Page 5 of Homesick, Lovesick (Harper Valley Witch #3)

"It's fine. I'm sure to them, knowing not much at all about me, I do sound like a wealthy brat crying about how hard my life is while sitting on piles of cash. I have it good, and I know it."

Though he would have thought 'live with my uncles full time' would have clued the dumbasses in that there were real, actual problems with his parents, but whatever.

"So what's the plan for the rest of the day?"

"We're kind of at a standstill until the rest of the team shows up."

Minerva stood and started gathering up all the dishes.

"Those two are organizing the equipment. We've got packs, sleeping bags, food, all of it for everyone. Labeled with names and everything, so if someone goes missing…"

She shrugged.

"Thankfully, that shouldn't be a concern, but it's foolish not to prepare for the worst. Once that's all ready, we'll deliver it to the various cabins. There will be room in the packs for whatever personal items and tools you want to bring. Just be careful about the weight, because the longer you go, the heavier it will feel, trust me."

"Made that mistake when I was ten, never fear,"

Ronan replied dryly. He helped gather the dishes, poured him and Match more coffee, and stole the bowl of fruit that Lynwood had ignored.

"Anything we can do to help around here?"

"Nah, we really are kind of in a lull. Relax, take it easy. The lake is good swimming if you're into that. Lunch will be around one, dinner is at seven. Snacks are always available in the office, along with sodas and stuff. If you wanted to go into town, it's about thirty minutes from here, right back down the mountain until you see the garishly red sign lit up brighter than a Christmas tree."

Match laughed.

"Saw that last night, almost stopped there until we realized how close the camp was. Trip from hell, let me tell you. If I'd had to do it alone, I'd be in jail right now after that asshole threw a drink at our car. Ronan has more patience than me."

"Not if I ever see that jackass again,"

Ronan muttered.

"It's on sight. I might go into town when we get back from our first venture to replace my back tires, since one of them got demolished by nails on the road. I'm lucky they only took out one tire. But today we'll probably just chill. If you do need help with something, just let us know."

"Ya'll rest up, we'll see you at lunch. Think it'll be various sandwiches."

They bid everyone farewell and left.

Back at the cabin, Ronan hauled his travel tool bag out of the trunk, stripped off his hoodie, and got to work making the cabin slightly less hazardous.

Rewiring electric was beyond the equipment he had with him, but he did make the bathroom a bit sturdier and closed off the outlet right under the sink entirely.

Let someone get mad about it and put it back.

He also put a lock on the bathroom door.

Not much, just a cheap barrel bolt latch he always kept a few of in his tool bag.

Not enough to stop a determined problem-maker, but it would slow them down enough for Ronan to get to where he could stop them.

Throughout, Match made a vendetta of clearing out the shitty air freshener scent and making a few of his beloved sachets to stash around the place.

By the time they were both finished making the cabin more habitable, Ronan was slightly more confident the place wouldn't fall down around them, and everything smelled pleasantly of lavender, rosemary, and mint.

"Just in time for lunch,"

Match said.

Ronan pouted.

"That is not what I wanted it to be time for."

Match grinned.

"Later, paladin. You know I like when you get out the tools."

Smirking, Ronan went to put on clean clothes.

"Wonder if there's any laundry facilities. Jackass didn't show us anything like that."

"Probably in the same hall with everything else. I doubt he's ever done laundry a day in his life, so he probably didn't think to mention it."

"Minerva doesn't seem the type to tolerate her kids not knowing how to do the most basic shit."

He pulled on a dark green, long-sleeved shirt that said I Like Swords across the front in fancy, fake-medieval font. A gift from Traci, because she thought she was funny. All his friends were smartasses with a taste for ridiculous t-shirts.

"Doesn't mean they retained the lessons, or that they don't squirm out of it as much as possible. Do you honestly see Lynwood doing any of that?"

"Nah, he looked like he wanted to eat canapes and wine spritzers in my place."

Outside, after the door was locked, Ronan pulled Match into his arms.

"Is that the life you want, darling? I think my eldest brother just finally got approved to buy a Ferrari."

Match laughed against his mouth and kissed him, still laughing.

"Shut up. What do you mean approved to buy? Like your parents finally allowed it?"

