by Amy Vansant
Wrong place, wrong time for the man, but perfect timing for him.
Rune didn’t know how long he’d been out. It had been early evening, hadn’t it? Now it was morning. Early, but the sun had risen. A teenage girl walked down the street. She looked at him and hurried her step to cross the street away from him, eyes flashing with fear.
Rune looked down at his shirt. It was covered in blood and dirt.
I forgot.
As he stood watching the girl cross the road he felt a presence behind him. His good arm darted out, his fingers curling around a thin wrist like a mongoose clamping its teeth on a cobra.
“Ow!”
The woman yelped and tried to jerk her arm from his grasp. Her name appeared in his mind. It was all she could think about. Herself. Her safety. Her indignation.
Hello, Maddie.
“Let go of her!” screamed Maddie’s friend. She struck him with the side of her fist, a glancing blow that grazed his shoulder and ended clanging against his metal arm. The friend yelped and stumbled back, cradling her hand.
Maddie’s attention shifted and Rune’s eyes grew wide at the malice of her thoughts. He gaped at her as she struggled to pull from his grasp.
She isn’t your friend, is she?
In fact, Maddie hated her ‘friend.’
You want her dead.
Maddie’s darkest thoughts poured into his brain.
Not me. Why not Dixie? She’s an idiot. Not me. Why didn’t you grab her?
Rune grinned.
“Her?” he asked.
Maddie stopped struggling. She stared at him, leaning back as he held her aloft, as if she were a water skier and he the boat. He could tell she understood he’d read her most desperate wish. Or at least, his question had given her hope he had read her mind.
Kill Dixie. Let me go. You can have her.
She said it as clearly as if she’d spoken the words.
“If that’s what you want,” he said, amused by how much pleasure the thought gave her.
He released Maddie’s wrist and she fell on her butt with a loud oof. Spinning, he grabbed the other woman by the same arm she held pressed against her torso, the hand that had struck his metal arm with such force.
“No!”
What’s this one’s name? He couldn’t read this one, but Maddie had thought it.
Dixie.
Dixie’s eyes grew wild as her panic grew. She looked to Maddie for help, the help she herself had tried to provide.
Rune glanced at Maddie, giving her every opportunity to stop him. She’d scrambled to her feet but remained rooted to the spot. Watching. Standing just out of reach. She wasn’t stupid. Best to not press her luck.
She was committed to her first thought.
Take her, not me.
Rune summoned all the healing life force he could from the woman now in his grasp. Dixie’s flesh went pale. Her features sank, her jaw falling slack as she ceased to struggle. In a moment, she collapsed to the ground, dust swirling away in the desert breeze as fast as it could fall.
Rune closed his eyes and smiled. He felt amazing. Fully healed. He raised his good hand to his neck and felt the small jagged scar where his daughter had stabbed him.
Smoother.
He turned to Maddie, who remained there, jaw lolling like a gasping fish’s. After a moment she shut her mouth, straightened and met his gaze.
“Thank you,” she said.
The corner of her mouth curled, as if she were almost giddy, and then she strode off quickly, but never running.
Rune sniffed and watched her go.
I like that one.
She reminded him of Fiona. Back before she was obviously corrupted by her do-good sister and those horrible, horrible Scots.
Chapter Five
“You okay, Maddie?”
Maddie Barbeau turned to find Jake Hastings staring down at her where she sat at a picnic bench. She glanced down at her sandwich and realized she’d been picking pieces of bread off it, rolling them into tiny balls and dropping them.
“Huh?”
“I said are you okay? You were staring at…” Jake glanced to the left. “…I don’t know what over there and...” he motioned to the mess of tiny bread balls in front of her. “And there’s that.”
