It was more of a relief than she liked to admit, eluding that expressionless blue-eyed stare and the eerie mask created by the bulb’s cold light. She hastened from the passage and back to the nook behind the counter. Hands shaking, she removed her apron, hung it up. Then, because she’d promised, she pulled out a slip of scrap paper and a pencil, jotted down the address of Mrs. Boggs’s building. It didn’t occur to her until later that she’d refused to give that address to Ward. Or to the aunties. But if Mr. Grimm needed it for the pursuit of love, well! Who was she to stand in his way?
She finished scrawling out the street number, threw down the pencil so hard, it bounced to the floor to land beside the pruning shears, then nearly doubled-over coughing. Hard. Harder than before. It felt like she might bring up a lung.
When the fit subsided, she felt a stern, avian stare fixed upon her. She lifted her head, scowling at Debbie. “Never mind!” she snapped.
Startled, Debbie fluttered her wings and turned around on the skull-pot.
As there didn’t seem to be anything else to do, Luna grabbed her hat and coat, picked up her box of new shoes and, not bothering to change into them first, fled The Arcane Bouquet for the streets outside, hurrying as fast as her ice-cold feet could carry her.
The instant the shop bells stopped ringing, and he knew she was gone, Nigel emerged from the storage room in a dark cloud of wrath, stormed to the counter nook, and swept up the pruning shears from the floor. He marched across the shop, turned the sign to CLOSED, bolted the door.
Then he turned. Lifted his gaze to the ceiling pipes.
“All right, buster,” he snarled. “It’s just you and me. Get your berries right with your gods!”
A scuffle of movement overhead.
The next moment, the mistletoe dropped to the floor and, in a flurry of leaves and little white berries, fled across the shop for the passage. Nigel was on its tail in a trice, pruning shears snapping. It beat him to Garden’s door by a hair’s breadth. The door swung open, and it vanished into the vastness inside, but Nigel charged after it, weapon brandished high. He pursued it right across a broad green lawn, but just in the nick of time, the little bundle of leaves vanished into a dense grove of gorse, which Garden seemed to have grown up spontaneously just for its protection.
“You’reMULCH!”Nigel bellowed, hurling his voice and a series of curses into the gorse bushes. “If I ever see so much as aleafof mistletoe in my shop again,I’ll burn this whole place to the ground!”
Garden shuddered. The delicate, dawn-lit sky overhead became dangerously overcast. After what had happened with the Shadowbane Lady, it didn’t take kindly to such threats. But Nigel, undaunted, shook his pruning shears one last time. “That’s right!” he roared. Though he wasn’t entirely certainwhatwas right.
Particularly when everything felt so, so wrong.
With a final expletive, he turned to retrace his steps to Garden’s door, arms dropped heavily to his sides. The pruning shears dragged along the ground behind him, bumping close to his feet. He stepped back over the threshold and slammed the door behind him, blocking out the fresh scents of open air and a hundred thousand blossoms in exchange for the close atmosphere of the passage. Then he slumped heavily, back against the door, and buried his face in one hand.
Oh gods.
Why did hegrabher like that? Why? Why? Who did he think he was? Some kind ofbarbarian?Grabbing her arm, yanking her around. And what was he going to do? What was his big plan? Smash a kiss on that sweet and lovely and entirely kissable mouth of hers? Not just an accidental bump, no, but a real, toe-curling, heart-burning, blood-thumping, give-it-all-up-for-lovekisssuch as the mistletoe never dreamed to inspire!
Oh gods.
Oh gods.
It was a good thing Ward arrived just then. A very good thing. Yes. Because all those weeks of absence had lulled Nigel into a false sense of security. Without realizing what he was doing, he’d let himself feel as though Luna washis. Simply because she was there. With him. All day, every day. That mere proximity, withnothing to call it into question, had built up a sort of . . . of . . . proprietorship in him. Which had absolutely no right to be there.
He shuddered. After all, he hadn’t forgotten what it was like to love Jastira. Tobelongto Jastira. To so desperately try tomake her belongto him.
So much grasping. So much desperate control.
So, so, so much fear.
He never wanted to do that to Luna. Never.
But then . . . he went andyankedher like that . . .
“Oh gods,” he whispered.
Dropping the pruning shears, Nigel sank to the floor. Elbows on knees, hands in fists, he gritted his teeth and hit the back of his head rhythmically against the door. He didn’t believe in the Green Mother, but perhaps he should. Because surely it was Divine intervention which sent Wardsman Ward strolling into the shop just in that exact moment. Just in time to remind Nigel that Luna wasnothis, that he hadno rightto take her kisses. That she, as a woman, and particularly as his employee, deserved his respect, his consideration. His distance.
“Hands off, Grimm,” he growled. Closing his eyes, he breathed out a long gust or air. “Hands off.”
He would do better. He wouldbebetter. Better than he once was.
He would prove Jastira’s influence on him did not extend beyond the grave.
He would be the friend Miss Talbot needed, offer her his support as it was appropriate, and . . . and . . . and find a way to move on. That bit about asking out Miss Braithwait, that was a stroke of genius, wasn’t it? A nice little way to let Luna know she needn’t concern herself with any untowardincidentbetween them. It was nothing. She had no reason to worry, no reason to give her notice.