"No, like Ferrari finally decided he was good enough to be allowed to purchase one of their cars."

"You're lying."

"Nope."

Match just shook his head.

"I like your car and only your car, though Benny's precious soccer mom SUV is tolerable."

"Soccer dad."

"No, I promise you, most of the dads drive the obnoxious pick-ups."

"I drive a pick-up,"

Lynwood said sourly from behind them.

"What's wrong with pick-ups?"

"Nothing,"

Ronan said easily.

"My uncle has one. We're just making fun of some of the more ridiculous parents Benny interacts with."

Match launched into one of their many stories of overzealous parents as they returned to the dining hall, Gail joining them halfway there. At least she found the story funny. Lynwood seemed wholly unimpressed.

As they got closer, Ronan frowned to see a whole bunch of cars that hadn't been here earlier.

Way more than would be needed by the group running late, as he was pretty sure they were traveling together over two or three cars.

This was like six, no seven.

Why would so many people show up if they weren't part of the project?

The reason was probably entirely innocuous, but his hackles were up anyway.

Match's hand gently squeezed his in reassurance, as he was always so good at picking up when Ronan was unsettled by something.

Traci and Benny were too, and his uncles of course, but otherwise people rarely noticed he was bothered by something until the problem was damn near resolved.

Inside, he could hear a lot of talking, and everyone was in the big, main room instead of the smaller room they'd used for breakfast.

A large lunch was laid out, like at least six different kinds of sandwiches arranged in fancy towers, with pieces of folded paper in front identifying the type.

All eyes immediately turned toward them, and then they were swept up in a tidal wave of people.

Well, Match was. Ronan somehow found himself pushed to the edge, staring in the center of the mess where Lynwood was now introducing Match as though they were old friends. Ronan narrowed his eyes.

Match turned to look at him, gave a bare shake of his head, and then nodded toward the table.

Huffing, Ronan nevertheless obeyed the silent request to get them food instead of throwing people around.

He grabbed himself a roast beef sandwich with an obscene amount of mustard, and for Match a turkey sandwich with extra pickles and plenty of mayo. He also grabbed them chips and iced tea.

When he went to deliver the goods, though, it was to find Match clear across the room at a table, surrounded on all sides—and that little fuckhead Lynwood on his right side, where Ronan would normally be.

Now he was starting to get really pissed.

Not quite stomping his way across the room, he leaned over the end of the table to deposit the food, not bothering to beg anyone's pardon.

"Need anything else?"

Match smiled at him.

"I'm good, thank you. Pull up a chair, handsome."

While Ronan would have preferred to pick up Lynwood and throw him across the room, he obeyed the silent request to play nice and grabbed a chair instead. If some of the others at the table looked annoyed he was crashing the party, too damn bad.

"I'm Ronan, the dark paladin in our Guard. Who are all of you, then?"

He took a bite of mustard-soaked roast beef.

"Witches,"

a woman said stiffly.

"I'm from the south end of Furrow County. There are three groups who oversee it—"

"But only one controls the other half?"

Ronan asked.

"That seems weird. Why only one guard for half the county, but three for the other half?"

"Population disparity,"

said the man on Lynwood's other side, in a tone of voice that said he thought Ronan was an idiot for not already knowing that.

"More people, more Guards."

Whatever, it would still make more sense to have two and two, given the amount of ground that needed to be covered.

Introductions were made, but Ronan didn't bother to retain the names as it was clear they were here to fawn over Match and not help with the project, even though they were basically neighbors to Minerva's crew.

And fawn they did. Ronan got up once to get more sandwiches for the two of them, but otherwise didn't do much of anything except listen as they lavished praise on Match, asked him a million questions, generally acted like they'd known him their entire lives, and talked up their territories in a ridiculously unsubtle bid to impress him.

"We don't have county fairs,"

said the woman who'd first spoken, "but we do host important statewide events. We're hosting the Nightshade Convention this year. We'd love to have you as a special guest. You'd be paid ten thousand for it, could probably convince the board to go a little higher if you insisted."

"I'll think about it,"

Match said with a smile.

"I've always wanted to attend, but I'm always too busy."

