Just One Taste (17 page)

T
he freaking loons
were having some kind of mournful hootenanny on the lake tonight. Cade had been to years of Boy Scout camp. Baseball camp, too, although that was usually at some college campus with no lake, just over-chlorinated swimming pools that people had probably peed in. He was a Maine boy, born and bred. He thought of himself as an outdoorsman, although he wasn’t one to hunt with anything but a camera now. He’d learned all the lore about loons, how some people thought they escorted you into the netherworld with their screams and laughter. He knew the different sounds loons made when they felt threatened. Something was bothering them tonight, that was for sure.

Juliet was curled up against him, oblivious to the shrieking. The uncurtained windows cast squares of moonlight to reveal her tangled hair, one small fist tucked under chin. She was smiling in her sleep. Cade was pretty sure she was dreaming of him. He’d put that smile on her face. And would do it again.

He rolled away from her gingerly and got out of bed. He was wide awake, might as well make use of the time to work on another magic formula just in case. He picked his boxers up off the floor and put one foot in. He wobbled a little, but didn’t want to sit on the mattress and wake up Sleeping Beauty. But then he looked out the French doors to the deck and fell on his ass to the floor.

J
esus
. Ben Franklin or his lookalike was standing out there, his round Ben Franklin glasses twinkling in a patch of silver light. Cade shimmied into his underwear from a sitting position and wished he had his baseball bat.

“Julie!” he whispered. “Julie!”

Maybe he shouldn’t wake her. But the phone was on her side of the bed. She could call 911 while he crawled around looking for a weapon. The guy was probably trying to rob them, except he was dressed like no cat burglar Cade had ever seen. It was like he was going to an early Halloween party as a Founding Father.

You read about wackos in the woods all the time. Some hermit had lived in a tent for twenty-seven years not too far from here, breaking into cottages for beer and beans. Cade had heard plenty of stories at camp when he was a kid too, when the counselors tried to scare the bejesus out of the campers so they wouldn’t try anything funny after lights-out and cut into the counselors’ dope-smoking time. Hollywood was cranking out movies left and right with screaming teens running through the forest in fear for their lives. Cade had no desire to become fodder for a screen treatment Based on a True Story.

He wasn’t a hero. He was just a half-naked guy covered in goose pimples because the wood stove fire had died down.

But Ben looked pretty old. Cade wondered if they’d remembered to lock the latch on the door after they’d watched the moon rise. A lock meant nothing to a thief, though. If someone was determined to break the law, they’d break anything to do it.

“Julie,” he said, a little louder this time. “Honey, wake up.”

“Mmm.” She rolled over to where he used to be. “Cade? Where are you?”

“Shh. On the floor. Don’t get up, Juliet. There’s an old man on the deck.”

“What?” Juliet sat up in alarm, the quilt dropping from her perfectly perfect white breasts. Cade couldn’t help but notice, but now was not the time to be horny.

“Call the police. Where’s your gun?”

“Oh, Cade. It’s not loaded, you know.”

He was glad to hear his life had never been in danger, but kind of wished he had a bullet now.

“
Merde
.”

“What’s wrong?”

“The cell phone’s dead. My reticule, I mean my handbag is on the kitchen counter. The gun’s in the zippered compartment. But he’ll see you if you try to get it. What if—” Her voice trailed off in the dark.

“I’ll be okay.” Once he got around the bed, it was a straight shot across the room to the open kitchen. He could almost see the bag’s leather-and-metal chain from here gleaming in the night light by the sink. If he crawled on his belly like a reptile—where was that coming from?—he might just get there without Ben noticing him.

Cade took a quick look outside. Ben hadn’t moved an inch. The loons were still laughing with a definite edge of hysteria.

He pulled Juliet’s fuzzy robe off the blanket chest at the end of the bed and tossed it to her. “Put this on. We’ll both feel better.”

Juliet nodded. “Maybe it’s just a neighbor.”

“You have no neighbors, remember? Everyone’s closed up their cottages on the main road for the season and gone. At least that’s what you told me.” Unless she’d lied about that like she lied about the gun.

“I want to see him.”

“No!” From where Ben was standing, he couldn’t possibly see Juliet. But if she slid down the bed or, God forbid, walked to the glass door—

“What does he look like, then?”

