The Last Witch Hunter (Witch Hunters) (5 page)

Expression somber, she said, “There are no guarantees on happiness, Ronan. It’s often gone in the blink of an eye.”

He didn’t need to be a mind reader to know that she had lost someone important to her. That she still suffered from the loss of this man ate him up with jealousy. “Who was he?”

“He?”

“The guy who broke your heart.”

She snorted. “As if. My entire life
has proven the ephemeral nature of joy. My parents died in a car accident when I was five. I was raised by my aunt, who trained me to hunt witches, but seemed to always expect Mystique to be the one to carry on the family business. Meadow, my aunt, wasn’t the most maternal sort but she was my only partner in this since Mystique never wanted anything to do with hunting. Recently Meadow . . . retired. That leaves just me.” She bit her lip and her eyes widened.  She seemed as stunned by her informative outburst as he was.

She was lonely, he realized, but afraid to trust that he would be there for her. Anything could take him away. A job. Death. “I’d never willingly leave you.”

“Leaving is leaving.”

“Is it really living if you don’t live life to the fullest? We could have so much together. Kids-”

She held up a hand. “Stop. You should go now. I withdraw my invitation.”

Ronan groaned. He had no choice but to obey her wishes. Supernatural etiquette demanded that he could only enter the home of a human unless he was invited.
Without that permission, he couldn’t cross a threshold. It was physically impossible. Even now it felt as though the walls of Mrs. Williams’ house were closing in on him. An invisible force pressed on his chest, expelling the oxygen from his lungs and not allowing him to draw in more air. If he remained any longer, he’d black out. He stood and swiftly crossed to the door.

On the porch, he bent at the waist and glared back at the tiny nymph. “Denying it won’t change the facts. You’re mine, Nikita.” Her only response was a raised brow as she slammed the door in his face.

Chapter Four

Ronan pa
rked his pickup and hopped out. He hefted the rocking chair out of the bed of his truck where it had been laying on its side. Up until ten years ago River Oaks retirement apartments had been the town hospital. When the new hospital was constructed, the old building was converted into apartments for the disabled and senior citizens. The entire family had been shocked when Uncle Hugh had put his house up for sale and moved into an apartment. Though he was close to eighty, he got around well enough and his age never seemed to be a deterrent to anything he wanted to do. With the air of patience one uses when speaking to a child, Hugh had explained that the place was going to be packed with widows and as there would be few men of his age, he would have his pick of the women.

The lobby was practically deserted. But that was to be expected on a day with such fine weather as today. Temperatures were in the mid-seventies. It was a welcome change from the sweltering heat of summer. Ronan nodded at Mrs. Winters as he passed her desk. Phone receiver pressed to her ear while she painted her nails, she gave him a warm smile and a wave. Ronan wasn’t sure what her job description entailed, but he hoped it wasn’t too taxing. With her head full of white hair and her tanned and leathery skin, he’d guess her age to be around seventy. When he’d first met her, he’d mistaken her for one of the tenants instead of an employee.

The elevator doors opened as soon as he pressed the button. His uncle’s place was on the second floor. Ronan hoisted his gift over his head and made his way down the burgundy corridor. Having been blessed with good health all his life, he’d never had the misfortune to visit River Oaks when it was a hospital. Looking at it now, it was hard to imagine it as anything other than an apartment building. Whoever had been in charge of the remodel had successfully removed the cold anesthetic feel of a hospital and managed to interject the space with warmth and coziness.

He put the chair down to knock and the door was whipped open almost immediately. Ronan blinked. His cousin Brian, Uncle Hugh’s only child,
gave him a curt nod. “Ronan,” he said, before brushing past him and stomping off down the hallway.

Uncle Hugh sat on the sofa, his expression tense.
Ronan bypassed his uncle’s small kitchen area and placed the rocking chair by the window. Below he could see several seniors socializing in the center courtyard. “Hey, you okay?”

    “
What? Oh, sure. Sure.” He used the arm of the sofa to push himself to a standing position. “What’s this?” he asked, his cheeks creasing into a smile. He ran his hand over the back. “It’s beautiful.”

Ronan grinned. “It’s yours.
Happy birthday.”

“Do I look like I need a rocking chair?” Nonetheless, he settled
his large frame into the chair and set it to rocking. Hugh was a large man like himself. Ronan had taken that into consideration when he’d designed the width and height. Uncle Hugh let out a sigh. “Perfect. I always say you were my best apprentice.”

He’d worked under his uncle from the age of sixteen until his uncle had
fully retired five years ago. Everything he knew about working with wood, he’d learned from Uncle Hugh. Ronan took a seat on the couch. “I was your only apprentice,” he pointed out.

He grunted. “Tried to teach Brian, but he was never interested. Not enough money in it, he said.”

Ronan clenched his jaw. “Did Brian say something? Do something to upset you?”

“No. He just came to visit the old man
on his birthday.”

“
What is this, the first time he’s been by since you moved in? Why now?” Brian had been incensed when Hugh sold his house to move into the apartment. So furious, Ronan had had to take the day off to help pack his uncle up and move him in. Brian had refused. He’d been spitting mad that Hugh would sell the house when Brian and his wife and their two kids were living in a rundown mobile home. According to Brian, the house should have been his.

Hugh shook his head. “I don’t know.
”

“Did he want money?”
Ronan couldn’t bury his suspicions.

“No. We watched the news
. Talked about that poor lady they pulled out of the water.” He shrugged.

“Then w
hy the long face when I entered?”

Hugh sighed and his shoulders slumped.
He looked weary and defeated. For a change, he looked every bit of his seventy-eight years. “I did my best by Brian. After his mother left us, I tried to be a mother and a father to him. It makes me sad to see him so unhappy, so filled with hate.”

