As long as he kept his promise to wear the pendant—and the Rest she’d known had always kept his promises—he’d be safe. She tried to convince herself that his safety was all that mattered. She’d met her seer duty and warned him. Now, she was free.
I will make myself free of him, she vowed. Free of memories and dreams that involved him. Leaning her forehead against the steering wheel of her rental car, she sighed. Freedom sucked.
It had been stupid, and she was paying the price for it now in terms of disappointment, but she’d travelled here with a sense of anticipation. She’d gone as far as to imagine his ranch, as well as him. There’d be cattle and horses and a welcome just for her.
Don’t come back. His harsh words rang in her mind.
Rejection never got any easier.
She’d switched off the car’s air-conditioning when she parked at the motel, and although it was early evening, the day remained hot enough for the car to heat up quickly. The discomfort was the spur she needed to get out and book a room.
Despite the ageing building, the motel room had been updated. Seeing the clean bathroom she decided on a shower before thinking about dinner. She had a busy and rewarding life without Rest in it, and she needed to return to it. So she’d have an early dinner and bedtime, then an early start, and she’d be home tomorrow, even with a detour to throw off anyone who might be interested in her whereabouts. She’d been honest with Rest: no one would find him through her.
Someone hammered at her motel room door.
She dropped the clean clothes she’d been pulling out of her bag. “Pepper spray!” But she hadn’t bought any after disembarking from the plane. Darn it. A basic precaution for self-defense and she’d failed to obtain it. She just kept making mistakes. She’d assumed she’d be safe here, anonymous, but she should have pushed on to Phoenix. If she hadn’t gotten absurdly lost, taking the wrong country road because she’d been distracted by her mental replay of how badly her reunion with Rest had gone, she could have been halfway to Phoenix.
The hammering redoubled. “Donna!”
Rest.
She stopped panicked for all of one second before she thought to ask herself why he’d come after her. She didn’t query how he found her. The motel was an obvious place for a traveler to stop if they weren’t driving all the way to Phoenix. Would he have followed her all the way to the city?
One glimpse of his face and the grim aura surrounding him told her something bad had happened. “Just a second.” She hastily closed the door long enough to undo the old-fashioned chain, then invited him in. “What happened?”
“I was attacked by a fire demon.”
She grabbed his shirt. “Already?” Her stomach knotted. If she’d delayed even a couple of hours in warning him, she’d have been too late. He’d be dead.
He eased her back, out of the doorway, and shut it behind him. “What more can you tell me about your vision?”
“Are you okay? Did it hurt you?”
“I’m fine. Describe your vision.”
It wasn’t so easy for her to shrug off her emotions. She was worried about him, dammit. “The thing in my vision wasn’t a demon. It looked scary and dangerous, but there was no scent of brimstone.”
“Your visions include scent?”
“If it’s important.” She could smell his scent: dirt, male sweat and something of the desert. She realized she still gripped his shirt, and although he didn’t seem to notice, she was embarrassed. She released her grip. “Are you sure you faced a demon? Did it try to possess you or take you to Hell?”
“It tried to steal my magic. It would have, but its fang struck your crystal.”
Relief made her knees wobbly. She sat down abruptly on the bed. “The raven saved you, like in my vision.”
“Perhaps. I need to know what I faced.” Tension tightened his jawline. He stood between her and the door, but his stance suggested he was holding himself under control and that he really wanted to pace.
“I don’t think there’s anything about the vision that I forgot. There was fire and—”
He flicked her comment aside with a quick gesture. “I want you to hear about the encounter from all of us who faced it.”
“You weren’t alone? But…” Why did I assume he would be? Just because he cut me out of his life doesn’t mean he hasn’t formed new bonds. New friends, a new lover…
“I was couriering a client and his two assistants. They may have observed something I missed, and our recollections may prompt a forgotten detail from your vision.”
The odd note in his voice as he hesitated on the last word jerked her out of her emotional shock that Rest had so nearly died. She looked at him, really looked at him, deep into his eyes and found suspicion there.
“You think I set you up,” she said flatly. He was being half-way honest. He wanted to know the nature of what he’d faced, but he also wanted to test her story. “If you don’t trust me, how can you trust anything I say?”
His rigid stance by the door broke and he paced. “Donna, safety for you and for everyone who knew me in my old life, lies in me remaining hidden. People want to control a courier, and hostages are the way to do that. Wayne died because people were playing political games involving my team. That was my lesson. My existence threatens those I care about.”
“So why are you still couriering?” she asked angrily. Had he really dropped out of sight because he believed it protected her and others? She’d let him go, accepting his right to choose his life path, but that was when she’d thought he was turning his back on his old life because it sickened him, not because he was trying to protect those in it. The stubborn, honorable idiot. The people being protected had a right to choose whether they’d rather have him or safety.
“Money,” he said succinctly. “I bought the ranch outright, but I don’t run cattle so the ongoing costs have to be paid somehow. Couriering brings the most money for the least effort and…some of what your dad said has stuck with me. He and I have a rare talent, and that brings an obligation to use it. But I won’t surrender my independence again, so if you’re involved with 13OPS or anyone else—”
“I’m not.” She got up from the bed. “If you need to double-check my story to be at peace, I’ll go with you. However, I mightn’t walk away afterwards.”
