“Holy crap,” Sydney said as she stood in the foyer of my new home and looked up at the brass and crystal hanging from the ceiling, two stories up. “What are you going to do with this place?”
“I have no idea,” I said wearily. The day before, Tobias had come over with his truck and moved my meager belongings into Great-Aunt Ruby’s house. Okay, my house. I was staying in one of the spare bedrooms at the moment, because no way was I sleeping in the bed she’d died in. Her spirit certainly wasn’t hanging around the place, I could tell that already, but even so I had my limits.
“How big is it?” Sydney had moved from the foyer into the dining room and was gawking at the long table with its accompanying twelve chairs and matching sideboard.
“A little over three thousand square feet.”
“That’s kind of a lot of house for one person, don’t you think?”
I couldn’t agree more. Then again, I did have the “bodyguards” lurking around, so technically I supposed there would be at least four people there at all times. I didn’t feel like explaining that to Sydney, especially since they’d made themselves scarce and were upstairs in the library-slash-study, ostensibly cataloguing the books there but really just trying to stay out from underfoot.
“Yes, but it’s tradition for the prima to live here, so….” I shrugged. “And normally I would’ve been moving in with my consort, but since he has yet to materialize, it’s just me.”
“Maybe you should get a dog.”
There was an idea. I was horribly allergic to cats — not a good allergy for a witch to have, I know — and Aunt Rachel hadn’t wanted the responsibility of a dog in a house with no yard, so I’d been pet-less my entire life. But this house had a small yard off the side, where there was an even tinier plot of grass and a few flowerbeds. It wasn’t big enough to keep a German shepherd happy, but maybe a smaller dog, one I could adopt from the Humane Society or something.
“Maybe,” I said. “Although I’ve probably got enough on my plate right now without adding a dog to the mix.”
“I suppose.” Sydney had walked back into the foyer and crossed over into what Great-Aunt Ruby had always called the parlor, although really it was just the living room. It had a massive fireplace with a mahogany mantel and furniture that looked as if it should be in a museum. The floral wallpaper was positively eye-crossing. “So can you…I don’t know…change it at all?”
“Um, I’m not sure.” Actually, I hadn’t even stopped to consider that. I’d gotten the impression that when Ruby inherited the house, she and Patrick basically moved in and didn’t alter much of anything, except to update the kitchen appliances. Of course, now those “updates” looked like museum pieces themselves. “I guess so…I mean, it’s mine now, right?”
“You should.” Planting her hands on her hips, she looked up at the ten-foot ceilings with their crown moldings. “I bet you could do a lot with it. That is….” She trailed off, looking hesitant…for her. “It would probably be kind of expensive.”
“That really isn’t an issue.” I’d already had a fairly substantial chunk in the bank, just because living at Aunt Rachel’s hadn’t cost me anything (well, besides chipping in for groceries, which I’d insisted on after I turned eighteen). So my monthly McAllister dividend and the money I earned from my jewelry mostly went into my savings account, since I wasn’t spending it on clothes or cars or going out to clubs, or any of the other things a girl my age might conceivably spend her money on.
“So you inherited more than just the house?” Her tone sounded envious. If only she knew that being prima wasn’t just living in a big house and having apparently unlimited funds.
“Some,” I said cautiously. “Enough that I could do a few things to this place if I wanted to.”
“Good. Because that wallpaper has got to go.”
I laughed at that, and we went on from room to room as I gave her the grand tour of the place. By then Lionel and Joseph had already removed all of Great-Aunt Ruby’s personal effects, so her clothes and jewelry and family photos and all that were gone. It didn’t feel quite so intrusive to walk through the house with those personal touches taken away, but even so I couldn’t help feeling like a trespasser. I hoped that sooner or later I’d be able to wrap my head around the fact that this was now my home.
Even so, I had a feeling Sydney was right. I really should be doing something to make it feel like mine, and not just a place where I was camping out.
