witches of cleopatra hill 07 - impractical magic Page 12

  It was with some relief that she passed through the northern suburbs in the Anthem area and headed into more open territory. The freeway had its share of traffic, but it had opened up enough that she could let herself focus on other things.

  Like the way Colin had cupped her face in his hands and kissed her. So tender, so wonderful. She’d never had anyone hold her like that, like she was a precious piece of porcelain he was afraid he might break.

  He hadn’t wanted to leave. She’d seen it in his eyes, in the lopsided smile he wore as he said goodbye, as if that was the best he could manage when faced by their separation. Goddess knew, she hadn’t wanted him to go, either. But it was necessary. Good, even. Hopefully, this time apart would allow her to analyze her reactions to him, to think about him more clearly now that several hundred miles would separate them.

  Maybe by the time he came up to visit her, she’d know what to do.

  It was just after two when Jenny pulled into the alley that led to the carport behind her flat. She was lucky to have covered parking, even if it wasn’t a full garage. Lots of people in Jerome didn’t even have that, had to fight with the tourists for street parking.

  Now, there would be a handy talent, she thought. To always have the perfect parking place wherever you went.

  Her own pesky gift appeared to have remained dormant, even without her morning rituals of yoga and meditation. Well, she’d get right back on that the next day, just to be safe.

  In the meantime, she had a whole lot of bags to drag up two flights of stairs. There was a staircase built into the back of the building, one that led directly from the carport to the back door of the flat above the gallery. Jenny had been glad of those stairs on more than one occasion, since they meant she could slip into her flat without being seen by anyone on the street. Unlike a lot of Jerome’s business owners, who seemed to keep whatever damn hours they pleased, the civilian owner of the gallery expected Jenny to open the place at ten and close it at five — six o’clock on Fridays and Saturdays. Most of the time, that wasn’t a problem. But once or twice she’d gotten hung up handling McAllister business and wanted to make sure that no looky-loos who might be peeking into the gallery’s windows could see her sneaking into her flat.

  Today, that wasn’t an issue, because Susan was holding down the fort. Well, at least as much as was necessary on a Monday. In general, it wasn’t exactly a busy shopping or sightseeing day in the little mountain town, unless that Monday happened to be part of a three-day weekend.

  Jenny hauled the first batch of shopping bags upstairs, then went down and collected the remainder, along with her luggage. By that point she was feeling a little winded — too much alcohol and not enough sleep the night before — so she left the hanging up and the organizing for later, and went into the kitchen and poured herself some water from the pitcher in the fridge. Then she took her glass and went to sit on one of the Adirondack chairs on the deck.

  Everything was so quiet here. Now and again a car would go past on Main Street, right below her, but because it was a Monday, the traffic was light. The line of the Verde River, off in the distance, was clearly visible because of the bright autumn yellow of the cottonwoods that grew on its banks. And beyond that were Sedona’s red rocks, looking redder than ever in the slanting afternoon light.

  A certain tension she hadn’t even realized she’d been carrying eased itself out of Jenny’s neck and shoulders as she sat there and looked at the view. This was what she needed — the place where she’d been born, its familiar vistas soothing her soul.

  She let the idea of Colin Campbell enter her mind — the flash of humor in his hazel eyes, that little dent in one cheek that wasn’t quite a dimple, but its first cousin. And then she tried to think about how she would feel if she never saw him again.

  All of a sudden, the view beyond the deck wasn’t quite as soul-nourishing as it had been a few minutes ago. Jenny had been afraid of that, but she’d needed to try. Deep down, she’d hoped her weekend with Colin had been only a fling, something she could easily let go once she was back home. That didn’t seem to be the case, however.

  Great, she thought, as she drank the rest of her water and stared at the distant ruddy shapes of Sedona’s hills and mesas. What am I supposed to do now?

