“Sure, I guess,” Brandon said vaguely. “Talk to ya later, ‘kay, babydoll?”
“Okay.” Cass sighed as the phone clicked and the dial tone rang in her ear. She put the old-fashioned princess phone’s handset back down on the elaborate gold hook cradle (her grandmother was one of the only people she knew who still had a landline) and looked around her room at Nana’s house, which was now doubling as her work space. Half finished canvases and sculptures were stacked along the walls and crammed into her closet. They were mostly male nudes which went oddly with the climbing roses wallpaper and the lacy pink duvet that covered the bed.
Cass had been practically living at her studio for the last few months which had given her Nana a chance to redecorate and turn the room into a girly shrine that made Cass, who hated pastels and always wore black clothes summer or winter, want to gak.
But after the fiasco Brandon had caused by leaving his one nude posing session wrapped in her best red drop cloth, Cass had lost her old studio in the back of the little Cuban restaurant , El Guyo de Oro, that made the best café con leche in Tampa.
Now she was back in her old room which looked like something a little girl with pretensions of being a princess might dream up and she missed her messy, cramped studio fiercely. Not that I could have afforded it much longer anyway, she told herself with a sigh.
She wasn’t exactly a starving artist yet—as long as she lived in her grandmother’s house there was no danger of that. There was, however, the distinct possibility of food poisoning since Nana considered herself a much better cook than she actually was and insisted on trying exotic ethnic recipes on a regular basis.
But food aside, canvas, paints, brushes, and clay didn’t exactly grow on trees—not even in her weird and semi-magical life. Cass’s work was beginning to sell around the city but she still wasn’t making enough to afford all the raw materials she needed to create. In fact, she was so desperate she’d had to take a substitute teaching gig at a local private elementary school.
Cass shuttered when she thought of it. She’d had plenty of jobs in the service industry from flipping burgers to clipping pets to working in a plant nursery. But in terms of sheer irritation her latest part time job had to be the worst.
“Teaching spoiled rich brats to finger paint,” was how she’d described it to Rory and Phil and that was basically what it amounted to. She knew she ought to be grateful—her good friend and former classmate, Sheila had gotten her the job filling in for her while she was on maternity leave. The job paid well and wasn’t hard labor. But the fact was Cass didn’t like kids—especially not the kind she had to put up with at the Grover Titus Academy for Privileged Youth.
Oh well, she reminded herself, it’s only once or twice a week. Thank goodness the curriculum at the Grover Tight-Ass Academy, as Rory called it, was heavy on math and business skills and light on music and the arts. The parents that sent their kids there expected their offspring to be CEOs, not Picassos.
Giving the wooden-looking portrait of her boyfriend one more glance. Cass wandered over to the round oval mirror on the wall. Deep violet eyes set in a pale, tired face stared back at her. She rubbed a hand through her fly-away coal black curls and stuck out her tongue at herself.
She’d been up most of the night trying to get the portrait just right. If it didn’t look spectacular, there was no point in dropping it off at the I.C.U. gallery because Albert Rodriguez, the short, round, beach ball of an owner, was a notorious perfectionist. He’d been calling her for days, demanding to see the centerpiece of the show and if she didn’t come up with it soon, he might well decide to scrap the whole thing.
And if he scrapped it, Cass reminded herself, she was going to be looking for another part time job pretty quick because Sheila came back from maternity leave at the end of the week. But a show at the I.C.U. gallery meant more than just sales—it meant prestige and the chance to meet Mrs. Blankenship, one of the foremost art critics in Tampa who had a weekly column in the local magazine, Bay Beautiful.
Lydia Blankenship, or Lady Blankenship, as the local art crowd called her, had connections in New York and if she liked an artist’s work enough to do a write up on them in Bay Beautiful, it often spelled a ticket out of Tampa and straight to the big apple.
A write up in Bay Beautiful also turned an artist into a ‘find’ meaning Lady Blankenship’s extended network of friends would want to snap up every available piece of work before the artist in question became famous. Cass had one friend whose entire show had been bought out by the Blankenship crowd. The lucky guy was still living on the proceeds, painting cubist nightmares into the wee hours in his new loft in New York and watching bad daytime TV while he scarfed down Ben and Jerry’s all day.
