Page 9 of Homesick, Lovesick (Harper Valley Witch #3)

"You all right?"

Match was staring at their hands though, where Ronan had grabbed his reflexively as they fell. The ivy and what was actually a piece of red rope, the kind used by campers for all kinds of things, was tangled around their hands and wrists, almost binding them together.

Before Ronan could ask what was wrong, Match looked up with a smile that was…bashful, almost. Ronan had never seen anything like it. Match was quiet, often reserved, but he wasn't shy.

"What's up?"

Ronan asked softly, reaching out with his free hand to cup Match's cheek.

Match pressed into the touch, eyes closing briefly as if to savor it, which made Ronan's heart go straight to two hundred. Maybe—

"If you two are done with your stupid tree or canoodling or whatever you're doing,"

Lynwood said sourly, "we need to get moving."

All of the soft, tender joy on Match's face vanished, replaced by the blank, not quite stoney expression he wore when he was done with life. "Come on,"

he said with a sigh.

"We'll talk later."

Instead of just yanking his hand free, though, he carefully untangled the ivy and rope, then wound the bit of rope up and stowed it in the pocket of his jacket. The ivy he clipped a piece of and wound it around his neck, then he tucked another bundle of it into the folded over bit of Ronan's toboggan.

Then he was standing and walking off, leaving Ronan feeling like he'd missed something important about the stupid ivy.

"Good luck, trees,"

he muttered, making sure to kick all the torn ivy well away from them, where hopefully it would die off and not cause further problems.

The walking continued, miserable and boring as nobody seemed to want to chitchat with him, only Match, who they continued to woo by explaining all there was to do in town, all the connections they had across the country and even internationally. Lynwood spent at least a fucking hour talking about the friends he had in Italy and the villa they'd totally let them borrow if Match wanted to join them for vacation in the spring.

"I bet it's really pretty that time of year,"

Match said.

"I could never leave my duties that long, or travel that far from my wards though. That'd be irresponsible."

Marvin scoffed.

"There'd be plenty of witches to cover for you. My mom goes to Bermuda every summer, and they cover her wards and work just fine."

That actually made Match draw to a halt, Ronan barely avoiding crashing into him.

"They cover her wards and work just fine,"

he repeated icily.

"That's not how wards work. The only reason I could come do this little project was because my family has long maintained the wards for Harper Valley, so even when they're no longer woven into them, the wards still welcome them back. There is no way I could leave my wards with anyone but my mother without months of preparation. Either your mother has someone else permanently woven into her wards, which is a massive security and ethics breach, or she just says they're woven in and has been banking on there being no problems all these years."

"Her sister,"

Lynwood said hastily.

"Family, just like you. Her name is Gertrude—we call her Aunt Gerdie. She's not much of a witch, but she's enough to hold the fort when Carmen needs a break. Don't you go on vacation?"

"No, I don't, not like that,"

Match replied as they resumed walking.

"My family never had the money for that kind of thing, and we'd never want to leave the wards that long. Part of being a Guard is always being there, or making certain someone else equal to the task is if you absolutely cannot be there yourself."

Marvin and Lynwood both scowled, and Marvin said, "You have to see how messed up that is, that you're never allowed a break, any time to yourself. What'll you do if you get married someday? What are you going to do, honeymoon at the county fair?"

"I think my spouse—"

Match's voice seemed to hitch on the word, though Ronan was probably just imagining things "—would understand my life and obligations, obviously."

Ronan wanted to crawl into a hole and die, because yeah, they'd never be able to do the traditional honeymoon, but that wasn't really their bag anyway. He had thought they could rent out a tent or something at the county fair, invite family and friends to hang out, pass out tokens that were good for pretty much all of the food booths and even some of the game booths. Lots of people did that. It was practically a marriage tradition in its own right.

So, yeah, he had thought they'd celebrate at the county fair.

Orange diamonds and hick fairs, boy what a fucking prize he was. Couldn't even fucking wake up when he was supposed to.

