Face the Fire (23 page)

“Why should I? Why should I do any of those things? I prefer my bed. I don’t choose to date. I’m not interested in your life off-island. And to share magic during the physical act of love is a level of intimacy I’m not willing to explore with you.”

She shoved his hands aside and stepped back. “I’ve given you cooperation in business, some friendly companionship and sex. This is what suits me. If it doesn’t suit you, find someone else to play with.”

“This isn’t a goddamn game.”

Her voice was sharp. “Oh, isn’t it?” He stepped toward her, and she held up her hands. Light, spitting red, shot between them. “Be careful.”

He merely held up his own hands, and a wash of searing blue water struck the light until there was nothing but the sizzle of vapor between them. “Was I ever?”

“No. And you always wanted too much.”

“Maybe I did. The problem was I didn’t know what I wanted. You always did. It was always so fucking clear to you, Mia. What you needed, what you wanted. There were times when your vision choked me.”

Stunned, she dropped her hands to her side. “Choked you? How can you say that to me? I loved you.”

“Without questions, without doubts. It was as if you could see the rest of our lives in this pretty box. You had it all lined up for me. Just the way my parents did.”

Her cheeks paled. “That’s a cruel thing to say. And you’ve said enough.” She hurried back down the path.

“It’s not enough until I’m done. Running away from it doesn’t change anything.”

“You’re the one who ran.” She whirled back, and the pain of it crashed through all the years and struck her with a fresh blow. “It changed everything.”

“I couldn’t be what you wanted. I couldn’t give you what you were so sure was meant to be. You looked ahead ten years, twenty, and I couldn’t see the next day.”

“So it’s my fault you left?”

“I couldn’t be here. For God’s sake, Mia, we were hardly more than children and you were talking marriage. Babies. You’d lie beside me when my head was so full of you I couldn’t think and talk about how we’d buy a little cottage by the woods and . . .”

He trailed off. It seemed to strike both of them at once. The little yellow cottage by the woods—where she hadn’t come since he’d moved in.

“Young girls in love,” she said, and her voice trembled, “dream about marriage and babies and pretty cottages.”

“You weren’t dreaming.” He walked to her table again, sat and dragged his fingers through his hair. “It was destiny for you. When I was with you, I believed it. I could see it, too. And at that point it smothered me.”

“You never said it wasn’t what you wanted.”

“I didn’t know how, and every time I tried, I’d look at you. All that confidence, that utter faith that this was the way it would be. Then I’d go home and I’d see my parents and what marriage meant. I’d think of yours and what family meant. It was hollow and airless. The idea of the two of us moving in that direction seemed insane. I couldn’t talk to you about it. I didn’t know how to talk to you about it.”

“So instead, you left.”

“I left. When I started college, it was like being torn in two. The part that wanted to be there, the part that wanted to be here. Be with you. I thought about you constantly.”

He looked at her now. He would say to the woman what he’d never been able to say to the girl. “When I’d come home on weekends, or breaks, I’d be half sick until I’d see you waiting on the docks. That whole first year was like a blur.”

“Then you stopped coming home every weekend,” she remembered. “You made excuses for why you needed to stay on the mainland. To study, to go to a lecture.”

“It was a test. I could go without seeing you for two weeks, then a month. Stop thinking about you for an hour, then a day. It got easier to convince myself that staying away from you, and the island, was the only way I was going to escape being trapped into that box. I didn’t want to get married. I didn’t want to start a family. Or be in love with one girl my entire life. Or root myself on a little island when I’d never really seen the world. I got a taste of the world in college, the people I met there, the things I learned. I wanted more.”

“Well, you got more. And the lid’s been off the box for a number of years. We’re in different places now, with different goals.”

He met her eyes. “I came back for you.”

“That was your mistake. You still want more, Sam, but this time I don’t. If you’d told me this eleven years ago, I would have tried to understand. I would have tried to give you the time and the room you needed. Or I’d have tried to let you go, without bitterness. I don’t know if I would have succeeded, but I know I loved you enough that I would have tried. But you’re not the center of my life any longer—you haven’t been for some time.”

“I’m not going away, or giving up.”

