by Jenna Ryan
Chapter Three
“I’ve already broken up two bar fights tonight, Chief, and the crowd here’s spoiling for more.” Jake Blume’s tone, surly at the best of times, soured. “It’s gonna be a free-for-all by the time this two-town party—which ain’t no kind of party, in my opinion—plays out. Still three days to go and the hooligans on both sides are making their feelings known with their fists.” His voice dropped to a growl. “What do you want me to do about tonight’s ruckus?”
McVey heard about half of what his griping deputy related. More important to him than a minor barroom scuffle was the TV across the room where the Chicago Cubs were cheerfully mopping up Wrigley Field with his beloved Dodgers.
“Run,” he told the slow-motion hitter who’d just slugged the ball to the fence.
“From a bar fight?” Jake gave a contemptuous snort. “This town ain’t turned me into a girl yet, McVey.”
“Talking to the television, Deputy.” Disgusted by yet another out, McVey took a long drink of beer and muted the sound. “Okay, which bar and what kind of damage are we talking about?”
“It’s the Red Eye in the Hollow—a town I’m still trying to understand why we’re working our butts off to cover so its police chief can sun his sorry ass in Florida for the next couple weeks.”
“Man’s on his honeymoon, Jake.” Amusement glimmered. “The novelty’ll wear off soon enough.”
His deputy gave another snort. “Said one confirmed bachelor to another.”
“I was never confirmed—and that was a ball,” he told the onscreen umpire.
“Look, if I’m interrupting...”
“You’re not.” McVey dangled the beer bottle between his knees and rubbed a tired eye. “I assume the damage at the Red Eye is minimal.”
“As bar fights go in these parts.”
“Then give whoever threw the first punch a warning, make the participants pay up and remind everyone involved that it’s you who’s on duty tonight, not me.”
“Meaning?”
“You’ve got a shorter fuse, zero tolerance and, between the towns, six empty jail cells just begging to be filled.”
“Good point.” Jake cheered up instantly. “Can I threaten to cuff ’em?”
“Your discretion, Deputy. After you’re done, head back to the Cove. I’ll be in at first light to relieve you.”
When he glanced over and saw his team had eked out two hits, McVey gave his head a long, slow roll and sat back to think.
In the fourteen months since he’d arrived in Raven’s Cove, he’d only had the dream five times, which was a hell and gone better average than he’d had during his six years with the Chicago Police Department or the nearly eight he’d put in in New York. At least once a month in both places, he’d found himself up in a smoke-filled attic while a woman he still couldn’t place told him she was going to screw up his memories. Not that he’d given up city life over anything as nebulous as a dream. His reasons had run a whole lot deeper.... And was that a floorboard he’d just heard creak upstairs?
With the bottle poised halfway to his mouth, he listened, heard nothing and, taking another long swallow, switched his attention back to the TV.
A third run by the Dodgers gave him hope. A screech of hinges from an interior door had him raising his eyes to the ceiling yet again.
Okay, so not alone. And wasn’t that a timely thing, considering he’d received two emails lately warning him that a man with secrets should watch the shadows around him very, very closely?
Standing, he shoved his gun into the waistband of his jeans, killed the light and started up the rear stairs.
The wind that had been blowing at near-gale force all day howled around the single-paned windows. Even so, he caught a second creak. He decided his intruder could use a little stealth training. Then he stepped on a sagging tread, heard the loud protest and swore.
The intruder must have heard it, too. The upstairs door that had been squeaking open immediately stopped moving.
Drawing his weapon, McVey gave his eyes another moment to adjust and finished the climb. He placed the intruder in the kitchen. Meaning the guy had the option of slinking out the way he’d entered—through the back door—or holding position to see what developed. Whatever the case, McVey had the advantage in that he’d been living in the house for more than two weeks and had committed the odd layout to memory.
Another door gave a short creak and he pictured the intruder circling.
