The Magic of Love Series

by Margaret Locke

  “Yes, great. Thanks, Ben. This is very nice of you.”

  “No problem.” He finally looked her full in the face. She couldn’t read his expression at first, but then it softened, and he gave her what seemed to be a genuine smile. “Always happy to help out a Luddite.”

  Eliza cackled. “She is a Luddite. You’re so right.”

  Ben winked at Eliza. “Part of her charm,” he said, and then quickly tacked on, “Gotta scoot. Professorial duties call,” as if he were embarrassed by his admission.

  “See you, Ben,” Eliza said.

  “Yeah, see you.” He turned to Cat. “You, too, Luddy.”

  Cat’s cheeks stretched out into a wide smile as he walked out the door.

  “Have you heard from Grayson?” Eliza asked a few days later while opening a box of children’s books.

  Cat grimaced. “No. It’s been more than a week, so somehow I’m thinking I won’t be seeing him again. Oh, well. Live and learn.”

  Eliza sat back on her heels, peering at her friend. “You all right?”

  “Yeah. I had hoped maybe for once some guy wouldn’t screw me over. Guess that’s what you get for, you know, being easy.”

  “Ouch.” Eliza winced. “You’re not easy and you know it. Now Angela from my Dickens class—she’s easy. She boasts about having slept with at least half the department, including several professors.”

  “Whatever. I feel stupid.”

  “Oh, honey, you’re not stupid,” Eliza said. “You’re a woman with hormones. And a man as electrifying as that? I probably would have caved, too.”

  Cat hauled a pile of books from the box. “It was electric,” she conceded with a pained grin.

  She’d had so many mixed emotions since that night. On the one hand, it had been fantastic to feel her body come alive again. On the other, she’d jumped into bed with someone she didn’t really know, and that didn’t sit well with her conscience. Physical intimacy had always come hand-in-hand with emotional intimacy for her. It still did.

  She’d hoped Grayson would call. But what had she been expecting, really? That they would start seeing each other? That they could have a future together? They had a love of literature in common, true, but she doubted much more. The man was probably a decade younger than she wa and on a different career path. Not to mention the fact that he was so absolutely delicious, Cat knew she’d never feel at ease with it; too many other women would constantly be trying to get his attention. He’d never want to be long-term with her when there were so many younger, firmer, sexier fish in the sea, would he? She had to admit she’d at least wanted the chance to find out, though.

  Cat bit the inside of her cheek. She’d joked with Eliza about a fling, but her heart had reminded her every day for a week now that she wasn’t the fling type. She exhaled loudly. Life had been so much easier before Derrick and Grayson had shown up. And Ben. Boring and unfulfilling, but easier.

  Eliza stood up and pressed her hands against the small of her back. “Can we take a break and go grab something hot to drink? I’m freezing.”

  Cat glanced outside at the leaves falling from the trees. The brisk wind whipped up a pumpkin-and-mustard cascade of colors. She loved autumn, especially November. Something about the crisp, cool air always revitalized her.

  “Sure, sounds good. Do you mind if we stop by Alderman Library, as well? Jill says I can finally pick up my book.”

  “Of course, but do you want to leave the store for that long?”

  “Because we’d be disappointing all the customers?” Cat gestured around the empty store.

  Eliza giggled. “I’m sure it will pick up this afternoon, Eeyore. I’ll change the sign to say we’ll be back in an hour.”

  They locked the door behind them as they exited. Since the library was only a few blocks from the bookstore, they walked.

  “I’m glad we’re going,” said Eliza. “Jill texted me last night to say she wants to show me a copy of Ackermann’s Repository she found. She says there’s quite a dreamy duke pictured in it.”

  When Cat cocked an eyebrow at her, Eliza went on. “It’s a famous British magazine from the Regency period.”

  “Ah. I should have known. You do realize your dreamy duke’s been dead for two hundred years, right?”

  Eliza elbowed her. “Spoilsport. Let me have my fantasy, will you?”

