“Deal,” I said, my confidence taking a little leap of its own. Gage reshuffled the pack and dealt again, his eyes meeting mine in challenge when I raised them for the briefest of moments. Picking up my cards, I held them to my chest and fanned them out. I didn’t have a single match. Either Gage’s hand had to be just as bad, or he was a clear winner. I wasn’t sure what play to make so I just shook my head. After a tense minute, he laid his out first. We were level one-on-one. My heart thudded. It’s just a game, I reminded myself. Besides dinner with Gage would not be horrible, even though this was the longest conversation we’d had to date. What would we talk about? Perhaps I could just look at him, I thought, which made my heart thump surprisingly fast.
“I like steak rare,” Gage teased.
“I’d like my house white,” I rebuffed, a small smile playing on my face.
On our third and final set, Gage laid off the fancy moves, shuffling quickly and thoroughly, before dealing our final hands. I waited a moment before picking up my cards and then fanned them in my palm. My opening hand was four tens and an eight. Four of a kind. I was so going to get my house painted. I couldn’t help the grin that spread across my face as he sighed and shook his hand out on the table. I laid mine down eagerly and heard a whoop go up behind me. My eyes widened just for a moment then I looked down. All clubs, all in the right order. All his. That had to have higher points than mine. Crap. And my heart sank when one of Gage’s buddies high-fived him.
Annalise patted my back in commiseration. “If it helps at all, he does chew with his mouth shut and he knows how to use cutlery.”
Great.
“Tomorrow night?” said Gage, with a nod of his head, and before I could answer, before I could tell him that we didn’t have to, he’d scraped back his chair and headed off to the kitchen. And just like that I had a date.
I couldn’t be churlish and cross because not only would that be pathetic but I didn’t want to embarrass him, not in his own house and not in front of his sister and friends. Besides, I’d accepted the bet, even when I knew I was unlikely to win, so I just plastered on what I hoped was a magnanimous smile, pushed my chair back and left the table to make way for the real players.
For another hour I hung around and was polite and exchanged conversational tidbits with Annalise’s friends and made polite enquiries to the people I had met before and took their poker jokes on the chin. A couple of the ladies quietly congratulated me and said they’d have played badly for a date with Gage too. I wasn’t quite sure what that was all about. Sure he was good looking and seemed to work hard, but he hadn’t said more than thirty words to me in six months, and we were neighbours. Maybe they liked the strong silent types. Personally, I hoped he’d bone up on his conversational skills before we were stuck silently gawping at each other like morons. I hoped our faux date wouldn’t be excruciating.
By the time I’d kissed Annalise on the cheek and stepped outside, the sun had almost set leaving a faded red tinge on the inky black horizon. I’d just walked down the steps when I heard the door open and shut behind me, a quick burst of noise escaping, and footsteps sounded on the steps as someone followed me out. I must have forgotten something I thought, as I turned round to face Annalise. Instead, I almost face planted into a man’s chest. I looked up and got Gage.
“Have I offended you?” he asked looking down at me, his face completely unreadable.
“Um, no.”
“Good.” He looked at me, his eyes boring into mine briefly, before saying, “You don’t have to go out with me if you don’t want to.”
I thought about that for a moment, probably a moment too long, and his face seemed to fall a little bit. What else had I planned? A big, fat, nothing, that’s what. Who was to say we wouldn’t have a nice time? And it wasn’t like it was a real date. It was just for fun. I needed fun. “No, that’s fine. I’m happy to go out with you,” I said, keeping my weak justification to myself.
He smiled and, there, under the moonlight, I thought him quite lovely. There was no denying he was handsome. At least he’d be nice to look at on our pretend date, which I was not going to think of as a date under any circumstances. Not even when my stomach was doing little flips. Not even when I felt the frisson of first date nerves. “So... I’ll pick you up tomorrow night at seven?” he said.
“Okay.”
“Okay,” he repeated. Hmm, we were big conversationalists, all right.
