A Dash of Destiny (Warlocks MacGregor Book 8)

by Michelle M. Pillow

  Rory looked like he had biweekly visits to the barber and took time picking out his clothes. Bruce appeared to have rolled out of bed and just grabbed what was closest. Colorful swatches of paint had dried on his hands. They weren’t colors she would expect to see on motel walls.

  “Cory and Rory sound like the opening act to Howdy Doody,” Bruce added. “Nice to meet ya, Jennifer. Welcome to Hotel Motel.”

  “We’re changing the name,” Maura said. “Hotel Motel is stupid.”

  “I think it has charm,” Bruce said. “Kind of an ironic play on class perception. What makes a hotel better than a motel? Or is a motel better? And why do we feel the need to make such distinctions? What do ya think, Jennifer?”

  “I think…” Jennifer felt as if there was a conversation happening beneath the surface that she wasn’t privy to hearing. Or, she needed that coffee. Whatever was happening, she saw them all looking at her for an answer, and she felt compelled to say something smart. “I think for some reason motels remind me of a 1950s road trip, or the Bates Motel.”

  Well, if not smart, at least honest.

  “Oh—” Bruce began in obvious excitement.

  “No,” Maura interrupted, lifting her hand to cut off her brother’s idea before it even formed. “Ya are not making a Psycho-themed suite. Your damned cherubs already sent Jennifer screaming from the room. I told ya no one wants to wake up to Cupid’s butt in their face.”

  “It’s a play on the commercialization of romance,” Bruce explained. “Like Valentines Day.”

  “What you’re saying is the cherub suite has nothing to do with the fact a cherub shot Rory in the ass at Euann’s wedding,” Maura replied.

  “Hey,” Rory protested.

  “Best Christmas card ever.” Bruce laughed.

  “You must be an artist,” Jennifer surmised.

  Bruce lifted his paint-covered hands and grinned. “What gave it away?”

  Jennifer glanced at Rory. He smiled, and his eyes still questioned. He didn’t say anything to her, merely watched.

  “So, I have to ask. Is there a reason people call you Cory? Or is it just a rhyming nickname?” Jennifer glanced around for a coffeepot. The fog in her head had started to clear but could use a little help.

  “No reason,” Bruce answered.

  “Yes, reasons,” Maura corrected. “We call him that for a couple of reasons. First, because he dressed like a certain actor in the 1980s—there was a lot of gel and makeup involved. It was quite tragic.”

  “And second?” Jennifer asked.

  “Because it irritates him,” Rory said with a grin.

  A chill worked over her at the sound of his voice. Her right hand shook before tightening into a fist. Jennifer grabbed the fist with her free hand and pried the fingers open.

  “Which one of you found me?” Jennifer asked, staring at Rory. “Or is there another brother?”

  “I did, with my uncle Raibeart,” Rory answered.

  Was the reason she was so angry with him in that knowledge somewhere?

  Jennifer knew she should thank him, but she couldn’t force the words out of her mouth. “What were you doing in the woods?”

  “Night stroll,” he said.

  She felt he was lying to her.

  She also had no proof of it.

  When she didn’t comment, he continued, “When we found ya, ya weren’t making much sense. I honestly thought ya were drunk, so we brought ya here to sleep it off.”

  “Drunk,” she repeated, doubtful. She couldn’t drink at work.

  “Ya smelled like it,” Rory said.

  Jennifer automatically looked at her work shirt and sniffed. Sure enough, she smelled like stale liquor. One of the cheap asses from the table of seven had spilled his whiskey on her. “I wasn’t drunk.”

  “Jennifer was wondering why no one thought to take her to the hospital,” Maura told her brother.

  “It was late, and we thought ya just needed rest. Maybe we should have,” Rory said. “I’m sorry if ya think we didn’t do right by ya. I did ask my sister to keep an eye on ya. I didn’t want ya waking up in a motel room with a man hovering nearby. I’ll take ya to a hospital now if ya require a doctor. Or our ma is a healer.”

  “Maura told me,” Jennifer said.

