Topaz Dreams

by Patricia Rice

  And this time, Syd was with her kids in the van, where she belonged. Well, maybe her elegant designer sister didn’t belong in a beat-up van, but she was with her children, and that’s what counted.

  “No wind?” Teddy asked, leaning on the jamb and peering inside as Kurt opened the door. “Look, they’ve picked up all the statuettes.”

  “No gleaming crystals?” Kurt asked warily.

  “Not a one. Listen, music is playing through the speakers! Does that mean Thalia is happy?”

  “No, it means Monty persuaded one of the electricians to fix the system and hooked up a player to test it.” Holding out his arm to keep her from entering, he stepped inside.

  “Such a Null thing to say.” Teddy followed him, pressing a kiss to his bristly cheek. He hadn’t been back to the lodge all day. In jeans and t-shirt, with dark bristles covering his jaw, Kurt was looking as disreputable as Harvey. She slid her arms around his waist from the back and glanced around at her beautiful shop. “I think the Lucys have even dusted.”

  “Do you want me to check upstairs before we let the kids back in?” He half-turned to kiss her before prying her off his back so he could endanger life and limb by climbing her haunted stairs.

  “Your protectiveness will never change, will it?” She took his hand and headed for the stairs with him. “I need to learn to live with my very own security guard who looks after me and my shop and my sister and his hotel and this town and. . .”

  “Want me to run for president and take over the country?” he asked mildly, forcing her to walk behind him as he eased up the stairs.

  “No, but if you could clone yourself. . .”

  “I could live in the city, at the lodge, in D.C., and you can have a mini-me everywhere you go,” he concluded. Standing at the top of the stairs, he studied the attic door before preceding to check the bedrooms and open and shut the windows. “All appears normal.”

  Teddy laughed. “Good thing I’ve given up my traveling trunk show. I don’t want you spread around the world.” She danced into the room she shared with Syd and picked up a blue crystal on her pillow. “Where did this come from?”

  “Probably Crazy Daisy,” he said, unconcerned. “Or maybe the Lucys cleaned house and found it under the bed.”

  She carried it over to the window. Syd was stepping out of the car, looking up, and Teddy waved. Her sister nodded and opened the door for the kids. “Syd is feeling braver. She’s heading this way.” She held up the crude, unpolished crystal. “I could be wrong, but this looks like blue topaz. It’s extremely rare. It fractures easily and doesn’t refract enough to make a good gemstone, but I can practically feel it brimming with confidence.”

  “Confidence,” Kurt said flatly.

  “And peace,” she added, teasing him with her knowledge. “It’s perfect for Syd. I wonder if this is the stone Lucinda liked.”

  Mia and Jeb ran up the stairs calling “Aunt T, Aunt T” loud enough to wake any ghosts. “We got to ride the ponies everywhere!”

  Teddy stooped down to hug them as they spilled over with the excitement of their day bonding with their mother. She glanced up at Syd, who looked a little less wary, a little more together than she had in a while, despite the nasty bruise on her jaw. “Hey, Sis, Thalia left us a gift.” She hefted the crystal in Syd’s direction.

  Once a skilled softball player, Syd caught it easily. She looked at what appeared to be an ugly rock and set it on the dresser. “Just don’t make pixie dust out of it.”

  “It will build your confidence,” Teddy insisted. “I’ll make a pendant for you. Do you think you’ll be okay here alone tonight or shall I stay?”

  Syd studied Kurt, who studied her back. Teddy didn’t know what they were communicating over her head, but Syd was her older sister. She’d always looked out for Teddy when they were younger. So her two guardian angels were battling it out. Teddy took the kids to their room and found the iPod producing the boring instrumental music. She punched a few buttons and blasted some reggae. Someone had eclectic taste.

  Kurt found her a second later, spun her around in the smoothest dance move she’d ever experienced, and when she was properly enthralled, he aimed for the stairs. “Karaoke in the bar, really?”

  Understanding exactly what he asked, she added, “Yoga in the atrium. Classes on art, crystals, and spiritual healing in the meeting room. Young people, creative people, not just rich old farts.”

