Sympathetic Magic (The Witches of Cleopatra Hill Book 4) Page 17

  In that moment, it seemed she couldn’t bear to look at her luggage, look at the evidence of the time she’d spent with Lucas. Fine. She’d unpack later, once she’d gathered the ragged remains of her composure. Instead, she went in the house, tried to ignore how empty and quiet it seemed, and decided to make some tea, not because she really wanted any, or because she thought it would help, but because she couldn’t think of a damn thing else to do.

  It did help, actually, a tiny bit. She took her mug of tea and went to sit on the back porch, which looked over the carefully tended yard, the roses dead-headed and awaiting their winter dormancy, the grass already beginning to appear a little yellowed, now that they’d had a couple of good frosts.

  A shadow fell over the garden path, and Margot looked up, heart giving an irrational thump. He couldn’t have come here to plead with her, could he?

  But no, it was only Allegra Moss. Margot might have wondered how her fellow elder could have known she was home already, except that Allegra was one of those people who seemed to know everything about everyone, or at least gave a very good imitation of it. Besides, her house was just down on the corner, and so she would’ve seen Margot’s car passing by if she’d been looking out the window at the right moment. Which, since it was Allegra, tended to happen more often than not.

  “You’re back?” Allegra asked, and Margot tried not to wince.

  “Yes,” she said shortly, hoping the other woman would hear the finality in her tone and not pry, and also knowing, since it was Allegra, that it was a vain hope at best. “I did say it would be three days at the very most. Besides, I didn’t want to get caught in any weather, in case more snow moved in.”

  “That makes sense.” The older witch paused for a moment, blue eyes keen. Margot thought they might as well have been equipped with X-rays. “Didn’t it go well?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Margot said shortly, fingers tightening around her mug so she wouldn’t give in to the urge to hurl it at Allegra’s head.

  “Oh, that’s too bad. He seems like such a nice person. And oh, so easy on the eyes.”

  “Does your husband know you talk like that about other men?” She really didn’t want to think about how easy on the eyes Lucas was, because that would get her thinking about his smile, and the light in his dark eyes as he gazed at her, or the way his body had felt pressed against hers….

  Allegra laughed, and that helped dispel those unwelcome memories of just how much Margot had enjoyed being around Lucas, being with him. “My dear, I may be married, but I’m not blind.”

  There not being much Margot could say in reply to that, she only shrugged and sipped at her tea.

  “Well,” Allegra said, and now she did look vaguely uncomfortable, as if she just realized she’d intruded on something that really was none of her business, “I’ll let you relax and unwind, then. I suppose you’ll be making the rounds tomorrow morning, checking the illusions?”

  “Don’t I always?”

  “Yes, you do. You’re always so reliable, Margot, and don’t think that everyone doesn’t appreciate it. Enjoy your day.” Off she went, momentary discomfort forgotten. No doubt within the hour she’d have latched onto something else to occupy her attention. It was just Allegra’s way, and Margot couldn’t even really fault her for that.

  Even so, she settled back against the creaky wicker of her seat and let out a long sigh.

  Reliable.

  It seemed that was all she would ever be. Lucas had given her a glimpse of something else, something more, but she’d been foolish to think it could ever come true for her. No, he’d shown himself to be what she’d always feared…a Wilcox, untrustworthy, plotting, covering his deception with a handsome face.

  She really didn’t want to stop and think how he’d actually gotten himself in trouble by making the simple mistake of telling her the truth.

  13

  After the garage door shut and Margot drove away, Lucas slowly went back into the house, shoulders drooping. There must have been something he could have done to prevent her from leaving, but damn him if he could think of what it might be.

  As he entered the kitchen, his gaze fell on the glazed mug she’d used for her tea, still sitting on the counter next to the sink. He went over and picked it up, pressed his lips against the faint trace of the lipstick she’d left there, as if he could somehow recover some of the warmth of her touch by doing so. But the ceramic was cold and hard under his lips, and he shut his eyes, then growled, “Fuck!” before hurling the mug against the wall and watching it shatter into hundreds of pieces.

