I could tell by his expression that Connor wasn’t buying it but didn’t want to get into an argument with me. “I suppose it couldn’t hurt. Just — just don’t get your hopes up, okay?”
Too late for that. True, there were many other places he could have gone, but it seemed logical to start with the closest and easiest first. Well, relatively close, anyway. It was still a good five hours or more to Phoenix, depending on the traffic.
“I won’t,” I told him. “But we’d better get back to the hotel and get packed up. I don’t know when rush hour starts around here, but the sooner we’re on the road, the better chance we have of avoiding it.”
“And that’s it?” he asked. “We haven’t even been here twenty-four hours. Isn’t there anything else you want to do, anyone else you might want to see?”
“No,” I said firmly, staring across the beach to Linda Sanderson’s house. “I’ve found out everything I needed to know.”
7
Rocky Road
Lucas had made our reservation for three nights, so the clerk at the front desk looked a little puzzled when we appeared and said we wanted to check out. “Is there anything wrong with the accommodations?” she inquired, a worried little frown pulling at her expertly plucked brows.
“No, not at all,” I said at once. “The room was perfect. I hope we can come back someday. But we just had some urgent family business come up, so — ”
“Oh,” she replied, expression clearing. “Of course. Let me take care of this. We can only refund one night because we need twenty-four-hour notice, but — ”
Oops. I hadn’t thought of that. I certainly didn’t want Lucas (or his friend with the timeshare…I wasn’t exactly sure who had financed the room) losing out on hundreds of dollars, and I bit my lip, not sure what I should do.
Luckily, Connor cut in then, saying smoothly, “That’s not a problem. We’re sorry about the inconvenience.”
“Oh, it’s no inconvenience, sir,” she said, with a quick bat of her eyelashes. Despite her professional appearance, I could tell she was a little smitten with Connor.
Then again, who wouldn’t be?
She typed away on her computer, then said, “You’re all set. Just let me get a copy of your paperwork.” Moving away from us, she went to a printer a few feet away, picked up a few sheets of paper, and handed them over to Connor. “Thank you for staying with us, and I hope you can make it back here in the near future.”
I somehow doubted that was going to happen, but I didn’t reply, only gave her a smile and a nod as Connor folded the papers and then shoved them into the Northern Pines bag he was carrying. He thanked her, and then we were headed out the door, going to where we’d left the Cherokee waiting under the porte cochère.
And a few minutes after that we were winding our way out of Newport, heading back to the freeway. I glanced at the clock. One o’clock. Normally that would be lunchtime, but we’d eaten breakfast so late that I wasn’t really hungry yet. Anyway, I could feel the urgency building in me, the need to get out of here as early as possible before traffic created an impenetrable wall that would only delay our arrival in Phoenix.
Connor must have noticed my nervous survey of the time, because he reached out with his right hand and brushed a stray strand of hair off my cheek. “It’s okay. We’ll get out of Orange County and head east on the 10, and then maybe we can stop for a late lunch in Palm Springs or Indio or something. We’ll be fine.”
His words did reassure me somewhat…or maybe it was just the thrill I felt from that brief brush of his fingers against my skin, a touch that seemed to right the world again. Whichever it might be, I could feel my heartbeat calm somewhat as we drove north and east, especially since we didn’t encounter much in the way of traffic jams. We slowed here and there, and there were far more cars around us than I’d seen even in Phoenix, but everything more or less flowed until we were away from most of the SoCal crush, passing through towns like Redlands and Banning and Beaumont, cresting a hill and then dropping down into the low desert, into a landscape that grew sere with almost shocking suddenness.
“Which do you want, Indio or Palm Springs?” Connor asked as we passed a sprawling outlet mall. “Palm Springs is nicer, but it’s off the main highway, so we’ll lose a little more time.”
“Indio,” I said automatically. My stomach was telling me I needed to eat, that the lovely frittata I’d had for breakfast was long gone, but I didn’t want to waste any time. I was fine with grabbing a burger somewhere and then getting back on the road.