“Those are your decisions.” Ignoring the headache brewing, she gathered up the tea things. “I enjoy having you for a lover. I’ll regret having to end that, but I will if you insist on pressing for a different dynamic in our relationship. I think I’ll get that wine after all.”

She carried the dishes inside, rinsed them. The headache was going to plague her, so she took a tonic before selecting a bottle of wine, taking out the proper glasses.

She didn’t allow herself to think. Couldn’t allow herself to feel. Since there was no going back, no crisscrossing over paths that were already long overgrown, the only direction was forward.

But when she stepped outside, he was gone.

Though her stomach fluttered once, she sat at the table in her midsummer garden and toasted her independence.

And the wine was bitter on her tongue.

He sent her flowers at the bookstore the next day.
Simple and cheerful zinnias, which in the language of flowers meant he was thinking of her. She doubted he knew the charming meaning of a bouquet of zinnias, but puzzled over them nonetheless as she selected a suitable vase.

It wasn’t like him to send flowers, she mused. Even when they’d been madly in love, he’d rarely thought to make such romantic gestures.

The card was explanation enough, she supposed. It read:

I’m sorry.
Sam

When she found herself smiling over the flowers instead of getting on with her work, she carried the vase downstairs and set it on the table by the fireplace.

“Aren’t those sweet and cheerful?” Gladys Macey slipped up beside her to coo over the bouquet. “From your garden?”

“No, actually. They were a gift.”

“Nothing perks a woman up more than getting flowers.
Unless it’s getting something sparkly,” Gladys added with a wink. She slid a discreet glance over to Mia’s left hand. But not discreet enough.

“I’ve found that a woman who buys herself something sparkly ends up with something that suits her own taste.”

“Not the same, though.” Gladys gave Mia’s arm a quick squeeze. “Carl bought me a pair of earrings on my last birthday. Ugly as homemade sin, no question about it. But I feel good every time I put them on. I was just on my way up to the café to see how our Nell’s getting on.”

“She’s getting on beautifully. When she tells you she thinks she’s started to show, just go along with her. It makes her happy.”

“Will do. I just pre-ordered Caroline Trump’s new book. We’re all excited about her coming here. I’ve been delegated by the book club to ask if she would agree to doing a book discussion just before the official signing.”

“I’ll see if I can set it up.”

“Just let us know. We’re going to give her a real Three Sisters welcome.”

“I’m counting on it.”

Mia made the call to New York herself. Once the wheels were set in motion, she checked her book orders, called her distributor to nag about a delay in a selection of note cards, then picked up the newest batch of e-mail orders.

As Lulu was busy, Mia filled them herself, slipping in the notice that signed copies of Trump’s book would be available. Then she carted them down to the post office.

She ran into Mac as she came out again. “Hello, handsome.”

“Just the woman I was looking for.”

Smiling, she slid her arm through his. “That’s what they all say. Are you on your way to the café to meet Ripley for lunch?”

“I was on my way to the bookstore to talk to you.” He glanced down, noted that she was wearing heels. “No point asking you to take a walk on the beach with me.”

“Shoes come off.”

“You’ll ruin your stockings.”

“I’m not wearing any.”

“Oh.” He flushed a bit, delighting her. “Well, let’s walk, then, if you’ve got a few minutes.”

“I always have a few minutes for attractive men. How’s your book going?”

“Fits and starts.”

“When it’s finished, I expect Café Book to host your first signing.”

“Nonfiction books with academic bents on paranormal science don’t exactly draw in the crowds for book signings.”

“They will at Café Book,” she retorted.

They crossed the street, winding through the pedestrian traffic. Families returning from the beach, their skin pink, their eyes blurry from the sunlight, trudged into town for lunch or a cold drink. Others, loaded with coolers, umbrellas, towels, sunscreen, walked toward the sand and surf.

Mia slipped off her shoes. “By the time the solstice crowd thins out, the Fourth of July crowd will stream in. We’re having a good summer on the Sisters.”

“Summers go fast.”

“You’re thinking of September. I know you’re concerned, but I have it under control.” When he didn’t speak, she tipped down her sunglasses and peered over the tops. “You don’t think so?”

