Darkmoon (The Witches of Cleopatra Hill Book 3)

by Christine Pope

  I followed him back downtown, then turned in at the alleyway that led to the rear of his building. He disappeared around a corner, apparently in search of a parking space — no easy feat in the historic section of town on a bright and breezy May afternoon. Since I didn’t have a key, had taken the one he’d given me this past winter and shoved it into a compartment in my jewelry box, all I could do was wait at the back entrance to the building until he returned a few minutes later, over-long hair flying in the wind.

  “Turning into a hippie?” I asked, lifting a hand to push the heavy dark strands away from his face.

  “Just didn’t care, these past few months.”

  My heart twinged, and I reached out and touched his hand, not saying anything. He gripped my fingers for a few seconds before letting them go so he could open the door.

  Nothing seemed to have changed since the last time I entered the hallway. It still smelled of mildew and damp, still looked as if someone needed to get into the corners with a good stiff brush and some heavy-duty cleaner. In silence we climbed the stairs to the second floor. Connor opened the door to the apartment, and I held my breath. It felt like years since I’d been here, and I didn’t know what to expect. Maybe he’d let the place go after I left. Maybe it would be a total disaster.

  But as I entered the familiar short hallway and glanced around, it seemed as if nothing much had changed. Everything looked neat and clean, nothing out of place except the usual collection of finished paintings stacked up against the walls in various spots. Some of them I didn’t recognize, which meant he’d kept working after I was gone. Good. I hated to think that our separation might have affected his art. I remembered then that he’d had another gallery show scheduled for the end of April, and wondered if he’d gone through with it, or whether he’d canceled the whole thing. Since quite a few paintings I remembered seemed to be gone, it looked as if he’d had the show after all.

  “Connor — ” I began, but didn’t get much further than that, as he’d reached out and pulled me against him, brought his mouth against mine, pushing my lips open with his tongue, tasting me.

  The purse fell from my suddenly nerveless fingers and dropped with a heavy thud against the wooden floor. At the same time, Connor scooped me up in his arms and headed for the stairs, moving up them so quickly that I didn’t have time to think about anything except the strength of his embrace and the thudding of my heart in my chest.

  And then we were in his bedroom, and his hands were on my blouse, pulling it over my head, and his fingers were working the front clasp of my bra before he slid the straps down my shoulders and pulled the whole thing away from my body, tossing it onto the chair under the window. His hands cupped my breasts, and I moaned, needing his touch, needing the magic of flesh against flesh, his lips and tongue caressing me even as he undid the button and zipper of my jeans and pushed them down. I kicked off my flip-flops and did the same with my jeans, and then his hand was sliding down over my backside, cupping it as he pulled me against him, lifting his head from my nipple so he could kiss me again.

  I went to work on his shirt buttons, undoing them one by one until his beautiful chest and stomach were revealed. Slipping my hands over him, I caressed my way down his torso until I came to his jeans and undid those as well.

  Oh, he was so ready, so thick and hard it looked almost painful. A groan wrenched its way out of his throat as I moved my hand up and down his shaft. “Not too much,” he warned me. “It’s been a while.”

  “So you don’t want me to do this?” I teased, lowering my head so I could take him in my mouth, taste the familiar salt of his skin, run my tongue over the silky yet rock-hard flesh.

  “No — yes — Angela — ”

  I took pity on him then, pulling him against me as we sank down onto the bed. His fingers brushed their way up the inside of my thigh, feather-light and yet awakening more fire, more heat, before they reached my core, stroking me, caressing me. I cried out, knowing I was close, so close, because it had been so long. An eternity without him.

  But now he was here, and I was here, and it was the most natural thing in the world for him to slip into me, to fill the aching emptiness that had been a painful void ever since he sent me away from him. Two into one again, not Wilcox and McAllister, not prima and primus, not even Connor and Angela, but simply two souls merging into a perfect, ineffable one. There was no need for me to say the charm, because we had already kindled a life between us.

