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“Tori–” a voice said hesitantly, and Tori spun on the cold, hard tiles of the kitchen.
She smiled at the tiny woman holding a huge bag standing in the arch that served as the door.
“Yes, you get a bonus for getting up that road,” Tori said.
Marta supplied all the baked goods for the coffee shop in town out of her kitchen. It had taken Tori a solid month of buttering up Aaron, the coffee shop’s owner, to figure out how he got fresh-baked goods in the middle of a blizzard when no other shop in town got a delivery of any kind.
“Never mind about that, I got four-wheel drive,” Marta said and heaved her bag onto the stainless steel counter.
Tori snorted. Four-wheel drive was the false security that idiots from down the mountain needed to go 500 miles an hour, even when the road was covered in ice. It was not for climbing a literal mountain. “I’m still paying you for your trouble. And these look fabulous as always.”
Tori dove into the bag and pulled a round, yellow pastry almost the size of her head out and took a bite. Her taste buds melted in a wave of butter.
Marta literally waved that way.
“Sorry, what do you need?” Tori asked when Marta didn’t take one herself or ask about Tori’s love life, but just stood wringing her hands at the edge of the counter.
“Is everything okay?” Marta asked.
Tori looked down at herself, wondering what prompted the question. “Everything’s great. Why wouldn’t it be?”
There may or may not be a werewolf pack moving into town, and I haven’t told my coven. You know, details.
“I meant at the purple house. Josie Miller’s boy said he saw a big confrontation in the yard! Somebody was throwing things!”
Tori winced. She knew better than anyone that someone was always watching. The twins seemed to think they had gotten off clean since their last fight with a werewolf happened in the middle of the morning on a Tuesday, and their next-door neighbor didn’t come out of his house except to mow the lawn every other week on Sundays.
“The twins are great, and everybody else, too. We had a water balloon fight on the lawn. I can see how, from far away, that might’ve looked like a battle. It was super serious. You know how we get. But all in good fun.”
Why was she such a terrible liar? She had no problem at all telling a client with a straight face that their requests were completely reasonable and they were already halfway to being solved when she had no idea how she was going to restore cable service so they could watch the hockey finals that no local channel carried when everyone for five square miles didn’t even have power.
The answer was Old Tom’s generator, an international bank account with access to 15 currencies, and the address of the Toronto Public Library to stream Canadian TV.
“A water balloon fight,” Marta said, uncertain.
Fortunately, the twins and all their various foster kids were sufficiently eccentric that Tuesday morning water balloon fights didn’t sound that insane. Just mostly insane.
Tori kept an awkward smile on her face, aware she was currently bolstering that impression, not fixing it, but helpless to stop.
“I don’t have anything else lined up in terms of orders,” she began desperately. “But I’ll let you know.”
Marta looked around the kitchen. “Well, if they like it, you know where to find me.”
“Always.”
“Is it some kind of camp?” she asked.
Tori blinked. “What?”
“The group coming? This is an industrial kitchen. I thought there would be marble.”
Tori laughed hysterically and then bit down on her tongue until she tasted blood. “I don’t know.”
Marta tutted. “Of course you don’t.”
“It’s good to see you!” Tori said as a way to hopefully get her out of the door.
Marta paused at the arch. “It’d be better for the coffee shop if they placed an order through me directly.”
Tori’s smile flashed wider in genuine amusement. It would also be better for Marta’s bottom line to cut out the middleman.
“I don’t know how many people are coming, yet.” Or if werewolves ate pastries.
“Right, as if you don’t know the names, heights, and mothers’ maiden names of everyone you work for.”
“I’m getting them breakfast, not committing identity theft.”
“Of course, of course,” Marta said. “But if I ran the CIA, you would be my first recruit.”
Tori laughed too loudly as she bustled the woman out of the house. Tori was sure witches worked for the CIA—doing the good work of hiding witches from the CIA—but she honestly couldn’t see an overlap with her current job.
She got rich people the idiocies they seemed to need to live, but it wasn’t exactly espionage.
She shook off her musings and looked around. The water was on; the power was on; the entire house was cleaned from top to bottom; the fridge and pantry were stocked, and there was a bouquet of fresh flowers in a vase on the counter.
“I am good,” she said and took a deep breath. Did werewolves like flowers? Just in case, she’d put a dozen steaks in the freezer from a local cattle ranch and told herself she’d do the same for any client.
She went out to the porch, looking at the grassy road with a sigh. It was the one project she hadn’t succeeded in fixing on time, the first time in six months that had happened.
Enrique was sympathetic, but not about to abandon the Colorado government or a four-lane highway for a driveway in Silver Spring. She’d contacted an alternative crew that he’d recommended, but their answering machine said that they’d be down the mountain to check their messages tomorrow. She’d tried a dozen unvetted options, but crews were desperately trying to finish roadwork all over the state before the weather turned, and it just wasn’t going to happen.
“Sometimes reality works.” She couldn’t actually bend the universe to her will. It only felt like that most of the time, so her failures stung more.
Maybe she was distracting herself with the road, because she was about to meet a werewolf. Was he a wolf, or did he only work for them? He had talked about his boss over and over again, but was that a euphemism for alpha or literally the guy who paid his paycheck?
She checked her watch. He’d texted when he’d touched down at DIA. The airport was on the eastern edge of Denver, which meant he’d have to get through the city and start up the hill. If he hadn’t gotten lost, she’d hear his vehicle anytime.
She took a deep breath of chimney-smoke, pine-scented air, and as the last sounds of Marta’s truck faded away, she took in the profound silence. She didn’t ski or hike or bike or do any of the other outdoor activities that kept people flocking to the mountains, but she knew she would never live anywhere else because of this. The air tasted different up here.
She heard the rev of an engine and opened her eyes.