  * * *

  Almost from the start, Colin could tell that Google — or the internet in general — wasn’t going to help him much on his quest. There should at least have been documents on file with the Yavapai County recorder’s office showing any transactions involving real estate. That stuff was in the public record, after all. But he couldn’t seem to find anything. It wasn’t that properties didn’t trade hands in Jerome; they did, although not with the sort of turnover he would have expected. No, it was that no one with the last name of McAllister seemed to be involved in any of those deals, which didn’t make a whole hell of a lot of sense to him.

  It was almost as if all those properties had come into the family early on, and then had been quietly handed down when someone passed away, or possibly traded when a family needed to upgrade to a bigger house. Colin had been able to discover that the McAllisters had come to Jerome in the late 1870s, but there was little else that he could find.

  Which didn’t mean that it didn’t exist. It just meant that he’d have to do some in-person digging. Not in Jerome itself — his suddenly appearing there before his scheduled date with Jenny on Saturday would raise way too many questions — but in Prescott, which had been the capitol of the Arizona Territory when the McAllisters came on the scene. There must be some records there, some piece of evidence that would help to explain his nagging feeling that he was missing something big when it came to Jenny’s family.

  The Wilcoxes were a little easier, just because they didn’t seem to have made any effort to keep the recorder in their county from setting down all their various real estate transactions. Colin didn’t have the time to look into it too much, partly because the McAllisters were his real focus, and partly because it would have taken a team of investigators to track it all down. The Wilcoxes were a big and prosperous family, and they liked to buy houses. And shopping centers. And car dealerships. And probably any number of other properties that Colin just hadn’t discovered yet.

  But the McAllisters…that would be worth digging into. He’d realized, though, that the only way he’d be able to follow up on his investigation would be to take a day off from work. That damned parking meter article had been turned in, and Ned hadn’t given him another in-depth yet, just a couple of short pieces that anyone on the staff could handle. And Colin had made sure to get at least a third of the way through the pamphlet that was due on Friday before he’d continued with his research into the McAllisters after he got home. Mostly poking around on Facebook, which felt creepy but was easy enough to do. Well, it should have been easy. But he hadn’t been able to find much. If the McAllisters were on social media, they seemed to have made sure not to advertise their location when they set up their profiles.

  So, okay, he’d need to take a sick day so he could drive up to Prescott and poke around in the records at the historical society there. He wouldn’t let himself feel too guilty about pretending to be sick, since he’d dragged himself into work on more than one occasion when suffering from a cold or whatever. His sick days were piling up almost as fast as his vacation days.

  He did suffer a few pangs when he called Jenny that night, knowing he’d already resolved to go to Prescott and continue to look into her family’s history. The second he heard her voice on the phone, he found himself almost overcome by the impulse to confess everything. But he’d gotten a hold of himself, mostly because he knew telling her the truth over the phone was not the right way to handle this. Besides, was it really so wrong to dig up a few historical facts about the McAllisters? A lot of it was, after all, public record.

  She’d sounded tired but not in a bad way. “Long drive,” she told him. “And I’d forgotten how many stairs I’d have to drag all those bag
s up.”

  The rueful note in her voice made him chuckle. “But you survived?”

  “Barely. Of course, they’re all just sitting in my bedroom right now. I’m going to have to do a closet cull to get everything to fit. Goodwill is going to love me.”

  Colin found himself wondering what her bedroom looked like. Was it filled with antiques to match the town she lived in? Or was it more modern, simple? He hadn’t really gotten a grasp on her personal style yet, although if what she’d worn on their shopping trip was any indication, she wasn’t very tailored, more boho and informal.

  “Out with the old,” he said. Not that he had much personal experience with that sort of thing. He tended to wear his own shirts and jeans until they grew holes and were no longer fit for work. Spending any kind of money on clothes just wasn’t his thing.

  “In this case, there’s a little too much new, but I’ll get it figured out.” She paused then and asked, “How was work?”

  “Oh, the usual. I wasn’t too late.”

