by Nora Roberts
clouds had passed by evening. The clear wash of sky and stars sucked out any hope of warmth in the air. The cold was clean and sharp as a razor, slicing keenly against any exposed skin.
She walked fast, using her flashlight to guide the way.
She shook her head when she ran the beam over Mac’s Rover. He hadn’t bothered to dig it out. Typical Nutty Professor behavior, she decided. Ignoring the practical.
She stomped up to the door, pounded with a wool-covered fist.
He answered wearing a gray sweatshirt that had seen better days and jeans that looked equally well used. She caught the unmistakable scent of Nell’s beef-and-barley soup and quickly decided it was that, and that alone, that made her mouth water.
“Hi. Jesus, it’s freezing out there. Must be down around zero.” Even as he stepped back to let her in, he looked outside. “No car? You walked in this? Are you crazy?”
She studied the equipment jammed cheek by jowl into the tiny living room. “You live like this, and you ask ifI’m crazy?”
“It’s too cold to be out for an evening stroll.” Instinctively, he took her gloved hands, rubbing them between his own.
“You get grabby, we’re on the clock.”
“Check the attitude.” His voice wasn’t mild and easygoing now, but hot as a bullet. It had her eyeing him speculatively. “Have you ever seen frostbite?”
“As a matter of fact—hey!” She yanked back when he pulled off her gloves to examine her fingers.
“I was with a group in Nepal a few years ago. One of the students got careless.” Ignoring her resistance, he wiggled her fingers. “He lost two of these.”
“I’m not careless.”
“Okay. Let me take your coat.”
She shrugged out of it, the neck scarf, the wool cap, the insulated vest, piling each layer she peeled off into his arms. “I guess you’re not careless.” Then he glanced around, looking for a place to dump everything.
She couldn’t help it—she grinned. “The floor’s good enough.”
“No, we’ll just . . . the bed,” he remembered, and carted them out down the narrow path he’d made to the bedroom.
“Are you afraid of the dark?” she called out.
“Huh?”
“You’ve got every light on in this place.”
“I do?” He came out again. “I’m always forgetting to turn things off. I bought a quart of Nell’s soup today, I just nuked it. Do you want some?” He waited a beat, reading her perfectly. “Eating’s off the clock.”
“I’m not hungry,” she quickly responded, and felt a good sulk coming on.
“Okay, I’ll have it later so we can get started. Where did I put . . .” He patted his pockets, circled. “Oh, yeah.” And found his mini-recorder beside a monitor. “I want to get some basic personal data first, so we’ll just—”
He broke off again, brow furrowed. He’d piled old files, clippings, research books, photographs, and other tools on the sofa. Even the floor didn’t offer enough room for two people to sit.
“Tell you what, we’ll do this part in the kitchen.”
She shrugged her shoulders, stuffed her hands in her pockets, and followed him back. “I’m going to go ahead and eat, since it’s here.” He took down a bowl, then decided to take pity on her. “Why don’t you change your mind so I don’t feel rude eating in front of you?”
“Fine. Got a beer?”
“No, sorry. Got a pretty decent Merlot, though.”
“That’ll work.” She stood while he dumped soup in bowls, poured wine.
“Have a seat.”
He settled down across from her, got up immediately. “Damn it, one more minute. Go ahead and eat.”
Ripley picked up her spoon as he hurried back out. She heard muttering, papers rattling, and a small crash as something hit the floor.
He came back with a spiral notebook, two pencils, and a pair of metal-framed glasses. The minute he slipped them on, her stomach clutched.
Oh, man, she thought, an incredibly sexy geek.
“I’m going to take notes,” he explained. “Back up the tape. How’s the soup?”
“It’s Nell’s,” she said simply.
“Yeah.” He began to eat. “She saved my life the other night when I lost track of time. I found a container of chowder in the freezer and nearly broke down and cried. Your brother’s a lucky man. I met him yesterday.”
“So he said.” She began to relax, thinking that as long as he made small talk, the clock was ticking. “They’re great together.”
“I got that impression. How old are you?”
“What?”
“Your age—for the record.”
“I don’t know what the hell that has to do with anything. I turned thirty last month.”
“What day?”
“Fourteenth.”
“Sagittarius. You know the time of birth?”
“I wasn’t paying a lot of attention at the time.” She picked up her wine. “I think my mother said it was about eight at night, after sixteen hours of sweating in the Valley of the Shadow and so on. Why do you need that?”
“I’ll input the data and run an astrological chart. Give you a copy if you want.”
“That stuff’s totally bogus.”
“You’d be surprised. You were born on the island?”
“Yeah, at home—doctor and midwife in attendance.”
“Have you ever experienced any paranormal activity?”
She didn’t mind lying, but she hated the fact that it always made her throat feel tight. “Why would I?”
“Do you remember your dreams?”
“Sure. I had a doozy the other night about Harrison Ford, a peacock feather, and a bottle of canola oil. What do you think that means?”
“Since a cigar is sometimes just a cigar, sexual fantasies are sometimes just about sex. Do you dream in color?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Always?”
She moved her shoulders. “Black and white’s for Bogart movies and art photography.”
