“Aren't you two forgetting something? Or rather, someone?” Peeking furtively at the scene with Kaylee and Jordan still open inside, Esmerelda sidled casually around the scrying dish, hiding it with her body while she did her best to continue to speak casually, pointing out the one glaringly obvious fact both her sisters were missing. “If you'll think about it for a minute, you will remember there's another woman in NYC who will be heading to the Met tonight.”
Blast it! Her words were too hasty, her tone too high, and she sounded like a twittering magpie!
Biting her tongue, Esmerelda fell silent, holding her breath while she waited, hoping her sisters would make the connection she wanted them to make both quickly and without recalling the scene still revealing the couple in Hawthorne Grove whom they had scryed.
“Stacy!” The name exploded into the room as both her sisters reached the desired conclusion simultaneously. Mortianna's eyes narrowed and she turned a pleading glance in Serephina's direction. “Feeny? How about a little glamour spell? Turn her into a cat, or something? Just for tonight. Please?”
Caught in the act of pulling over the mauve and gold upholstered hassock, Serephina propped her feet on the woven material, crossed her legs at the ankles, and shook her head no—just as Esmerelda had known she would. “We can't. That's breaking the rules.”
According to Serephina, everything was breaking the rules. Esmerelda barely restrained herself from rolling her eyes. When it came to people falling in love, there was nothing they could do—nothing magical anyway.
After several long minutes of thoughtful silence, Esmerelda could swear she actually physically felt the touch of their gazes when both her sister's eyes slid hopefully in her direction. Stop it, Ezzi. You're being overly sensitive because of you-know-what. Forcing herself to breathe normally, she calmly returned their stares.
Mortianna was the one who finally spoke up, daring to ask, “Merry? Any ideas?”
Esmerelda bit her lip. She had a few, but none she felt like sharing—mostly because they had nothing to do with Jordan and Kaylee and the inevitable run-in they would have had with Stacy Blaut later this evening. Feigning disappointment, she shook her head no.
Then, when she was certain the moment was right, she lifted her head and held up a hand to signal for a silent moment of pause while she gathered her thoughts. “Wait. Hold on...”
She cocked her head to the side, then almost nearly ruined the moment by giggling when both her sisters actually nodded, granting permission for her unspoken request to be given a second to compose her thoughts.
For once, Mortianna and Serephina were the ones who waited with bated breath while Esmerelda closed her eyes and pretended to think. It wasn't really evil of her—was it?—to keep them in suspense for a moment or two longer than was really necessary before she opened her eyes again and asked, “Why don't we join them?”
Serephina angled her head a bit, her expression still and studious while she pondered the suggestion. Mortianna, who had been sitting as straight and tense as a fence post a moment before, fell back into her chair, her expression positively rapturous. Her pleasure daze was fleeting, however. Her eyes flew open and she sat up, her fingers clutching at the edge of the wooden table Serephina often used for a desk.
“Us go to New York? Yes! It's brilliant, Merry! Oh, the shopping and the—the shopping!” She practically bounded out of her chair. “I have to pack. I don't even know what to pack! Can you believe it? I can't even remember the last time I—”
Catching a glance of her older sibling out of the corner of her eye, her words broke off suddenly. If anyone would need to be convinced, Mortianna knew exactly who it would be. She turned to look at her sister. “Feeny?”
“Serephina, think about it, really. What would it hurt?” Esmerelda added, quickly pointing out, “If we were there, we could keep a closer eye on things, create a distraction if necessary. A mortal, non-rule breaking one.”
“Yes, I'm even willing to promise no magic,” Mortianna agreed, still practically bouncing on her toes with excitement. When Serephina turned her doubtful gaze on her but declined to comment, Mortianna didn't actually squirm, but she did try a different tact. “You have to admit the last thing we need at this point is for Kaylee and Jordan to run into Miss Blaut.”
Esmerelda nodded, adding her own thoughts to Mortianna's. “Kaylee's finally comfortable with him. I believe she's coming around, but—can you even imagine how much a run in with Jordan's ex-girlfriend would set us back?”
“Weeks. Maybe even months, Serephina,” her sister answered.
Grateful beyond explanation for Mortianna's quick thinking, relief once again rushed over Esmerelda in waves. “With our current schedule being what it is, I don't think we could handle a set-back like that. Not now.”
Especially not now.
There were simply too many things in the works, too many heart strings being tugged and twined and weaved and twisted to let this particular strand become unraveled. Although she was fairly certain Serephina was already on the verge of agreeing, Esmerelda couldn't resist giving an extra nudge, one she knew was guaranteed to win her over. “The CHG would be on us in a flash.”
“Oh, that's the last thing we need,” Serephina blurted, covering her face with her hands while Mortianna reacted by clapping her hands and jumping up and down in a child-like display of exuberance.
“We're going to New York!” Morty squealed while doing a little eyes-closed kind of happy dance in her seat.
Biting at the inside of her cheek to keep from grinning like a novice with her first willow branch over her success, Esmerelda sprang into action. “I'll put this stuff away and you two can start packing.”
