“But you didn’t,” she said, only realizing when she played that back in her head that it was stupidly obvious he had not fallen off a cliff.
“I didn’t.” He took a deep breath. “They’re bringing it up right now. They’ve called Dr. Parsighian. He’s headed up there. He thinks it would be a good idea for me to be, ah, on the site.” He looked at Roewynn. “So…”
She sprang into action. “So let’s go.” She grabbed a jacket, her purse, and her keys. “I’ll drive.”
Dash looked down and pointed at her bare feet.
“Oh. Just a minute.” She ran off to put on hiking boots. Just in case.
He accepted her offer to drive and was quiet on the way.
“How do you feel about this?” she asked cautiously.
He looked out the passenger window for a minute before saying. “Definitely curious. I mean I’d kind of gotten used to the idea that there’s this huge part of my life,” he chuckled, “almost all of it I guess, that’s a mystery. Dr. Parsighian as much as told me that’s how it’s going to be. So I hadn’t expected to learn anything more about what happened.
“I mean I know I hit my head.” His hand went up toward the back of his head involuntarily. “I just don’t know how or why. This will probably be nothing new. I mean it’s a car. I don’t know how looking at a wrecked car is going to change anything. But I want to see it anyway.”
Dash shifted in the seat to take his vibrating phone out of his pocket. “It’s Dash.” Pause. “Yeah. We’re close.” Pause. “Where?” Pause. “Okay.”
Dash tapped a search address into his phone and looked over at Roewynn. “Jack says to pull into the sheriff’s station. He’s going to meet us there and give us an escort.”
“An escort?”
“Yeah. I don’t know why.”
They followed the vocal GPS instructions until they saw Jack waving from his pickup and pulled in behind him. He turned on his lights, but not the siren, and started away.
“I guess we’re supposed to follow,” Dash said.
Within ten minutes they’d pulled over and parked at the northern entrance to Oh My God Road. There were a couple of other cars there, including another Sheriff’s Department vehicle.
“This is Roewynn.” Jack reached out and shook hands. “My girlfriend.”
Roewynn gave Dash a surprised look followed by an intimate sort of smile that made her eyes sparkle.
“The road’s too slippery to drive on today. So we’ll have to walk up. The doc is already up there. Him and my boss.”
“The sheriff.”
“Yeah. Him.”
Looking at the road, Roewynn was glad she’d chosen hiking boots.
As they walked, Jack said, “They’ve attached cables to the car. It’s a Tahoe. I guess you already knew that because it belonged to your… to Mr. Fonteneau. The doc has insisted that they wait to take it out until you get here.”
“How are they taking it out?”
“Helicopter.”
They turned a bend and saw where the others were waiting.
Dash introduced Roewynn to Dr. Parsighian. Jack introduced the sheriff.
Dr. Parsighian turned to Dash. “Anything?”
Dash shook his head and looked around. “No.” Looking at the sheer drop off, he said, “Is it down there?”
“Yeah,” Jack said. “Do not go near that edge. Like I said, it’s slippery today.”
“Tell them they can go ahead and bring it up,” Dr. Parsighian told the sheriff.
Everybody watched in fascination as the helicopter flew in and hovered at a height lower than where they stood. Within five minutes, the sound of the engine changed. They watched as the helicopter seemed to rise out of the ground.
After what seemed like a very long time the smashed SUV came into view.
Dr. Parsighian looked at Dash, who just shook his head.
“Okay,” said Jack. “They’re taking it over to the compound. Let’s go. You can get a closer look once it’s on the ground.”
When they were back in Roewynn’s car, Dash said, “I know what you‘re thinking.”
“You do not.”
“Yes. I do. You’re thinking that only an idiot would go for a drive on Oh My God Road.”
“Okay. I guess you do know what I was thinking. You got nothing?”
“Nothing but embarrassment. Because I kind of agree with that assessment.”
“I don’t know why you weren’t in the car, but after seeing it, I’m glad you weren’t in it.”
They parked where Jack was indicating and got out. The helicopter was already gone, the wreckage sitting in the middle of the lot like a testimonial to staying home. When the Tahoe had gone over the cliff, it had either gone nose first or gravity had changed its trajectory on the way down, because it landed squarely on the front end, collapsing the body all the way to the back seat. The rear end, however, seemed relatively intact.
So much so that Jack was able to walk up to it and open the rear hatch back. Dr. Parsighian was hanging back, watching Dash’s reactions.
“Look here,” Jack said. “Your bag looks like it hasn’t been touched.”
Dash glanced at the doc then moved forward, repositioned the rolling suitcase and unzipped it. The people watching him from behind were able to observe nothing more than that he was still, staring at the contents of the bag.
At length he moved a shaky hand and took something out of the bag.
Turning around his eyes found Roewynn immediately.
At first she looked at him with a question mark on her face, but that changed. Something was different about Dash. She’d seen many things on his face. Amusement. Lust. Curiosity. Determination. But that was the first time she’d seen the light of recognition dancing in those distinctive gray eyes.
He smiled almost shyly, then proudly held up a length of red fabric with a beaded hem.
“I got you a scarf.”
CHAPTER Thirteen IT HAD TO BE YOU
One Week Later
Raider and Harmony were having dinner with Dash and Rachel on their terrace.
Dash had grilled flank steak, smothered it in with creole spices, and served it over cheesy grits. It was a dish he’d learned to make while in New Orleans when a fellow student with shapely legs had dragged him to cooking school.
