Stolen Away (4 page)

I raised both my eyebrows. “More batty old ladies?”

“Worse.”

“All right, give me a minute. I need to go lecture Nanna.” We headed toward the apple trees. Both Devin and Eloise worked here during the planting and harvest seasons when there were extra chores to be done. They knew their way around almost as well as I did. The plots of carrots and garlic looked like they might hold on, and there were onions and squash ready to pick.

We found Nanna at the top of a ladder with a basket. The apples were small but they weren’t buggy. They’d make decent sauce. This was the oldest part of the orchard. The gnarled trees extended gray branches out like an old-fashioned hoop skirt, trailing leaves and fruit.

“Nanna, Dev and El are here to help me pick apples, so get down from there.”

She eyed me sharply. “Tell your granddad I can pick apples without his interference.”

“He’s too busy smoking his cigars out behind the barn.”

She muttered to herself and climbed down off the ladder. She was still muttering as she stalked away. Devin shook his head. “You totally sold your granddad out.”

“Hell, yeah, I did. Cigars are right nasty.” I climbed over a fence, using the shortcut to the house. “Let’s go use the computer and then we can come back and fill up some baskets for them.” Eloise was even quieter than usual, chewing on her lower lip. She wasn’t wearing her customary red lipstick. Definitely a sign of impending doom.

“Did you tell Dev about the acorn thing?” I asked her.

“Yeah.” Devin was the one to answer. “What is it with you two?”

“Hey! How is this my fault, exactly?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But it usually is.”

“I was busy ogling the hot guy, remember?”

“When aren’t you?”

“Practice, practice, practice,” I agreed.

The farmhouse was painted white with yellow shutters. The inside was cool and dark and smelled like lemons and rosemary. We went upstairs, where I had my own room. It was full of books and posters of Stonehenge and knights in silver armor kneeling before women in velvet dresses. There was a dart board on the back of the door, with a drawing of Henry the Eighth as the target. I was writing a book about him. Devin sprawled on the bed, and Eloise went straight to my desk and booted up my laptop.

“What are we googling?” I asked idly, putting on some music. The harmonized voices of the Medieval Baebes filled the room.

“I’m going to have to introduce you to music made in this millennia,” Devin grumbled.

I ignored him and read over Eloise’s shoulder. “Lucas Richelieu? Is that the cute guy from the ice cream parlor?”

Eloise nodded grimly.

Devin lifted his head. “This is a boy thing? You said it was important.”

“It is,” she replied quietly. “He showed up at my place last night. On the roof.”

Devin sat up abruptly. “What? Why didn’t you call me? Did you call the cops? What the hell?” Devin rarely got this worked up over anything.

“What did your mom say?” I asked.

“I didn’t tell her,” she admitted.

We both stared at her. Eloise told her mom everything. They were weird that way. “You didn’t tell her?”

“I think he was protecting me.”

“From what?” Devin demanded.

“Crows.”

“Crows,” he repeated, baffled.

I tilted my head. “Yeah, that’s weird, El.”

“I know. But they were dive-bombing us. Lucas gave me this pendant, and then he jumped off the roof. And vanished.”

“He vanished.”

“Stop repeating everything I say,” she muttered, annoyed. She turned back to the computer screen. “There’s no Lucas Richelieu anywhere. Certainly not in Rowan, anyway.” She spun in the chair. “Something really strange is going on. Mom called Antonia and told her to come home because, and I quote, ‘It’s starting.’ And now she’s avoiding me.”

“So what do we do?” I asked, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Have you ever googled your aunt?”

She spun around without a word and started typing
furiously. Devin and I got up to lean on the desk on either side of her. We scrolled through pages and pages of links.

“That one.” Devin stopped us, tapping the screen. “School yearbook picture.”

I whistled. “Did no one in the eighties own mirrors? I mean, seriously.”

“She dropped out when she was sixteen,” Eloise said. “And then it’s like she disappeared. Her cell phone’s unlisted, and she changes the number every year. She’s never had her own apartment. She just lives in her van and drives around.”

Devin looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “Did she gamble or something? Maybe she owed people money.”

“Maybe. But for over seventeen years?” Eloise rubbed her temples. “I’m getting a headache.” She turned away from the computer. “I’ll keep searching later.”