  “Well, that’s something.”

  They chatted a little more, but Colin noticed how they carefully skirted around saying anything too personal. And then Jenny said she had to go, but she’d call him on Wednesday.

  Apparently she wasn’t the clingy type. Or maybe she was trying to appear non-clingy, and that was why she’d scheduled their next talk for the day after tomorrow.

  Either way, he couldn’t help being a bit relieved. That meant he wouldn’t have to worry about still being out in Prescott when she called again. He’d have the whole day to himself.

  Just what he would find, he wasn’t sure.

  * * *

  Lysette, Jenny’s mother, came into the gallery on Tuesday afternoon, a time carefully calculated to give her daughter enough space after returning to Jerome, but also a time when the gallery would most likely be dead quiet and they could have a little mother-daughter chat.

  Or at least, that was how Jenny saw it. She didn’t mind, actually, because she wanted to talk to her mother about Colin. Maybe that was jumping the gun, but she thought she’d better get a few things straightened out in her head before she saw him again. When he was around, she tended to get so wrapped up in being with him that she pushed the less pleasant aspects of their relationship aside.

  Lysette gave a quick glance around as she entered the gallery, then nodded slightly, as if satisfied that the place was empty of anyone except her daughter. She leaned up against the display case that held jewelry made by several local artists — including the clan’s own prima, Angela — and gave Jenny an inquiring look. “How was shopping?”

  “Fine,” Jenny replied. From the glint in her mother’s eyes, it was pretty obvious that Lysette had more on her mind than simply how many pairs of new shoes Jenny had picked up in Tucson. So she came out from behind the counter toward the back of the gallery and said, “His name’s Colin.”

  “I know. Margot told me.”

  Long ago, Jenny had resigned herself to the way news traveled in the McAllister clan faster than any text or email. Even so, she tensed, then crossed her arms and propped herself up against the display case opposite the one where her mother stood. “Oh, really? What else did Margot have to say?”

  Lysette apparently decided to ignore the edge in her daughter’s voice. “Not a lot, Jenny. But several people mentioned to me that you were talking with a young man who obviously wasn’t a member of any of the clans that attended the wedding, and since Margot and Lucas were seated at his same table, it was only natural that she had a little more information than anyone else. She said Colin seemed like a nice enough person, although a little out of his element.”

  There was an understatement. A few civilians besides Colin had been at the wedding — mostly spouses of clan members — but as far as Jenny knew, he was the only one who had been there as just a friend, with no other real attachment to the people involved. “And?”

  “And what?” Lysette sent her daughter a very mild look, the sort Jenny knew was intended to keep her from getting too riled up. “That’s all. But when you disappeared after the reception and didn’t come back until the next morning — ”

  “How did you know that?” Jenny demanded. As far as she’d been able to tell, there hadn’t been anyone around to witness her hurrying up to her room while wearing the same bridesmaid’s dress she’d had on the night before.

  “Your father was opening the draperies in our room — a room that looked down on the parking lot. He saw — ”

  “Okay, I get it.” Great. Just great. So there she’d thought she’d been able to sneak back in with no one noticing, and her father had been standing there the whole time, watching as Colin dropped her off at the hotel. About the only thing she could be grateful for was that the kiss she and Colin had shared right then was quick and awkward, not much more than a peck. At least they hadn’t been standing in the parking lot playing tonsil hockey.

  “So….” Lysette said. She tapped her fingernails against the display case. When she went on, her tone was very gentle. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  It was on Jenny’s lips to say no, she really didn’t want to talk about it. Problem was, she did want to talk. She really didn’t have any close friends among the McAllisters, mostly because the girls she’d gone to school with and hung out with as a teenager and an early twenty-something were now all married and had kids. They didn’t share much common ground, despite being members of the same clan.

  But she and her mother had always been close, whereas Roslyn had been her father’s special pet. He still hadn’t begun to recover from that blow, even if he did manage to wear a brave face most of the time.

