Page 4 of Guarded by My Gargoyle

“If that’s what he wants, you don’t have to take the job. But I don’t think he does and I’m usually right about these things.”

“But—”

“Ten o’clock tomorrow. He’s expecting you.” Flora’s black eyes sparkled. “You share a wall, dear. It’s high time you shared a hello.”

CHAPTER 2

Garrick Stonehaven came down off the scaffolding at the west end of the roof and found the Sheriff of Fairhaven Falls sitting on his front steps with one of Garrick’s coffee mugs in his hands.

“You’re back,” Eric said.

“Since two.”

“Two this morning? Did you drive straight through?”

“There’s nowhere to stop between here and Gainesville that I fit in.” He set the bundle of slate against the porch rail and rolled his shoulders. His wings shifted behind him, stiff from a week and a half of chairs designed for humans and hotel rooms where turning around required advance planning. Atlanta had run long. Atlanta always ran long.

Eric held up the mug in his hand. “Coffee’s cold.”

“I wasn’t offering you any.”

“I needed it. Birdie has discovered that she can refuse things, and one of the things she’s refusing is sleep. Add that to teething and let’s just say nobody in my house is sleeping.” It sounded like a complaint, but Garrick knew his friend well enough to hear the deep underlying satisfaction in his voice. Eric squinted up at him, golden eyes narrowed against the morning sun. “I hear you’re having the grounds done.”

Garrick stopped with one hand on the balustrade. “No.”

“Funny. Because Robin heard from Sylvie, who heard from Flora, that Maris Calder is coming to see your gardens at ten this morning.”

He glanced at his watch, and Eric grinned. “That’s in forty-five minutes.”

“I haven’t hired anyone.”

“Is that what you’re going with?”

“I had the grounds down for spring. April, after the frosts, before the site work gets busy.” He climbed the steps and sat on the one below Eric, which put them roughly level. “I have a plan.”

“You have a plan.”

“I have a very good plan. Roof, conservatory glass, exterior punch list, then the grounds. In that order.” He picked up the second mug sitting beside Eric and drank. The coffee was cold. He drank it anyway. “Landscaping is always the last step.”

“Uh-huh.” Eric stretched his legs out and crossed them at the ankles, settling in like he was on his own porch. “So you’ll be calling Flora to cancel?”

He drank more coffee and didn’t respond.

“That’s what I thought.” Eric’s grin deepened, the same grin he’d worn at nine when he’d convinced Garrick to jump off the Miller’s Creek bridge into water that turned out to be four feet deep. “Nobody cancels on Flora. It never goes well. She made a mountain ogre cry once.”

“Flora came up here Tuesday and told me she was sending me a landscaper.”

“And you said yes.”

“I said I wasn’t ready.”

“Garrick.” Eric’s mouth twitched. “That’s a yes. That’s what a yes sounds like when Flora’s in the room.”

“Is it?”

“You know it is. Or do you want to go down there and tell her you meant no?” Eric brightened. “I’d like to watch.”

He didn’t answer because there wasn’t an answer that wouldn’t make it worse. Flora was barely five feet tall and could, when it suited her, look like the most innocent little old lady in the world. It was a lie. Flora was a force of nature and anyone who’d encountered her quickly discovered that. Saying no to Flora was like saying no to the weather. You could shout at the rain all you liked. It kept falling.