He struggled with the guilt of keeping Lulu’s incident from her, weighing it against her peace of mind. “I think you can handle just about anything that gets tossed at you.”

“But?”

“But.” He laid a hand over the one she’d curled around his arm. “You play by the rules.”

“Not honoring the rules is what put us here.”

“Agreed. I care about you, Mia.”

She leaned her head on his shoulder. Something about him made her want to cuddle. “I know you do. You added to my life when you came into it. What you and Ripley have together adds to it.”

“I like Sam.”

She retreated, lifting her head. “Why shouldn’t you?”

“Look, I’m not prying. Okay,” he corrected, “I’m prying, but only for practical and scientific purposes.”

“Bullshit,” she said, laughing.

“All right, mostly for those purposes. If I don’t know where the two of you stand, I can’t weigh my theories and hypotheses. I can’t calculate what we might need to do.”

“Then I’ll tell you we’re, for the most part, enjoying each other. Our relationship is primarily comfortable and largely superficial. As far as I’m concerned, it’s going to stay that way.”

“Okay.”

“You don’t approve.”

“It’s not for me to approve. It’s for you to choose.”

“Exactly. Love, consuming and obsessive, destroyed the last sister. She refused to live without it. I refuse to live with it.”

“If that was enough, it would be over.”

“It will be over,” she promised him.

“Look, Mia, there was a time when I believed it could be that simple.”

“And now you don’t?”

“Now I don’t,” he confirmed. “I was up at your place this morning. You said I could go up and take readings after the solstice.”

“And?”

“I went up, took Mulder with me so he could get some exercise. To keep it simple, I’ll say I started getting snags in the readings right at the edge of your front lawn. Positive and negative spikes. Like a . . .” He slammed the heels of his hands together to demonstrate. “One ramming against the other. I got similar readings around the verge, straight toward the cliffs on the other side of the lighthouse, and into the forest.”

“I haven’t been lax in protection.”

“No, you haven’t, and it’s a damn good thing. We followed the readings away from the clearing, away from the heart. My sensors started going wild, and so did Mulder. He damn near snapped the leash. There’s a path of negative energy. I could follow it, the way it circled around, like an animal might stalk prey.”

“I know it’s there, Mac. I don’t ignore it.”

“Mia, it’s gaining strength. There were places along that path where everything was dead. Brush, trees, birds. The pup stopped straining at the leash and just curled up, crying. I had to carry him, and he didn’t stop shaking until we’d come out again. We came out, following that path, at the north end of your cliffs.”

“Have Ripley do a cleansing spell on the puppy, and on you. If she doesn’t remember the ritual—”

“Mia.” Mac grabbed her hand in a tight grip. “Don’t you understand what I’m saying? It has you surrounded.”

“
W
hat did she say when you told her?”

As Sam paced his office, Mac lifted his hands. “That it has surrounded her all her life, but is just being more blatant about it now.”

“Yeah, I can just hear her saying that. When we were—before I left the island, we talked about it a couple of times. She’d read up on it more than I had at that point. That’s probably still true. The woman can absorb a book before most of us get to chapter two. She was so confident about it all. Good would overcome evil as long as good was strong and faithful.”

“She’s both of those. What I didn’t tell her was that my readings picked up several different—let’s call them fingerprints—on her side of the line. I’m assuming they’d be yours.”

“Just because she doesn’t want my protection doesn’t mean she isn’t going to get it.”

“Whatever you’re doing, keep it up.”

Sam wandered to the window, looked out on the new terrace across the street. She had taken in the tables she’d put out for the weekend, and the crew was setting the slate in place. “How did she look today?”

“Spectacular.”

“You should see her when she uses real power.” Then he glanced back at Mac. “But I suppose you have.”

“Late last winter—a call to the four elements. It took me half a day to come to my senses. I wonder if she uses the Wiccan equivalent of a dimmer switch on that face of hers for the everyday.”

“No. The power punches it up, as if it wasn’t enough already. Beauty like that blinds a man, muddles the brain. I’ve asked myself if it’s that that pulls me to her.”

“I can’t answer that.”

