“I think Emily and I would both appreciate that,” Bael muttered. “But construction takes time around here and these temporary fixes to long-term issues are going to involve a lot of trailers. That could be a problem, come hurricane season.”

  “We need engineers,” Zed said. “Electrical, sewage, roads, all of the things that communities need to provide for their citizens on a larger scale. We need to catch up.”

  “So with the engineering and construction types moving to town, that’s even more people,” Will mused. “People who will need the housing and food and all the stuff we mentioned, plus medical care, a firehouse, a real courthouse facility. All of the things you need when people get into the mishaps involved in being people. We may have to build a hospital.”

  “Mystic Bayou can’t stay the same,” Dani said gently, kissing Zed’s cheek. “That was never an option.”

  “But we can keep the changes from being destructive,” Zed muttered. “Keep the local businesses from getting run out of town. Keep the cost of living from getting so high the families who have always lived here can’t afford it anymore.”

  “We’re here to help any way we can,” Alex promised.

  “We’re gonna have to add another stoplight, huh?” Zed asked.

  “That will make three!” Bael crowed, raising his hands in triumph.

  Leonard pulled his truck down the gravel drive to the maison de fous, a strange mishmashed house on the water that Will and Sonja were renting from the town. Called the House of Fools by the locals, it consisted of several faded blue-gray stories, topped by a copper cupola, green with age.

  As Leonard carried his offering of flowers and a bottle of wine down the drive, he could see mason jar lanterns strung over a dock that extended from under the “ground floor” to the water. Guests were sprawled in a ring of comfortable looking, mismatched chairs, watching the twilight bloom. Witch bottles glowed to life in the trees, giving the small gathering a festive air. Bael had Jillian seated in a heavily cushioned Adirondack chair, rubbing her feet. Dani was perched in Zed’s lap, chatting with Jillian while sipping a can of ginger ale. Will was burning something on the grill and couldn’t have looked happier, while Cordelia Canton gave him pointers on proper grilling techniques.

  Charlotte was standing at the end of the dock, talking to Will’s brother, Jon, while they drank beer. A sudden and sharp pang of jealousy speared right through Leonard’s chest, and it shamed him. Charlotte seemed like the kind of lady that deserved someone like Jon, a selkie like his brother, who was a decent enough person to have earned Sonja’s good opinion–which wasn’t easy. Also, Jon didn’t have a curse hanging over his head. Maybe fate could have been a little kinder by not pairing Charlotte with someone so broodily and sensitively handsome–right in front of Leonard’s face. But he’d gotten used to this sort of kick in the teeth from fate.

  It was the first time Leonard hadn’t seen her in her sensible scrubs and he was having a hard time not staring at her lithe figure in a floral sundress. The cool blue fabric brought out the caramel highlights in her hair and made her eyes seem even larger. She turned those eyes towards his and smiled sweetly. He dropped his gaze to the ground, the water, anything that would make it seem that he wasn’t staring at her like a big creep.

  Step One In Getting Through a Potentially Disastrous Social Occasion at Your Boss’s House: Stop staring at your boss’ guests.

  “Leonard! I’m so glad you could make it!” Sonja exclaimed as Leonard handed her the wine and flowers. “This is so sweet of you! Nice bottle, too.”

  “Thanks for inviting me, Sonja.”

  “Well, we really haven’t had any sort of party here since we moved in,” Sonja replied. “Too many near catastrophes. Besides, we had to welcome Charlotte to town properly. And make up for that nightmare meeting.”

  “And thank you for not inviting Jessica or Alex, even though it will probably be awkward at work tomorrow,” he said quietly.

  She shrugged nonchalantly, then told him, “Go make yourself comfortable.”

  Leonard grabbed a beer from the cooler and stood on the outside of the group, just watching the interactions. It was his normal MO during parties. There were too many opportunities for him to spill something or knock something over.

