“The Kabbala?”
“What about Africans?”
“What about them?”
“How did they feel about magic?”
“When? In 1575?”
“Sure, for the sake of argument.”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Clearly,” he said. “You know so little that you didn’t even ask me which tribe.”
“I didn’t ask you that about Europe, either.”
“I assumed you knew.”
“Don’t assume,” she said.
“Exactly.”
“I don’t know anyone who would know all that,” she said.
“Except me, Blackstone, and Ealhswith.”
“I’m not having any of you get near Emma.”
“I can.”
“No,” she said. “You can’t. I met you as Blackstone’s friend. Right now, he’s a danger to her.”
“Says you.”
“Says Emma.”
“As if she knows. He’s protected her for a thousand years.”
“So you say.”
“Can’t you believe the evidence of your own eyes?”
“What I’ve seen makes me wonder if he stole her from Ealhswith, who, granted, wasn’t taking good care of her either. I have to go with that.”
“You have to go with your heart.”
That stopped her. “What does that mean?”
He grinned. “You know.”
“Just because Blackstone is good-looking and charming doesn’t mean I’ll accept whatever he does.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You were implying it.”
“No, I wasn’t.” He chuckled. “But I like your misunderstanding.”
In spite of herself, she blushed. “You need to get out of here.”
“No, I don’t,” he said. “You invited me in.”
“Now I’m uninviting you. Get out.”
“You still have something that’s mine.”
“If you’re referring to Emma, you’re about a hundred years out of date. People can’t be property anymore.”
“Actually, I was referring to my microbus. I want it back.”
“Fine,” she said. “Come to my office tomorrow. We’ll liquidate the escrow account, and I’ll give you your keys.”
“Give them to me now.”
“No,” she said. “We’re going to be official about this.”
He grinned. “You like to say no.”
“Not really.”
“Yes, really. And you’re good at it. This is so wonderful.”
“I don’t see why it’s wonderful,” she said.
“You will,” he said. “Believe me. You will.”
***
Ultimately Nora chickened out and left the identification for Amanda to explain to Emma. Nora had trouble enough with the shower. The idea of bathing every day was apparently a novel one to someone from the Dark Ages. Which was why, Nora supposed, as she grabbed a bowl of cereal before heading to the office, they were called the Dark Ages. It was probably a bastardization of their real name: the Dirt Ages.
At least Emma hadn’t screamed when she went into the shower, but she had cringed for a very long time. It took Nora a while to figure out that Emma was also afraid of the hot water, after her experience the day before. Nora turned the water temperature from frigid to lukewarm, and Emma was happy. At least she was happy until Nora showed her the soap.
Emma came out of the bathroom looking fresh and rosy and even more beautiful than before. She made Nora’s favorite sundress look much better than Nora did. Darnell followed Emma wherever she went; he hadn’t even shown up for breakfast that morning, the little traitor. Which made Squidgy happy. She had all the food to herself.
For a ten-year-old cat, Darnell sure was loose with his affections. Particularly when, in the past, he wouldn’t give anyone except Nora the time of day.
Nora left the moment Amanda arrived, not willing to answer any more questions abut how cereal was made; where the cows were; how the refrigerator worked, and why she wore shoes that elevated her several inches off the ground. As Nora walked out the door, she promised Amanda some help in the next day or so, and she gave her permission to take Emma to a small park nearby. Fortunately Portland was a city of parks—it had, Nora once heard, more parks per capita than any other city in the nation. What it meant for her was that she didn’t have to go far to find greenery.
Nora did make her mother promise to take her cell phone along and not to let Emma out of her sight.
The office, after the chaos of her house, was a welcome respite. It didn’t matter that the staff had a million questions for her or that her message pile had duplicated. It didn’t matter that Max’s attorney wanted yet another list of the assets that Nora had taken from their joint home, unwilling to believe, she supposed, the first one. This one she would have to sign and notarize. The next step would probably be to get a deposition or a court order to search her loft. At some point, she would have to have her own attorney call Max and remind him that Nora was not a prosecutor, trying to hide her tactics to get Max put away on federal charges.
She breezed through the partner’s meeting, skipping over her business with Emma and the reason she had met with Blackstone. That was one of the nice things about owning her own law firm; she didn’t have to answer to anyone. They all had to answer to her.
Her mood was almost buoyant when she went to her own office. The mood collapsed immediately when she saw both Sancho and Blackstone waiting in Ruthie’s uncomfortable chairs.
Ruthie looked at Nora with a pained expression on her face. “I asked them to wait in reception,” she said. “Somehow they talked me into letting them remain here.”
That was twice in two days Blackstone had made Ruthie do something out of character. Nora would have to forbid him from using even tiny magic spells on her secretary.
“Into my office,” she snapped. “Now.”
Sancho jumped off the chair and saluted. He wasn’t wearing his suit anymore. Instead, he had on a polo shirt and a pair of khakis. Blackstone looked positively underdressed next to him, wearing what Nora was beginning to see as his signature T-shirt and jeans.
