Dance Upon the Air (22 page)

He reached for her, his fingers sliding helplessly down her busy hips. His blood was a rage, his mind a torrent. For a moment, all he could see was her eyes, flame-blue and vivid as jewels.

He reared up, pressed his lips to her heart, and shattered.

R
ipley stopped
her cruiser and watched Nell unpack her car. The sun had gone down, and with the cold snap that had slapped the island with a wicked northeast punch, any tourists were snuggled into the hotel sipping hot drinks.

Most of the natives would be sensibly settled in front of the television or finishing up dinner. She was looking forward to engaging in both those activities herself.

But she hadn't managed a one-on-one with Nell since the evening she'd come to the door.

“You're either getting a very late start or a really early one,” Ripley called out.

Nell hefted the box and hunched inside the fleece-lined jacket she'd mail-ordered from the mainland. “A second start. The book club that Mia runs is back from its summer break. First meeting's tonight.”

“Oh, yeah.” Ripley got out of the car. She was wearing an ancient and well-loved bomber jacket and
hiking boots. Her summer-weight ball cap had been replaced by one of plain black wool. “Need a hand?”

“I wouldn't turn one down.” Happy that she sensed no lingering animosity, Nell gestured with her elbow to the second box. “Refreshments for the meeting. Are you going?”

“Not a chance.”

“Don't like to read?”

“No, I like to read, I just don't like groups. Groups are made up of members,” she explained. “And members are almost always people. So there you go.”

“People you know,” Nell pointed out.

“Which gives my stand a firmer base. This group's a bunch of hens who'll spend as much time pecking at the latest gossip as they will discussing whatever book they used as an excuse to get out of the house for the evening.”

“How do you know that if you don't belong to the club?”

“Let's just say I have a sixth sense about these things.”

“All right.” Nell adjusted the balance of her box as they walked toward the rear entrance. Despite the weather, Mia's salvia hung on, as red and sassy as July. “Is that why you don't accept the Craft? Because it's like joining a group?”

“That would be reason enough. Added to that, I don't like being told I have to fall in line with something that started three hundred years before I was born.”

A blast of wind blew her ponytail into a thick, dark whip. She ignored it, and the cold fingers that tried to sneak under her jacket. “I figure whatever needs to
be dealt with can and should be dealt with without cackling over a cauldron, and I don't like having people wondering if I'm going to come flying by on my broom wearing a pointy black hat.”

“I can't argue with the first two reasons.” Nell opened the door, stepped into the welcome warmth. “But the second two don't hold. I've never once heard Mia cackle, over a cauldron or otherwise, and I've never seen anyone look at her as if they expected her to jump on a broom.”

“Wouldn't surprise me if she did.” Ripley strode into the main store, nodded at Lulu. “Lu.”

“Rip.” Lulu continued setting up the folding chairs. “Joining us tonight?”

“Are they holding the Ice Capades in hell?”

“Not that I've heard.” She sniffed the air. “Do I smell gingerbread?”

“Got it in one,” Nell told her. “Is there any special way you want the refreshments set up?”

“You're the expert there. Mia's upstairs yet. If she doesn't like the way you've done it, she'll tell you.”

Nell carried the box to the table that was already waiting. She'd made some pricks in Lulu's shell, but had yet to crack all the way through. It was, she admitted, becoming a personal challenge.

“Do you think I can stay for some of the discussion?”

Lulu peered narrowly over the tops of her glasses. “You read the book?”

Damn. Nell took out the plate of gingerbread first, hoping the scent would sweeten her chances. “Well, no. I didn't know about the club until last week, and—”

“A person's got an hour a day that can be put to reading. I don't care how busy they are.”

“Oh, stop being such a bitch, Lulu.”

Nell's jaw dropped at Ripley's command, but the sidelong look she risked showed her Lulu's reaction was a happy grin.

“I can't. It goes down to the bone. You can stay if this one stays.” She jerked a thumb at Ripley.

“I'm not interested in hanging out with a bunch of females chattering about a book and who's sleeping with who, who shouldn't be. Besides, I haven't had my dinner.”

“Café's open another ten minutes,” Lulu told her. “Split pea and ham soup was good today. And it'll do you good to spend some time with females. Explore your inner woman.”

Ripley snorted. But the idea of the soup—in fact, any food that she wasn't obliged to fix herself—held tremendous appeal. “My inner woman doesn't need any exploration. She's lean and mean. But I'll check out the soup.”

She sauntered toward the steps. “I might stay for the first twenty minutes,” she called back. “But if I do, I want first crack at that gingerbread.”

“Lulu?” Nell arranged star-shaped cookies on a glass plate.

“What?”

“I'll call you a bitch if it'll help bring us closer as people willing to explore our inner woman.”

Lulu gave a snort of her own. “You've got a quick mouth on you when you want to. You carry your weight and you keep your word. That goes a way with me.”

“I also make superior gingerbread.”

Lulu walked over, picked up a slice. “I'll be the judge of that. See that you read October's book before the next discussion.”

Nell's dimples flickered. “I will.”

Upstairs, Ripley annoyed
Peg by demanding a bowl of soup minutes before closing.

“I've got a date, so if you don't finish this before my time's up, you'll just have to wash the bowl yourself.”

“I can dump it in the sink the same as you would, for Nell to deal with in the morning. Give me a hot chocolate to go with it. Are you still stepping out with Mick Burmingham?”

“That's right. We're snugging in and having a video festival. We're watching
Scream One
,
Two
, and
Three
.”

