Ellida (23 page)

“And that’s how it has to be. You two are
bond-mates, and there is no one who could come between you. In a
way it was a relief. I feel I can breathe again, and maybe,
maybe…”

I opened another bottle and filled our empty
glasses. “So what’s going on between you and my ex-boyfriend?”

She blushed. “In a minute, Astrid. Before
that, just let me wrap up the story about Heather. I’m sorry if I
disturbed you. Sooner or later, we’ll know the truth about her part
in those events twenty-five years ago. As you probably realized,
time flows differently here. If she’s somehow responsible, she’ll
suffer the consequences. If it’s going to happen tomorrow, in a
month or after fifty years, doesn’t matter. James and Jack keep an
eye on her. She has friends in Copper Ridge and she goes there
relatively often. I suppose she’s there even now. God knows what
she’s been doing there. She can be mean and she’s selfish. Be
careful. Okay?”

I gently patted Peyton’s hand. “No worries.
And thank you for telling me that. And now, I’m all ears.”

Taking a deep breath, Peyton asked me about
Ingmar: how long I’d known him, about his family, his job and his
personality. I answered as openly as I could: that he’d been my
best friend since we were kids, that we almost screwed up our
friendship with a fling, but that we actually had never been in
love with each other. “Ingmar’s quite an unusual wizard,” I said.
“He’s much more relaxed and easygoing than most of us. And very
sociable. He doesn’t like being alone. He’s fascinated with humans,
and recently with Tel-Urughs and werewolves. He possesses
inexhaustible energy, it’s really hard to keep up with him. He’s a
brilliant doctor and very compassionate.”

Feeling already pleasantly drunk, I took
another sip of wine. It loosened up my tongue, but my head was
still clear.

Well, almost. A hiccup escaped from my
throat. “And passionate. If you know what I mean.”

“Oh. Really?” Peyton smirked, merry yet
completely sober.

“Yep. Be ready for the most exciting journey
of your life.” Another hiccup. “Ingmar’s an exquisite lover,
unselfish, generous, passionate and inexhaustible. He loves sex.
Oh, every woman should sleep with Ingmar… Oops, sorry. I meant
every woman should have an
Ingmar-like
experience.”

The last glass of wine finally got me. I felt
light, giddy and blissful sitting at the table in Peyton’s
kitchen.

She giggled back. “And you should be ready
for the most intense experience of your life, with wonderful and
unpredictable twists and turns, and a signature Canagan firework at
the end of it. Astrid, was Ingmar the last man you had sex
with?”

“Uh-huh,” I said slowly. “Why?”

Peyton covered her mouth with her hand to
suppress a chuckle. “Because Jack was the last one that I slept
with.”

“Which means we’re about to swap partners! We
should compare notes later,” I finished before we both exploded
with laughter.

A FEW hours later, while I sipped my third
cup of coffee, Peyton told me about her plans to go to Seattle to
spend a few days with Ingmar.

“It’s been forever since I felt anything like
that,” she said. “I feel like a schoolgirl getting ready for her
first date. We talk a lot, every night, sometimes even several
times every day, just about everything. He makes me laugh. When I
hear his voice, it’s like I feel something warm and gentle touches
me from inside… Like when you close your eyes and let the sun touch
your closed eyelids. I probably should feel scared of the intensity
of my feelings. It’s too early, it came so suddenly, and when I
least expected it. Yet everything that comes from Ingmar is so
gentle, fulfilling. And so intense, at the same time,
breathtakingly intense. It feels so right.”

It sounded like bonding. I didn’t say it,
though, leaving it to Ingmar and Peyton to discover the wonder of
their eternal connection.

I silently let out a deep breath and quickly
thanked God for this miracle.

I SUSPECTED the reason for Jack’s sudden
trip to Seattle was the engagement ring. He knew I didn’t want to
get married right away, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t propose.
He also knew the reasons for my hesitancy. The inevitable battle
with Seth Withali was a Democlean sword hanging over our heads.
When I got married, I’d decided, I wanted to be free of fear and
completely happy.

And I wanted my mother to be there with
me.

