He forced himself to take his gaze off Jade and take in the lobby surroundings. He liked the tall ceilings and the openness of the immense room. Part of the lobby, including the staircase was still original. However, the hotel entry and the actual hotel were tripled in size decades ago. The huge room was airy and light.
He didn’t have to wait long for her to finish, maybe five minutes. A man in a navy blue blazer came to join Jade at the front desk.
“Let me get my things. I’ll be right back,” she told Decker.
He nodded. “Sure.”
She hurried to the staff office and hung up her maroon, San Marcos blazer, and took her purse out of her locker. When she came around the front counter, Decker rose. He walked toward her.
“Good night, Jade.”
“Have a good night, Jason,” she called to her co-worker then turned to focus her attention on Decker.
He had to admire his girl. Damn, but she looked fine in that dress. It was just a plain, black, sleeveless, sheath dress. It rose only about two inches above her knees. Her calves were toned and shapely. She wore plain black pumps. Professional, conservative business attire, but damn she looked good in it. The dress accentuated her trim waist, the curve of her hips, and those beautiful breasts. Her hair was pulled up into a messy knot, with some strands hanging down. She just looked so…sexy. Hot, even – and he would never tell another living soul he thought she was hot – even though he did. She was. Of course, he thought she was beautiful. He could tell her that.
Maybe it was because they had shared that phenomenal, never-ending kiss last night and he had held her in his arms the entire night. Then again, maybe he was just horny, although not as much as he had been when he woke up with his gorgeous girl sleeping in his arms. He’d had to make himself get out of bed and pry himself from that soft, warm body. A longer and colder than usual shower set him back to rights. Whatever it was about her, at this moment, she looked amazing, so amazing that he was having a little problem not thinking about sleeping with her naked. And it was way too soon for that.
He didn’t ever have sex with a girl until he’d dated her for at least a month; usually it was two or more. He waited until he really knew the woman, and made sure she wasn’t psycho. He was pretty sure Jade wasn’t a psycho. By his rules, sex didn’t happen until at least a month after the first date, sometimes longer, it just depended on the situation. He felt that was the best way to proceed.
Damn, he had a long way to go. Of course, Jade wouldn’t be sleeping in his bed for an entire month. This was temporary until his brothers installed that alarm in their apartment. He had two, maybe three more nights at the most, of the torture of sleeping in the same bed but not having sex with her. Damn it all, he did want to have sex with her even though he knew he shouldn’t. It would be much easier to be a gentleman when she wasn’t sleeping in his bed and in his arms. In those cute little pink pajamas.
“Are you ready to go?” he asked as he took her hand.
“I am. How was your day?” She smiled at him.
“It was a Monday and a busy one. I left work with just enough time to change before I came to get you. Oh, we’re picking up pizza and a salad on our way home. Liam called it in.”
“Pizza sounds good.”
“They’ve been busy today. They found a lot of information. Brody found an email address for mom’s cousin in Ireland. They sent an email to him. They want us to sit in a circle tonight after dinner, if you’re up for it. Harper thinks we should since we’re all together tonight anyway.” Decker entwined his fingers with hers.
“Yeah, it’s a good idea. I think it is important. Do you feel like it?” she asked Decker.
“Sure, I do.” He helped her into his vehicle. After he clicked his seatbelt in place, he handed her a mini grocery bag. “I picked up something for you at my lunch break.”
“Ah, green tea! Cold brew individual bags. Thanks. That was so sweet of you, Decker.” She was flattered he took the time to buy her favorite tea.
She gave him a bright smile that started his blood racing. His gaze focused on those beautiful pink lips. When she leaned over to give him a quick peck on the cheek, he caught a whiff of that light floral perfume she wore. If that wasn’t enough to drive him crazy, the jolt of energy that always flared up between them when they touched really fired his blood. There was the fact that she just looked so sexy and yeah, okay, he was a little horny, probably because he spent the entire night with a hard-on while he held her close.