Maddie smiled, knowing when she grinned people could see no less than twenty-three perfectly white teeth. Her smile melted everyone. No one could be mad at her when she flashed the pearly whites—she’d learned that early on in life. Her teeth were probably almost entirely responsible for her career as an arts and crafts guru. That, and the fact her projects were the only thing that ever seemed to make her mother take notice. She’d kept practicing until she’d decorated their entire apartment in homemade décor. It looked as if a professional designer had redone the dump.
Not that Mom noticed.
Maddie felt her expression souring and pulled her thoughts away from her childhood. “I’m fine, Jake. Just thinking of a new project for the show.”
“Yeah? What’re ya thinkin’? Ball bearings made outta bread?”
Crap. She hadn’t thought he’d ask for an example.
Maddie smiled again. “Too soon to say.”
He basked in the light of her grin and let it go.
“Okay, but we still have six shows to film and we’re running out of your standbys. Keep thinking.”
Jake flashed his own smile, one lower tooth tucked back behind the others. Coffee stains. But she guessed that’s why he was the director of Crafty People, and not the on-air talent, like her.
He moved away and then turned back. “Hey, you haven’t seen Dixie today, have you? Don’t you guys usually come to the set together?”
Maddie shook her head. “No. We’ve bumped into each other in the parking lot walking over here a few times, but we don’t carpool.”
It was a lie.
I shouldn’t have lied about that. She’d probably told people...
“I mean, not much,” she added.
“Hm.” Jake glanced at his watch and then put his hands on his hips to stare at the ground. “Not like her to be late and I can’t reach her. I can only shoot around her segments for so long.”
Maddie shrugged and pretended to return to her sandwich. Without the bread to protect her from the mustard, she wasn’t sure how to pick it up. She studied it as if it were a puzzle until she no longer felt Jake’s presence and then balled it in the paper it had been wrapped in.
Dixie. That’s who she’d been thinking about when Jake caught her staring into space. Not the next craft for the contestants to make on their stupid show. Dixie was her bubbly co-host. A blonde airhead with almost as toothy a grin as hers and boobs twice as big. Dixie specialized in woodworking crafts, and with her micro-jean shorts, pink tool belt and half-unbuttoned work shirt tied at the waist, she’d been stealing the show. Maddie could tell by the way the contestants reacted to Dixie’s ‘Southern charm’ and how they weren’t reacting to her.
It was Maddie’s show. They’d created it for her after she went viral on YouTube with her crafty life-hacks. The video of the race car track she built for her neighbor’s kid out of quick-dry cement and paint alone had gotten over a million hits.
She was the star.
Then she showed up on set and they trotted out Dixie, all tits and teeth with that drawl and trademark big eye-roll when the contestants don’t live up to their potential…How was she supposed to compete with that?
Yesterday had been Maddie’s birthday. Craft-services had brought over a cake and she’d blown out the candle thinking, I wish you’d die as she smiled at Dixie. Dixie smiled back.
Idiot.
And then today, that man who grabbed her. He’d known. Somehow he’d known she wanted Dixie dead. She could feel him pulling the information from her, as if she were reading her own thoughts in his head.
Maddie rubbed her wrist where he’d grabbed her, the faint red impression of his grip still visible on her skin.
And j
ust like that he’d let her go, lunging to grab Dixie instead. Dixie, who had tried to save her, who hadn’t run.
Dixie was brave, too. Good for her.
Look what that got her.
That thing grabbed her and she disappeared as if she were a milkshake and he’d slurped her away until nothing was left but dust.
I really did see that. Didn’t I?
Dixie had turned to dust and blown away. Even her stupid pink tool belt.
Dust.
The man had been pale when he first grabbed her. When he turned back, after poofing Dixie, he was still thin with hollow cheeks and a hawkish nose, but his color looked better...as if he’d been hungry and Dixie was a sandwich.
The look he’d given her then—she could tell he understood. That he wouldn’t hurt her. For a moment she’d been mesmerized by his admiring stare, but she’d snapped to her senses and left. No use pushing her luck with whatever he was.