  In that moment, I refused to believe any evil could come from such joy.

  4

  Beginnings

  We dozed in each other’s arms afterward, maybe for only five or ten minutes, maybe as much as half an hour. Neither one of us was paying much attention, but eventually Connor stirred and said, “So did that work up an appetite?”

  I realized it had. By then it was past one, and my stomach was telling me that I had better put something in it. “I think it just might have.”

  With a groan, he rolled over, then bent to retrieve his discarded underwear. I did the same, afterward going to the bathroom to clean up as best I could. It wasn’t like before; I didn’t have a change of clothes here with me. Still, I straightened my hair and patted some cool water on my flushed cheeks before returning to the bedroom for the rest of my clothes.

  “I guess you’d been saving that up for a while,” I teased.

  Connor slipped into his shirt and began to button it up. “Well, I think it was the toes that did it.”

  Arching an eyebrow at him, I glanced down at my pink toenail polish. “What, are you telling me you have a foot fetish or something?”

  “Or something,” he said with a grin.

  I shook my head and retrieved my own top. After slipping it over my head, I climbed back into my jeans. I’d just finished fastening them shut when I looked up to see Connor standing in front of the dresser, holding the concho belt he’d given me for my birthday.

  “I hated that you left this behind,” he said quietly. “Will you take it back now?”

  Something in the simple request made my throat tighten. “Yes, Connor,” I said. “Oh, yes, I want it back.”

  We both knew I was talking about a lot more than just the belt.

  He came to me and fastened it around my hips. I felt the heavy weight settle against me and smiled. “I might as well wear it as much as I can now,” I joked. “In a few more months I’m going to be as big as a house.”

  “And you’ll be beautiful,” he said, bending to kiss me gently on the cheek. “And when that happens, we’ll just put it in a drawer until you can wear it again.”

  The smile slipped from my lips, and I stared up into his face, wondering how I could have ever lived a whole two months without him. “I love you, Connor.”

  “I love you, Angela,” he said solemnly, seeming to understand that we needed to say it to one another, to re-bind us to each other. “There’s something I want to show you, and then we can go eat.”

  I wondered what that something was. Since he was looking very serious, I attempted to lighten the mood a bit. “I thought you already showed me that,” I replied, flashing him a grin, but he didn’t smile, only took my hand and led me out of the bedroom.

  We went downstairs. I let go of his hand, then bent down and retrieved my purse from the spot where I’d dropped it. Afterward, he wrapped his fingers around mine before leading me across the landing to the apartment he used as his studio. He paused there, saying, “Just promise you won’t freak out.”

  “Wow, Connor, real reassuring.”

  I thought maybe he’d grin at my response, but his expression remained somber as he pushed open the door. “I mean it.”

  And when I walked into the studio, I realized why he’d made that request.

  All around me was…me.

  That is, paintings of me. Large ones, all the way down to tiny pieces you could hold in the palm of your hand. Obviously all done from memory — a painting of me standing in the snow, ponderosa pines
dark and stately in the background. Sitting in the chair by his bedroom window, with the winter light streaming in and wakening reddish tones in my dark hair. The largest one, still on the easel, a stylized portrait of me with my hands outstretched, my face raised to the sky. It was a pose I’d used often during our seasonal observances back in Jerome, but of course Connor couldn’t have possibly seen me doing such a thing.

  In all of them he’d painted me as looking far more beautiful than I thought I was in real life. But then I realized he’d been painting me as he saw me, and not as the world did.

  It was overwhelming. I had no idea what to say. I only stood there, staring, for the longest moment. Finally I managed, “And here I thought you only did landscapes.”

  Then we did burst out laughing, more to break the tension than anything else. Connor sobered abruptly, however, and said, “I couldn’t get you out of my mind. Every time I closed my eyes, you were there. Every time I turned around, I thought I could hear the sound of your voice. It was as if you’d become a ghost, too, and were haunting me. But if I could paint you, think of your face that way, it helped. A little.”

