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“Why the hell would we need Santiago?”
“Because if anyone can keep the dead dead, it’s him.”
“I’d like to see him keep himself out of your life,” Wilder grumbled.
“I know, baby.” I did nothing to keep the mocking out of my tone. Yes, I knew he was jealous, yes, I knew he didn’t like me letting Santiago hang around, but at the moment I didn’t need him worried about someone else’s romantic intentions for me. Especially when I’d made it abundantly clear I wasn’t planning to reciprocate them.
Wilder, getting the point, finally grunted his acceptance and set back to eating his bacon and eggs. A minute later, Secret and Lucas reappeared from the bedroom. Her eyes and cheeks were red from obvious crying, and Lucas looked as if he was just barely keeping his shit together himself.
Secret had her phone in her hand so I was guessing part of their conversation had involved a call to Desmond.
“So, what’s the plan?” she asked, as if she didn’t look like someone who had just seen the end of The Notebook for the first time.
“We’re going to go pick up a witch, then see if we can re-kill an undead werewolf,” Wilder said.
Secret shared a quick glance with Lucas, then looked at me and smiled.
“I’ll get my gun.”
Chapter Twenty-four
My sister was giving Santiago quite the stink-eye.
She wasn’t the best at hiding her feelings on a good day, and I didn’t think this counted as a good day, in spite of someone she loved being back from the dead. To say her feelings were being worn on her sleeve was an understatement.
“You’re too pretty,” she announced.
Santiago, who had been quietly sitting in his armchair trying to avoid her scrutiny, sat more upright and said, “I beg your pardon?”
“You’re too pretty to be helpful. I don’t trust you. You’re the kind of guy who shows up just to mess up someone’s life.”
“She would know,” Lucas said quietly.
Secret pretended not to hear him and leaned forward in her seat, continuing to stare down the handsome witch. “Can you really help us, or is all this just some bullshit ruse to get closer to my sister?”
I wanted to crawl under a rock and die.
Wilder, though I imagine he was trying to hide it, was smirking like the cat who got the cream. Finally someone else was calling Santiago out, and he was just lapping it up.
“Hi, guys, can we focus here? We can’t really expect him to want to help us if we show up at his house and call him names.”
“Too be fair, she just aggressively complimented me. You McQueen women are complicated. I like it.” Santiago gave her his best panty-melting smile and she snarled at him.
“Never trust the dark-haired ones,” Lucas told Wilder. “They’re always up to no good.”
Secret elbowed him in the ribs. Apparently she was past the point of worrying about his safety and right back to being annoyed with him. Old habits die hard. Literally.
“Focus,” I snapped. “You guys are acting like children, oh my god.”
“To answer Our Lady of Resting Bitch Face’s question,” Santiago said. “Yes, I can help. And I will, in spite of all this. I offered to help back at the bayou, and I’ll help now.”
“Still would have been nice if you’d told us what you knew before we went into the swamp. I might have been able to keep my idiot brother from going off half-cocked,” I reminded him.
“In my experience, if someone is going to do something stupid, they’ll do it no matter how loud the voice of reason is,” Santiago said. For some reason he was looking right at Secret when he said it, which made me think her legend was well known even in witch circles.
They glared at each other.
She huffed. “Fine, whatever. Your help would be appreciated and all that. Can we please go kill someone?”