  Jon followed Sonja inside, probably to fetch Charlotte another beer or pearls from the bottom of the sea or something super-impressive and romantic. Dani announced a need to visit the ladies room, leaving Zed to fold Cordelia into his arms and press a brotherly kiss to her forehead. Her boyfriend, Brendan, just rolled his eyes and shook his head.

  “I don’t need to remind you that if you hurt my Cordelia, I can and will snap you like kindling, Irish!” Zed called. Brendan replied with something rude in Gaelic–which Leonard didn’t speak, but he knew international profanity when he heard it.

  “Are Zed and Cordelia related?” Charlotte asked Leonard.

  Leonard shook his head. “No, but he adopted her formally–or as formally as a bear can–after she moved here. There was forehead-licking involved, that’s all I know.”

  “Zed seems like a very nice man, but I would like my forehead to remain un-licked,” Charlotte told him.

  “I would say that’s reasonable,” he conceded. “But he doesn’t just go around adopting people willy-nilly. Cordelia was in desperate need of family.”

  “Well, that’s sweet of him,” she said. “Aside from the licking. So, your family, what are they like?”

  “Haven’t we already talked about my family?” he replied. “Pretty normal, aside from the curse. What about yours? It has to be more interesting, what with the fairy history.”

  “This is going to sound awful,” she said, cringing.

  “I doubt it,” he said. “Given my own cursed state, keep in mind that I’m in no place to judge.”

  Charlotte’s brow wrinkled, as if she was trying to apologize for the words coming out of her mouth. “I tried moving back home after I graduated and working with my mother. But it didn’t work out.”

  That was her big secret? Being unable to work with her mom? Leonard shook his head. “Well, yeah, working with family can be a nightmare. I worked at my dad’s garage every summer from sixth grade to high school graduation. I don’t think we had a civil dinner conversation in the summertime until I got my first lab job. You spend all day together and then you go home together. Little resentments build up, things you were supposed to do and didn’t, things you wish they wouldn’t do and they never seem to stop.”

  “Yes, exactly that,” she gasped, clutching his arm as if he was some sort of lifeline of understanding. Leonard tried not to sigh from the warm sensation winding out from his arm to his chest, just under his heart. Surely, sighing in the middle of a conversation, like you’d just slid into a hot bath, would be rude and off-putting.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Charlotte said. “My parents are amazing people. They’re kind and supportive and they love me so much. So even when I moved into my own place, the phone was just ringing all of the time and anything became an excuse for me to come over to their place. By the time we were about a year into a practice together, I realized I needed some space. The League offered me a job and while I frequently call and video chat with my parents every Saturday, I try to limit my visits to Christmas.”

  His eyes narrowed as he stared at her. She grimaced. “I knew that was going to sound bad.”

  He laughed. “No, I’m just trying to figure out how you get away with it. Do you have any idea how awful holidays can be when your entire family gets more and more clumsy the more stressed out they are? We’ve never gotten a turkey all the way to the table. Never.”

  “I would imagine it’s pretty bad,” she said, nodding. “But yesterday, during that really weird meeting, you managed to run across the street without any problems, while carrying a bunch of pies. It was practically a Three Stooges set-up and…nothing.”

  He scoffed. “Well, yeah, but I wasn’t nervous then. It wasn’t my screw up. It was Jessica’s. I was just trying to fix it and help Sonja and Jillian. I love helping Sonja and Jillian. I don’t get stressed out doing what I love.”

  She grinned at him and he actually felt his heart catch…which honestly, sort of hurt, but it was worth it to know that he was the one who brought that joy to her face. She clinked her bottle against his.

  “I know exactly what you mean,” Charlotte said.

  In that moment, Leonard decided he wanted Charlotte McBee, badly, and the thought of even trying to woo her made him very nervous. And he was in a lot of trouble.

  5

  Charlotte

  Charlotte enjoyed a rare weekend morning off, cleaning the Silver Stork and doing her grocery shopping, securing a PO Box from the very subtly nosy Mrs. De Los Santos, and other adulting chores. She felt very productive when she sat down for her weekly video call with her parents. Now that she’d established herself as an adult with a lot of space between her household (mobile as it was) and her parents, their relationship was a lot better. She found herself looking forward to their weekend calls. It had been freeing to talk to Leonard the night before, and for him to understand how she felt about her family.

