By Magic Alone (36 page)

“Men do not work so hard to impress a girl’s father unless there are serious emotions involved.” Mom offered me another tissue. “Blow your nose, darling. Why can’t you see what we saw? Why, your father even admitted he was wrong about you and Jameson.”

And that reminded me of the bet. “Did you know Dad made a bet with Jameson to come into Introductions pretending to be someone else? Just to see if I could figure it out?”

“I did, and I scolded him for it. But he wants you to be happy. We both do.” My mother’s blue eyes softened in emotion. “You’ve always been so focused. We wanted to see you loosen up and have a little fun. Jameson seemed like a—”

“Good match,” I said, finishing her sentence. “And I agree. It would’ve been a heck of a lot easier if I could’ve fallen for him.”

“Love isn’t about easy.” Mom sat back and crossed her legs. “Your dad and I had to conquer serious opposition from our families to be together.”

“Did Grandma and Granddad really dislike Dad that much?”

“Yes, but his parents weren’t that fond of me, either. You see, they both had ideas of whom their children should be with, and our fathers were often on opposite sides in business. Your father felt the weight of my father’s dislike, so Gregory worked himself to the bone to prove that he was a good provider.”
Emotion made my mother’s voice waver. She coughed to clear her throat. “And I . . . Well, let’s just say that Mother Collins never believed I was good enough for her son.”

“That sucks.” Ineloquent, but true. “How did you and Dad manage?”

“It wasn’t easy, and for a lot of our years, we became so bogged down in doing everything we were supposed to do that we forgot to enjoy our life together. We forgot to enjoy you.”

Okay. Well, that explained a lot. “Do you ever regret following your heart? I mean, with all the problems and—”

“Not even for a second. After thirty-plus years of marriage, I can tell you that every minute of difficulty has paid off in spades.”

“But wouldn’t it have been easier if you’d followed your parents’ wishes and—?”

She cut me off with a wave of her hand. “Easier, maybe. I have regrets, but none of them have anything to do with marrying your father.” She was silent for a minute, and then asked, “You love this young man, correct?”

“Yes,” I answered instantly. “But—”

“That’s all you need to know to move forward. Maybe I’m wrong and Scot doesn’t have feelings for you, but what if he does?”

Well, she had a point there. Partially, anyway. “You’re right. But there’s more to this.”

“There always is, but that doesn’t matter. Even if it’s all complicated and messy, you’ll never forgive yourself if you don’t try.” Mom opened her arms. I scooted into them for one of her rare hugs. It was nice. Maybe I wasn’t the touchy-feely-phobe I thought.

“Thank you,” I said when we separated. “I don’t know what I’m going to do, but just talking about it helped.”

“You’re welcome. I’m always here if you need me.” She
twisted her fingers together nervously. “You’re such a contained, capable young lady. You always have been. I’m sorry you’re going through this, but I am . . . pleased you came to me.”

Tears sprang to life again, albeit for a different reason. “I thought you wanted me to be contained and capable. Perfect. I didn’t think I
could
come to you.”

“And I thought you didn’t need me. I looked for ways to insert myself into your life.” She shook her head in disbelief, and humor danced into her eyes. “God forgive me, but I became my mother.”

I started laughing. “Lamb, Mom. You do know I hate lamb, right?”

She blinked several times, but then she laughed, too. “Well, I never had Rosalie prepare lamb for the sole purpose of upsetting you, but . . . yes, I am well aware of your dislike.”

“I knew it!” I wiped away tears of laughter. “There’s something else I need to tell you. Two things, actually.”

“Are you pregnant?”

“Nope,” I said lightly. But Verda’s proclamation of three boys whisked into my mind. I glanced at my mother’s desk, at the spread-out map, to center me. “When did you and Dad decide to do the RV thing?”

“What a strange question. Traveling the country has always been our plan. I began to doubt if it would ever happen, what with your father’s love for his work.”

“Okay. But when did you make the decision to go ahead with that?” It was imperative that I find out how much of my parents’ behavior was natural, and how much was magical.

“Several months ago. Your father came home one night and said he was ready.” Curiosity edged into her voice. “Why is this important?”

“I . . . um . . . just wondered. You never mentioned it before.” Several months meant their vagabond decision had zip
to do with my spell. Huge relief, there. “How have you been this last week or so? Feeling any different? Better or worse?”

