Demons & Djinn: Nine Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Novels Featuring Demons, Djinn, and other Bad Boys of the Underworld Page 18

  From the trailer, I heard laughter, and I scowled. Jace came out, grinning at me where I sat on the ground in a pile of dirt and dead weeds.

  “Very funny,” I snapped. “You come over here and deal with this bastard.”

  “Sorry, but the way he got you right in the — ”

  “Point taken.” I began to push myself to my feet, only to be stared down by a very angry-looking buck. Fine. I’d wait here until Jace took care of him.

  Which he did, somehow managing to circle the beast and then urge him up the ramp into the trailer. How, I wasn’t quite sure. Hypnotism? Some magical Native American goat-charming trick?

  Whatever it was, it worked. The buck headed right into the trailer as if it were full of a harem of does in heat, and the last doe, the one I’d been trying to manhandle, trotted after him, tail swishing.

  Frigging goats.

  Jace came over to me and extended a hand. “Need help?”

  I scowled at him but took his hand anyway, letting him pull me to my feet. In fact, he yanked me up with such vigor that I lost my balance and pitched right into him, colliding chest to chest. He took me by the arms and steadied me, holding me for a second or two longer than he really needed to.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  “Uh — ” Was I all right? My rear end ached, and I knew my jeans were covered in dirt, but in that moment all I was really conscious of were his hands on my arms, the strength of the fingers wrapped around my biceps. Our faces were only inches apart. Blood tingled all through me, and I knew all I had to do was go up on my toes, bring my mouth to his….

  No, that was insane. This was the first time he’d even touched me since he held me when I wept, on the day he had first come to the compound. Other than a few sideways looks and glances I’d probably misinterpreted, he had done absolutely nothing to show he had any interest in me other than as a companion and friend.

  Somehow I gathered myself, saying, “I’m fine,” and then gently pulled my arms from his grasp. He didn’t try to stop me, didn’t tighten his grip or attempt to bring me closer.

  Well, there was my answer.

  I dug the car key out of my pocket and headed to the driver-side door of the Cherokee, while Jace went around the other side. So far I hadn’t let him drive the SUV, and he hadn’t pushed the matter, somehow sensing that having control over the vehicle was important to me. Besides, he’d taken to driving the Polaris all over the area around the compound, had used it to bring back a buck he’d shot one Saturday afternoon. The freezers were full of venison. Yes, Jace was very handy to have around.

  Even so, I didn’t say anything to him on the trip back home.

  The awkwardness eased itself soon enough, as it had to. We were so busy with getting the goats set up and then foraging for feed, reading up on their care and what we needed to do to ensure the does were properly producing milk, that the moment we shared back in their corral was soon pushed aside, if not forgotten.

  Of course, the awkward part was realizing that we needed to breed the goats now so they would have babies in the spring, and therefore more milk. Oh, yeah, discussing breeding options for farm animals with a guy you have a serious amount of unresolved sexual tension with is a whole new species of fun.

  To be fair, Jace was very mellow about the whole thing, and didn’t make any rude jokes or indulge in any cringe-worthy innuendo. He spelled out the whole thing logically and factually, and then let the goats do the rest. It really wasn’t that difficult; a buck is going to do what a buck is going to do, after all. I was just glad that I managed to avoid seeing them actually do the deed.

  One thing we didn’t have to worry about was the goats escaping the compound. They might come through and eat the ornamental plants in the garden area directly off the back of the house, but there was no way even the most ambitious goat could jump a seven-foot-high solid adobe wall.

  Jace did have to teach me to milk the damn things, which at first scared me to no end, since I was sure I was going to end up with a hoof in my face the second I put one of my unpracticed hands on the animal’s teat.

  “You can just do it, you know,” I told him, hovering nervously in the background as he sat down to give me a demonstration.

  “Oh, no,” he replied. “Equal division of labor on this farm.”