Mortianna was two thirds of the way up the winding, spiral stairs with Serephina only a few steps behind her when Serephina paused, turning back to Esmerelda. “Oh, wait. We can't—the quilt, remember? The female half of our next assignment will be here before noon tomorrow. We can't leave without—”
Looking down at her sister with a slight scowl marring her brow, Mortianna dropped back against the wall and grumped, “Why can't we use the replication spell? There's never been a bigger need for us to be in two places at once!”
At the foot of the stairs, Esmerelda froze. Her shoulders drooping with disappointment. “I forgot about the quilt.”
How was she to get around this one? Counting to three, she forced herself to focus on the problem at hand and think. It didn't help, so she continued. She'd barely reached the count of nine when her head popped up again. “Mortianna can stay.”
“Me?” her sister whined. “Why does it have to be me?”
Stamping her feet on the stairs, Mortianna said, “No, no, no! Feeny can stay. She doesn't even like the opera!”
“True,” Serephina agreed. “But I happen to love making sure our charges don't get derailed, that we don't receive unwanted visits from the CHG, and the idea of staying here while leaving things in the Big Apple in your hands almost terrifies me.”
“I suppose I could stay,” Esmerelda offered before their back-and-forth argument could gather steam. “That way you could go with Mortianna, to make sure she doesn't get her witchy fingers into anything unsavory, and I can meet our newest assignee.”
“Oh, but you'll miss everything, Merry, and it's been so long!” Mortianna protested.
Esmerelda shrugged. “I don't see any other way, Morty. Either I stay, or we all stay, and in the case of the latter, we would be doing so knowing we run the risk of … ”
“Botching one assignment to fulfill another.” This came from Serephina, who turned to her with an expression of uncertainty and concern. “Are you sure you don't mind staying behind, Merry?”
“Of course I mind, but there's really nothing else we can do.” She shrugged for added effect, and then waved away Serephina's concern with a smile. “I'll be fine. There's always going to be a New York and there will be another day, another chance for me to see the sights. Now is your turn. You
rs and Mortianna's.”
With a flick of her wrists and a few waves of her hands, she urged her sisters up the stairs to their rooms. “Go. Enjoy it. Have fun—lots of it! When you get back here, you can tell me all about it and I'm sure I'll feel as if I had gone with you myself.”
Back at the private landing strip, Jordan wavered in indecision. Although Kaylee had agreed to the trip, he could sense her reluctance, and the anxiety she felt over her decision to go with him was clear in her eyes. He had been looking forward to this for days now, but biting back a sigh, he almost called the whole thing off.
The past few weeks he'd spent with Kaylee had been some of the most enjoyable of his life. They had become friends and maybe a little more, and it was the little more was what worried him when he saw the uncertainty in her eyes. He didn't want to ruin this fragile new thing he could sense growing between them by forcing her to deal with issues she obviously wasn't ready to face.
Not that he had anything illicit planned. He only wanted to take her to see the opera. But looking at her now, he was having second thoughts. “Are you sure? I wouldn't want you to feel—”
A vibration interrupted, signaling an incoming call on his cell, and he sighed. “One second.”
Palming his phone, he glanced at the screen and frowned. Sammy? His thoughts immediately went to Sarge, and he answered the call. “Sam? Hi. Everything okay?”
“You aren't on the plane yet, are you?” Sam asked, and Jordan tensed, unreasonably expecting the worst.
“No, not yet. I'd barely managed to convince Kaylee to come along with me before you called and we were just about to head out. What's up?”
“Well, I hate to say it but it's less a what and more a who, but as long as you're still on the ground, I think it's safe to say you might want to delay your flight so you can take care of this one personally, man. You've got company.”
Company?
Some days Sam's penchant for being vague was irritating and today just happened to be one of those days. “Sammy, you're being about as clear as mud again. Explain, please and—keep it brief? I've got a plane to catch, remember?”
“Uh, yeah. Okay. Two words. Stacy Blaut. On your doorstep. With bags. Oh, wait, that was seven, but I'm guessing the first two would have been enough. Am I right?”
“Stacy? What would—why?”
Jordan closed his eyes. With Stacy, there didn't have to be a reason. There were so many things she did simply because she believed she could. He wouldn't put it past her having decided an extended stay in the country was just what she needed, and so she'd driven down to his place for the duration. It would never have occurred to her that he might be unavailable to put her up for it, or rather, she would pretend it hadn't, and he didn't want to cause an uproar so soon after coming to Hawthorne Grove by calling the cops to have them escort her off the property.
Resigned now to canceling the flight and annoyed because he would rather have done so for almost any other reason, he sighed into the phone. “I'll be there. Give me half an hour.”
Ending the call, he turned back to Kaylee. “Will you be disappointed if I ask for a rain check?”
Kaylee shook her head yes, but said, “Not at all.”
He wasn't surprised, but neither was he particularly eager to answer the questions he could see burning in her gaze. Rather than put her off, he simply didn't give her time to ask them. “I have to speak with Hank, let him know we won't be flying out today after all, but it'll only take a minute. Wait for me in the truck?”
“Sure.”
He handed her the keys. “It's probably still warm inside, but take these, just in case. I'll explain on the way home.”
Chapter 12
Home.