  “Better you than me. I had the fantasy, I guess. And he hasn’t called in a week.” She gave Eliza a rueful grin.

  “Ah, but you had him.” Eliza winked. “That’s more than I can say. It’s been a long time. My Darcy needs to show up soon.”

  Cat linked her arm through Eliza’s as they strolled across the brick walkway in front of the UVa Rotunda. Not too soon, Cat hoped. She couldn’t imagine life without her best friend.

  As they entered the library foyer, Cat paused. “Hey, you go ahead with Jill. I want to go find my old study carrel on the fourth floor and see if Elvis is still carved in it. I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

  “Sure thing.” Eliza poked her. “I had no idea you were such a vandal.”

  “I never said I did it.” Quirking an eyebrow at her friend, Cat added, “But I never said I didn’t.”

  As Eliza headed toward the elevator, Cat walked back to the old side of the library. Passing through the metal doors, the familiar smell of timeworn books assailed her. She breathed in deeply. Geez, I’m as bad as my dad. She moved through the stacks until she reached the spot in which she’d sat many an hour in school, reading Cicero while dreaming of a Romeo. Yeah, those days are long gone. She reached out and ran her finger along the bookshelf in her old carrel. Elvis was still inked across the edge of it.

  “I have a sneaking suspicion you know who defaced this lovely university property,” drawled a voice from behind her. She whirled and came face-to-face with Grayson. “Maybe I should turn you in. Put you in handcuffs.”

  “U-um,” she stammered, not sure what to say. How could he look so damn luscious, standing there in a V-neck charcoal sweater and faded jeans, holding a volume in his hand? Sylvia Plath, she noted absently from the cover.

  “It’s good to see you, too.” He moved in to close the space between them. “I’ve been thinking about you. In fact, I can’t stop thinking about you.”

  “For over a week?” she said with a snort, stepping back in an effort to break the spell she seemed to have fallen under. Again.

  “Sorry about that. I’ve been slammed with grading, plus my own dissertation chapter to finish.” He set the book down on the carrel and leaned into her, his eyes entrapping hers. “I want to see you again, Cat.”

  She could feel his breath on her cheek. He trailed his fingers down her arm, gazing at her expectantly. When she didn’t protest, he leaned in and kissed her. She gave into the kiss, marveling again at being in the arms of this oh-so-sexy man, in the library in which she’d spent hours, days, years, dreaming of future love.

  And with that future had come heartbreak. And a heart-stoppingly beautiful man who had seduced her in her own store and then not contacted her again.

  Anger flared up inside her. She pushed against him, breaking the kiss.

  “I don’t think so. I am not the kind of girl who’ll sleep with you whenever you happen to show up!”

  Gray frowned, running his fingers through his messy hair. “I said I was sorry. I’ve been busy. I guess I was lost in my own studies and didn’t notice the time passing. Please, Cat.”

  He sounded sincere. But she wasn’t interested in playing second fiddle again, whether to another woman or an intellectual addiction. He reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear, but she backed away.

  “I’ve got to go meet Eliza and Jill,” she said.

  Gray picked up his book. “Can I come see you sometime? Maybe next week, after I get this chapter done?”

  “Maybe.” What? No! Turn him down, you idiot! She frowned. “Probably not.”

  His smile faltered and his eyes clouded for a second. Then he leaned in close
, so close that she could see the darker blue flecks near his irises, and whispered, “I think I can get you to change your mind.”

  She closed her eyes, her hormones at war with her head. He chuckled, running his fingers along her chin. When her eyes flew open again, his face was an inch, maybe less, from hers. Taking her bottom lip between his teeth, he bit it gently, and then licked it in atonement. When she gasped, he took her mouth with his, his tongue ravaging the insides of her mouth as he pulled her flush against him.

  He murmured something, some line about walking in beauty. Byron. She knew that poem, had loved it since a child. Suddenly, Ben’s ridiculous poem from the other day sprang to mind. ‘Mushrooms are eww.’ His brown eyes swam before her, accompanied by a wave of guilt.