“Change it?” Aunt Rachel said blankly at dinner that night. She’d insisted that I come back to the apartment to eat, and I wasn’t about to argue. The transition didn’t feel so abrupt when I could still indulge in the familiar ritual of sitting down to eat at her dining room table. “I guess I never thought about it.”
“Place could do with an update,” Tobias said around a bite of cornbread. My aunt had made chili verde that night.
“That’s what I was thinking,” I said, shooting him a grateful smile. “I mean, I’m not going to make it totally modern or anything, but all that floral wallpaper and all those fussy antiques are just not my style.”
She was silent for a moment, pushing the chili around in her bowl. “Well, I suppose you could. You probably should speak to the elders first, just to make certain.”
“I will,” I said, although I wasn’t looking forward to that discussion. What was I supposed to do if they said no? All those florals and chintz would probably make my head explode.
To my surprise, though, they seemed mostly uninterested in the subject. “It’s your house now — all we ask is that you not alter the exterior,” Margot Emory informed me, and that seemed to be the end of the matter.
Well, almost. I was walking back up to the house when Jocelyn Riggs, the clan’s strongest medium, came hurrying after me. I turned to her, surprised, wondering if she was going to tell me that the elders had changed their minds and that I was going to drown in chintz to the end of my days.
But she only fixed me with a steady gaze and said, “I have a message for you from Great-Aunt Ruby.”
“You do?” I wasn’t sure whether this was a good thing or not.
Normally Jocelyn was a rather pinch-faced woman. She was a few years older than my Aunt Rachel, but she looked more like a decade separated them. Now, though, she shot me an incongruous smile and said, “Yes. She wants me to let you know that you can do whatever you want with that house. Her exact words were, ‘Tell Angela that I’ve no more use for that house now than I do those old bones they buried in the Cottonwood cemetery. So tell her to stop fretting and get on with it.’” Jocelyn’s pale gray eyes glinted. “I get the impression that she’s rather curious to see what you do with the place. Good afternoon.”
And she turned and went back down the hill, heading for the far more modest cottage she called home. I stared after her for a minute, then grinned and shook my head.
I of all people was not someone to disregard messages from beyond the grave.
The distraction of redoing the house was a welcome one. Still no sign of that mysterious dark being, no more assaults in my dreams…no nothing. I hadn’t even dreamed of him lately, which I wasn’t sure was entirely a good thing. Better that, though, than another visitation from the unwelcome shade that had visited my aunt’s store.
I hired a decorator from Sedona and told her that I wanted to keep something of an antique feel but with less fussy furniture…and no wallpaper. She swept through the house with swatches and paint chips, made suggestions, and generally took over. I was okay with that, though. She was a professional, and I was just a girl who up until that point had never had to decorate anything bigger than a ten by twelve room. She used her own crew, for which I was grateful. Having Adam there every day to help with steaming off wallpaper or sanding the floors could have been awkward.
Through all this, I was adamant that the other family members have first pick of the furniture I didn’t want to keep. Even so, there were a few pieces that hadn’t found a home, but Leila, the decorator, assured me she would be able to sell them with no problem, including the huge Eastlake-style bed from Great-Aunt Ruby’s room.
“I know a couple in Prescott who’re doing over a Victorian who’ll take that, no problem,” she told me, and the next day some movers came to haul it away.
The bed went for so much that I was able to buy a whole new set of bedroom furniture to replace it. That was good, because I did want that room to be mine — it had the same view as my old bedroom at Aunt Rachel’s place, albeit a few hundred feet higher up the hill. I was once again able to look out over the Verde Valley, and see the red rocks of Sedona. By then, only a week before Thanksgiving, all the fall color was in full swing, and the blaze of the trees was somehow a comfort to me, telling me that even though everything else in my life had changed, the world would still follow its familiar old cycles.
