Spellbound (23 page)

A speeding taxi, racing to beat the light, missed hitting me by inches. It blew through the intersection, horn blaring.

I heard the bleating behind me, and I stayed frozen, sprawled on the sidewalk. Slowly, I was very aware of pain coming from my hands. Brendan was crouched next to me, his arm around my back.

“Emma! Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I'm fine.” I moved slightly, disturbing the bits of dirt and concrete lodged in my palms. It made them sting more.

“
Ow!
Well, this isn't awesome.”

Brendan smiled a weak smile. “How bad is it?” He tucked his head under my arm and helped me up. Brendan grimaced at my bloody hands. “Sorry.”

I looked down and my hands were shredded, fresh blood streaming out of my skinned palms. They looked like I had used a cheese grater on them.

“I may have pulled you back a little too hard,” he said regretfully, taking my raw hands in his. “I'm so sorry, Em.”

“Why are you apologizing?” He just saved me from being a human speed bump and was asking for forgiveness. Brendan grabbed his bag from where he'd tossed it and pulled out a
bottle of water, pouring it on my hands. I flinched at the sting, stepping back—and feeling a sharp stab in my right ankle.

“Ouch! I think it's sprained!” I winced at the pain, hopping back onto my left foot.

“Emma, I'm so, so sorry,” Brendan said, his face crest fallen.

“Please stop apologizing! You saved me from being a hood ornament, you know.”

“That's one way of putting it,” he said, bitterly. “The other could be that I'm the reason that happened to you in the first place.”

“New York is the reason that happened,” I said condescendingly. “Or do you think this city is renowned for taxi drivers following the rules all the time?”

Brendan frowned, his handsome face set in an angry mask.

“Oh, come on, Brendan,” I said, reaching out to touch his face and wincing when my skinned palms brushed against his faint stubble. It only made him feel worse.

“No guilt trips, please,” I begged. “This isn't your fault. This isn't the Salinger curse at work.” But Brendan wouldn't look at me and when he did, his green eyes went straight to my raw palms, and he'd blanch.

“I'm a ticking clock for you,” he said, keeping his eyes downcast.

“Oh, please, don't be so dramatic,” I said, starting to get annoyed. “If a pigeon poops on my head, will you blame that on yourself, too?”

“That won't kill you, Emma.”

“It might,” I said gravely. “Have you
seen
some of these New York City pigeons?”

Silence, still.

“Look, Brendan, you saved me—again, I might add. I didn't even see that cab coming!”

But something about what I said echoed in my head.
Didn't see it coming…didn't see it coming.

“Oh. My. God.”

“What, Emma?”

“Brendan, um, do you think, just maybe, that was it?” I asked, gesturing to the gutter where I almost became roadkill. Brendan just stared at me.

“What are you talking about?”

“Brendan, what if that was the
it?
The danger? The big bad? And you just saved me from it?”

He remained expressionless, his handsome features like stone.

“It can't be,” Brendan whispered. “It couldn't be that easy.”

“Okay, don't kill me for not telling you earlier,” I said, nervously biting my lip. “But I did have another dream where my brother more or less warned me, and said that I wouldn't see it coming. Those were his exact words. I sure didn't see that coming.”

“Emma, what the hell? Why didn't you tell me earlier?” Brendan demanded.

“We were having such a nice time. It was nice to feel normal,” I mumbled, looking down.

“Please, please don't keep secrets from me,” Brendan whispered, putting both hands on either side of my face. “Anything else?”

I took a deep breath. “There is one.” Brendan shut his eyes and took a deep breath before opening them to stare at me unhappily.

“Spill it, Emma.”

“I think I'm a witch,” I said plainly. I wasn't expecting his reaction—laughter.

“Emma, you've been hanging out with Angelique too much.” He chuckled, kissing the top of my head.

“I have not!” I stamped my foot—then yelped. In my frustration, I'd forgotten all about the sprain. But I was annoyed; curses and doomed soul mates are okay, but me inheriting a little witchy power is oh-so-funny?

