Blood of the White Witch (20 page)

“So you’d be disappointed,” I said, casting
my eyes down as I drew a lazy circle with my finger on his bare
chest.

“I’d never be disappointed with something
that you and I created together,” he said, catching my trailing
finger and lifting it to his lips to kiss it. “I’d just miss these
kinds of moments we’re getting to have together now,” he
replied.

“We’d still have them,” I said, looking up
at him.

“Yes,” he agreed with a slight nod. “But not
as often as I’d like. A baby has a way of changing those kinds of
things, and I like all the alone time we have right now.”

I couldn’t argue with him on that subject,
since I loved being alone with him, too. Even with all the crazy
things we had going on around us, our moments together were always
magical.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he continued. “I
greatly look forward to the time we start expanding our little
family. It’ll be awesome to see you holding my baby on your hip, or
nursing, or even changing diapers. You’ll be a beautiful mother, I
know it. I’d just planned on waiting until you were at least a
legal adult before I knocked you up,” he laughed, and he winked in
jest at me. “Even then you’d still be a statistic … you know,
teenaged pregnancy.”

“You’re crazy,” I said, and I lifted up to
kiss his lips with a quick peck. “I love you.”

He grabbed me then and flipped me over onto
my back, effectively pinning me beneath him.

“You know what they say, practice makes
perfect,” he smiled, dipping his head in for another kiss.

“Is that what they say?” I asked, and I
playfully turned my head so his kiss missed, landing somewhere in
the vicinity of my ear.

“Ohhhh!” he laughed. “And she’s going to
play hard to get! All right, I’m up for this game!”

He proceeded to attack me with vigor, and in
the end, I wasn’t sure which one of us had lost and which one had
won, but we both had a great time together anyway.

“Have I told you how much I love you,
today?” he asked as he cuddled up next to me a couple of hours
later.

“Only about a thousand times,” I replied
with a tired voice. Smiling, I closed my sleep-laden eyes.

“Well, I’d better make it a thousand and
one,” he whispered, and he placed a light kiss against my hair,
somewhere near my ear, “Because a thousand just isn’t enough. I
love you, Portia.”

“I love you too, Vance,” I responded, still
smiling to myself, and I slowly drifted off to sleep.

I awoke in the morning stretching my arm out
in search of Vance’s warm body next to me, only to find him missing
from the bed. My eyes popped open, and I stared at the empty spot
in confusion, before looking up to glance around the room, pushing
away my disheveled hair as it fell in a curtain around me.

He was sitting over at the small writing
desk, still shirtless, dressed in a pair of sweatpants and drinking
a glass of orange juice, while he was hunkered over a laptop
reading something.

“What are you doing?” I asked groggily, and
I rubbed absently at one of my tired eyes.

His head turned, and he glanced back at
me.

“Hey, beautiful! You’re awake!” he said,
coming over to me. He slid his hands into my hair on either side of
my head, lifting my face to him so he could give me a light kiss on
the lips.

When he was finished he sat down on the bed
next to me.

“I’ve been searching for stores like you
suggested last night,” he responded, draping himself casually over
my still-blanketed legs, then propping up on his elbow.

“Did you find some?” I asked, reaching my
hand over to rub through his wonderfully messy hair.

“Yep. There are about five I think,” he
replied, smiling back at me.

“Sounds good. I’ll get up and get ready so
we can go check them out then,” I replied.

I playfully pushed him backward so he had to
roll off my legs, then stood up and made my way toward the
bathroom.

“Hey!” he called after me, sounding way too
chipper all of a sudden. “Care for some company?”

“I guess,” I said, drawing out the words,
and I sighed heavily, acting as if I were irritated at him.

He laughed and jumped up, hurrying to join
me.

Breakfast was in full swing when we finally
made our way into the small kitchen area.

“Look!” Brad called out in a teasing voice
directed at Shelly. “The newlyweds decided to join us.”

Vance shot him a look.