She opened her office door, and even the sight of the city, spread out before her, did not please her. She could see haze forming over the river, indicating that the day would be both hot and gray. Just what her mood needed.
She set her briefcase down but did not go to her chair. Instead, she turned, leaned on her desk, and waited until the men came into her office.
It took Blackstone a moment; he was giving Ruthie a small rose—where he got it, Nora had no idea. He hadn’t been holding it a moment before. Ruthie looked pleased and embarrassed at her own pleasure, all at the same time.
When Blackstone entered and closed the door, Nora said, “Stop toying with my secretary.”
He grinned at her, that full-watt kick-you-in-the-stomach grin that got her every time. “Jealous?”
“No,” she said a little too fast. “I just don’t like Ruthie being played with.”
“Protective.”
“At times.”
“You two understand each other better than you know,” Sancho said, and hoisted himself into the nearest chair.
“I know why you’re here,” she said to Sancho. “Why did you bring him?”
“I thought you missed him.”
“I kicked him out of my office yesterday.”
“So he said,” Sancho said.
Nora sighed. She reached into her top desk drawer and removed the microbus keys, along with the key to the lock. Then she wrote down the name of the storage place and the garage number. She pressed the intercom and told Ruthie to figure out the amount left in the escrow, minus this month’s fees, and to close the account, giving the remaining money back to Sancho in the form of a check.
“I believe that’s all our business, isn’t it?” she asked coolly.
“Not really,” he said. “I wou
ld like the opportunity to speak to Emma.”
“I’ll ask her about it.”
Sancho nodded as if he had expected as much. Then he turned to Blackstone. Blackstone glared at him. Sancho glared back.
“Is this for my benefit, or can you two stare at each other elsewhere?” Nora asked.
“I think Blackstone would like to ask you a question,” Sancho said.
“Then he should ask it. I have a long day ahead,” Nora said.
Sancho got down off the chair. “I’m going to check on the check,” he said.
“Why does this feel like a setup?” Nora asked as Sancho left.
“Because it is,” Blackstone said. He remained in the back of the room. He hadn’t come close at all this time, and she got the sense that he was nervous. “Look, you and I started off on the wrong foot.”
“Not really,” she said, her grip tightening on the desk.
“I mean, I would like to talk to you a little, get to know you better.”
“So you can grill me about Emma?”
“No, actually,” he said, sounding confused, as if he couldn’t understand why she would think such a thing.
“Then why didn’t it come up before now? You met me ten years ago. That may not be a lot of time to you, but best-case scenario, that’s one tenth of my life.”
He smiled. “You were interested in Max.”
She frowned. “How did you know?”
“The three wishes.”
“What?”
“I granted you three wishes. Success. Financial independence, and Max.”
Her mouth opened, then shut, then opened again. She didn’t say anything for the longest time, and when she finally could get her vocal chords functioning again, she said, “If you granted me three wishes, and Max was one of them, I should be living happily ever after by now.”
Blackstone shook a finger at her. “That wasn’t one of the wishes.”
“I never asked you for anything.”
“You didn’t have to,” he said. “You were radiating desire.”
That wasn’t for Max, you idiot, she almost blurted. But she caught herself in time. “You can read minds?” she asked, a second too late.
“No,” he said. “But people’s wishes are usually clear enough, if you observe them.”
“And you observed that the greatest desires in my life were success, wealth, and Max?”
“Not wealth, exactly,” he said. “Enough money to get by.”
“Well, I have that.” She went around her desk to her chair and sat down hard. “And so what you’re saying is that all of this was your doing. None of it was mine.”
He rolled his eyes, then sat in the chair Sancho had vacated. “Why can’t women take gifts?”
“Don’t lump me into a category with other women.”
“Why not?”
“Because—” she stopped herself. Then her eyes narrowed. “You’ve done this before.”
“Many times.”
“To women.”
“Of course.”
“You’re a bigger idiot than I thought.”
He frowned at her. “That’s a hell of a way to say thank you.”
“For telling me I haven’t done anything in ten years.”
“Jesus, Nora,” he snapped. “You did. I made sure you had enough money to get by when Sancho gave you the escrow and when Max gave you that finder’s fee. You did the rest.”
“Success?” she asked.
“At the time, success to you was keeping the doors of your office open.”
He was right, but she didn’t want him to see it. The fight she had been spoiling for had finally arrived.
“And Max?”
“You were never going to ask him out, and he was so damn shy that I figured I’d give you both a nudge.”
“And see where it got us? Thousands of dollars in legal fees.”
“You can afford it.”
She glared at him.
He shrugged one shoulder. The gesture was winning, but she wasn’t in the mood to be won. “Didn’t you have some good years?” he asked.
They did. Those first years were fun. When they were still young attorneys, when they really didn’t have money or a decent place to live. The time that Darnell (damn that cat) had jumped on the counter and taken six bites out of the beef roast they were going to serve Max’s boss—six separate bites, from different parts of the roast—and Max and Nora had spent a giggly, frightened few moments figuring out how to carve the damn thing (the roast, not the cat) so that they could serve it without embarrassment. The trip to the coast that they couldn’t afford. The long Sunday afternoons watching old movies and eating ice cream, the afternoons that always ended in bed.
