Midsummer Law Read online

  Standing, he cleaned up the kitchen and then wandered back down the hall to his room. He changed into his sleep pants, then walked back to the living room and the bookcase. Sitting down in front the bookcase, he began to pull books off at random, flipping through them, skimming idly until he found himself pulled more and more into the gardening spells.

  He really was stuck on them, Kirby admitted with a sigh. But the challenge would be fun, and keep him from rattling around his empty house. He didn't really have time for a garden, but maybe he could start with a little window box of herbs or something.

  Really, though, he should just give up the idea. What the hell would he do with herbs? He didn't cook, and he was no alchemist. He didn't have time anyway; the gardening spells would be more intensive than the wards. It was all too likely he'd get stuck working extra hours and his plants would wind up dying.

  But…well, more reading wouldn’t hurt anything. He was on a mini-vacation, after all. Standing, he took the book of gardening spells with him to bed, and read until he finally crashed.

  He woke some time later, unable to tell what had woken him. Bright sunlight slipped through the drapes, so at the very least it was late morning. Groaning, Kirby scrubbed at his face then rolled out of bed, stumbling out into the hallway and down toward the kitchen for some water.

  But as he reached the living room, he heard the sound that had probably woken him—someone trying very hard not to cry, or to at least be very quiet about it. He hesitated, then said fuck it. He'd been a goddamn mess when Randy had died, when his parents had died. He could not imagine how much worse it must be given the unhappy relationship between Merry and his twin brother.

  Merry sat cross-legged in the middle of the living room, the contents of Kerry's boxes spread haphazardly around him. He held a picture in his hands, sunlight gleaming on the old beat up silver frame in which it had been placed.

  Kirby picked his way through the mess, and sat down beside him, staying silent.

  It was eerie, seeing Merry without all his goth stuff. He'd gotten a shower recently, his blond hair still damp, clinging to his skin, just barely resting on his shoulders. Like Kirby, he wore only pants, though his were of some slinky, shimmery black material that would have been distracting at any other time.

  He really was Kerry's twin, save they'd obviously weathered the years quiet differently. Kirby had been hard, cynical, downright mean at times. The lines of his face had shown that, along with an excess of drink, bad food, and too many nights with too little sleep.

  Merry's face showed sadness, weariness, but there were also laugh lines Kerry had never possessed, kindness, signs of a life much more happily lived despite the sorrows in it.

  "Kerry always hated everything about me. The way I dressed, the way I acted, that I was better at magic, that I never hid we were hobgoblins. That I made more friends, more easily." He scowled at the picture he held—two young boys, mirror images of each other, beaming at the camera with the sort of cheer only children could posses. They were sunburned, scuffed, dressed in shorts and t-shirts, wearing silly hats, obviously at an amusement park of some sort.

  It twisted his gut to see they were standing in front of a merry-go-round.

  Kirby slid an arm across Merry's shoulders, pulling him close. "I'm sorry."

  Merry gave a bitter laugh. "He killed my best friend. I never fucking learned why. They hated each other, no matter what I did to try to make them get along. Not that Kerry liked me either. His name was Sandy. He was a wolf. Kerry poisoned him with silver. The pack was going to kill him. It took every scrap of magic I possessed, and what I could sap from Kerry, to smuggle him out and hide him in Midsummer. I saved his fucking life and cursed him so maybe he'd fucking learn something and the asshole only proved to be a complete coward in the end. He never cared about anyone but himself. He never noticed or cared—"

  He bit the words off, but Kirby could fill them in. Merry had probably never wanted anything half so much as he wanted his twin brother to like him. Making soft noises of sympathy, he drew Merry into a tight embrace, ignoring for the moment his own guilt over not being quick enough to stop Kerry.

  After a couple of minutes, Merry pushed away. "Sorry. I thought you'd be asleep a while longer. I shouldn't have opened the boxes. I didn't know he had this picture."

  "Maybe he cared about more than himself, after all," Kirby said. "I don't think any of us ever knew what went on in his head. I’m so fucking sorry I—"

  "Don't," Merry said, covering his eyes with the heel of his hands. "I told you, Sheriff. There's no need to be sorry. Kerry was Kerry. Stop feeling guilty." He drew his hands away and looked up at Kirby. "Please."

