by Amy Boyles
He nodded. “I was going to stop by later and find out what she’s discovered. I thought I’d give her some time.”
“When should I tell her to expect you?”
“A few hours. There are some things I need to do first.” He nodded to me and to India. Thorne rose to go. “But do me a favor and don’t pester Rots. You’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“Promise,” I lied.
Thorne stopped and glanced over his shoulder. “You know, I could almost hear your lie when you said that.”
Stunned silent, all I could do was watch as Thorne walked out of the building and disappeared onto the street.
My gaze slid to India. “Now. About that contact information. What have you got?”
Chapter 8
Outside the mayor’s office I ran into Jamison. “Dudette,” he said, his voice brimming with anguish, “is it true? Is my Reese alive?”
Oh. Wow. How was I supposed to put this delicately? “Jamison, let’s sit down.”
We found a bench without kudzu creeping near it and sat. I still didn’t trust that stuff. I’d been bitten once by the plant, and I didn’t exactly want to be bitten again.
I took both of Jamison’s hands and smiled kindly. Emotion bubbled in his eyes. In the short time I’d known him, I’d never seen the man like this.
But what did I expect? Jamison thought he’d met his soul mate. He’d even believed Corley was that woman.
I used my I’m-going-to-break-this-to-you-gently voice. “Jamison, the woman who told you she was Reese lied. That wasn’t her.”
He nodded. “I know. The police told me. I can’t believe it, dudette. I can’t believe that wasn’t her. We were so connected.” He gazed at the clouds, a dreamy expression on his face. “In our hearts we were one.”
I licked my lips, trying to make my mind work to discover something that might ease his pain. “I know you felt something for that woman and I’m sorry, but have you thought that maybe she put some sort of spell on you? Magic that would make you think you felt something for her when you didn’t?”
Jamison’s eyes bugged. “What? No, dudette. Not once did I consider that.” He exhaled a shot of air. “Whoa. My mind is, like, blown.”
I patted his hand. “You haven’t even seen the real Reese.”
“I heard she was, like, in a coma.”
I nodded. “She is. Do you want to meet her?”
Jamison pulled his hand from mine and rubbed his eyes. “I don’t know, dudette. I’ve already had my heart ripped from my chest once this week. I don’t know if I could do it again.”
“She came to see you, Jamison. Hearing your voice might help bring her back from wherever she is.”
Jamison nodded. “Okay. I’ll see her. But I need some time. I have to, like, prepare myself.”
“Come over later, okay? Maybe you can have dinner with my family. But be warned, they are strange.”
He chuckled softly, and for the first time I saw a little light return to his eyes. “Okay. I’ll do it.”
I gave him a hug and headed off toward Rots Smythe. The house he was staying in was in Water Town. It would be the first time I had visited the element my power was based on. Granted, I now had more earth and air magic than water, but I was still curious as to what Water Town was going to be like.
The entrance gates weren’t gates at all. They were two fountains, one on either side of the road, spewing curling streams of water into a pool that split the road in two.
I smiled, wondering what the tourists thought about the curling water. There was absolutely nothing natural about it, but the spectacle was amazing.
I found a parking spot and got out. The cottages in Water Town were a sight to see. Panes of glass filled with water served as windows. Where the construct in Air Town was that they used sails atop the homes to harness the energy, in Water Town liquid flowed through the very veins of each home.
It was so freaking cool.
I could feel the power of the water flowing beneath this part of Witch’s Forge. Must’ve been an underground spring feeding the magic.
I nodded to witches as I passed. Their dresses flowed similarly to how my mother’s always flowed when she walked—as if she were walking through water.
It was a skill I had yet to master. As I watched them, I realized the witches were wearing scarves over their heads same as Mama.
I wondered if their hair was frizzing up as well.
I found the home that Rots was supposed to be staying at and knocked on the door. A loud crash, sounding like a bookcase had fallen over, came from inside the house.
Worried, I twisted the door handle. “Mr. Smythe, are you okay?”
When no answer came, I pushed the door. I peeked my head in as a hand grabbed the edge of the door from me and swung it open.
Rots Smythe, face scowling and fur coat clad over his body, glared at me.
“And who are you?” he said in a raspy, sniveling voice.
“I’m Charming Calhoun.” I tried to peer around him. “Are you okay?”
“I am fine. What do you want?”
I had the feeling this man wasn’t about to invite me in for tea.
I put on my brightest smile and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. I suddenly realized my hair was acting funny—all coarse and frizzy, more scrub pad than hairlike. “You may not know about me since you’re new in town, but I’m the town matchmaker. My mission is to match folks with their soul mates.”
His scowl deepened. “I don’t need a matchmaker.”
I shrugged. “But I heard you were acquainted with a woman named Corley Duvall. I thought maybe she was your match.”
Rots’s eyes narrowed. “Who told you that? How do you know that name?”
Aha! He knew her! “It’s something that’s been going around town. That the two of you are acquainted.”
“Were acquainted,” he hissed. “From what I understand, Miss Duvall is dead.”
“So you knew her?”
“Yes, I knew her.”
As we spoke, I started to feel my hair rising to attention on my head, as if it was being pulled by some sort of invisible hair magnet.
