Chapter Six

Rowan stared at the ceiling in her bedroom. Painted white and with a fan that wasn’t running. In the summer, that probably was handy to have, but not needed in the late fall. Tempting to bewitch the ceiling to show her something—anything—else. Because white paint wasn’t exactly stimulating. Unfortunately, it wasn’t sleep inducing, either.

Blowing out a long, frustrated breath, she finally gave in, like she did every night, and flipped the covers back. After wrapping a sweater around her, she tiptoed upstairs in her socked feet to the kitchen where she filled a kettle. Leaning her butt against the island counter, she crossed her arms and waited.

The soft, sort of fuzzy, sound of water boiling joined the sound of the ticking grandfather clock in the family room. She couldn’t decide if that clock, which faithfully chimed the hour, was her friendly companion or her nemesis. In fact… She glanced over her shoulder. Yup. Another minute or two and it would sound the one o’clock bell.

She turned back to the kettle, cocking her head to listen to the bubbling, and grinned. This was going to be a close race. Which would go off first? Kettle or clock? Clock or kettle? The telltale click of the hour hand sounded a beat before the clock chimed. Almost a full two seconds later, the kettle started its whistle.

As she quickly removed it from the heat, so the sound wouldn’t disturb the other sleeping occupants of the house, she shook her head. “You let a clock beat you?” she asked the kettle. “That was a sad showing. Just like the tortoise and the hare.”

“Are you talking to a kettle?” An unmistakable voice sounded from the shadows to her right.

Rowan managed to contain the jump of fright to only her heart. “I—”

Why didn’t she get that prickly, being-watched sensation around him?

Greyson’s question sank in, and she wrinkled her nose. “Maybe?”

He moved closer to lean a hip against the counter, arms crossed. In pajama pants and a plain black T-shirt, hair all rumpled, suddenly the witch hunter appeared more…accessible.

“Is that a question?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I think any answer might incriminate me, so…”

Turning away, she got down one of the teacups she’d discovered the first night. True teacups—delicate white china with pastel flowers and butterflies painted on them. After a second, she grabbed a second one and lifted it, eyebrows raised in question. “Want some?”

He seemed to hesitate over the answer. “Sure.”

With a nod, she set both cups down and then got out a container she’d stashed in the same cupboard and scooped loose leaves into individual silver infusing balls.

“What is it?” Grey asked, suddenly sounding suspicious.

“Chamomile and lavender. In theory it should help make you sleepy. No caffeine.”

A glance at his face showed his eyebrows raised. “I don’t remember buying that.”

“You didn’t. I did.”

“Oh.”

She left the tea steeping in the hot water and turned to face him more fully. “Can’t sleep?”

Again, she got the impression that he was hesitating over the answer. “Most nights.”

“I haven’t bumped into you before.” Or heard any sign of his wakefulness. Granted, his room was at the other end of the first floor.

“I didn’t want to disturb you.”

In other words he didn’t want to have to spend time with her. Disappointment dug under her skin and lodged there uncomfortably.

“Not because of what you’re thinking,” he said.

She blinked. Had she been that obvious?

Her no doubt disgruntled expression must’ve amused him, because his lips tipped up slightly. “I just didn’t want to make you uncomfortable if you were trying to relax.”

Sweet. She hadn’t expected a witch hunter to be…kind. “I don’t mind the company.” The words escaped her before she’d realized she wanted to say that. But once the words were out, she didn’t want to take them back.

At his inquiring look, she hitched herself up on the countertop, legs dangling. “I’ve been alone a lot…”

Mother of pearl. What was wrong with her, confessing such a thing? Then another realization struck. Nanny version of Rowan hadn’t been alone. She’d been nannying for families. She scrambled to cover her gaff. “Don’t get me wrong. The kids are wonderful and entertaining. But it’s nice to talk to an adult every once in a while.”

There. That sounded plausible and normal.

