while the world outside went into a deep winter slumber.
I sighed. “You always had a power I couldn’t quite understand.”
“What’s that?”
“The power of influence.” I glanced at her briefly. “Wolves like you can just comfort each other with touch. It’s like natural magic that I can’t tap into.”
She chortled. “Honey, you can literally turn a guy into a toad if you want.”
“Hey, those were extenuating circumstances. He was bugging you.”
“Yeah, well, he ended up having a feast on those horse flies, right?”
Another laugh. Another chipped part of my heart healing. Slowly. Achingly slow. One of the hardest parts of losing someone was the hole it left in me. Never did the hole go away completely. But something in my surroundings—usually a friend or a loving reminder of that person—helped bandage the wound.
At least then, the hole was covered up.