Gage looked at me for another moment then nodded in that curt way of his and turned to go back inside. I stepped forward, reaching out so that I caught his bare wrist where he’d folded the sleeve back. He was hot, literally hot, and I could feel his vein pumping, strong and vital. There was something about feel of his skin that suddenly made me feel very alive. I wanted to feel alive. Gage turned back to me expectantly, his face starting to fall again like he really expected me to change my mind so quickly.
“Do I need to get dressed up?” I asked, withdrawing my hand, my thumb rubbing against my palm where I could still feel his heat burning against my skin.
Gage thought about it for a moment then shook his head. “No, casual is fine.”
“I’m just relieved I don’t have to cook.” I tried a coy smile on for size.
Gage laughed and turned back to climb the steps. He paused, one foot on the top plank, the other stretched long and lean. I admired his physique for probably a moment too long. He smiled down at me, like he knew exactly what I was thinking and was welcoming it. “That’s for the second date,” he grinned and before I could argue that I hadn’t agreed to two dates, he’d bounded inside and shut the door firmly on me.
“Hah,” I said to the still night.
I stood there for a moment looking at the closed door wondering what had just happened. Then I shook myself out of it and went back over to my house, shadowed under the dusky clouds.
It wasn’t until I was stood on my porch that I saw the parcel propped in front of the door. I walked towards it cautiously. It was way past the regular mailman’s hours and I hadn’t heard a truck pull up, but then people had left before I had and I’d barely noticed their engines on the road either. I picked up the parcel, bulky but soft, and took it inside. Just inside the door I reached for the light switch and flipped it on then took the package over to the sofa. My name was printed neatly on the outside, but without an address. Odd.
Leaving it perched on the sofa for no more than a minute, I rummaged for a pair of scissors in a kitchen drawer. Scissors in hand, I sat down next to the parcel and carefully slit open the taped ends which snapped with a gentle pop. I peeled off the paper, letting it slide to the floor as I shook out the coverlet that was inside, allowing it to fall over my knees. It was gently sprigged with hand embroidered pastel flowers and I recognised it at once. A small white card fluttered down to the floor and I stooped down to retrieve it. Dear Stella, said the note, thought you might be missing this. No name. Or return address, though I knew where it had come from.
The same coverlet had been on my bed every night at the safe house. I’d slept under it, dreamed on it, cried into it.
But what the hell was it doing here? More importantly, who had brought it to Wilding?
Three
Thanks to Chyler’s big intrusion and my surprise gift, both arriving within a few hours of each other, my nerves had been on edge all day. Before I’d gone to bed, I had been careful to lock the doors and check that every window was closed and locked tight. I didn’t take the coverlet with me. Instead I left it bundled up on the sofa overnight and it had stayed there all day too. Finally, I got a grip and made myself pick it up, shake it out and fold it neatly over the back of my sofa. I even sniffed it just to see if I could scent any magic on it. I couldn’t. That’s when I realised how ridiculous I was being. I couldn’t fathom why anyone would want to magic a coverlet.
More pressing, however, was who had been at my house last night and why had they left it? I couldn’t work out if it was supposed to be a gift or a messag
e. It had been almost a year since Steven, one of the witch council’s elders had handed me the parcel of documents that contained the deeds to this house. Unless, he’d copied everything – and I didn’t think he had – I could count him out. Besides, he had never been to the safe house and wouldn’t have known the coverlet had been on my bed. Plus, now that I thought about it, Steven had been quite careful about giving my parents’ things to me personally so I doubted anyone else had seen the contents. I sighed. This much I knew: things were about as clear as mud.
No, it had to be someone from the house. There were only a few survivors to choose from: Étoile, Seren, Kitty or Marc. The sinking feeling inside me was saying that without a sign of him after all this time, that Evan couldn’t have survived. I was sure he would have come for me then, and here, if he could. He’d had extensive wounds when I’d last seen him and my hopes of his survival were fading every day.