“Indio it is. It’s still about fifteen miles up the road. Can you check your Yelp app and find someplace that looks like it might be halfway decent?”
Here I still had a decent signal, unlike parts of the desert we’d driven through on the outward journey. I pulled up the app, scrolled through a few choices, and asked, “What do you want? Mexican? Burgers? Doesn’t look like there’s much else.”
“Either one. Maybe Mexican. Flagstaff’s Mexican food is kind of meh. I probably got spoiled living all those years down in Tempe.”
I nodded, chose a restaurant based on the reviews, and then told Connor which exit we should use to get off the interstate. Even though I’d tried to streamline things, we still had to drive a couple of miles to get to our destination, as it seemed as if most of the businesses in town were clustered away from the freeway.
Since we were coming in at the tail end of traditional lunch, at almost two o’clock, the place was busy, but not so much that we had to wait long for a table. In just a few minutes we were seated and had been served what tasted like freshly made chips and salsa, which I attacked as if it had been a day since I’d last eaten rather than four hours.
Connor must have gotten used to my pregnancy appetite, because he just gave a small shake of his head before he pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I thought it might be a good idea to call Maya, let her know we were dropping in.”
“You have her number?” I asked, after taking a swallow of water to wash down the chips.
“Lucas gave it to me.”
“Lucas?”
My tone must have been disbelieving, because Connor smiled a little and replied, “Well, I guess they do have their ways of keeping in touch in case of emergency or something. I know my brother had it, since he was the one who patched the call through to Maya when I was trying to transfer to ASU.” At the mention of his brother, Connor’s smile disappeared as quickly as it had come. We’d deliberately danced around the issue, had hardly mentioned Damon to one another. I didn’t know if that was the best way to handle it, but I also didn’t want to reopen any barely healed wounds. Better to allow Connor to decide what he wanted to say…or not say. “Anyway, when I told Lucas what our plans were, he gave me Maya’s number, said it was a good idea to have it with me, since we were going to be traveling through her territory.”
“I guess that makes sense,” I said, my tone neutral.
He had to wait to make the call, though, because then the waiter came by to ask what we wanted. I’d barely glanced at the menu, but made a quick choice and ordered a chimichanga, while Connor got fajitas. That should be enough to hold us on the drive across the desert. After the waiter left, Connor picked up his phone again, scrolled through his contacts, and selected Maya’s number. After waiting a few seconds, he said, “Maya? Hi, it’s Connor — fine, we’re fine…. No, we’re already on our way back home. But we’re going to be in Phoenix in about four hours or so, depending on how long lunch takes, and Angela would really like to stop by and talk to you, if that’s okay…. Sure, we’ll call again when we get into town…hang on, let me write down the address.” He made a frantic writing gesture with his free hand, and I scrabbled in my purse for a pen. Luckily, I actually had one, and I gave it to him, then watched him write down an address on his napkin. “Okay, thanks, Maya.” He ended the call and shoved the phone back in his pocket, then said, “We’re set. She’s actually in Scottsdale, not Phoenix proper.”
“Well, that makes sense,” I said. “I mean, the prima of the de la Pazes should live in the high-rent district.”
I’d meant it halfway as a joke, but Connor appeared to take my words seriously, asking, “And what about the prima of the McAllisters?”
“Well, Paradise Lane is the high-rent district in Jerome,” I pointed out.
“That’s not what I meant,” he said. “Lucas is already pressuring me to look for a different place. He says I’m the head of the family now and shouldn’t be living in a loft apartment above a storefront.”
“I like your apartment.” How could I not like it? It was where we’d fallen in love, where we’d made love for the first time. Even more than that, it felt like Connor. I really couldn’t imagine him anywhere else…although of course I’d had daydreams where he’d come to share the big Victorian in Jerome with me. But that was before Damon died, before the unwanted primus powers had passed to Connor. There was no way he could relocate permanently to the house on Cleopatra Hill.