What a life.
A life that could be hers if only Brandon would get his tight little ass down here and let her finish his portrait.
She closed her eyes for a moment and allowed herself to imagine what it would be like. She could get back her old studio or maybe even move to New York and rent a new one. She could afford to hire models instead of having to rely on friends and family and she could buy as much clay, paints and canvases as she wanted. And she wouldn’t have to take time off from her art to flip burgers or arrange flowers in order to afford to keep painting and sculpting.
She could create art all day long. She would burst onto the New York art scene as the next Warhol, or Pollock or O’Keeffe and never look back.
What a beautiful dream.
But it was still just a dream. She sighed and picked up a brush to tame her curls, then decided against it. After all, there was nobody downstairs but family—her Nana and her two sisters plus Phil’s new fiancé who was also her best friend, Josh. He was practically family since he and Phil had moved back into the big old house on States Street while Phil looked into different law schools.
For the life of her, Cass couldn’t understand why Phil would want to be a member of the stuffy, boring legal profession, but to each their own. She loved her older sister and was glad Phil had finally found her niche and a man that appreciated her. She just wished her own life would work out as neatly.
“Cassandra? Are you coming down?” It was her Nana’s cultured voice, trilling from the bottom of the large curving staircase. She sounded urgent, but then, she always did. She would use the same tone to tell Cass that they were having pancakes for breakfast as she might to let her know the house was on fire. That was Nana—ever the drama queen.
“Coming,” Cass yelled back, yawning. She was really going to have to get more sleep tonight—she had to teach at the Tight-Ass Academy tomorrow and those damn rich kids were like lions—they could smell weakness and they went for the throat.
Still wearing her long white night shirt which said, Snug as a Bug in a Rug! and showed a ladybug tucked into a four poster bed, and the Bert and Ernie slippers that Rory had given her as a joke gift the Christmas before last, she padded down the stairs to breakfast.
Two
“Cassandra, I’m surprised at you. Are you really intending to wear that?” Nana was standing at the bottom of the stairs with her long silver hair swept up into an elaborate up-do on top of her head and a frown on her face.
Nana was in her mid seventies but due to being half fairy, she looked about twenty-five years younger. She was dressed in a daisy yellow polyester pantsuit with bellbottoms so wide they looked like a flared skirt.
Cass had always thought of her grandmother as being behind the times, not that she cared much about clothing styles since ninety-nine percent of her own wardrobe was solid black. But lately Nana was looking like something of a fashionista—maybe because she was trying to get back into the dating scene after years of being single.
“I’ll change after breakfast,” Cass said, in answer to her grandmother’s disapproving look. “What—you want me to come down dressed in Dior to eat waffles? And what are you all dressed up for anyway? Got another hot date?”
For a while Nana had been dati
ng a devastatingly handsome man in his forties by the name of Arturo, but then she had dropped him like a hot potato and was currently ‘exploring her options’ as she put it.
“Most certainly not, young lady,” her grandmother said with a sniff. “That is, not until tomorrow night, anyway. I’m dressed this way to go to court.”
“Court? What court? What are you talking about?”
Cass frowned and looked around, seeing for the first time that her sisters, Phil and Rory who were standing in the living room, which was furnished in dark brown leather and hardwood floors, were also dressed in their best.
Phil, Cass’s older sister, was wearing a white silk blouse and a plain gray skirt—the same kind of outfit she had used to wear at the law office of B,B&D where she’d worked up until a month ago. Rory, the baby of the family, was wearing a long denim skirt and a seawater green sweater that brought out her deep green eyes and looked great with her long red hair.
Nana frowned. “Oh dear, didn’t anyone tell you? I just got word that our court date was approved for this morning at nine o’clock. Our guide will be here at any minute.
“Philomena,” she said, turning to Cass’s older sister. “I thought I told you to tell your sister we were going to court this morning.”