“He’s a selfish asshole,” Ronan said bluntly. “Don’t take credit for his failures.”

“No, no. He had it rough as a kid. I knew Rose wasn’t the one for me, but back in those days, I was stupid and impulsive. She was so beautiful it’d take your breath away. She was a strong witch, fairly crackled with energy when you looked at her. Unfortunately, Rose was about as big on motherhood as she was on commitment.” He ran a hand over his lower jaw, his graying whiskers making a rasping sound. Ronan had only been a kid when Rose left, but he did recall how sad his uncle had been and how angry Brian had become. Neither of them had ever really talked about it. Other than to say she was gone, Hugh seemed to avoid all mention of her. “Take my word on it kid, no matter how long it takes, you’re better off alone than settling down with the wrong woman.”

Ronan immediately thought of Nikita.
She was the right woman, but convincing her of that fact was going to be hell. “Speaking of women, I found my one.”

“You don’t say!” A grin split his face. “Tell me all about her.”

“She’s a tiny little thing. Her head doesn’t even reach my shoulders. Beautiful enough to stop you in your tracks. She’s smart and feisty. You’d love her. Oh, and she kills witches for a living.”

Hugh blinked and set his chair to rocking. “Well, that’s a might bit of a complication, isn’t it?”

“A bit.”

***

Having never watched
The Shining
, Nikita couldn’t be certain, but she was sure she was nearing the point of ax wielding. She was bored out of her mind. Never having had this much free time on her hands, she had didn’t know what to do. She fed the cat, tried to watch television, sat on the porch and watched the cars pass by. Not that there were many.

It didn’t help that she still couldn’t sleep.
Her unoccupied hours seemed to stretch on into eternity. It had been three days since Ronan had invited her to the Fall Harvest Festival and damned if she wasn’t already having second thoughts. The red behemoth had been notably absent of late. She’d seen his truck leaving early in the morning and then returning just after dark. That’s right. She was so bored she had nothing better to do than spy on her neighbors, a pastime she ordinarily would have considered beneath her.

Nikita was attempting to watch an old movie when the growl of Ronan’s truck
sounded outside the window. She pursed her lips and stared harder at the television screen as fog billowed over the streets of a small fishing community. It didn’t matter that she’d lost track of the plot thirty minutes into the movie. She was determined not to become one of those people who had nothing better to do than peep out of their curtains at their neighbors. It would have been fine if she hadn’t completed her investigation. Gathering intel was acceptable. Purposeless snooping to alleviate boredom was not.

She was so determined to ignore the sounds from outside that she jumped when the doorbell rang. Standing, she turned off the television. Finding Ronan on the porch was no surprise. He wore a green and black plaid shirt that was flecked with paint. Faded and worn jeans molded his hard thighs and long legs. Ronan looked as though he hadn’t shaved since she last saw him.
“Hi,” he said, a big smile spreading over his handsome face.

He seemed happy to see her. It wasn’t something that she was accustomed to. People acknowledge her presence and accepted it as fact. But no one had ever been happy just to be around her. It was strange and it made her uncomfortable. “What?” she snapped
at him to cover her confusion.

“Chipper as always. Can I come in?”

She shifted to the side. “I thought it only took one invitation and then getting rid of you would be like stopping a bedbug infestation.”

He paused in the doorframe so that their bodies were only inches apart. She was forced to tilt her head back to maintain eye contact. “I missed you so nothing you say is going to ruin this for me.”

Nikita rolled her eyes. “Get in already.” She closed the door behind him. “So what do I have to thank for this visit?” The lighting on the porch was dim. One of the blubs had blown. Nikita made a mental note to replace it in the morning. Once he was inside, she could make out paint splatters on his jeans as well. Sawdust powdered his strong forearms, mingling with the red hair there.

    “I’ve been helping a buddy install a deck and I’ve missed you.”
He grinned and ran a hand over his jaw. It looked like he had about two days’ worth of beard. He was dirty and his slumped stance spoke of his exhaustion. “Sorry I didn’t go home and clean up first. I’m so tired I’ll probably go to bed right after a shower.”

She was so
not
imagining that large toned body of his naked with soap and water cascading-
Shit!
She really was suffering from cabin fever. That could be the only explanation for her current insanity. Best to get rid of him quickly. “Um…hm. Well, don’t let me keep you.”

“Nikita, about the festival this weekend, I was wondering if you’d
changed your mind.”

Nikita viewed him through narrowed eyes. She wondered
if he’d been reading her mind. “Have you been spying on me?”

“No. Why would you think that?”

Unwilling to admit that he could be right about anything, she became defensive. “Isn’t that what witches do? Stick their long warty noses where they don’t belong?”

His red eyebrows arched. “Of the two of us, aren’t you the one who makes a living out of snooping?”

“I don’t
snoop
, I perform
surveillance
,” she pointed out, crossing her arms over her chest. “Besides, what I meant was that I don’t know what witchy abilities you might have. For instance, can you read minds?”

“No, I can’t, but I do have the very real human capability of telling when someone is being evasive. Can’t you just admit you’ve had second thoughts and would like to go with me? I promise you’ll have a good time. There’ll be games, candy, and a haunted house. You should get a kick out of that. What do you need me to do to convince you? Beg?” He dropped to his knees and clasped his hands together in front of his face. “Please, say you’ll come with me?”

Even on his knees, he was an imposing figure. Nikita studied his broad shoulders and hard frame. He was too sexy for his own good. And, seriously, when the hell did red hair start making her wet?

    “Come on. I’m exhausted. I’m hoping I can get up from here.”

His blue-green eyes were large and pleading. The color was striking with his ginger hair. She still wasn’t sure if she wanted to go to this thing, but it was difficult to say yes. Saying “no” to him had become an ingrained habit. But now she’d only be spiting herself. “Fine. Get up.”