What else could he do? He caught her and pulled her in for a longer, proper kiss, complete with tongue. That warm energy flamed and engulfed them. She grinned up at him when he raised his head. He let her go and turned the key in the ignition.
“I’ve been thinking about kissing you all day.” He winked at her then grinned. It wasn’t a complete lie. He’d thought about kissing too. His thoughts had mostly centered on having hot, hard sex with her, but there was some kissing involved.
“I’ve been hoping you would do that all day.” She gave him a sexy little grin.
“That’s good to know.” He flashed an approving smile her way before turning his head to back out of the parking space.
“Let’s pick up dinner and head home, shall we?”
Jade changed into yoga pants and a long t-shirt. She selected a piece of the veggie pizza, and the smallest piece of the special loaded with everything, forked some salad onto her plate, added a drizzle of balsamic vinaigrette dressing onto her greens then joined the others at the table. Decker had made her a glass of iced green tea. She slid into the chair next to him, and gave him an appreciative smile. He returned the smile, but she did note his eyes darkened a little as he studied her. How he could think of her as appealing in her big, boxy tee she didn’t know. She must have imagined the desire she thought she saw in those brilliant blue eyes.
“I sent an email to Sean O’Flynn. By his email address I gather he is a manager at a Ballymarter Castle somewhere near Cork City.” Liam looked to Jade and Decker. “I looked the place up, and it is a swanky resort in a seventeenth century manor that also incorporates the remains of the original castle built by the Knights Templar. It looks like a cool place. I sent the email about two-thirty, but no response has come yet. He may not even see it until tomorrow with the time difference and all,” Liam informed them just before he took a huge bite of his piece of loaded pizza.
“I found a wealth of information on Mom and Dad’s computer, all in separate files. They kept a log of passwords and user codes beside the computer, and thankfully, I thought to grab it and kept it with the tower when I packed it away. She had some of the files locked, but I was able to unlock several of them with their codes. I printed the best of what I found today. We read through some of it earlier,” Brody informed them.
After taking two bites of pizza, Brody continued, “The name Ciaran O’Sullivan keeps cropping up. I think that must be the demon’s name, although in the notes it does say he uses a variety of different names. Mom refers to a dark one, or the one of dark blood in a few places in her notes she kept in the locked files.”
The hairs on Decker’s neck stood up. Ciaran was the name the Chief and his son had used for the creep look alike in the dream he had the day before. He hadn’t told anyone about that yet.
Brody stretched his arms up over his head. “So, according to the emails exchanged by Mom and her cousin Sean, our demon didn’t know where Mom and her family were for well over twenty years. It is possible he knew we were in the U.S. but not that we lived in Arizona, until Mom and Dad’s accident, I guess. It appears our parents did their best to hide our location when they moved from Boston to Chandler around thirty-one years ago. Dad used his middle name for his legal name when they moved to Arizona, and Mom used only the first part of her given name, Mary, instead of Mary-Kate. She dropped the Kate entirely from her name. They used a P.O. Box at the Chandler Post Office. Since there are so many Deckers, and this Ciaran was looking for a Gregory Decker who was
married to a Mary Kate, and had no idea where to look once they left Boston, it looks like we were safe for decades.”
“Wow. I thought Dad’s first name was John. Why did they leave Boston?” Decker asked.
Jade looked to him. “I think I know. You’re thirty, right?”
The realization hit him hard. “Because she was pregnant with me?” Decker shook his head. “And he was after them.”
Jade, Liam, and Brody nodded in unison.
“Apparently her dad, and her brothers were killed by this thing before Mom and Dad left Boston,” Brody offered solemnly.
“Cousin Sean in Ireland, was her grandfather’s second or third cousin, and not directly of the Bearach O’Flynn line. For whatever reason, her cousin Sean wasn’t being hunted as Mom was; however, he kept in touch with her branch of the Flynns in Boston when he could. This Ciaran O’Sullivan person returned to Ireland for a time after our parents moved to Arizona,” Liam explained.