Brendan took a steadying breath and eyed me. “I think you're just a little overwhelmed by everything we've learned, and you've been pretty persecuted this week. So of course you'd think that—it does feel like the Salem Witch Trials at Vince A.”

“I don't think I'm a witch because of
that,
” I retorted. “I think I'm a witch because, well…Angelique sensed it about me. And she's been right about everything else. And I did make the wind blow by doing a spell in her room.” I explained as hastily as I could what had transpired at Angelique's house, but Brendan still looked skeptical.

“Something happened when Angelique the mega-witch was in the room. That was probably her, not you,” Brendan said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

“No, it was me,” I protested.

“Look, Emma, we can talk about this later. How badly does your ankle hurt?” He changed the subject and poured more water on my hands.

“Why will you believe everything else but you won't believe this?”

“Let's just talk about it later.” Brendan ignored my question, examining my hands. I pulled them back.

“No, tell me, Brendan!” I snapped, angry. “You're the one who keeps saying, ‘No secrets.'”

“Because maybe you were right the first time,” he shouted,
and I flinched. “Maybe I do want to believe that, just for a little while, we're normal. I spent every single moment since Friday night reading books about this curse—the same story over and over again.”

He ran his fingers through his ink-black locks, his voice getting more agitated with each word. “I read my great-great-grandfather Robert's journals—and what he went through when he lost Constance. I saw a glimpse of what I might go through. What I could lose. So maybe I enjoyed just being with you today, where it wasn't about dooming you to an early grave, or dooming you to be talked about at school, or pulling you back from a crazy cabdriver that almost killed you, or uncovering that you're a witch or I'm a—I don't know, a demon or something. Maybe I am, since I seem to cause you nothing but pain.”

I stepped back, the hurt evident all over my face. “Oh, and this isn't hard for me, either?”

“I didn't say it wasn't.”

“I didn't ask for any of this, Brendan.” I folded my arms bitterly, ignoring the pain in my palms. “It's
my
life that's the one at stake here, not yours.”

He was instantly contrite. “Emma, I was wrong. I shouldn't have yelled at you.” He reached out to take my hands but I pulled them back.

“Just leave me alone,” I mumbled, summoning the resolve to walk away. I didn't know if it was my unwillingness to leave his side—or my lack of desire to walk fifty blocks on a sprained ankle—but I couldn't move just yet.

“I'm really sorry, Emma,” Brendan whispered. “I'll be stronger, I promise.”

I wanted so badly to hold a grudge, to stay stubborn and remain mad at him. It would have been easier. But his green eyes were sadder than I'd ever seen, and they melted my resolve
to stay angry. And this time when he reached out for me, I let him hold me.

“If I'm not jumping in to protect you, I'm apologizing to you,” he muttered, stroking my hair as it fell down my back. “I never screw things up this badly.”

“You're not screwing anything up.” I tried to alleviate his guilt. “Look, this is more complicated than anything either one of us has ever known. It's not like there's a manual for this.”

“It's just that I'd never be able to forgive myself if something happened to you.” He held me even more tightly, his arms strong around my shoulders. I rested my face against the rough wool of his black peacoat. I swore I could hear his heart beat through the layers.

“It's just that—Emma, I love you,” Brendan said, his lips moving softly against my hair. “Can I say that? Is it too soon?”

My heart felt like it was trembling. Although I knew we both felt it, we'd never said it. The impact of what he'd just said colored his face. I touched his cheek with the back of my hand gently, as he had done to me countless times before.

“I love
you,
” I whispered. Brendan sighed my name so quietly, I could barely hear him. He leaned down and kissed me softly, a slow, longing kiss that smoldered and burned against my lips. When we broke away, we were both a little flushed.

“Well, I guess I'm going to meet your aunt sooner than I expected,” he said with a self-conscious smile. Seeing my confused face, Brendan added, “I'm not sending you back to your aunt with bloody hands and an injured ankle. Not without explaining what happened.”

I started to protest but realized that he had a point.

“Fine,” I conceded. I began hobbling toward the sub way.

“Why don't we take a cab home,” he suggested, eyeing my ankle.

“No way, I'm fabulous,” I called as I hobbled along. “Check out my pimp walk!”

