The Lost Enchantress (19 page)

If only she had shut the door last night so there was no chance of Rory overhearing their conversation.

If only she had skipped the auction or been in the ladies’ room when the pendant was being sold. Of course, if that had happened and Grand was right about the role of destiny in all this, it probably would have just appeared in her office one day and wrapped itself around her neck.

They were only a few blocks away from Hazard’s house. Eve figured if she drove slowly, avoided shortcuts and caught every red light, she would have time to touch on the crucial points she wanted to get across . . . staying in touch, staying in groups, a quick, tactful review of the basics of safe sex, and—the real challenge—Grand’s penchant for embellishing family anecdotes.
Have you heard the one about the long lost talisman? Leave it to Grand to come up with a pocket love detector.

“Okay, let’s talk,” she said to Rory.

“I’ll go first,” countered Rory. “No, wait,
you
go first. I want to hear everything about Hazard. He’s amazing. I already sent Jill a text about him . . . TTDF.”

It took Eve a few seconds to decode the text message shorthand. “Totally to die for?”

“Yup. I had to; she’s always going on and on about how fine her mother’s new boyfriend is. I couldn’t wait to tell her about yours.”

“Hazard is
not
my boyfriend. I told you we met through work.”

“I know what you told me, that he’s some kind of consultant, but really, Eve . . . consultant? That is so lame. And I saw how you looked at each other when you said it . . . like you were coconspirators. And—the absolute proof that there’s more than a work thing going on—I saw the way
he
looked at
you
when you weren’t looking back.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Eve told her. It was. She still couldn’t resist asking. “How was he looking at me?”

“Like you were his favorite dessert,” Rory said. With even more drama, she added, “And he was a starving man. Stranded-on-a-desert-island starving. Political-prisoner-on-a-hunger-strike starving. Trapped—”

“I get it. And again I say
ridiculous
.”

Rory sighed. “There are none so blind . . . So. Tell me everything. Starting with his actual name.”

“His name is Hazard.”

“It can’t be just Hazard, like he’s Batman. Or Angel.” She tilted her head to the side. “Or is he? He looks a little like Angel, don’t you think?” Angel was the vampire with a soul from one of their favorite television shows. “Tall and dark and dangerous.”

“He’s not that tall. Hazard, not Angel.”

“Maybe not compared to a pro basketball team. Standing next to you and me? He’s tall.”

“I suppose.” She slowed and waited for the stoplight up ahead to turn yellow so she could stop. The way their talk was going she might have to throw in a wrong turn or two to drag the ride out long enough to get everything in.

“The rest of his name?” Rory prompted.

“His first name is Gabriel.”

“Gabriel Hazard. Oh my God, that is so perfect for him. Gabriel Hazard,” she said again, rolling it on her tongue like expensive chocolate. “How long have you known him? Where did you two meet? What does he really do for a living?”

“You know, Rory, when you said we should talk, I assumed you meant we’d talk about what happened tonight. Not about Hazard.”

“And we will,” she countered. “I’m just curious, and I thought if we got all this out of the way first, I’d be able to give you a hundred and ten percent of my attention when we get to the other stuff . . . the part where you remind me to always leave a message when I go somewhere and to never go off alone with a guy without requesting a background check and blood tests first and . . . let’s see . . . to always say please and thank you and put my napkin in my lap.”

Eve slanted her wry look. “Very funny.”

“I try. Did I miss anything?”

“How about not taking things that don’t belong to you?”

“Anything
else
?” she said with a mix of guilt and hopefulness.

Grudgingly amused, Eve shook her head. “Well, I would like to know more about Toby . . . like his full name and where you met and how well you know him.”

“Toby Black. And very well. He plays the same online game I do. His Greywolf killed three of my white knights; that’s how we met. That was two adventures ago, so we’ve known each other about two months. He’s also Monica Rathburn’s cousin and a totally good guy. And I would have told you I was meeting him except he didn’t know his work schedule until today and—”

“He works? He doesn’t go to school?”

