The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes Page 9

  Mare slapped her hand over the top of the shaker again. ‘Earthquake. Did you just ask me to marry you?’

  ‘No kidding?’ Pauline said, and Mare looked up to see her standing there with their Cokes. ‘He proposed?’

  ‘Thank you,’ Crash said, taking the Cokes from her. ‘We’re good here.’

  Pauline stood there for a minute, her face avid, and then when they both looked at her pointedly, she rolled her eyes and left.

  ‘You proposed?’ Mare said when she was gone.

  ‘Yeah.’ Crash sounded surprised himself as he passed over her Diet Coke. ‘I did.’

  ‘You didn’t mean to do that, did you?’ Mare said, relieved and disappointed. ‘It’s okay’

  ‘No, I did. I mean, yes, I want to marry you.’ He shook his head as if to clear it, and then thought about it for a minute. ‘Yes, I do. Yes, Moira Mariposa O’Brien, I want to marry you-’

  Yes, Mare thought.

  ‘-yes, I want to have kids with you-’

  A fat laughing baby toddling down a sunny dusty road…

  No, Mare thought. How would he feel if his baby turned out to be a freak like her?

  ‘-yes, I want to… what’s wrong?’

  Temper tantrums with blue sparks and teddy bears flying across the nursery? Purple smoke rolling in and bunnies leaping from the bassinets? A puff of green fog and your firstborn is a frequent flyer?

  ‘Okay, not kids, not right away,’ he said. ‘In a couple of years. Five years. Ten years. We don’t have to have kids.’ He looked confused, as if he were in over his head.

  She knew how he felt.

  ‘Stop,’ Mare said. ‘It’s just… things are complicated. I just got offered a promotion at work. And call me feminist, but I think working at my own career instead of following yours around might be a good idea for me.’ Except yours is in Italy and I bet I could do something amazing in Italy, too. Better than rent videos anyway. And I know I could do amazing things with you. Just lunch with you makes me breathless.

  ‘I didn’t mean you’d just follow me around,’ Crash said. ‘I don’t know what I meant. We’d work it out.’ He looked at the sugar shaker again. ‘I’m doing this all wrong. What the hell just happened here?’

  ‘And we really don’t know each other,’ Mare said. ‘Five years have changed both of us. A weekend isn’t enough for us to know, not after five years. And you left me. How do I know you won’t do that again?’ I can’t even tell you the big secret of my life. How can I marry you?

  Crash shook his head. ‘Look, I waited to come back until I had something to give you, until I was ready to say, “Come back with me.” I’m ready, I’ll stick, I swear I will, Mare. I’m not going to pretend that all I did was work. There were other…’ He frowned, as if he knew he was screwing up again. ‘Look, no matter what I was doing, who I was with, I couldn’t forget you. I had to come back to get you.’

  Mare sat back, exasperated. ‘Why do I feel like I’m being ordered at the pickup window at the Big Fast Food Restaurant of Love? You got a weekend so you’re driving through. As long as you’re here, you’ll take the Combo Mare. Supersize it, to go.’

  ‘That’s not fair,’ Crash said. ‘Look, you want me to go away, just tell me to go.’

  He met her eyes straight on and she thought, Don’t leave me, and put her head in her hands.

  ‘Mare?’

  Italy and the dusty sun and the bike and Crash and maybe that baby, and she loved him, she’d never stopped loving him, if she just wasn’t one of the gifted Fortune Sisters, the Head Bouncer at Witch Central…

  ‘Don’t go,’ she said.

  ‘Does it have to be this hard?’ Crash said. ‘Does it always have to be secrets and misery? Can’t it just be “I love you, too,” and a trip to goddamn Italy?’

  ‘No.’ She drew a deep breath. ‘This is going to take some thinking.’

  ‘Thinking.’ He nodded. ‘Sure, why not? Thinking. Some women answer proposals with just “yes” and a kiss, but you need to think about it.’

  ‘Hey,’ Mare said. ‘It’s been five years.’ Crash sat back. ‘You got a time frame on that thinking?’

  ‘I don’t get off until ten-thirty,’ Mare said. I’ll probably need longer than that. Tomorrow.’

