by Erica Ridley
Maeve whinnied. “Is that why you’re here?”
Daisy’s gaze finally lifted from Bubbles to Trevor. She gasped. “How’d you get the black eye?”
“Lost my balance when you pulled your disappearing act. And you didn’t answer my question.” He glared at Daisy. The horse—Maeve—sidestepped out of the way as though he might be able to shoot lasers with his eyes. “Is Katrina here or not?”
“Well… yes,” Daisy answered, cheeks flushing anew. “I’m so sorry. She—I—we ran into difficulties in Costa Rica and I brought her here until I could figure out what to do. I still don’t have an action plan. I’m no good at spells and I—”
He nearly choked. “You seemed plenty good at them back in my office.”
Maeve’s snort sounded suspiciously amused.
“I didn’t make that one.” Daisy’s eyes glistened. “I didn’t even know I had it. I thought it was something else, and I… Oh, Trevor. I’m sorry about that, too.” Her gaze dropped. “I really am. If I could make it up to you, I would.”
“By what, stealing from me?” His lip curled. “I saw the lab. Thanks for dropping by.” He shifted his weight, wishing there was some way to cross his arms without snapping the wand or crushing the where-frog. “You’re unbelievable. You tampered with my discoveries. You abducted one of my students. You drugged me for sex. I think you’re sorry, all right. A sorry excuse of a person. You’re a thief, a kidnapper, and a—a—seductress.”
A strangled cry of outrage burst from Daisy’s throat as her gaze snapped back to his. Before he had a chance to rephrase his comeback a bit less provocatively, Daisy snatched the black handbag off her shoulder and whirled it at him full strength.
Screw being nice to her.
Before the bag could bean him in the face, Trevor aimed the bright pink wand at the incoming missile and called out “bippity boppity boo” in his smarmiest, most condescending tone.
With a flash of light, the bag morphed into a large leather pumpkin and thudded to a stop at his feet.
Trevor staggered backward. “What just happened?”
“You turned a purse into a pumpkin.” Maeve tapped at it with one hoof. “Well done, human. Your magic skills are on par with Daisy’s.”
His frustration mounted. He shoved the wand in his back pocket so he wouldn’t be tempted to turn the smirking horse into a pumpkin, too. As if sensing Trevor’s volatility, Bubbles the where-frog leapt from Trevor’s palm and disappeared into the grass.
Maeve cocked her head toward Daisy, who stared at the ground for a long moment before speaking.
“Look.” Her voice was scratchy and defeated. “I said I was sorry, and I meant it. I know that’s hard to believe right now. I imagine it’s equally as tough as finding yourself in Nether-Netherland unexpectedly. But, honestly? The only thing I can do is take you home.”
“Take me home?” Trevor repeated in disbelief. “And leave you free to flit about ruining lives? Not hardly.” He gestured overhead. “Sure, if you hadn’t disappeared from my office in a puff of smoke—”
“Glitter, most likely,” interrupted Maeve.
“—glitter, I would have a hard time wrapping my brain around this… unanticipated turn of events.” He shifted his gaze from the floating barn to Maeve the talking horse. “Okay, I give. I’m still having a hard time. Why is that building floating? What are you planning to do with all those teeth? Do the snozzberries taste like snozzberries?”
Daisy crouched next to a cluster of pumpkins. “What are snozzberries?”
Ill-advised attempt at sarcasm. He shook his head. “Let’s go back to basics. Why do you keep stalking me? What happened to Katrina? And why is that horse talking?”
Maeve sputtered. “I’m no ordinary horse. I have wings. Just like—”
“Like Pegasus, whose hoof created the fountain of muses after he sprang forth from the still-warm body of Medusa,” he intoned in his lecture-hall voice. “I get it.”
“Holy Hippocrene,” Maeve gasped. “He knows the history of my ancestors. He’s my love match!”
Ignoring them both, Daisy continued sorting through the pumpkins.
His jaw tightened. “I know the history of everybody’s ancestors. I have a PhD in paleo-anthropology and fifteen years of field experience.” He paused in shock as the meaning of her words sank in. “Are you telling me the ancient legends that shaped the culture of man from the hominids to the Romans are all based on actual fact?”