  While Will had been none-too-subtle in introducing Charlotte to his perfectly nice and “extremely single” brother, Jon, Charlotte had spent most of the prior evening talking to Leonard. She thought maybe that was Sonja’s aim because the more time she spent with Leonard, the happier Sonja became–but Will got glummer and glummer. When the evening wound to a close and Leonard offered to drive her back to her trailer, Sonja’s smirk was almost indecent.

  Leonard had driven like a grandma on the winding, twisting roads back to the town. But she didn’t have the heart to tease him about it. She sensed that he didn’t want to make some random mistake while driving and hurt her. He was trying to protect her from the consequences of his curse. It was sweet, really, like most things about Leonard.

  She couldn’t help but watch his elegant hands moving carefully on the steering wheel and remember the way he’d darted across Main Street. His long legs carried him with purpose and confidence and the memory of it had her squirming in her seat. A lot of aspects of Leonard were pretty attractive, but seeing him move like a man on a mission? Even if that mission was retrieving forsaken pie, well, she was just happy to be on the receiving end of it.

  Charlotte wondered if he used that sort of care and determination…everywhere.

  He’d parked far enough from the Silver Stork that he couldn’t possibly risk hitting it. Then he carefully stepped around the car and opened her door, taking her hand and helping her out of her seat with aching slowness. She knew it wasn’t particularly enlightened, to get hot and bothered over being treated like spun glass. But she’d worked so hard for so long, taking care of other people. And even though she loved that work, it was nice having someone take care of her. She squeezed her fingers around Leonard’s as they approached her “front step.”

  “Big plans over the weekend?” he’d asked.

  “The Saturday phone call and errands,” she said. “Taking Sunday as my day of rest, though I’m never really able to relax, just in case someone goes into labor.”

  “Well, you should!” he said. “Relax, I mean. You can’t take care of anybody if you’re all drained and tired.”

  When she smiled at him, he took both her hands in his.

  “When does your confinement with Jillian start?” he asked, turning those hands over and staring at them like they were something precious.

  “Probably next week,” she said. “It all depends on Jillian, of course.”

  “Well, I’ll be in my office, unless Jessica tries to move my desk into the parking lot,” he said. “If you ever want to meet for pie or take a drive out to the old rift site, I’d be happy to take you.”

  It was the way he asked, not demanding like so many other men, but making it entirely her choice, that had her craning up to kiss him. She’d gone up on her tippy-toes and he’d still had to duck his head to meet her lips. And she could feel his mouth curving up, even as it brushed against hers. Those long arms she admired wrapped around her and lifted her just a little bit, making her laugh into his lips.

  “I’ll call you,” she told him, before turning to unlock her door.

  “You don’t have my number,” Leonard replied.

  “Sonja gave it to me,” she’d chirped.

  “I love my boss,” he sighed as she popped her door open and closed it behind her.

  Charlotte was so caught in this memory, in the memory of how soft and warm his lips felt against hers, that she’d very nearly forgotten that she was supposed to call her parents at noon. She hit “call” on her video chat app and pulled her plate of boudin and rice dressing from Clarissa Berend in front of her. So far, this was her favorite contribution from the Bayou mamas, but she would never say so because then she would get flooded with Tupperware from Clarissa’s competition. Her mother insisted on eating lunch together during these calls, just so Lizzie knew that Charlotte was “keeping body and soul together.”

  Hank McBee’s rounded, ruddy face appeared on the screen, far too close to the camera. “Hey, Daddy, all I’m seeing is forehead.”

  “Oh, right.” Her dad leaned away from the laptop and waved merrily. “Hey there, shortcake. Your mama’s in the shower. Misty McGee had her twins last night. Mama didn’t get back until the wee hours.”

  Charlotte shuddered, suddenly glad to be dealing with just one baby at a time, even if the baby was part dragon.