  She frowned. She had nothing to feel guilty about. It wasn’t as if she and Ben Cooper were anything.

  Grayson’s hands moved down, cupping her bottom.

  She and Grayson weren’t anything, either. Not really. She pushed against his chest. “No. I don’t want this.”

  He let her go. Backing up, he gave her a wink. “You’re right. Here is not the place.” His gloriously blue eyes darkened with desire, as a lop-sided grin spread across his face. “You’re addictive, Catherine Schreiber. One taste is not enough.”

  He turned and sauntered off without another word.

  She admired his legs in his jeans as he walked down the aisle. What had she just given up?

  “Sex, dummy,” she muttered as she walked toward the elevator. A young student looked up at her in surprise as she passed, overhearing her words. Cat blushed as she stepped into the elevator, but said again loudly, “Meaningless sex!”

  Chapter 11

  “I still can’t believe you own this book,” Jill said as she thumbed gently through the pages.

  “I know, isn’t it amazing?” Cat answered. She took the book from Jill’s hands, goose bumps prickling her skin as she did so. Odd. It’s not particularly cold in here.

  She, Jill, and Eliza had sat down with a coffee drink in the café in the main entrance area of the library. “We can’t stay long,” she’d said. “But it’s nice to have a few minutes with you.”

  She tucked the book carefully in her bag. Jill handed her the color copies she’d printed from the scans.

  “Thanks so much for doing that for me, Jill. I know I could have taken it to Kinko’s or something, or done it myself, but I was worried about damaging it.”

  Jill nodded. “Not a problem. Sorry it took so long. Since it wasn’t official work business, I had to fit it in around other projects and keep others from noticing it, or everyone would have wanted to see it. Why’d your dad put it in such an ugly modern binding?”

  “I don’t know,” Cat said. “He died before he could tell me anything about it.”

  Eliza squeezed her hand. “We think he was trying to keep it a secret,” she piped up. “If you saw it on a bookshelf as it is now, you’d pass it right over, right?”

  Jill shrugged. “Yeah, probably. Why would it need to be a secret? What does it say? I took a gander at the first page but didn’t get very far. My Latin is far rustier than yours, Cat—I only took those two semesters.”

  Cat pulled out the copy of the first page and read it. She didn’t need to look at the Latin. In truth, she’d memorized the translation she’d written down that first morning.

  “‘In her hands she holds

  The greatest power of them all.

  The ability to create

  That which all want but few attain.

  Helped by God she writes the letters

  And the Word becomes Flesh

  Bringing Love to all who seek it.’”

  “Wow.” Jill’s eyes were round and full. “Heavy duty. But what is it? Sounds Biblical.” She took a drink of her Coke.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought at first, too,” Cat answered. “But the few stories I read before giving it to you all revolve around love in some way—and not in the Christian sense, but more in the Eliza-type-of-book sense.”

  “You’re reading medieval smut?” Jill choked down a laugh. “Dang, my soda shot up my nose. Oww!” She reached for a napkin.

  Eliza chortled. “Serves her right for all the grief she’s given me about my reading choices that when she finds a centuries-old book, it’s all about romance.”

  “What I find intriguing,” Cat said, ignoring her friends’ needling, “is that at the front of every story the illumination shows a woman writing. Isn’t that cool? Many people think only educated men, and mostly men of the Church at that, served as scribes in that time period. Yet here this woman is, writing down these stories.”

  “Do you have any sense of the history of the book?” Jill asked. “Wanna leave it here and let us do some research?”

  Possessiveness overtook Cat with an intensity that startled her. The book was hers. Hers. “Um, no, thank you,” she said in as nonchalant a manner as she could muster. “I’m going to work with it a little while longer. If I need help, I know where to find you.”

  Good Lord, I feel like Gollum from The Hobbit, not wanting to lose my Precious. She needed to get a grip.

  “OK, no biggie. I’ve gotta head back to work in a few minute but tell me about these guys Eliza tells me you’ve been seeing. A lonely single girl wants to know all.”