  I made a face but didn’t argue. It was true; I might have done most of the cooking, but he did the hunting, and even cleaned out the chicken coop when my one foray into doing so proved I didn’t have the world’s strongest stomach. In return, I happily did his laundry. At least that way I was able to learn that he favored dark-toned boxer-briefs over tighty-whiteys.

  “It’s not that hard,” he went on, his voice almost too coaxing. “Just watch.”

  He placed his thumb and forefinger near the top of the doe’s teat, squeezing it, and then exerted pressure with his remaining fingers on the lower part of the teat. A thin stream of white liquid emerged and went into the glass jar he’d set beneath it. “See?”

  “Oh, yeah. Easy peasy.”

  “Actually, it isn’t. You have to exert a good deal of force. But that’s okay. She wants to be milked.” He did it again, and I watched his long fingers squeezing against her flesh. For a second, I had a brief flash of those fingers cupping my breast, squeezing, and I had to force the thought out of my mind. No way was I going to let myself get turned on by watching Jace milk a goat. He glanced up at me. “You want to give it a try?”

  I really didn’t. To stall for time, I responded with a question of my own. “Is there anything you can’t do?”

  He appeared to consider, then said, “I don’t know how to play the violin. Now come over here and start learning how to milk this goat.”

  Heaving a sigh didn’t really seem appropriate, given the situation, so I waited while he got out of the way and then sat down on the old packing crate we were using as a milking stool. I did take a breath, though, before placing my fingers more or less in the same position Jace had put his.

  “Good,” he said, watching my hands, not my face. “Now squeeze with those two fingers while using the rest to push the milk out of the teat.”

  Oh, boy. I squeezed, tentatively at first, and the goat, who we’d named Aster because of the little star-shaped mark on her haunch, shot me a look of pure irritation over her shoulder. But at least she hadn’t kicked me.

  “Harder than that,” Jace instructed me, but his voice sounded more coaxing than annoyed.

  I definitely didn’t want him annoyed with me. This time I squeezed harder, exerting so much pressure that I was certain Aster was going to step on my foot in protest. Instead, milk squirted into the bottle, and she seemed to relax slightly, letting me do what I needed to do.

  After letting out a little exhalation of relief, I went back to milking her. More and more milk kept squirting out, but within five minutes, the fingers of my right hand were aching like you wouldn’t believe. I tried switching to the other hand, but couldn’t get the angle right. After another minute, I sat back, shaking my head. “I can’t do any more.”

  “It’s okay,” Jace said. His hand dropped to my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “It’s going to take some time to develop those muscles. I can finish up.”

  That was probably my signal to relinquish the packing crate to him so he could sit down, but I found I didn’t want to move. Not with his warm hand on my shoulder, the pressure of it somehow delicious, even through the flannel shirt and heavy canvas anorak I wore.

  He seemed to realize that as well, because he moved his arm, breaking the contact. At the same time, attempting to cover up the awkwardness of the moment, I got to my feet.

  “Thanks, Jace. I’ll just get back to the house, then.”

  Grinning, he asked, “How’s the butter project coming?”

  “Good. I’m just about to break out the mixer and have at it.”

  Making butter had turned out to be a bigger task than I’d expected, but after some trial and error, I’d gotten
enough buttermilk ready to go so I could move on to the next step. At least we had power in the house, and the kitchen had come equipped with a fancy stand mixer. Much better than having to stand around with a butter churn the way they did it in the bad old days.

  We’d made the decision to use a good deal of the milk for making butter and cheese, since neither Jace nor I was what you would call a big milk drinker. Both of those projects weren’t exactly what you’d call user-friendly, but it was sort of amazing how much extra time you had on your hands when you weren’t spending half the day chatting with your friends on Facebook or whatever.

  I still hadn’t decided whether that was a good thing or not.