He halted in front of her.
She tipped her chin up to meet his gaze. Her fists clenched and unclenched. She wasn’t a violent person, but some violent urges were coursing through her. Two years of hurt and trying to convince her heart to want someone else, and all because Rest had chosen unilaterally to sacrifice emotion for safety. “For the record, I don’t like being protected by being banished from your life.”
“That is not what I did!”
“You said, Don’t come back,” she repeated his command to her at the diner.
His lips thinned as he closed his mouth on a protest.
She nodded once, sharply, as if he’d conceded her point. “So where are we meeting your clients? At your ranch?” She slung her handbag over one shoulder. It thudded into her ribs. She was angry and her movements were clumsy.
“India,” he said, and clasped her hand as he opened a portal and led her through.
She had a second in which to close her fingers around his, then the chaos of the Path engulfed her.
As many times as she’d travelled this way—and her dad had been generous in including her on some of his less classified journeys—the Path remained completely unknown to her. The only reliable sensation was the feel of Rest’s hand holding hers. Every other sense rioted uncontrollably. She tasted strawberries and smelled wet cement. It felt as if she floated like an astronaut without gravity, even as she made herself walk steadily on nothing. With her eyes closed, at least she didn’t see the starburst patterns of chaos, but she heard that wail of Andean flutes and the percussion of a large animal’s heartbeat.
And then they were out, stepping into a pretty courtyard where water flowed in a white
stone fountain and fat koi glimmered orange in the shallow pool at the base of the fountain.
“We’re at the client’s house,” Rest said. He didn’t release her hand, and she didn’t try to pull free. As frustrated as they were with one another, there was a bond between them. “I was couriering him and his two assistants to a temple ruin in Kazakhstan when—”
“You’re back! He’s back,” a man shouted from inside the house.
Verandas enclosed the courtyard on all four sides. The house was old and elegant, a remnant from the days of the British Raj. Rose bushes edged the wide verandas, their petals falling in drifts of yellow and pink.
Donna had a few seconds to admire the setting before her thoughts scattered in shock at the sight of the man who raced out in response to the shout. “Larry?”
The elderly man rocked to a halt on the veranda at the sight of her, then beamed. “Expert, discreet assistance. Very good,” he said approvingly to Rest.
Rest dropped her hand. “You know him?”
She made a conscious decision to ignore his suspicion and the heavy threatening aura that suddenly enveloped him. “Larry?” She smiled and hurried forward to hug him. “Of course I do. Larry’s a sweetheart.”
The older man chuckled and returned her hug with the two thumping slaps to her back with which he greeted friends. “Don’t scowl at me because your girl’s found a better man.”
Glancing around, she saw Rest’s truly impressive scowl. She was annoyed with him, and annoyed that he didn’t trust her, but if she stayed silent when a simple explanation would defuse the tension, then she was stoking conflict for no reason. I’m more mature than that. Aren’t I? “I had no idea Larry was your client. The last we heard he was on some secret treasure hunt.”
“We, who?” Rest asked.
“My illustrious boss and I,” she responded pertly.
“I don’t even know where you work,” Rest grumbled. He jumped up the shallow steps and joined her and Larry in the shade of the veranda.
“I’d have told you if you’d asked.” Instead of ordering me away! She linked her arm through Larry’s and walked on into the house.
Larry glanced between the two of them, an amused smile dawning, before he gallantly escorted her into a dining room that was large and airy with a hint of sandalwood; probably from the polish used to put the gleam on the carved wooden furniture.
Two obvious bodyguards in their mid-twenties stood by the table. They waited till she was seated, then sat themselves.
Rest took a chair opposite her.
“We were having brunch.” Larry gestured at the plates on the table. “I’m not sure where Rest couriered you from, Donna, but if you’d like Belgian waffles, or anything else, the chef prefers to be busy.”
“Marcel’s waffles are divine.” Donna spied a half-eaten one on Larry’s plate. The billionaire preferred to travel with his private chef and could afford to indulge the idiosyncrasy. “I’d love some.”
Larry glanced at Rest, who nodded impatiently.
One of the assistants rose and departed to deliver their order.
Thank heaven for Larry’s hospitable instincts. He’d inadvertently given Donna time to think, and she saw a looming problem. When she’d acceded to Rest’s request that she meet with his client to double-check her story and expand on her vision, she’d anticipated meeting a stranger; one who wouldn’t be able to determine her identity and attach the label “seer” to it. But Larry was far from a stranger, so how was she to keep him from learning of her seer talent?
Under the table, she kicked Rest’s foot. She gave him a meaningful look, wishing that telepathy was a real thing. As it was, she just had to hope he could interpret correctly, and respect, her silent entreaty for him not to mention her vision. There could be another reason, the reason Larry had assumed, for Rest to bring her into the loop on the “demon” he’d faced: her knowledge and experience as a treasure hunter.
She tried to make it seem that she casually answered Rest’s earlier grumble about not knowing who she worked for. “When I’m not treasure hunting,” she stressed the last two words. “I work in an exclusive gallery in San Francisco.”