Cade could hear the shiver in her voice. “Like Ben Franklin, actually.” He heard a sharp intake of breath. “Do you know him? Were you friends with Ben way back when? Or
is
he just a neighbor?”

“I very much fear,” Juliet said slowly, “that the gentleman you see is my late husband, Sir Joseph Barton.”

“Holy shit.” Cade climbed back on the bed. “Is he a ghost?” Jeez, the fact he could even ask such a question showed he was now a fully vested partner in Juliet’s Magical Mystery Tour.

“I’ve never seen his apparition before, and I’ve attempted any number of things to conjure him up over the years. To give him a piece of my mind, you know, and ask his assistance in letting me grow old gracefully. He’s never had the courtesy to turn up before.”

“Well, he’s there now. Do you think what we did this morning worked?”

“Possibly. There’s no real way of telling. Oh, Cade! What if I’m a normal woman now! Quick, turn on the lights! Do you see any wrinkles?”

He put his arm around her and kissed her. “I love you, even if you’re abnormal, Julie. If we get out of here alive, I’m going to marry you even if you outlive me and our kids.”

“I couldn’t bear that.”

He felt a tear slide down her cheek and brushed it away. “I think it’s time we invited Ben—I mean Joe inside. Is he dangerous, do you think?”

Juliet lifted her chin. “It is I you should be worrying about. When I get my hands on that rodent bastard, he’ll be sorry he ever married me!”

Cade got dressed in the dark. He didn’t want old Joe to disappear. Or give him an easy target. He could only find his jeans, though. He and Juliet had had a mutual striptease on the way to bed and he must have tossed his sweatshirt out of reach. After he buttoned his pants, he kissed Juliet’s forehead. “I’m going out the front door. I’ll sneak around the house.”

He paused. “I wonder why the dogs haven’t woken up. The loons are going nuts.” There was pretty regular dog-snoring coming from across the room.

“Please be careful, Cade,” Juliet whispered.

He nodded and stepped outside. His bare feet crunched against some fallen leaves and he cursed. But by the time he got to the deck steps, he saw Sir Joseph hadn’t moved a muscle. The man stood at the French door, peering into the blackness. Cade crept behind him, about to wrap his arm around the old guy’s throat. They did that in movies, didn’t they?

“Don’t be a fool. I can see your reflection in the glass, you young scamp. Would you dare to incapacitate me before you discover the reason I have come?”

The man turned toward Cade, a touch of a smile on his lips. “Do you truly have the audacity to touch me? I am a baronet, you know. And a powerful warlock. And you…” He gestured in disgust. “You are a half-naked savage!”

Cade snorted. “I’m afraid we half-naked savages don’t care about titles, Joe. This is America. And your last foray into magic didn’t work out so well for you, did it?”

“Don’t be impertinent.” Suddenly a perfectly round ball of icy blue light appeared in Barton’s upturned hand, illuminating the deck. Cade took a step backward in surprise.

“Yes, I’ve learned a thing or two in my spare time. Why do you think those hounds of yours still sleep? I have enchanted them!” Sir Joseph’s ghastly smile hinted at something more.

“Juliet!” Cade cried.

“Indeed, she’s fallen back asleep as well. A lady should not be a witness to a duel. It’s not seemly.”

“A duel?”

“Mr. Gray, I hereby challenge you! You have dishonored my wife. Pick your weapons.”

Cade couldn’t help himself. He laughed. This fat little old guy—this fat little
dead
guy—was standing here, bristling with outrage.

“Joe,” he said, “Juliet isn’t your wife. She’s your widow. And if she could, she’d kill you all over again. You really screwed things up for her.”

“I have done no such thing!” Sir Joseph blustered. “I loved her! It was never my intention to harm her in any way. Why, she hasn’t changed one iota!”

“Exactly. She’s had to go through a very long life on the move like a gypsy. Never staying in one place too long. Never letting herself fall in love. Never having children. You stole her youth from her, Joe, even though she hasn’t aged a bit. I
should
fight you. I should knock you right off the deck.”

“You propose a fist fight? Like some common brawler? Very well. I suppose you have no rapiers in this godforsaken hovel anyway.” Sir Joseph tossed his ball of light into the air and made to remove his jacket.