  “Lucky” Lucas, his ass.

  Hands clenched into fists, he left the kitchen and the mess he’d just made, stalking through the house with no particular destination in mind. It didn’t seem to matter where he went, though — it was now as if his home had been permanently imprinted with Margot’s presence, the ghost trace of her perfume. Margot bent over the checkerboard in the living room, dark hair haloed by firelight. Margot sitting at the dining room table and lifting a glass of blood-colored wine in response to his toast. Margot in his bed, flushed with desire, waiting for him.

  How could she have done this when she’d only been here for two and a half days? How had she managed to do such a good job of insinuating herself into his home, into his life?

  Into his heart?

  Now he was glad for all those empty years, those times when he’d met women, seen them a few times, bedded them…and then forgot them, heart and mind untouched. He’d never done anything to hurt any of them, had always broken things off before they got too serious. All that time he’d wondered what was wrong with him, that all around him people seemed perfectly capable of falling in love and settling down, and yet there he was, alone when the rest of the world appeared to be pairing off. Now, though, he understood there was a price for making a connection. Because if that connection somehow was broken, it hurt worse than anything else ever could.

  Eventually, he ended up sitting in the living room, staring out the tall windows at the snow-encrusted pines, the deep, deep snow drifts. At some point the snow would begin to melt, but now the temperature was still low enough that everything seemed in stasis, held in some perfect balancing point between light and dark, cold and warmth.

  He glimpsed some motion then, saw a doe pick her way out from between the trees, stop in the middle of the backyard, and lift her head, as if smelling the wind. Her ears flicked this way and that, and it seemed that her dark gaze fastened on him, catching him watching her. Lucas didn’t move, barely dared to breathe. He didn’t want to frighten her off by making any sudden movements, since he wasn’t sure if she could even see him through the window glass.

  Then she shook, turning away from him and moving back into the stand of pines. Heading south.

  In that moment, he knew what he had to do.

  * * *

  Margot eventually got her suitcases out of the trunk, unpacked everything, putting the clothes she hadn’t worn back in the closet, depositing the items that needed laundering in the hamper. It felt right. That way, she was putting a period on her little episode with Lucas Wilcox. A fling, a bout of momentary madness. No one could really blame her for kicking up her heels a bit, as long as nothing changed in the end. To tell the truth, she should probably be grateful to him for showing his true colors, for letting her know he wasn’t quite as harmless as he pretended to be. Now she could settle back into her life again. In a few months, she would have forgotten all about him.

  As the afternoon wore on, clouds began to gather again. So much for the forecasters saying the next few days would be clear. She switched on a few lamps, and, because the wind had picked up and chilly air was finding its way around the out-of-true door frames and chinks in the windowsills, she set a spark to the fire in the grate. There, all was cozy and quiet, just the way she liked it. In a little while, she’d go fix herself some soup, then settle out here with the book she’d forgotten to take with her up to Flagstaf
f. Perfect. Everything back to how it should be.

  Someone knocked on the door, and she frowned. That had better not be Allegra, returning with some kind of manufactured errand. Margot somehow doubted it, though; it was almost six, and they tended to eat early in the Moss household.

  She went to the door and opened it. Lucas stood there, staring down at her.

  At first she was so startled she didn’t quite know what to do. Then she gathered the rags of her composure and asked coldly, “What do you want?”

  “To talk.”

  “I don’t think we have anything to talk about.”

  The wind picked up in that moment, skirling around the corners of the house. She almost thought she felt a ghostly drop of moisture hit her cheek.

  “Actually, we do.” He hiked his jacket up around his neck, obviously trying to shield himself somewhat from the biting wind. “And it’s starting to rain. You’re not going to leave me out here to get soaked, are you?”