“Are you okay?” I asked. “You’re a little pale.”

“Yeah, it’s just the glare off the screen. And stress, I guess.”

“You know what solves all problems, including stress?” I asked, slinging my arm over her shoulder when she stood up. “Picking apples.”

She snorted.

“I think you’re confusing picking apples with chocolate.”

• • •

I went to the café the next morning with my laptop and tried to research water witches. I was convinced Granddad was starting to go senile. But after following a few links, I found
another name for a water witch: a dowser. Which was really only half-helpful. I didn’t fancy calling up some crazy person with a bent wire hanger to walk the fields of the farm, trying to psychically commune with the groundwater. But I read so many testimonials about their accuracy that I phoned the local dowser anyway. Granddad was right; she was fully booked until the first frost, whenever that might be.

“You look organized,” a voice like warm chocolate said over my shoulder. “And rather fierce,” he added when I tossed the phone aside, frustrated.

I glanced up and immediately had to remind myself not to purr. It was the guy from the party, with the ripped jeans and the great butt. His smile was dark and positively wicked. “Hi.”

“Can I sit with you?” Eloise was right, there was something of the rock star about him. He was beautiful, with moody eyes and a sullen mouth.

“Sure.” What kind of an idiot would say no to that? It just figured that there wasn’t a single person I knew here to see this totally hot guy asking to sit with me.

He raised his eyebrows at my laptop. “School paper?”

“Helping out my grandparents, actually.”

“Are they looking for a water witch, then?”

“You know about this stuff?” I asked, surprised.

“Some.” He accepted a tall coffee from the waitress, then added three sugars. The music from the speakers behind us was slow and peppery. “What’s your name?”

“Jo.” I took a sip of my own drink, wondered if he was going to ask me for my phone number or if I should ask for his. Eloise got all flustered around cute guys and blushed and stammered. I didn’t have that problem. “You were at the party on Friday night, weren’t you?” I didn’t mention that I’d followed him into the woods.

He leaned back in his chair, his legs sprawled out. His boots nudged the bottom ruffle of my skirt. “Aye.”

Aye. Seriously? Could he be hotter?

Unless he had been looking for his girlfriend at the party.

Not hot.

“I was supposed to meet my cousin,” he elaborated. “But I couldn’t find her.”

Hot again.

“Does she go to school around here?”

“The high school across from the park.”

“Rowanwood High. That’s where I go.” He knew someone from my school. He officially wasn’t a stranger anymore, so Eloise’s voice nagging in my head to be careful could shut up now.

He drank from his cup, then motioned to my laptop with it. “Found yourself a witch, have you?”

I shook my head. “There’s only one dowser in this whole county and apparently she’s booked solid.”

“Not surprising.”

“Not with this heat spell,” I agreed. Which was making
the café feel like a jungle. Even the windows were sweating. I hoped my face wasn’t shiny or my hair damp.

“I could help you with that,” he offered.

I tilted my head. “You could? How?”

His smile was a touch sardonic and more than a touch self-deprecating. It was difficult not to get distracted when a boy smiled like that. “That kind of thing runs in my family.”

“Really? What would you need? Those metal rods?” I’d seen them on one of the websites.

He snorted. “Hardly. A branch is all it takes. Apple or willow is best for water witching.”

“Apple branches won’t be a problem,” I told him. “My grandparents have an apple orchard on the outskirts of town. That’s where they need to dig a new well because even the rain barrels are empty.”

“I could try now if you’d like.”

It was a struggle not to pounce eagerly on the opportunity. He was gorgeous, he was sexy, and he was smiling at me. “That would be brilliant, thanks,” I said as casually as I could. By which I mean: not even remotely casual.

It felt warmer than usual in the café. And I was thinking all sorts of naughty things. Like whether or not it would be hot enough in the fields that he’d have to take his shirt off. I could just tell by the way the worn cotton clung to him that he had really nice arms. And shoulders. And abs. I shut my laptop and slipped it into my bag, hiding my red cheeks. “My car’s just out front.”