“I told Rory to tell her,” Phil protested, patting the bun of sunshine blond hair at the nape of her neck. Her eyes were the pale blue of the early morning sky outside. “Please, Nana, I’m nervous enough as it is. I’ve been preparing for this all night!”
“Preparing for what?” Cass demanded but Rory was already protesting her innocence.
“I did tell her,” she said, in response to both Nana’s and Phil’s accusing glances. “She said she was working and didn’t want to be disturbed so I shouted it through the door of her room. So it’s not my fault—she acted like she understood.”
“Like I understood what?” Cass nearly yelled.
She remembered vaguely now, that her little sister had been shouting something about a ‘date’ the night before when she was trying to get the lips on Brandon’s portrait just right, but she’d assumed Rory was talking about Nana going out on the town again. Since that wasn’t exactly an unusual occurrence lately, she’d felt free to ignore her sister and keep painting.
Nana took a deep breath.
“Cassandra, dear, we are going to take your fairy godmother to court. We’re suing her for gross…gross…some kind of gross or disgusting thing. Help me out here, Philomena, dear.” She looked at Phil imploringly.
“We’re suing the FG for gross magical negligence, breach of contract, and failure to recognize and correct an inadvertent curse,” Phil rapped out quickly. “If she’s convicted, she could be stripped of her wand and powers but that would be pretty extreme. At the very least, though, she’ll have to do community service if the judge finds her guilty.”
Cass was momentarily distracted by the idea of her snotty, blonde, anorexicly thin fairy godmother dressed in an orange jumpsuit and picking up trash by the side of the interstate. But then the full impact of what her sister was saying hit her. They were suing their fairy godmother—the day before Cass’s birthday.
“Wait a minute,” she said, trying to keep her voice level and calm and not succeeding very well. “Has anyone actually thought about this? I mean…” She turned to Phil. “I know you got a raw deal from the FG on your last birthday and you have every right to be angry and seek…seek…whatever it is you’re seeking.”
“Retribution?” Rory offered helpfully.
“Yeah, right, whatever,” Cass went on, waving one hand dismissively. “But the fact is that we are about to take our fairy godmother to court one freaking day before my birthday! I mean, she’s already pissed off enough as it is—do we have to poke the hornet’s nest with a stick again when I’m the one that’s next in line to get stung?”
“Language, Cassandra,” Nana admonished. “And I wish you wouldn’t speak metaphorically. It’s much too early in the morning to be thinking about hornets and stinging and sticks.”
“Freaking isn’t a curse word, Nana,” Rory pointed out. “And I think what Cass is worried about is that her own birthday wish is coming up. She’s afraid the FG is going to get even angrier if we sue her and find a way to take it out on Cass when she has to make her wish.”
“Damn right that’s what I’m worried about. And yes, Nana, I know—language. But this situation calls for a little cursing—hell, considerable cursing.” Cass crossed her arms over the sleeping lady bug on her chest and glared at Phil. “Did it ever occur to you that this might not be the best time for a law suit Miss Almost an Attorney?”
Phil frowned back. “I was thinking of you and Rory when I decided to pursue this course of action,” she said stiffly, nodding at her little sister. “We’ve all put up with our fairy godmother’s malfeasance for long enough and even though I’m now free of her, I didn’t want my sisters to have to go through the mental anguish of bad birthday wishes any longer.”
Cass gave her sister an incredulous look.
“You sound like one of those legal ads you see on late night TV, you know? ‘If you’ve been injured through the negligence of others, call Williams and Yonkers today!’” she quoted, using a hollow, booming TV announcer voice.
“I don’t appreciate being mocked.” Phil lifted her chin. “I’m doing this for you, you know.”
“Fine, but couldn’t you have waited to do it for me until after I made my birthday wish?” Cass demanded. “If we go through with this, the FG is going to make it her mission in life to find a way to screw me. Can’t we put it off or just drop it all together?”