She glanced at the tea, willing it to steep faster. Why in the seven hells had she confessed such a thing to begin with? Sure, she was lonely all the time. Especially lately. Delilah had turned into a friend of sorts, but not someone to just have a chat with. And she was terrified most of the time. One week here and she was already dreaming of the day she had a home and people to love her. Expecting Grey to care about her at all, as his nanny of all people, let alone the idea of the man hunting her down turning into any kind of friend…

She’d had some dumbass ideas in her time, but this one was a doozy.

“I get it.”

His dark voice pulled her out of her head, and she paused, searching his face for any sign of what he meant. “You do?”

Grey huffed a laugh. “I’m a single father with triplet daughters who lives alone in the woods. My job keeps me out on my own for days or weeks at a time. But when I come home, I’m Daddy. Yeah. I get it.”

Something in the way he looked down at his bare feet caught her attention.

“Admitting you’re lonely even with your children to care for isn’t wrong. You know that, don’t you?”

He slowly raised his head to stare at her more closely. “In my head I do.” His lips hitched in a crooked smile that shot straight through her. “My heart is a different matter.”

Rowan curled her hands around the lip of the granite countertop to keep from reaching out to him. “Anyone can see how much you love those girls.”

No answer.

Rowan tried a teasing grin. “Even if your daily schedule sounds like it comes from a military drill sergeant.”

That earned her a scowl and the return of the forbidding guy from day one.

Damn. As usual, she’d let her tongue take it a step too far.

Only she couldn’t find it in herself to be intimidated. Self-preservation said she should, but he reminded her of Tanya this way. Every so often her adoptive mother’s inner demonic self would take over, her temper rising, and she’d suddenly change. Greyson was like that. Like an inner demon drove him beyond his limits.

Rowan imagined he’d look this way in full hunter mode when taking down a witch or warlock who’d earned a harsh punishment. In control, formidable, all consuming.

Entrancing.

If she wasn’t likely to end up on the wrong end of his magic, she’d find him fascinating rather than terrifying. Almost as though, if she leaned into that darkness, she’d find…

What? A kindred soul?

Rowan gave herself a mental palm to the forehead. What am I thinking?

…

Damn Rowan and damn his instinct to come in here in the first place. He’d leave, only he still had to drink his tea.

Meanwhile, the witch who was his children’s nanny, seemed hell-bent on never reacting the way he would expect.

He’d been drawn out here by a small sound to find her talking to the teapot as though it had been in a race with the clock. With anyone else, he’d be on the phone voicing his concerns to Delilah. But he hadn’t because something about Rowan—something that had been bugging him all week—hinted at an emptiness. As if she had this void of need that went so deep, she couldn’t see the bottom.

He knew that kind of ache. Alone in a crowd.

So he’d tried to offer a bit of compassion. He definitely wasn’t expecting her to turn it back on him and see beneath his own words of comfort to the guilt that ate away at him for being almost relieved when he got to go out into the world. Not that he ever wanted to leave his children. But being able to focus on problems outside their home, and have adult conversations, and not be tied to that schedule, was a break he needed.

And his nanny was the only one to see that about him. Not even his own mother knew. Maybe because Rowan recognized her own loneliness in him?

But then, just as he was warming up to her, Rowan was calling him a drill sergeant when it came to his children and they were back to square one, with him gritting his teeth.

“I find a schedule and consistency helps,” he said.

And held in a mental grimace. Now he sounded defensive and like a studious professor all at the same time.

“You’re right, of course.” She ducked her head, but he still caught the smile she tried to hide.

Irritation bubbled up like that teakettle over the fire. “Now you’re placating me.”

“Not at all.” She shook her head, her red curls spilling over her shoulders. “This is a sensitive subject. We can talk about something else.”

“I’m not sensitive—”

“It’s okay. Every parent has a different way. It’s whatever works for you. Right?” She hopped off the counter and fiddled with their cups, removing the silver balls full of the leaves and cleaning them out. “I mean, it’s what gets you from one day to the next that counts.”

Greyson struggled to find a reasonable response to that. Somehow, she’d managed to make his being both a drill sergeant and sensitive okay. For a woman with minimal magical abilities, Rowan was a witch in every other sense of the word.

But out of all that, what caught him on the raw was the last bit. “Is that how you feel? Just getting from one day to the next?”

