“Maybe the incubi will just fight each other.”
“Then we move in?” I was mixing the mortar, and it was pretty well ready to go now. I lifted it aside to stand and stopped just behind Jake’s crouching form.
“Hm…” Jake went quiet as he finished the chalk marks. He finally stood up and met me eye to eye. “What’s that look for?” He tucked the chalk behind his ear, where it immediately left a little white mark across his hair.
“I don’t want to fight you for her,” I said. “I feel like it would be a bad idea. I keep thinking…” I sighed and scratched my hair. “Well, we’ve never successfully done anything apart.” I was trying to gauge his reaction.
This was a pretty intense thing to suggest. And Jake had never indicated he wanted something like this before. But I knew him so well, and it was true. Our girlfriends didn’t usually last because we spent too much time working together on houses, and the girls would get jealous. I would bet anything that it had crossed Jake’s mind too.
“You’re thinking about her brother, is that it?” Jake narrowed his eyes, chuckling a little. “The bond marriage. She’s given no indication she wants that. It was a huge scandal for him, I’m sure.”
“I didn’t think I wanted it either,” I said. “But then I started to think about it, and…you know, if it was Helena…she would be a partner who would never come between us.”
“I don’t know if that’s the phrase you really wanted to use right now…” Jake stroked his chin. “I mean…the idea has logic. Dad would probably like the idea. It would keep the business secure. And she’s a hell of a prize.”
“I don’t think we should tell her this, though,” I said. “Let her come to the conclusion herself. We just don’t fight each other for her hand.”
“I get it. Pincer attack.” Jake clapped his hands. “Before she knows it, she’s a Sullivan.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
HELENA
WE’D ALL BEEN WORKING SO HARD that I’d barely been sleeping. I thought it might be awkward to have the Sullivan brothers around, but they were working just as hard. At night we usually had dinner and a beer and exchanged progress reports.
And flirted a little, sure.
Before I knew it, we were putting on the finishing touches. I was calling my real estate agent. Magical real estate agents worked large areas.
Jake and Jasper went on a final supply run and came back with steaks and expensive German beer.
“Ohhh, how do you know what I like?”
“When Baroness von Habsburg sneered at the bowling alley beer selection, I made a guess,” Jake said. “Celebrate.” He twisted off the cap with the corner of his flannel shirt somehow although it wasn’t a twist off kind.
“Time to fire up the range,” Jasper said, striking a match.
Ooh. They knew how to work a wood-fired range without magic. Not bad.
Pretty soon we were sitting down with fat juicy steaks pan-fried in butter and beer and…they didn’t buy any vegetables. But this was a celebration, so who needed filler?
“I’m a little annoyed I can’t take full credit, but this is my favorite house I’ve done,” I said.
“The design is all yours, for better or worse,” Jake said.
“We’re just the muscle,” Jasper said. “That’s all you needed, isn’t it?”
“Believe me, I wish I had those muscles myself.”
“I’m glad you don’t,” Jake said, flashing me a smile. “Who needs them when you can twist us around your finger?”
“Pssh. Hardly.”
“You’re amazing, Helena,” Jasper said, “but we make an even better team, if I do say so myself.”
“Especially if you let me tear down a wall next time,” Jake said.
I glowered at Jake and then cast hopeful eyes Jasper’s way, before slicing off another piece of steak. “Does this mean you’ll be my crew for Greenwood Manor?”
“I think you already know we have to see how this pans out,” Jake said. “And I looked it up. That house is even bigger than this one. You’re going to need us.”
“You waste no opportunity to remind me how much poor widdle me needs your big strong wolfman body, do you?” I rolled my eyes. “Someday I might shove a hammer up your ass just because.”
“Maybe I’ll enjoy it if you’re doing it,” Jake said. “Depending on which end.”
Jasper laughed.
I swear, they were both getting awfully flirty with me lately. Right in front of each other. They weren’t competitive and jealous like Graham at all.
They must know about Harris. They must. But they’ve never mentioned it. Do they think I’d want a bond marriage? Or that I’m even…bond-curious?
But we did make a really good team.
I didn’t dare say anything. We could figure it all out at Greenwood Manor.
I’M NOT sure what I liked more, houses or their gardens. Every witch loves a garden, I think. It’s just in our blood. As annoyed as I was at the wizarding councils for urging girls to stick to healing and making salves, love spells and beauty concoctions instead of badass fighting arts, that didn’t mean I didn’t love a day spent in the herb garden now and then.
I hit one of the few plant nurseries that was still open in October and got some evergreen shrubs to “spruce” up the winter garden. (That was my favorite pun in the world. Every time I had to do landscaping in the winter I used it on the people at the nursery. I don’t know if they enjoyed it as much as I did.) This was my last job and the house would be done.
“It’s nice to see you making a garden with your own hands…” Byron’s voice brushed my ears like the first warm breeze of spring.
I was in the middle of pulling dead weeds and pruning the dead stems off the perennial flowers. “I haven’t seen much of you,” I said.
“You need your strength, angel. I don’t dare take it from you. And I don’t