Phil bit her lip. “I’m afraid not, Cass. Fairy court isn’t like regular human court, you know. Once you bring a suit against someone, you have to follow through. You can’t just drop the charges. I’m really sorry this had to happen now but Josh and I are flying out later on this week to go check out another school. So I needed to get it over with.”
Cass sank down on the bottom stair. “Oh my head!” she groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger to try and stop the tension headache that was building like a thundercloud behind her eyes. “So now we’re going to Fairy court? As in the Realm of the Fae?”
“Where did you think we were going, to see Judge Judy?” Rory asked. “It’s not like we can drag the FG down to the Tampa police headquarters and book her. She’d disappear right through the bars of the holding cell.”
“But I thought half breeds weren’t allowed in the Realm,” Cass protested.
“Well, not without a guide, they’re not,” Nana said. “But ours should be here at any minute. So run change your clothes, Cassandra, and hurry. You simply cannot go looking the way you do.”
“I’m not going at all.” Cass crossed her arms on her knees and frowned up at her grandmother and sisters. “It’s Phil’s lawsuit—let her have it. Maybe if the FG doesn’t see me there she won’t take it out on me when I have to make my birthday wish at six AM tomorrow morning.”
Phil put one hand on her hip and glowered at Cass.
“I never thought you’d turn out to be a coward about this, Cass. This involves all of us.”
“I am not a coward,” Cass said, glaring back. “I’m like Switzerland—I’m neutral. Look, this is pure self-preservation. I’m not going and that’s final.”
Phil looked upset. “But you have to go,” she protested. “Everyone that’s been affected by the FG’s magic has been named in the lawsuit and that includes you. So there’s no getting around it.”
Cass opened her mouth to respond and ended up sucking in a lungful of thick, navy blue smoke that was suddenly filling the room.
“I am afraid that your sister is correct,” a deep, masculine voice said from somewhere in the center of the roiling cloud of smoke which smelled like leather and some kind of spice. “You have been named in the suit as the next recipient of your fairy godmother’s magical wish granting ability. Therefore
it is incumbent upon you to appear at the hearing.”
“What…who…?” Cass stood up choking and coughing, waving a hand in front of her face but there was no need because the smoke was dissipating almost as rapidly as it had filled the room in the first place.
Standing directly in front of her, she saw a very tall man. He had short, neatly cut hair that was so black it was almost blue and piercing pale leaf green eyes which stared at her from under his thick black eyebrows. The tasteful navy blue pinstriped suit he was wearing looked like it probably cost more than her car and it emphasized the immense width of his shoulders.
Cass noticed that despite the fact that she was standing on the bottom step of the staircase, he still towered over her. His arms were crossed over his broad chest and something that looked more like an old-fashioned cravat than a tie was fastened beneath the crisp white collar of his button-down shirt. Under a nose which looked like it had been broken several times, a small frown played over narrow but sensual lips.
There was nothing lush about that mouth, Cass thought distractedly. It was all stern lines and disapproval. All the same her fingers itched for a brush or a piece of charcoal—stern or not he had a very sketchable face.
But the unyielding look in the stranger’s pale green eyes got her back up at once and almost made her forget her artistic impulses. How dare he come in here and tell her what to do when she didn’t even know him from Adam? And who the hell was he, anyway?
“Who…who are you?” she sputtered, glaring at the tall dark stranger.
“My name,” he said with great precision. “Is Jacobin O’Shea. I am your court-appointed elf.”
Three
“I’m sorry…our court-appointed what?” Cass asked, still glaring up at him.
“An elf, Cassandra. Mister O’Shea is our very own elf.” Nana fluttered up to the big man like a brightly colored butterfly, one plump hand pressed to her bosom. Cass thought wryly that it was plain to see where she herself had inherited her weakness for masculine beauty. Not that she would call this guy beautiful, exactly—his expression was too stern for that—but he certainly had a very interesting face. But I don’t give a damn how interesting Mister Tall Dark and Dangerous is, I’m not buying it, she told herself. No way is this guy an elf and even if he is, it doesn’t give him the right to order me around.
Be Careful What You Wish For Page 2