What the heck was going on?
I patted it down and refocused on Rots, who I did not trust one lick, if you wanted to know the truth. There was something grimy and dirty about him. It was like oil ran through his veins instead of blood.
There was definitely something off about this man.
“Oh,” I put on my dumb-sounding, innocent voice, “were you there when she was killed? At the gardens?”
“I was there, but I wasn’t aware that Corley had taken on another name. I’m not surprised. She got herself into some trouble, from what I understand.”
“With whom?”
“Not that it’s any of your business,” he said in a distasteful tone, “but with her family.”
“What sort of trouble?”
“It was something about a man,” he said.
Same thing the woman on the phone had told me. “Do you know him?”
Rots shook his head. “I assumed it was that young man who says ‘dude’ all the time.”
“Jamison? No, he’d only just met Corley. She pretended to be his soul mate.”
Rots combed his fingers through his hair. “I’m afraid I don’t know any more than that. I am friendly with the Duvall’s, but I don’t push my nose into their business, so to speak.”
“But you argued with Corley at the train station. Why was that?”
His cheeks flushed in anger. “I don’t know why I’d be telling you, a matchmaker, anything about a platform argument I had.”
“It was about your fur coat, wasn’t it? I heard some of it.”
Rots tapped his foot impatiently. “She clawed at my coat, I assumed to ruin it, like animal lovers often do. I didn’t even recognize Corley until I was halfway down the platform.”
Another crash came from the back of the house. Rots froze. “Now really, I must be gett
ing back to my work. If you want to know more about why Miss Duvall came here, I suggest you ask her cabinmate—a young brown-haired woman. They looked to be getting on quite well when I saw them in the dining car.”
I frowned. “I thought you said you didn’t recognize Corley until after you’d walked past her.”
“I didn’t,” he snapped. “Now, good day.”
Then Rots Smythe slammed the door in my face. It was a good thing, too, because I’m pretty sure my hair was standing straight up.
I gritted my teeth. Even though my brain waves were pointing toward the sky thanks to my hair, I knew one thing for certain—Rots Smythe was lying about when he’d first recognized Corley.
If there was something I questioned, it was this—if Rots was lying about that, what else was he lying about?
There was only one way to find out. I had to get into that house. Inside I would find answers.
Chapter 9
I’d just finished setting the table for dinner when the doorbell rang. “It must be Jamison,” I announced.
The house creaked and groaned as it elongated the dining room. I glanced at the walls curiously.
“We only need to have four place settings, five if you count Pig.”
The house made the room large enough to accommodate someone tall and big.
I glared at the walls, my shoulders sagging to the floor. “This doesn’t mean what I think it means, does it?”
Rose walked briskly down the hall toward the door.
“Has Thorne already been here? Talked to Mama about Reese?” I asked.
“No, why?”
I groaned as she opened the door. “Hello, Chief Blackwood. How’re you?”
My back sank against the wall. I’d been really, really hoping that Thorne had already come and gone. I hadn’t had a chance to speak to Mama since I’d been home. As soon as I arrived, she forced me into the dining room to set the table.
My eyes narrowed to slits. This was all a setup. I bet she spoke to Thorne and asked him over for dinner.
Goodness knew why. It wasn’t like the man ate anything. You couldn’t exactly offer him a cow or something for his meal. At least, not among respectable company.
A hand shot out from behind the door, holding wildflowers out to Rose. “These are for you,” he said gruffly.
I rolled my eyes. Great. And now he was bribing my family.
Pink dotted Rose’s cheeks. “Why, thank you.” She batted her lashes at him. “Come in. I’d offer you some fresh blood, but we’re all out.”
I shook my head. Seriously?
My mother appeared in the hallway. She’d managed to tame her hair down to her shoulders. Luckily my hair had gone back to normal once I left Water Town. I guessed the strength of one’s power had to do with how frizzy your hair got. Mama was a more powerful water witch than I was.
It was the best explanation I had and I was going with it.
“Thorne,” Mama said in her most gracious voice, “thank you for accepting my offer to dinner. There’s so much to discuss.”
He handed her a bouquet of daisies.
“Oh, daisies. My favorite. Thank you.”
They were not her favorite. She was only saying that.
Mama pointed her finger toward the dining room, and two vases appeared. Her flowers and Rose’s vanished from their hands and reappeared in their glass containers.
Thorne stepped into the house, into full view. His shoulders nearly cracked the walls, they were so wide. The house was right to open the dining room. It needed it where Thorne was concerned.
“Charming,” he said.
“Thorne.”
It hovered on the tip of my tongue to comment that it was rude that he hadn’t brought flowers for me, when Thorne revealed half a dozen pink roses from behind his back.
“These are for you.”
My stomach crashed to the floor. My mouth dried, and my lips went numb.
I didn’t know what to say. I must’ve been standing there like an idiot, because Mama elbowed my elbow.
“Charming,” she said through clenched teeth. “What do you say?”
There were a thousand things I wanted to say, starting with, Is this a bribe? But I bit my tongue and forced a wobbly smile to my face.