“I like it, too.” He lifted his eyes to meet mine, and once again I was struck by the layered shades of green in those depths, sage and moss and dark, dark emerald, all fringed in black lashes so thick they almost didn’t seem real. “But Angela…it’s no place to raise a child.”
Almost unconsciously my hand went to my belly, to the secret hidden there. I still hadn’t begun to show at all, so sometimes I felt like I could almost pretend I wasn’t even pregnant. But of course I was…and that child was the reason we’d come to California in the first place. “So you’re going to move?”
“Eventually. To get Lucas off my back, I told him he could start looking around for me. He was thrilled, of course. The only thing he likes better than spending his own money is spending someone else’s.”
I laughed at that, albeit a little stiffly. “And so…how is this going to work? I want to be with you, but….”
“I know. I feel the same way. I like that big creaky Victorian of yours…well, except for that bathtub…but there’s no way the Wilcoxes would ever let their primus live in McAllister territory.”
“And of course the McAllisters feel the same way about Wilcox territory.” I sighed and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “Too bad we can’t just elope and, I don’t know, go live in Wyoming or something. I’ve heard it’s really beautiful.”
“What, you didn’t like the beach?”
Wrinkling my nose, I shook my head. “Not really. That is, I liked the beach itself just fine, but I couldn’t handle having that many people around me all the time. I’m too used to wide-open spaces.”
“I can’t really argue with that.”
And so we shared some idle chitchat about Southern California and the hotel, leaving behind the subject of our future residence. After all, it was all going to be pretty academic if we couldn’t figure out a way to break the curse. And what would happen if I was gone, and left the baby behind? A morbid thought, but one I had to make myself think about, considering the track record of all those former Wilcox wives. I supposed if it was a boy he would go to live with the Wilcoxes and be the next primus after Connor, and if the baby was a girl, she’d go to the McAllisters. All very neat and sensible. I had a feeling the reality would end up being a little messier than that, as I doubted Connor would ever willingly hand over a child of his to my relatives to raise, thus abdicating any responsibility.
“Chimichanga,” the waiter said, startling me out of my reverie as he set my meal in front of me. “Very hot plate, miss.”
I nodded, forcing my dark thoughts away, and watched as he set down a sizzling plate of fajitas next to Connor, along with one of those little plastic warmers for the tortillas. After the waiter asked if we needed anything else and we both murmured that we were fine, Connor sent an inquiring glance in my direction.
“You didn’t look like you were thinking very happy thoughts.”
“I wasn’t,” I admitted. Not that I really wanted to tell him what had been on my mind, but I’d admonished him earlier that there could be no secrets, no lies between us, and I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t follow my own rules. “I was just thinking about what would happen to the baby after — I mean, if we can’t — ”
“Don’t say it,” he cut in. “We will figure out a way to make this work. We will.”
He looked so determined that I could only nod and say, “You’re right, of course. Well, let’s eat so we can get back on the road.”
And that’s what we did, plowing into our food and concentrating on the here and now, and not what might be in the future. That chimichanga restored my faith in humanity, and Connor seemed to be having a similar reaction to his fajitas, so I was glad I chose this place, even if it was a little off the beaten track. After we were done, the waiter asked if we wanted anything else, but we both just shook our heads. Even I couldn’t have fit anything else in my stomach, not even some homemade flan.
“Just the check,” Connor said, and shortly thereafter we settled up and made our way back outside.
The restaurant was located in a small strip mall with inadequate parking, so we’d had to leave the Cherokee around the corner on the street. I wasn’t that thrilled about the area, but the car had a security system and of course was insured up to the hilt, so I’d told myself not to worry about it. As we approached the SUV, it looked fine — no windows broken in or anything like that. My feeling of relief quickly began to fade, however, when I saw a group of five young men begin to approach us from down an alley across the street.
“Connor,” I murmured.
“I know,” he said, his jaw tense. “Just keep walking.”