  “So how’s it going in Name Redacted Bayou?” Hank said.

  “Very funny,” she sighed. Her father had been calling her his “the spy who delivered babies” since she swore her parents to secrecy over her location.

  “In all seriousness, I know it’s insulting to your role as a professional when I fuss over my grown daughter, but I’m worried about you, sweetheart,” he said. “If you think that the mood in town is shifting, you high-tail it for home.”

  “I couldn’t leave my patients,” she replied. “Besides, I’d be better protected here than I would be at home, with all of the League resources we have here. If anything, I’d want you and Mama to come here. I don’t think our neighbors are going to take too well to the idea that you and Mama have been lyin’ to them all this time.”

  “You let me worry about that,” he said. “So how are things in the eye of the storm?”

  “It’s going well. Busy, but the people are really nice.”

  Charlotte was smiling dreamily, thinking of Leonard, before she realized it.

  Her daddy’s brown eyes narrowed and he grinned. “Any one person in particular?”

  Dang it. She never had been able to hide anything from her father. He may not have had supernatural powers, but he could sniff out a lie like a freaking bloodhound.

  “Maybe,” she said, her cheeks flushing. “We’ve just met, so who knows.”

  “Well, sometimes you just know” he said. “And sometimes, people don’t figure out they made a mistake until they’re half-way down the aisle. You don’t have to rush things. Hell, it took me months before I convinced your mama to go on a date with me.”

  “Yeah, I wouldn’t go around telling people that,” Charlotte told him.

  “It was called courtship, back then, shortcake,” Hank said.

  She pursed her lips. “Mmmhmmm.”

  “Is he a nice boy?” her father asked.

  “He’s a nice man,” she replied, snickering when he pulled a disgusted face. “He’s perfectly sweet and downright gentlemanly.”

  “Is he like you and Mama? Or like me?” Hank asked.

  It was a delicate question. Charlotte’s grandmother hadn’t been entirely thrilled with Hank as a mate for Lizzie. There had always been some hope that Lizzie would meet another fae, but still, Grandma wanted Lizzie to be happy. And Hank made Lizzie very happy.

  “He’s human, but there are complications,” Charlotte said.

  Hank arched an eyebrow. “Does he have horns like that Pope Lick Monster fella?”

  Charlotte laughed. “No, other complications. I’ll talk about it when Mama gets on the call. That way I just say it all at once.”

  “Well, speak of the devil,” he said, ducking away as a hand came into frame and lightly smacked his shoulder.

  “That man,” her mama sighed as she sat at the kitchen table. Charlotte watched Daddy make her mother a mug of steaming coffee, doctored just the way she liked it with three sugars.

  “Daddy said you had a late night,” Charlotte said.

  “Oh, it was fine. Your daddy just worries if I’m out past sunset. How are you settling in?”

  “Fine,” Charlotte insisted. “It’s a little strange, so many magique living in one place, but nice.”

  Lizzie rolled her eyes and sipped her coffee. “What a time to be alive, eh?”

  “She’s seeing someone!” Daddy called from the stove, where he was frying eggs. “And he’s ‘complicated.’”

  “Thank you, Daddy,” Charlotte muttered.

  “Complicated how?” Lizzie asked. “Honey, is he married? You know better!”

  “Mama, he’s not married!” Charlotte laughed. “Though, that might be preferable. His whole line’s been fae-cursed. He gets progressively more clumsy the more stressed out he gets. Apparently, it ruined his career in the science labs, so now he’s working as an administrator for the big muckity-mucks here in the Bayou.”

  Lizzie sat back in her chair. “Oh, that is a nasty bit of magic.”

  “It really is,” Charlotte agreed.

  “Have you offered to remove it?” her mother asked.

  “Apparently, the only way to remove it was for the cursed ancestor to apologize to the girl he hurt. Which is impossible now, since that guy’s been dead for a century or two,” Charlotte replied. “And if anybody else tries to remove it, it will get three times worse.”