Her hands stilled and then moved slightly faster as if she’d paused and then jumped ahead a beat. “Not when I’m with the girls. But…yeah.”

“Why?”

What on earth could be that hard in a nanny’s life?

She shrugged. “I imagine having a set place in this life is something you’ve always known. Taken for granted even.”

A set place?

As though she’d heard the question, she nodded. “You come from a long magical line that guarantees your position in society. Your abilities grant you automatic respect. People listen to you, don’t they? You have family to love and care for you. Not just the girls but others, even if they’re not immediately here.”

She turned and handed him his teacup, but she refused to look at him. And she was careful not to touch him, offering the cup with the handle facing him.

“I don’t see—”

“You have this house—” She waved around with her free hand. “Roots. Family. Love. A set place in life.”

“And you don’t?”

The smile that came and went was more resigned than amused. “I definitely do not.”

Greyson opened his mouth. He wanted to argue with her. To tell her she was wrong. But not because of the need to be right, more out of a need to make her not right. To take that kind of pain away somehow. Fix it for her.

Only he couldn’t.

Even if she stayed until the girls were old enough not to need a nanny, she’d only be here a few years at most, and then off to her next posting.

“Even a set place in life doesn’t mean you have no problems.” Now where had that come from?

Rowan tipped her head, something in her gaze turning compassionate. “That was insensitive of me. Your wife?”

For once, the pain surrounding Maddie’s death didn’t jump at him, more like a dull throb. “That. And other things.” Like the girls and the questions surrounding their powers. “Being a hunter isn’t exactly safe.”

He wasn’t sure what he expected her reaction to be, but a scowl swiftly smoothed over wasn’t it. “I don’t suppose it would be,” she said slowly. “Why keep doing it then?”

A question he’d asked himself more and more lately.

“Family expectations, at least that’s how it started. My family line has been hunters going back generations. I was proud to carry on the tradition of upholding the laws, keeping our people safe from illegal use of magic and the impacts that can have. I’m good at it.” Usually. Not lately.

“Sounds like there’s more to it.”

He blinked. How did she do that? See through him and beyond his words. “Until recently, I’ve been hunting down a…witch killer.” I shouldn’t be telling her this. She’ll hate me if she finds out I executed the bastard in cold blood. “I can’t say more than that.”

“Of course.” She held up both hands then smiled, but not a real one. More like she’d had to pin this one back in place. As though she’d chased away her own demons.

Now I’m seeing things. Greyson shook off the odd thoughts. He didn’t need her understanding, and she didn’t need his help.

Or maybe that was what she wanted him to think. It seemed to him that Rowan McAuliffe was the last woman to appreciate pity or charity.

Just for something to do, he lifted his cup and took a sip. Immediately a lovely warmth spread through his muscles, relaxing the bunching muscles along his shoulders.

He stared at the pale liquid in one of the dainty cups his wife had insisted they have in the house. “You said this was chamomile and lavender?”

“Mm-hmm.” She said around her own sip. Then sent him a smile.

“No magic?”

“No.” She pulled a face that he would have described as disgusted. Except that made no sense.

“Well it works, whatever it is. I feel more relaxed already.”

That drew a chuckle from her. “My mother used to make this for me.”

“Have you always had trouble sleeping? Usually that’s a mark of a powerful mage, but—” He cut himself off as his own perceptions and prejudices became more real than he liked to admit.

“But someone like me?”

Damn. He’d offended her anyway.

“I didn’t mean—”

Rowan shook her head. “It’s okay. I get that…a lot.” She tossed him a wave and a casual smile that didn’t get anywhere near those silvery eyes. “I’d better say goodnight.”

“Night—” He called after her departing form.

He should probably go to bed himself. Maybe the tea would actually bring sleep. The dark certainly didn’t. It only brought thoughts and doubts and more worries.

“Smooth move,” he muttered at his teacup. Then downed the rest and went to check on the girls before returning to his bed.

Only, when his head hit the pillow, he felt a tiny bit less alone than he had before he’d joined Rowan in the kitchen, and sleep came quickly.