The room still smelled of fresh paint. I’d chosen a warm terra-cotta color for the walls, and the ceiling was a soft parchment hue. My new furniture was dark-stained oak, more Spanish hacienda than Victorian mansion, but it worked with the new color scheme. I settled down on the bed after pushing back the heavy turquoise and warm red patterned duvet cover, and took in a deep breath.
Really, if I hadn’t known I was sitting in Great-Aunt Ruby’s old room, I would never have guessed I was in the same place. The colors were warm and rich, the furniture simple and sturdy. Leila had put up a lot of the old wall decorations from my former bedroom, and added more in the same style, along with Mexican mirrors and heavy wrought-iron sconces on the walls. The place was intimate, welcoming. The only thing missing was someone to share that big bed with me.
I didn’t quite let myself sigh, although I wanted to. Somewhere in the daydreams I’d had about the man who’d be my consort, I’d thought about making a home together and doing all the things I’d had to do on my own: buying furniture, deciding on paint colors, figuring out what went where. Not that I’d imagined it happening in this house, necessarily. Moving here had always felt like something that would happen far in the future. But there were always places coming available when needed — a bungalow farther down the hill, a loft apartment over a store. Those were the places I’d imagined making a home with my consort, not this huge echoing relic.
Even so, it felt good to have a lot of the house done already — I’d put off the kitchen and bathrooms until next year, since those were massive projects and I didn’t feel like having the place that torn up over the holidays. Despite all that, there was something missing…the man who should be lying here next to me. That king-size bed felt awfully empty, especially since I’d spent my whole life sleeping on a twin bed.
Through the whole process, I’d also had a hard time keeping myself from thinking about Chris. I knew I shouldn’t, that it was a lost cause, but attraction was a harder thing to control than I’d thought it would be, mainly because I’d never really experienced it like this before. Of course there were guys in high school I had thought were cute, although even then I’d known all I could do was look, but that was not the same as this almost aching need I felt for him. We’d exchanged maybe a hundred words, so I knew I was being silly. How could I miss someone I’d barely spent ten minutes with?
I didn’t know, and there wasn’t really anyone I could talk to about it, either. Aunt Rachel would give me hell for even thinking about a civilian like that, and Sydney would only encourage me and tell me to call. Yes, he’d asked me to call him, but only if I was down in Phoenix. That seemed a little strange to me, since I didn’t see the harm in talking beforehand. Then again, he’d said he would be really busy for the next month. Maybe he didn’t want the frustration of talking if he wasn’t sure he would even see me again.
Frowning, I gave the lamp on the nightstand one of those quick mental flicks, and the room went dark at once. And it was really dark, too. It was a new moon tonight, and clouds hung over the town, making it seem as if I were adrift in a well of blackness. Normally that sort of thing wouldn’t bother me, but in that moment I felt more alone than I ever had, even though that night’s bodyguards were sitting down in the living room, watching movies on the shiny new flat-screen in the sitting room. Well, it used to be the sitting room. Now it was the family room, I supposed, although whether this house would ever be filled with a family, I wasn’t sure.
Probably I should stop torturing myself. True, it was less than a month until my twenty-second birthday, and the window of opportunity was rapidly closing, but stressing about it wasn’t going to do me — or anyone else — any good. And there was a new candidate coming in the next day, so that was something. Not that I was expecting much. Somehow the thought of kissing a stranger was even less appealing than usual.
Because it won’t be Chris Wilson, my mind whispered at me.
I shut that thought down right away. Truthfully, I didn’t really know what would happen when/if I went down to Phoenix, or, even if we did go, whether I’d have the courage to call him. He’d seemed interested in me, so I didn’t think I’d be impinging. Goddess knows I was interested in him, but that didn’t matter in the long haul. He was off-limits.
That time I did let out a sigh. Telling my brain to shut up and leave me alone, I turned over on my side, closed my eyes, and tried to convince myself that the bed didn’t feel quite as cold and empty as I thought it did.