“Are your dreams ever prophetic?”
She nearly answered in the affirmative before she caught herself. “So far Harry and I haven’t gotten it on. But I have hope.”
He switched tactics. “Got any hobbies?”
“Hobbies? You mean like . . . quilting or birdwatching? No.”
“What do you do with your free time?”
“I don’t know.” She nearly squirmed before she caught herself. “Stuff. TV, movies. I do some sailing.”
“Bogart movies? Top pick?”
“Maltese Falcon.”
“What do you sail?”
“Zack’s little day cruiser.” She tapped her fingers on the table, let her mind drift. “I think I’m going to get my own, though.”
“Nothing like a day on the water. When did you realize you had power?”
“It was never a . . .” She straightened, carefully wiped all expression off her face. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do, but we can let that slide for the moment if it makes you uncomfortable.”
“I’m not uncomfortable. I just don’t understand the question.”
He set his pencil down, nudged the bowl of soup aside, and looked directly at her. “Let’s put it this way, then. When did you realize you were a witch?”
Four
She heard theblood rush and roar in her head, pulsing in time with the gallop of her heart. He sat calmly, studying her as if she were some mildly interesting lab experiment.
Her temper began to tick like a bomb.
“What kind of a stupid question is that?”
“With some, it’s an instinct—hereditary knowledge. Others are taught the way a child is taught to walk and talk. There are some who come into it at the onset of puberty. Countless others, I believe, who go through life without ever realizing their potential.”
Now he made her feel as though she was a slightly dim-witted student. “I don’t know where
you get this stuff—or where you’ve come up with the half-baked idea that I’m . . .” She wasn’t going to say it, wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of saying it. “This hocus-pocus area is your deal, not mine, Dr. Weird.”
Intrigued, he cocked his head. “Why are you angry?”
“I’m not angry.” She leaned forward. “Want to see me angry?”
“Not particularly. But I’m willing to bet that if I put a sensor on you right now, I’d get some very interesting readings.”
“I’m finished betting with you. In fact, I’m finished with you period.”
He let her get to her feet, continued to make notes. “You still have forty-five minutes on your time. If you’re going to renege . . .” He swept his gaze up, met her furious stare. “I can only assume you’re afraid. It wasn’t my intention to frighten or upset you. I apologize.”
“Stuff your apology.” She strained against pride, always her most fretful war. She’d made the damn bet, she’d accepted the terms. With a bad-tempered jerk, she scraped her chair back out and sat again.
He didn’t rub it in, only continued to make notes, as if, Ripley thought, grinding her teeth, he’d known all along he would win.
“I’m going to take a wild leap here. You don’t practice.”
“I have nothing to practice.”
“You’re not a stupid woman. And my impression is you’re very self-aware.” He watched her face. She was trying to remain steady. But there was something beneath the calm veneer, some strong, even passionate emotion.
He wanted desperately to dig in. Discover it. Discover her. But he would never get the chance, he realized, if he alienated her so quickly. “I’m assuming this is a sensitive area for you. I’m sorry.”
“I’ve already told you what you can do with your apology. You can do the same with your assumptions.”
“Ripley . . .” He lifted a hand, spread his fingers in a gesture of peace. “I’m not a reporter looking for a story. I’m not a groupie looking for a show or a neophite searching for a mentor. This is my work. I can promise to respect your privacy, keep your name out of my documentation. I won’t do anything to hurt you.”
“You don’t worry me, Booke. You’re going to have to look for your guinea pig elsewhere. I’m not interested in your . . . work.”
“Is Nell the third?”
“You leave Nell alone.” Before she could think, she reached across, gripped his wrist. “You mess with her, I’ll take you apart.”
He didn’t move, didn’t even breathe. Her pupils had gone so dark they were nearly black. Where her fingers gripped were points of heat so intense he wouldn’t have been surprised to see his skin smoke. “Bring harm to none,” he managed in a voice that somehow remained steady. “That’s not just Craft philosophy. I believe it. I won’t do anything to hurt your sister-in-law. Or you, Ripley.”
Very slowly, watching her as he might a guard dog who had snapped its chain, he brought his hand up to cover hers. “You can’t control it, can you?” His voice was soft. “Not completely.” He gave her hand a squeeze that was almost friendly. “You’re burning my wrist.”
With that statement she lifted her fingers, spread them. But her hand wasn’t steady as she looked down, saw the red welts where her fingers had been.
“I won’t do this.” She struggled to bring her breathing back to normal, to close off that violent spike of energy. To be herself again.
“Here.”
She hadn’t heard him get up, or go to the sink. In an instant he was standing beside her, offering her a glass of water.
After she’d taken it, gulped it down, she was no longer sure whether she was angry or embarrassed. But she was sure it was his fault. “You’ve no right to come here, prying into people’s lives.”
“Knowledge, and truth, save us from chaos.” His tone was quiet, reasonable. And made her want to bite him. “Tempering them with compassion and tolerance makes us human. Without those things, fanatics feed on fear and ignorance. The way they did in Salem, three hundred years ago.”
