witches of cleopatra hill 07 - impractical magic Read online

  Too bad.

  “Time?” she asked.

  “Six-thirty,” he replied. “Sorry it’s so early, but my office is halfway across town, and I have to be there at eight.”

  “It’s fine.” With her left hand — not the one holding up the sheet — she rubbed at her eyes. “Why don’t you let me know what you want for breakfast, and I’ll call room service while you’re in the shower.”

  “Denver omelet.”

  She raised an eyebrow.

  “I took a look at the menu last night.”

  “Ah.” A pause, and then she added, “Coffee?”

  “Of course.” He stopped to assess exactly how he was feeling. It definitely felt like a two-cup morning. Or maybe three. Getting up and downing most of that bottle of champagne hadn’t been one of his better ideas. “You might want to order a whole pot.”

  A small smile quirked her full lips. “Will do.”

  He untangled himself from the sheets, picking up his abandoned underwear during the process. Was it worth it to put them back on, just to walk into the bathroom? Mornings after were always so tough, especially when you were new to someone and hadn’t really defined your relationship. And was this even a relationship?

  His soul and heart and body wanted it to be. His mind…well, his mind was still trying to figure out exactly what was going on.

  Colin decided against the underwear, and walked as casually as he could toward the bathroom, although he was all too aware of Jenny’s eyes on him as he took those few short steps. Then he shut the door and released a small exhalation of relief. He’d always been more about the mind than the body, although he did run to keep himself in shape. But he wasn’t sure he was up to an in-depth inspection by a goddess like Jenny McAllister.

  The shower felt good, hot and invigorating, helping to blow out some of the cobwebs in his brain. He still wasn’t any closer to figuring out how to break the news to Jenny that he’d come to her cousin Caitlin’s wedding under false pretenses, but Colin did feel as if he was thinking a little more clearly. There was no point in denying his feelings for her, so he had to decide what his best course of action should be.

  Sitting down and talking to her right before he had to take off for work was not a good idea at all. Might as well end their time together this weekend on a high note. No, he’d get through his work week, go up to Jerome on Saturday, and then clear the air while she was safely on her home turf. He’d explain that there hadn’t been anything malicious in his actions, only a desire to know the truth behind the story Eileen Kosky had told him.

  How well Jenny would react to that revelation, Colin had no idea. But at least there wouldn’t be any more secrets between them.

  He got out of the shower and towel-dried his hair, then wrapped himself in one of the plush terrycloth robes hanging from the hook on the bathroom door. His overnight bag was still sitting out on the floor next to the dresser, but he thought he could get dressed while Jenny was in the shower. If she even planned to shower while he was there. After all, she only had to take a leisurely drive back to Jerome today. From what she’d said, it sounded like she wouldn’t actually be going to work again until the next morning.

  When he emerged from the bathroom, the rich — and welcome — smell of coffee and eggs reached his nose. “That was fast,” he commented as he headed for the table by the window where Jenny had set out their breakfasts.

  “I don’t think the hotel is too busy today,” she replied, pouring coffee into the mug at the place setting across from hers. “There’s cream and sugar,” she added.

  “I take it black, but thanks.”

  Her nose wrinkled slightly, but she didn’t say anything as she poured a good deal of cream into her own coffee, followed by a small spoonful of sugar. “So…you have a lot of corporate communicating to do today?”

  Colin knew the question was completely innocuous, but inwardly he cringed at having to tell her yet another lie. “Some press releases, the verbiage for a new brochure. The usual.”

  “Sounds exciting,” she said, then sipped at her coffee.

  “It’s very not exciting, unfortunately, but that’s how it goes.”

  She nodded. Luckily, she didn’t appear all that interested in asking him anything else about his upcoming work day — maybe he’d made it sound dull enough that she’d decided it was better to avoid the topic — and instead dug into her own breakfast, which consisted of scrambled eggs, hash browns, and a side of fresh fruit.