She’d wished Dixie dead and now she was gone. She assumed. She didn’t imagine she’d be coming back from dust.
It was as if that man had been sent to do her bidding. To make her wishes come true.
Do I have some kind of super power? Can I wish for anything? Or only death?
More importantly...
Who else do I want gone?
Chapter Six
“What are we supposed to do with Fiona?” Catriona asked Sean. She’d called him two seconds after Fiona broke up her ‘honeymoon.’
Ha. Honeymoon. The word in her head made her snicker quietly to herself. Truth be told, she felt a little too...happy?
No. Stop it.
Time to make a concerted effort to tamp down her misplaced giddiness.
Grow up, Cat.
The marriage couldn’t continue. She’d told Broch it was too soon for them to even think about getting married and she’d meant it. The time they’d known each other was practically easier to count in weeks than it was in months. She’d look like an impetuous idiot if she accidentally married Kilty and then actually stayed married to him.
Wouldn’t I?
She sneaked a peek at Broch and bit her lip.
It didn’t help that he looked so good in those boxers.
Did she have to tell him they needed to get the marriage annulled? Bedding him under the false pretense of staying married would be wrong.
Right?
Sean huffed on his end of the phone and Catriona jumped, surprised to find herself still talking to him. She felt her face grow hot. She felt like a little girl whose father had walked in on her while she was building a love shrine to the boy with the floppy hair in fifth period.
Not that she’d ever done that.
“Tell her to stay there,” said Sean. “You’ll be out and busy anyway.”
Her?
Who?
Oh right. Fiona.
Catriona tried to pierce her sister with a glare. Fiona had Broch cornered, trying to snatch the wedding certificate from his hand.
“But I don’t want her to stay here,” whined Catriona.
“What’s that?” Fiona turned at the sound of Catriona’s complaining and Broch followed her gaze, allowing the hand holding their certificate to drop.
Seeing the inevitable, Catriona gasped. “Broch!”
Too late.
Fiona plucked the paper from his grasp and skittered around the sofa as he pawed after her. She slipped behind a chair, nose nearly pressed to the sheet as she tried to read. Before he could snatch back the paper, she’d already lowered it and stood gaping at them.
“You two are married?”
“Who’s married?” asked Sean from his end of the line.
Catriona stared daggers through Fiona. “No one. It’s a mistake.”
“We are,” said Broch, moving to the phone. “Da, Catriona and ah ur merrit.”
“What?”
Catriona strode across the room. “It was a mistake. We had a fake marriage in Vegas when I was all hopped up on pain pills and they misunderstood what I wanted.”
Did they, though?
“But ’tis real, richt?” asked Broch.
“Looks real to me,” said Fiona.
“It’s not. I mean it is but—”
“’Tis it o’ nae?” asked Broch, the spot between his eyebrows beginning to bunch.
Catriona could see he was already planning to withhold the honeymoon.
Dammitdammitdammit.
Almost three decades without a sister and now that she had one, the wench managed to cause thirty years’ worth of trouble every ten minutes.
I’m trapped.
Staying married meant backpedaling on everything she’d told Broch about doing things right. Get a quickie divorce and he’d never forgive her—and worse—no honeymoon.
She swallowed. “Well I mean, it is...”
“I think she wants a divorce,” said Fiona, moving to the coffee machine.
Broch’s eyes widened. “A divorce?”
Catriona squeezed her eyes shut as if the act could make her invisible. “Will you two shut up for five seconds so I can finish this phone call?”
“So you’re married?” asked Sean.
“I guess. Yes. For now. I’ll get it cleared up.”
Sean sighed. “You two have to figure out what you’re doing with each other before you drive me crazy.”
“Sure. Absolutely. We’re only here to serve.” Catriona frowned as she recalled Sean saying something interesting earlier in their conversation.
Tell her to stay there. You’ll be out and busy anyway.
“Why did you say we’d be busy?” she asked.
