Oberon Boxed Set (Books 1-3) Welcome to Oberon

by P. G. Forte

  Hopelessly, disastrously, unrequitedly in love.

  And even though the affair itself had been brief, and she had, in most respects, moved on with her life since then, it was still the one that got away that kept her tied to Oberon.

  For too long. For way too long.

  Paige took another sip of her coffee. Usually all the breakfast she had, the sweet, frothy drink had never before failed to raise her spirits and rev her engines. Until today. Today, not even the sight of bright-blue flowerpots overflowing with California poppies, Mexican primroses, and red and blue columbine, all set against the whitewashed walls of the patio, could cheer her.

  It was time for a change.

  For years she had been reasonably content with her life and her career. She hadn’t ever really craved the big-city celebrity status she knew she could have achieved elsewhere. She had carved out a life for herself here and it had been enough. Or so she had thought. Until two months ago when the first really big news story to hit Oberon in years was stolen right out from under her nose by someone she’d once considered a friend. Now the idea of reporting on even one more two-bit local festival left her feeling as if she wanted to scream at the top of her lungs.

  Men. They were the source of all her problems. They took what they wanted and then walked away. They acted as if their careers, their goals, their needs, were all that mattered. And if she had mostly behaved the same way herself, well who could blame her? It was a dog-eat-dog world out there. Even in Oberon. She’d had to be tough, hadn’t she? She’d had to fend for herself, stand on her own two feet, look out for her own best interests – all those stupid clichés that had the nasty habit of proving themselves true.

  Because there was always some man who would make her feel loved, or at least wanted. Who would pretend to be her friend. And each time she made the mistake of thinking one of them was different, he’d always end up doing the same damn things.

  When the chips were down, there was always some other woman he’d end up being loyal to. Some other woman he’d want to marry and protect and have children with.

  Some other woman he would always, always, always choose over her.

  Well, she’d had enough. It was time to stop settling for table scraps when, God knows, she deserved the whole damn banquet. Time to stop waiting for some man to come to his senses and give her what she wanted. Time to go out and get things for herself.

  Fantastic. More clichés.

  It was time to get out of Oberon, too. Now all she needed was a plan.

  A familiar honking, flapping sound made her look up. A platoon of Canada geese flew fast and fearless in from the south to buzz the patio. As she watched, they made a low swooping turn through the parking lot and then disappeared behind the bank of scrub brush and low trees that stood to the west of the lot and separated it from the narrow beach that rimmed the bay. Paige looked at her watch and smiled. Regular as clockwork.

  “Well, aren’t you beautiful?” A man’s low voice, rich with appreciation, caused her to look around quickly. But it was clear from the man’s gaze – still locked on the western horizon – that his appreciation was for the geese, and not for her.

  Which pretty much summed up the way her life had been going lately. Upstaged by a flock of fuckin’ geese.

  She glared at the man. There was something vaguely familiar about him, although she couldn’t quite place him. Not too surprising. Although it was a small town, she’d lived here for a lot of years and dated a lot of men – many of whom she had very good reasons for not wanting to remember. She was just about to dismiss him completely from her thoughts when her journalistic instincts took over.

  Something told her that had she actually met this man before, she wouldn’t have forgotten him that easily. If she thought she recognized him now, it had to be because he was Somebody Important. She narrowed her eyes and observed the man more closely.

  He was dressed entirely in black – motorcycle jacket, jeans and boots – with touches of silver showing at his neck and wrists. Despite his neat ponytail of silver gray hair, he looked to be no more than mid-to-late forties. And the motorcycle he was straddling – a 1948 Indian Chief Roadmaster – exhibited signs of loving care, excessive recent use, and most curious of all, New York plates.

  Interesting. Paige reached for her notebook as she automatically memorized the license number.

  As if he were aware of her scrutiny, the man turned a quick glance in her direction as he donned his helmet. She saw a wary, watchful expression enter his eyes just before he snapped the dark visor down over his face and kicked the bike into gear. In another minute, he was roaring off in the direction of town.

