Seaspun Magic (11 page)

Leo broke the fourth egg into the pan and then came toward her. Without saying a thing, he grasped her shoulders and kissed her ferociously, taking her completely by surprise.

The force of his embrace bent her head back; he opened her mouth possessively to feel the sweet sultry glow of desire, ever present between them. The strength of his hands had her partially raised off her chair, spilling Jinx out of her lap.

His lips all but bruised hers; his passion stole her breath away. She was panting when he settled her back into the chair. Gazing into her startled eyes, he smiled whimsically, kissed her quickly once more and then went back to study the eggs sizzling in the pan, whistling under his breath.

"What was that for?" she queried, touching wondering fingertips to her tingling lips.

"Because you are the most beautiful woman I've ever known, Arianne," he answered immediately, his tone quiet and serious, a complete contrast from his merry mood of a second before. "Every square inch of you is beautiful. I can't help staring... and I sure as hell can't keep my hands off you. It occurred to me that you might not mind anymore if I just grabbed you and kissed you— so I tried it." He flipped her eggs over.

Arianne laughed. "I don't mind, Leo."

Rae was the last to finish his breakfast. Throwing his final bite of scrambled eggs on the floor, which he thought was terribly funny, he announced, "Phone, Leo, phone!"

Leo got up even before the telephone rang in the living room.

"Oh, Rae!" Arianne mourned. He had the usual childish fascination for telephones, and his fascination was surfacing in this peculiar way. He loved to predict the calls.

"Don't make him feel bad, honey. He can't help it!" Leo said from the door. The telephone rang again as the door shut behind him.

Arianne caught a glimpse of Leo talking earnestly on the telephone as she went past on her way upstairs a couple of minutes later. When she came down, he was still on the phone. She had promised to take two of her cookbooks over to her neighbor that morning, for Jill was making supper for Don that evening and had requested certain recipes. Judging it safe to leave Rae in his playpen, she dashed across with the books.

When she returned fifteen minutes later, Rae was sound asleep with a blanket tucked over him and Leo was nowhere to be seen. Then the front door clicked shut. She had to quell the urge to run in search of him. She had to steel herself to be calm, rational, not to expect the worst.... But suddenly fear was a heavy cold weight in her stomach and she didn't even know what she was afraid of. Biting her lip, she poured herself another cup of coffee from the pot on the stove, but couldn't carry the charade so far as to sit down with it.

Leo came into the kitchen as if he had full run of the house—which he did now. He looked just exactly as he had earlier, and Arianne told herself not to be so silly as to invent nightmares.

"Arianne, something's come up. I'm leaving for L.A.'' He didn't seem too perturbed about this utter catastrophe. She was already turning numb.

"Shall I help you pack?" She controlled herself very well, letting none of her inner turbulence seep out.

"No, I'm done already. I'm in a bit of a rush." He came right up to her and stood looking down into her eyes.

"Wow, you pack fast!" she quipped casually.

"It's practice," he said, smiling faintly.

He made a practice of running out on people? Or only on lovers? "Well, have a good trip." What else was there to say? She turned away from his uncomfortable scrutiny. If he continued to probe her eyes he would surely read her painful dismay.

Very lightly his hands settled on her small waist, turning her back to face him. Gently his mouth covered hers; softly and poignantly she kissed him goodbye, her hands staying at her sides.

Robotlike she broke away to precede him out of the kitchen, down the hall. Quietly, calmly—she was frozen, really—she watched him slide into his Wellingtons and then into his jacket, the jacket she had admired— was it really only a month ago?

Rae started to cry in the kitchen. She went back for him and his blanket, and when she came out again Leo was already outside, standing on the front porch. She joined him, not noticing the cold outside; she was too cold inside.