The anticipation that kindled felt good. Sleepy coastal towns worked for him on several levels these days. Unfortunately, as action went, they tended to be...well, frankly, dead. Unless you counted the increasing number of bar fights and the sniping of two local factions, each of which had its own legend, and neither of which was willing to admit that both legends had probably been created by an ancient—and presumably bored—Edgar Allan Poe wannabe.
Another blast of wind rattled the panes and sent a damp breeze over McVey’s face. It surprised him to see a light burning in the mudroom. Apparently his intruder was extremely stupid, poorly equipped or unaware that he’d broken into the police chief’s current residence. The last idea appealed most, but as it also seemed the least likely, McVey continued to ease through the house.
He spotted the shadow just as the wind—he assumed wind—slammed the kitchen door shut. The bang echoed beneath a wicked gust that buffeted the east wall and caused the rafters to moan.
Shoving the gun into his jeans, he went for a low tackle. If the person hadn’t swung around and allowed a weak beam of light to trickle through from the mudroom, he would have taken them both hard to the floor. But his brain clicked in just fast enough that he was able to alter his trajectory, snag the intruder by the waist and twist them both around so only he landed on the pine planking.
His head struck the table, his shoulder the edge of a very solid chair. To make matters worse, his trapped quarry rammed an elbow into his ribs, wriggled around and clawed his left cheek.
He caught the raised hand before it could do any serious damage and, using his body weight, reversed their positions. “Knock it—” was all he got out before his instincts kicked in and he blocked the knee that was heading for his groin.
Jesus, enough!
Teeth gnashed and with pain shooting through his skull, he brought his eyes into focus on the stunning and furious face of the woman from his nightmare.
* * *
FEAR STREAKED THROUGH Amara’s mind, not for her own safety, but for that of her grandmother who’d lived in this house for close to seventy years.
Although she was currently pinned to the floor with her hands over her head and her wrists tightly cuffed, she attempted to knee him again. When that failed, she bucked her hips up into his. If she could loosen his iron grip, she might be able to sink her teeth into his forearm.
“I’ll kill you if you’ve hurt her,” she panted. “This is about me, not my family. You of all people should understand that.”
He offset another blow. “Lady, the only thing I understand is that you broke into a house that doesn’t belong to you.”
“Or you,” she fired back. “You have no right to be here. Where’s my grandmother?”
“I have every right to be here, and how the hell should I know?”
Her heart tripped. “Is she—dead?”
“What? No. Look, I live here, okay?”
Unable to move, Amara glared at him. “You’re lying. I spoke to Nana last night. There was no mention of a man either visiting or living in her home.”
He lowered his head just far enough for her to see the smile that grazed his lips. “Maybe your granny doesn’t tell you everything, angel.”
“That’s disgusting.” She refused to tremble. “Have you hurt her?”
“I haven’t done anything to her. I don’t eat elderly women, then take to their beds in order to get the jump on their beautiful granddaughters.”
“That’s not exactly reassuring.”
“Yeah,
it really is, Red.”
When her eyes flashed, he sighed. “Red... Red Riding Hood. Now, why don’t you calm down, we’ll back up a few steps and try to sort this out? My name’s Ethan McVey and I—”
“Have no business being in my grandmother’s house.”
“You’re gonna have to get past that one, I’m afraid. Truth is I have all kinds of business here.” He shifted position when she almost liberated her other knee. “As far as I know, your grandmother’s somewhere in the Caribbean with two of her friends and one very old man who’s sliding down the slippery slope toward his hundred and second birthday.”
His words startled a disbelieving laugh out of her. “Nana took old Rooney Blume to the Caribbean?”
“That’s the story I got. No idea if it’s true. Her private life’s not my concern. You, on the other hand, are very much my concern, seeing as you’re lying on my kitchen floor behaving like a wildcat.”
“Nana’s kitchen floor.”
“Rent’s paid, floor’s mine. So’s the badge you probably failed to notice on the table above us.”
Doubt crept in. “Badge, as in cop?”