Brendan laughed, but still hailed a cab and pulled me into it. I hated the idea of springing Brendan on Aunt Christine—or worse, her not being home and coming in to find Brendan in the apartment—but she wasn't answering the phone.

Brendan helped me into the building just as my ankle began to really throb. I put the key in the lock to Christine's apartment and heard the TV inside—so she was home, after all. I got the door open to find my aunt sitting on the couch, watching
World's Wildest Police Videos
on her DVR. Once I showed her how to use the DVR, my proper aunt became addicted to the trashiest kind of reality TV. I thought it was kind of awesome.

“Mrs. Considine,” Brendan said, keeping his left arm around me and extending his right hand to greet my aunt. “We tried calling to let you know we were coming. I'm sorry to keep meeting you under these uncomfortable circumstances but um, Emma had a little accident.”

“Oh, you make it sound like I wet myself,” I complained crabbily as I limped. My ankle was starting to seriously hurt. “I just fell.”

I held up my scabbing-over palms and shrugged. Christine's jaw dropped when she saw me, and she flew into the bathroom, pulling out the peroxide and bandages as I hobbled through the living room.

“Honestly, it's not that bad,” I called to her as Brendan helped me follow her into the pink-tiled bathroom. “Really, it just looks bad,” I said again, but within seconds, my aunt was holding peroxide-saturated cotton balls against my palms.

“I can do it, really,” I protested, holding a soaked cotton
ball against my scrapes. “Aunt Christine,
really
. It could have been a lot worse. Brendan pulled me out of the way—a cab came racing down the street and would have hit me if Brendan didn't see it and grab me.”

Aunt Christine handed me the bottle of peroxide, and I poured it on my palms, turning my face away from them so they wouldn't see me grimace.

“Those cabs are a menace,” Christine huffed. “One almost mowed me down outside of Barneys last Christmas.”

I gave Brendan a pointed look, as if to say, “See?” He ignored me.

“I'm just lucky Brendan was there,” I said. Reminded we weren't alone, Christine turned to regard Brendan, who was standing in the hallway, peering over Christine's shoulder anxiously.

“Yes, Brendan.” Christine stepped out of the bathroom to shake Brendan's hand again. “Nice to meet you under, well, under different circumstances. Thank you for taking good care of my niece here.”

“Yes, ma'am. You're very welcome. Thank you for allowing Emma to spend the day with me, and go to the dance on Friday with me,” he said with a winsome smile. Brendan was quite charismatic when he turned on the charm. Then he looked at me, and his smile faded into a frown when he noticed I had taken off my boot and sock—and my ankle was blossoming into more shades of indigo than Picasso had used during his blue period.

“Oh, Em, that looks so painful,” Brendan said, striding into the bathroom and kneeling next to me as I sat on the fuzzy pink toilet seat. He slid his left arm around my waist, giving me a little squeeze as he pressed his right fingers gingerly against my swollen ankle.

“Try moving it this way,” he instructed. I did as he requested,
and then after gently making me flex my toes—
thank God I'd given myself a pedicure the night before
—he grinned. “I don't think it's broken.” I smiled at his concern, lost in those hypnotic green eyes of his, until we both realized that we were being watched—carefully—by my aunt. Brendan straightened up, and excused himself.

“I broke my ankle playing football a few years ago, and I've seen tons of injuries on the basketball court,” he explained to Christine, clearing his throat.

“Not that I'm a doctor, obviously. But it looks okay from what I know. Still, I should probably let you put that ankle on ice. It was lovely meeting you, Mrs. Considine.” With another of those angelic smiles, Brendan shook my aunt's hand again and—winking at me—headed for the front door.

After it had closed, Aunt Christine leaned against the door way and eyed me suspiciously over her bifocals.

“This is all from him pulling you out of the way?”

“Yes, Aunt Christine. Really!” I stressed. “I stepped off the curb and I wasn't paying attention, and a cab raced through the light. Brendan grabbed me and pulled me back on the sidewalk. I tripped on the curb when he pulled me out of the way.
Really
.” I held up my boot, which was freshly cut with a deep scrape on the toe.