“Not hanging witches anymore doesn’t make the world tolerant. I don’t want to be part of your study. That’s the bottom line.”
“Okay.” She looked so tired all at once, he noted. Bone-weary. It stirred him, a mixture of guilt and sympathy. “All right. But something happened the other night that might make that difficult for both of us.”
He waited a moment, while she shifted in her chair then gave him her reluctant attention. “I saw a woman on the beach. At first I thought it was you. Same eyes, same coloring. She was very alone, and brutally sad. She looked at me, for one long moment. Then vanished.”
Ripley pressed her lips together, then picked up her wine. “Maybe you’ve been drinking too much Merlot.”
“She wants redemption. I want to help her find it.”
“You want data,” she tossed back. “You want to legitimate your crusade, maybe cop a book deal.”
“I want to understand.” No, he admitted, that wasn’t all of it. That wasn’t the core of it. “I want to know.”
“Then talk to Mia. She loves attention.”
“You grew up together?”
“Yeah. So?”
It was easier, he decided, even more pleasant, to deal with her when she had her attitude back in place. “I caught some . . . tension between the two of you.”
“I must repeat myself. So?”
“Curiosity is the scientist’s first tool.”
“It also killed the cat,” Ripley said with a glimmer of her former sneer. “And I don’t call bopping around the globe playing witch-hunter science.”
“You know, that’s just what my father says.” He spoke cheerfully as he rose to take their soup bowls to the sink.
“Your father sounds like a sensible man.”
“Oh, he is that. I’m a constant disappointment to him. No, that’s unfair,” Mac decided as he came back, topped off their wine. “I’m more a puzzle, and he’s sure some of the pieces have gone missing. So. Tell me about your parents.”
“They’re retired. My father was sheriff before Zack, my mother was a CPA. They took their life on the road a while back, in a big Winnebago.”
“Hitting the national parks.”
“That, and whatever. They’re having the time of their lives. Like a couple of kids on an endless spring break.”
It wasn’t what she said so much as how she said it that told him the Todd family was tight and happy. Her problem with her power didn’t stem from family conflict. He was sure of that.
“You and your brother work together.”
“Obviously.”
There was no doubt about it, she was back. “I met him the other day. You’re not much like him.” He glanced up from his notes. “Except for the eyes.”
“Zack got all the nice-guy genes in the family. There weren’t any left over for me.”
“You were there when he was injured while arresting Evan Remington.”
Her face went very still again. “Do you want to read the police report?”
“Actually, I have. It must’ve been a rough night.” And let’s just circle around that for now, he decided. “Do you like being a cop?”
“I don’t do things I don’t like.”
“Lucky you. WhyThe Maltese Falcon ?”
“Huh?”
“I was wondering why you picked that instead of, say,Casablanca ?”
Ripley shook her head, adjusted her thoughts. “I don’t know. Because I figure Bergman should’ve told Bogart, ‘Paris, my butt’ instead of getting on the plane. InFalcon he did the job. He turned Astor over. That was justice.”
“I always figured Ilsa and Rick got together after the war, and Sam Spade . . . Well, he just kept being Sam Spade. What kind of music do you like?”
“What?”
“Music. You said you like working out to music.”
“What does that have to do with your project?”
“You said you didn’t want
to be involved in my work. We might as well pass the rest of the time getting to know each other.”
She blew out a breath, sipped her wine. “You’re a really strange individual.”
“All right, then, enough about you. Let’s talk about me.” He sat back and, when her face blurred out of focus, remembered to remove his reading glasses. “I’m thirty-three, embarrassingly rich. The second son of the New York Bookes. Real estate. The MacAllister branch—we have that surname as first name in common—they’re corporate law. I got interested in preternatural subjects when I was a kid. The history, variations, the effect on cultures and societies. My interest caused my family to seek the advice of a psychologist, who assured them this was just a form of rebellion.”
“They took you to a shrink because you liked spooky?”
“When you’re a fourteen-year-old college freshman, someone’s always calling the shrink.”
“Fourteen?” She pursed her lips. “That had to be strange.”
“Well, it was pretty hard to get a date, let me tell you.” The slight twitching of her lips pleased him. “I channeled the energy from what would have been those first sexual rumbles into study and my personal interest.”
“So you got off on books and research.”
“In a manner of speaking. By the time I was eighteen, my parents had given up on trying to box me into one of the family firms. Then I hit twenty-one and came into the first lap of my trust fund and could do what I wanted.”
She angled her head. She was interested now, couldn’t help herself. “Did you ever get a date?”
“A couple. I know what it is to be pushed in a direction you don’t want to go, or one you’re not ready for. People say they know what’s best for you. Maybe sometimes it’s true. But it doesn’t matter if they keep pushing until they take your choices away.”
“Is that why you’re letting me off the hook tonight?”
“That’s one reason. Another is because you’re going to change your mind. Don’t get steamed,” he said quickly when her mouth thinned. “When I first came here, I thought it would be Mia I needed to work with. But it’s you—at least primarily it’s you.”
“Why?”
“That’s something I’d like to find out. Meanwhile, you’ve paid off your bet. I’ll drive you home.”
“I’m not going to change my mind.”