“We’d be all too happy to leave right now
and resume what we were doing if you’d prefer,” Vance countered. He
grabbed my hand and turned back toward the bedroom.

“No! No!” Brad protested. “I don’t want to
spend the rest of the morning waiting for the two of you to get
your fill of each other. Been there, done that.”

“Jealous much?” Vance said with a grin. He
looked over at me and winked, his eyes dancing with amusement.

“Show off,” Brad muttered under his breath,
and Vance burst out laughing, thoroughly enjoying the ribbing he
was dishing out.

“Don’t worry, bro,” he said patting Brad on
the shoulder as he passed by. “Your day will come, and when it does
you’ll realize it was worth the wait.”

I cleared my throat a little nervously.

“So how’s the food this morning?” I said
trying to change the subject before Shelly turned to her fourth
shade of pink in embarrassment at the conversation.

“It’s delicious!” she replied with a
grateful look before sliding a plate of muffins in my direction.
“By the way, your family is having breakfast in their room next
door this morning.”

“All right,” I said. I reached for a fat
blueberry muffin. “Does my dad have any plans for today?”

She nodded, looking completely dejected.
“More of the same, I’m afraid.”

“Portia had a great idea last night,” Vance
said. “Maybe the two of you could help us out with that today.”

“What’s that?” Brad asked, looking up from
his food in interest.

“She thought we should hit up some specialty
shops in the city that deal with magic, rituals or occult-type
things. Maybe we could find something more there,” Vance said.

“I’m game for a change of pace,” Brad
replied. “How about you, babe?” he added looking at Shelly.

“Anything besides what we’ve been doing
sounds great to me,” she said after swallowing a mouthful of
muffin.

“It’s settled then,” Vance replied. “We’ll
tell Sean our plan after breakfast.”

My dad was a little less than enthusiastic
about us going off just the four of us. He felt there was better
safety in numbers, so we decided everyone would make the trip to
the shops that Vance had addresses for, since we had been having
little luck with the library thing.

We followed the directions he had to a
little out-of-the-way shop called Lankton’s. The shopkeeper came in
from the back of the store when we entered through the front door,
sounding a little bell.

She was very friendly while Dad told her how
we were interested in looking through any old texts she might have
dealing with rituals, prophecies, or history of the white witch
society.

The woman led us up a small curved spiral
staircase to a tiny loft that overlooked the rest of the store.
There was volume upon volume of ancient looking books up here. Some
were neatly organized into shelves, and others were in various
sized piles around the room.

She told us to help ourselves to anything we
could fine and if we needed something to just give her a
holler.

Each of us picked a pile to start on and
began the slow tedious job of looking through the books.

We read through the first pages of the ones
that had a table of contents, looking for any one thing that might
seem related to what we were looking for. Most of the books,
however, did not have contents listed in them, and we were forced
to turn page by page through the giant tomes to see if we could
find anything.

It was well after three in the afternoon
when I finally had to stop and stretch my cramping legs. I walked
down the stairs and out the front door into the fresh air outside.
I noticed a juice bar down the block and decided to walk over there
and get some type of refreshment, thinking that might help my
impending headache.

I hadn’t gone two steps before Vance’s arms
snaked around my waist, as his head appeared over my shoulder.

“Going somewhere, baby?” he asked, he breath
moving warmly though my hair and up against my neck.

“Sorry. I should’ve said something,” I
apologized, and I turned to look at him. “My head hurts, and I
thought maybe some fresh air and some juice would help,” I added,
and I gestured down the street toward the store I had been heading
to.

“That does sound good,” he agreed. “Do you
care if I join you?”

I smiled at him.

“You know I wouldn’t love anything better,”
I said, and he reached around to thread his fingers through
mine.

“I have to apologize for falling down on the
job,” he replied seriously, looking over at me.

“What are you talking about?” I asked in
confusion.

“I should’ve sensed that you were getting
tired and called for a break,” he said, a concerned look in his
eyes.