Whenever I thought of Evan my heart flipped and sank. I had been falling over the edge of loving him and the pain of losing him was almost too much to bear. During the few weeks that we’d had together I’d felt our connection grow fast and intense like thick cords binding us together. Now that connection felt like gossamer fine thread waiting to break at any moment. I didn’t know enough about my witch heritage, or his daemon one, to know if that was just me imagining things or if there was some kind of supernatural connection that we’d initiated and that hadn’t quite petered out.
I hovered near the coverlet looking at it, feeling strangely superstitious about touching it. How was I supposed to narrow it down to a sender? Kitty had been horrendously injured too and I certainly couldn’t guarantee she had survived, not if there were internal injuries on top of everything else she had suffered. It was unlikely that Marc would do something as odd as deliver a coverlet under the cover (hah) of darkness. It had to be Étoile or Seren. I’d been closer to Étoile. She’d saved my life once and though she was bossy and pernickety, I’d liked her and trusted her.
Still, that didn’t explain how anyone knew I was in Wilding. I was fairly sure I hadn’t left a trace, human or magic, to follow. I’d been very careful when I’d travelled here, criss-crossing back and forth, covering my tracks. I was sure no one knew about the house. It was very puzzling.
I spent the day pottering about the house, growing increasingly frustrated. I tried all my usual pursuits. I read my book, and gave up when I realised I’d not registered a single word in several pages. I watched some more of the DVD box set Annalise had leant me but gave that up too when I realised my mind had drifted too much to know what was going on. I even tried having a nap but after tossing and turning for an hour I had to accept that sleep just wasn’t coming to me. I even spent some time thinking about my poker-bargain date tonight and wondered where Gage might be taking me, but I couldn’t help feeling guilty. Wasn’t it too soon to go on a date, even a faux date, when Evan was never far from the edge of my mind and I thought about him so many times a day until eventually I’d decided I had to steel my heart from the hurt and frustration.
“It’s just one date,” I told myself firmly as I browsed my wardrobe late-afternoon. “It’s just an evening, with a friend.” A hot friend, my brain added, rather unhelpfully, and it was a date, not just a casual evening out.
When I’d finally pulled out three outfits and was analysing them heavily for any untoward signals they might give off (too short a hemline, too much cleavage ... too damn puritan) I finally threw my hands in the air and pulled a face in the mirror. Why was I getting so wound up about it? It wouldn’t take more than a few hours out of my life and then things could get back to normal with us waving hello whenever we saw each other and otherwise getting on with our lives. It was nothing to get stressed about and with that I pulled out figure-hugging black jeans, a slouchy silk top in a punchy orange to hang over my closet door until it was time to dress. With heeled boots picked out, I put an end to the clothing dilemma. Considering I didn’t know what Gage had planned, it seemed like a good idea to try and find an outfit that covered every kind of venue or activity. This would have to suffice.
I wondered what we would talk about. Now that I’d gathered from Annalise that they’d grown up here and were siblings, I had that angle covered. She worked from home, Gage worked in a nearby town. I wasn’t even up to temping at the moment. Well that was careers out, unless he wanted to tell me about his. And we didn’t have any shared history of the town or people we knew, because everyone I knew here, already knew him.
The rest of the afternoon I spent cleaning the house and rearranging the furniture. For the first month I had left it entirely alone, in the way that you do when you first move in somewhere and don’t like to touch what isn’t yours, then I had finally accepted that the house was mine and there was no one to stop me doing anything I wanted in it. So my new game – and sort of workout routine – was experimenting with the positioning of the furniture. The latest layout wasn’t working for me so now I tugged the sofa into its new place so it was pulled away from the hallway wall, allowing myself a short burst of magic to help ease it into position without straining myself. It was easy to push the coffee table and the rug underneath to their new angles, firmly in cup reaching distance, but I left the other sofa where it was in front of the window and the armchair with its back to the shelves. It was far too much seating for one or two people so I wondered if my parents had frequent guests over when they used the house.