“This is Nether-Netherland,” Maeve explained. “All religions are valid here.”
“Prof,” called out a suspiciously familiar voice. “Is that you?”
“Katrina?” He shielded his eyes from the bright yellow sun and glanced around the vast field of green grass and orange pumpkins. Daisy stepped forward with one of the larger gourds cradled in her arms. Carefully, she set it on the lawn before him. He stepped away. “Katrina, where are you?”
“Down here.” The voice came from within the large, candlelit jack-o’-lantern in the grass at his feet. “Hiya, Prof.”
Trevor fell to his knees in front of her and gaped.
Her square-cut teeth twisted into a grimace. “I'm the one dressed like a talking pumpkin. Oh, wait. I am a talking pumpkin. Are you here to save me?”
Chapter 10
Although she enjoyed a man on his knees as much as the next woman, Daisy had the sneaking suspicion that if she didn’t get Trevor out of her front lawn on the double, her professional life was about to take an even bigger dive.
She hadn’t counted on her personal life blowing up at the same time.
The moment “Bubbles, get your shiny green butt over here!” shot from her mouth, two familiar silhouettes soared in from the sky. An impromptu parental visit. Daisy tried to force a smile. Yay.
“Hi, sweetie,” Mama called out with a cheery wave.
Her father, however, took one look at the motley tableau and rolled his eyes heavenward.
Daisy happened to feel about the same. She took a deep breath. “Dad. Mama.” She gestured at the kneeling man deep in conversation with a jack-o’-lantern. “You might as well meet Trevor.”
“The Trevor?” With a squeal of delight, Mama rushed over, grabbed him by the collar, and hauled him to his feet. “Oh, he’s cuuute. Well, except for the black eye. At least he’s not a troll.”
“He’s not cute.” Dad’s wings twitched. “He’s human. A troll would be an improvement.”
Daisy gritted her teeth. At least they hadn’t questioned the talking pumpkin.
Twisting, Trevor extricated himself from Mama’s grasp and angled his head at her parents. “Interesting. It seems everyone in Nether-Netherland has wings.” He slanted a pointed glance toward Daisy. “Well, except you.”
“You don’t say.” She glared at him. Jerk.
He tilted his head back toward her parents. “Are you both tooth fairies, as well?”
Mama gasped. Dad scowled. Maeve laughed so hard she farted.
“Just little ol’ me,” Daisy interrupted before anyone could fly off the handle. “And I’m still an apprentice. Mama heads the Fairy Godmother Committee. Dad’s a bigwig in the Heavenly Alliance of Guardian Angels. Maeve is in air traffic control.”
Attempting to exude nonchalance, she herded everyone further from the pumpkin patch before Katrina could pipe up.
Trevor’s gaze darted from Dad’s thick, white-feathered wings to Daisy’s wingless back. He speared her with a doubtful glance. “You’re half angel?”
Maeve snorted. “You believe in fairies but not angels? Get with the program, buddy.”
“I believe in angels,” he protested. “I just didn’t think they interacted much with, say, members of the Fairy Godmother Committee.” He cocked an eyebrow at Daisy. “And I doubt real angels act like you.”
Daisy’s face burned, but her mouth was retort-less. He was right. Most angels weren’t thieves and kidnappers and seductresses. Accidentally or otherwise.
“Believe me.” Mama rubb
ed a palm over Dad’s bare chest. “We interact often.”
“Too much info.” Daisy made time-out signs with her hands and wished she were invisible. Or adopted. Could the situation get any more awkward? “Let’s pretend we’re normal people meeting under normal circumstances. Mama, meet Trevor. Trevor, meet Arabella le Fey. Dad, meet Trevor. Trevor, meet Abram Junior, known more casually as A.J.”
Tiny lines formed above Trevor’s eyebrows. “Abram Junior? As in, ‘son of Abraham’?”
“Father Abraham,” her dad intoned with pride, “had many sons. The real question is, what in God’s name is a human doing on my daughter’s front lawn?”
“Bubbles brought him,” Maeve put in with a swish of her tail. “The little scamp.”
“See?” Daisy lifted her arms. “I had nothing to do with it.”
