Cherry Adair - T-flac 09 (38 page)

“Is that jewelry here?” He wanted to get this over with. Once and for all.

“No.” She ran her fingers through her hair, as if she’d caught his thoughts, and scooted back against the headboard. “I keep most of it in a safety deposit box at a bank in Concord.”

“Will you let one of my people bring it here so I can take a look at it?”

“One of your pe—No. You get it.” She lifted her chin in what he’d come to recognize as her “hell no”

look.

“Unfortunately I have somewhere else I have to be,” he told her coolly. Black particles obscured his vision. He clamped a hand tightly on the seat of the chair he was sitting in to remain upright. He had to get out of here before he passed out.

“Yeah. I bet you do. Then sure. Someone
else
can go and get it. I need some pieces myself.” Swinging her legs off the bed, she paused to glance at him. “I’m going to get some tea.”

Caleb ground his teeth and yanked his phone out of his back pocket as Heather went into the kitchen.

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Water ran into the sink, followed by the slamming of pots on the tile counter in a very female, nonverbal form of communication.

Still pissed.

And God help him, justifiably so. He closed his eyes and spoke into the phone. “I need you, plus two, here at Heather’s apartment, stat.”

Caleb flipped the phone closed. Even that took effort. He was physically tapped. Out of juice, and in danger of passing out any second. It had been a fucking miracle that he’d been able to maintain consciousness back in Matera for as long as he had. Adding this teleportation to his already dangerously depleted store of magical energy could very well kill him. There was still a chance Heather could have her wish.

Thank God the cavalry was on its way.

Lark materialized with a bottle of nail polish in her hand, and a dark look on her face. Under a long, swirling black skirt her pale feet were bare and sporting little yellow foam things between her toes. “You look like shit on a shingle,” she told him unsympathetically. “This better be important. I was right in the middle of giving myself a pedicure, Middle Edge. What do you want?”

Before he could answer, Dekker arrived, followed by Rook. They both glanced around with interest.

“Long time no see,” Tony Rook said, grinning.

“The gang’s all here,” Lark told Caleb, one pierced eyebrow raised in haughty inquiry. Nobody summoned Lark. She was usually the one doing the “get your ass over here,
now
” commands.

Caleb didn’t give a shit if he paid for it later. Right now he had, oh, a few minutes at best before he passed out.

“Heather’s mother gave her several pieces of antique jewelry the day she was killed. She has it in a safety deposit box about an hour away. Rook—find out where, and go get it. Lark, I want you and Dekker to stick to Heather until—”
Hell freezes over, which is when she’ll want to see me again.

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“Until?”Lark scowled. “I’m not a babysitter.”

The kettle in the kitchen whistled. “Until this business of the money is resolved.” Caleb rose, gripping the chair back in a white-knuckled fist. “Promise me—” He pushed the words out, capturing the empath’s gray eyes. “Promise that if
anything
happens to me…You’ll get Heather to Gabriel. He and Duncan will protect h—”

Black rolled over him in a wave.

Heather spent five minutes in the kitchen trying to get a grip on herself. Her hormones weren’t cooperating and she sure as hell didn’t want to cry anymore. Particularly when she said her final good-bye to Caleb.

Which she knew she’d be doing as soon as he had that damned jewelry.

Fine. She’d deal with it. Too bad she didn’t have Caleb’s ability to reverse time. This would be a lot easier if she hadn’t married him. If she didn’t love him. If she weren’t
pregnant
? No. Now, more than ever, she wanted her son.

She’d washed her face in the kitchen, then held an ice-filled towel over her eyes while the kettle came to a boil. Too bad there wasn’t any makeup in here. She looked like hell. It would have been nice to
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wave goodbye to him looking strong and beautiful, a little like Charlize Theron in one of her good movies instead of a lot like Charlize in
Monster.
People had commented on her resemblance to the actress before, but right now what Heather really needed was some of the woman’s acting talent.

Strolling out of the kitchen with a mug of tea in her hand, as if she didn’t have a worry in the world, took a ton of effort. Glancing up to casually offer Caleb a cup of tea, she did a double take. There was a strange woman with her foot propped up on the worktable, painting her toenails. The woman, a girl really, had red-and-black-striped hair, silver balls pierced into her eyebrows, and red lips. She wore a long flounced black taffeta skirt and a long-sleeved black baby T. Her feet were bare except for yellow toe separators.

Heather didn’t need to look around to know that Caleb was gone. Her entire body felt his absence.

The stranger didn’t bother with a greeting, but Heather would bet her favorite emerald pin that the woman knew to an inch exactly where she was standing.

Leaning against the doorjamb, Heather dunked the tea bag in her cup.
Where the hell is Caleb? And
why couldn’t he at least say good-bye?
Her eyes burned. Damn it.
And if I cry again I’ll never
forgive myself.
“Can I help you?” she asked mildly.

“Not unless you have some cuticle cream.” The woman didn’t even glance up as she continued painting her toenails poppy red. “I’m here to watch you.”

“Watch me do what?” Heather took a sip of her tea, and observed her visitor over the rim of the mug.

All recent events considered, seeing this strange young woman in her apartment was the least shocking.

Her visitor took her foot off the table and capped her nail polish before giving Heather a friendly smile.

“Hey, I’m Lark Orela.”

That didn’t tell Heather anything. “Okay.”

“Is that herbal?”

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“Black currant. Would you li—Ah.” Lark Orela had produced an identical steaming mug in her own hand. “I take it you’re a wizardette?”

