Page 4 of Homesick, Lovesick (Harper Valley Witch #3)

Ronan grunted in annoyance as he was rudely woken by someone knocking on the door. He peeled his eyes open, fumbled for his phone, and saw it was barely seven in the morning. What in the justified homicide?

"Got it,"

Match said, rolling out of bed and walking stiffly to the door still rubbing sleep from his eyes. He pulled it open, and the most ridiculously pretty man Ronan had ever seen stepped inside.

He had that white skin that was almost translucent, probably turned tomato red after two minutes in sunlight. Midnight dark hair that fell to his ass, and delicate pale blue eyes, the kind of sharp features that belonged to an anti-hero in a videogame. He was wearing stupidly tight black jeans and a bright blue muscle shirt.

On his right arm was the sword tattoo of a paladin, but where Ronan had the snake and star crest of his family at the base and a moon to signal he was a dark paladin at the point, Pretty Boy had a rose and thorn crest and…a moon. Great. Pretty Boy was the same specialty.

"Good Morning,"

Pretty Boy said.

"You must be John Willow."

"I prefer Match. You're Lynwood Mackenzie, right?"

Smiling like he was at a photoshoot, Lynwood replied, "That's me. Lyn is fine if you prefer. Sorry, it sounds like you had a lousy trip. We could have sent someone to drive you."

Ronan bristled.

"It wasn't the driving that was lacking. It was construction, and someone leaving nails across the road."

Lynwood shifted his gaze, and Ronan didn't think he was imagining the look of irritation that flashed across his face before he was smiling with all the life of week-old vanilla pudding.

"I didn't realize you'd brought a friend."

"I mentioned it to Minerva. She was more than happy for my boyfriend to join me,"

Match said icily.

"He's my paladin."

Smiling all nice again, Lynwood said, "My apologies, of course. I must have forgotten with one thing and another. Now you'll have two paladins along for protection. Breakfast is at eight, but I thought maybe you'd like to see some of the camp before that, since you didn't get a chance last night."

"Sure, we're awake now, may as well. Give us ten minutes. We'll meet you outside."

"Of course."

He left, closing the door behind him. Ronan huffed and threw back the blankets. Striding over to his dresser, he pulled out clothes and yanked them on. T-shirt, his favorite zip-up hoodie that was black and covered in glow-in-the-dark stars, though they were mostly worn off and faded now, a pair of jeans that were actually functional because they weren't practically painted on.

Lacing on his boots, he shoved all his necessaries in their various pockets. He fiddled with his nose ring while he waited for Match to finish gathering his things, as no respectable witch went anywhere without the tools of their trade. Match's bag of tricks was, near as Ronan could tell, unmatched.

As Match joined him by the door, Ronan drew him into a soft kiss.

"Gonna make this place smell like lavender later?"

"Of course, with rosemary and mint. Come on, let's go socialize, I guess."

Outside, Lynwood was standing entirely too close to the Challenger.

"Your car?"

he asked, barely looking at Ronan.

"Yeah."

"Nice car, but kind of useless out here."

"It did the job, and we're not gonna be driving through the woods."

Lynwood shrugged.

"True enough."

He smiled at Match.

"Come on, we'll do a quick tour, and then it's time for French toast with fresh strawberries. There's a strawberry field next door to the camp. They always do strawberry picking with the kids."

"Sounds nice. So did you go to this camp as a kid?"

"Yeah, they have one for the little kids at the beginning of summer, then one for like middle school age, and normally August would be for the high school kids, but they canceled it this year. I went almost every year since I was ten. Know this place in my sleep."

He stopped outside a large building that seemed divided in two and waved a hand at it.

"These are the showers and toilets for the camp. Feel free to use them, but I promise the temp ones installed in your cabins are better."

Ronan shook his head.

"I would freaking hate to have to get up at midnight to come all the way out here to piss. Seems like a spell for disaster."

"There are always night duty staff to keep an eye on things, escort the younger kids. Every year they say they're gonna make improvements, but…"

Lynwood shrugged.

"Money always goes to other things. Here's where we grill out most nights—too hot to cook in the kitchen. Over there is where the kids eat breakfast and stuff. Past that fence are all the activity areas. Gate gets locked at night and the counselors take turns on gate duty because kids are stupid and high schoolers are stupider."

He grinned fleetingly and winked at Match.

"Lots of places to climb the fence without getting caught, though, and good make-out spots in the woods."

Match snorted a laugh.

"Thankfully, I'm an adult and can make out with my boyfriend whenever I want in the privacy of my own cabin."

"True,"

Lynwood said with his own laugh, though it was clearly forced.

"That cabin there is the main office and where Minerva and her husband staying. He's a werebear."

Werebears were rare. Wolves were the most common, the easiest transformation for humans to handle, though the science remained unclear why. But other shifter types did exist. He hadn't realized the bear clan would be involved in any of this. Too bad Traci wasn't here; she'd have loved to hang out with them. Maybe if this all worked out, they could come back. Benny would probably never get Traci out of the woods.