“Very sexy. If you want to take off, I won't snitch to Mia.”

Peg didn't hesitate. “Thanks.” She whipped off her apron. “I'm gone.”

Appreciating the fact that the café was empty, Ripley settled down to enjoy her soup in blissful solitude. Nothing could have spoiled her pleasure more quickly than hearing the click of Mia's heels on the floor barely one minute later.

“Where's Peg?”

“I cut her loose. Hot date.”

“I don't appreciate you giving my employees permission to leave early. The café doesn't close for
another four minutes, and it's part of her job description to clean the case, counters, and kitchen after that time.”

“Well, I booted her along, so you can kick my ass instead of hers.” Intrigued, Ripley continued to spoon up soup as she studied Mia.

It was a rare event to see the cool Ms. Devlin heated up, and jittery. She was twisting the chain of the amulet she wore around her neck, continued to worry it as she strode over to the display counter and hissed.

“There are health regulations about cleanliness in food services. Since you were so generous to Peg, you can damn well scrub this up yourself.”

“In a pig's eye,” Ripley muttered, but felt a tug of guilt that threatened to spoil her appetite. “What bug crawled up your butt?”

“I have a business to run here, and it takes more than stalking around the village looking cocky, which is your specialty.”

“Oh, get fucked, Mia. It'll improve your humor.”

Mia rounded back. “Unlike you, fucking isn't my answer to every whim and itch.”

“You want to play the ice maiden because Sam Logan dumped you, that's your . . .” Ripley trailed off, despising herself even as the hot color in Mia's face drained. “Sorry. Out of line. Way out of line.”

“Forget it.”

“When I sucker punch somebody, I apologize. Even if you did come in here looking for a fight. In fact, I'll not only apologize, I'll ask you what's wrong.”

“What the hell do you care?”

“Normally, I don't. But normally I don't see you spooked. What's the deal?”

They'd been friends once, and good ones. As close as any sisters. Because of that it was harder for Mia to sit, to open up, than it would have been if Ripley had been a stranger.

But the matter was more important than feuds or grudges. She sat across from Ripley, leveled her gaze. “There's blood on the moon.”

“Oh, for—”

Before Ripley could finish, Mia's hand shot out, gripped her wrist. “Trouble, bad trouble is coming. A dark force. You know me well enough to be sure I wouldn't say it, wouldn't tell you, of all people, unless I was sure.”

“And you know me well enough to know what I think of portents and omens.” But there was a cold chill working up her spine.

“It's coming, after the leaves finish dying, before the first snow. I'm sure of that, too, but I can't see what it is, or where it comes from. Something's blocking it.”

It disturbed Ripley when Mia's eyes went that deep, that dark. It seemed you could see a thousand years in them. “Any trouble comes to the island, Zack and I will handle it.”

“It'll take more. Ripley, Zack loves Nell and you love him. They're at the center of this. I feel it. If you don't flex, something will break. Something none of us can put right again. I can't do whatever needs to be done alone, and Nell isn't ready yet.”

“I can't help you that way.”

“Won't.”

“Can't or won't comes out to the same thing.”

“Yes, it does,” Mia said as she got to her feet. There
wasn't temper sparking her eyes; that would have been easy to fight. There was weariness. “Deny what you are, lose what you are. I sincerely hope you don't regret it.”

Mia went downstairs to greet her book club and deal with the business at hand.

Alone, Ripley rested her chin on her fist. It was a guilt trip, that was all. When Mia wasn't shooting out spiteful little darts, she heaped on layers of sticky guilt. Ripley wasn't falling for it. If there was a red haze over the moon, it was due to some atmospheric quirk and had nothing to do with her.

She would leave the omens and portents to Mia since she enjoyed them so much.

She shouldn't have dropped in tonight, shouldn't have put herself in a position where Mia could try to pin her. All they did was annoy each other. It had been that way for more than a decade.

But not always.

They'd been friends, next to inseparable friends, until they'd teetered on the cusp of adulthood. Ripley remembered her mother had called them twins of the heart. They'd shared everything, and maybe that was the problem.

It was natural for interests to diverge when people grew up, natural for childhood friends to drift apart. Not that she and Mia had drifted, she admitted. It had been more like a sword slash down the center of their friendship. Abrupt and violent.

But she'd had the right to go her own way. She'd
been
right to go her own way. And she wasn't going back now just because Mia was jittery over some atmospheric hitch.

Even if Mia was right and trouble was coming, it would be dealt with through the rules and obligations of the law, and not with spellbinding.

She had put away her childish things, the toys and the tools she had no further interest in. That had been sensible, mature. When people looked at her now, they saw Ripley Todd, deputy, a dependable, responsible woman who did her job; they didn't see some flaky island priestess who would brew them a potion to beef up their sex lives.

Irritated because even her thoughts sounded defensive and nasty, she gathered up her dishes and took them into the kitchen. There was just enough guilt still pricking at her to oblige her to rinse the dishes, load them in the dishwasher, scrub out the sink.

That, she decided, paid her debt.

She could hear the voices, all female, flowing back from the front of the store where the book club gathered. She could smell the incense Mia lit, a scent for protection. Ripley snuck out the back. A fleet of steam-rollers couldn't have pushed her forward and into that noisy clutch of women now.

Just outside the back door she saw the fat black candle burning, a charm to repel evil. She would have sneered at it, but her gaze was drawn up.

The waning globe of the moon was shrouded in a thin and bloody mist.

Unable to work up that sneer, she jammed her hands in her jacket pockets and stared down at her own boots as she walked to her car.