Down they went, toward his old car. He had never appeared better-looking than he did to her then, when he was on the brink of leaving her. She felt a sob begin to well up, but she was determined to remain calm. If he wasn't going to make a big deal about leaving, neither would she! She'd rather die than throw her arms around his neck and beg him to stay, to love her always, as he had done last night…

Instead she acted the part of a casual acquaintance, perhaps a little short on the chitchat. There was no way she could conjure up a smile, not even a small one, but all the same, she played the role well. She was grateful that he had given her such short notice. She couldn't have borne an hour of this ghastly pretense.

"Bye, Arianne." He was acting as though absolutely nothing unusual were going on. "I'll see you soon." And with a great big charming grin he slid behind the wheel. "Get inside! It's too cold for you to be out here with nothing on!"

She realized only then that she didn't have a coat on, and in this weather her pink slippers were hardly adequate. Appreciatively his eyes skimmed quickly down her body right to her toes before the car door slammed.

She waved him off, the sea wind ruffling her long black hair. Rae, anchored on one hip, waved, too. Then Leo's car turned out of her lane and disappeared through the trees. In shock she stood staring at the misty gloom in which it had vanished from sight. She could hardly believe it was true. It seemed so bizarre. Only an hour ago he had been kissing her as though she meant the world to him, and now.. .now...

How could he do this to her? How could he bathe her in the sweetest, hottest passion and then simply up and leave? Her mind couldn't quite grasp such carelessness. Not for a second did she place any value on his promise to return. Not for half a second. It was merely a sop to his conscience.

Perhaps he even meant to return, but once back home he would soon forget everything. This sort of thing happened all the time. Jill had warned and warned her against falling for the guests—because they left. Damn! Why couldn't her sixth sense protect her from such disaster? Why hadn't she listened to her own common sense? Why, why, why…

She turned back to the house. The empty house. There'd be no footsteps now, or the creak of a chair or the sound of a door opening. Now the house would echo with emptiness. Certainly no flashlights would disappear.

Arianne walked slowly up the stairs, remembering how he'd taken her arm that first time. She had to get ready for work, she reminded herself sternly. She had no time for standing on the porch, losing herself in space. She was vaguely surprised to feel scalding tears at the back of her eyes. Such foolish tears.

And she had been worried about Rae getting too attached!

As soon as the numbness wore off she was angry— furious, in fact—with Leo Donev. Talk about slam-bam, thank you ma'am! He couldn't have timed his leaving better had he tried, and Arianne began to think he must have done exactly that. He must have decided, after spending the night with her, to get out fast, before she started making demands. Sure, he'd stayed for breakfast, had even made it! But the phone call he had received had served as an excellent excuse. After all, it was so easy to say, "Something came up—"

But why was she surprised? She shouldn't be. She had known very well he would go sooner or later. And she knew men on the whole didn't want more than an affair with a single mother. She couldn't blame them, either; if she were single, she would prefer another single male rather than one who came with a ready-made family. It made perfect sense. But that didn't make it any easier to bear. And it didn't lessen her sense of outrage. She felt scorned. It seemed to her that he couldn't get away fast enough. He certainly lacked courage, for all his charm and gracious manners.

If only the flashlight hadn't been moved! Then the lovemaking might never have happened. They'd made it through four weeks without more than a kiss, so why couldn't they have made it one more day? Then, after the phone call this morning... would he still have gone, or would he have stayed yet another week? But if he had stayed, would a kiss have been all they would have shared?

It was all a lot of pointless conjecture. She gave up. The fact was, he was gone. And he'd left nothing of himself behind, nothing but her memories.

To Orly and Jill that day she pretended happy relief that her guest had finally left. Used to hiding her curious powers, she could hide her grief fairly well, and since she'd always been reserved, her behavior now didn't strike anyone as unusual. Her two friends believed exactly what she wanted them to believe.

Saturday night she sat alone by the fire, with the bees-wax candle burning sweetly beside her and her black cat curled up in her lap. Alone, her misery was etched on her face. She was so empty inside; the house was so quiet. She wished Rae would wake up and cry just so there would be some noise.

