witches of cleopatra hill 07 - impractical magic

by Christine Pope

  “Exactly,” Kate said then, even though he hadn’t spoken. But she was his sister, and she’d sat there and watched the shifting emotions on his face, and probably guessed what was going through his mind. “If she’s that special, then what are you doing sitting here and talking to me?”

  “Trying to get things figured out, I suppose.” He lifted his neglected bottle of beer and swallowed a mouthful.

  “What’s there to figure out? You really like her, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know.” He drank some more beer before setting the bottle back down on the table. “I mean, she is really pissed at me, Kate.”

  “Then you grovel.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Grovel. You’re a reporter — I assume you know what the word means.”

  He grimaced. “Not funny.”

  “I’m not joking. But seriously, Colin, if you’ve screwed up as epically as you say you have with Jenny McAllister, then you have to prove that you’re willing to do whatever it takes to get her back.” She stopped then and took a sip of her pinot noir before continuing, “Are you willing to do whatever it takes?”

  “Yes. I mean, I think I am.”

  “Well, that’s a half-assed answer.”

  Great. There his sister sat, looking all pleased with herself, as if this whole thing was so very simple. “You did catch the part about her family being a bunch of witches and warlocks, right?”

  “Yeah, and?”

  “So what if I go up there to grovel and they blast me right off the side of the mountain?”

  “Would they? You made it sound as if they’re mostly trying to fly under the radar.”

  Well, that was true. He doubted that having a reporter disappear was high on the list of things they wanted to happen in their town. Missing persons were bad for business and raised a lot of questions. Anyway, he knew he would be an utter coward if he didn’t go up there and do his best to make things right. Jenny might still tell him to go to hell, but that was her prerogative. But at least he’d get his groveling in first. Whatever that might entail.

  “Will I have to beg? Go down on my knees?”

  “I don’t know,” Kate admitted. “I’ve never actually had anyone grovel to me before. But it seemed to work with a couple of my friends who were on the verge of dumping their boyfriends.”

  It was probably mean to say it, but Colin couldn’t help himself. “What, Jeff doesn’t grovel?”

  She didn’t crack a smile. “I think you know the answer to that.”

  None of his business, but…damn it, she was his sister, and he could tell she wasn’t happy, either. She might pretend, might be perky and funny and off-hand, but underneath all that was the quiet, gnawing hurt of realizing you’d made an awful mistake and not knowing what the hell to do about it.

  He knew what that looked like because he’d been there himself.

  “So…what are you going to do about it?” he asked, then held his breath, wondering if she was going to tell him to go to hell, that it was none of his business.

  But she let out a strange little hiccupy sound, half laugh, half sob, and then quickly picked up her glass of wine and drank some, as if attempting to cover up what she’d just done. “I don’t know. We’ve been limping along for the past six months or so. I’ve tried to get him to go to counseling, but he doesn’t think we need it. I don’t know if he’s going to ever get it, even as I’m walking out the front door.”

  Colin winced. He had absolutely no use for his brother-in-law and would be all too happy to have him out of Kate’s life, but he hated to see his sister in pain. “Is it really that bad?”

  Her manicured fingers tapped on the stem of her wine glass, and she wouldn’t quite look at him, her gaze instead fixed on some point past the booth where they sat. “I think so. I’ve been trying to deny it, but….” Her words trailed off then, and she let out a very small sigh. “Mom is going to freak when she finds out. Both her kids divorced? She’s going to feel like a total failure.”

  “Our failures shouldn’t reflect on her,” Colin said. Then he shook his head. “No, I hate that word. We didn’t fail — we made a mistake. Sometimes mistakes can be fixed, sometimes they can’t. And you know Mom just wants you to be happy. So do I.”

  Kate didn’t reply at first. Her fingers still played with her wine glass, and he could see how she was staring down at the wedding set on her left hand, on the smallish diamond and plain gold band. Jeff wasn’t rich, but he probably could have afforded to get Kate something nicer than that. Colin recalled how she’d been so proud of her engagement ring, though, how happy that Jeff had proposed to her and that everything was working out the way she’d hoped.

  That feeling hadn’t lasted for very long.

  “I know,” Kate said at last. “And I know I have to do something about it. Only…not quite yet. I figure I’ll get through the holidays and see what the new year brings. Anyway, I turned in my thesis before the holiday break, so it looks like I’ll be graduating in the spring, and then I can go out and be a real adult, whatever that means.” She stopped there, and offered him another of those half-smiles. “Don’t look at me like that, Colin. I know what I have to do. Anyway, this shouldn’t be about me right now. It should be about what you’re going to do next.”

  “And what if I do manage to get it all worked out?” he asked. “What if I end up going to Jerome? What would you do then?”

  She flicked a piece of expertly streaked hair over one shoulder and shook her head slightly. “Contrary to what you might think, Colin, I am an adult. I can handle it, even if things go sideways. In the back of my mind, I’ve already been planning exit strategies. Anyway, Jerome isn’t exactly the dark side of the moon, or even the other side of the country. You wouldn’t be that far away if I really needed my big brother to come riding to my rescue.”

