“I figured ya would be.” He turned a page.
“Why are there three naked Medusas in the royal suite?” Maura gestured her hand at the papers to pick them up. They floated and stacked themselves before landing on the desk away from Bruce’s feet.
“Only one Medusa,” Bruce corrected, not looking up from his book. Paint the color of the gorgons’ bodies smudged his fingers and stained his clothes. “The others are her sisters, Stheno and Euryale.”
“And why are Medusa, Stheno, and Euryale in the royal suite?”
Bruce tried to hide his smirk. “Would ya have me put them in a single? That seems a little rude for ancient beings.”
“What was rude is walking the Butler family into that girlie show ya call art.”
“Well, why did ya take them to that room?” he asked, as if the problem was obvious. “The décor isn’t finished, and there are naked women on the wall.”
“I’m going to hex ya,” Maura said under her breath, “and I’m going to bury ya deep after I do. Ma will never find the body.”
Her brother didn’t appear concerned as he lifted a finger, as if beckoning her to wait as he continued to read.
Maura ran through a list of curses she could enact on him. Maybe she’d use a potion in his coffee and turn him into a snake since he seemed to like the creatures so much.
She’d never do it. Maura was the “reliable” sibling.
Bruce and his twin, Rory, might be over a hundred years older than her, but after several centuries of living the age gap mattered less and less, and she often felt like she was the oldest. No one would ever accuse her brothers of being the responsible MacGregors.
That said, no one would accuse any of the males in the extended family of being the responsible MacGregors. She thought of her streaking embarrassment of an uncle spiriting through the parking lot. Yep, and that man was an elder.
How was this family not doomed?
It wasn’t easy to hide an extended family of warlocks in the modern age. In the past, before computers and photographs, they could mesmerize a village and disappear—no big deal. Nowadays, affluent Scottish families tended to draw attention in the American countryside. It didn’t help that the men wore kilts and walked around as if they starred in their own reality television show. If they overstayed their welcome, people began to notice the family didn’t age. There always seemed to be one amateur sleuth who started putting things together—usually wrongly together, but together.
Maura crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her foot in irritation. “Bruce, we need to discuss this.”
Bruce lowered his book, marking his page with his finger, and focused a stern stare in her direction. “Would ya please make up your mind? First ya tell me I have to get rid of the cherub suite because no one wants to see naked Cupid butts first thing in the morning. So I fix it, and ya are still complaining.”
“I don’t want naked anything in the hotel rooms.”
“Motel,” Bruce corrected. “We’re a motel. Doors are on the outside, not inside. Don’t try to fancy it up.”
“I don’t want naked anything in the motel rooms.”
“Ya do know what guests do in the—”
“Art,” Maura interrupted. “I don’t want naked art. At least go paint bikinis on the triplets because, for some reason, my magick is not working to remove the paint ya used.”
“Uncle Raibeart and I enchanted it,” Bruce answered. “He gave me the idea of the gorgons.”
“Of course ya did, and of course he did.” Maura shook her head.
Bruce turned back to his book. “Well, ya weren’t very specific.”
“I said I wanted taupe walls.” Maura leaned over her desk and flicked the back of his ear. “That’s pretty specific.”
He jerked his head away from her, pretending it hurt more than it did. “Och, I thought ya were joking, lassie. Taupe? That’s not creative. Where’s your imagination? Your heart? Taupe is what they use in prison as a punishment to bore ya to death. Taupe is what they put in hospital waiting rooms to make ya feel sedated before they cut off your balls.”
She tried to hide her laugh and failed. “What hospitals are ya going to? A vet?”
Bruce tilted his head in thought and drummed his fingers on the desktop. “Ya know, I can’t remember. The last time had to be one of the wars, and it was more tent than a hospital.”
Maura stared at his tapping fingers. Flashes of violence clouded Maura’s thoughts, memories of broken bones, whippings outside a large white house, and crying babies that didn’t feel like they belonged inside her head. And blood. So much blood. Rivers of it. She’d lived through much, and had probably forgotten a great portion of it, but these recollections didn’t feel like hers. She’d never been on a slave plantation.
“Did I say something?” Bruce’s playful expression dropped into one of concern. His fingers stopped their drumming.
“Just…” She shook her head. “Nothing.”
“Still having those nightmares?”
“Aye.” Maura nodded. “Ma’s convinced it’s because I fall asleep watching the television. She says the transmission waves scramble my dreams. The truth is silence makes them worse.”
“She also thinks video games rot the brain,” Bruce chuckled. “I’m living proof that’s not true.”
“I don’t know that I would use that example to argue your point,” Maura teased, drawing attention away from her recurring nightmares. It was bad enough she had to live with them at night. She didn’t want to talk about them when she was awake too. She’d tried every spell and potion she could find to make them stop. Nothing had worked.
“I’m curious about something.” Bruce furrowed his brow in deep thought. “Do nurses still wear those cute white dresses and hats? I do like a lady in uniform. Maybe it’s time I checked out a hospital.”
“Bruce, I need ya to concentrate.” Maura directed her most stern look at him. “Please be serious for once. I need your help. Ya know the family expects us to show a profit in the first year running. We need guests to actually stay here to make that happen. We do not want to be the bottom tier business on the MacGregor spreadsheet.”
“Never cared for bookkeeping,” Bruce said. “Besides, that distant fifth cousin twice removed of ours always comes in last. How much money does the family really need?”
“Can ya just—I don’t know—paint all the rooms in a way to express the banality of modern life?”
“I could…” Bruce inched his way past her toward the door of the small office. “But, Maura, isn’t it vain for ya to have your portrait in every room?”
Bruce laughed and darted for the door. Maura flung her hand, sending the newly stacked papers to pelt him in the back. He laughed harder.
Maura sat down at her desk and flicked her wrist to call back the papers she’d thrown. Taking over the Hotel Motel had not been her idea. Mini bars and towel counts weren’t part of her dream job.
Then again, she really didn’t have a dream job.
Or a dream vacation.
Or a dream life.
Or a dream anything.