  ‘Okay. Tomorrow.’

  ‘Is that when you’re doing it?’ Pauline said.

  Mare glared up at her. ‘Excuse me?’

  Pauline put their food on the table. ‘Is that when you’re getting married? Did you say yes? Maxine is back in the kitchen and she’s dying to know.’

  ‘You know,’ Mare began dangerously, and then realized the diner had grown quiet.

  ‘And a few others, too,’ Pauline said. ‘You know how word gets around here.’

  ‘Oh, hell,’ Crash said. ‘I had to come back, I couldn’t just stay in Italy.’

  Mare stood up and looked at everyone in the diner looking back at them. ‘So here’s the story, and let’s get it right when we repeat it, people. Christopher Duncan, whom we all know and love as Crash, is back in town after establishing a successful business in Italy. He has come back to discuss the possibility of my joining him there to live happily ever after as his wife in the dappled sunshine where we will have many blissful days and passionate nights. I’m trying to decide if I want that, or if it would be better for me to stay here in Salem’s Fork and rent videos to all of you. I’m thinking about it. It’s not an easy decision. There are ramifications. I am cogitating. In the meantime, your food is getting cold. Eat up, Fork People. Cold food is bad for the digestion.’

  She sat down again and looked at Crash, ignoring the sugar granules in the shaker, which were now pulsing gently, happily, like a good strong heartbeat.

  ‘You’re insane,’ Crash said, ‘but I love you.’

  ‘Eat your lunch,’ Mare said, and ignored the sugar.

  * * *

  Elric shouldn’t have been surprised by Lizzie’s neat bedroom – pale pink wallpaper, white-painted furniture, gingham curtains, and a bedspread that looked as if. it belonged on the twin bed of a thirteen-year-old, not the slightly more generous double bed. The only anomaly was the pairs of shoes lining the white baseboards – there had to be at least fifty pairs, of every possible shape and style. He glanced at Lizzie’s feet for the first time, and a slow smile spread across his face. The Road Runner high-tops had disappeared – at some point her shoes had become tropical espadrilles with fake fruit dripping off the straps. Lizzie Fortune had a hidden wild streak, at least when it came to shoes.

  She was already looking defensive. ‘If you’re thinking I’ve been extravagant you’re wrong. I didn’t buy all these shoes. I haven’t worn half of them.’

  ‘I don’t care how you got the shoes, Lizzie. I will admit it interests me that you have so many. You don’t strike me as the Imelda Marcos type.’

  She shrugged. ‘I like shoes.’

  ‘Apparently. I’m assuming these appear whenever you try to transmute something?’

  She looked guilty. Adorably so, he thought, not happy about it. This was far too slippery a slope for him.

  ‘I’m not quite sure why they appear or where they come from. It’s usually when I’m…’ She stopped, suddenly embarrassed, and he took pity on her.

  He knew perfectly well what would call forth the odd appearance of extraneous footwear – shoes had a strong connection to sexuality, and the shoes must manifest when she was sexually distracted, or excited. Maybe he’d underestimated Charles’s abilities, though he hated that possibility. Or maybe, just maybe, he was having as strong an effect on her as she was having on him.

  And that made things even more dangerous.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said, just as happy to change the subject. He went over to the white-painted dresser and pulled open a drawer, ignoring her screech of protest. Her underwear was all neatly sorted and folded – white cotton bras and cotton underpants decorated with bears and butterflies and lambs. She had the underwear of a thirteen-y
ear-old, as well, he thought. He glanced back at her. But the shoes of a courtesan.

  She pushed past him and slammed the drawer shut, carefully managing not to touch him. ‘There’s nothing in there that’s of any interest to you,’ she said sternly.

  He said nothing. He was much more curious about her underwear than he cared to admit, and keeping her distracted and unsettled was part of his master plan, but she was nervous enough around him as it was. He needed to lull her into dropping her guard if he was going to accomplish what he’d set out to do. And he had little experience with failure.

  ‘So show me your workshop,’ he said, turning his back on the enticing shoes. It wasn’t possible that she’d manifested them out of nothing – alchemists had to start with something, even dust. Except that the rental home of the Misses Fortune seemed antiseptically clean.