“Better, I suppose. Less tense.” She tipped her head to the side, watching me. “Now that I think about it, there was a change in your father and me. We seem to have found our rhythm again . . . something we’ve both tried to recapture for years. But somehow, it suddenly became effortless.” She shrugged. “We’re both happier, less inclined to fill our days with silly social functions. Is that what you wanted to know?”

“Yes. And you still feel like yourself?” I asked.

“Who else would I feel like?”

“No one. I . . . well, I’ve been worried about you and Dad. He’s doing okay, too? You haven’t noticed anything weird with him, have you?”

“Nothing weird. We’re both looking forward to retirement.”

Whew. So my spell
had
helped them. How cool was that? “Good. I’m glad. So . . . ah . . . if given the choice, would you change anything about the past couple of weeks?”

“Absolutely not.” Then, obviously deciding she’d had enough of my odd questions, she returned to her desk. “I’ve already started mapping out our journey. We plan on traveling through the summer and fall. We’ll return here for the winter, and head back out in the spring.”

“I thought you were selling the house.”

“We are, but we’ll buy a smaller home. Maybe a condominium. We always want our home base to be near you.”

“What if I don’t stay in Chicago?” Not that I’d given any thought to moving.

“Why wouldn’t you?” She highlighted a section of the map. “Your father’s firm is here. I expect you’ll find it easier to continue living in or near Chicago.”

“That’s the other thing we need to discuss.” I steeled myself
the best I could. “I have no intentions of taking over Dad’s firm. I don’t mind helping out for a while. I can even stay on long enough to look for and train someone, if that’s necessary. But I—”

This snagged her attention. “So, you’ve found a way to save Introductions?”

“No. I’ll be shutting down in the next month.”

“Introductions is closing and you’re not going to work in Gregory’s company, even though that was the agreement you made?” she clarified.

I pulled myself straight. “Yes, Mother. That’s right.”

“Well,” she said calmly. We could’ve been talking about the weather. “That is good news, darling. It’s about time you came to your senses. Your father will be pleased. Stay for dinner so we can tell him together.”

“What? I thought you said . . . He said . . .”

“Yes, we did. But we had to do something to push you out of your comfort zone.” Mom tipped her chin, and I saw so many things in her gaze: pride, concern, love . . . relief? “You haven’t been happy for a long while. Your father believed if we pressured you, if we made you think we were going to hold you to our agreement, you might push back. And now you have.” She tossed me a smile of satisfaction. “Yes, this is very good news.”

Well, hell. That was unexpected.

My eyes whipped open to the early light of dawn. Urgency flooded me. I had to do something. I had to . . . to . . . what?

A soft, lilting voice whispered in my mind. The fragrant, almost overpowering scent of roses filled the air, tickling my nose. Dark, fathomless eyes seared my consciousness. Ruby red lips. Colors—so many colors. I gasped.

Miranda.
I dreamed of her. She spoke to me, and this time I’d heard her.

Oh, God. What had she said? I jumped from the bed and raced to the other room for my notebook and a pen. I scrawled the words as they came to me, my hand stuttering to a stop when my memory blanked out. I tried to remember more, tried to remember everything, but couldn’t. It was gone. I read the partial message—if that’s what it was—slowly.

“Silly girl,” I said, hearing Miranda’s voice instead of mine. “You fought so hard for what you don’t love but cast away what you do. Have you learned nothing? Trust in your heart. Believe . . .”

Believe what? I blinked and read the words again.
Trust in my heart. Fight for what I love.
“Well, yeah. Makes perfect sense, when you say it like this.”

I sat on the couch for a while, reading Miranda’s words over and over, considering everything I knew and wondering about all I didn’t. Then I retrieved the journal and read the wish I’d written for Leslie and Scot. Relief sank in, along with a good amount of hope. As upset as I’d been when casting this wish, as sure as I’d been that my role was to bring them together, I’d
left the outcome wide open. Even more importantly, I’d left the outcome up to them. Not to magic.

I thought about the night in my kitchen. About the brownies and Scot’s reaction. About my belief that our weekend in Vegas was caused solely by magic.
My
magic. Or rather, Verda’s magic. Pieces of knowledge wove together to create a bigger picture, one that filled in some of the blanks.