“He works after school,” she informed Eve in a tone usually reserved for giving directions to the very young, or very old and feebleminded. “I was going to call and leave a message as soon as I knew for sure what I was doing, but I sort of forgot.”

Eve didn’t doubt that had been her intention. Rory was usually conscientious—and Eve usually didn’t push the panic button so quickly.

“Okay. Next time tie a string around your finger or write yourself a reminder. I’m much too old to be running around playing Dog the Bounty Hunter.”

“Especially in the middle of the night like this,” Rory teased.

Eve rolled her eyes. “So disrespectful.”

“I really am sorry I worried you. Next time I’ll remember to call; cross my heart.” She made a hasty
X
over her heart. “I was sort of preoccupied all day, wondering if the talisman was going to work and trying to figure out how I was going to get it up against Toby’s heart without him thinking I was some kind of total weirdo.”

“How did you?”

Rory flashed a self-satisfied smile. “It came to me in English lit. We’re reading Emily Brontë, and in the drawing of her in the book she’s wearing a cameo brooch. Lightbulb moment! I took the hourglass off the chain and pinned it to the front of my sweater.” She pointed to a spot just below her right shoulder. “Then when he kissed me—”

“He kissed you?”

“Yeah. It was no big deal. I was so worried about getting our chests aligned right that I missed most of it. I do remember our teeth clicking, though. It was over before I knew it.”

“So what happened?”

She shrugged. “Nothing happened. He just stopped. I think maybe he had to breathe.”

“What happened with the pendant?”

“Oh. Nothing there either. No glowing crystals; no turning red.” She sounded disgruntled. “I don’t know if that means Grand was wrong about the whole thing or that Toby’s not my one true love.”

Eve wanted to shout, “You’re only fifteen years old! Of course he’s not your one true love!” Then she remembered being fifteen.

“Hmm. I’m not sure either. Did you want him to be?”

“Not especially.” Her blasé tone was a surprise. “What I need is a control group, a baseline, like you have with a science experiment. It won’t be easy since I don’t really know anyone with a genuine soul mate . . . especially not anyone in this family.”

Eve was still trying to understand. “So you’re not in love with him?”

“God, no. I mean, I probably could be, someday, if I put my mind to it. I like Toby; he’s supersmart and potentially cool, but definitely not until his braces come off.”

“Then why did you go to all that trouble with the pendant if it’s only a case of you probably could be in love with him someday maybe?”

“To rule him out,” she answered as if it should be obvious. “I’ve given this a lot of thought and—”

“A lot of thought? You mean in the eighteen or so hours you’ve known the talisman existed?”

“It’s not that complicated. I used the process of elimination and decided that the most efficient approach is to use the talisman to rule guys out right at the start. Not every guy you meet, of course; that would be too time-consuming, not to mention awkward,” she added with a little chuckle. “Just likely candidates, like Toby. That way you don’t waste time falling for one jerk after another and getting your heart broken over and over again. You just hold off on falling in love until you know for sure you’ve got the right guy. Makes sense, don’t you think?”

Eve wanted to tell her that it made no sense at all, that it was a crazy and misguided idea. She wanted to tell her that love didn’t come with guarantees, that love was a gift and you didn’t accept a gift only on the condition that you got to open it and inspect it first. That’s what she
wanted
to say, but she couldn’t seem to get it out given that the words “pot-kettle-black” were running through her mind in giant neon letters.

“Well, it’s innovative, I’ll give you that,” Eve said. “It might be an efficient way to zero in on Mr. Right, but won’t it take all the romance out of it? All the fun of getting to know someone and finding out if you click and discovering what it is you’re looking for in a man?”

“And the waiting for a guy to call and worrying that he’s messing around behind your back and a whole lot of stupid bickering. Face it, romance isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

“This from the girl whose bookcase is filled with romance novels and who’s worn out the
Pride and Prejudice
DVDs.”

Rory huffed. “I’d think you of all people would understand the difference between fact and fiction. None of that is real. In real life romance just makes you stupid.”