  “Polluting them with evil?” he asked, leading the way down the narrow stairs.

  “Black tourmaline and smoky quartz—add teardrop crystals to Mariah’s ghostcatchers, sell the stones in the gift shop. They cleanse negative energy. Talk to Sam. She has theories about plants cleansing the air. Maybe all we have to do is find the right combination of materials to neutralize whatever’s polluting the ground. It’s all a learning process, like the honesty stone. It’s really tough to say what works.”

  “You really mean to double-down on this crystal business, don’t you?” Holding her hand, Kurt led her through the quiet, dark shop and into the fading light of day.

  He was asking if she meant to stay weird—just as she’d teased him about his protectiveness. Relationships really were a learning process.

  She studied the sharp angles of Kurt’s face and the warm mahogany of his eyes. He wasn’t laughing at her. He wasn’t exuding negativity. He was just asking, and she smiled so wide that her suave businessman tripped. “I’ve been holding back all my life, skimming the surface of what I can do and what crystals can do, so yes, I’m doubling down. If we’re going to be a thing, you have to accept weird.”

  Kurt cupped her face and ran his thumb on the underside of her chin. “Are we going to be a thing? I’m fascinated by anything you do, and don’t think you’re weird. Inexplicable simply means we haven’t found an explanation yet.”

  Oh, lordie, she had it bad for this formidable man. Her heart performed a perfect triple axel and she was short of breath. “If I stay in Hillvale,” she murmured, captivated by the intensity of his gaze, “my expenses will be small, and I can afford to dabble more and work less.”

  “Would you consider living with me? That will save you even more.”

  “Oooo, you sweet-talking lovely man.”

  They were standing in the middle of the street. She had to learn to curb her impulses if she meant to live in a small town. She caught his hand, kissed it, and tugged him toward the café before she embarrassed them both. “Could we live in that cozy cottage and not near your tiger shark mother?”

  “We could live in a cave on the mountain, if you like, just as long as I have you in my bed each night.” He leaned over to kiss her—and let down the barrier to his soul.

  He inundated her with his love and his fear of loving and his happiness—and his fear that he didn’t deserve any of it—the silly man.

  She grabbed his hair, poured all her passion into returning his kiss, then gasping, backed away. “I’m afraid I don’t deserve anyone as heroic as you. You’re standing between an entire town and the monster who owns it. You’ve turned yourself into a robot to protect your heart. I’m here now to battle the monster with you, and my price is a place in your heart. How’s that for a deal?”

  He practically smoldered. All that flood of fear dissipated, and his delight practically sparkled with purple pixie dust.

  “I’ll take it. I still want to build condos and a ski run and rebuild your haunted house.” He pushed her inside Dinah’s, where the light was bright, the company cheerful, and the air smelled of roasting chicken.

  “Remodel, not tear down,” she countered. Pointing at the colorful mural adorning the café’s backsplash, she added, “History counts. Someday, your image will be on these walls.”

  He chortled and pointed at the triptych photo of him and Monty standing on the corner looking flummoxed. “That’s how I’ll go down in history. It’s what I do with each minute that matters, not a painting on a wall.”

  “Ha, share those minutes with me,
and you’re in for a wild ride.”

  Kurt laughed, he actually laughed, and Teddy beamed with delight. They would definitely make beautiful bubbles together.

  Epilogue

  July 4: lunchtime

  * * *

  Kurt climbed out of his Mercedes in the parking lot and studied the holiday crowd strolling the boardwalks. If he were Teddy, he’d say the air blossomed with joy. Or excitement? Fun? Okay, so he was clueless, but people seemed happier than usual. They smiled, eagerly pointing out a particularly showy planter or an interesting object in a shop window—and best yet, they carried shopping bags.

  Walker joined him in admiring the happy bustle. “Think it can carry over to Christmas?”

  “If you think you can persuade your buddies to release the rest of the triptych, maybe. Syd and Lance are designing an altar in the meeting house for it.” Kurt headed for the café.