We walked outside. He was taller than I’d thought, and his eyes were even more mysterious in the bright sunlight. I stopped in front of Granddad’s old Buick. It was gray and hideous, and older than I was, but it was all mine. I opened the driver’s door and paused. He was still standing on the sidewalk, watching me. “What’s wrong?” If I had latte milk foam on my lip, I’d just die.

“You shouldn’t let strangers into your car.”

I grinned. “Now you sound like my best friends.”

“They’re right. I’ll meet you there.”

“Do you have a car?”

He inclined his head. “I’ll follow you. Which is your grandparents’ farm, in case we get separated?”

“It’s Jack Frost Farms, off County Road 7.”

“So your last name is Frost?” A faint frown puckered his brow, as if he’d thought it was something else.

“No, my mom’s maiden name was Frost. My last name is Blackwell,” I explained. “Here, give me your phone number,” I suggested, whipping my mobile out of my pocket so fast it nearly flew out of my hand. “And I’ll text you mine, so if you get lost I can give you directions.” Now I’d have his number. And he’d have mine.
Well played, Jo
, I congratulated myself cheekily. Poor Eloise, how could she not find this sort of thing fun?

“I’ll see you there, Jo Blackwell,” he said, after giving me his number.

I shivered at the sound of my name on his lips. Then I
just nodded because I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I drove away, glancing in my rearview mirror to see if he was following me but I couldn’t tell which was his car. It only took about ten minutes to reach the end of town and another five to get to the farm. I passed the Christmas tree lot and Granddad on his tractor a few acres back. The Christmas pine tree crop was part of the reason the farm was named after Jack Frost. Granddad never could resist a pun or any kind of wordplay. It drove Nanna batty.

I texted Eloise once I’d parked the car.
ROCK STAR. AT THE FARM
!!! I texted Devin the same thing, mostly because it bugged him when I did. I climbed out of the car and leaned against the door. Since it was Sunday, Nanna would be in the back kitchen, baking apple and pumpkin pies to sell at the farmers’ market. I made myself turn around to get my knapsack out of the back of the car so it wouldn’t look like I was staring at the road, waiting.

When I popped my head back out, he was there. I jumped, startled.

“Easy,” he said softly, taking my bag so it didn’t drop. He put it on the hood of the car and then rested his arm on the window beside me. He blocked out the sun, which shone so brightly behind him he was a black silhouette.

“I didn’t see you,” I said lamely.

“A friend was waiting for me. I had him drop me at the end of the lane.”

“Oh.”

He was really close. I could see the flecks of light gray in his black eyes. I didn’t even know irises could come in that color. My breath felt wispy in my chest.

He leaned closer still, his mouth hovering near mine. “Why don’t you show me to the dry well, Jo.”

I swallowed. “Okay.” He pulled back and I felt the ridiculous urge to grab his arms and keep him there. This heat better break soon. It was making me stupid. “This way. The main well’s back there behind the barn, but if you need an apple branch we’ll have to go to the orchards.”

We went down the gravel lane into the apple orchard, the humid heat like water between us. He didn’t seem affected, even though he was wearing jeans. I was in a long skirt and tank top, praying I wasn’t visibly sweating. My braid hung behind me, bumping my lower back as we walked. His hands were in his pockets. He tossed his hair out of his face.

I took him into the rows of the older trees, the hot air full of the sweet smell of rotting apples. Bees drifted lazily in between the trees. He dropped his gaze to the ground, searching.

“There,” he said finally, pointing to a low branch. “We’ll have to cut one down. It needs to be a Y shape.”

“Sure.” I doubled back to the previous row and plucked a hand saw out of a large barrel of assorted tools. I was very aware of him watching me as I reached up and sawed the branch off. I patted the trunk. “Sorry,” I whispered. He’d probably think I was barking mad for talking to the trees,
but Nanna and Granddad both did too, and I’d picked up the habit. He didn’t say anything, just smiled.

“You’re handy with a blade,” he finally said.

I shrugged one shoulder. “I grew up here.” I handed him the branch and he stripped the leaves off. The gray bark shone like silver.

“It’ll do,” he approved. “In the old stories there’s an island of apple groves called Avalon. It’s the fruit of love.”

“I thought it was temptation.”

“That too.”

We made our way to the barn and I took him around the back where the well was, its round concrete cover hidden in masses of soapwort and yellow trefoil. He circled it three times.