“Help me with my coat?” Bedivere asked after he’d stowed his mini-vacuum.
That was the cost of beautiful, fitted tailoring, but as she pulled his suit jacket from his broad shoulders, she couldn’t complain. Because yum.
But it only got better, because while Bedivere in a suit was one thing, Bedivere in a slim-fit button-down was, ah, nice. She wouldn’t let her mind move past nice. Nice worked just fine. Oh, so fine…
Bedivere cleared his throat.
At which point she realized she was still holding his jacket, and maybe, just possibly, smelling it. Because he smelled lovely, and his jacket, warm from his body, held traces of his scent. A clean, soapy smell with a hint of citrus and mint.
She looked up with a guilty start. “Are you sure you didn’t make a mistake and create some kind of aphrodisiac instead?” And as soon as the words left her lips, she could feel the tinge of warmth on her cheeks.
This time, his chuckle was low and intimate. “I most certainly did not.” He started to roll up his sleeves, exposing muscular forearms. He gestured to a clear area near a small sink and a Bunsen burner. “After you.”
She perched on a stool nearby, because if he thought she was fetching and carrying for him while he worked, then he could think again. Although after what had happened with his love potion, maybe he wasn’t expecting that. She recalled being clumsy and awkward around him when they’d first met so many years ago, but she hadn’t been in a long time. This truly had been a twist of fate.
“What has you frowning now?” He glanced down at the notes he’d started. “I’m working on an antidote. That is what you wanted.”
She shook her head. “Yes, of course. I’m not frowning.”
Except she had been and still was. Because she couldn’t stop thinking about all that initial awkwardness. How nervous she’d been around him. Bedivere was quite a bit older than her. He was that Bedivere, the knight, the hero, the legend. Not many knew his history, but Glenda had found out shortly after they’d begun a…flirtation. That was all it had been. Certainly. It couldn’t have been more, because he was the Bedivere.
In retrospect, her awe had been unwarranted. Now she knew the man behind the legend. Kind-hearted, patient, annoyingly self-assured. And it wasn’t like he suited up in his knightly armor and slew dragons these days. He’d adapted to modern life. Thrived, even. He worked with the witches’ council and ran at least one business that she knew of.
That awkwardness, the clumsiness she’d felt around him, had faded eventually, and they’d been left as they were now. Comfortable. He was to some degree her boss, but only so far as the council was concerned, and that work was a small portion of her life. When they did work together, they did so with ease. They made quite a good team.
“What are you thinking?” He’d retrieved several items from the shelves lining the lab as she’d wallowed in ancient history and lost possibilities.
She sighed. “Nothing that needs to be brought out into the light of day, that’s for sure.”
“Are you sure?” He didn’t look up as he measured out a sickly green liquid into a beaker.
With much of his focus on creating the antidote, she felt no pressure from him. His blue eyes weren’t drilling into her as if he could peer into her very soul. Even though it hadn’t been exactly what she’d been thinking, on a whim, she asked, “Why haven’t you ever married?”
He’d been gently swirling a vial of viscous purple fluid over the low flame of the burner. When he heard her question, his hand stilled, but he didn’t look up. After a brief hesitation, he started to swirl the thinning fluid again.
She shouldn’t have asked. It was none of her business. She picked up a pair of tongs. “Shouldn’t you be using these?”
He glanced at them but didn’t take them from her. “Probably, but it only needs to be slightly warmer than room temperature.”
He added the now-thin purple stuff to the beaker of hideous green. As he stirred the resulting concoction with a long-handled iron spoon, he said, “I was. Twice. Both times to mortal women.”
She didn’t comment, because what was there to say? Foolish man, mortals don’t live that long? He’d known that, as any witch would.
“There was a witch once, a long time ago, but she wouldn’t have me.”
She snorted. “Silly woman.”
He looked at her and quirked an eyebrow. “I tell you that all the time. It’s nice you’ve finally realized.”
No. That wasn’t what she remembered. That wasn’t right at all. He had it wrong. He was getting so old that he was going senile. She’d been young—and perhaps a little clueless—but not that clueless. No one could be so clueless as to fail to discern the attention of the then much younger Bedivere.
He’d been a legend. A man of myth.
Perhaps he’d seemed out of reach to a young witch. A dream that could never be. But even so, even if he spoke the truth, that moment had passed.
“Watch it. You’ve got smoke coming out of your ears.”
And there was the man she knew.
She narrowed her eyes. “What exactly was in that potion? I think your love potion didn’t do at all as it was intended, and most certainly had some side effects.”
He shut the burner off, covered the beaker with the unfinished antidote in it, and then turned to her. “You simply refuse to see what’s in front of you. How can you be so adept when interfering in others’ love lives, and yet so completely incompetent with your own?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” But she most certainly did. She bit her lip, and his eyes dropped to study her mouth.
Tracing her jaw with the tip of his finger, Bedivere looked into her eyes. So deep, with those piercing blue eyes, right into her very soul, but then he blinked and, in a relatively normal tone of voice, said, “It wasn’t a love potion.”
Several seconds passed with his fingers resting lightly against her face, and only when he ran his thumb along her lower lip did she realize she’d opened her mouth in surprise.
She batted his hand away. “Then what was it?” She snapped out the question, aware not only that she was the one who’d leapt to that conclusion, but also that she was as nervous as that young witch who’d once thought Bedivere so beyond her reach.
“Just a gentle nudge to allow some friends”—he quirked an eyebrow—“a charming married couple, to be more open with one another. They’ve had a rough time lately, and I made the potion as a favor to both of them.”
Glenda considered the implications. More open. Honest with oneself. Perhaps that was something she hadn’t always been. Perhaps she had been blind in the past. Blinded by fear or doubt or simply youthful inexperience.
Since she’d been exposed to the potion, she’d been more annoyed than usual with Bedivere, her patience shorter…and much more attracted. She’d also felt a tug of affection, maybe something more, that she’d buried and hidden so long ago. If she pulled it out now, would that affection have grown over the years?
Good heavens.