OUR HOUSE was almost done. Busy with my
training, I couldn’t spend a lot of time overseeing the
renovations. I’d left it to Jack to deal with, including the
interior design and I knew we would have a nice, warm and cozy
home.

Within a week, Ahmed had moved into his own
place, a small house down the street with a big bay window
overlooking the garden. Ahmed said that the window reminded him of
his old house in Konya. Peyton helped him to choose the
furniture—chests of different sizes, shelves, divans that he placed
under the windows, and rich Persian carpets.

Out of place in the décor of his bright,
cheery and airy sitting room were two huge armchairs placed around
a round, carved coffee table. “Armchairs are for those who are,
unlike you and me, not comfortable sitting on their bums on the
cushions on the floor,” he’d explained with a smile when I asked
him about it.

Ahmed and I quickly established a firm bond
that went beyond our professional relationship. None of us could
explain that instant closeness and a feeling that we had a very
firm place in each other’s life. Jack, who always had to fight hard
to keep his possessiveness and jealousy under control, didn’t
consider Ahmed a threat, not even subconsciously.

A good-looking single man with a certain aura
of mystery would draw a lot of attention even in a bigger place
than Red Cliffs, so naturally Ahmed’s name was on everybody’s lips.
He was charming in his quiet way, but kept pretty much to himself.
When I teased him gently about his social life, he would just
laugh. Then, one day he told me, “It might sound silly, but I’m
gonna wait for my bond-mate. Jack did, didn’t he?”

“I’m not sure that I was his real intention.
I don’t think he just waited for me to show up in his life. He’d
lived almost a century before I was born.”

“My bond-mate, my future wife, well, she has
been born. That much I can say. And she’s around.”

I looked at him with a raised eyebrow hoping
he’d say more, but his eyes had gotten a faraway look. A gentle
smile lingered on his lips.

I couldn’t read his expression, but one thing
I was sure about: wherever his mind wandered, it was not in
Anatolia four hundred years ago.

I PHONED Lucy Langdon to confirm her arrival
on Friday. She was excited. She and Charlie would come in the
morning, so that the two of us would have time to practice a bit
with the band.

Thanks to Peyton, Betty, Drew, Lily and the
other girls of the powerful Red Cliffs female network, the news
about the
Friday Special
was spreading like wildfire.

Everybody was excited except Jack.

“Why this Friday?” he said grumpily. “Why
can’t you wait until next weekend?”

“Next weekend I won’t be singing. Too close
to my next transformation. I want to get ready. What’s wrong with
this Friday anyway?”

He didn’t answer, but he was obviously
disappointed. “Is Lucy going to sing here on Saturday as well?” he
said instead.

“No, just on Friday.

“Okay, then,” he said with a smile, his good
mood returned, and gave me a hot, long kiss. “I need to talk to
Eamon. See you later, baby.”

THE LANGDONS arrived around ten o’clock on
Friday morning, and the two of us promptly proceeded to Eamon’s
studio, where my cousin and our band were waiting for us.

Lucy and I quickly agreed about the songs we
were going to sing. This was going to be girls’ night. We knew what
our female audience wanted, and we were going to deliver:
girls’songs.

It was only my third night on the stage, and
I was still a bit tense, until the music started, and then I just
relaxed.

Lucy didn’t have that problem at all. She
looked very attractive in her emerald-green shirt that matched the
shade of her incredible eyes, and tight, white jeans. Her shiny,
charcoal hair was twisted into a loose, fashionable bun, with two
curls hanging from each side of her face. She looked very sensual,
very womanly. Charlie couldn’t take his eyes off her, which was
good because that way he was oblivious of the many other pairs of
male eyes glued to his young wife.

She established an instant connection with
the audience. They loved her. She kept the whole bar, regardless of
gender, excited with her incredible voice—full, sensual, yet clear
and perfectly smooth, and in perfect accord with her sexy
appeal.

Well, they loved me, too, I could tell,
although the way the men were looking at me was quite different,
thanks to Jack sitting in the front row, my uncle beside him and my
cousin behind me on the stage. I’d just say the audience was more
focused on my singing than my general appearance. Just in case.