None of my failed attempts at finding a consort had been exactly pleasant, but this one was definitely the worst. For one thing, I didn’t have the buffer of Aunt Rachel there to take the edge off, only the dubious comfort of that day’s bodyguards, who pretended to be immersed in a discussion of the upcoming “lighting up the mountain” festivities next weekend, but who I could tell were trying to eavesdrop on everything the new candidate and I were saying to one another.
He’d come loping up the front steps, looking at the house with what I thought was an avaricious gleam in his eye. I knew this because I was peeking through a clear spot in one of the stained-glass panels that flanked the door. All right, maybe I was already predisposed to expect the worst, but his expression was decidedly different from that of the candidates I’d met at Aunt Rachel’s far more modest apartment.
The doorbell rang. I weighed the possibility of pretending I wasn’t home, then decided against it, since I knew one of the bodyguards would just come answer the doorbell if I didn’t. So I grasped the handle and turned it, then opened the door.
Like most of the candidates, he wasn’t bad-looking. A little above average height, short brown hair, brown eyes. I gave a mental shrug. Really, it would be so much easier if I could just look at their eye color, say “nope,” and move on to the next one. But although everyone more or less thought there must be something important about my dreams, they weren’t willing to give them enough weight that they could rule out every candidate who didn’t have green eyes.
Although I’d been dressing a little more nicely these days, mostly because it didn’t seem right for the prima of the McAllisters to be slouching around in jeans with holes in them and pilly sweaters, I hadn’t gone to a lot of effort today. My hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail, and I wore one of my Jerome sweatshirts over a pair of faded jeans. No, they didn’t have holes in them, but they were starting to get a little threadbare.
I could tell by his disappointed expression that this new candidate wasn’t overly impressed with the McAllisters’ prima.
Good.
“Hi,” I said, and stuck out my hand. “I’m Angela.”
“I know,” he replied. Then he shrugged and extended his own hand. “Griffin Dutton.”
I knew that as well. I also knew that he came from Wickenburg, worked at one of the guest ranches there, and was my fifth or sixth cousin lord knows how many times removed. Back in the twenties one of the McAllister girls had married a rancher in those parts, and Griffin was her great-great-grandson. Or so Aunt Rachel had explained.
After a lackluster hand shake, I said, “The parlor is over here. Do you want me to get you anything first? Water? A Coke?” I didn’t drink soda, but a couple of the bodyguards were caffeine fiends, so I kept it around for them.
“A Coke would be good.”
Fetching it would give me a small reprieve. I pointed to the parlor, which opened on the foyer. “Why don’t you go on in and sit down? I’ll be back in a minute.”
He nodded and headed into the parlor, and I went the other direction to fetch his Coke from the kitchen. I found my cousin Kirby with his head in the fridge, eyeing a pizza box from Grapes.
“Don’t you dare,” I told him. “That’s my dinner tonight.”
Looking over his shoulder, he shot me a grin. He was a few years older than I and had a loft apartment down on Main Street that he shared with his boyfriend. Even ten years ago there probably would’ve been a hell of a ruckus over that, but these days no one even batted an eye. I wished my love life were that uncomplicated.
“What, you don’t think you’re going to have a celebratory dinner with Rachel after this candidate proves he’s the One?”
I shot Kirby a very sour look. “I’d say the odds of that are roughly the same as me getting elected President.”
“Hey, you never know.” With a visible show of reluctance, he put the pizza box back in the ancient Frigidaire. “Did you need something?”
“He wants a Coke.”
Another grin. “Well, at least he didn’t ask for a beer.”
“I didn’t offer.” I took the cold can of Coke from Kirby. “And hands off that pizza. I’m serious.”
“But I’m hungry.”
“Then have some cheese and crackers or something. There’s some white cheddar in there, and I have crackers in the pantry.”
“If I must.” He heaved an exaggerated sigh, then extracted the package of cheese and shut the refrigerator door.