Ronan cringed inwardly. Match had never been too busy to attend the biggest witch convention on the east coast. He'd been too poor, and the mayor and his board of dumbasses had never been willing to foot the bill for him.

Now he was being offered ten bands to be a guest speaker?

Despite himself, that left him feeling very small. It wasn't a feeling he liked.

"Tickets would sell out in a minute flat,"

said another woman.

The group was four women and five men, not including Lynwood, all of them at least thirty, two of them probably fifty to sixty.

All seemed at least decently well off, and the snotty jerk offering his boyfriend piles of cash wore a diamond ring that made the ring in Ronan's duffel bag look like a dollar store trinket.

It was white and sparkled insanely, occasionally casting rainbows across the ceiling.

Maybe orange had been a stupid color.

He'd been so confident at the time that Match would love the vibrancy of orange, so much like the flames of a freshly struck match, had been certain anything described as fancy vivid was meant to be, but maybe instead of orange and yellow diamonds and yellow gold he should have gone with a white diamond in white gold.

Cool and elegant, more moonlight than sunshiny.

Yeah, that made way more sense.

What had he been thinking?

"Ronan!"

"Huh?"

He jerked his head up, startled from his thoughts, and blinked at Match.

"What's wrong?"

"That's what I was trying to ask you, dork,"

Match said with a smile, though there was concern in his eyes.

"You looked almost distraught."

Ronan shook his head.

"Nah, sorry, was lost all the way in my head. Guess my face decided to do its own thing. My bad."

Match didn't seem entirely appeased by his answer, but he let it go, probably because they weren't alone.

Clearly annoyed at the interruption, the woman with the crazy diamond said, "Anyway, think about it. You have until the end of next month to let us know if you'd like to be a guest speaker."

"I mean, I'll still be out here working until then, and possibly longer, depending on how it goes. So I'm not sure I can commit to something like that. I guess we can re-evaluate closer to the deadline."

Match laughed.

"I'd have to figure out what to talk about."

"Well, you certainly could speak at length about warding,"

Ronan said.

"You do it better than anyone. Though personally I think you should talk about your pixies, all the cool things you're doing with them and the pixie dust you collect."

The man next to Diamond beamed.

"That would be marvelous! What pixies do you have? I just imported a breeding quartet of arctic pixies. I'm hoping to mingle them with my butterfly pixies."

Match's face lit up.

"I've always wanted to see an arctic pixie! All my pixies are native to my area. I don't have any imports—I'm not really that level of hobbyist."

Only because money had always prevented him before, and now he was too busy to get as involved as he'd like. If Match was part of a larger territory, where he'd have a team of subordinates to delegate duties too, he'd have more time for personal pursuits—and more money, even if he wasn't hurting for that anymore, thanks to Benny's clever efforts and the gross stupidity of the former mayor.

"You should definitely come see mine sometime,"

the man said with a warm smile that Match returned.

"If the arctic pixies breed successfully, I'm happy to give you one. Depending on what you have, maybe we can trade. I'm William—Bill is fine."

Match's smile widened.

"Nice to meet you."

It was the first time he'd said that today that he'd meant it.

Which was fine, Ronan wasn't the kind of insecure jealous asshole who got mad when his boyfriend made friends. His anxiety over everything was just cranked all the way up. And Bill was handsome, and loved pixies, and had fancy ones that Match had always wanted to see. And came from a larger, better district that could probably use a witch like Match and would treat him right.

"—girlfriend might kill me if I bring even more pixies into the house, but then again, she did agree to marry me last week, so she knows what she's in for, right? I keep saying girlfriend instead of fiancée. She keeps laughing at me for it."

Match laughed.

"Sounds like she knows what she's about. Congratulations. Have you picked a date yet?"

"Not yet, though we're looking at a winter wedding, since we met in the midst of a blizzard when we got stuck at an airport for almost three days. Let me tell you, eating airport food for three days fucking sucks."

Diamond tittered a rather condescending laugh.

"You do love to tell that story, don't you, Billy?"

"Bill,"

he replied tightly.

"No one but Moira calls me Billy."

"Yes, yes,"

Diamond said breezily, already turning her full attention back to Match.