  His omelet was excellent, and he ate with appetite, although he kept an eye on the clock on the nightstand. A quarter after seven. Not too bad, but he still needed to shave and get dressed, and if he left much past seven-thirty, he was going to be late.

  “It’s okay,” Jenny said quietly. “I know you have somewhere you have to be.”

  Colin tried not to wince. “Was I that obvious?”

  Her smile was luminous, even with her smudged mascara and sleep-tousled hair. Or maybe it was because of that. “Sort of. But really, it’s okay. I knew you had to get up and go to work today.”

  “Still….”

  “Just eat your breakfast. And try not to look so tragic. It’s just work. Millions of people survive it every day.”

  “True.” Something about her words made him realize that he really would have to leave her, would have to get in his car and drive away, go off to all the mundanities of his existence. There was something strong and splendid about her that made his everyday life seem very small. Which was ridiculous, wasn’t it? She was just a woman. All right, an amazing woman, unlike anyone else he’d ever known, but still….

  Anyway, he was being melodramatic. He’d see her again soon enough.

  Six days from now. Ouch.

  But because she was watching, and he didn’t know what else to say, he finished off the rest of his omelet and drained his cup of coffee. “Gotta shave,” he mumbled before heading off to the bathroom.

  She just nodded, then turned back to the remnants of her scrambled eggs.

  Shaving usually helped him to get his head together, made him mentally prepare himself for the day ahead, but Colin’s thoughts kept wandering. He didn’t want to go to work and write a puff piece about parking meters or whatever else his editor thought would resonate with readers’ concerns. No, he wanted to throw his overnight bag in the back of Jenny’s car and head home with her to Jerome.

  At any other time, he would have chalked his restlessness up to working way too long without a real break; his vacation time was stacking up because he hadn’t taken anything other than a long weekend away from work for going on three years now. He’d sucked his vacation days away while dealing with the divorce and had hoarded them ever since. What was the point in using them just for mental health days? It wasn’t as if he planned to go jetting off to Cancun anytime soon.

  But he hadn’t even given a thought to playing hooky from work despite all that. No, right now he desperately wanted to prolong his time with Jenny, make this weekend stretch into a week, then a month, and then….

  And then you really need to cool it, he told himself, scrunching his face so he could reach that hard-to-get-at spot down along his jawline. A couple of great nights in the sack do not a lifetime together make.

  Come to think of it, that was part of the mistake he’d made with Shannon. They spent a wild weekend together out at the El Dorado hot springs, and he’d become so entranced with her that he’d decided she was the perfect person for him. Never mind that they really hadn’t had much in common, except a taste for certain movies and certain kinds of music. Shannon had wanted someone with a real future, someone who could give her a comfortable lifestyle. It wasn’t that she didn’t expect to work; she got her teaching credential and taught first grade, which she loved. But she also knew she’d never get rich doing that, and a husband who was scraping by making a little over thirty grand at a local newspaper didn’t exactly meet her expectations.

  Well, that was one thing he could tell was di
fferent about Jenny McAllister. She had some money of her own, that much was obvious. All those purchases had been paid for with cash or a Visa debit card, not a credit card. He’d paid attention, because a woman who was so blithe about racking up credit card debt was not someone he wanted to get involved with. At any rate, she’d let him take her out to dinner, but she’d covered the champagne and breakfast here at the hotel, which meant she certainly wasn’t out to take advantage of him.

  Keep it up, he thought as he tapped the bristles from his electric razor into the bathroom trash can. At the rate you’re going, you’ll be asking her to marry you the second you walk back out there.

  It did seem as if he kept coming up with reasons why Jenny seemed to be the ideal woman for him, even when he thought he was doing the opposite.

  He went out and offered her a smile as he retrieved his overnight bag. She was sipping her coffee, the plate in front of her empty except for a few scraps of hash browns. Clearly, she wasn’t too worried about her calorie intake. Then again, why should she be? She was slender without being thin, with a nicely curved ass and a full bust, but not too full. Just enough for all the proportions to be right.