Now she knew what she had been missing these past two years: companionship, the joy of sharing little things. It seemed to her that she had been made to be one of a pair.

She saw her life stretching out ahead, cold and empty, an interminable road to nowhere. Finally she came to the conclusion she did want a man in her life. Finally she admitted she wasn't satisfied with what she had arranged for herself. All her clever planning had locked her into a corner. She had forgotten to account for her wants, desires and basic human needs. And Leo had awakened them all, with a vengeance.

Because of her shortsightedness she had starved herself, so when Leo came she'd fallen for him like a starving man would have grabbed at any food put before him. She should have had the sense to solve her problem using her brains, instead of blindly reaching out to the first man she was attracted to. And now she had to pay for her stupidity. It was as simple as that. Because, despite all her caution, he had taken a part of her with him when he had left. She was afraid she really had fallen for him—she skirted carefully around the word love. As her heart had previously beat with joy, it now throbbed with pain.

***

Her life settled back into its familiar routine over the next few days. On the surface, at least, it was the same as it had been before she'd ever set eyes on Leo Donev. She did all the usual things: she took the baby for walks on the beach where icy winds stung her cheeks red and the fog hid them from the world in a soft damp blanket; she went to work in the shop, where the atmosphere was friendly, with Orly's wood stove crackling in the center, comfortable and cozy, while winter rain poured down. But while the hours slid by in their regular way Arianne knew that Leo had irrevocably changed her life. He had jogged her out of a rut, if nothing else.

She began to consider her options. Basically she had three choices, as she saw it. The first one entailed staying where she was and continuing to work in Orly's shop. But she would have to get away from home more often, to pick up the threads of her old life and begin socializing again with her friends in Seattle. The only problem was that trips to Seattle and socializing cost money, and she didn't make enough to support herself and her son in the fashion to which they had become accustomed and travel, too.

The answer to that was to take up her old practice: that is, act as a consultant to insurance companies, the police, or anybody, in fact, who had a question needing her psi; psi being the scientific term for her sixth sense. But she could only count on getting Sundays off for certain, and that meant working in Port Townsend all week, hopping in her car on Saturday night for the drive to Seattle, making herself available all day Sunday for business and driving back Monday morning to begin another work week. A hectic pace. She would scarcely have time left over for much socializing.

An alternative to all that driving would be to run her practice by mail or telephone. That would be fine, except she risked discovery by someone here in town sooner or later. And Port Townsend was too small a place to be known as a witch. Big cities offered anonymity; small towns didn't. Then, too, once her sixth sense was a matter of town gossip somebody would surely discover her past. The tragic kidnapping case would come to light, and no doubt people here would blame her as they had elsewhere. And then the persecution would begin all over again.

Arianne shuddered. Well, resuming her law practice was one idea. If she continued to go straight—that is, not use her powers to make a living—her second alternative was to take Mikey up on his offer. She would have to move back to the city, of course, but maybe that was the most logical plan, after all. She could move in with her mother until she found a place of her own. She could turn businesswoman—run Mikey's office and set up systems for a little company that was fast becoming a big one. Hm. This idea did have its appeal. Rae would have to go to a day-care center while she became a nine-to-fiver. At first she would probably be too exhausted to socialize, but after she found a place to live and was used to office routine, then there would be time to meet old friends and new.

The third alternative involved doing what she did best, practicing her extrasensory perception. Moving back to Seattle—or any other big city, for that matter—and setting up shop for herself. Big sign on the door, advertisements in the paper. Clear-cut, no more hiding and no more pretending!

But what if the same ghastly thing happened again? What if there were another horror like the kidnapping case? Now people would not only point fingers at her and whisper, but at her son, too. Could she risk exposing him to such mindless cruelty?

Much as she liked the third idea, she shrank from its possible repercussions. And while she liked the second, she didn't know if, after the initial challenge and fun of organizing a booming cookie company was over, she would still be enthusiastic a year down the road when it was running smoothly.