"—should see it, a lot of families choose it for their venue. Some of them get married in the church on property, some in the house with the big open hall, flowers hanging from the rafters and the balcony, snow falling on the skylights… but there's also a pond and waterfall out back that would be perfect right?"

Ronan was going to kill somebody. Probably Lynwood, for talking about marriage with his fucking boyfriend. How dare he suggest a waterfall, that was Ronan's idea! Though he'd only thought of it for a proposal. Getting married in front of one was way better, even if he died a little inside admitting Lynwood had one up on him for that.

"Sounds pretty,"

Match replied, a bit of wistfulness in his tone.

"Is that where you want to get married someday?"

"Oh, no, my family always gets married in the family church. It's tradition. The same place we're sworn as paladins and take the vows as witches."

"Huh,"

Match said.

"We do our vows in the woods back home."

"My family did the ostentatious church bit,"

Ronan said.

"Whole stupid Roman Catholic thing, takes like a bajillion hours."

All the stupider because his family was about as religious as potatoes. But whatever, he'd gotten through the whole ordeal, then he and Benny had met up to do their own thing in the woods. Because in Harper Valley, it was the woods that surrounded them that mattered most.

Marvin said, "Lynwood's wasn't ostentatious at all. It was a beautiful ceremony, on the harvest moon, light streaming through the stained glass, the choir singing…"

"Mine was on the blood moon."

Lynwood looked at him like Ronan had spit in his face.

"How bloodthirsty."

Ronan shrugged and resumed walking, leaving them to catch up or not. He wasn't gonna be baited over something so stupid.

"It's also called the Hunter Moon, which my family believes is apropos for those of us who hunt and fight monsters beneath the moon, the original purpose of the dark paladins."

"He looked so good in his fancy regalia,"

Match said with a sigh, unraveling another knot in Ronan's stomach.

"We don't have much cause to dress up, so it's always a delight when he does."

Ronan had felt ten kinds of stupid that day, wearing a dumbass tunic and hose for the love of god, reciting stupid Latin shit he'd forgotten the moment it was finally said. Seriously, they didn't live in medieval Europe. If any of his kids followed the tradition, he'd come up with a ceremony that meant something to them, not to people who'd been dead for hundreds of years.

Though probably they'd just wind up with a bunch of miniature Match's, because being a witch looked way cooler than being a paladin, even if he got the neato sword.

Well, he hoped they'd wind up with a bunch of Mini Matches. Sometimes it seemed like Match was done with all of this, especially when he made wistful noises about traveling to Italy. Which Ronan would do in a heartbeat, but like Match had said, he couldn't just up and leave like that. Traveling a few hours away was one thing. Thousands of miles was something else—that kind of distance risked the wards breaking down entirely. They were a living thing, when it came down to it, and Match was the beating heart.

Thankfully, conversation lapsed after that, Lynwood apparently having nothing more to say about blood moons. Ronan kept alert for further trouble, but trolls were pretty territorial, and where there was one, there wasn't likely to be another. The only exception was mating season, which was in spring.

By the time they stopped for the night, his head was still throbbing, and he felt tired to the bone again. In his defense, it was just past four, and they'd started at four, so a twelve-hour haul was a hell of a good reason to be exhausted.

Thankfully, this was their first node, or a point of strong energies, ideal as an anchor point for the ward. Which meant they'd rest tonight, Match would do his thing tomorrow, and the day after that they'd head off for the second one. They'd do five total before heading back to base for a long break, and then do the remaining five.

There were five groups covering five section, with ten nodes to each section. Taken together, they'd ultimately form a three-tiered system of wards, with ten in the innermost circle, twenty in the middle, thirty on the outer ring. Though 'ring' was used loosely here, as it wouldn't be nearly that perfect, just following the border of the territory.

As he had the last time, he set to work on the tent, humiliation and tension sparking anew. Once it was warming up, he changed his clothes, stuffed his dirty ones into a special bag so they wouldn't stink up his clean clothes, and stowed it.

Yawning, he sat down on the mat Match had laid out for them, as there were no handy logs to perch on tonight, and chairs weren't worth hauling around.

