Enchant Me (24 page)

“The one who was following you around?”

“Yes-- well, I saw him at school watching me
from across the parking lot. I could sense him. He has a power of
some kind. I don’t understand. How is that possible? How can there
be three of us in this small town all coming into our powers?”

She was quiet for a moment; I could almost
hear the wheels in her mind turning. “I don’t think you will like
my answer.”

“Grandmother,” I said, exasperated, “just
tell me.”

“I think it is the law of attraction, like
has attracted like. Or in your case power has attracted power.”

“Are you saying we were both drawn here by
Nicolas’s power? You’re right, I don’t like that answer.”

“Hear me out. I don’t believe the universe
makes mistakes. I also don’t believe it’s an accident that you met
Christian just in time for your powers coming in. So for whatever
reason that we can’t divine yet, there is a purpose for the three
of you.”

I briefly glanced at Christian; his brow was
furrowed in concentration. He wasn’t any happier about her
explanation than I was. “Grandmother, he’s a danger to me-- and
Christian.” I got one hell of a glare for that, but I continued on.
“While Nicolas may be watching me, I get the feeling the one he
wants to hurt is Christian. I was worried enough when I just
thought he was a normal guy--well, psycho normal, but now that he
has some unknown power, what am I supposed to do now?” 

At my last words, Christian grabbed my phone.
“We’ll call you back, Alexis and I need to discuss a couple
things.” And with that he closed my phone and placed it back on my
desk. “You are not supposed to do anything and you are not going to
do anything! This is between me and him.”

“Actually,” I said, while trying to rise out
of the Papasan chair, but like an overturned turtle I had trouble
getting up until he reached underneath my arms and lifted me to
stand in front of him. “It has nothing to do with you,” I
continued, avoiding his intense gaze. “I broke up with him before
we even met. So obviously, Nicolas needs to be reminded of that. He
has no one to blame but himself.”

With one hand under my chin he tilted my head
up to look at him. “You are not to go anywhere near him. Do you
understand?”

He definitely had cornered the market on
intensity. I could feel the emotions vibrating off of him and I
found myself nodding in agreement. It wasn’t as if I wanted to talk
to Nicolas anyways. “Christian, I don’t want you to do anything
about it.”

I saw displeasure wash over his face. “You
don’t think I can take care of myself?” he challenged in a low
voice.

Pulling away, I took a couple steps back and
breathed deep. “That is not it and you know it. I don’t want you
two to get in a fight-- magical or otherwise. I don’t want you to
get in trouble for harming him. I don’t want anyone to get
hurt.”

 He seemed to relax a bit, but I knew
better than to think it was because he changed his mind. He closed
the distance between us but didn’t touch me, his eyes burning with
emotion. “Don’t you get it Alexis? He’s not going to stop. You
can’t get a restraining order on him because he hasn’t done
anything, and quite a few people saw you dancing with him at prom,
so you are going to have a hard time selling to anybody that you
believe he is a danger to you.”

I shivered as I realized he was right. “My
mom and I will call his parents.”

He looked at me like I was nuts. “Do you
really believe that they have any control over him?”

We stared at each other locked in a
stalemate. I could see only one way out now but I didn’t really
want to do it. I wished he had given me another choice. “Christian,
if you love me, you will stay away from him.”

He drew back like I had slapped him. “What!”
He swung away, and paced in what little floor space was available
in my room. “How can you say that? You can’t expect me to do
nothing while he is stalking you.”

“I don’t think it is me he is really after,”
I pleaded, “I think you’re the one he wants to hurt.”

He went completely still, the glance he threw
at me oddly victorious and then stalked over to me, gripped my
shoulders and stared me down. “So you believe that it is only me he
is after?”

I had a bad feeling about this. “Yes,” I said
weakly.

 “Good, so since he is only after me,
that makes it none of your business, and I have every reason to
defend myself, right?”

My jaw dropped, he thought he had found a
loophole out of my ultimatum. “No that-” suddenly I was crushed
against him. His lips felt so good against mine and his kiss so
passionate, my mind went blank and I stared at him dumbly when he
pulled away. We both took a step back when we heard my mom’s key
opening the door. He brushed a soft kiss across my cheek then
headed out of my bedroom, through the living room to the front
door.