My rational brain urged me to connect the dots. That first night with Scot, he’d said something about his family—Verda, Chloe, Elizabeth, and Alice—and how I didn’t want them combining their wills to turn us into a couple. And then, at Alice’s house, Elizabeth said that they were all “harmless,” and everyone had laughed. Well, everyone except for me and Isobel—the same Isobel who didn’t believe in Verda’s mystical mumbo jumbo.

“None of this is real, Julia,” Scot had said. And then, “I’ll make damn sure my family leaves you alone from here on out.”

Oh, dear Lord. Scot hadn’t really meant their
wills.
He’d meant their
magic.
They were all magical, not only Verda. So . . . what? He thought the reasons I wanted to stay with him, the reasons for my feelings, were because of magic? His family’s magic. And based on his reaction to the bakery box, he thought it had something to do with the brownies. Brownies from Elizabeth’s bakery, A Taste of
Magic,
that she had baked and personally delivered.

Yes. This was it.
This
was the reason he’d walked away. Or at least an important part of the reason. But he was wrong. My feelings for Scot hadn’t happened in the time it takes to eat a freaking brownie. They’d been there all along, growing stronger with every look, every touch, every conversation. Hell, every time I smelled him. My feelings were real.

Could his feelings be real as well? Would our weekend have happened even without my spell? I flipped through the pages
of the journal to read the exact words I’d written in Vegas.
Desirable. Beautiful. Seductive. Passionate.

But I hadn’t wished for Scot to fall for me. I hadn’t altered his feelings with magic. I hadn’t even named him specifically. That spell had been all about me. About how I wanted to feel. And it had worked. I
had
felt more beautiful, more desirable, and more seductive than ever before.

Okay, this was good. This gave me hope. Though I had also wished for a passionate weekend. So was our lovemaking a result of that, or would we have tumbled into bed together anyway? There was no way to know. Not for sure. But he’d raced here, to my place, to make sure I was okay the night I was worried about my parents. He’d kissed me in the hallway, and again on the couch. And he’d held my hand and talked me through my fears on the airplane.

Well, I couldn’t know for sure if our intimacy last weekend was the result of magic, but I didn’t think it was. Not entirely, anyway. Hell, I didn’t even know if any of my thoughts were correct. Because, come on, all of this certainly did not equal the simplest explanation. Instead, it was convoluted, crazy, perhaps even bordering on desperation, but I didn’t care. In a rational world, two plus two never equals five. But maybe, just maybe, in an irrational world, one filled with ghosts and magic and fairy tales, it did.

I had to find out. Even if I was wrong. My mother was right: I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t.

A light breeze wafted through the room, ruffling my hair and brushing my cheeks with a rose-perfumed kiss. In approval? Maybe. Hopefully.

An idea came to me, and I smiled. “Hey, Miranda? Do me a favor and have Verda, Elizabeth, and Chloe meet me at Alice’s house. Say, around ten or so? It’s time we all talked.”

In the snap of a finger, the breeze and the fragrance
disappeared. I took their absence as a sign of Miranda’s agreement to my request. And yes, I could’ve used the phone, but it seemed fitting to use the family ghost to pass on my message.

You know, when in Rome, do as the Romans do.

“You all have a lot of explaining to do,” I said to Scot’s sisters, grandmother, and cousin. We were in Alice’s living room, and even with everything I’d seen, I was somehow still surprised to find them all here. On time, even. Miranda sure knew how to get a message across.

Verda shifted in her seat. Elizabeth and Alice exchanged a look I couldn’t identify. Chloe broke the silence. “That will be difficult. Scot made us promise we’d keep certain things to ourselves. So maybe you should start, Julia.”

Verda’s blue eyes twinkled. “Yes, dear. Why don’t you tell us why you brought us here. Once we know that, I’m sure we girls can figure out a way to give you the information you need without breaking our promise to my mule-headed grandson.”

Scot had made them all promise? No wonder I hadn’t heard anything from Verda. I looked at her. “First, I need to apologize to you. I lied to you from the beginning, Verda. I’m sorry about that, and I hope you’ll forgive me. But you see . . . Well, I own a dating service, and—”