She knew from talking with her sisters that she hadn’t been the only one jarred by the difference between her expectations and her new reality. Of course, all three of them had reacted differently to that epiphany. Cheri had instinctively chosen the one career designed to keep her in touch with the sweetest section of humanity—teaching young children. Diana had rubbed her hands together with a kind of frightening glee and dove right into the corporate world of advertising and image making in L.A.
And what did I do? I ran away and became the exact opposite of who and what I’d always been. I became a timid little recluse instead of a free spirit.
And she was fine with that. She really was. Well, most of the time, anyway.
Meghan recalled the day a month before when that sense of awareness had come over her and she’d known that Cheri had met her mates. She’d been excited, and relieved, that it had been one of her friends and not her who was the first to do so.
And then, as Cheri, Max, and Tony’s destinies had played out she’d been, by turns, hopeful, frightened, and at the end... She sat back on her haunches.
She didn’t know what to call the way she’d felt at the end, when unexpected evil had been vanquished and love had triumphed. Hopeful, yes, but sobered, even chastened. She’d been more than a little leery, too, because she didn’t know why she had been chosen for this great adventure in the first place.
She’d been too naïve, and too trusting, when she’d arrived, and now she worried she was too timid and too cynical to do what would need to be done when the time came.
“Please, mother, let that time be a ways off yet. I don’t think I’m ready. No, I know I’m not anywhere near ready.”
Meghan returned to her task, gently removing weeds, using a tiny spurt of magic to turn the soil at the bottoms of the plants so the roots could get oxygen. She was already thinking of the tea she would make with the chamomile and the mint.
The sound of a vehicle pulling into her driveway pulled her attention away from her beautiful garden. She tilted her head to the side, wondering who could be stopping by, as she didn’t recognize the car.
A strange sensation swirled in her belly. Then the front doors of the vehicle opened, and two men emerged. Both were tall, judging by the way they were able to look over the car’s roof at each other. The driver took off his sunglasses. Dark eyes reigned over a face that could have been designed as the illustration for the word handsome. Sleek nose, perfect brow, and cheeks that suggested just the right amount of edge so that no one—woman or man—would ever underestimate this man’s inner strength. The man who emerged from the passenger door had no less an impact on her. Also dark haired and dark eyed, he carried an aura of danger about him and a sense of waiting. Her inner woman told her he would always be quick to act and slow to trust.
Words she’d heard just that morning echoed in her thoughts. These two men were indeed seriously, seriously hot.
Meghan felt her world shiver and shake and, in the space of time between one heartbeat to the next, change forever.
Recognition hit her on two fronts, and she slowly began to shake her head from side to side.
Oh, mother, no, no, no, no, no! Oh, this can’t be happening! Not now! And, heavens, not them!
The two men looked at each other and then began to approach her.
She could hide. She could vanish! She had magic. She could disappear and alter their memories so that they never would remember....And she would have, too, except for that pesky little first sacred law that forbade her to use magic to influence these two men one way or the other.
Destiny has a really bad sense of humor. Because approaching her, no, stalking toward her, were the two men she recognized as the men who hosted that disgusting show on the supernatural that her friend Kay loved so much. The one that mocked everything she was, heart and soul.
But more upsetting to Meghan than that was the sure and certain knowledge that these two men were also her destined mates.
* * * *
Jeremy considered himself a modern, civilized, and, yes, a sophisticated man. He could be urbane, possessed impeccable manners, and was always, always, in control of his emotions. He also tended to be very slow to open himself to strangers. This woman defied all his self-modifiers.
One look at the nymph on her haunches by the garden, looking as if she didn’t know whether to fight or flee, and he was nearly overcome by the urge to scoop her up, lay her down, and plunder. It was all he could do to stop his cock from turning into the biggest woody ever.
Her long, blonde hair haloed a face that did hearken back to elusive pixies told of in the fairy tales his mother had once read to him. It took little effort for him to imagine a set of translucent wings fluttering on her back—and he wasn’t a man given to fancy, despite everything he’d seen to date.
Even from where he’d stood when he’d emerged from the car, Jeremy could see that her eyes were an electric gray. She watched them approach with a singular intensity, alert, ready.
There was something about this woman that got to him on every level imaginable. And that humming inside him, which had grown louder as they’d driven from the store to here, actually began to sound like the Ode to Joy.
He sensed the tension in her. The last thing he wanted to do was frighten her. “Easy, little tiger. We mean you no harm. Bea sent us.”
Her glittering eyes darted from him to his brother and back again. It was the only movement she made, and Jeremy worried that they’d really frightened her.
He squatted down and wished his brother would give him a hand here because he didn’t know what else to say to this beguiling pixie.
Ryan chose just that moment to stop and copy Jeremy’s pose. Out of the corner of his eyes—both of them—he saw similar expressions of shock on Ryan’s face and the pixie’s. She feels the same pull, the same...magic as Ry and I do.
“Bea—that nice lady at the store—said you made the beautiful butterfly that we just bought for our mom. We...um, we wanted to talk to you about it.”
“Oh. Okay. I’m not used to...”