Her father’s eyebrows disappeared into his hairline. “So, Bubbles just decided to have a bit of a walkabout down on Earth, did he? Blow off some where-frog steam? Bring back a souvenir for his flat-mate?”
Daisy’s bravado faltered under her father’s pointed gaze. “Okay, maybe I had a little to do with it.”
“A little?” Trevor choked out, his jaw dropping in outrage. “You knowingly and blatantly used my body and my paleo-anthropological discoveries to further your stupid tooth fairy career.”
She glared back at him. “Trust me, none of this is helping my career.”
Her fingers clenched. It wasn’t fair to dismiss her professional goals out of hand. Although from Trevor’s perspective, she probably hadn’t come off as particularly fair herself. Feeling worse than ever, she gazed at the dark-haired, black-and-blue-eyed man before her.
If only he’d been an eight-year-old child. If only he’d handed over the right tooth, right away. If only she’d been good enough at magic to make her own supply of ForgetMe orbs. If only they’d met under better circumstances, as equals instead of fairy and human…
“You took my teeth and I want them back.” Trevor’s voice was low and cold as he bit out each word.
Mama squinted at him curiously. “Looks to me like you’ve still got them all. How many did you start with?”
Trevor’s voice rose. “Hundreds!”
Looking as though he’d rather be in purgatory than visiting his daughter, Dad rolled back his shoulders and took a step forward. “Those are some wild accusations, young man.”
“Wild? Wild?” Trevor spun toward Daisy and jabbed a finger in her face to punctuate his words. “You trespassed on my dig, into my house, and in my lab.” His breath steamed against her eyelashes and she blinked involuntarily. “You slept with me and then you stole from me.”
“What?” Dad’s wings unfurled as he roared.
Just as predictably, Mama fell against his chest as if in a dead faint. Her father’s wings twitched. If things didn’t turn around soon, he was going to start smiting people. Somehow, Daisy had to get the situation under control.
“I told you I didn’t mean to,” she enunciated as clearly as she could. “And, technically, it was the other way around.”
“Tell me you didn’t sleep with a human,” came her father’s hoarse voice. “Lie if you have to. You can repent later.”
Maeve let out a low whistle through her large teeth. “You had already swiped his teeth before you, er, ‘interacted’ with him? Business before pleasure, then. Good job.”
Trevor froze to stare at Daisy. “If you already had what you came for, why did we end up sprawled across my office desk?”
“That does it,” her father growled. He lunged toward Trevor, whose posture immediately went defensive. “I’ll destroy him.”
Mama serendipitously unfainted and locked her arms around her husband’s waist in restraint. “What are you going to do, A.J.? Smite him with righteous glaring? You’re a guardian angel. Guard your self-control.”
Trevor’s stance relaxed and his eyebrows rose. “I guess nobody in your family has any self-control.”
“Leave my parents out of it. They’re in shock.” Daisy met his eyes. “As was I, when I realized the ForgetMe orb was a lust charm. It was an accident.”
“Is that what kids say these days?” With a droll expression, Maeve pitched her voice falsetto. “Oops, how did a Himalayan Lust Charm get in there?”
“I said shut up, Maeve.”
Dad’s face was so red and his muscles so tense, he looked like his head might explode at any moment.
“What’s a ForgetMe orb?” Trevor asked, suspicion lacing his voice.
“Just what it sounds like,” Maeve said. “One glance at that thing and your office desk ‘interaction’ with Little Miss Tooth Fairy will disappear from your memory bank forever.”
Outraged, Trevor whirled toward Daisy. “You were going to make me forget sex?”
She tried to keep her focus on what the court demanded she do—make him forget her completely—and somehow ignore the ice twisting in her gut. Him preferring to remember made her feel simultaneously better and worse. She couldn’t forget making love with him if she tried. Each stolen moment was carved into her brain for the rest of her life.
“It’s for the best.” Her heart twisted. “And also court-ordered.”
“I don’t have a say in any of this?”
Daisy flinched. “You weren’t supposed to see me in the first place.”
A muscle pulsed in his bruised temple for a moment before he spoke again. “Fine. Bring it. A real ForgetMe orb this time, and none of your tricks. I want one for me and for Katrina. And I want her in human form, stat.” He reached up to run a hand through his hair and winced when his palm brushed the growing bruise around his eye. “Do you hear me? I want to go home, I want to forget I ever saw you, and I want my teeth back. Now.”