  The workshop itself was messier than he’d expected -maybe she’d conjured her shoes out of any of the strange artifacts littering the old sun porch. The room was dark – sunlight filtered through the bamboo shades with a sullen glint, and the long workbench was scarred with spilled chemicals and gouged by who knew what. A bale of straw sat on the floor, half decimated, with bits of straw everywhere, as if a giant mouse had gotten into it. Either that, or the Scarecrow had met with the flying monkeys.

  ‘Eleven fire extinguishers?’ he murmured. ‘You need them all?’

  ‘I was expecting another from the UPS man. I go through them fairly quickly,’ she said, a defensive note in her voice.

  ‘It used to be just small fires, but now they come with explosions, so I figure I’d better be prepared.’

  She didn’t realize that her penchant for setting fires was also a sign of potential power. When he’d first set eyes on her he’d assumed the power surges coming from this little town in Virginia had been a fluke – no one that innocent-looking could be causing such chaos. He was rapidly learning otherwise.

  ‘So what do you use for focusing your power? Some kind of array?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do you make a circle of some element like salt, do you draw a circle, do you…?’

  ‘I don’t do circles.’

  He stared at her. ‘What do you use, then?’

  ‘I don’t use anything. I just concentrate, and things change. Not the way I want them to, but I’ve gotten some great shoes out of it.’

  Ah, she was getting feistier. He’d terrified her when he first showed up, and he should have pushed his advantage. Now she was getting sassy, and she was going to be a hell of a lot harder to intimidate into doing what he wanted.

  ‘No talisman? No philosopher’s stone?’

  ‘Life is not a Harry Potter novel.’

  ‘You and I both know it’s not as far removed as people might think,’ he said beneath his breath. ‘Okay, that’s lesson number one. You need something to feed your power through. Concentrating as hard as you can on something doesn’t work. It’s like trying too hard for an orgasm – the harder you work, the more elusive it becomes. You have to let go.’

  She blushed. ‘I’m afraid you must be more of an expert at difficult orgasms. Are you talking about you or the women you sleep with?’

  ‘Actually, it’s pretty much a no-brainer for men. And with no false modesty I have to say that I’m very good in bed. Years of experience does wonders.’ He tilted his head. ‘I’m thinking more of young women with little experience who sleep with the wrong men.’

  A crackle of energy, and a pair of narrow stiletto heels appeared on the scarred workbench. Hot-pink fuck-me shoes. Very interesting, he thought.

  She grabbed the shoes and threw them under the workbench. ‘I really don’t want to be discussing sex with you,’ she said in a strained voice.

  I know you don’t, he thought. But why? He took a step toward her, trying to forget about the very sexy shoes. ‘We need to find you a talisman…’ he began, automatically reaching for her hand.

  The spark between them made him jump, and she let out a pained little scream. It wasn’t a sexual spark, not the disturbing current that he’d felt before when he’d put his hand on her shoulder and when he’d taken her hand to bring her back home – it was static electricity magnified a hundred times, and it hurt.

  ‘What was that?’ she demanded in a shaky voice.

  He’d touched her ring. It was no wonder he hadn’t noticed – anything that tiny was easily overlooked. ‘It’s that pitiful engagement ring,’ he said. ‘Your body’s rejecting it.’

  ‘Give me a break,’ she said. And it’s not pitiful. Charles and I agreed it made more sense to put money into something that benefited both of us in the long run. This is merely a symbol.’

  ‘If that’s a symbol of your great love, then you’re in deep shit,’ Elric said. He stared at the nasty little thing in fascination. He wasn’t going to touch it again, not as long as it was on her finger.

  ‘I don’t want to discuss this with you,’ she said stiffly.

  ‘Fine. We won’t discuss sex and we won’t discuss your fiance, though if you’re that uptight about things it’s no wonder you’ve been screwing up in the workshop. People like us need to be comfortable in our bodies, not nervous and twitchy. It throws everything off.’

  He’d expected her to argue again, but she looked momentarily distracted. ‘That would explain Dee’s problem,’ she said, half to herself.