  Paige lounged comfortably back in her chair. He could run, but he couldn’t hide. Not for long, at any rate. She remembered now where she’d seen his face before. The cover of Time Magazine. And she couldn’t imagine it would take more than a couple of phone calls to New York before she managed to locate a local number for him.

  She might not know yet what Sam Sterling was doing here in Oberon – at a time when all the financial papers were hinting at rumors of big trouble at Sterling and Vaughn – but she meant to find out. Her gut told her that there was a story here. A big one. And even if it was only the second biggest story to hit Oberon this year, this one, at least, would be all hers.

  She tossed back the rest of her latte with the first hint of good humor she’d felt all day. This just might turn out to be more than a great story, she thought happily. It just might be her ticket out of town.

  Back to Top

  * * * *

  Chapter One

  * * * *

  Although it was already mid-September, it still felt like summer in Oberon. The little town was blanketed in a thick, heavy fog. It was the kind of weather that descends on California’s Central Coast each summer, making air conditioning unnecessary. The tourists who had come here expecting palm trees and sunshine wandered along the sidewalks, shivering in their T-shirts and shorts. Business was brisk at any store that stocked Oberon sweatshirts or hand knit sweaters, and at The Crone’s Nest, shoppers crowded the inside tables and sat huddled over mugs of coffee or tea on the bench just inside the front door.

  Only the locals, seemingly impervious to the damp, occupied the terrace on mornings like these.

  It wasn’t the weather which bothered Marsha Quinn; although, like the town itself, she felt like she’d been operating in a fog for several weeks now. Her mood was low and dismal, and she felt so much older than the thirty-seven years the calendar allowed her to claim.

  She looked around wistfully. There was nothing wrong with her surroundings. The terrace looked especially beautiful this morning, even shrouded in mist. The Matajilla poppies were still in glorious bloom. The huge, showy blossoms with their crepe-papery white petals and yellow pompom centers towered above the pink and yellow Joseph’s coat roses in the adjoining beds and the slender stalks of the French lavender underplanting them. Marsha had opened The Crone’s Nest – part herb and tea shop, part occult merchandise and apparel store – some four years ago, and she’d added the terrace a year later. It had quickly become a gathering place for a loosely connected group of her friends, many of whom would stop by for coffee or breakfast a couple of times a week. This morning the group was very small; just Marsha and her two partners.

  Lucy and Scout were discussing plans for Scout’s wedding to Lucy’s cousin, Nick. It had pretty much formed their sole topic of conversation for weeks. Marsha drummed her fingers on the table. Their order was taking forever to get out here, and she was vaguely put out by the fact that neither Scout nor Lucy seemed to care. But then, neither of them had taken any notice of her moodiness, either. They were too preoccupied with their own interests.

  The wedding, which was taking place at the end of the month, had not started out as a big event. In fact, when Scout and Nick had announced their intentions a scant two months earlier, their plans ran something along the lines of a weekend trip to Vegas. It w
as Lucy who insisted they should make a big deal of it. And with Scout otherwise occupied – first with moving back into the house she’d recently inherited from her stepmother, and then with turning the deserted, century-old carriage house on the property into a functional sculpture studio – it was Lucy who had taken on most of the tasks involved with coordinating the affair.

  Marsha didn’t know what was motivating Lucy, although she suspected that guilt at having opposed the union for so long was a big part of it.

  Until three months ago, when Scout had unexpectedly returned to Oberon after a twenty-year absence, no one had ever imagined she and Nick would revive the somewhat disastrous affair they had begun when she was sixteen. It was unfortunate that the events which had precipitated her departure all those years ago had left Lucy and most of her family holding a fairly formidable grudge against her as well. It had taken a brush with death to bring Lucy to the point where she could accept that there might be worse things than for Scout and Nick to get back together.

  The rest of her family had yet to see the light.

