Page 30 of Herbs & Hex-breaking

“When my father passed,” he continued, “I knew thanks to the precognitive dream that my mother would go full tilt with the company lawyers. She’d send people to start looking for me, try and force me back into the family business; and the last thing I wanted was for them to come here and intrude on the new life that I’d built.”

“So, you ran away and hid from everybody for a few weeks?”

His eyes met mine. “Actually, I went to see my uncle—my father’s brother in Mississippi. He’s an attorney and the only relative I still have contact with. Uncle Josh helped me to keep a low profile while I figured out how to deal with the mess of my family, the reading of the will, and the inheritance.”

“Hmph.” I tipped my head to one side as I considered that. “Lorna never mentioned anything about you still being in touch with an uncle.”

“The rest of my family had no idea that Josh and I are close, and I never told Lorna about him,” Dex admitted.

“Seems you do that a lot,” I said. “Not tell people the full story. Lorna’s been worried sick.”

“I know.”

“Have you contacted her yet?”

“No,” he said. “I wanted to come and see you first, to try and explain why I left so abruptly.” He reached across the table and took my hand. “It’s been a rough couple of weeks dealing with lawyers and my family. It was worse for me worrying about you. Knowing that I’d probably hurt you by leaving the way I did, and I’m sorry.”

I eased my hand away from his. “Do you have any idea how it felt to wake up alone and find out that you not only snuck out of my apartment, but that you disappeared altogether after you got what you wanted?”

“Don’t say that,” he said, his voice low.

“It’s been humiliating to have my private life picked over and poked into. Having people see me as a one-night stand type of girl,” I said, doing my best to stay calm.

“You were never that.” He eased closer to me as he spoke. “I was trying to protect both you and Lorna from my family.”

“Well, it’s too late for that,” I said. “Your mother was here a couple of weeks ago, before I opened, and she had plenty to say to me.”

“Damn it,” he muttered. “How bad was it?”

“She called me an opportunistic slut and made it clear that I would never get any of your inheritance. She followed that up with announcing that she would do everything in her power to run my shop right out of business; and then destroy me.”

Dex cringed.

“She really got irate when I insisted that I didn’t know where you were, so I took her by the elbow and escorted her right out the front door.

“I would have loved to have seen that,” he said.

“Her purse dog needs obedience training,” I replied tartly. “As it was, I had to teach him a bit of a magickal lesson in manners.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

“Toto didn’t bite you, did he?” Dex asked, worried.

“The dog’s name is Toto?” I half-laughed. “Like from The Wizard of Oz?”

“Yeah,” he said grimacing. “He’s a miniature monster.”

“No, the dog didn’t bite me,” I assured him. “However, once they both were removed, I shut the door in your mother’s face.”

Dex reached out his hand and lightly rested it on mine again. “I’m so sorry, Kate.”

“How in the world did you come from those people?” I asked. “I could see the resemblance between you and your mother, but lord almighty she’s got the sort of hateful attitude that’ll rot your insides.”

“That’s a question that I’ll be forever chasing the answer to in therapy,” he admitted.

My lips twitched. “So long story short, you’ve been holed up at your uncle’s place in Mississippi, meeting with lawyers and trying to avoid most of the ugliness of your family?”

“Yes,” he said. “I’ve been discretely drawing a small income on my shares of Poindexter Industries for the past two years—thanks to my uncle. But when my father died and his will was read, it was announced that his controlling shares were to be divided equally between my brother, sister and me.”