  Kirby looked at him, then finally gave a slow nod. "All right."

  Merry nodded, then abruptly stood up. "You can go back to bed if you like."

  "Nah," Kirby said. "Once I'm up, I'm up. Should we look into breakfast?"

  Smiling faintly, Merry said, "More like brunch, but I'm up for it. There's a place at the end of the street that's perfect." He moved to the doorway, then paused and looked back over his shoulder, half turning. "What colors are you wearing today?"

  "Huh?" Kirby asked. "Um—I have no idea. I brought green, black, and uh, blue?"

  Merry laughed. "What color blue?"

  "Uh. I guess about the color of that pillow," Kirby said, pointing to one of the throw pillows. "Maybe a little darker."

  "I can work with that," Merry said and vanished.

  Kirby stared after him, blinking with confusion. Slowly he stood up, stretching and yawning, then wandered back down the hall to his own room. He supposed he was wearing the blue button down.

  Half an hour later it became his favorite shirt when Merry reappeared dressed to match. His pants were a dark, smoky, faintly shimmery gray, decorated with buckles and chains. The blue of his shirt matched Kirby's exactly, though it was a long-sleeved t-shirt with strips of silver running down the outside of the sleeves. Even his lipstick was the right shade of blue, set off by blue-black mascara and silver and blue eye shadow. Little silver moons and stars dangled from his ears, and his hair for once was pulled back in a braid, tied off with a dark blue ribbon.

  He really could not be more beautiful, but Kirby suspected he'd think that no matter what Merry wore or didn't wear.

  Then Merry smirked, and Kirby flushed hot as realization dawned. "You've been messing with me!"

  Merry burst out laughing, then smirked again. "Merely testing the waters, Sheriff." He picked up his phone, keys, and wallet where they'd been discarded on the couch. "Shall we go to breakfast?"

  "Surely," Kirby drawled, not certain what else to say for the moment—but he thought that if was the waters being tested, then maybe, just maybe, Merry was thinking the water felt fine. Shrugging into his jacket, he slid his Stetson on his head and followed Merry out of the house.

  *~*~*

  "Thanks for the weekend," Kirby said.

  "Thanks for coming," Merry replied, shoving back an errant strand of hair as he stood on the sidewalk alongside Kirby's car.

  Kirby nodded and tossed his duffel into the passenger seat, wishing he could stay, could at least drag the leaving out. The past three days had been the most fun he'd had in longer than he could remember.

  If only he could figure out how to ask when they could see each other again, or if he could call—hell, this shit was hard. He really wanted to know exactly where this all was going, but he wasn't going to jeopardize it by being impatient. He could take it slow.

  "Give me a call sometime," Merry said, answering one question, anyway. "You've got my numbers."

  "Yeah," Kirby replied. "Do you have mine?"

  "Only the office, I think," Merry said, smiling in that slow way of his that was rapidly driving Kirby crazy. "You could give me the others."

  Snorting in amusement, Kirby got his wallet and fished out one of his business cards, then scrounged a pen from his car and wrote his cell and home numbers on the back of it. "Call
whenever, hobgoblin. I'll answer if I'm able."

  Merry nodded and tucked the card away in his swishy red pants. "When do you next get time off?"

  "Hell if I know," Kirby said. “I'll be lucky if the town is still standing when I get home tonight. But when I figure it out, I'll let you know?"

  "Okay," Merry said. "Have a good trip back."

  Kirby nodded, hat dipping low, and turned away with a last thank you before he did something impulsive and stupid.

  "Oh, Sheriff—"

  Kirby turned back around, and abruptly found himself with an armful of slender, slinky, strawberry-scented goth, a lipstick mouth sliding across his in a hell of a fucking kiss. He wasn't going to be able to get any real work done for days.

  Merry drew back after a bit, face a mess from the ruined lipstick, and Kirby figured he must be wearing at least half of it himself now, but he really didn't care. "See you, Sheriff."

  Grinning, Kirby dipped his hat again. "Surely. Later, hobgoblin." Still beaming, he slid behind the wheel of his mustang and drove off with a parting wave.