  “An altar?” the chief asked in amusement, following. “As in Lucys worship Lucinda Malcolm?” At Kurt’s shrug, he continued, unfazed. “The panels should be released any day, but they may need security guards. And Lonnie is screaming he’s being robbed. Lawyers can’t be too far off.”

  “We’ll need money,” Kurt agreed, curling his lip in distaste. “We’ll have to charge admission to cover expenses or find grant funding. There isn’t any chance Lonnie will be released on bond?”

  “We have Lonnie and Lisa on so many charges of art fraud that we can hold them on those until the DA puts together the murder case on Thalia. And with you pressing charges on deed forgery—no worries there. They can’t raise a red cent on bond with half their inventory labeled fraudulent.” Walker shoved open the café door. “Have you and Teddy settled what will happen to the shop once her family is the clear owner again?”

  Kurt winced at the direct hit to a sore point. “The lawyers have traced the shop deed straight back to one of the early Lucys from New England. It’s been in Teddy’s family ever since. With those original logs still in there, it could very well be considered for the National Historic Register if they requested, although I’m pretty certain that second floor was popped up from the original construction.”

  “Ouch, that complicates matters,” Walker said in sympathy.

  “Her parents are officially deeding it to both sisters, so any changes are a joint decision.” Kurt was remarkably good with that these days. He had ideas percolating that hadn’t been there before. “With proof that Lucinda Malcolm once stayed there, it might become a shrine. I’ll just have to start work with another building until they decide what they want. Maybe I’ll go back to historic reconstruction, which is Teddy’s thing. What’s happening with Ashbuth?”

  “The sheriff is out to fry the bully’s butt. He hates bad cops, and he’s none too happy with the city’s department for protecting him, so he’s demanded all of Ass’s files. He has a clear record of assault that should have had him locked up years ago. The DA thinks he has enough evidence to move Syd’s original case out of domestic violence to half a dozen felonies. Add that to stalking and assault, this time with witnesses, and he’s going down for a long time. Does make one wonder about Hillvale’s ability to attract scuzzballs.”

  Kurt grimaced. “Or we can start believing in evil and negativity that attracts more of the same. Or Lucys inviting violence—people have been burned as witches for lesser reasons than flying stone men. I’m glad we have you up here now. I hope you’re staying.”

  “As long as Sam does,” Walker said without hesitation.

  Kurt searched for Teddy in the café crowd. Once she waved at him from the nearly full counter, he relaxed enough to acknowledge a few familiar faces. He was starting to feel a little easier around the Hillvale inhabitants who’d always despised his family.

  Samantha was pouring tea in Teddy’s cup and talking to Aaron and a tall, broad stranger. They made room for the new arrivals.

  Aaron gestured at the stranger. “Kurt, Walker, this is Keegan Ives, the ceramics expert who can authenticate the Baker collection.”

  With dark curly hair and brooding dark eyes, the newcomer towered over everyone in the room. He looked more like a massive NBA player than an art expert. Kurt offered his hand, and the expert caught it in a rough, callused grip.

  “Hillvale is fortunate to have a generous benefactor like Miss Baker,” Ives said in a distinctly British accent. “You have some museum quality pieces. Unfortunately, ceramics are underappreciated in the current market. Museums lack the necessary budget.”

  “We’re just asking advice at this stage.” Teddy stepped in, disarming Kurt’s immediate defensive reaction to any slur on her family’s collection. “We’re enjoying the popularity of displaying quality work that celebrates our history.”

  “Liar,” Kurt whispered against her ear. “History won’t buy security guards.”

  She caressed his jaw, and he settled on the stool beside her to see how she played the crowd. That Teddy had some serious empathic abilities couldn’t be denied. Whether that was weird or not wasn’t for him to judge.

  “We’ve only begun to touch our history,” Sam said, delivering a fish taco to Kurt without his asking.

  Dinah’s uncanny culinary talent might also be weird, but he could get into it. The fish was better than anything the lodge was serving.

  Sam gestured at the mural. “Those are the artists who made the pottery and paintings half a century ago. Can we even identify them now?”