“I did? Oh, right. You will be. Crafty People is missing a host, so I need you to go see if you can help find her.”
“Isn’t that a little below my pay grade? Can’t they just send a PA to her door? She’s probably sleeping one off.”
“They already sent someone. They’re out of ideas beyond getting the police involved and we don’t want that.”
Catriona huffed. “Fine. I was hoping to take a day off. I’m a head-to-toe contusion, remember?”
“Better not to wallow. Keep moving.”
“Healing is not wallowing.” Even as she said the words, she knew Sean might be right. The last thing she wanted to do was to close her eyes and see that pit full of dead girls again.
“I’ll check in later,” he said, clearly maneuvering to get off the phone.
“Can’t wait.”
They hung up and Catriona let the phone fall to her side. Kilty stood staring at her, the marriage certificate still in his hand. He had an expectant air about him, as if he were waiting for answers.
Like I have any of those.
Fiona smirked at her from beside the refrigerator. Somehow she was smiling and licking peanut butter off a spoon at the same time.
Catriona pointed at her sister. “You better not double dip that.”
“Closest thing to non-carb I could find in your crapfest of a refrigerator.” Her gaze darted to Broch and back to Catriona. “So am I buying a wedding card or a divorce card? Does Hallmark make cards for the dissolution of Vegas weddings?”
“Probably make a killing on them,” mumbled Catriona, heading for her bedroom.
“Where ye goan?” asked Broch. She could hear his footsteps in pursuit. “We need tae talk aboot this.”
“We have a job. Go get dressed.”
She held up a hand in an attempt to silence him, but Broch grabbed her wrist and gently pulled her to him. He murmured in her ear, his warm breath sending shivers down her back.
“Are we merrit or nae?”
Ohyesyesyes...
She felt herself melting into his arms before remembering the ebony-haired headache slurping peanut butter in the front room.
Witch.
She pulled from Broch’s embrace and flicked the certificate with her finger. “In the eyes of the law we are, yes.”
“And in the eyes of God?”
Catriona shrugged. “Yo
u’d have to ask Him. They had a little chapel, right? Am I remembering that right? I suppose that counts.”
He placed a hand on her upper arm, his eyes getting that soft, misty look that always made her melt. “And in yer eyes?”
Catriona’s attention flicked to Fiona, who had strolled into the bedroom, her face awash with bemusement at the soap opera playing before her.
Catriona felt her cheeks flash with angry heat.
“We have to go. Go get dressed. My face hurts. We’ll get all this worked out later.”
She walked into the bathroom where she could shut the door. Leaning her back against it, she took a deep breath.
How could we have really been married? Did I know what I was doing? Did I fool myself into marriage?
She stared at her swollen lip and blackened eye in the mirror.
Ugh.
Who would marry that?
Chapter Seven
During their walk to the Crafty People set, Catriona had expected Broch to talk her ear off. He tended to get excited the same way a three-year-old boy did—a lot of talking, a little running around and then more talking.
Instead, he strode beside her in pouty silence, which made her feel even worse. It seemed the rush of excitement he’d enjoyed after discovering their marriage had been replaced by deep disappointment.
In her.
Catriona opened her mouth to explain to him, once again, that it was unusual for people to marry within a month or two of meeting each other. It wasn’t like the old days where you spotted some girl with childbearing hips and immediately dropped to one knee.
She gently pressed her fat lip against her other, slightly less fat lip.
What’s the point?
She’d already tried to explain it to him a hundred times, and no matter what she said, they were married now. What did a piece of a paper mean anyway? Maybe she could call this marriage a sort of engagement and—
“Can I help you?”
Catriona stopped short as a man with a clipboard stepped in front of her. They’d already reached the entrance to the Crafty People filming lot. She had little memory of making the ten-minute trek.
She glanced behind her to make sure Broch was still on her heels. He was, his previous pout all grown-up into a deep frown of disapproval as he eyed the paunchy young man blocking their entrance to the lot.