  “They’re — ” I broke off, not sure of how to put it. If I said they were beautiful, was I praising his art, or my own features? It just felt…strange. “They’re incredible.”

  “So you’re not freaking out?”

  Was I? No, not really. Everyone handles pain in their own way, and if painting me over and over again helped Connor come out on the other side of his grief, who was I to say that was wrong? “No, Connor, I’m not freaking out. I won’t say it’s not overwhelming, but it’s not freak-out worthy.” I smiled up at him. “I mean, I’ve got people coming next week to knock out the walls in my kitchen. I needed something to focus on, and I figured remodeling the kitchen was as good a distraction as any.”

  He tilted his head to one side, seeming to consider me. “We really are a pair, aren’t we?”

  “Yes, we are,” I told him. “Now buy me some lunch before I pass out. As I told Marie, I’m eating for two.”

  “Angela McAllister, I would love to buy you lunch.”

  * * *

  We ended up at the Lumberyard Brewery, partly because it was walkable, and partly because by then I really was starving, craving something heftier than tapas or a sandwich.

  “You sure you’re okay with eating at a brewery?” Connor asked after the waitress had handed us our menus and left to fetch us some water. “I mean — ”

  “It’s okay,” I cut in. “I was never much of a lunch drinker anyway. As for the rest….” I shrugged. Thank the Goddess that I really hadn’t drunk excessively after I got back to Jerome, except for that first night. Part of me had wanted to, had wanted to down bottle after bottle in an attempt to erase Connor from my mind. That wouldn’t have solved anything, though, and I’d told myself I wasn’t going to let him affect me that way. Even so, I’d had more than I should. I could only hope a glass here and there hadn’t hurt the baby, but there wasn’t much I could do about it now. “I’m not such a lush that I can’t give it up for a while. What worries me is that I think I heard somewhere that you’re not supposed to eat chocolate when you’re pregnant. Now, that would be a hardship.”

  Connor grinned and shook his head. The waitress came by then with our waters and asked if we wanted anything else, but we both demurred. I had a feeling Connor could have used a beer at that point, even though it seemed he was planning to abstain right along with me. We both ordered burgers, and I asked for a side of mac and cheese in addition to my cheeseburger. After the waitress left, he remarked,

  “You weren’t kidding about eating for two.”

  “Nope,” I replied, swirling the straw around in my glass, watching as the lemon slice bobbed up and down between a couple of ice cubes.

  “Have you seen a doctor?”

  I looked up from my water to see Connor gazing at me intently. It seemed pretty clear that he wanted a lot more detail than what I’d already provided. Fair enough. “Yes. I went to Planned Parenthood, because at that point I really didn’t want to see my own doctor. I’m around ten weeks, and they want to have me come in for an ultrasound if I’m not going to get my own doctor in Cottonwood. But otherwise they said everything looks fine and I’m totally healthy, and it’s really not a big deal.”

  “It is a big deal,” he said, his tone quiet. “And we both know that.”

  He was right, of course. To the doctor at Planned Parenthood, mine was just another in a long line of pregnancies she’d encountered, and since I was young and healthy and everything looked normal, she couldn’t possibly understand what this baby meant in terms of my personal survival.

  “You should come with me to see our healer,” he continued. “I mean, if you’re not going to your own doctor.”

  That suggestion gave me pause. True, that was the way we witches usually dealt with such matters; a healer’s gifts were often far more reliable than modern medicine. And I’d met the Wilcox healer when the Damon-wolf had bitten my leg. She seemed pleasant enough, an attractive woman in her late forties or early fifties. What was her name? Eleanor?

  Even so, I hesitated. Going to see the Wilcox healer seemed so…final. As if I were choosing sides. And we’d had enough of that.