  And that was the wrong thing to be thinking, because he could feel himself stir at the memory of her warm flesh beneath him, at the way her breasts had spilled into his palms. Thank God for bulky hotel bathrobes.

  Probably moving too quickly, he went back into the bathroom to get dressed. If he’d had more guts, he would have stayed out in the main part of the room, but he just couldn’t quite manage the thought of having Jenny sit there and drink her coffee as she watched him climb into his boxer briefs and jeans. Yes, she might consider such behavior prudish, and Colin knew he’d have to live with that.

  After stuffing himself into his jeans and pulling a polo shirt over his head, he ran a comb through his hair one last time, then sucked in a breath. He didn’t wear a watch, preferring to use his phone to let him know what time it was, but he had a feeling he was running late.

  Sure enough, when he emerged from the bathroom, a glance at the clock on the nightstand told him that it was now seven thirty-five. He might still make it on time — if the gods smiled at him and gave him a whole hell of a lot of green lights between here and work.

  Jenny’s expression was resigned. During breakfast, she’d appeared fairly serene, but he could tell from the look on her face that she didn’t want to say goodbye any more than he did. Nevertheless, she got up from the table and came toward him, a trace of a smile on her eminently kissable mouth.

  “I know — you’re late,” she said. “So get going.”

  “I’ll call.” Of that he was certain. Talking to her during the week would make the days go by more quickly. It would also torture him with the sound of her voice and the knowledge that she was hundreds of miles away, but he’d have to figure out a way to deal with that.

  “You’d better,” she replied, this time giving him a real grin. Then she kissed him on the cheek, moving to his mouth immediately afterward so she could give him a real kiss, one that tasted of coffee and cream.

  God, that was enough to make him want to toss his overnight bag to the floor and drag her back to the bed…right after he made a call to work to let them know that he’d picked up bubonic plague over the weekend. Or maybe Legionnaire’s disease. Something that would keep him out of commission long enough to spend as much time as he wanted with Jenny.

  But he did none of those things, only kissed her back and said, “I’ve got to go. I’ll call you tonight.”

  She didn’t say anything, only offered him another smile. And then he was heading out the door and over to the elevator, which was blessedly unoccupied. His car looked shabbier than ever as he approached it in the parking lot, which was bathed in bright desert morning sun, but right then he didn’t much care.

  He got in and headed south, toward the Tucson Daily Sun’s offices. In a lot of ways, his editor was pretty laid back, but he did not like people coming in late to work. Being late to work meant you were also capable of being late to make a deadline, and missed deadlines were something that Ned Tavener just did not allow.

  Luck seemed to be with Colin at first, though, as he blazed through several lights on Campbell Avenue, heading away from the hotel. The street bordered the university, and the sight of the familiar architecture made a strange pang go through him. Back when he’d been going to graduate school there and besotted with Shannon, he’d sure never thought he’d end up broke and divorced, having to write crappy diet ebooks in order to have any kind of spare cash.

  Yeah, and you never thought you’d meet someone like Jenny McAllister, either, he told himself as he turned right on Broadway and headed toward downtown. Let alone basically spend the weekend with her. I’d say you’re doing pretty well, all things considered.

  Well, except for the way their entire relationship so far had been built on false pretenses.

  Scowling, he pulled into the Daily Sun’s parking lot at five minutes after eight. Not horrible, but not great, either. And there was Ned’s silver Audi, gleaming in the sun. Colin would have hated the sight of that car, except he knew Ned really didn’t make all that much. His wife was a lawyer who specialized in trusts and probate, and that was where the car had come from.

  Ned was nowhere in sight when Colin entered the building. He allowed himself a small sigh of relief and hurried into his office, then powered up the computer right away so it would look like he’d been there all along. Just as he was entering his password, Ryan Ortiz appeared in the doorway.

  “So…?”

  “So what?” Colin replied, eyes intent on the computer screen.