It started getting hot when first Lucy and
then I sang two songs in Spanish, from Almodovar’s famous 1991
melodrama
High Heels
. Lucy chose
Piensa en mi—Think about
Me—
a slow, sensual ballad for voice, guitar and drums,
beautiful in its simplicity and depth.

And then it was my turn with
Un Ano de
Amor—The Year of Love
—in my humble opinion, one of the most
beautiful movie songs ever written. A dark, sexy, heartbreaking,
divine song that burst with emotions so thick, I always sang it
with tears trapped in my throat.

When I finished, there was first a long
silence, and then the crowd packed inside Goblin’s Hollow raised
the roof.

And that was only the beginning. When the two
of us stood side by side, our backs leaning against each other, and
Bernard ran his fingers across the piano keyboard playing the first
bars of
Dancing Queen
, it crossed my mind that this would be
the end of this ancient building. Lucy and I sounded fantastic. We
were all sailing at full speed on the tide of the incredible
atmosphere at the pub, creating lifelong memories for every single
person that happened to be there tonight.

To their credit, the band sounded like a
philharmonic orchestra, and I was sure that, at that precise
moment, none of the guys would complain about playing ABBA.

Tired and happy, we finished our show around
four thirty in the morning. Lucy and Charlie accepted James and
Betty’s invitation to stay overnight. They left for their ranch on
Saturday afternoon. I’d asked Lucy to come to sing again at
Goblin’s Hollow, and she happily agreed.

I DIDN’T want to ask Jack anything, but I
was curious and impatient. I suspected he’d take me to some
romantic place after I finished at Goblin’s Hollow and ask me to
marry him.

JACK PROPOSED the following day, on the
stage of Goblins Hollow, in front hundreds of his fellow
townspeople packed tightly into the pub.

The whole day Saturday, Betty and James were
busy in the kitchen. Maggie had unexpectedly arrived home earlier
that same day. Takeshi kept Astrid at least two hours longer than
usual, and then Morgaine took her for a long walk. Eamon and Jack
were nowhere to be seen.

Astrid pretended she didn’t notice their
little conspiracy.

The evening started as usual, with the pub
filled up to the last seat. Many of the guests were still dazzled
by the previous night of pure positive energy that had flowed
inside the walls of Goblin’s Hollow.

Astrid and the band opted for rock’n’roll
this time, and soon the atmosphere was crazy.

Around midnight Eamon announced a
fifteen-minute break, which was something new. When he saw Astrid’s
raised eyebrow, he just winked, murmuring, “Have a drink, Astrid.
Jack asked to sing a song or two tonight.”

Knowing something beautiful was about to
happen, Astrid watched Jack take the microphone from the stand,
gazing at Astrid, and said, “This song is for you, baby.”

A guitar and drum introduction, and then a
deep, sensual baritone.

Astrid’s heart raced. Santana’s
Smooth
, one of Jack’s favorite songs, and part of her recent
hot dream. He hadn’t forgotten!

When he finished, he blew her a kiss and
said, “Astrid, come up on stage, please.”

Aware of everybody’s eyes on her, Astrid took
his outstretched hand and jumped on the stage.

Jack’s mouth closed over hers in a hot, deep
kiss that left them both breathless. A tiny part of Astrid’s mind
was aware of the cheery, delighted crowd, their family and friends
at the nearest table and the band behind. Yet, she could only think
about Jack and his lips and his arms around her.

“Oh, boy,” he murmured when he finally
released her. “Are you going to sing with me?”

“I am… What are we going to sing?”

He turned to Eamon and nodded. Leonard
Cohen’s
Dance Me to the End of Love
was the next on Jack’s
list.

Astrid did the back-up singing.

The night continued with more Leonard Cohen,
more Santana, more
boys’
love songs. Sometimes Jack sang
alone, sometimes Astrid joined him.

Around two a.m. Jack made an announcement.
“This is going to be the last song tonight.”

Astrid knew what the last song was going to
be.

I’m Your Man
, their song.

Astrid’s eyes welled with tears and her heart
wanted to jump out of her chest.

Jack’s soft voice embraced her completely,
from inside, from outside, filling her with emotions stronger and
more powerful than anything she’d felt before. It was a new
dimension of love, a love she didn’t even know was possible, a
pure, absolute light and harmony.