  “I don’t know, Connor,” I said at last. “I think I’d rather just go to a doctor. I mean, I don’t even know where — ” Breaking off, I hesitated. I’d been about to say, I don’t even know where we’re going to end up. It seemed that Connor and I had reconciled, and that was wonderful, but there were still some logistical issues we needed to work out. After all, my clan needed me, and his needed him. Settling down permanently in either location was going to leave one family or another out in the cold.

  He seemed to understand, and nodded. “It’s something we’ll have to figure out eventually, I know. So do you want to see a doctor near Jerome, or would you be open to choosing one here in Flag?”

  It would actually make more sense to find someone in Flagstaff, just because it was a much bigger city and had some very good medical facilities. “Do you know anyone?”

  “I can get some recommendations. Eleanor has a lot of experience, but I know a couple of my cousins went ahead and got their own ob-gyns. I’ll get the information from them.”

  That sounded good, and refreshingly normal. That was probably what most expecting couples did — ask their friends and family who was best equipped to take on such an enormous responsibility.

  The waitress came by with our food then, and conversation ceased for a few minutes as we made some serious inroads on the plates piled with food in front of us. After I’d demolished about half my burger, though, I stopped and said, “But I guess all that is moot if we don’t figure out what Marie was talking about.”

  “Well, you need to see a doctor no matter what — ” He stopped himself there, but I knew what he’d been about to say. Curse or no curse, we needed to make sure everything was all right with the baby, although I had a feeling it was fine. In general, it wasn’t until after the Wilcox heirs made their appearance in the world that their mothers needed to start worrying.

  “I know,” I said. “And I will. But if she wants us to go back to the beginning….” I stopped, picking up a french fry and dipping it in some ketchup. After taking a bite, I chewed thoughtfully for a minute. She’d said there were things I needed to find out for myself, things she couldn’t tell me. That made me think she must be referring to my own beginnings, which were mostly shrouded in mystery. I knew I’d been born in California and that my mother had brought me back to Jerome when I was barely two months old, but I knew nothing beyond that. I’d never even seen my birth certificate; Aunt Rachel had taken care of the paperwork when I got my driver’s license.

  “What is it?” Connor asked, setting down the last bit of his burger. “You look like your brain’s going a mile a minute.”

  “The beginning,” I said slowly. “My beginning. There has to be something…something impor
tant. Maybe it’s something I need to figure out in order to break the curse.”

  His eyes begin to gleam. “That makes sense. You really don’t know all that much, do you?”

  “Hardly anything. I tried asking a few questions when I was younger, but my aunt said she really didn’t have that much to tell me, that my mother had barely said a word about what she’d been doing in California.” Talking about it now, I realized how strange that was, how little Aunt Rachel had claimed to know.

  “So what’s the plan?”

  “Finish lunch,” I replied, pulling the dish of mac and cheese toward me now that I’d thoroughly killed my burger and fries. “Then I think we need to go back to Jerome.”

  * * *

  We took my car, and Connor packed his beat-up old Northern Pines athletic bag with some toiletries and a couple changes of clothing, just in case. As I drove us back to the highway, he called Lucas and let him know where he was going. I could tell Lucas was more than pleased about the reconciliation, but Connor ended the call before his cousin could wax too effusive.

  “I think he’s ready to start planning the wedding now,” Connor remarked, slipping his iPhone back into his pocket.

  “He’d probably have to arm-wrestle Sydney for the privilege.”

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Connor’s mouth turn up in a grin, but then it faded. “I want that, too,” he said quietly. “I want to make this official.”

  Something in my chest seemed to turn over. Maybe it was just that everything seemed to be happening so fast. Then again, Connor and I were meant to be together. We’d hit a bump in the road — a little parting gift from Damon, I supposed — but we were back on track now. Marriage was just the next step, a practically foregone conclusion.

  “I do, too,” I told him. “But I think we need to focus on — on making sure that we’ll have a real future. You and me and the baby. The wedding can come later.”