  He didn't get around to cleaning the lipstick from his face until after he'd settled on the highway a half hour later.

  At some point, he realized, he'd started singing along with the radio. Shaking his head at himself, he kept singing anyway. He drove for three hours, until food and restroom forced his hand. Pulling into the parking lot of the first half-decent diner he found, he pulled out his phone to tell Nancy he was six hours out.

  He stopped short to see he had a text. No one ever texted him. Flipping it open, he accessed the text and read Put something in your bag. Take care of it.

  Kirby immediately reached out for his duffel, wondering when in the hell Merry had gotten the chance to get sneaky, and almost immediately found the 'something'—the book of gardening spells he'd been loath to stop reading.

  Smiling, he turned back to his phone and punched in a reply. Probably grinning like an idiot, but not caring, he slid out of the car and strode to the diner, and only realized as he sat down that he'd completely forgotten to call Nancy.

  Pulling his phone out again, he punched the speed dial for Nancy's house. It rang until it finally flipped to voicemail, and he left her a message saying he should be in first thing Monday and he hoped she did well at Sunday Bingo.

  Hanging up, he checked to see—sure enough. Grinning, he opened the text and read Starting my own garden tomorrow. Shall we make it a competition? What should we grow?

  Kirby's brows went up. A competition was it? Did he really have time—oh, screw it. Was thinking to start with herbs.

  Little box garden? All right. Gotta go.

  Have a good day.

  Closing his phone, Kirby put it away, still smiling when a waitress finally appeared to take his order. He put in an order for the meatloaf sandwich and coffee, then tried to hold still and not bounce all over the place. He was too full of energy, though, and he just could not seem to stop smiling. Three cups of coffee didn't help matters, but he was a lost cause anyway, so what did it really matter?

  When he finally got back on the road, he tried to shift his mind back into Sheriff mode. Four days away meant four days of work to get caught up on. He already felt like sighing, even if he did miss his home and his job.

  There'd be paperwork to do, piles and piles of the dratted stuff. No doubt the Wither boys had managed to destroy something without him dogging their heels. And, he realized, they'd just be starting to put together everything for the New Year's Eve party that was only a month and a half away now. It was the biggest celebration in town. Most of the normal holidays just didn't mean as much in the paranormal world.

  Lord, he wondered what the women were doing for the raffle prizes this year. They got scary creative some years.

  He jumped when his phone started ringing, and slowed down a bit as he dug it out, opening it without bothering to check the caller ID. "This is Kirby."

  "Hey."

  Kirby broke into a wide smile. "Hey. What's up?"

  "Almost home?" Merry asked.

  "Yeah, 'bought two hours to go now. How's work?"

  "Fine. I've got to do this period costume for a woman, Victorian era. It's going to be a bitch, and take me ages, but it'll be interesting."

  "I'm not even certain what that entails," Kirby said with a laugh. "Sounds like a challenge thought. I'm fairly certain I'll be spending my night knocking around the Wither boys and dealing with the town drunks. They all get out of hand if I don't scare a bit of sense into them every other day."

  "I certainly do not envy you that job," Merry said.

  Kirby laughed again. "No one ever does. But, I can't even thread a needle, so I guess it works out."

  Merry laughed, and they fell then into a silence that was somehow comfortable instead of awkward.

  A sudden idea came to him, then, and he wondered he hadn't thought of it sooner—then again, when Merry was in the room, he had a hard time thinking period. "Hey, Merry, I was wondering…"

  "Yeah?" Merry asked.

  "Uh—we always throw a huge New Year's thing, with dancing and raffles and games, all of it. It ain't much, I'm sure, but—uh—would you like to go with me?"

  There was a moment of silence, but just as Kirby was about to give himself a small heart attack, Merry said, "I'd love to."

  Kirby let out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "Cool. Uh, I'll have Nancy keep you in the loop about it all. She'll probably nag you to death about buying raffle tickets, but don't pay her any mind."

  Merry laughed. "It won't kill me to buy a few. I—" he stopped as a flood of voices suddenly drowned him out. Then he sighed softly and said, "Looks like I've got to go. Um. Take care, Sheriff. I'll talk to you later."