Mama’s arms tightened around Daisy’s father. “Who’s Katrina?”
Daisy froze.
“A pumpkin.” Blades of grass protruded from Maeve’s teeth as she spoke. “A mouthy one.”
Traitor.
“A what? Where?” Mama glanced around in dawning horror. “Not the jack-o’-lantern Trevor was chatting with in the field…”
“Yup.” Maeve yanked up another chunk of grass. “That’s the one.”
Daisy wished the earth would swallow her whole.
“These are our demands.” Trevor held up a hand and ticked points off his fingers. “Home. Human. Teeth. Forget. Goodbye.”
“I’m afraid it’s not as simple as that,” Daisy said with a wince. “Especially the part about the teeth.”
“Why not?” Her father’s wings unfurled once more. “Sounds like an excellent plan to me.”
“Because I already surrendered the teeth to the Pearly States.” Daisy gave Trevor an apologetic half-shrug. “Our government is a black hole of red tape. Once teeth go in, they never come out.”
A full hour into his visit to Nether-Netherland, Trevor felt no more at home than when he’d arrived. Everything was surreal and unexpected. Take, for example, the clear plastic carpet runner tacked to the white shag covering Daisy’s parents’ spiral staircase. He couldn’t tear his eyes away.
It was just so normal. So abnormal. He hadn’t seen a clear plastic carpet runner—or, let’s face it, shag carpet—since the long-ago afternoons spent playing Matchbox cars in the dusty sunlight of his great-grandparents’ house. Of course, their carpet runner had been rigid and straight, not a magically molded spiral, but still. Carpet runner. Couldn’t they just magic the dirt away?
“Won’t you have a seat?” Daisy’s mother’s smile was brittle but her tone polite.
Trevor shook his head. No, he wouldn’t have a seat. He stood tall and carefully took in the situation.
After Daisy’s father had stormed out of the house and up into the clouds in a classic display of rage, relaxing on the sofa seemed a pale response in comparison. Even though he wasn’t sure of the anthropological connotations behind gestures and emoting here in Nether-Netherland, Trevor didn’t want to start off looking like the weaker m
ale.
Second, he just didn’t trust floating couches.
Why, with the instant gratification of magic at their fingertips, wouldn’t Daisy’s parents conjure up some nice wooden legs for their furniture? Hell, even metal ones or little plastic rollers would do.
Trevor thunked the back of his head against the wall and waited for the next disaster.
Daisy was off in the kitchen. Again, why bother? Why didn’t she just conjure up some Kool-Aid, if that’s what she wanted? If he didn’t feel like such an interloper, he’d love to ask a thousand questions. Wait. He wouldn’t be here at all if it weren’t for these people’s daughter. And since he was stuck here, an anthropologist in a strange land, why not take advantage of an opportunity to learn more about their culture?
“Mrs. le Fey,” he began, but stopped short when Daisy’s mom burst into laughter. “What?”
“You can call me Arabella like everyone else. I’m not Mrs. anything. Government-defined unions are a distinctly human construct.” She nestled against a pile of plump red pillows on the beige microsuede couch. “There’s no marriage in Nether-Netherland. We simply do what our hearts desire.”
Wow. He blinked at her in silence. Maybe he would take a seat after all.
He crossed over to the matching recliner and eased onto the soft leather. Much to his delight, the chair stayed afloat.
“How long have you and A.J. been together?”
“Thirty wonderful years.” She smoothed the long blue skirt of her gown and grinned. “Best of my life.”
He reached for his back pocket. Dammit, no notebook. Just the stupid wand. “If there’s no marriage, what’s to stop either one of you from seeing someone else?”
“Trust. Respect. Love,” she answered simply. “Same as on Earth.”
Trevor nodded slowly. Interesting point. Man, he wished he had his notebook.
“Any other questions?”
“Well, I was wondering why anyone in Nether-Netherland would bother with carpet runners.”
Before Arabella could answer, Daisy strode into the room with a tray bearing two lemonades and a salt-rimmed margarita on the rocks.