“To company. Bea said that. I’m really sorry if we frightened you.”
“Oh, you don’t frighten me. I just wasn’t ready for you yet.” Then she looked down at herself as if she just realized how she must look. “What I mean is I was in the midst of working up my garden.”
“We can help,” Jeremy said. He stood and offered his hand to her, to help her to her feet. “We were raised on a farm in rural Indiana. About thirty miles outside of Indianapolis.”
“Rural Indiana? Near Indianapolis?” She shook her head. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound like a parrot. I’m Meghan Clark.”
“I’m Jeremy—Jeremy Smith Jones. This is my brother, Ryan Jones.” He kept his hand out, even though he knew that the protocol between men and women was for the man to wait for the woman to offer her hand first.
Everything inside him shivered with awareness when Meghan sighed and gave him her hand.
The effect of her touch rocked him so hard he nearly forgot to help her rise. But he did, and then the only thing he could do was look at Ryan. His brother again read him to perfection. Ryan stepped forward and reached for her hand, too.
She’s not going to reach for him. Jeremy didn’t know how he knew that. He just did. So he carried her hand, still clutched in his, two inches to his right, over to Ryan. Ryan nodded and accepted his offering.
He watched his brother and saw he was as affected as he had been. And Meghan...Meghan looked resigned. Ryan stared at her, and she carefully pulled her hand from his.
Something is going on here. Jeremy was filled with the sudden, sure knowledge that this woman was key—to him, and his brother, and the answers they sought. “I think we need to talk, Meghan.” No, he couldn’t call her Ms. Clark, as he would any other woman he’d only just met. Somehow they’d leapt a chasm together and were on the very edge of intimate.
“You might need to talk, but I don’t need to talk.
I have work to do. This garden needs tending.” She nodded her head vigorously. “To walk away now would be unconscionably cruel to the plants.”
“We’ll help you. We really were raised on a farm.” Ryan gave her his best smile, and then he tilted his head to the side.
“Why don’t I go grab the soda we just bought from Miss Bea, and then we can sit right there and talk.” He pointed to the gazebo. “And then we’ll help you with your weeding.”
Jeremy picked up on his brother’s suggestion. “You’ve a nice patio table and chairs in there, and we’re visible from the road. You’ll be perfectly safe.”
“I’m really not afraid of you.” She stiffened her back and jutted her chin and looked so damn cute.
Jeremy had to work hard at letting the way she aroused him not take over his thoughts. “I believe you. You’re not afraid of us physically. But something has your pulse beating fast.”
She met his gaze, and he read the question in hers. He tapped his neck. “That artery right there is pulsing faster than it was.”
Meghan opened her mouth and then closed it again.
She looked at Ryan. “What kind of soda did you get?”
“I got a six pack—two Cokes, two root beer, and two Dr. Pepper.”
“The Dr. Peppers are mine.” She turned her back on them and headed toward the gazebo. The wooden structure featured three steps up. The door swung inward, and Jeremy nearly jolted at the hum inside him when he stepped into the shaded interior.
“This is...nice.”
“Thank you. I really like it. I saw it—well, one like it—in one of those country home and garden magazines.” She shrugged. “It looked like it had been made especially for this house.”
“It does at that.” Jeremy turned his attention to her home. He agreed with Miss Bea. It did indeed look like a fairy cottage.
“I fell in love with it the first time I saw it. Then I got really suspicious because the realtor wasn’t asking much for it. There had to be something wrong, right? And it turned out there was.”
“Plumbing? Wiring?” Jeremy split his focus and watched his brother step into this gazebo. Yeah, he feels it too. Jeremy didn’t know what the hell was going on, but he was determined to get to the bottom of whatever it was.
“No, it was haunted.”
Jeremy whipped his head around and met Meghan’s gaze. “The house? The house is haunted? Your house is haunted?”
“Not really, but you see, someone said it was, with no proof whatsoever. They just said it was haunted. Then someone else said it was true—likely only using the story of a resident ghost to explain why the place didn’t sell immediately. Then, as these things go, they told two friends, and they told two friends, and then someone hit social media with the rumor...and there you have it. The house was haunted.” She smiled at Jeremy and then at Ryan. And then she nodded. “But then, I don’t have to tell the two of you how these things work, do I? Because that’s what you do. You look around for someone who is reported to be able to do something, and then you, quote unquote, prove that they can’t under the guise of proving that they can, and everyone has a good laugh at the gullible public who dares to believe in miracles...and magic. And someone’s reputation is in complete and utter tatters.”
Jeremy didn’t even blink. It wasn’t the first time he’d been sucker-punched in life. But it might have been the best delivered one, ever.
“If you’ve watched our show, then you have to know that’s not what we do at all.” He felt anger simmering but easily tamped it down. There’d been a bitter edge to Meghan’s words, and he had to wonder where that bitterness had come from. It so didn’t suit her.
Personal experience.
Yeah, he knew that one real well. The one time he’d dared to tell someone about what he and Ryan had done when they were fourteen, he’d been made a laughingstock. Or would have if been if he hadn’t been so damn good at lying.