  ‘What is Dee’s problem?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  Elric bit back his irritation. He was going to have to immobilize Deirdre as well, plus the youngest, and he was going to have to do it without anyone realizing it. He didn’t have enough information; he only knew their gifts were backfiring. Now he was beginning to wonder if he’d made a grave mistake in coming here.

  He dismissed it a moment later. The disturbances emanating from this area had been felt worldwide, and he’d known, with that instinctive sureness that had been with him most of his life, that this was where he was supposed to be.

  ‘Take off the ring,’ he said.

  ‘The hell I will.’

  He blinked. She was looking very defiant, even though her voice had wobbled slightly, and he wondered if another pair of shoes were about to appear. Maybe they’d be combat boots.

  He tried another tack. ‘The ring is interfering with the flow of energy through your body,’ he said patiently. ‘You said the fires and explosions were getting worse. Starting when?’

  She glanced down at the tiny chip on her hand. ‘Around the time we got engaged,’ she said reluctantly.

  ‘I rest my case. The ring disrupts things when you try to channel your gift. Your body is fighting it – I’ll leave it up to you to draw whatever conclusions you want.’

  ‘Someone must have… hexed it or something,’ she said.

  ‘Take it off and I’ll tell you.’

  She pulled at it, and it came off easily enough – a little too easily for a ring that wasn’t loose. She held it out to him, but he shook his head. ‘Put it on the bench.’

  ‘Chicken,’ she said, but she sounded relieved as she set it down.

  He picked it up, half expecting another crack of painful electricity, but it was nothing more than a plain, cheap ring, devoid of power. ‘It’s just a ring,’ he said. ‘Harmless. Except if the wrong person wears it.’

  She started to reach for it, but a sizzle of blue electricity danced between them, and she jerked her hand back. ‘You’re doing that,’ she said in a sulky voice.

  ‘Believe what you want. But you’re not wearing it until I leave. We aren’t going to get anywhere if we practically get electrocuted every time I touch you.’

  ‘I don’t see why you need to touch me,’ she protested.

  He closed his eyes in momentary exasperation. ‘Didn’t you have any training at all? I can help you channel your energy – you don’t have to start getting paranoid.’

  ‘That’s right, your mind isn’t clouded by lust. If it was I’d be able to make you do what I want.’r />
  He wasn’t about to argue with it. His mind wasn’t clouded with lust – he’d been able to compartmentalize it very neatly. Yes, there was a strong, deep attraction that made no sense, and it was entirely inconvenient and, as far as he could tell, completely one-sided. So he’d banished it with the ruthless efficiency he’d perfected, never to think about it again until he was far enough away from her that it wouldn’t be a danger.

  He put the ring back down on the workbench. ‘You can have it when I leave. In the meantime, I’ll show you what I mean.’

  He had no idea why he did it, when he’d just been thinking how dangerous she was. Maybe he hadn’t banished that errant strain of lust as efficiently as he thought. He reached out to put his hand on her shoulder, as he had before, but for some reason it slid up the side of her neck, cupping her face, and there was no snap of static power between them. Instead it was a pulse, strong and powerful, flowing between them, awash with color and the heartbeat of the universe. And without thinking he moved his head down to kiss her.

  Danny James opened the door to the Greasy Fork and ushered Dee in. Dee couldn’t think of anyplace more platonic to have her one drink with Danny than the Greasy Fork, the epitome of the smalltown diner with its scarred Formica and Coke-and-hamburger menu. Plus no alcohol. She’d be safe there.

  She led him through the bustling early-dinner crowd over to her favorite booth by the front window where she could see the town square, the river, and the cliffs beyond that were her favorite haunt. The sun was low, throwing a golden wash over the red brick buildings and limning the trees. Dee sighed. What the hell had she been thinking? She needed to be outside in that perfect light. Not here. Not with Danny James, for God’s sake.

  She’d laid in a few brushstrokes of burnt sienna along the lines of his throat, where the warm sun had left shadows.

  Dee shook her head, feeling oddly bereft. Damn fantasy. ‘Nice place,’ Danny said behind her with a suspiciously dry voice.

  ‘Did I tell you the drink choices here are Coke, Coke, and coffee?’ she asked as she tossed her briefcase onto the seat and slid in.