“That’s funny,” Lark said, amused, eyes twinkling. “I’m an empath, and in theory, I’m Caleb’s boss.”

She wrinkled her nose. “As much as that’s possible. Bed or chair?”

“By all means, take the chair.” Heather settled cross-legged on her bed, feeling as though she’d fallen, once again, down a damned rabbit hole. Her guest sank gracefully onto the chair in a swirl of taffeta.

“I must say”—Lark blew on her tea, watching Heather over the rim with penetrating gray eyes—“you’re more than I expected.”

“More what?”

“More substance. More depth. Just…more.”

“Wow. That’s so nice to know,” Heather said sarcastically.

“He’s cursed, you know.”

“Bean?”Heather asked, horrified, placing her hand over her tummy in an instinctively protective gesture.

“
Caleb.
He told you. Right?”

Pausing, she considered the story he had told her on the plane. “Frankly, I thought it was a cute fairy tale. I didn’t believe it. Not at the time.”

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“And now you do?”

“Now I know that there are things in this world that nobody would believe. But since I’ve seen these things with my own two twenty-twenty eyes, I don’t have a choice. It’s either be flexible on what I thought I knew or be crazy.”

“That’s a start.” Lark smiled. “He didn’t tell you the entire Curse, you know. He left out the important bits.”

“Which, apparently, you are dying to share with me.” Heather leaned over to put her empty mug next to the bowl of seashells on her bedside table. She straightened, leaned back on her hands, and tilted her chin. “Have at it.”

“You know his parents tried to have a marriage?” Lark asked, holding Heather’s gaze. “Man, those two were
insanely,
crazy in love with each other.” She sipped her tea. “But of course it didn’t work.

Nairne’s Curse and all. They gave it their best shot, and it so didn’t work. Hell on the three boys. Hell on
them.
End of story.”

“Caleb didn’t marry me for love,” Heather said coolly. “He married me to get to my father. We’ll be getting a divorce as soon as he gets back, I’m sure.”

“You’re sure?”

Heather shrugged. “He’s given no indication that he’d want it any other way. I have no desire to be married to a man I can’t trust.”
And who doesn’t love me back,
she added silently.

This was such a freaking weird conversation. How could this
girl
be Caleb’s boss? She looked like a beautiful runway model who had zigged instead of zagged. Heather forced herself not to a put a hand to her hair, but she couldn’t help wishing that she could have half an hour in her bedroom in Paris, with all her makeup and a huge wardrobe of designer clothes to choose from.

“And what
do
you want?”

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“I don’t—”

“Never mind,” the woman interrupted. “What you want isn’t important.”

Ha! Maybe not to her. But it was damned important to Heather. “The Curse?” she asked, a feeling of dread in her heart.

“‘Duty o’er love was the choice you did make,’”Lark quoted in a musical voice. “
‘My love you did
spurn, my heart you did break.’
That was Nairne talking to Magnus Edridge when he told her he was marrying the Laird’s daughter.
‘Your penance to pay, no pride you shall gain. Three sons on three
sons find nothing but pain.’
Five hundred years of three sons to each wife,” Lark explained. “Caleb told you all that. Here’s the bit he left out.

“
‘I gift you my powers in memory of me.’
She made them wizards. Nothing wrong with that part.”

The empath smiled. “Now this is the part that these boys take very seriously. So listen up.
‘The joy of—’

”

“I’ve heard this. And frankly, I don’t care.” Heather suddenly had to get away from Lark. She slid off the bed and avoided the woman’s piercing gray eyes. Remembering that the damn apartment was too small to pace effectively, she leaned against the wall beside the bed and folded her arms.

“‘The joy of love no son shall ever see,’”Lark continued, skirts swishing.
“‘When a Lifemate is chosen
by the heart of a son, No protection can be given, again I have won.’”

She cast pale eyes in Heather’s direction. “Do you get that?
No protection can be given. That’s
why Caleb’s protection spell, as powerful as it was, didn’t
work
on you.”

Heather straightened away from the wall. “I’m not his Lifemate.”

“‘His pain will be deep, her death will be swift. Inside his heart a terrible rift.’You
died.”

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“Oh, for—Because Al-Adel kidnapped and tortured me. It had nothing to do with the damn
curse
!”

Shivering now, as if she were about to come face-to-face with another horrible truth, Heather bit her lower lip to keep from screaming.

“‘Only freely given will this curse be done. To break the spell, three must work as one.’”

“What is it that must be freely given?” Heather asked tightly. “Because someone should do whatev—”

Tony Rook materialized behind Lark’s chair without warning and Heather jumped back. “Damn it, can’t you people
knock
or ring a bell when you do that!” Honest to God. She should be used to people appearing and vanishing by now. Which just showed how off-kilter her life had become lately.

“Sorry.” He glanced at Lark.

“How’s the package?” she demanded. Black brows, shiny silver balls and all, came together in a scowl as she looked up at him. She sounded a lot older than she looked.

Tony shrugged one shoulder. “Beat to shit.”

“Can it be fixed?”

“Twenty-four hours.”

Heather wondered with rising annoyance if they thought she was stupid. Caleb was in trouble. He’d been bleeding when she came to.
Someone—
Tony? Keir? had commented on him opening his stitches while she’d been having her minibreakdown back in Matera. Why had he required stitches?
When
had he had stitches? Those were just a few of the pressing questions she had for him.

If she ever saw him again.

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“Heather?” Tony said as if he’d called her name before. “Can you give me the bank’s address so I can pick up that stuff? Caleb put a tracking spell on it, but the um—code—kinda slipped his mind.”