He continued, “According to what Mom and her cousin Sean discussed in their email exchanges, many of the Cork O’Flynns and O’Sullivans are aware of this curse. I gathered the O’Sullivans aren’t proud of their evil ancestor, Ciaran, either. Anyway, seven years ago, Cousin Sean’s previous email was hacked, and he sent an email from a new address, the one I used today, to tell Mom his personal email was hacked. They exchanged several emails after that, but she made several new email addresses of her own. She never used her name in the addresses, and she saved them all in a locked file. In the last email Sean sent, he wished her well, and warned her that she and her family needed to be careful, that Ciaran O’Sullivan had left Ireland the week before for the U.S. He seemed to think he would be hunting our family again. He sent that email one week before Mom and Dad were killed,” Liam explained. “The one on her computer is forwarded from a different IP address to her email.”
“And stranger still, the email address where Sean sent this particular email to was totally different from email address she forwarded it from. I bet money the computer she used for one or more of those email addresses is the computer up the house in Sedona,” Brody finished.
“So, there is a chance this Ciaran O’Sullivan, who never knew where we lived, might have found them in Sedona.” Decker rose. The news unsettled and angered him. “He might have killed them. He could have found them, chased them, and forced them off the road? Is that what you are saying?”
Brody nodded solemnly. “We have no way of knowing, but yeah. That seems like a definite possibility.”
Jade paled. “He will try to kill us also. That is what this is about, isn’t it? Ultimately, he wants us gone too.”
“I think he only needs to kill one to break the six,” Liam pointed out. “I can’t be sure though.”
“I don’t think he was trying to kill me the other night. It seemed as if he was trying to scare me out of my wits. And he succeeded.” Jade looked to Decker. “He broke into my room after I left. He left that bloody rose. Maybe it was a threat. I don’t understand what his purpose was.”
Decker had an idea what the demon wanted from Jade after the dream he had. Ciaran was obsessed with the chief’s daughter-in-law. Jade looked just like her. He realized if the demon was after Jade, he wanted her alive.
“I don’t either,” Brody said. “Without the six of us joined together, he is still safe. Maybe he was just trying to scare you off. If you wouldn’t go out with Decker anymore or walked away from him completely, as we believe you are Decker’s one, then we couldn’t destroy him. It would then make it easier to kill us, I think. According to everything I have read today, without whatever power the four of us and the mysterious other two have together, he can’t be destroyed.”
Decker sat again. He took Jade’s hand in his beneath the table. He was worried. He wondered if she might bail now. Not that he could blame her, but damn it, he was really into her. He wanted the chance to get to know her much better.
Jade sighed heavily. She looked to Decker. “Well, it’s a good thing we are starting our circle tonight. We need to find out what it is we can do when four of the six are together, and fast.”
She looked worried and unsure, so he said, “Look, Liam, Brody and I are in this, we can’t help it because of our bloodlines, but you don’t have to do this, Jade. It’s a lot to ask, and dangerous for all of you now, because you live together, to go forward with this.” Decker turned and searched Jade’s face for a hint of her feelings. He didn’t want to let her go, but he knew he would if it guaranteed her safety.
“You are wrong, Decker,” Harper spoke up. “We are in it whether we want to be or not. Liam worked on tracing Jade’s genealogy back this morning. He traced her Murphy lines to eighteenth century Murphy’s who lived in County Cork, Ireland, not twenty miles from where Ardagh Castle stood. He hasn’t gone far enough to see if her family comes from the Murphy wife of the O’Flynn son that was murdered, but chances are high that they do. If so, she is in it because of her bloodline, so there isn’t a choice. He’ll come after her, regardless. Erin and I are in this. Jade is not only our roommate, but like a sister to both of us. He’s after her already, and I don’t think he’ll stop even if she walked away from you, because she is a Murphy. She is a part of this, just like you, and your brothers are. Erin and I have discussed it. We’re in too. We all have a reason to get rid of Ciaran Creepy Guy O’Sullivan, and it’s a danger to us all if we don’t.”