  It was also possible that Lucy saw this wedding as a means of promoting family unity. But Marsha thought it just as likely her friend was over-compensating for the fact that she hadn’t gotten to plan her own wedding sixteen years ago, when she and Dan had opted to elope to Vegas themselves.

  At times, Marsha wasn’t sure even Lucy understood what she was up to. Under her guidance, the wedding was shaping up to be one helluva party, yet she was still expending an almost equal amount of energy suggesting reasons why they should consider calling it off. Even now.

  “Look, Scout, you could at least think about it, couldn’t you?” Lucy asked for what had to be the two hundredth time. “I know everyone would completely understand if you wanted to wait awhile.”

  Scout smiled serenely and shook her head. “Read my lips, Lucy. No way. We didn’t even want to put things off this long.”

  Ever since she and Nick had gotten back together, Scout had a glow of contentment about her that would have made Marsha green with envy if she weren’t so happy for her friend. But she was happy for her, she reminded herself, again. Very happy. And really, the envy she felt was nothing more than a tiny, tiny pain.

  Marsha let her eyes go slightly out of focus, her gaze traveling rapidly over her friends’ auras. She’d been seeing auras for so long now, she barely even noticed the flickering energy fields anymore. Unless she was consciously looking, like she was now, it took something really unusual to catch her attention.

  When Scout had first come back to Oberon, her defensive shielding had been so strong that her aura was almost invisible. That certainly wasn’t the case now. Marsha suppressed another sigh. It must be nice to be that happy.

  Perhaps she should have expected a certain amount of depression, given the recent upheavals in her life. The death of one of her closest friends three months earlier had torn an enormous hole in her in her life – and her heart. For years, she had relied on Celeste’s wisdom, her encouragement and support. Losing her was like losing a part of herself. And then, just a few weeks later, her daughter, Jasmine, had left for college.

  Her baby wasn’t a baby anymore.

  Come to think of it, none of her babies were babies any longer. The twins, Frank and Jesse, were twelve going on twenty-four. And even this terrace – the newest of her babies – where she and her friends were sitting, was no longer in its infancy.

  She was distracted from these thoughts by the arrival of Tina, one of her waitresses – at last – with their drinks. A pot of special blend tea for herself, Lucy’s double espresso with a lemon twist, and for Scout… “One phantom latte,” Tina announced with a smile.

  “Thanks, Tina.” Scout returned the smile as the young woman placed the pint glass on the table in front of her. Marsha eyed the non-fat, decaffeinated version of Scout’s usual drink dubiously. What was up with that?

  Marsha had known both Lucy and Scout since childhood. Of the three of them, only Lucy led what might be termed a conventional lifestyle – an aspersion Marsha would never dare utter in her friend’s hearing. She and Dan were happily married, they had a nice house, two children and a dog. They even managed to work together, in seeming harmony, at the nursery the Cavanaugh family had owned for years.

  In contrast, Scout, who had never been married and was still childless at thirty-six, had been leading an apparently nomadic existence for most of her adult life. But then again, in addition to being an artist, Scout had also inherited a substantial amount of money at a very young age, following the death of her father. Artists, especially young, independently wealthy ones, were almost expected to behave in an unconventional manner.

  Marsha had no such excuse, unless one counted her bewildering array of sporadic psychic abilities. These powers, along with extensive scars, both physical and emotional, were the legacy of a near fatal car crash she’d had when she was seventeen. But of course, most people did not count them. Or even believe in them. And being an artist was still more acceptable than being a witch. Even in Oberon.

  “I don’t understand why this is a big deal,” Lucy persisted. “I mean, why do you need to rush into marriage all of a sudden? You waited twenty years for each other. What’s another few months, right? The garden would be absolutely gorgeous if you waited until May. Besides, you know, it might give certain people the time they need to get used to the whole idea.”

  “May?” Scout choked on her drink. “Did you just say wait until May? Omigod. Lucy, are you insane?”

  “Well, it’s just something to think about.”