  "You too, hobgoblin," Kirby said, sulking a bit as he hung up, but right back to being restless and almost bouncy that Merry had called for no particular reason at all.

  And, he thought, turning the radio up, he had a date.

  Thinking about that made the last two hours fly right on by. He really could not wait to fall into bed after all this driving. As restless as he was, he could already feel he'd be crashing soon.

  Driving home took him past Ferdy's house, and Kirby pulled into Ferdy's drive last minute, seized by a sudden thought. He'd barely parked and climbed out of the car when Ferdy came from the back yard, his eyes all for the mustang. "Hey, Sheriff. How is she? Is anything wrong? They said you were out of town, did she give you trouble on the trip?"

  Kirby laughed and tossed Ferdy the keys. "Nah. She runs like a dream, Ferdy. I came about something else, but poke around if you're inclined." He turned his head as movement caught the corner of his eye, and nodded in greeting to Brayton.

  "Sheriff," Brayton greeted, after a moment of surprise—probably from seeing Kirby out of uniform and with a car other than his cruiser. It always threw people the first time. "Sweet ride, Sheriff."

  "Thanks."

  "Something up?" Brayton asked, coming to join them in the yard. He smiled fondly at Ferdy, who was half-buried in the mustang's engine.

  "Not really," Kirby replied. "It's only—this is sort of about Kerry."

  Even Ferdy paused at that, looking up from Kirby's car to regard him warily. "What's wrong?"

  "Nothing," Kirby said, dipping his hat, feeling suddenly awkward for no good reason. "It's only—I've recently met his brother—his twin brother."

  "Oh," Ferdy said. "People have been saying someone came to collect Kerry's ashes, but Nancy won't budge on the details, at least according to Mrs. Holly."

  Kirby smiled ruefully and shook his head. "His name is Merry; he's Kerry twin but looks is about all they have in common, and even that's pretty slim. They're like night and day. But, he may be coming around here, and I didn't want you to see him and think you were seeing a ghost, or something. Kerry was shitty to a lot of folks, but you especially."

  Ferdy shrugged, and smiled reassuringly. "Thanks? I should be fine. Um. I'm glad he's not Kerr
y? I can't picture Kerry with a twin. He never talked about his family."

  "I can tell you they didn't get along, since you can figure that much out for yourself, but the rest ain't really my place to talk about."

  "No, I understand," Ferdy said. "It just, uh, will be really weird the first few times I see him."

  Kirby smiled, images of Merry bright and sharp in his mind. "Trust me, you'd never mistake one for the other."

  "So why's he going to be coming around a lot?"

  "Uh—we're getting to be friendly," Kirby said.

  Brayton snorted. "Please. I think the good ol' Sheriff might be sweet on this Merry, or I'm a cat."

  Kirby started to give a proper retort to that, but Ferdy burst out laughing, managing a strangled "meow" before losing it completely. Kirby grinned, and decided it was time to take his leave, given the way Brayton was looking at Ferdy.

  Taking his keys back from Ferdy, he slammed the hood shut and then climbed back into his car, pulling out of the drive as Brayton got hold of Ferdy.

  It took him a few more minutes to get home, and his car properly tucked away again. He pulled out his phone and texted Merry Home. Crashing. Talk Later? then he grabbed his bag and trudged into the house. Toeing off his shoes and dumping everything else on the table, he hung his hat up and left his bag where it was.

  He stayed awake just long enough to get a reply from Merry, then fell into bed smiling.

  *~*~*

  He could feel the eyes on him, even if every time he looked, people were very careful to look like they were working. It was driving him crazy. Narrowing his eyes at the lot of them, Kirby finally went back to brushing snow off his clothes, knocking it off his hat. He glanced toward Nancy, and stopped short to see she wasn't at her desk. It was half past five, where the devil was she? "Where's Nancy?"

  "She went across the street to Mary's to get hot chocolate," Ted said, then added reassuringly, "I'm sure she'll bring some back for you, Sheriff."

  Kirby rolled his eyes. "Never mind that. You and some of the boys skedaddle over to the community center. The Wither boys have been worse than ever lately, and I'm not in the mood to have to ruin the party to arrest them for god only knows what.