  “Our ma’s cheaper,” Maura added.

  “Free,” Bruce corrected. “Ma don’t charge.”

  “I don’t need a healer,” Jennifer stated.

  “That’s right. We were getting ya coffee.” Maura turned to head toward the back.

  “Out,” Bruce said.

  “What?” Maura frowned at him.

  “We’re out of coffee. Ya need to go to the store,” Bruce answered.

  “I need to go to the…” Maura arched a brow and crossed her arms over her chest. She was shorter than her brothers, but Bruce instantly straightened his shoulders.

  “I was just about to go to the store,” he said.

  Maura nodded. “That’s what I thought ya were saying.”

  “It’s all right. I should head home. I have a double shift today,” Jennifer said. There were too many people in the small lobby, and she couldn’t get rid of the urge growing inside her to attack Rory.

  “Hey, go buy her a coffee and drop her off, would ya?” Maura said to Rory. “There is no reason to make her walk.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Jennifer stated.

  “I don’t mind.” Rory instantly went to the door and opened it for her. “I’d love to take ya for coffee.”

  His tone dipped, and he made it sound like they were about to go on a date. Jennifer glanced down at her smelly shirt. “I’m…”

  “Perfect,” Rory grinned.

  Jennifer glanced at Maura, who nodded enthusiastically at her.

  “Okay,” Jennifer agreed. “Thanks.”

  “Since you’re working tonight, I’ll stop by to try those nachos I keep hearing about,” Maura said. “I haven’t been there yet.”

  Jennifer smiled. She genuinely enjoyed Maura and Bruce’s conversation. They were friendly and easy to like. She wanted to like Rory, but something inside her tried to explode each time she looked at him. She couldn’t figure out why. His smile was kind. Objectively, she could say he was handsome. He didn’t stare at her chest or make inappropriate comments. There was nothing untoward she could put her finger on.

  And still, she wanted to deck him.

  When she walked by him, she detected the faintest trace of cologne. He stood against the door, holding it open. It caused her to pass close to him, and she noticed the heat radiating from his body. She felt the warmth inside her as if it tried to soothe the coldness of the rage she suppressed. None of her emotions made sense.

  Rory moved past her into the parking lot. She stood on the sidewalk, cradling her apron against her waist while deciding what she should do. Finally, she jogged a few paces until she fell into step next to him.

  “Do you mind if we make the coffee drive-thru? I don’t want to go in anywhere,” she said. “Not smelling like I work in a bar.”

  He actually looked a little disappointed, and she again had the impression this was some kind of a strange date for him.

  “Sure. We can do that,” Rory answered.

  The 1966 black Mustang that he led her to looked as if he’d driven it off the lot that very morning. She knew it was a ’66 because it said so on the front license plate. He went to the passenger door and pulled it open. The etiquette took her by surprise.

  “Um, thanks,” she said, slipping into the car.

  She watched him walk around the front of the vehicle. Their eyes met through the windshield.

  “What am I doing here?” she whispered through clenched teeth. “None of this makes sense. Who are you, Rory MacGregor?”

  Chapter Five

  Rory knew this wasn’t a date. It was drive-thru coffee suggested by his sister with the woman who had tried to kill him the night before with an ancient blade.

  Still, he felt his heart beating a l
ittle faster when he looked at her. His magick tingled beneath his flesh, filling him with awareness. He wanted to be here, next to her, with her.

  There was also a sense of danger.

  Rory needed to believe the look in her eyes when she gazed at him with a cross between confusion and innocence. How could this be the same woman who’d tried to attack him? Maybe she’d been possessed by a wood spirit? Or perhaps someone had cursed the blade she found. Stranger things had happened in Green Vallis. He didn’t want to consider that behind her beautiful brown eyes lurked something darker.

  Though they had not lived there long, it was clear that Green Vallis was a special place. All of the MacGregors had felt it the second they drove into the city limits. A convergence of ley lines beneath the surface created a powerful vortex that fed their magick. Like all things, magick needed fuel to work. Normally that energy came from nature, which had been difficult in their previous home.