  “I’m still a lonely single girl, too,” Cat said. “One date and one, erm, evening does not a lifetime of bliss make.”

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Start talking.”

  Cat briefly sketched out the details of Derrick and Grayson, but skirted over much of Poetry Night, and what had come after.

  Jill regarded her with a cross of admiration and envy on her face. “You go, girl! What’s your secret?” Jill said.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I just felt ready. I don’t know why.”

  “It’s certainly helped that three guys are suddenly chasing you,” Eliza said.

  “Three?” Jill echoed, raising her eyebrows.

  “There are no three. There is no chasing,” Cat scoffed. “I’m not interested in Derrick, and Grayson isn’t truly interested in me, at least not as much as he’s interested in his work. I was merely a—what do the kids call it these days?—a booty call to him.” Under her breath, she added to Eliza, “And as to the third, we’ve already discussed that.”

  Cat fell silent, taking a sip of her coffee as an excuse to avoid further discussion. Why were guys like Derrick and Grayson pursuing her? It didn’t make any sense, given the dearth of male attention in the last six years. Eliza’s undergrad roommate, Joy, whom Cat had met a few times, would probably say Cat was giving off different vibes to the universe, ones sending out a signal that she was available. Joy was into that stuff: Reiki and chakras and auras, and all that.

  Cat didn’t know if she believed that, although it did feel like something had changed, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

  “I’d take a booty call.” Jill sighed. “I’d take any call. Not exactly a happening social scene here in the bowels of the library.”

  “Right there with you,” Eliza said, her thumb tracing the edge of the table. After a moment, her face brightened. “But I know someday, ladies, our princes will come.”

  Jill snorted.

  Giving Cat a meaningful glance, Eliza added, “Or knights.”

  “I ran into Grayson,” Cat confessed as she unlocked the door to the bookstore.

  “What? Where?”

  “When we were in the library. Right before I came down to you and Jill.”

  “And you didn’t tell me? What happened?”

  Cat told her of the encounter, and how persistent Grayson was. “I swear, he would have had sex right there in the stacks if he’d had his way.”

  Eliza gave her an odd look.

  “What? I wouldn’t have done it.”

  “No, that’s not what I was thinking.”

  “Then what?”

  Eliza hung her coat on the hook behind the
door then turned back to Cat. “It sounds like the story you wrote. You know, the smutty one.”

  “I know which one you mean.” She exhaled loudly. Good God, it did sound like that story. “What’s your point?”

  “I don’t know. I ... it’s weird, you know? First Derrick, the popular high school quarterback. Now, this? Being seduced by a grad student in the library? At your carrel? Exactly like in the story you wrote?”

  Cat stood rooted to the spot, gaping at her friend.

  “Don’t you see?” Eliza gestured toward the papers Cat had tucked in her bag. “What you just read at the library? ‘She writes the letters? And the words become flesh?’”

  Cat’s eyes widened and her mouth fell open. “No. That’s impossible.”

  Eliza said nothing, her eyes unusually serious.

  “You can’t be suggesting...” She waited for Eliza to speak. When she didn’t, the words burst forth from Cat in a tumble. “You think the stories I wrote are ... coming true? That Derrick, that Grayson ... that they’re men I created?” She wanted to scoff, to reject it all outright. But even as she spoke, her mind raced back to Derrick. She’d freaked out on her date with him because of the similarities, hadn’t she? And now Grayson. Still, there had to be a logical explanation. There had to be.

  Eliza shrugged.

  Cat’s eyes felt as if they might pop out of her head. She grasped her hair with her hands and stared at the ceiling.

  “Have you finished reading the manuscript yet?” Eliza asked. “What does it tell you?”

  “I only got about halfway through it before handing it over to Jill. She’s had it since then, as you know.”

  Eliza crossed her arms and leveled a steady gaze at her friend. “Fine, work on it now. We have time; nobody’s here. What does the end of it say?”

  “You want me to skip to the end?”

  “Horror of horrors to you, I know,” said Eliza, “but yes, skip to the end! Maybe it reveals something, some sort of key to this situation.”