Any longer, and Griffin Dutton would know I was stalling for time. So I left the kitchen and headed back to the parlor, where I found him looking around at all the new furniture and the art on the walls, most of which was from local artists and was all original. I could practically see the dollar signs in his eyes as he mentally added up what it all must have cost.
“Your Coke,” I said, and extended the hand holding it.
“Thanks.” He took it and popped the tab, then took a few large swallows. “That’s better. It was kind of a long drive.”
I only nodded. Yes, it was, but I’d had candidates come a lot farther than that, so I feared my expression wasn’t entirely sympathetic.
If he noticed, he didn’t give any indication. Instead he gazed up at the ceiling, which had been painted a soft cream color, and then around at the deeper toast hue on the walls. “Been doing some work on the house?”
“Some,” I admitted. “It was very retro, and not in a good way. I’m not big on florals.”
“Hmm.” He drank some more Coke, then set the can down on the coffee table.
I immediately swooped in and relocated it to a coaster.
“Oh, sorry,” he said, although he didn’t sound all that sorry…more amused by my anal-retentive protecting of the table.
Once again I thought this would be a whole hell of a lot easier if I could have a few drinks before forcing myself to go through with this ridiculous ritual. On the other hand, I didn’t think there were thick enough beer goggles in the world that would make me believe kissing Griffin was a good idea.
“So…” I said. I really didn’t want to kiss him, but I did want to get this over with.
“So…” He moved closer to me.
I sighed. “Just go ahead and do it.”
A lot of guys probably would have been put off by my tone. I’d already taken the measure of this one, though, and he wasn’t seeing me. He was just seeing the prima of the McAllisters and her big house and the position he’d have as her consort. Boy, was he in for a disappointment.
He leaned in and pressed his mouth against mine. That was it — no reaching up to caress my cheek, no finesse at all. Just lips against lips. I suppose he thought he didn’t need to do anything else, because if he turned out to be the one, the spark would start on its own.
Of course it didn’t. Thank the Goddess, I thought. Bad enough that I should have to kiss him at all, when I’d been spending my days mooning over Chris Wilson. But it hadn’t worked, so I started to pull away immediately.
“Sorry — ”
I didn’t get out anything else other than that, because he’d grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me back toward him, forcing my mouth open with his tongue. He tasted of Coke, and I gagged. This time I didn’t even have to invoke the Goddess. Even as my mind cried out a “no!”, an invisible force grabbed hold of him and pushed him away from me with enough force that he tripped over a footstool and went tumbling to the floor. In the process he knocked over the fireplace tools, which hit the slate hearth surround with a clatter.
Almost at once, Kirby and the other two bodyguards, Tom and Alison, came running. They took in the scene before them and then hurried over to me.
“What happened?” Kirby asked, as Griffin shook his head, as if to clear it, then began to push himself up to his feet.
“That crazy bitch attacked me, that’s what happened.”
At their prima being called the big “B,” all three of them frowned. Tom, a heavy-set man in his middle forties, said, “You might want to reconsider what you just called Ms. McAllister.”
Griffin matched their scowls with one of his. “Well, it’s the truth.”
“I was defending myself. We did the kiss, it didn’t work, and I guess he didn’t like it, because he decided to stick his tongue down my throat. So I…did something about it.”
“I think you’d better leave,” Alison said grimly.
Griffin glanced from her to Tom to Kirby, who was looking angrier than I thought I’d ever seen him. Actually, before that moment I wasn’t even sure Kirby could get angry.
“Fine,” Griffin said. “Like I want to be part of this freak show anyway. She’s not even good-looking.”
After delivering that parting shot, he stalked out of the room and into the foyer. The front door banged a few seconds later.
The three bodyguards just stared at me. I hesitated, then went over to the footstool and righted it, putting it back in its proper position. “I’m going upstairs,” I told them, and walked with as much dignity as I could muster to the staircase in the foyer. I went upstairs, closed my bedroom door behind me, and threw myself down on my bed, where I wept stormily and wished this would all be over.