“Alexis, I will see you tomorrow at school,”
he called back to me. He actually grinned after he said goodbye to
my mom and closed the door after himself. 

My mom, not even having had a chance to put
down her purse or take off her windbreaker yet, looked from my
stunned expression to the closed front door, “what’s going on?”

Sighing, I pulled my mind back together. “We
need to talk, and no, I am not pregnant.” I finished
indignantly.

After having brought her up to date regarding
Nicolas at prom and today, she leaned back against the couch, her
expression truly concerned.

“Mom, I don’t think he is really after
me.”

She took a quick glance at me, a wry look on
her face. “You mentioned that, but he does seem to be stalking you,
and I don’t like the idea of Nicolas being after Christian
either.”

Cody padded across the couch and sat in my
lap, distractedly I started petting him. “Christian was right
though, he hasn’t done anything that we can get a restraining order
for. I have mentioned it to Tim and John with the Steilacoom
police. They said they will keep an eye out and stuff, but at the
moment there is nothing else they can do.”

She pushed off the couch and walked over to
the cordless phone in the kitchen. I didn’t need to even ask who
she was calling. She put it on speakerphone as soon as the phone
started ringing, and leaned against the wall like she was so
exhausted that it was the only thing holding her up. “Mrs.
Devereaux?”

“
Yes,
” Nicolas’s mom said.

“This is Alexis’s mom Cindy. Alexis has told
me that she has caught Nicolas multiple times following her around,
even stalking her at prom. If this doesn’t-”

“
Nicolas isn’t even here. He has been in
France, we took him to the airport ourselves,”
Mrs. Devereaux
interrupted.

The anger Mrs. Devereaux felt towards us was
coming across loud and clear. The worst thing was, I could swear
she was telling the truth. Was it possible Nicolas had come back
and not told his parents? Where was he living then? This made me
more nervous than anything else. There could be no good reason for
Nicolas to come back secretly. Mom glanced at me in confusion. I
shook my head and mouthed to her that it was him. 

“Apparently he came back somehow,” my mom
said haughtily. “I am sure he could pull his life together but it
won’t look very good on his record if he has a restraining
order.”

A big smile burst across my face at the
threat and I threw my hand in the air in a way-to-go
gesture. 

“
Don’t you lecture me about my child;
you’re the one raising a lying brat. If you call my house again I
will file harassment charges.”
Mrs. Devereaux slammed the phone
down so hard after that, mom and I both winced in pain.

Mom came back and sat down on the couch,
wrapping an arm around me in comfort. She stared out the window,
deep in thought. “You’re sure it was him?”

“Yes… Mom, I don’t think it is a good sign
that Nicolas is home and doesn’t want his parents to know.”

 “Let’s not jump to conclusions yet,”
she said pulling her arm from around me and patting both me and a
sleeping Cody on the head. “Why don’t you go do your homework and I
will call the precinct and see if they have any further ideas on
what we can do.”

Nodding, I stood up with Cody cradled in my
arms, “Mom?”

“Yes?”

“Thanks.”

“Of course,” she said, almost sounding
affronted as she headed back to the cordless phone.

Gaining my room, I closed the door and gently
placed Cody in the Papasan chair while I collapsed on my bed,
staring at the canopy above me. When had this become such a damned
nightmare? I wished Nicolas wasn’t such a psycho so I could talk to
him and get him to knock it off, but even without my intuition I
could have sensed the menace emanating from him. He was planning
something…I was sure of it.

CHAPTER 13

When I got to school Wednesday morning I
still wasn’t sure what I should say to Christian to get him to let
it go, and let my mom and me handle it. I studied his face as he
walked up to me, taking my school bag and throwing it over his
shoulder. His gorgeous face was closed to me as he put an arm
around my waist.

I opened my mouth to say something and he
flashed a warning glance at me. “Don’t,” he warned.