  A week after that, I stood at the window in the living room, looking out over the drive, past the wall to the landscape beyond. Heavy clouds blocked the sky, and I wondered how much we would get out of the solar panels today. We had a backup generator, but we hadn’t needed it yet. I was glad of that — the procedure to switch over from the solar collector to the electric generator didn’t sound all that simple. But the oven ran on propane, so I’d still be able to use that, even if we decided to dial back on our power consumption for the day. All the heat came from the various fireplaces and the wood-fired stove in the sitting room, so the interior temperature of the house wouldn’t be affected, one way or another.

  Anyway, it wasn’t the possible loss of power that had me staring out at the brooding vista. What with one thing or another, I hadn’t been paying that much attention to what day it was, although I’d dutifully marked off each one on the calendar in the office, just so I wouldn’t completely lose track of time. But today, when I’d picked up the Sharpie to draw that thick black line, I’d paused and frowned at the date I was crossing out.

  October 31st.

  “Something wrong?” Jace asked, coming into the living room. He looked a bit surprised, and I supposed I couldn’t blame him. We didn’t spend much time in there, beautiful as the room was. Usually we were either in the kitchen or the family room, or, more rarely, the office.

  “No,” I said, then paused. “It’s Halloween.”

  “And?” His expression told me he wasn’t particularly impressed by that piece of information. “Did you want to go trick-or-treating or something?”

  “Ha,” I replied. My trick-or-treating days were long behind me, although Elena and Tori and I had still gone out on Halloween, mostly as an excuse to get dressed up and go to bars. I’m not going to lie — the year before, we all did variations on the “sexy” something, me as a witch, since it suited my long near-black hair, Tori as an angel, and Elena…well, I still wasn’t entirely clear what her costume was supposed to be, except that it was black and red and sparkly, and showed way more leg than I would ever have dared. Needless to say, we didn’t have to buy any of our own drinks that night.

  “It’s not the trick-or-treating,” I said slowly. “It’s more…I don’t know. Like the date is telling me it’s been more than a month since…well, since.”

  The light of humor in his dark eyes abruptly disappeared. “You’re right. I guess I hadn’t really thought about it, what with everything we’ve been doing.” He closed the distance between us, coming to stand next to me in front of the window. So close, and yet…and yet, he might have been a million miles away. I knew I didn’t have the courage to reach out and take his hand in mine, to feel the reassurance of his touch. Then he shifted so he was halfway facing toward me, his gaze fixed on my profile. “I have an idea.”

  “You do?” I didn’t dare move, didn’t want him to see any of the yearning currently pulsing within me. I wished it could be different, but I just wasn’t brave enough.

  “Tomorrow’s the Day of the Dead. Dios de los Muertos.”

  “And?”

  He smiled, but it was a grave, quiet smile. “I think there are a lot of dead who need to be honored.”

  Chapter 13

  We’d been meaning to go back into town anyway, but had been putting it off for one reason or another. Well, today we had a mission.

  I drove, of course, since I still felt hinky about letting Jace get behind the wheel of my father’s Cherokee. This time we went to a place we’d avoided, the Albertson’s grocery store near the center of town. So far, we’d either had everything we needed on hand, or we hunted or foraged for it. Although there were items we could have used from the store, neither of us thought it a very good idea to go in there, not with all that food spoiling inside.

  Neither did we know for sure what it would be like now, after having the power cut off for more than a month, but it was the best place we could think of to get some of those saints’ candles for our Day of the Dead observance. Maybe Santa Fe had a Hispanic grocery store somewhere, but I remembered the Albertson’s because that’s where the girls and I stocked up on booze when we came to stay at Elena’s parents’ timeshare.

  I pulled into the parking lot of the Albertson’s, then reached down and pulled the bandanna I had wrapped around my neck up and over my mouth. Jace did the same. We looked like we were there to hold up the place, but it seemed the best solution, since we didn’t have access to any surgical masks.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  Probably not, but it was too late to back out now. Besides the candles, there were a number of nonperishable goods we wanted to grab — paper towels, toilet paper, rice, flour, sugar, spices. Of course Jace didn’t know the store at all, but I had a hazy idea of where some things were located, based on my previous visits here. I’d just have to hope it would be enough to get us in and out as quickly as possible.