  Scout fixed Lucy with a quizzical gaze. “These people you’re referring to – we are talking about your parents and Nick’s mom, right? They’ll be here tomorrow. You’re supposed to be hosting a brunch for us all on Sunday, in case you’ve forgotten. You really want me to tell them we’ve changed our minds? ‘Sorry folks, we were just kidding, maybe we’ll do it sometime next year, instead?’ That should go over real well. Besides, once it’s a fait accompli, anyone who hasn’t already gotten used to the idea, will just pretty much have to, don’t you think?” Scout ended on a somewhat uncertain, faintly pleading note, but Lucy seemed not to notice.

  “Ha! Are you kidding me? My family? Please. Any one of us can hold a grudge as easily as you can keep breathing – and for probably about as long, too. Hell, you know that.” She broke off to take a long sip of her espresso, and then sighed. “And anyway, Scout, you forgot to add my brother to your list. Joey’s still not thrilled about this either, you know.”

  “Oh, don’t pay any attention to her, Scout. They’ll come around,” Marsha said, ignoring Lucy’s snort of disbelief. “They’re bound to, once they see how happy the two of you are.” But deep down, she wasn’t so sure. Time to change the subject. “Anyway, Lucy – did you say your parents are coming tomorrow? The wedding’s not for another two weeks yet. What on earth are they going to do here for all that time?”

  Lucy groaned. “Now you sound like Dan. You think maybe I haven’t been hearing enough of that from him?”

  “Why? They’re not staying with you guys, are they?”

  “Marsha, what is wrong with you this morning?” Lucy snapped. “Of course they’re staying with us. Where else would you expect them to stay?”

  “Not Nick’s mom. She’s staying with us,” Scout announced, her voice dull with dread.

  “Maybe she’s staying with you,” Lucy temporized. “I mean, I know that’s what Nick keeps saying and all, Scout, but you know she’s not real comfortable with the idea of you two living together before the wedding takes place. You’ve, uh, never actually met my Aunt Lillian, have you? I mean, you know... before?”

  Scout shifted uncomfortably. “No, of course not. I had my hands full back then just keeping you and your brother from finding out about us. The very last thing I wanted was to meet any more of his relatives – especially not his mother!”

  Lucy fiddled with the little piece of lemon rind that had
been in her coffee. “Well, if you’re thinking she’s anything like my mother, you can think again. Tough as my mom is, she’s a pussycat compared to her sister. And… aw, hell.” She broke off as she finally caught sight of the anxiety on Scout’s face. “Look, forget I said anything, okay? Dan and I are both on your side, you know. And Kate likes you. I mean, it would have been pretty bad if Nick’s daughter was dead set against his marrying you, right? But she’s not, so that’s another big factor in your favor. And as for everyone else, what do I know? Maybe you’re right. Maybe they just need to, you know, get to know you better. Or something.”

  “You’ve talked to them about all of this already, haven’t you?” Scout demanded. “I don’t believe you people! Lucy, they are still coming tomorrow, aren’t they? I mean, Nick’s got this whole barbecue thing planned and everything.”

  “Oh jeez, Scout. Yeah, you should be so lucky.” Lucy shook with laughter. “Well, of course they’ll be here! I’m just not sure what you’re gonna want to do with ‘em once they are.”

  “Well, that’s not the point, is it? I mean, they’re Nick’s family. And I know how much family means to you all. So I don’t see where I have much choice in the matter.”

  Lucy sighed. “No, I suppose you don’t.”

  “I don’t know, Scout, do you think maybe Lucy has a point?” Marsha suggested tentatively. “If all they really need is a little more time to adjust to the idea... I guess it wouldn’t hurt to put things off a bit, would it?”

  “Yes. It sure would,” Scout snapped. She stood up suddenly and grabbed her bag from under the table. “I gotta go. I’ll see you guys later.”

  Marsha stared intently after her friend. Intuition flashed through her. If she was right – and she didn’t see how she could be wrong, given the energy patterns she’d just read – Lucy didn’t have a prayer of convincing Scout to wait until May. Marsha grinned at the thought of it. May? By May, Scout would be celebrating something else.