  Jenny pulled in a breath and faced her mother, taking in the big blue eyes and honey-colored hair that both she and Roslyn had inherited. Lysette McAllister was fifty-two, but she looked nearly a decade younger than that. Right then, Jenny found herself hoping — not for the first time — that she’d age as well as her mother had.

  “Mom, when did Dad tell you?”

  Lysette didn’t ask her daughter what in the world she meant. Instead, she let out a little sigh, a pucker of concern pulling at her dark gold brows. “Is it that serious already?”

  “I — I don’t know.” Jenny played with the silver bangles she wore on her right wrist, not looking up at her mother. “It might be. He’s — I don’t know. I like him a lot.” There was an understatement. She really didn’t want to acknowledge the feelings that stirred inside her, because it was stupid to be thinking that way about someone she’d only met a few days earlier. “He’s smart and funny and treats me, well, like me. Not what he expects me to be. Just me.”

  Even to Jenny’s own ears, that particular speech had sounded more than a little incoherent. But her mother nodded, as if in comprehension. “And that’s what we all want, isn’t it? Someone who treats us like us. Of course,” she added, smiling slyly, “it doesn’t hurt when they’re as nice-looking as this Colin of yours.”

  “He is not mine.”

  “He isn’t?” Without waiting for Jenny to respond, Lysette went on, “As to your other question, well, it was after your father and I had been seeing each other for a few weeks. I was up staying in Sedona, and — ”

  “And you and your friends decided to go slumming and come up to Jerome,” Jenny broke in. She’d heard this story many times before. The only detail Lysette had left out was exactly when Marcus had revealed to her that he was a warlock, and that roughly half of Jerome’s inhabitants were all members of one big extended witch clan.

  “I never said slumming,” Lysette said, giving her daughter a mock-severe look. “But Jerome was a lot different in the late eighties. It hadn’t been gentrified, so to speak. There were a couple of bars, and a couple of restaurants, and a few galleries. For a group of girls from Phoenix, it was more about saying we’d gone there. Anyway, my friend Alison was the one who was into all the woo-woo Sedona stuff, and the rest of us weren’t going to argue about it, since she
was letting us crash at her parents’ cabin up in Oak Creek canyon for most of July that year. But we got restless and decided to come up to Jerome.”

  “And you met Dad.”

  “Yes, I met your father.” Lysette’s eyes went dreamy then, as if recalling a day now some thirty years in the past. “He was tending bar at the Spirit Room, and I thought he was the best-looking man I’d ever seen.”

  Maybe he had been. Objectively, Jenny knew that her father was a very attractive man, and she’d seen pictures of her parents from right after they were married. In those photos, Lysette had ridiculous big eighties hair with shoulder pads to match, but was gorgeous nonetheless, while there was something a lot more timeless about her father’s short-cropped brown hair and button-up shirts. Jerome was the sort of place where people didn’t worry too much about fashion trends.

  “Anyway,” Lysette went on, “I knew I wanted to be around Marcus as much as possible, which was harder than you might think, since we’d all come up in one car because there really wasn’t room for more than that to park at the cabin. But I borrowed Alison’s Toyota a couple of times, and then Marcus came over to Sedona to see me, and….” She let the words trail off, but from the dreamy look in her mother’s eyes, Jenny guessed Lysette was recalling some of the more intimate things that had passed between them.

  “Spare me the gory details,” Jenny said, and her mother raised an eyebrow.

  “I wasn’t about to go into the ‘gory details,’ but I was going to say that your father and I had been seeing each other for not quite two weeks when he told me. I was supposed to go back to Phoenix the next day, and that was the last thing I wanted to do. I told your father that I wanted to stay in Jerome with him. And he…he said he wanted me to stay as well, but there was something he needed to tell me. And he also said that I couldn’t tell anyone else, even if I decided not to stay after all.”