  She was tempted to. And was this more of his “luck” at work, that he’d show up just as the weather turned nasty again so she’d be compelled to invite him inside?

  Even as she contemplated the idea, she knew she wouldn’t. Just yesterday she’d thought she loved this man. If she were going to be perfectly honest with herself…although she really didn’t want to be…she knew she still loved him. Was blazingly angry with him, yes. But now, looking at him, at the way those dark eyes were fixed on her face, pleading, at the lines of the mouth she’d thought she’d never get enough of, she knew it wasn’t as easy to turn love off and on as she thought.

  “Come in,” she said, attempting to keep her tone as neutral as possible.

  Obviously, that hadn’t worked as well as she would have liked, because his face lit up as he crossed the threshold, then hesitated in the entry, glance going uncertainly to the coat rack in the corner. No doubt he was wondering if she’d allow him to take off his jacket.

  “Oh, go ahead,” she snapped. “I’ll make some coffee.”

  “Don’t go to any trouble on my account,” he told her, and she shot him a pained look.

  “It’s a little late for that.”

  He took the hint and went into the living room, while she headed to the kitchen, accompanied by a strong sense of déjà vu. Was the universe somehow conspiring to get her together with Lucas Wilcox? Maybe. But the universe was about to discover it had met its match in Margot Emory.

  She got the coffee going and made herself a fresh cup of tea while the coffee percolated. Right then she wished for something a bit stronger than tea, but that wasn’t happening. Especially when she could blame wine for some of her loosened inhibitions when it came to the man currently waiting in her living room.

  No, don’t think about that. Just concentrate on getting the coffee put together.

  At least he took it black. That made things somewhat easier. She didn’t bother with a tray this time, only doctored her tea in the kitchen, then picked up his mug in her left hand and the tea in her right, and went back out to meet him.

  “Here,” she said, not caring how ungracious she sounded.

  He took the mug from her. “Thanks.”

  She wouldn’t bother to say that he was welcome. He wasn’t welcome, not here in her house, not in her life. There wasn’t anything he could say to her that would make her change her mind.

  Seeming to sense her mood, he blew on the coffee but didn’t look at her. As he stared at the fire, he said, “I know I screwed up. But when Lester offered to look a few things up for me — ”

  “Oh, now he was the one offering? It wasn’t all your idea?”

  “Well, no. That is, I said I was interested in a woman but was worried that she might be involved with someone, and he said he’d look into it. I told him not to dig too deep, that it wouldn’t be right — ”

  “Even the little you did wasn’t right.” She’d remained standing this whole time. No way was she going to sit down next to him. Even having him in the same room was hard enough. Being less than a foot apart on the sofa? No way.

  Lucas ran a hand through his hair and let out a sigh that was almost but not quite exasperated. “Margot, the stuff he looked up was the sorts of things that anyone spending a half hour on Google could have probably found.”

  Was that true? She really had no idea, as she certainly hadn’t made a practice of looking herself up online. Angela once said that Damon seemed to have figured out a way to erase most traces of his personal information from search engines, including any photos, but Margot couldn’t begin to determine how he’d managed such a thing. The former Wilcox primus had been very good at twisting magic to his own ends.

  “That’s not the point — ” she began, but Lucas cut her off.

  “What is the point, Margot?” He set down his mug of coffee without drinking any of it, then got to his feet. The living room was not very large, and he seemed to fill it as he stood there, staring down at her. “Do you want me to say it again? Okay, I screwed up. I screwed up because I had to know if I had even a hint of a chance with you. I screwed up because, once I’d seen you, I didn’t even want to look at another woman. I screwed up because I’d spent my whole life thinking love was for someone else, not me, and then when I saw you at the gallery last spring, I knew I’d been wrong all along, and that it hadn’t worked out for me before then because none of those other women were you.”