“I can now. I’ve loved her all my life. Before I knew what love meant, after I tried to redefine it. It’s a nasty blow to finally understand that now, when she doesn’t love me. Or won’t.”

He turned back, eased a hip onto the edge of his desk. “All right, scientifically speaking—or theoretically, academically, whatever you like—is my being here—no, loving her now—putting her at greater risk?”

“Your feelings don’t count.” As soon as he said it, Mac winced. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

“I get it. It’s her feelings that tip the scale, one way or the other. In that case, I’m going to assume that trying to rekindle her feelings, or change them, won’t hurt her. If you think otherwise, I’ll hold off on that until after September.”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Then I’m going with the gut. If nothing else, I intend to be as close to her as I can when it comes to the sticking point. Even the circle can use a guard dog.”

He called her that night, at home, just as she was
settling in with a book and a glass of wine.

“I hope I’m not catching you at a bad time.”

“No.” Mia pursed her lips as she studied the play of light and liquid in her glass. “Thank you for the flowers. They’re lovely.”

“I’m glad you liked them. I am sorry we argued yesterday. That I took my mood out on you.”

“Accepted.”

“Good. Then I hope you’ll have dinner with me. We can call it a business meeting, to discuss the details of Caroline’s tour stop. Would tomorrow night suit your schedule?”

So pleasant, she thought. So smooth. That was when you had to watch him most carefully. “Yes, I suppose.”

“I’ll pick you up, then, say seven-thirty?”

“There’s no need. I can easily walk across the street.”

“I had somewhere else in mind and you usually take the late afternoon and evening off on Tuesdays. No point in you changing your routine just for this. I’ll pick you up. We’ll keep it casual.”

She’d nearly asked for specifics before she decided he wanted her to. “Casual’s just fine. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She hung up, went back to her book. But found it hard to concentrate.

The day before, she thought, they’d raked up the past with all its wounds and bitterness. Had she trapped him by being so blindly in love, so sure of her own feelings and so confident of his? Could he have been so selfish, so cold, that he had cast her aside rather than share his own mind and heart, rather than give her a chance to understand?

How foolish and shortsighted of both of them, she thought now.

Still, blame, excuses, reasons, none of that changed what had happened. None of it changed, nor would she have it change, who each of them had become. It was best
to bury it again and go on as they were. Cautious friends, careless lovers, with no plans to be more.

From his current attitude, it seemed he agreed with her on that one point.

And yet . . .

After setting it aside, Mia said to her cat, “He’s up to something.”

On the other side of the village, Sam made a
hurried second call. “Nell? It’s Sam Logan. I have an emergency. A confidential emergency.”

It was a matter of sharpening the details. To hone
some of them, he had to wait until Mia left the store the next afternoon. He also concluded that the only way to deal with Lulu was to be direct. Inside Café Book he gestured her over to a display of CDs. A CD titled
Forest Serenity
was tucked in a slot labeled
Playing Now.

“Which one’s her favorite?”

Lulu adjusted her glasses. “Why?”

“Because I’d like to buy her favorite.”

Always ready for a sale, Lulu ran her tongue around her teeth. “You buy five, you get the sixth half price.”

“I don’t need half a dozen—” He broke off, hissed. “Okay, I’ll buy six. Which
ones
are her favorites?”

“She likes them all or they wouldn’t be in here. It’s her store, isn’t it?”

“Right.” He started to pluck some at random.

“Don’t be in such a damn hurry.” She brushed his fingers aside. “When she gets in before me, she tends to put one of these three on.”

“Then I’ll take these three. And these.”

“We sell books, too.”

“I know you sell books. I’m just . . . What would you recommend?”

She hosed him, but Sam decided it was money well spent. Or well enough. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t use a hundred-dollar coffee table book on Renaissance art, or this week’s top ten bestsellers. Or the six CDs, and the three audiotapes. And the rest of it.

At least when Lulu had rung him up, she’d laughed. And meant it.

He left Café Book several hundred dollars poorer, and with a great deal left to do in a short amount of time.

Despite that, he arrived at Mia’s door at exactly seven-thirty.

She was just as prompt, and stepped out carrying a slim file.