Sighing, I leaned my head against his
shoulder and let him lead me to class. He wasn’t going to cave in,
and I couldn’t control him, so unless I wanted to fight non-stop
until it was all over, I would have to trust him to handle it as
best he could. Arriving at my first period class, he handed me the
book bag and looked deep into my eyes. His eyes were warm and soft
now as they looked at me. He must have sensed my surrender on the
issue.

I wrapped my arms around him and gave him a
hug. “Christian, I don’t want anything to ever happen to you.”

He laid a whisper of a kiss on my lips. “I’ll
be careful,” he said quietly and nudged me into class.

 At lunch I was almost glad Christian
had to stay in class to make up some missed assignments so I could
talk to Tina privately. We headed to the track behind the school
and I wondered how I would explain everything that had happened the
previous weekend. Although I had originally planned to tell her
about my powers, suddenly it didn’t seem fair to burden her with
that kind of knowledge-- and fear. For her sake, this was a secret
I couldn’t share. So I kept it to the basic non-magic problems with
Nicolas. 

Her dark eyes were wide with distress. “Do
you really believe Nicolas’s parents don’t know that he’s
back?”

I shrugged my shoulders, but then nodded.
“Yeah, I am pretty sure. Even mom doesn’t think they know.”

I watched as she visibly shivered then
wrapped her arms around herself and looked around us, searching for
Nicolas to suddenly pop out of the bushes. This was exactly why I
hadn’t told her everything. I didn’t want her to have to live like
that--like me. 

“So there’s nothing you can do?” she said
while staring down at the track as we made another circuit.

“No, and it is really messing with my life. I
am going to have to miss my belly dancing class tonight just to be
on the safe side and I have already skipped the last couple weeks
as it is.”

She peered at me out of the corner of her
eye. “What does Christian say?”

Tina had already guessed Christian’s reaction
and I am sure mine too. “He won’t listen to me. He is determined to
have it out with him. To be honest, I don’t want either of them to
get hurt. I get the pain Nicolas is going through… That brief time
without Christian-- was painful, so I sympathize. I just want him
to move on.”

Tina took a deep breath in and then exhaled
slowly. “What if a third party intervened, like me and Jim?”

My head whipped around to her in horror.
“Absolutely not, something is wrong with him. He isn’t completely
sane. If you see him you are to make a run for it, you hear?”

She looked at me as if surprised by my
vehemence. “It’s just, I don’t want anything bad to happen to you
guys either.”

“I know,” I said giving her a quick side
hug.

On the way back into the building I kept the
conversation to her and Jim while trying to unobtrusively be on the
lookout for Nicolas. I couldn’t see or sense him, so it seemed we
were safe, for the moment. I could always hope that he had given up
and went back to France or wherever, but I wasn’t that
delusional. During a break in sixth period yearbook, I hauled
Michelle outside, grabbing an umbrella on the way out in case the
huge dark clouds released the downpour that was threatening. I
pulled her over to my bike for the talk we so desperately
needed.

“Miss Michelle,” I started, only to have her
throw her arms around me in a big hear hug. 

“I am so happy that you and Christian are
back together. You guys are such a cute couple.”

“Michelle,” I warned, moving back so I could
give her a nice hard glare. “I am not unaware of all the strings
you were pulling during my party. How could you involve your
brother Jaime?”

She smiled widely at this. “Yeah, he wasn’t
too happy with me either.”

“Michelle, I am thrilled that Christian and I
are back together, but from now on--mind your own business.”

Without a word she grasped my shoulders and
turned me back towards school and class. “You need a big sister and
I’m it. You just don’t like being the one not in control.”

I tried to stare at her in consternation but
she didn’t let me turn around and stop until we were back in class
surrounded by our friends and teacher. I grimaced at her as I sat
down. For the second time today I was going to have to let an
argument go. This was starting to become an annoying habit. My
irritation started to rise again when I noticed the quick little
nod in appreciation from Christian to Michelle as she left the
class. Grabbing my stuff, I stormed past him and headed straight
for my bike. Christian seized my arm as I prepared to ride off
without a single word to him.