Damn it, he was laughing at me, but a knot had loosened in my gut. I might work with him. I’d said it—admitted it to myself. I wasn’t going to sign his paper—become his witch—but a job…I might do a job. I was going to need something while I earned the trust of Cincinnati back and the work trickled in. “You’re not much of a team player,” I said as I scraped the last of the sticky cake off my fingertips with a napkin so stiff it was nearly useless. “Inclined to take on too much and not let other team members know what you’re doing, which causes problems that could easily have been avoided.”

Trent’s entire demeanor had changed. Relaxed, he let one hand fall to his lap and drove with the other. It just about pegged my attraction meter, but I frowned when he said, “Sounds like you.”

“But on the whole, a good risk,” I added sourly. “If the benefits were there. And I felt like it.” And I can’t make rent.

Jenks dropped down to his ashtray, burying himself under a tissue and a doughnut napkin. “All this good feeling is making me sick,” he said, hidden away. We had the mountains to get through. It was going to be a rough couple of hours.

“I can’t believe you let me sweat over this. Rachel, I ate fast food,” Trent complained.

“And tomatoes in public,” I said, remembering the soup. “It felt good, didn’t it? Not hiding what you are?”

A slow smile came over him, hard to see in the dim light. “It did,” he said so softly I might have missed it if I hadn’t known it was coming.

“And you got to see the Petrified Forest,” I added.

From the ashtray came Jenks’s voice saying, “And pixies being eaten alive.”

“Totally his fault,” I said, and Jenks poked his head out, not looking that good. “And you got a vacation,” I offered, my own mood brightening. It had been a long, tiring run out here, and I’d be glad to see it done.

Jenks laughed, sounding like wind chimes in the snow. “Vacation. The Tink-blasted arch fell on him.”

“Again, his own fault,” I said, blinking innocently at Trent. “Gee, Trent. Maybe we should have left you at home after all.”

Trent said nothing, his gaze fixed on the road stretching out before us, and I fiddled with the heat until it blasted out to warm Jenks. “I think you enjoyed this,” I said, and Trent looked askance at me, appearing charmingly irate. “You had the chance to see what it was like to be in a family,” I added, and his eye stopped twitching.

“And to answer your question, yes, it was exactly like being in a family,” I said as I leaned to dig out one of Ivy’s bottled waters from the bag at my feet. I’d rather have had a coffee, but I knew he wouldn’t stop. “And really, I couldn’t just pop you there whenever I felt like it,” I said as I opened it. “Al owes me big. He wouldn’t have done it before.”