Blackstone was watching her too closely.
“What?” she asked. “A year or two is the duration of wishes these days?”
He grinned. “You did have some good times.”
“I’d have been stupid to marry Max if I didn’t. And I’m not stupid.” She pushed her chair away from her desk. As she did so, her gaze caught the stack of waiting messages. Even though she wanted to keep fighting with this man—she wanted to do anything to keep him in her office, fight or not—she needed to get to work. She had a lot to do, and not all of it concerned Emma.
“So let me get this straight,” she said. “Ten years ago, you granted me three wishes, and now you’re using that fact like a trump card so that you can spend time with me.”
He shrugged again, only this time it was the other shoulder, and this gesture was more affecting than the first one.
“And you want to spend time with me because you find me charming and witty and utterly involving.”
“I do want to get to know you better.”
She nodded. “And keep tabs on Emma even though you won’t visit her.”
“Unfair, Nora.”
“No, it’s not.” She pulled her chair closer to the desk and went into tough attorney mode. “Frankly, Mr. Blackstone, I’m very disappointed in you. I thought you were smooth and convincing. I thought you could charm the pants off a snake.” Then she paused. “Although, come to think of it, I never did see pants on your snake. What happened to it, anyway?”
“It died,” he said flatly.
“Sorry. Heartbreaking.”
“Yes, actually.”
She wasn’t going for the sympathy. She couldn’t muster any for a snake anyway. “You have been obvious and lame and insulting this morning. If you wanted something from me, you should have asked for it—”
“I did,” he said. “Yesterday I asked for time with Emma.”
“See?” Nora said. “I knew this was about Emma.”
“And this morning I’ve asked for time with you. I am asking for what I want.”
“In a way that guarantees that you won’t get it.”
“You would prefer me to charm you like I’ve been charming the efficient Ruthie? Hmm? When I came in here, you berated me for doing that very thing.”
“Ruthie was unsuspecting.”
He leaned closer to her. Leather again. Why did she find the scent of leather so sexy? Maybe she didn’t. Maybe it was that faint scent beneath it, that touch of him.
“People who are being charmed aren’t supposed to know it,” he said. “That’s part of the charm.”
When she didn’t respond, he leaned closer. If she raised her fingers, she could touch the skin on his face. She wondered if it would be as smooth as the skin on his hand had been, if it would be as warm, if it would feel as familiar as her own.
“I could manipulate you, Nora, if that’s what you want. Silly me,” he said, “I thought you were the kind of woman who liked to think for herself, who appreciated a man for what he is.”
“What are you, Mr. Blackstone?” She kept her voice cool, which ultimately amazed her, considering how jumpy her insides were. “A man who seduces women? A man who lies to women? A man who considers women possessions?”
“Not fair.”
“A man who thought he had found someone he could talk to,” he said. “A man who is profoundly disappointed.”
Then he blinked, as if he couldn’t believe what he had just said, and leaned back. He shook his head once and stood.
“Mr. Blackstone?”
He turned. “You know, I’ve never met anyone who pisses me off like you do.”
“Except Ealhswith.”
“Not even Ealhswith. I just hate her. You—I come in here, thinking I can have a rational discussion, and I end up yelling like a berserker.”
“A what?”
“A soldier, you know, one who has—the word berserk, ah, you know—they were prevalent after the Hundred Years War—oh, hell.” He spread his arms out. “I am babbling. I haven’t babbled in centuries. Damn, woman, what are you doing to me?”
“Saying no,” she said sweetly. “Apparently you people aren’t used to it.”
He stared at her for a moment, and as he did, an entire symphony of emotions played in his eyes. With each mood they seemed to change color, from silver to gray to blue to black to brown and back to silver again. Nora watched the changes, mesmerized.
“You did say no, didn’t you?” he said, almost to himself. “And I’m not listening. I haven’t listened at all, which is also not like me. I’m usually quite a good listener. When it doesn’t matter.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets and bowed his head. She could no longer see those marvelous eyes, and she wanted to.
“You’ve said no,” he continued, “and Emma has said go away, and Sancho told me years ago to change my attitude toward the coffin and Ealhswith, and I haven’t listened to a one of you.”
He raised his head. His eyes were so pale, she almost couldn’t see them. “Well, I’m listening now.” He took a deep breath. “I’m going. It’s been a real pleasure knowing you, Miss—Mrs.—Ms. Barr. I promise I will never charm your secretary again.”
He stared at her for a moment, and when she said nothing, he bowed. The movement was sweet and elegant, his right arm sweeping out as if he were removing his hat with a flourish. She could imagine him in sixteenth century French clothing—the ruffles and feathers of The Three Musketeers fame—and it suited him as well as the jeans and T-shirt did now. She started to reach for him, but he rose, turned, and left her office so quickly that she was still in half a movement as her door slammed closed.
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