“Only my rapier wit, Joe. And I’m not going to use it on you. You’re just a sign, Joe. In a few minutes you’re going to disappear in a puff of smoke and I’m going to get in bed with my girlfriend. My fiancée. We’re going to make love until sunrise. Until we grow old together, God willing.”

“How dare you!”

“I dare because I love her. I love her so much I would never try to change fate for selfish reasons like you did.”

“You lie, sirrah! I saw you with my own eyes. You drank that potion and said that incantation.”

Cade looked at the dark shadow in the moonlight. “I did it for her, not for me. She might disappear on me just like you’re going to. I can barely see you now.”

He had to believe his own words. Make them come true. Make his own magic.

“You Abram-cove! You duddering rake! You Tatter-De-mallion!”

“Whatever. I love Juliet. If you love her, you’ll leave us alone. Wake her up, Joe. Do the right thing. It’s time.”

Cade heard a scuffling and creaking. Sir Joseph Barton still wore his corset, by God. Juliet had said every time her elderly husband moved, he made his own music. Then the hovering light over the deck rail splintered into tiny stars so bright Cade had to close his eyes. Inside both dogs woke up and started to bark frantically.

Juliet opened the French door and flew into his arms. “Are you all right?”

“I think so.” The dogs came out too, tumbling around and snuffling. Disappointed, they headed down to the grass for a midnight call of nature.

“Where is he?” Juliet whispered.

“I think he’s gone. I’m not sure he was ever here.”

“What do you mean?” Juliet leaned against him. He was freezing out here, bare-chested and barefoot. He wanted her to open her robe and warm him in the best possible way.

“Let’s go inside.” Cade turned on the overhead light and the cottage blazed. Juliet sat on one of the recliners while he fed more wood into the stove. He found his sweatshirt under a dining chair and put it on.

“Come sit on my lap,” he said.

She scrambled from her chair to his, completely obedient.

He cleared his throat. There was a lot about today he didn’t understand, that made no empirical sense whatsoever to a guy who made a living writing technical stuff. But the guy who wrote fiction—now, there was some
real
magic. You wrote it and it came alive. People out of the air, made flesh. Simple plots made complex. Words spoken, made true.

The End.

“I’m cautiously optimistic, Julie. I think we did it.”

Her brows furrowed. “How do you know?”

He winked at her. “Only time will tell.”

S
he was bathed in moonlight
, her hair silvery in the dark. He kissed her bare white shoulder as she slept. Rufus the Twelfth snorted on the end of the bed and rolled over in his dog dream. Somewhere across the lake, a loon wailed and was answered.

Loons didn’t mate for life; sometimes they even switched partners if the nesting didn’t go quite right.

Well, he wasn’t a loon in any sense of the word. Being with Juliet was the smartest thing he’d ever done. And their nesting had been more than satisfactory. Forty-two years ago they’d had to add onto the cottage so that it could accommodate the first of what became four chicks. Cade and Juliet had their own bedroom, now. What they’d done tonight would have horrified their children and grandchildren if they’d been around to hear them. Senior citizens weren’t supposed to have sex. Hell, parents of any age weren’t supposed to have sex. The thought of it grossed out their kids, who probably wished they’d been conceived through magic.

Cade smiled in the dark. Yeah, he admitted to a little better living through chemistry. Yay for those little pills. Why not take advantage of modern science? If he could make his wife happy, he’d try almost any crazy thing.

Except for magic. The first time was the charm.

T
his was originally written
on spec for a cat-shifter anthology, and it was the very first rejection I ever received—a “great” rejection which complimented my author voice and made me keep plugging away. It is the oldest and also the most edited novella in this collection. Headhopping R Us was apparently my mantra in 2007, and I hope I’ve straightened out most of the POV issues in 2015!

E
x-ballplayer Ben Cooper
has learned everything he knows about being a shape-shifting panther from the books he’s read. It’s time to get some paws-on experience at Lyra Anders’s exclusive Maine island resort. With one ferry ride, Ben leaves his old world behind and discovers exactly what he wants.

B
ut the pretty
innkeeper doesn’t like to get up close and personal with just any guest, and Ben is not her type at all. One June afternoon is all it takes to change everything.