One corner of my mouth pushed up, and as I ticked the other corner up, the first dipped back down. I forced them both up, way up until I felt like the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland.
“Thank you,” I said in a muffled voice. It came out weird, and I hoped Thorne didn’t notice how off-balance his gesture had made me.
With my arm as stiff as a robot’s, I took the flowers and inhaled them. The delicate fragrance wafted up my nose. One whiff and all the tension in my shoulders melted and even my stiff expression softened.
I lifted my gaze to his. “Thank you,” I said again, this time genuinely.
A smile slowly curled on his lips, and Thorne replied, “You’re welcome.”
Was that a hint of gold in his silvery eyes? And why hadn’t I noticed before that red dotted his cheeks. Was he nervous? There was nothing else in his face that suggested as much. He studied me with a soft expression, and his shoulders sat as wide and straight as I remembered.
Only the small dots of color on his cheeks made me think emotions tugged at him.
A vampire having emotions?
Maybe they could feel. It wasn’t that the idea was impossible, it was just—if I admitted to myself that vampires felt things, then I’d have to possibly take the time to forgive the one who tried to take my life.
I curled my fingers into the cellophane circling the flowers and turned away, looking for another vase to deposit them in.
A pretty slender blue container appeared. “There you are, Charming,” Mama said.
I dropped the flowers in the vase and turned back to the table.
“Please, Thorne, sit here. Charming. You sit next to Thorne.”
Panic scrambled up my throat. I fired off a look to my mother, and she jerked her head toward him.
“Go ahead,” she said through gritted teeth. “Rose and I will bring the food out.”
I slumped into the chair beside him. Suddenly the weight of silence seemed to lay heavy in the room.
“You didn’t have to bring flowers,” I said.
From the corner of my eye, I watched the bulk of Thorne turn to me. “It’s proper to thank a hostess for inviting you to dinner.”
“But you won’t eat any of it,” I said before thinking of what I was saying. I cringed. “Sorry. I just meant…”
“You mean my appetite is for different things. It is. It’s a curse I can’t escape.”
The words came out with a tinge of bitterness, and I studied his face. Thorne’s eyes met mine, and heat flared in my neck. My pulse rose, and I quickly looked away.
“You don’t like what you are?”
It was never a thought I’d considered. Didn’t vampires like being vampires? Being immortal and powerful and all that?
He tapped his fingers on the table. “Let’s just say I have my issues like most people.”
I cocked a brow. “You don’t strike me as someone who has issues.”
“Well, you haven’t tried getting to know me yet, have you?”
I scoffed. “Okay. So you’ve got issues. But at least you weren’t attacked as a child like I was.”
“That’s right, you’ve got issues too,” he joked. “Yours might actually be worse than mine.”
“Are you joking?”
“Yes.”
Our gazes locked, and we both laughed. Tension flowed from me, and for the first time I realized Thorne might actually be a person inside that massive frame.
There might be a human piece left inside him.
Maybe I shouldn’t get too far ahead of myself.
My mother and Rose entered with the food and settled it on the table. When Mama uncovered the main dish, it was pot roast. I almost rolled my eyes. No way was Thorne going to eat that
.
“I prepared a special dish for you,” Mama said. She whisked back into the kitchen and brought a plate especially for him.
A slab of bloody steak lay on a plate, garnished with fresh parsley.
Mama sat at the head of the table. “I thought the last time you joined us for dinner that you should’ve had your own meal. So this time I made one for you.”
“Thank you,” Thorne said. “I appreciate you thinking of me.”
When our plates were built, Mama turned to Thorne. “The spell on Reese is confusing. It is a coma, and it is magical, but the specifics of it I can’t seem to figure out. It’s almost as if the spell was created just for Reese.”
Before I had a chance to stop myself, I said, “Rots Smythe said that Corley and Reese shared a cabin on the train and that they became buddy-buddy.”
“Really?” Thorne said. “You ran into Rots Smythe and he offered that up?”
I coughed into my hand. A wedge of pot roast stuck in my throat, choking me. Quick as a bouncing flea, the flat of Thorne’s hand was on my back, and with one swift pat, the meat was dislodged.
“It was a good choice sticking Thorne by Charming,” Rose said to Mama. “Looks like that pot roast might be the death of her.”
Pig snorted in agreement from her spot on the floor.
I stopped myself from shooting Rose flaming daggers with my eyes. “Thank you,” I murmured to Thorne and sipped some water. “Better.”
“Good,” Mama said. “Now. Back to the spell. If that’s true what Mr. Smythe said about Reese and Corley, then Corley may have only wanted Reese in a coma for a short period. Perhaps long enough to get away from whatever she left Chattanooga for.”
“Wasn’t she supposed to have run off with a man?” Rose said. “That’s what the woman at Duvall’s told Charming.”
The heat of Thorne’s stare felt like a lead weight. I waved the air and scoffed. “Oh, Mr. Blackwood doesn’t want to hear about all this silly business with Corley.”
Thorne swiped a napkin over his mouth. “Mr. Blackwood most certainly does.”
My gaze darted to the bloody steak. It appeared Thorne had actually eaten at least one bite of it.
What was my mother trying to do, butter him up?