"Later, I can show you the boathouse and everything. Do you like to swim?"

Match brightened at that, turning away from a bush of red flowers he'd been admiring.

"Yeah, love to. The second the weather warms up, we spend a couple weekends a month up at the lake. Not camping, there are cabins up there."

"That were built this century even,"

Ronan said with a grin.

Lynwood gave him a sour look.

"There's nothing wrong with ours."

Ronan's grin faded.

"I was just making a joke. The cabins are fine. You're the one who commented they needed updates. My bad."

"Let's go get breakfast,"

Match said, good mood vanished from his voice. Damn it.

"Sorry,"

Ronan murmured as they walked.

"I really did not mean any harm."

Match looked at him like he was crazy.

"Huh? Oh, no, I'm annoyed with him. It's clear there's some sort of paladin dick measuring going on in his head, and if he winks at me one more time, I'm gonna lay a hex on him."

Ronan tangled their fingers together and lifted his hand to kiss the back of it.

"Hex, hmm? At least you're not up to full-blown curses yet."

Ahead of them, Lynwood's shoulders seemed tight and hunched, his head slightly down, and there was probably a scowl or pout on his face.

He led them around the side of the cafeteria or hall or whatever it was, through a door that led to a large kitchen, the industrial kind that pumped out school pizza or overcooked cordon bleu at the world's most tepid dinner party. He did not miss being dragged to those stupid things.

They continued on through a set of swinging double doors, into a small dining room that was probably for staff or something. Five people sat there: Minerva, whom he'd met when she came to see them; a man beside her who was likely the aforementioned husband; a woman who looked to be in her late teens who was probably a daughter or niece; another woman who looked a lot like Lynwood; and a young man who looked like he'd drunk lemon juice instead of coffee for breakfast.

Ronan already wanted to go back to bed.

"Shouldn't there be a lot more of us?"

"Some are still sleeping. The rest haven't arrived yet. Two of them got deathly sick at the last minute and had to be replaced. They'll be here either late tonight or early tomorrow, they weren't quite sure which yet,"

Minerva said.

"Good to see you, thank you again for helping out."

"I go where Match goes,"

Ronan said with an easy shrug, and smiled.

"Anyway, it's incredibly interesting work, even if it entails living in the woods and dealing with monster spiders."

Match rolled his eyes.

"It was a wolf spider, and more scared of you than you are of it."

"I highly doubt that."

Minerva's husband chuckled and reached a hand over the table.

"Stefan. Nice to finally meet you. This is our youngest daughter, Abigail, our eldest Cora, and my nephew Walter."

Walter. Yeah, if that were his name, he'd look sour all the time too. Ronan nodded at him, and that made him smile faintly and nod back.

"Gail,"

said the late-teens girl, and shook their hands before settling back and looking at Match.

"Mom has been talking about you incessantly. I think you're her favorite child. So why do they call you Match?"

"They're my thing,"

Match replied.

"My mom has her cats, my grandmother had her roses, and my thing has always been my matches."

Minerva smiled.

"Never met a witch who had a thing for fire starters. Not what we usually go for, but if I've learned nothing else, it's that you're unique."

Gail rolled her eyes.

"See what I mean? Favorite child?"

"No joke,"

Walter said with a laugh.

"She's gonna drop all of us from the will."

Minerva shot him an exasperated look.

"I dropped you from the will the day I found yet another lizard in my sewing room."

Walter snickered.

Ronan glanced over Gail's arms as she waved them about. No tattoos, so in training or possibly was like her father.

"He's everyone's favorite child. Even my parents, who disapprove of my everything and particularly hated that I dodged all their prestigious marriage candidates, are slowly coming around to him."

Though that had more to do with how popular and beloved within the community they'd belatedly realized Match was. His parents were many things, and opportunistic was in the top five.

Gail finished her coffee and stood to get more from the little table in the corner.

"Why don't they like you?"

"If they were in a Dickens novel, they'd be Marley and Marley,"

Ronan said dryly.

"If I hadn't gotten out when I did, I might have become Ebenezer Scrooge."

Match laughed and kissed his cheek.

"You couldn't be Scrooge if you were enlisted for a children's play."

Gail wrinkled her nose as she sat back down.

"Yeah, one of my tutors was like that. Mom and Dad fired him real damn fast. Glad you got out."

Ronan stood and went to fix coffee for him and Match now that he was aware it was there. That got him another kiss when he sat back down.

"So what are you training for?"

"Healing,"

Gail replied.

Match whistled.

"That's impressive."

Healing was a highly specialized magic, like becoming a brain surgeon or something.

Most witches preferred to be more generalized in their power.

Someone like Match had to be, because he was the only witch for their small town.