“Notes,” she said. “On the event. And copies of the flyer that went out, the store’s newsletter, and the ad that will run for the next two weeks.”

“Can’t wait to see them.” He gestured toward his car. “Want the top up?”

“No, let’s keep it down.”

She noted he’d meant casual. He wore dark trousers and a blue T-shirt. Once again, she had to suppress the urge to ask him where they were going for dinner.

“By the way”—he gave her a light kiss before he opened the car door for her—“you look wonderful.”

All right, she thought. Smooth and lightly flirtatious. She could play that game.

“I was just thinking the same thing about you,” she replied as she slid into the car. “It’s a lovely evening for a drive down the coast.”

“My thoughts exactly.” He walked around to the driver’s side, got behind the wheel. “Music?”

“Yes.”

She settled back, calculating how much time she would allow him to seduce her, then lifted her eyebrows in surprise as flutes played on the speakers. “An odd choice for you,” she commented. “You were always more fond of rock, particularly if it was loud enough to slam the eardrums.”

“No harm in changing the pace now and then. Exploring different avenues.” He lifted her hand, kissed it. “Broadening horizons. But if you’d prefer something else . . .”

“No, this is fine. And aren’t we accommodating?” She shifted, her hair flying around her face. “The car handles well.”

“Want to try it out?”

“Maybe on the way back.” Deciding against trying to puzzle him out, for now she sat back to enjoy the rest of the ride.

And when he drove through the village without stopping, she tensed up again.

She studied the yellow cottage when he parked in front. “Odd, I didn’t realize you’d turned this into a restaurant. I believe that’s a violation of your lease.”

“It’s temporary.” He got out and came around the car for her. “Don’t say anything yet.” Again, he lifted her hand, brushed his lips over her knuckles. “If you decide you’d rather go somewhere else, we’ll go somewhere else. But give it a minute first.”

Still holding her hand, he led her around the house rather than into it.

On the freshly mowed lawn a white cloth was spread. It was surrounded by candles not yet lit, and pillows in rich colors and fabrics. Beside it was a long basket overflowing with lilacs.

He lifted it. “For you.”

She studied the flowers, then his face. “Lilacs are out of season.”

“Tell me about it,” he said, holding the basket out to her until she took it. “You always liked them.”

“Yes, I’ve always liked them. What is all this, Sam?”

“I thought we’d have a picnic. A compromise between business and pleasure, public and private.”

“A picnic.”

“You always liked them, too.” He leaned forward to brush his lips over her cheek. “Why don’t we have a glass of wine, and you can think about the idea?”

To refuse would be both cold and ungracious. And, she admitted, cowardly. Just because she’d once imagined them happily married and having picnics on the lawn by their own little cottage was no reason to slap at him for trying to give her a pleasant evening.

“I’d love some wine.”

“I’ll be right back with it.”

She let out a little sigh when he was out of earshot, and when the back door swung shut behind him she lifted the basket of lilacs and buried her face in them.

Moments later, she heard the music of harp and pipe drifting from the house. With a shake of her head, she sat down on one of the pillows, put the basket of flowers beside her, and waited for him to come back.

He brought not only wine but caviar.

“Some picnic.”

He sat, and in an almost absent gesture, lit the candles. “Sitting on the grass doesn’t mean you can’t eat well.” He poured the wine, tapped his glass to hers.
“Slainte.”

She nodded in acknowledgment of the Irish toast. “You’ve been tending the little garden.”

“In my limited capacity. Did you plant it?”

“Some of it, and some is Nell’s doing.”

“I can feel her in the house.” He heaped beluga on a
toast point. “Her joy in it,” he said and offered the caviar to Mia.

“Joy is one of her greatest gifts. When you look at her, you don’t see the horror she’s been through. It’s been an education to watch her finish discovering herself.”

“How do you mean?”

“With us, it always was. The knowing. With Nell it was finally unlocking a door, then stepping through it and finding a room full of fascinating treasures. The first magic I showed her was how to stir the air. Her face when she did it . . . it was wonderful.”

“I never taught anyone. I did attend a weekend seminar on Wicca a few years ago, though.”