  New York City had a lot of metal and concrete, and very little by way of plant life. What it did have was large crowds, which made it easy to hide in plain sight. No one really paid attention to a man walking around in a kilt, and foreign accents didn’t tend to stick out as they did in their current Midwestern home.

  Although the family had thrived in many ways in the city, their magick had starved. They could only take so much power-infusing life from Central Park and community gardens before they killed every plant in Manhattan like a magickal plague.

  In contrast, the mansion his extended family had purchased in Green Vallis came with eighty acres of forest. Here, they could take the energy they needed from the woods as a whole without killing a single tree. There was more than enough to keep their magick healthy. They could live at peace with nature, taking care of it as it took care of them.

  He glanced at Jennifer, letting his gaze slide down to her legs to where she clutched her apron. There was another way to fuel magick, one they’d had to resort to quite often in New York City—sex. Sexual energy could give a quick infusion, much like a rush of adrenaline. It wasn’t sustainable and didn’t last all that long, but damn, it was fun.

  Unfortunately, Green Vallis’s power also attracted unsavory supernatural creatures. The ley lines pulsed like a beacon, welcoming good and evil without discrimination. In the few short years they had lived there, they’d fought a psychic entity called a lidérc, numerous ghosts, gremians, trolls, goblins, leprechauns, a banshee, possessions, demon spawns, and a couple of regular sick-ass murdering humans.

  There were even a few non-threatening supernaturals living in town, like Jefferson, Jennifer’s boss. He was a third-generation dhampir, the product of a vampire and human pairing. The family was keeping an eye on him. The last thing they wanted was vampires coming to town, but the man didn’t appear connected to a den.

  Despite all these inconveniences, the MacGregor family was determined to make it work. They were not giving up Green Vallis without a fight. And they sure as hell weren’t leaving it to become overrun by those with malevolent intent.

  “This is awkward, huh?” Jennifer said, breaking the silence.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You didn’t have to agree to give me a ride. I know you are being polite because Maura suggested it,” she said. “After taking me to the motel last night and making sure I was unharmed, you’ve done more than enough. I’m fine if you want to take me straight to the Crimson Tavern. Or here. I can get out here and walk.”

  Rory realized he hadn’t been talking. His mind had been drifting. He needed to figure out the question of who this woman was and what had happened the night before.

  “Who have ya been around, love, that such an idea is even a remote possibility?” Rory demanded, unable to help himself. “Who would drop a woman in the middle of town, blocks away from her destination? And before fulfilling the simple promise of coffee?”

  She leaned slightly away from him, her eyes focusing on his face.

  “I only meant to say it’s not a very gentlemanly thing to do.” He eased his tone as he tried to explain.

  “All right,” she said. Her hands had tightened on the apron.

  “Any man worth the name would help a woman in distress,” he insisted.

  “All right,” she repeated.

  “I said I’d give ya ride, and I meant it,” he continued.

  “Thanks,” she answered, her tone a little flat. “The ride is appreciated.”

  She looked like he’d been yelling at her. So much for his MacGregor charm. What the hell was wrong with him? He should be complimenting her and making her laugh, not lecturing her about whatever it was he was lecturing her about.

  “All I meant was—”

  “I get it,” she interrupted. “It wasn’t my intention to insult your manhood.”

  “I don’t think ya insulted my manhood.”

  “Your gentlemanly-hood then.”

  “I don’t think ya insulted me.”

  “All right.”

  He wished she’d stop saying that. It made him feel like a little kid being tolerated by a tired parent.

  “Ya don’t remember anything from the forest last night?” He twisted his hands against the steering wheel.

  Since moving to Green Vallis, all of his cousins who’d been born of Uncle Angus and Aunt Margareta had found their true loves—Erik found Lydia, Iain found Jane, Euann found Cora, Malina re-found her luck demon Dar, Niall found Charlotte, and Kenneth found Andrea. Even Uncle Fergus had found the reincarnation of his long-dead wife, Elspeth.