  “Better yet,” Mariah intervened, refilling water glasses, “if corroded eyes indicate evil, and Thalia and Susannah had to blot out the corrosion on the mural, can we assume all the people in the mural turned evil since it was painted?”

  “Watch out for septuagenarian villains?” Walker asked in amusement.

  They all turned to study the painting of Lars Ingersson and his commune cronies. The people in the portrait were young, healthy, happy, and chowing down on hamburgers and fries. It would have been almost a mirror image of them as customers at the counter, except for the conceit of positioning them like DaVinci’s Last Supper.

  Walker slapped down his glass of tea, catching everyone’s attention. “We can ask Susannah when she arrives.”

  Silence descended. At this mention of her long-lost mother, Sam gasped and covered her mouth.

  From her favorite booth in back, Cass asked, “You’ve found Susannah, and she’s actually agreed to come home?”

  “She found us,” Walker corrected. “She read about the art walk and called the number in the press release.”

  “Does she know I’m here?” Sam whispered.

  Kurt wondered how he’d managed to live in Hillvale all these years and miss all this drama. Probably because his mother had provided more drama than he could endure, so he hadn’t needed to seek more.

  Teddy squeezed his hand, and he squeezed back, letting the tension go. She was the reason he could sit here and listen like this—she defused his steam.

  “She knows nothing, and I thought it better that way,” Walker offered. “She called herself Susannah Ingersson and said she had some pieces to contribute. I told her Hillvale would be honored and offered to put her up when she arrives. I have no reason to interrogate the lady.”

  “You didn’t want to scare her off,” Mariah said. “Good boy.” She returned to the cash register.

  “Another day, another soap opera,” Kurt said, not unhappily. At Teddy’s uplifted eyebrow, he gestured. “We get to see what happens when Sam finally meets her mother, maybe learn who the people are in the mural and if they’re truly evil, what Thalia meant about the crystals. . .”

  “And maybe by then, we’ll have translated all Thalia’s writing in her journal,” Teddy added enthusiastically. “Answers to all our mysteries!”

  Dinah emerged from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel and eyeing Keegan Ives warily. “Or maybe you ought to be asking him. If he’s an art expert, maybe he knows more about your Lucinda and the crystal book Thalia says she stole.”

  Th
e newcomer didn’t have time to recover from his surprise before she slammed a chocolate malted down in front of Kurt. “And you, boy, this will sweeten you up so you can tell that nice girl that you love her so she’ll hang around and paint more doors.”

  Surprised, Kurt couldn’t immediately respond.

  Teddy, seldom ever speechless, chortled. “The nice girl already knows. Buy the paint, Dinah, and I’ll do your door next.”

  “I love you,” he whispered in her ear. “Just in case you need to hear it.”

  She sent him a brilliant smile that nearly melted the malted. “Yeah, I kinda do. It gives me a warm schmaltzy feeling that can lead to better things for tonight. And how can I not love a man who doesn’t run when I put an experiment on his finger?”

  She loved him? Swallowing hard on the immensity of that declaration, Kurt admired the mahogany ring. Deliberately, he wiggled it off his right hand and slid it over his commitment finger. “Think your experiment is working?”

  For a moment, she looked serious. “If it allows you to let down your walls and live again, yeah, I think it’s doing something right.”

  With a satisfied sigh that he might have got something right, Kurt leaned back against the counter, sipping the thick syrupy ice cream. He studied the café’s patrons returning to their private conversations. “Does this mean I’m not the Big Meanie anymore?”

  Teddy leaned over and whispered, “I’ll make us both swords and you can be villain to my heroine. Will that keep you in practice?”

  He didn’t have to think twice to answer that. “I still have my sword. Use your stick, and we’ll go home and rewrite Robin Hood and Maid Marian.”

  She hugged his arm and stole a sip of his malted and for that one moment in time, Hillvale and its inhabitants were at peace.

  Crystal Magic Series

  Other books in this series —

  Sapphire Nights

  Book 1 of the Crystal Magic Series