  During this speech, she could only stand there, feet seemingly glued to the floor. Damn it, he shouldn’t be saying things like that. He should be protesting that it was no big deal, and that she was blowing everything out of proportion. She expected that sort of argument from him because it was the sort of thing Clay would have said.

  But, as Lucas had already told her with some vehemence, he wasn’t Clay McAllister.

  “I — ” Her throat felt parched, and she took a swallow of tea. “You expect me to believe that?”

  His brows drew together, and she realized that had been exactly the wrong thing to say. Because he always seemed so easygoing, so unruffled, for some reason she’d thought he couldn’t really get angry. Not that much, anyway. But in that moment, she realized he was very angry indeed. She wanted to take a step backward, but she wouldn’t. This was her house, and she’d stand her ground.

  “Yes, I do expect you to believe that, since I haven’t lied to you about anything. I’d say that’s a better track record than yours.”

  “What?” A flush of indignation swept over her, and she leaned down so she could put her tea on the coaster next to where Lucas’ coffee sat. “I haven’t lied to you about anything.”

  “Maybe not to me, but you’ve sure done a pretty good job of lying to yourself.”

  Oh, that was going too far. “I have not.”

  One eyebrow went up. “Really? So you haven’t spent the past few days finding every excuse in the world why this thing between us couldn’t possibly work, even when the truth of it was staring you right in the face?”

  Her mouth opened to protest that remark, and then she shut it again. She was many things, but she hoped blindly obstinate wasn’t one of them. And although she really didn’t want to admit it, not to him, not to herself…he was right. Even when she’d been forced to acknowledge what her feelings for him meant, she hadn’t wanted to accept them, had continued to tell herself it didn’t matter what she felt for Lucas Wilcox, that she was an elder in her clan, and that meant she couldn’t have any kind of life with him.

  “No,” she said at last. “You’re right. I have been doing that. But only because I know it’s the truth.”

  “I refuse to accept that.” His hands knotted at his sides, and she could almost see the struggle in him, how he wanted to reach out to her but wouldn’t do so unless he knew that such an overture would be accepted.

  She let out a breath, drew another one in. “I can’t change who I am, Lucas, no matter what I might feel for you. I knew I was accepting a lifelong responsibility when I became an elder. It’s a resp
onsibility that has to come before everything else.”

  Without blinking, he said, “Even love.”

  Oh, Goddess, why did it always have to hurt in the same spot, right there like a knife in her breast? Since she didn’t trust herself to speak, Margot only nodded.

  “You mean to say that not once in the entire history of your clan has anyone ever stepped down for any reason other than dying in harness?”

  The words were said harshly, and she knew he’d done so on purpose, to try to shock her out of what he no doubt saw as blind acceptance. “Not that I know of, no,” she replied.

  “Well, that’s bullshit. I mean, even the King of England once gave up his throne for the woman he loved, so I have a hard time believing that an elder of the McAllister clan can’t do the same thing.”

  Although she didn’t mean for them to, Margot’s lips quirked. “Are you comparing me to Wallis Simpson?”

  In answer, his eyes glinted with amusement. “Well, in this case, I’m probably the one playing the role of Wallis Simpson, but….”

  Her feet began to move before the rest of her quite figured out what they were up to. But then she was standing near him, so close she could practically feel the heat of his body. “I don’t know what to do,” she said, and the voice didn’t sound like hers, low, defeated. Where her anger had gone, she wasn’t exactly sure. Maybe it had turned tail and fled when she finally acknowledged to herself that she really didn’t have all that much to be angry about.

  His arms went around her, and he pulled her close, his lips brushing the top of her head, his scent surrounding her. “It’s all right,” he murmured into her hair. “We’ll figure it out.”

  * * *

  How precisely they’d do that, he wasn’t sure, but he’d also driven down here not knowing whether Margot would even speak to him, or whether she’d call down a posse of McAllister witches to drive him out of town altogether, and now she was letting him hold her, had seemed to have forgiven him. Miracles really could happen.