  The odds of meeting a fíorghrá, a true love, were astronomical, considering they lived for hundreds of years. But for so many of his clan to have met them here, now? It was almost too much to comprehend. It had to be part of the local magick, or so Rory hoped.

  For some stupid reason, he’d convinced himself Jennifer was going to mean something special to him. The second that he saw her he’d felt his world change.

  Maybe after seven pairings for the MacGregor family, fate thought it had done enough.

  Rory couldn’t help but be jealous. He had no problem finding women to have sex with him, but he wanted more. He wanted a connection, a wife, someone who loved him unconditionally, and who he could love in return with every fiber of his being.

  In searching for that dream, that wish, he was afraid he’d start desperately trying to force any women he met into that mold. Was that what happened with Jennifer? Was he taking the fact she’d tried to murder him and twisting it into some sign that wasn’t there?

  “Any of these will work,” Jennifer said, glancing out the window to direct his attention to the fast food places he drove past.

  The idea of taking her through a fast food drive-thru for a coffee left him a little sick to his stomach. They probably brewed it next to the fryers, and it would taste like French fry grease. This was not how a man treated a lady the first time they went somewhere together. His ma would lock him in his room for a month if she found out. Sure, he was hundreds of years old and a man, but warlocks still knew not to cross their elders.

  However, since this wasn’t a date and he was already failing miserably at conversation, Rory turned into the next restaurant. He pulled into line behind a minivan. Someone had affixed stickers of a mom, dad, and three children to the back window. The normality of it made him jealous.

  Jennifer dug into her apron. “Can you order me a number two with a large coffee and cream, please?”

  She pulled her hand from her apron and tried to give him money to pay for it.

  “I got this,” he said.

  “No, it’s—”

  “I insist,” he cut her off.

  “Thank you.” Jennifer sighed and looked out the passenger window. She clutched her money in her hand.

  The car again fell into silence. He made his way through the drive-thru, talking only to order her number two and a couple of coffees. After he received their order, he handed the bag of food to her.

  “Thanks.” Jennifer was careful not t
o touch his hand when she took the food from him. She didn’t open it to check the contents as she placed it on her lap with the apron.

  Rory took an obligatory sip of the hot coffee and hid his grimace. Just as he expected, the bitter flavor had the underlying taste of a deep-fat fryer.

  “Which way?” he asked, coming to a stop sign.

  “You can drop me off at the Crimson Tavern. I’ll make my way from there.” Jennifer fingered the plastic lid on her cup, tapping a light rhythm on the top.

  “I can take ya home.” Rory wanted to be a gentleman, but she made it damn hard.

  “I…” The tapping stopped.

  Rory inhaled a deep breath and slowly nodded, understanding her hesitance. “You’re worried about me seeing where ya live? ’Cause I’m a stranger?”

  Jennifer nodded.

  “If it makes ya feel any better, this is a small town. I can probably figure it out by asking around. I’m pretty sure Mrs. Callister, the local busybody, keeps a record of everyone.” He smiled, hoping to make her at least chuckle once on this drive.

  “You’ve seen it?” Jennifer grimaced. “What she says about Kay and me is a lie. We just waitress. We’re not prostitutes. Honestly, my job is hard enough without her blog posts making guys think they can get lucky in the back room between appetizers and the main course for ten bucks. If you think I’m going to blow you for a couple of bucks, you’re mistaken.”

  Rory’s hand tightened on the coffee cup and the lid popped off, spilling hot liquid on his hand and leg. “Ow, damn it!”

  The car swerved before he managed to apply the brakes a little too hard.

  “Oh!” Jennifer braced a hand on the dashboard and lifted her cup in the air to keep it from sloshing around.

  Luckily, the coffee mainly landed on his kilt and not the bare legs underneath, even though he could feel the heat of it against his crotch.

  “Oh, ouch,” Jennifer acknowledged as she set her cup on the floor and dug into her food bag to pull out napkins. She handed them over. “Did it burn?”

  “I’ll be fine.” He took the napkins and blotted the kilt. “Though I can’t say the same for Mrs. Callister. That nuisance has to be stopped. By calling respectable women whores, she’s gone too far this time.”