Sixteen-year-old Clarissa had spread a rumor that he’d boasted that he and his brother had performed a miracle. That had caused a few tense days for him until the numbers who believed him had outnumbered the ones who didn’t.
So, instead of taking the bait Meghan tossed his way, he reached for her hand. “Who hurt you, little tiger? Who dimmed your light and made you suspicious of people?”
He watched the struggle on her face. She really didn’t want to answer the question, but for whatever reason, she couldn’t just fluff him, or his questions, off.
“His name was Brutus Conway. I thought he was my friend. But I was wrong.”
“Brutus Conway...from Indianapolis?” Ryan’s voice didn’t leave much mystery as to how he thought about the scumbag.
“Yes. I...I lived in Indianapolis for nearly a year. Then I left and came here.”
Jeremy sensed that Meghan was near the end of her emotional rope. Neither he nor Ryan had any intention of pushing her any more than they really had to. He still held her hand. Now he rubbed his thumb over the back of it.
“It may interest you to know that Mr. Conway is currently behind bars, serving a ten- to twenty-year sentence for blackmail and fraud.”
“He’s in jail?”
“Yes, he most certainly is. For befriending people and then blackmailing them, threatening to ruin them if they didn’t pay him what he demanded. Often, what he held over their heads was nothing more than a pack of lies.”
“He wanted money from me, but I refused.” Meghan shrugged. “We were out at a fancy gala at the time, and he humiliated me. He said he was going to call a friend of his, a reporter with the local paper, and that it would be all over the television. When I still refused, he announced to the gathering that I claimed to be have magical powers, but that instead, I was completely crazy—and then I left.”
“Good on you for not paying him.” He looked at Ryan for a moment and then turned back to Meghan. “Why don’t we help you weed your garden? Then, we’d like to show you one of the episodes of our show. After that, if you agree we’re nothing like that bastard Conway, we need to talk to you about something very important. We think you can answer some questions for us. Questions we’ve had for a long, long time.”
He thought she would refuse and actually found himself holding his breath. Then she nodded. “All right. But after I answer those questions, you might find yourself with even more questions than you had when you arrived.”
He already had more questions than before he’d arrived. The biggest of those was why he felt certain that Meghan was going to become the most important person in his and his brother’s life.
But that one would be for later—much later. Jeremy exhaled and then met his brother’s gaze. After twenty-one years, they were going to finally find out why they’d been able to save a man’s life. But just as important, maybe he’d know why he couldn’t have saved the lives of his own parents.
Chapter 3
His father hadn’t actually mourned the loss of his two eldest sons, and Roman Fortuna was sorry for it.
His other brothers hadn’t been particularly aggrieved, either, on the passing of their oldest siblings. Of course, for appearance’s sake, the family had held a memorial service, and Gregor Fortuna had played the part of heartbroken patriarch to perfection.
His father and his brothers had seen to it the public face of the company wore the countenance of mourning, but in the board room, there’d been talk that the loss of two of the vice-presidents had given the business a nice little bump in profits. And then, of course, before two weeks were out, life—and business—moved on.
I’m the only one who seems to really care that Vincente and Emilio are gone. Of course, Roman was aware of the irony of that since he had been the instrument of their deaths.
The summons for another conclave had come, as he knew it would. Roman never considered not attending the meeting. Better, far better, to know what to expect from his father and siblings than to be completely blind. He couldn’t walk away from them, from this situation, even if he
wanted to, and deep down inside him, there was a small part of him that wanted to do exactly that.
If personal happiness and gain were his motivators, he could fashion himself a small island in the tropics and live a life of indulgent luxury for the rest of his years. Or he could hide himself away on his private property in Scotland. But being required more than just selfish indulgence.
It certainly required, Roman knew, a great deal from him.
So he donned his mask of powerlessness and joined his family at his father’s estate. Once more, they were in the conference room, and, once more, his brothers—his surviving brothers—were clustered close to his father.
“I warned them. I told them that this was serious business. But did they listen? No. They chose to think my words were like the words of an old woman, raising an alarm over nothing.”
“Father, we don’t know exactly what happened to them.” Mario looked at his twin, Pietro, and then at the others—Ricardo and Eduardo.
He won’t look at me now that he believes he’s set to inherit and I am beneath his attention. Hearing Mario’s words and looking at the faces of his siblings, Roman knew that ignorance, at least on the part of his brothers, was not feigned. They truly had no idea what had become of their brothers.
Roman perceived a different mien from his father. It was a sense that nearly made him shiver.
“We’ve been talking, the four of us, and we think that they likely got drunk and fell overboard.” Pietro spoke softly, as if delivering bad news gently.
Or as if he was speaking to a feeble-minded old man.
It would be a mistake to underestimate Gregor Fortuna. He was more powerful than his brothers realized. His father would know exactly what had happened to his eldest sons. He would know they were dead, and that magic had been used to kill them.
His father’s bias, of course, blinded him to his youngest—to Roman. He would blame the three. And he would never blame himself.
The Gifted 2: Passions Aflame (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 3