  “Ready,” I said, my voice muffled by the bandanna tied over my mouth.

  We got out of the Cherokee and headed toward the entrance to the store. Shopping carts had been abandoned in haphazard order in front of the building, and we each grabbed one. We also both held big crank-operated flashlights, part of the emergency supplies at the compound, since my experience inside the Walgreens in Albuquerque had taught me that those little pen-sized ones really didn’t cut it when you were trying to carry out a salvage operation.

  The glass in the door had been broken out and lay scattered all over the place, so it was a good thing that Jace and I both wore heavy hiking boots. Shards of glass crunched underfoot as we pushed our way inside, flashlights bobbing this way and that.

  It was fairly cold that day; the outside temperature reading in the Cherokee had put it at around forty-six degrees. Maybe that was a good thing, as it kept the smell from being too overwhelming, even with my nose covered. Oh, it was definitely there, something sickly sweet and yet acrid at the same time, but not so overpowering that I couldn’t ignore the odor. It did seem to catch at the back of my throat, and I found myself breathing shallowly, pushing the cart grimly ahead while Jace cut off to the right to canvass that side of the store.

  Some people might have said that was foolish, to separate like that, but since neither of us had seen another living soul in weeks, we decided it was a risk we were willing to take. This way we could be in and out more quickly.

  As I moved along, panning my flashlight over the shelves, I could again see evidence of looting, of items that had been taken. Breakfast cereals seemed to be popular, for some reason. The vitamin aisle had also been almost cleaned out, although I found some bottles of multis that had been left behind. The same with the paper goods — a lot had been taken, but not all. I grabbed what I could, stacking big packages of toilet paper and paper towels in my shopping cart.

  Then I came around the corner and found the real reason why we’d come there: the Hispanic food section. I was sort of surprised to see that all the saint candles seemed undisturbed. Maybe people had been more interested in seeing to their physical needs than their spiritual ones, or possibly it was just that they hadn’t thought to use the candles for lighting after the power failed. Whatever. It didn’t matter now. What mattered was that I was able to scoop up a dozen of the things, packing them in and around the toilet paper and the boxes o
f Kleenex and all the other items I’d picked up.

  “Got ’em!” I called out.

  Jace’s voice came back to me from the other side of the store. “Great! Go on out to the Jeep — I’m almost done.”

  I wasn’t sad to hear that at all. This grocery store wasn’t quite as creepy as the Walgreens had been, since the flashlight I held was far more effective than the one I’d had then. Besides, I knew Jace would come running the second I gave the alarm, should anything strange happen. All the same, I was glad to get out of there, out of the lingering stench and the mournful realization that nobody would be coming by to restock those shelves or pick up the items that had been knocked to the floor.

  As I was beginning to load my haul into the cargo area of the Cherokee, Jace came out as well, his cart full to the brim with those big economy-size bags of rice, boxes of salt, pepper grinders, container after container of spices — you name it, he seemed to have nabbed it from the bakery aisle, including some much-needed tins of olive oil. We had some, but not nearly enough. This would definitely help to extend our supplies for a good many more months.

  “Looks like you plan to keep me chained to the stove for a good while longer,” I joked.

  He slanted me one of those dark-lashed looks I loved so much. “Oh, I might give you time off for good behavior.”

  “That a fact?”

  “Absolutely.”

  A hint of a smile had been playing around the corners of his mouth, but as I watched, it faded. When I followed his gaze, I thought I understood why. I’d excavated my cart to the point where all that was left were the saints candles. He reached in and picked one up, turning it over in his hands. From her blue robe, I guessed the saint depicted on it was the Virgin Mary, but I didn’t know for sure. My family wasn’t Catholic.

  Elena would have known, but she was long gone.

  “I suppose we’re done here,” Jace said. It wasn’t a question.

  “Yes,” I told him. “Let’s go.”