Marvin was already hard at work rehydrating dinner, but once again, he paused to make tea, handing Ronan his cup with a smile.

"What kind?"

Ronan asked.

"Just chamomile again,"

Marvin said with a shrug.

"I tend not to bring out anything with caffeine at night, and chamomile is relaxing."

Match smiled.

"It smells great. I'll keep an eye out tomorrow, though, see if I can forage some mint. I didn't bring more than what it's my case. Silly of me."

"Nah, chamomile is fine. It's nice to have something that isn't water."

Though all day he'd been thirsty no matter how much water he drank. Thankfully, the teams that had gone first to mark the nodes had also buried plenty of water to keep them well supplied, and they had the stuff to clean creek water if it came to that, too.

"Thank you."

"No problem!"

Marvin turned back to making dinner, and Match was busy going over all his supplies, and Lynwood was…somewhere. Ronan took the opportunity to dump the stupid chamomile and refill his cup with water, after rinsing out some sugar or whatever that hadn't dissolved properly. Wait, hadn't he said he used honey last night? Or was he imagining that? God, he'd been so tired, Marvin could have said it was chamomile sweetened with the blood of innocents and Ronan wouldn't have noticed.

Lynwood reappeared from the woods just as dinner was ready.

"Something up?"

Match asked.

"Huh? Nah, was just poking around the area, making certain we wouldn't have further surprises tonight. No sign of trolls anywhere."

Ronan bit back a scathing reply about obviously, because they'd killed the only one that would be in this area, unless they magically just happened to be close to the border of two territories, and the second troll decided to act as weirdly as the first one. He didn't have room to talk, not after sleeping instead of doing his one job.

By the time dinner was done and the dishes attended, he was exhausted but not as wiped as he'd been the previous day. He could have fallen over from the relief that last night had clearly been some weird one-off.

"So what do we do about the tent problem?"

Lynwood asked sourly.

"The tent is plenty big enough for three,"

Ronan replied.

"I'll sleep out here by the fire. It's the least I can do after failing so miserably last night."

Match scowled.

"No way, I'll sleep—"

"You need to be safe and get plenty of rest, because tomorrow is going to kick your ass, we both know it. As much as I vastly prefer when you're in my arms, I'd rather you be safe. We can cuddle when we get back to base."

Huffing, Match said, "Fine, but this sucks, for the record. I don't like leaving you out here all alone."

"I'll be okay."

Ronan kissed him briefly, savoring the warmth and softness, the familiarity, the rightness. Match would never walk away from him, from this, right? He could hold a candle to everything the others were offering, couldn't he?

Match gave him one last kiss, then yawned his way into the tent. Soon enough, Ronan was all alone. The fire crackled, bright and cheerful, and the sky was star-strewn and beautiful. But the ground would never be terribly comfortable, no matter how nice the padding or fancy the sleeping bag.

He moved around restlessly until he found a position that was mostly comfortable, then tried to settle in to sleep, though now he wasn't so exhausted he was falling over, everything was too loud and too quiet all at once. He missed the familiar sounds of home—the traffic, the night owls out doing their thing, the barflies laughing on their way home.

Despite the wrongness of the sounds, Ronan eventually started to drift off—only to be jerked awake by a sharp, stinging sensation on his arm. Yanking it free of the sleeping bag, mind filled with images of lurking black widows and brown recluses, he stared at his arm in the firelight.

His scar from the sparring match, that was the source of the stinging, throbbing sensation. What the fuck? Match had healed it so well the scar was barely even there, why was it hurting?

The pain spiked to the point he actually cried out, but was immediately drowned out by an ominous roar.

The hell? That sounded like a golem, but finding a golem on the surface was like finding a polar bear on a tropical beach.

Ronan surged to his feet as the golem burst through the trees, clearly bound right for him—which was also weird. Golems were cave creatures. They didn't have shit for vision, hunted entirely by sound and smell. When dragged to the surface, they became immediately overwhelmed by too much and mostly just panicked and flailed about blindly until they could find cool, quiet dark again. If they voluntarily came to the surface, it was only in the dead of winter when everything was darker, quieter, and colder.