  “So what happened with the wedding crashing?”

  “Oh…nothing.” Colin had told Ryan that there might be a connection to the Escobar case at the Trujillo/McAllister wedding, but he hadn’t said anything more than that. Ryan had been curious, although only mildly so; his attitude had more or less suggested that he thought the whole thing was a snipe hunt, and if Colin wanted to waste his weekend chasing down leads provided by a crazy old woman, he was welcome to it. “Total dead end.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “My fault for following up on something that wasn’t worth my time.” More lies, but he sure as hell wasn’t ready to tell Ryan about Jenny McAllister.

  “Mmm.” Ryan’s dark eyes narrowed, and Colin tried to make himself appear more or less neutral, maybe with a tinge of impatience. Lord knows what he looked like in the harsh office lighting — he hadn’t noticed any obvious hickeys or other marks on his neck or face, but he knew he looked tired after two nights in a row of too much to drink and not enough sleep. But then Ryan shrugged and went on, “Well, it sounds like I owe you that beer. We could go over to Hennessey’s tonight after work.”

  The last thing Colin wanted right then was another night on the town. All he wanted to do was survive this day of work, then go home and crash. Maybe get some writing done on that next pamphlet, because it was due on Friday, but nothing else.

  “Rain check?” he asked. “I’m kind of beat.”

  “Yeah, you look it,” Ryan agreed before shooting him a sarcastic grin and heading off to his own office.

  On other occasions, Colin might have continued the banter, trading casual insults. It was the way he and the other reporter tended to interact. Right then, though, he was just glad that Ryan hadn’t hung around. Sharing quips required way too much energy.

  Colin opened Word and pulled up the parking meter article. His editor wanted the piece to run in Tuesday’s edition, since the Tuesday paper always had an expanded local section. It was mostly done, thank God — just needed a little more polishing, and a follow-up email to double-check that Colin had all the dates for the rollout correct. He was glad that people didn’t tend to bat an eye at emails, because they weren’t merely a heck of a lot easier to deal with than phone calls. They also provided written documentation in case there was ever a question of accuracy.
/>   The article sat there on his screen, the white “page” appearing to flicker ever so slightly. It wasn’t the screen, though; Colin knew he was just tired. So working on something as simple as this should be a piece of cake.

  Jenny’s face drifted through his mind’s eye, her wide smile, the glow in her big blue-gray eyes. No, she was exactly the last thing he should be thinking about right then. He needed to work. Anyway, he’d already promised her that he would talk to her that night.

  But…there was that expensive wedding. The way Jenny had casually dropped probably a grand or more during her shopping expedition.

  The blue-white light Eileen Kosky swore up and down that she’d seen in the parking lot outside Dillard’s some six months ago, coming from Alex Trujillo’s outstretched hands.

  Colin stared at the computer screen for a long time, the words of the article blurring in front of him. Then he swore gently under his breath and minimized the Word document before bringing up Firefox. He had a feeling that a simple Google search wouldn’t be all that much help, but he figured he had to start somewhere.

  So he typed in McAllister family, Jerome, Arizona.

  9

  Jenny was glad of the long drive to get back to Jerome. She knew it would take that long to try to put Colin out of her mind, to make herself ignore the little ache she felt deep inside at the thought of not seeing him until next weekend.

  He’s a civilian, she reminded herself, but that seemed like a puny excuse. Her mother was a civilian. Big deal. If the person was right for you, the divide between witch and ordinary man didn’t seem to matter all that much.

  Traffic in Phoenix had been cloggy and slow, even though Jenny hadn’t gotten on the road until a little after ten. She hadn’t minded too much, since the congestion only pushed back her arrival time that much more. What she did mind was all the impatient big-city drivers, the ones who rode your bumper or cut in front of you at the last minute. She wasn’t used to that kind of behavior. Not to say that everyone in Jerome or the Verde Valley as a whole was a model driver, but the pace was a lot slower there.