Decker turned to find Jade watching him.
“I’m in,” she assured him with a nod. “Since he’s after me, I am in. I want him gone, as in eliminated.” Jade threaded her fingers through his and gave them a squeeze. She smiled. “And I’m in, because you’re my new boyfriend, and I’m not letting the darkness chase me away from something good.”
“Okay, great.” He gave her a tender look. “That’s settled then. We’re all in this together. I just wanted to give you an option.” The corners of Decker’s lips lifted upward into a pleased smile.
“There’s a lot more information we need to dig through, but, we also need to start working together. We’ll do that for an hour or so tonight, then maybe talk some more afterward,” Brody suggested.
Everyone agreed.
“Brody and I ran by the shop and picked up some things today,” Harper beamed as she set a white glossy bag with lavender handles and the White Magic logo on the coffee table.
“Who wants to sage?” she asked as she pulled out a sage wand.
“I’ll do it.” Erin stood and took the rolled white sage wand and abalone shell Harper handed her. She looked to Liam. “Do you have any matches or a lighter?”
“Yep. I’ll get it.” Liam rose and walked into the kitchen. Erin followed him.
“I brought one of our smudge pots, charcoal, and the Celtic Blend resin. I thought the Celtic Blend was appropriate because this thing started in Ireland,” she told Jade.
“It is. I’ll do the incense.” Jade took the small, clay three–legged pot, a roll of charcoal disks, and the small plastic bag of mixed Celtic resins.
“I’ll set up the candles and crystals,” Harper volunteered as she removed four square, clear, votive holders and a four pack of square Meditation candles.
Jade cocked her brow when she also removed a large black clove-scented jar candle. It was a spelled protection candle.
“We probably all need the protection, but especially you, Jade.” Harper looked to Brody. “I’m a little turned around here. Which way is north?”
“That way.” He pointed to the patio door behind them.
“Perfect. Thank you!” Harper started setting up the candles.
Brody put his hands in his pockets and watched her.
Decker joined Jade at the stovetop. He watched as she snagged a paper plate and set the small crock upon it. She placed the plate holding the crock in the center of the stainless steel stovetop, between the burners. The crock contained fine, black sand. He watched her open a red foil package and removed a small, round charcoal. She brok
e it in half and returned one piece to the package.
“We don’t want to smoke everyone out. I usually use half a charcoal at home and the shop,” she explained. She picked up the lighter Erin left for her and held the flame to the charcoal. It popped and sizzled as one side began to glow red. She blew on it and the charcoal fired red on that side. She set the charcoal on the sand in the center of the clay pot, careful not to burn her fingers.
She opened the bag of Celtic resin and placed some of the tiny red, green, gold, lavender, and black resin chips on the charcoal. A thin waft of smoke curled up as the resin sizzled and began to melt on the hot charcoal.
Decker inhaled. “It smells good.”
“The Celtic blend is a mixture of frankincense, myrrh, pine, benzoin, and lavender. Resin incense is the purest form of incense. It also burns cleaner. The frankincense and myrrh are wonderful for meditation as it readies the mind for the act of meditation, but they are both good for protection. Benzoin smells something like balsam and is healing and calming. Pine is healing and good for clearing negative energy. Lavender, frankincense and myrrh, bring in the highest light beings.”
“It’s nice.” Decker sniffed again and smiled at her. He saw that Harper and Brody were placing candles in votives about the room, one in the north, south, east, and west, each surrounded by four crystals. Harper placed the jar candle, clearly labeled, Protection, in the center of the coffee table. Erin and Liam were returning from walking through the house. He watched Erin hold up the sage and make a circle beginning from the north and turning clockwise in the middle point of the open family room and kitchen area. He saw her lips moving and wondered what she was saying.
“Do we need to sit on the floor?” he asked Jade.
“We can, or we can sit on the sofas and recliner as long as we can all hold hands for part of the time.”
Decker's Fate (The Decker Brothers Trilogy Book 1) Page 15