Larry was a man who liked to be informed—which was to say, he gossiped—so it was likely that he knew something of Rest’s history. Would he know that her dad had trained Rest? If Larry didn’t, then hopefully she’d phrased her response in a way that Larry would assume she’d met Rest while treasure hunting; while at the same time, her response gave Rest the cover story for why he’d brought her here. With a bit of luck, and Rest’s cooperation, she could keep her seer talent a secret.
A treasure hunting connection would also downplay the importance of her relationship with Rest. Although his unilateral decision to cut her out of his life two years ago infuriated her, she could respect his intent to keep their relationship on a needs to know basis, and no one needed to know about it!
What relationship? Hurriedly, she pushed that question, and the insidious hope that spawned it, aside. She needed to concentrate.
To be sure that Larry didn’t zero in on her story, she went on the attack. She frowned at the older man. “How often has Viola warned you to be careful?”
“You won’t tell her?” Larry recoiled, flinging his hands up in horrified beseechment.
Hiding her amusement at his theatrics, she addressed Rest. “Viola is my boss. I work with her to acquire treasures, specifically of the magical variety. The gallery in San Francisco is hers.”
Larry sighed as he gulped coffee. “She’s also my ex-wife. Terrifying woman.” Humor gleamed in his blue eyes. “Gorgeous, but terrifying.”
The assistant returned with coffee for Donna and Rest.
Donna cautiously relaxed. She still needed to lead the conversation away from the chance of Rest explaining that he’d brought her here because she was a seer who’d foreseen the creature attacking them. But for now, her treasure hunting credentials supplied a credible alternative explanation. “Speaking of terrifying…Rest thought I might know something about the creature of fire you faced earlier.”
Larry stiffened. He directed a chairman-of-the-board stare at Rest. “You told her of my expedition?”
“No,” Rest said calmly. “Although I could if I wanted to. I never signed a confidentiality agreement.”
“It was implied,” Larry said.
“And respected right up until I opened a portal into a near-death experience.”
“Hmm.”
The arrival of their waffles provided a useful distraction.
“Very well,” Larry said as Donna spooned extra strawberries onto her waffles which were already generously lavished with fresh cream. “But I don’t wish the information concerning my expedition to be passed on to Viola. I wish to surprise her with its success.”
“I won’t tell her,” Donna promised. “As long as you’re careful. Hospitalization negates the promise.”
Larry laughed. “Motivation to stay in one piece. Fine.” It was obvious by his slight flush that he appreciated her implied concern for his well-being. You only blackmailed people into being careful if you cared about them. “Rest, if you’d like to describe the attack. I suspect you noticed more details than us.”
“If there’s anything I miss, please add it.” Rest ate steadily as he described exiting the portal into an assault by a magical creature intent on siphoning his magic. “It hit a protective amulet I was wearing and that broke its power or concentration long enough for us to retreat into the portal.”
Donna dipped her head, thanking him silently for not mentioning her vision or that she’d given him the crystal that saved him. Reassured that her seer talent would remain a secret, she was free to indulge her professional curiosity and imagination. “It could have been a temple guardian.”
Rest was on his second mug of coffee, and his third waffle. “A temple guardian?” His fork tilted as he looked a question at her. Cream dripped from a pierced strawberry.
She lick
ed the taste of strawberries and cream from her own lips. “A temple guardian has been found twice along the Silk Roads. And it is Silk Roads, plural. There were a number of routes the old traders took from China to the Middle East and beyond to Europe. But the term ‘temple guardian’ may actually be misleading. You said it sucked up your magic?”
“Yes.”
She glanced at Larry, who was watching avidly. She’d question Rest later, in private. For all of his fascination with fantastical mysteries, Larry didn’t have magic. But he did have ambition. It was better that he not know some things. “It may be that the priests who set the guardian were also wizards—”
“Obviously,” Larry interrupted. “Or they couldn’t have set up the spell.”
She nodded. Clients had to be managed carefully, particularly clients who would dearly love to possess magic and didn’t. Sometimes their egos got in the way of thinking clearly.
Then again, didn’t egos get in the way for everyone at some point? Including her own, given that she’d been mad at Rest for doing no more than protecting himself, and possibly her, by sending her away. If she was a reasonable woman, she might actually have to forgive him. It was a mark in his favor that he’d kept her secret and not told Larry, or the billionaire’s quiet assistants, of her seer talent.
She tipped her coffee mug at Larry in acknowledgement and challenge of his contention that a wizard would have had to create the temple guardian. “But were they wizards who wanted to defend their temple or were they more ambitious?”
Larry’s forehead wrinkled, but Rest got her point.
“You think the guardian might be a weapon designed to siphon magic from magic users who enter the temple grounds?”
“Yes. And as for why it didn’t attack you on your first visit…it is old. It’s quite possible that it needed to siphon some magic from the enchanted objects Larry brought there yesterday before it had enough power to attack you today. When a temple guardian attacked in Turkey in the 1960s, it was three days after the archaeologists arrived, and two days after the wizard in the group—the photographer—used a minor light spell.”
Desert Devil (Old School Book 5) Page 3
