An Unlikely Witch by Debora Geary Page B

there somewhere.  He got all the way to the kitchen before he found her, funnel in one hand, small pot of hot-pink goo in the other.  “Do I want to know what that is?”
    Sophie grinned and kept pouring.  “Peppermint lotion.  Your nieces would love it.”
    His daughter would probably try to eat it.  He surveyed the number of pink bottles on the counter.  “Hot seller on your website, huh?”
    A tired eye roll.  “Yup.  I’ve been making pink goop for days.”
    He was pretty sure he knew where she could recruit assistants.  Although not necessarily the kind that actually sped up the work.  “Want help?  I can probably manage the pouring part.”
    The healer laughed.  “Wow, you must be trying to avoid something really bad.  Is Moira hunting you down with a glass of green stuff or something?”
    He really hoped not.  “No, I was looking for you.”
    Sophie’s eyes sharpened, even as she switched out one round jar for the next.  “How’s Nat?”
    “Doing yoga.”  In the frustrated, slightly manic way that had become her norm of late.  “She’ll be okay by the time she’s done, but it’s taking longer than usual these days.”  Which no one needed his assistance to interpret.
    “It’s good she’s got that.”  The flow of pink goo slowed.  “Exploring fertility issues takes time, and it makes most women entirely crazy.  Some of their husbands, too.”
    As healer probing went, that wasn’t particularly subtle.  “I went for a bike ride this morning.”  His motorcycle did for him what convoluted yoga sequences did for his wife.
    “Good.”  Sophie set down her pot and gave him her full attention.  “Then what has you here instead of out on the beach throwing rocks with my guys?”
    He kind of wished she was still messing with the pink goo.   “It takes two of us to make a baby. I did some Googling after I got back from my ride.  I figured if you were checking Nat out, you should probably be looking at me, too.”
    “You’re a good guy, Jamie Sullivan.”  Sophie’s smile was soft and approving.  “Does Nat know you’re here?”
    Hell, no.  “She’s got enough stuff to worry about.”
    “Here. If you want to be useful, you can stick one of these in the top of each of the jars.”  The healer handed him little bits of red-and-white striped foam.  “You should tell her.  It will make her feel all warm and fuzzy and a little less alone.”
    He twiddled a bit of foam in his fingers.  He hated the alone thing—he kept picking it up from Nat’s mind, and it was killing him.  “If it will help her, you can inspect all my parts as much as you want.” 
    “I think it will help her to know you volunteered.”  Sophie began tying green ribbons onto the jars he’d corked.  “But it’s not necessary.  We already know you’re fine.”
    Somehow, he hadn’t expected to have this conversation over a hundred jars of pink peppermint lotion.  The fumes were messing with his brain.  “Do I want to ask how you already know that?”
    “Probably not.”  Her chuckle set a lot of little green ribbons to dancing.  “Infertility is simpler to check with guys—a lot fewer variables.”
    His morning Googling had made that much clear.  “But you need to check sperm counts, right?  And see if the little dudes can swim and stuff?”  He suddenly imagined them drowning in pink goo and shuddered. 
    Sophie was looking at him again, highly amused.  “Yes.  Modern medicine needs your involvement to take those measurements.  I don’t.  That’s why Nat came early yesterday, so we could watch your little dudes heading up her fallopian tubes.”
    Damn.  Jamie knew what they’d been doing the night before.  Now he knew why.  His inner twelve-year-old boy kicked in and turned his cheeks red. 
    And then he thought of Nat, furiously doing sun salutations in their living room at the crack of dawn, mind seething with frustration—and the man who would do anything to