Page 45 of Herbs & Hex-breaking

“You may be right.” His voice was cheerful. Deceptively so as he slid his arms around my waist. “It’s supposed to encourage love and lust, isn’t it?”

“Cinnamon is a masculine herb,” I explained. “It’s sacred to the goddess Aphrodite and also encourages, healing, success, psychic abilities…”

He cut me off with another steamy kiss.

“And protection,” I said, once he let me up for air. “As does the cloves.”

He smiled down into my face. “I bet you know the magickal properties for cloves by heart too. Don’t you?”

“Cloves are good for purification, protection and to draw money.” I raised an eyebrow at him. “In fact, the other ingredients in my pumpkin pie spice mixture: nutmeg, allspice and ginger, bring good luck, health, prosperity and success.”

He wiggled his eyebrows playfully at me. “You’re sexy when you talk about magickal herbs.”

“Oh, my gods!” I burst out laughing. “What’s with you tonight? I’ve never seen you act this way before.”

I would have eased back, but he kept me snugged up tight against him. “I figured after the day you’d had you could use something to make you smile.”

“Won’t argue with that,” I said, and wondered if he was about to ask if he could stay for the night.

“Let’s take a walk.”

“Huh?” It was the last thing I would have expected him to say.

“It’s a nice night. We could take a walk over to Storyteller’s Fountain and get some fresh air.”

“I suppose we could.”

He let go and stepped back. “I noticed you haven’t been taking your morning walks lately.”

“No, I haven’t,” I admitted. “Everything’s been a little crazy.”

“Go grab your walking shoes,” he said.

I studied Dex warily. He stood there smiling affably and looking gorgeous. Now he wanted to go take a walk it seemed, after kissing me brainless only a moment ago.

Half of me wanted to dive on him; but my wiser half stoically turned around and got her tennis shoes.

The walk was lovely and it felt good to get out and stretch my legs. We were walking back from the fountain and had ducked into a drug store to grab a couple of bottles of water. There were street musicians out and the city had begun putting up their holiday lights and decorations. We strolled along, simply chatting and enjoying each other’s company—something we should have done before we had ended up in bed together.

As we walked back toward the stores, I spotted a man up on a ladder attaching big decorative bells to the streetlamp on the sidewalk. We were passing him when I heard the man swear. I glanced up and saw him make a grab for one of the bells and then it was falling right towards me.

I didn’t even have time to react. Dex grabbed my shirt and yanked me to one side, but the bell still caught me in the arm. We tumbled down to the sidewalk, and I heard several people shout.

“Kate, are you hurt?” Dex asked.

I felt the burn and looked down at my left arm. My sleeve was torn and I had a big scratch above my elbow. Immediately it began to seep blood. “Ouch,” I said.

A crowd had gathered around us, including the worker who’d been attaching the bells. “I’m so sorry,” he said to me. “The cable tie just snapped. I’ve been hanging up these damn bells all day, that’s never happened before!”

“Would you like me to call an ambulance?” a woman asked.

“No,” I assured her as Dex helped me to my feet.

Dex took my arm and rotated it slightly to better see the cut. “It’s not deep.”

I nodded through gritted teeth. The truth was, falling to the ground made my side that I’d smacked on the stair’s railing hurt like crazy. “Let’s go home,” I said.

The worker wanted to exchange phone numbers, something about filling out an incident report. The crowd started to dwindle down and finally Dex and I were on our way. By the time we arrived at our building, blood was dripping down my arm and over my hand.