  And that was it, right there. He hadn’t exactly asked for permission, but maybe he had been asking for her blessing. But, just as he’d said about their parents, he knew that Kate just wanted him to be happy, to have someone in his life who was important to him. And, as she’d said, being in Jerome wasn’t like moving to New York or something. He’d be close if she needed him.

  When that thought passed through his mind, he realized he’d already made his decision. He liked his job, but he could find something to do in Jerome or Cottonwood or Sedona, if Jenny would take him back. He didn’t want any more hollow days of pretending that the work was enough. Those few hours he’d spent with her had been the happiest of his life. He wanted more of that.

  He wanted her.

  “Go on,” Kate said with a smile, a real one this time. “Don’t beat yourself up for trying to follow a dream. Tell her how you feel. We women are suckers for that kind of thing.”

  “Thanks, Kate,” he said simply, but she seemed to understand everything he didn’t say.

  “That’s what I’m here for. Anyway,” she added, “if you work things out with Jenny, Mom will be ecstatic that you have someone in your life again.”

  “Even if that someone takes me all the way to Jerome?”

  Kate leaned forward and laid her hand on his. Just for a moment, but he could feel the reassurance in her touch. Her smile didn’t waver. “Even then.”

  17

  It was far too late to drive to Jerome. The clock on his dashboard read nine-thirty when Colin got back to his car. Even if he’d left at that exact moment, Colin knew he wouldn’t have been able to make it to the mountain town before close to midnight, which was a little late to be knocking on someone’s door and pleading with them to take you back.

  So he’d sat there in the darkness for a long moment, then shook his head and pointed his car south, toward home. Kate was already on her way back to Peoria, since he’d stood and watched while she climbed into her CR-V and then pulled out of the parking lot. At least she’d be home within a half hour or so. Colin had never thought he’d be grateful for Jeff’s ritual Friday night poker games, since he knew Kate wa
s less than a fan, but at least the game had given her the chance to get out of the house and come see him.

  He wondered how Ned and Ryan would react if he turned in his notice on Monday morning and told them he was moving to Jerome.

  Getting a little ahead of yourself, aren’t you? he thought as he drove south on I-10, but he couldn’t help himself. If he didn’t allow himself to indulge in a little magical thinking, he didn’t know if he’d have the guts to do what he needed to do. And he supposed he’d have to decide what in the world to tell Eileen Kosky. The easiest thing to do would be to simply lie and say he’d discovered that Alex Trujillo had a permit to carry a Taser, but Colin knew he’d had enough of lying. Anyway, she’d already told him that she knew what a Taser looked like, so that wouldn’t have worked. Well, he figured he’d come up with something eventually. For now, he needed to focus on tomorrow.

  Which was a Saturday. Normally, that would be perfect, but Jenny had to work. Not into the evening, though; he knew she closed down the gallery at six on Fridays, and he assumed that Saturday hours were probably the same.

  Well, he would just have to check. He’d made a note of the gallery’s name when he was in Jerome, so it was easy enough to look up the place on the web. East of the Sun. The gallery had an elegant one-page website, with not a lot of detail. That was enough, though. The phone number, address, and hours were listed directly under the gallery’s logo, of a sun rising behind the name. And yes, it did close at six. He could leave in the afternoon and get there right as she was shutting things down.

  All he could do was hope she wouldn’t shut him down as well.

  * * *

  She’d had another flash that morning. Not a horrible one, since it had only lasted for a few seconds before she was able to do her breathing exercises and force it out of her head. Also, because she was alone, she wasn’t hit with the sort of brilliant imprint she’d gotten from Colin’s mind when he was lying beside her, but only a kaleidoscopic impression of thoughts from those in the buildings within a hundred-yard radius. Luckily, most of those thoughts had been occupied with plans for the day or figuring out what to have for breakfast. It could have been a lot worse.

  Still, she was worried by the episode, because she’d been doing her best to meditate each morning, do her yoga exercises on a mat in the middle of the living room. With December only a week away, the temperatures outside were far too cold for her to perform that ritual out on the porch as she preferred, but she’d forced herself to go through the motions even so, knowing that ignoring the only activities which helped to mitigate her brain flashes would only make matters worse.

  Problem was, she couldn’t seem to focus the way she wanted to, since Colin kept intruding into her thoughts — the quick flash of his smile, the warmth in his hazel eyes as he gazed at her from across a restaurant table. And the way she’d been able to rest her head on his chest and take in deep, calm breaths, as if her body knew what her mind didn’t want to accept, that in his arms was the place she was meant to be.

  Several times she’d picked up her cell and scrolled through her contacts, then stared at his name and number, her finger hovering over the phone icon, wanting to touch it but not quite daring to. And then she’d mentally cursed her weakness and put the phone away, telling herself that she’d get over this soon enough. Another week, or two, and Colin Campbell would be just another period in her life that she could put behind her.

  Right.

  A part of her had wanted to wander down to Hull Avenue before she started work today, to see if she could roust Maisie once again and attempt to coax the ghost into revealing who she was supposedly doing favors for, but Jenny told herself that was a silly idea. She couldn’t rely on voices from the afterlife to help her now. She’d get through her current pain because she had to.