“Badge as in chief of police. Raven’s Cove,” he added before she could ask.
The red haze clouding Amara’s vision began to dissolve. “You said rent. If you’re a cop, why are you renting my grandmother’s house?”
“Because the first place she rented to me developed serious plumbing and electrical issues, both of which are in the process of being rectified.”
Why a laugh should tickle her throat was beyond her. “Would that first place be Black Rock Cottage, rebuilt from a ruin fifty years ago by my grandfather and renovated last year by Wrecking Ball Buck Blume?”
“That’d be it.”
“Then I’m sorry I scratched you.”
“Does that mean you’re done trying to turn me into a eunuch?”
“Maybe.”
“As reassurances go, I’m not feeling it, Red.”
“Put yourself in my position. My grandmother didn’t mention a Caribbean vacation when I spoke to her yesterday.”
“So, thinking she was here, you opted to break and enter your grandmother’s home rather than knock on the door.”
“I knocked. No one answered. Nana keeps an extra key taped to a flowerpot on her back stoop. And before you tell me how careless that is, mine’s bigger.”
To her relief, he let go of her wrists and pushed himself to his knees. He was still straddling her, but at least his far too appealing face wasn’t quite so close. “Your what?”
“Omission. Nana didn’t mention an extra key to you, and she didn’t mention you to me.” She squirmed a little, then immediately wished she hadn’t. “Uh, do you mind? Thanks,” she murmured when he got to his feet.
“I’d say no problem if the damn room would stop spinning.”
Still wary, Amara accepted the hand he held down to her. “Would you like me to look at your head?”
“Why?”
“Because you might have a concussion.”
“That’s a given, Red. I meant why you? Are you a doctor?”
“I’m a reconstructive surgeon.”
“Seriously?” Laughing, he started for the back door. “You do face and butt lifts for a living?”
What had come perilously close to going hot and squishy inside her hardened. Her lips quirked into a cool smile. “There you go. Whatever pays the bills.”
“If you say so.”
She maintained her pleasant expression. “Returning to the omission thing... Can you think of any reason why Nana would neglect to mention you were living here when we talked?”
“You had a bad connection?”
Or more likely insufficient time to relate many details, thanks to Lieutenant Michaels, who’d done everything in his power, short of tearing the phone from her hand and tossing her into the backseat of his car, to hasten their departure. Amara glanced up as a gust of wind whistled through the rafters. “My mother would call this an omen and say I shouldn’t have come.”
“Yeah?” The cop—he’d said McVey, hadn’t he?—picked up and tapped his iPhone as he wandered past the island. “She into the woo-woo stuff, too?”
“If by that you mean does she believe in some of the local legends? Absolutely.”
He glanced at her. “There’re more than two?”
“There are more than two hundred, but most of them are offshoots of the interconnected original pair. The Blumes are very big on their ancestor Hezekiah’s transformation into a raven.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“That transformation is largely blamed on the Bellam witches.”
“The Bellams being your ancestors.”
“My grandmother’s surname gave it away, huh?”
“Among other things. Setting the bulk of them aside and assuming you’re Amara, your gran sent me a very short, very cryptic text message last night.”
“You’re just opening a text from last night now?”
“Give me a break, Red. It’s my day off, this is my personal phone and the windstorm out there dislodged four shutters that I’ve spent the better part of the past twelve hours repairing and reattaching.” He turned his iPhone so she could see the screen. “According to Grandma Bellam, you’re in a whack of trouble from the crime lord you helped convict.”
Amara read the message, then returned her gaze to his unfathomable and strangely compelling eyes. “Whack being the operative word. Look, it’s late, and I’m intruding—apparently. I’m sure one of my aunts, uncles or cousins will put me up for the night.” Wanting some distance between them, she started for the door. “I left my rental car at the foot of the driveway. It’s pointed toward Raven’s Hollow. As luck would have it, that’s where my less antagonistic relatives live. So I’ll leave you to whatever you were doing before we met and go break into one of their houses.” She rummaged through her shoulder bag and produced the back door key. “I’ll put this back under the flowerpot. Nana locks herself out at least three times a year.”