But it wasn’t just any gang of toughs out to carjack what they thought was an easy mark. As they got closer, I could feel the power coming from them, the same pulsing energy all witches and warlocks shared. My eyes widened, even as Connor sent a quick worried look down at me. Clearly, he’d sensed it, too.
The young men paused about ten feet away from us, blocking access to the car. The leader, a young Hispanic man who looked like he was around Connor’s age, flashed us a sardonic grin. “So, what are you doing here, witches?”
“Just passing through,” Connor said calmly. “We don’t want any trouble.”
“Ah, well, I guess it’s not a question of whether you want it, ese.” The four other warlocks came up to flank their leader. They were all in their twenties, muscled builds shown off by tight-fitting T-shirts or wife-beaters. I wouldn’t have wanted to come up against them even if they didn’t also happen to have magical powers.
“Really, we’re just heading back to Arizona — ” I began, and the leader let his dark gaze rake up and down my body before he laughed and said,
“Don’t worry, chica, we’ll have some fun with you after we take care of pretty-boy here. As for Arizona” — he spat on the ground — “we got no use for that shitty state, or the pinche puta who thinks she runs things over there. Deciding who can come in and who has to stay in this rathole!”
I realized then that these must be some of those rogue warlocks Connor had told me about on the drive here to California, the ones who had been turned away from relocating in the Phoenix area. Obviously they had no love lost for Maya de la Paz. And although there had been a few other cars parked here when we got out to head into the restaurant, they all seemed to have disappeared. There was no one around to intervene.
Then again, Connor and I weren’t exactly helpless. After all, we’d defeated a skin-walker.
“I really think you’d better step aside,” I said, making sure my voice sounded cool, confident. “I don’t think you know who you’re dealing with here.” Even as I spoke, I could feel the prima energy beginning to uncoil in me, warmth without heat, the power flowing through every limb.
And somehow Connor seemed able to sense it, too. He reached out to take my hand, and it was as if a spark ignited between us, one that had nothing to do with passion and everything to do with power. Never before had a prima and a pr
imus been able to work together in harmony, and I wasn’t sure what that meant.
I had a feeling we were all about to find out, though.
The lead warlock laughed. “Yeah? And who are you, puta?”
“No one you want to fuck with,” Connor said. His fingers tightened on mine, and the power flared in me, searing without burning, coiled, ready…eager.
“Fuck that shit,” the warlock said, raising his own hand.
Of course I had no idea what his power might be, and I wasn’t going to wait to find out. An unspoken signal passed between us, and Connor and I lifted our hands, fingers still intertwined. The energy crackled all through my body, surging through my arm, moving away from me.
A wall of white light seemed to blast outward from where Connor and I stood. It hit the group of young men, crashing into them like a tidal wave into a pier. They were all knocked backward a good five yards or more, and went sprawling on the sidewalk, their bodies limp and unmoving.
Heart pounding, I looked up at Connor. “Are they…?”
“I don’t know,” he said with grim indifference. “And I don’t much care. Let’s get to the car before anyone comes to find out.”
I decided I didn’t really want to argue. After all, they were the ones who’d initiated the confrontation. We hurried to the Cherokee, which appeared completely unaffected by that magical shockwave, and climbed in, Connor gunning the engine and peeling away from the curb before I even had a chance to fasten my seatbelt.
It wasn’t until we were moving up the main street that would take us back to the interstate that I turned to him.
“What,” I asked, “the hell was that?”
He could only lift his shoulders in reply.
* * *
We pulled into Scottsdale a little after six. The place was still baking — the thermometer on the dashboard indicated it was a hundred and three degrees outside — and I stared moodily out the window as we wound our way along wide streets planted with cactus in the dividers. Palm trees loomed overhead. Everything was extremely manicured, very neat. Not the sort of place you’d expect to find the head of the local witch clan, but then again, I was coming to realize that perhaps the bohemian McAllisters weren’t the norm in the witching world.
Darkmoon (The Witches of Cleopatra Hill Book 3) Page 10