  As for all that nonsense about forgiving Colin….

  Would it really be that terrible? All right, he’d lied to her on multiple occasions. But….

  No, she told herself as she went around the gallery and straightened a few paintings that had gone slightly cockeyed. Occupational hazard in a place like Jerome, where the ground was always shifting just a bit because of the mines buried deep below Cleopatra Hill.

  How can you trust someone like that? Once a liar, always a liar.

  Problem was, she didn’t know if that was exactly true or not. He’d had very specific reasons for hiding his identity from her. But he’d been telling the truth about his divorce, as well as other particulars of his life that might have been easier to hide. Things that would have hurt her if he hadn’t come clean about them.

  And they did say that forgiveness was divine.

  But then it was time to open the gallery, and the place was even busier on Saturday than it had been the day before. The frantic pace helped the time move along, and Jenny had to be grateful for that. Besides, Alice, the gallery’s owner, had it set up so Jenny would get a nice bonus whenever daily sales went over a certain amount, and they’d certainly accomplished that goal this holiday weekend. Not that she really needed the money to survive, but she could spend the bonus on fun things for herself and not feel as if she was being too frivolous.

  Attending to the last few customers made her keep the shop open until a little past six, which was all right, as they bought several of Angela’s handmade pieces of jewelry, as well as a vase made by a local potter. Besides, it wasn’t as if Jenny had anyplace she needed to be. There was a good band playing at the Spirit Room later on, but she thought it would be a lot better if she just stayed at home, drowned her sorrows in some of the leftover pumpkin pie her mother had dropped off earlier that day, and watched more Netflix. Maybe more Orange Is the New Black or something.

  Just as she was locking the front door, a shadow moved in front of the entrance to the gallery. She began to gasp — and then realized she recognized the hazel eyes staring at her imploringly from the other side of the glass inset in the door.

  Colin Campbell.

  His voice was somewhat muffled by the glass door, but recognizable enough. “Can I come in?”

  Her first instinct was to say hell, no. Her heart was pounding, although she wasn’t sure whether that was because of the way he’d startled her, or just the mere fact that he stood inches away from her, even if a solid oak door was separating them at the moment.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked. That seemed a good way of stalling for time until she could figure out whether or not she really was going to let him in.

  “I needed to talk to you.”

  “Your phone broken?”

  “I needed to talk to you in person.”

  She almost pointed out that he was already doing that very same thing. But something about the pleading look in his eyes stopped her. He’d driven three hours to be here. Maybe some people might have made him turn around and go right back to where he’d come from, but Jenny didn’t think she could be quite that cold.

  “All right,” she said at last, and unlocked the door so he could step inside.

  He entered the gallery, giving a quick glance around — to reassure himself that they really were alone, most likely.

  “It’s okay,” she told him as she relocked the door. “The tourists have all gone home, or at least back to their hotels.”

  Had he always been that tall? She didn’t remember having to look up at him. But then, the first time they’d met, she’d been wearing those stupid heels, and for some reason that particular height difference had imprinted itself on her brain, even though she normally wore flats.

  He nodded and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I know it’s pushing things to come and see you like this,” he said. “I thought about calling, but….”

  “I probably would have hung up on you,” she said frankly. “It’s a lot harder to ignore someone on your doorstep.”

  “That’s what I hoped.”

  An awkward silence descended. Since she knew the gallery probably wasn’t the best place for this kind of
conversation, she made a vague gesture upward. “Let’s go up to my flat. If someone comes by and sees us talking in here, they might wonder why the place is locked up if I still have a customer.”

  The faintest expression of relief passed over his features, and he nodded. Clearly, he’d been worried that he wouldn’t even be able to get that far. “Sure. Thank you.”

  Damn, now he was looking hopeful. He shouldn’t look hopeful…or should he? Jenny didn’t even know anymore. It was one thing to be angry with him and want him out of her life permanently when she didn’t have to look at him. But when he was watching her with those puppy-dog eyes of his….

  Biting back a sigh, she led him out the back exit and up the stairs to her flat. The wind was cold, but she ignored it, since they’d only be outside for a minute. Once they were in her apartment, she went over and turned up the space heater and flicked on a couple of lights.

  “Do you want something to drink?” she asked, surprising herself. “I’ve got an open bottle of pinot in the kitchen.”

  “Sure,” Colin replied, also looking vaguely startled. He stood in the middle of the living room, hands dug into his pockets as if he didn’t know what else to do with them.

  “Go ahead and sit down,” Jenny said, mostly because the sight of him of there, clearly unsure what to do with himself, only made her that much more nervous.

  From the corner of her eye, she could see him take a seat on the couch as she went to the kitchen to fetch the bottle of wine she’d opened the night before. Her crystal wine glasses seemed far too fancy for the occasion, so she grabbed a couple of stemless ones, left over from wine tastings gone by, pulled out the cork, and poured a few inches of wine into each glass.

  Crazy. This was crazy. She should have told him that she didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to see him.

  But those would have been lies, and there’d been enough lies between them already.