Single Witch's Survival Guide by Mindy Klasky Page B

throat, and my hands slipped beneath his shirt. He let me feel the planes of his chest, but he stopped me when I reached for the buckle on his belt. With a knowing smile, I reached behind me, and closed the office door to guarantee our privacy.

CHAPTER 7
     
    WITH ONE THING and another (ahem), I didn’t get to break the good news to Neko until the following morning. Everyone was gathered in the kitchen—my students, their warders, and their familiars. David had just poured himself a bracing cup of coffee when Neko sauntered in.
    “Just the man I was looking for!” I said, as he crossed to the refrigerator.
    Neko froze, his fingers clutching tight around a quart of cream. “I have receipts for everything. I swear!”
    I’m sure he did. Not that my sobbing bank account would care. “That’s not what I was worried about. I’ve been thinking. It makes more sense for Raven and Emma to stay in the house than out in the garage apartment. We’re going to be working pretty intensely over the next four months, and we’ll make more headway if we’re all under one roof.”
    If David hadn’t made a miracle catch, there would have been cream all over the kitchen floor. As it was, Neko nearly crushed me with his ecstatic embrace. “Really? I mean… You think…” He crushed me tighter. “You don’t know… It’s just… Jacques and I…” I was really starting to have trouble breathing. “Thank you,” he said.
    And he didn’t even sniff at my rumpled T-shirt, my missing makeup, or my haphazard French braid.
    That utter lack of snark made me realize how upset poor Neko had truly been. He didn’t even protest when I announced that he was responsible for managing the move of David’s office to the basement. He just nodded a dozen times and started issuing orders to Kopek and Hani, insisting that the team of familiars could get everything taken care of by the end of the day. It took him a full fifteen minutes before he asked, “What about the shopping? Do I have to take back everything I bought yesterday?”
    I shook my head. “We’ll find a use for all of it. I’m sure.”
    He yelped with glee.
    In light of the major residential shift, I postponed classes until the following morning. That turned out to be a wise decision. It took until after noon for the familiars to carry all of David’s boxes to the basement. The warders pitched in during the afternoon. In short order, the new guest room was graced with a swiftly purchased bed, a chest of drawers salvaged from the barn, and an armoire from the flea market halfway down the road to Parkersville.
    Late that afternoon, Emma stopped me in the hall. “Have you any flannels?”
    Flannels. Um, those were washcloths, right? “Over there,” I said with a one-shouldered gesture.
    “Ah! The airing cupboard.”
    No, I wanted to say. The linen closet. That’s what any red-blooded American witch would have called it. Instead I asked, “How long did you live in England?”
    “ Live there?” She laughed. “Cheeky monkey! I never lived in England! I spent a fortnight, though, seven years ago. I was on a coach tour.”
    She’d spent two lousy weeks on a bus, and now she sounded like an extra for Masterpiece Theater? I almost rolled my eyes at the absurdity. In fact, I might have said something I would truly regret, but I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Raven was recording our conversation with her camera.
    “School meeting,” I said, before I’d even really decided to act. “In the kitchen. Now.”
    As soon as Raven and Emma were sitting at the table, faces tight with identical wary expressions, I said, “The night you arrived, you asked about my policy on modern communication, and I never got a chance to answer. Here’s the policy: All photography, still or motion picture, is forbidden.”
    Raven clutched at her chest as if I’d just delivered a direct shot to her heart. “You can’t do that!”
    “I just did.” Even as I issued my edict, though, I