I laughed. “Vance, when will you get it
through that thick skull of yours that I’m a big girl and I don’t
need you to cater to my every need? I’m okay, really.” I nudged him
playfully with my shoulder.

“But I like catering to your every need,” he
said with a serious look before he smiled at me again. “In fact, I
honestly can’t think of anything else I’d rather do more.”

I stopped to turn to him on the sidewalk,
releasing his hand and wrapped my arms around him tightly.

“You’re too good to me,” I said, and I
nuzzled against his shoulder. “Thank you for all that you do.”

“It really is my pleasure, Portia, believe
me.” He smiled before he leaned in to kiss my lips.

My stomach chose this moment to begin
protesting loudly, rumbling in anger at its emptiness.

I felt the laughter rumble through Vance as
his lips held mine for a few seconds longer before breaking
away.

“I think you’re going to need a pastry with
your juice, too,” he commented. He patted my stomach with his
hand.

“I think you’re right,” I agreed.

He took my hand and began to walk a little
more determinedly toward the juice shop.

We were inside placing our order when the
rest of the gang wandered in behind us.

Shelly plopped into a chair that was by a
small table, telling Brad what she wanted to order.

Brad came up to stand by Vance in line, so I
wandered back to sit and visit with Shelly.

“How are you holding up?” I asked her.

“This research stuff is brutal.” She
grimaced and rubbed her hand over the small of her back.

“I’m sorry about all this,” I replied.
“Would you and Brad like to go back to Sedona? I hate to have you
sucked into all this and miss the rest of your school year,” I
added, feeling badly about how they were always putting their lives
on hold for our benefit.

“Brad and I are finished with school for the
semester,” she responded to me casually.

“How’s that?” I asked, a little shocked at
her comment.

“We’ve been here quite a while … since we
came to help look for you two. We had tutors the whole time, and we
finished the required work for the semester. Your dad already sent
everything back to the school so we’d get credit. Our parents have
been telling everyone that we’re studying abroad, which I guess has
been the case,” she explained.

“Oh, well that’s good for you guys. Vance
and I are going to be miserably behind by the time we can get
back,” I replied feeling a little downhearted all of a sudden at
the thought.

“Why don’t you use our tutor through the
summer?” Shelly suggested. “I’m sure you could finish up all of
your credits in that amount of time.”

“That does sound like a good idea. Thanks,”
I said as Vance and Brad joined us, carrying our food.

They sat down next to us and handed us what
we had ordered.

I ate quickly because I felt like I was
starving to death. When I was done, I waited patiently for everyone
else to finish their food.

When they were all done, we stood to leave,
and I picked up our trash so I could throw it away in the
receptacle. A sudden wave of nausea washed over me. I covered my
mouth with my hand.

“You okay, baby?” Vance asked, eyeing me
closely.

I shook my head and ran into the bathroom
where I began puking my guts up.

One long nap, four over-the-counter
pregnancy tests, and one magical medical exam later, I finally
convinced Vance that I wasn’t pregnant.

He had whisked me out of the juice bar, not
even letting me walk on my own two feet before placing me in the
car and rushing me back to the hotel.

I kept trying to tell him that I had just
gone too long without eating anything and then I had eaten too fast
when I did.

He had been almost certain that I was
expecting a baby, and I thought I felt a distinct moment of
disappointment flash through him once he was sure otherwise.
Staying by my side, he had catered to my every need until I had
finally fallen into an exhausted sleep.

When I finally woke up a couple of hours
later, it was to find him lying next to me, staring at me with
concern. I burst out laughing at his expression of worry which had
caused him to make a face at me.

“I appreciate your concern, but I really am
fine,” I said, and I reached out to stroke the side of his
face.

He grabbed my hand, holding it there against
him.

“I was really worried,” he said. He searched
my eyes intently, several things plainly written in his for me to
see. “I couldn’t live with myself if something were to happen to
you.”