There was that word again—a peculiarly deceptive word that meant different things to different people, Kaylee thought as Jordan walked away. Its definition could change depending upon where one was in the overall course of their lives and one's experiences seemed to play a fine hand in the shaping of their individual sense of meaning for the word.
At the moment, Kaylee's current understanding of it was giving her very mixed feels because, for her, home was more than simply the roof under which one lived. At this particular time in her life, where she lived was the small, one bedroom apartment in town that served as her sanctuary—a place to rest, from work and from her daily interactions with the outside world.
She'd been so proud of herself when she'd moved in.
The apartment served as a symbol of her success and independence—but it wasn't home.
Jo teasingly referred to it as the Hideout occasionally—a place of quiet solitude to which Kaylee retreated—sometimes for days—when the pain of her past would rise up to haunt her in the present. But Jo never let her remain shut up inside for too long. Deans didn't hide, Jo would gently remind her, and Kaylee would feel immediately obligated to prove her right because, as her older, smarter, and wiser sister, Jo Dean Leavy was never wrong.
Mindy called it the Halfway House because it was the one place she knew she could crash when school, her friends, her parents, and her sometimes hectic social schedule made her feel half crazy and she needed a break from it all.
Marc called it the Lecture Hall because every time he stopped by, the two of them fell into lengthy philosophical and oftentimes highly intellectual debates about life in general, and occasionally, to Kaylee's profound annoyance, her life in particular. Or more specifically, all the things missing from it.
A wry smile pulled at her lips. Marc believed all the good things in life revolved around having someone to share it with. There had been a time when Kaylee would have wholeheartedly agreed, but now she tended to be more careful with whom she shared bits of herself.
Until Jordan...
Out of nowhere, he'd dropped into her life. From their very first meeting, he'd made an indelible impression on her. By their third, she had already become accustomed to his presence in her thoughts, and every happy, fun-filled, pleasurable moment she had spent in his company since had only strengthened her acceptance of him in her world.
But to go home with Jordan …
Suddenly, the word took on a whole new world of meaning. In this case, home was different somehow. Home meant more—a lot more—than just the place where he lived, and Kaylee was finding the word surprisingly difficult to define. She simply knew her apartment wasn't it.
Somewhere in the hangar, a door slammed shut with a loud bang, startling her out of her musings. She blinked and then shivered. Casting a quick glance through the wide window at an overly bright sky that hinted of coming snow, she pulled her coat closer and headed for the exit, her thoughts preoccupied once more with the idea of going home with Jordan.
Clutching his keys tightly against her palm as she pushed through the double doors back into the chilly air outside, she tried to ignore the crazy cozy feelings suddenly warming her insides that she got from thinking about it.
Despite having spent the better part of the past few weeks at his side, she had yet to invite him back to her apartment, or to venture out with him to see where he lived. Not that he'd asked, but thinking about it shouldn't have felt any different than when she'd agreed to fly off to wherever with him in his private jet. And yet, it did. Vastly so.
A trip meant impersonal hotels with completely separate rooms, but home …
A thrill of anticipation and excitement zinged through her, tempered only by the stinging prickle of warning at the back of her mind that suggested riding out to Jordan's place—no matter how innocent such a visit might seem on the surface—could become insidious in a heartbeat.
Going home with him would make everything more intimate. More personal. It would change things between them. It would change her, irrevocably so, and she wasn't sure she was willing to take the risk.
Her earlier conversation with Jo came to mind, forcing her to think, to examine her thoughts and re-examine her feelings where Jordan was concerned. She needed to step back and take
a look at everything that had happened since the day she'd met him outside Seville's Antiques and Collectibles and to decide—here and now—what was really happening between them.
Sure, they were more comfortable and relaxed with each other now. Spending several hours of every day in the company of anyone who was as easy to be with as Jordan was made it kind of impossible to remain aloof. She could not have done it if she had tried, but she hadn't tried because Jordan really hadn't given her the chance.
Without an ounce of charm, superficial or otherwise, he'd stumbled up against her life and with the light of challenge gleaming in the depths of his intriguing gray eyes. He'd coaxed her into allowing him inside. With confident sincerity, he'd promised to keep things light between them and then surprised her when she'd cracked with his gentle acceptance and understanding.
His curiosity and genuine interest in everything she could possibly show him was contagious. Who could have thought it possible to discover so much about the town where she'd lived her entire life in just the few short weeks she'd spent at his side?
Somehow, Jordan Parker made the mundane come alive, changing an everyday shopping spree into a fun-filled adventure into the unknown. His frequent spontaneity was exciting and his kisses provocative. In his arms she always felt warm and safe, and though the touch of his lips on hers often hinted at a smoldering, underlying passion that could be very satisfying to explore if only she would give it a try, so far he'd kept his word about no pressure and no strings.
There was no doubt about it—Kaylee had thoroughly enjoyed every moment she spent with him. But was it possible she'd enjoyed some of them more than she should?
It was easy to admit they were becoming friends, but … was there something else? Something more meaningful and infinitely more dangerous to her heart beginning to grow between the two of them?
Something Magical (Witches of Hawthorne Grove Book 1) Page 9