Over the months, I’d been slowly filling the shelves up with books that I’d picked up and the odd ornament that I’d founded tucked away. It felt odd, and slightly exhilarating, to be adding my things to so much space. I was even considering painting the room white instead of the slightly dreary off-yellow. Maybe I’d hang new curtains too, something with less of an obnoxious print. Who knew that I would be so house proud.
Finally I went into the garden to cut some greenery. My neighbour’s house was quiet though I could see the truck and car and Gage’s motorbike so I guessed they were both in. Back inside I tried arranging the green branches in some artful way in a vase to add some fresh colour to the room and when I was finally happy with the cluster, I set it on the low corner table where a potted plant used to sit.
The first day I had arrived here there had been plants dotted around. I’d slept on the sofa overnight, not quite comfortable with climbing into one of the beds, and when I woke in the morning, the plants had all crumbled to dust. It had taken me some time to surmise that while things could exist in stasis, if they were brought out of it after too long, those things would wither and die, their life process sped up. Unfortunately my house was only proving that that initial guess was correct. Though nothing crumbled quite as actively and decisively as the plants had, plenty of things were breaking – a chair leg here, a handle there. I guessed if my parents returned frequently they simply deactivated the spells and time caught up. Unfortunately now twenty years of time was catching up in just a matter of months. Still, it was nothing that I could deal with today. At least the main furniture was holding up for now though I could swear another spring had popped through my mattress last night.
I looked over the room. Now I was getting used to making changes I could envisage how it would eventually look. Maybe I would even paint the living room in the next few days if Annalise could show me where a paint store was. It would give me something to do now the weather was turning cold and the physical action would be beneficial.
A glance at my wristwatch made me squeak. I’d left myself thirty minutes to get ready and I was dusty from moving the furniture. I showered quickly and washed my hair, taking my time over blow drying it before I got dressed in the outfit I’d selected. I kept my jewellery light, just studs for my ears. I picked up my mother’s brooch and turned the pretty coloured bird over in my hand. I hadn’t risked wearing it out yet just in case it slipped off and I lost it. It seemed a shame to keep the brooch hidden away in my room so I took it into the living room and propped it next to the ph
otos on the mantle-piece so I could see it. Just as I trailed my fingertips over it, smiling, a knock sounded at the door. I looked over my shoulder and could see Gage waiting on the porch so I went to let him in.
“You look lovely,” was the first thing he said and I wriggled my toes in my socks self-consciously. “Orange suits you.”
“Thanks. Come in.” I stood back to let Gage step inside. He looked around while I took in his dark blue jeans and open necked shirt in a deep green that set off his dark hair and tan skin.
“Looks exactly the same when I last saw it. ‘Cept where the furniture is,” he said, his eyes coming to a stop on me.
“When was that?”
“Around twenty-five years ago.”
I whistled. “I wasn’t even born then.”
“I know. I remember your mom and dad. They were friendly with my parents.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Annalise never said?”
I shook my head then when I realised we were still just stood there, facing each other, I remembered my manners. “Please have a seat. I’ve just got to get my boots and purse then I’m ready.”
“Take your time.”
I tried to be as quick as I could as I sat at my dresser to brush on a little makeup, just a touch of eye-shadow and a sweep of mascara, nothing more. When I’d zipped up my boots and gone back into the living room, my jacket hung over my arm, Gage was stood by the mantle-piece looking at the photos I had up there next to my brooch.
“Family?” he asked congenially.
I shook my head. “I don’t have any family left. These are friends.” There was a picture of me, Kitty, Étoile and Seren all together and another one of just me and Evan. It had been taken on a beach one night, so long ago now, his arms wrapped around me, smiling straight at the camera. It made me happy and sad all at once. I should get around to framing them.
Unruly Magic (#2 Stella Mayweather Paranormal Series) Page 4