Healers couldn't do wards or the many other magics required of Guards, so they were really only seen on larger teams, mostly in cities but sometimes, like their current situation, in rural areas that covered a whole lot of territory and so required a larger than usual Guard.

Gail smiled shyly.

"I don't have my tattoos yet, obviously, but there's no rush. My grandmother said she would do it for me someday."

"My grandfather gave me mine,"

Match replied.

It was one of the darker sides of magic, that someone had to die to give the tattoos to a new witch, but it was a sacred practice amongst witches.

Blood of the Willing, it was called.

There was no other way for a witch to come fully into their powers.

It was a final test of sorts. If nobody was willing to do that for them, they were considered unworthy. Witches were all about giving.

Versus paladins, who were all about taking.

The sword tattoo of paladins were initially done in special ink, but they did not come to life, as it were, until the paladin spilled fatal blood with their own hands.

Not just any blood, either, he couldn't just walk down the street and stab some poor bastard.

The same way the magic knew if a blood donor was willing, it knew if he killed in defense of others.

Magic had a price, and at its steepest the price was always blood and the weight of taking it.

"I'm a shifter like Uncle,"

Walter said.

"Only one on my side of the family. My siblings don't care about magic, and my mom is a witch with the group that hasn't arrived yet. She's supposed to bring my Switch."

Ronan smiled.

"So you've been training? We have a werewolf on our team.

I've never met other kinds of shifters, except a family of snotty werecats who visited from Canada once.

I was only fourteen, but I think my parents were feeling out their daughter for potential marriage. We got into a fistfight, though, and they left after that."

"What in the world did she do that you punched her?"

Match asked.

"How come I've never heard this story."

"She called me a not-nice word for gay people when she caught me kissing the gardener's son.

It was not long after that I went to live with my uncles full-time and met all of you.

Hadn't thought about that day in years.

Hope she's either grown the hell up or is totally miserable."

Across the table, Lynwood and Cora were still silent, often exchanging looks that, to Ronan's eye at least, seemed rather judgy.

But he already didn't like Lynwood, so he wasn't exactly an unbiased opinion.

God, let them not be on the same team when the hiking began.

Before anyone could speak further, the door swung open, and three people came in with serving trays loaded with food.

Plates of the promised French toast, additional plates of bacon and eggs, glasses of juice, and bowls of fruit.

Ronan's stomach growled as his was set in front of him.

He chose orange juice, and grabbed an apple juice for Match.

All remained silent as they ate, save for a brief introduction to the trio, part of the staff who'd remain at base to coordinate all the teams and, when they were there, provide food and such.

Ronan wondered which of them was responsible for the dubious home improvements, but he didn't ask.

Conversation resumed as the eating wound down.

"This French toast is awesome,"

Ronan said.

"Benny would probably commit crimes to have the recipe, though his French toast is nothing to scoff at."

"Who's Benny?"

Gail asked.

"Our leader, a golden paladin. He's always cooking. We do dinner at his house every Sunday. He made us his award-winning pot roast as a farewell meal. It was heaven on a plate."

Match gave him a fond, amused look.

"You're lucky I don't mind you prefer Benny's cooking to mine."

Ronan grinned.

"You prefer his cooking to yours, and we won't talk about my cooking."

Match laughed.

Across the table, Lynwood looked peeved, and sounded more than a little snotty as he asked, "How does a pot roast win an award?"

"Smalltown life,"

Match replied.

"There's a county fair hosted in Harper Valley every year, and if it can be cooked or baked, there's a contest for it. Can get pretty ugly. Last year, when Auntie Dina won the pie contest, there was an entire shouting match, and somebody slit her tires. Don't even get me started on the drama with the chili cookoff. The cops had to be called for that one."

Ronan snickered.

"That's nothing. There are entire blood feuds in the quilting community. It's highly entertaining so long as you're smart enough to stay on the fringes and watch. But Benny is not a stay on the fringes kind of person, and the county fair is his favorite time of year. Forget Christmas and shit, the only sacred holiday in that household is County Fair Week."

"Seems kinda lame,"

Cora said.

"Imagine putting your entire personality into making the best blueberry pie in the county. Surely there are better things to do."

Okay, now Ronan full-on hated both of them.

"I mean, it's not like attendance is mandatory, and there are lots of other things to do. It's basically a carnival slash food fair, and a lot of fun. Better than watered down aperitifs and stale hors d'oeuvres while wearing a suit and tie for at least six hours. All the other delightful things my family used to make me do."

Lynwood rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, what a fucking burden being wealthy and popular must be. I feel so sorry for you."

"That's enough,"

Minerva said sharply.

"If the two of you are going to sit here being rude, then you must need something to do. Go sort out the equipment, and have it ready for me to inspect in five hours."

Though they clearly wanted to argue with what must be a shit job, they dutifully rose and left.

Minerva turned to them.

"I apologize for them. I've no idea what's gotten into them. They won't act that way a second time."