Having served everyone else, he sat down next to Rachel across from Raider and Harmony. “So I said, ‘I thought you were afraid to be away from home,’. And she said I didn’t leave her any choice. She’d promised forever. So if I wasn’t here,” he waved at the air, meaning Wimberley, “then she had to be there.”
“Awww,” said Harmony. “You’re going to make me cry.”
“Trust me,” said Raider. “That’s not hard.” She slapped at his arm playfully.
“Among other things, I couldn’t believe she’d ever leave the hell cat alone.”
“First,” said Rachel, “Hissy is not a hell cat.”
“You could have fooled me,” said Dash as he accepted a cold long neck from Raider. “She had to find a place to live all on her own.”
“That house? That old house was lousy with ghosts. They were everywhere.” She shuddered. “It took three days to get rid of them all. I evicted them before I moved in, of course, but the owner should have paid me to live there. And then I had to furnish the place from scratch.”
Dash barked out a laugh. “Only you could call that furnishing with a straight face. It looked like early alley patrol.”
“Well, since I never had a young-adult-on-my-own experience, I thought I’d, you know… So I was told that I couldn’t use magic to try and heal the memory loss, but nobody said I couldn’t use magic on Zane to get an interview.”
Dash smiled. “But the weirdest thing was how she was able to masquerade as an executive assistant.”
“That wasn’t weird at all,” Harmony said. “Wednesday gave her pointers. Taught her software and stuff. Rachel’s smart.”
Dash looked at Rachel
adoringly. “I know.”
“But after seeing how good he was at running empires,” Rachel said, “it didn’t seem fair to ask him to come back here to our quiet little town and run a much smaller operation.”
Dash shook his head. “I don’t think of it as a smaller operation. I think of it as fewer employees but higher stakes.”
“Who took over in Denver?” Raider asked.
“My brother. He’s smarter than he likes to say he is. It just took a nudge to get him to admit that and get our dad to see him in that light. I trained him on all the new systems we’d just put in place and told him I’m only a phone call away. He said I can also hop on a plane.” He looked at Rachel and laughed. “I said, no. My wife wouldn’t let me.”
Dash grew serious and looked at Rachel. “But what if I’d never remembered.”
“I thought you might. When I saw that you’d bought a red Audi exactly like the one in our garage, I knew you were in there.”
He nodded. “You didn’t answer the question. What if I’d never remembered?”
She shrugged. “Then you would have married me again and we’d live in Denver. Forever is forever. No matter what.”
Dash smiled. “Pinky swear?”
She smiled back. “Pinky swear.”
Raider made gagging noises.
NEXT UP…
It’s Wednesday’s turn for the spring rites, but she stuns the entire colony by saying no and refuses to give her reasons. Hoping she’ll change her mind, they recruit her friends to apply pressure and proceed with plans as usual.
The warlock, Rally, met Wednesday at a witches’ gathering in Aspen. They barely spoke the entire weekend and he didn’t think much of it until afterward, when he found himself waking during the night with her on his mind. He could track her down, but to what end? He certainly wasn’t interested in a long term relationship, but it had been months since the brief encounter and he was still being caught by friends, musing about Wednesday instead of listening.
Then one day it came to him that she must have cast some kind of spell. That was all the reason he needed to track her down.
Perhaps he expected to find a compliant, coopertive, submissive female. One thing was certain. He was not prepared for an aloof witch who couldn’t manage to care enough to pretend to be indignant. When she shrugged, said, “Think what you want,” and walked away, he was left standing with an open mouth and an ancient hunter’s desire to chase rousing to a state of full awakening.
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THE KNIGHTS OF BLACK SWAN
Knights of Black Swan 1. My Familiar Stranger
Knights of Black Swan 2. The Witch’s Dream
Knights of Black Swan 3. A Summoner’s Tale
Knights of Black Swan 4. Moonlight
Knights of Black Swan 5. Gathering Storm
Knights of Black Swan 6. A Tale of Two Kingdoms
Knights of Black Swan 7. Solomon’s Sieve
Knights of Black Swan 8. Vampire Hunter
Knights of Black Swan 9. Journey Man
Knights of Black Swan 10. Falcon
Knights of Black Swan 11. Jax
Knights of Black Swan 12, Deliverance
Order of the Black Swan D.I.T.
D.I.T. 1, Simon Says
D.I.T. 2, Finngarick
D.I.T. 3, Irish War Cry
Order of the Black Swan Novels
Black Swan Novel, Prince of Demons
THE HYBRIDS
Exiled 1. CARNAL
Exiled 2. CRAVE
Exiled 3. CHARMING
THE WEREWOLVES
New Scotia Pack 1, Shield Wolf: Liulf
New Scotia Pack 2. Wolf Lover: Konochur
New Scotia Pack 3. Fire Wolf: Cinaed
WITCHES and WARLOCKS
Witches of Wimberley 1. Willem
Witches of Wimberley 2. Witch Wants Forever
Witches of Wimberley 3. Wednesday
Witches of Wimberley 4. Wick
The Warlocks 1. Coven
CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE
SSMC Austin, TX, Book 1. Two Princes
SSMC Austin, TX, Book 2. The Biker’s Brother
SSMC Austin, TX, Book 3. Nomad
SSMC Austin, TX, Book 4. Devil’s Marker
SSMC Austin, TX, Book 5. Roadhouse
Cajun Devils, Book 1. Batiste
While you’re waiting for my next release, check out my good friend Teresa Gabelman.
Witch Wants Forever Page 13