Setting his phone on the island, McVey moved toward her. “Forget the key, Amara. Talk to me about this ‘whack of trouble.’”
“It’s a—sticky story.”
“I’m a cop. I’m used to sticky. I’m also fine with ‘sounds crazy,’ if that helps.”
It didn’t. Neither did the fact that he’d ventured far enough into the light that she could see her initial assessment of him had been dead-on. The man was...well, gorgeous worked as well as any other word.
Long dark hair swept away from a pair of riveting brown eyes, and what female alive wouldn’t kill for those cheekbones? Then there was the lean, rangy body. She wouldn’t mind having that on top of her again.... And, God help her, where had that thought come from? She seriously needed to get her hormones under control, because no way should the idea of—okay, admit it—sex with an überhot man send her thoughts careening off to fantasyland.
Jimmy Sparks, vicious head of a family chock full of homicidal relatives, wanted her dead. She couldn’t go back to New Orleans or her job, and she couldn’t reasonably expect Lieutenant Michaels to do any more than he’d already done to help her. Her grandmother wasn’t in Raven’s Hollow, and Amara figured she’d probably alienated the Cove cop who was to the point where he might actually consider turning her over to Jimmy’s kith and kin simply to be rid of her.
“I really am sorry about all of this.” She backed toward the mudroom. “I wasn’t expecting to find...”
“A wolf in Grandma’s cottage?” He continued to advance. “Still waiting for the story, Red. If the trouble part’s too big a leap, start with the ‘less antagonistic relatives’ reference.”
“First off, I’d rather you called me Amara. You can see for yourself, my hair’s more brown than red. Which, when you get right down to it, is the story of my relatives in an extremely simplified nutshell.”
“Gonna need a bit more than that, I’m afraid. So far all I’ve got is that you’r
e the descendant of a Bellam witch.”
“Yes, but the question is which witch? Most Bellams can trace the roots of their family tree back to Nola. There are only a handful of us who have her lesser-known sister Sarah’s blood.”
Finally, thankfully, he stopped moving. “If Nola and Sarah were sisters, what’s the difference blood-wise?”
“Nola Bellam was married to Hezekiah Blume. At least she was, until Hezekiah went on a killing spree. According to the Blume legend, he repented. However, all those deaths got him turned into a clairvoyant raven. There wasn’t a large window of opportunity for Nola to get pregnant. Unless you add in the unpleasant fact that Hezekiah’s brother Ezekiel raped her, accused her of being a witch, then hunted her down and tried to destroy her. Thus, Hezekiah’s killing spree.”
“Complicated stuff.”
“Isn’t it? It gets worse, too, because, as luck would have it, sister Sarah had a thing for Ezekiel.”
“And that ‘thing’ resulted in a child?”
“You catch on quick. Sarah had a daughter, who had a daughter and so on. So did Nola, of course, but not with Hezekiah. Even in legend, humans and ravens can’t mate. Long story short, and rape notwithstanding, Nola never gave birth to a Blume baby. Sarah did.” Amara shrugged. “I’m sure you know by now that Blumes and Bellams have been at odds for...well, ever. Raven’s Cove versus Raven’s Hollow in all things legendary and logical. So where does a Bellam with Blume blood in her background fit in? Does she cast spells or fall victim to them? And which town does she claim for her own? You can imagine the genetic dilemma.”
McVey cocked his head. “You’re not going to go all weird and spooky on me, are you?”
“Haven’t got time for that, unfortunately.”
“Knowing Jimmy Sparks, I tend to agree.”
Her fingers froze on the doorknob. “You know him?”
“We’ve met once or twice.” McVey sent her a casual smile. “Well, I say met, but it was really more a case of I shot at him.”
“You fired bullets at Jimmy King-of-Grudges Sparks and lived to tell about it?”
