Orders of Magnitude (The Genie and the Engineer Series Book 2) Read Online Free Page B

be?”
    “Dom.”
    “Dom?” he asked, puzzled. “What sort of name is Dom? Is that
an acronym too?”
    “Yep. It stands for Dirty Old Man.”
    Paul laughed, his eyes aglitter. “I like it! And so
appropriate too. Dom it is. And I love you too.”
    Leaning forward, they kissed again, tenderly and unhurriedly.
    “I could do that forever,” Paul declared with a blithe
smile.
    “It’s my turn now,” Capie said with a candid smile. “Can I
ask you a personal question?”
    Paul coughed, trying to hide a sudden chuckle. “Personal? But
of course, CB. Ask away.”
    “You don’t cuss, do you, Dom?” she asked. “Don’t
misunderstand, I love that about you. Some men are so foul mouthed that I can’t
stand to be around them. Some women too. But you’ve never…not since I’ve known
you. Is there a reason?”
    Paul stroked her hair and stared at the fire. “My father was
a drill sergeant in the Marine Corps.”
    Capie smiled. “You must have been proud of him.”
    “Very,” Paul replied.
    “But…oh! I think I see. Did he use a lot of profanity?”
    Paul snorted and gave a short nod. “Much worse than any
drunken sailor on leave. I once calculated that he had used the entire family’s
allotment of profanity for the next 3.45 generations. The extended family’s allotment, that is.”
    She chuckled. “You sound like Spock when you say that.”
    “That’s a really nice compliment, thanks.”
    “What about your mother? Did she use profanity too?”
    “No, never. And since Dad was always gone on deployment
somewhere and since Mom was the one who raised me…”
    “You learned not to cuss either,” she finished for him.
“Bravo for good parents. Dad has never cussed either. He says it’s a sign of a weak
vocabulary. He uses the Shakespeare insult generator instead.”
    “What did you call it? The what?” Paul asked, craning his
neck for a better look at her face. “Is that a joke?”
    “Nope. Google it sometime. Dad gets a real kick out of using
it…” and her voice trailed off, a shiver running up her spine.
    The way she said those last few words…
    “Is there a problem?” Paul quietly asked, raising his
eyebrows.
    “I’m not sure.” She drew her mouth into a straight line.
“Paul, why did you pick the Osthoff? Don’t get me wrong, I love it here. It’s a
fabulous place for a honeymoon but with your magical powers—”
    “We could have gone to Paris or Rome or some other better
known honeymoon location?”
    “Exactly. Is this about Dad? Did you want to stay close to
him in case something happened?”
    Paul nodded in swift agreement. “Very much so, yes. I’m very
worried about your father.”
    “Do you think he’s in trouble? Really in trouble? I mean…would
the wizards of Errabêlu actually kidnap him in exchange for you? Maybe
even…you know…?”
    Paul gritted his teeth before replying. “I’m not going to lie
to you, honey, nor will I sugarcoat it. Yes, to all of those questions. The
only thing I don’t know is what we can do about it.”
    “There are two of us now,” she pointed out.
    “But neither one of us has a talisman,” Paul reminded her.
“And you are brand new at this game.”
    She nodded sadly. “And we won’t know if and when it happens
either. It might already be happening, right now at this very minute.”
    Paul felt a shiver go up his spine. “That’s not quite true.
I, uh, set up an alarm system, of sorts. We should have some warning, if Errabêlu shows up to abduct your father.”
    “Oh?” Capie gave him a suspicious look. “Is there something
you haven’t told me yet?”
    Paul grinned shyly. “You could say that.” And so he told her
that, during their confrontation with her father, Christopher Kingsley, in the
Adler Planetarium, that Paul had set her father’s smart phone to call a certain
number at the press of a single button and that Jaret had inserted a spell into
Chris’s mind, to urge him to push that button if the professor felt