Rory hadn’t lived enough to draw that conclusion firsthand, or to have done much waiting for calls or worrying about guys cheating. The bitterness underscoring her words came from somewhere else. It came from years of watching her mother play the dating game. Chloe’s career was finally taking off, but her love life was, and always had been, a disaster, or more accurately, an endless parade of disasters masquerading as men. Chloe had inherited their mother’s romantic streak, and with it a giant pair of blinders to wear on her heart. She fell hard and fast, and when it ended badly, as it inevitably did, she took it just as hard.

Eve knew how much it bothered Rory to see her mother’s heart broken because Eve had been there herself. True, her mother hadn’t worked her way through the Mr. Wrong lineup the way Chloe seemed to be, but her mother and her father had fought enough for a dozen couples. One of her last memories of them was the sound of angry voices coming from their bedroom. She definitely understood why Rory was being a little extra cautious when it came to romance. What worried her was that she didn’t sound merely cautious; she sounded jaded. And so did the plan she’d come up with for the talisman.

“You know, Rory, I’m not sure you should take Grand’s stories about the pendant—”

“You mean the talisman?”

“Right, the talisman. Maybe you shouldn’t take it so literally.”

“Why not?”

“Well, you said it yourself; it didn’t work with Toby and there’s no way of telling if it was because Toby’s the wrong guy or because it’s nothing more than . . . wishful thinking. If you put your trust in it, it could backfire.”

“And then I could end up alone . . . like Grand and you, or else alone and desperate like my mom.”

The ache hovering just beneath her sarcasm stopped Eve from lashing out and telling her just how out of line she was.

“That’s not fair, Rory. And your mother is not desperate,” she said firmly. “She’s a romantic.”

“Obviously. The woman still believes in fairy tales. She thinks she’s Tinkerbell or some kind of modern-day fairy godmother whose mission is to make everyone’s happily-ever-after dreams come true.”

“She does make dreams come true for a lot of people.”

“Right, a lot of rich jerks who’d be better off spending their money to feed starving people or find a cure for something. Personally, I’d be more impressed if she made her own dreams come true.”

“Give her time. And anyway, we’re not talking about your mom, we’re talking about the pen . . . talis . . . hourglass. For all we know it’s just an old piece of jewelry with a great story attached, a family legend based on a little fact, a little fanciful thinking, and it gets more far-fetched with each retelling. You’re the one who mentioned science—think about it logically. How could it possibly have the power to do what Grand claims it can do?”

“Easy,” said Rory. “Magic.”

Her matter-of-fact tone set off a warning in Eve’s head. But she had no time to decide on a safe response—safe being one that would allow her to find out how much Rory knew without revealing anything in return—before turning into their driveway.

Grand’s car was parked in its usual spot.

“Oh, good,” Rory exclaimed, opening her seat belt and the car door at the same time. “Grand’s home.”

“Perfect,” Eve muttered, not even trying to catch up as her niece scampered up the walk and into the house. She was in no hurry to go inside.

She looked around for her purse, remembered she’d run out without it, and continued to sit with her hand on the door handle. Thinking.

Maybe it was a good thing Grand was home. Whatever Rory had overheard couldn’t be unheard. They would just have to deal with it. Rory was going to have questions, and demand answers. And she would get them, Eve decided. It was one thing to withhold the truth for someone’s own protection, another to look them in the eye and lie. She couldn’t do that . . . especially not with Grand there to keep her honest.

Maybe she’d been kidding herself to think she could keep the family skeleton locked away indefinitely. She just wished it had come popping out some other time, when she wasn’t busy battling Gabriel Hazard. And herself.

Hazard, because he wouldn’t stop coming after the pendant. Herself, because she wasn’t sure she wanted him to stop. At least not right away. And also because thanks to him she had intentionally used magic, and she hadn’t hated it.

Having that power stir to life inside her had been incredible. Feeling it rush and course through her was thrilling, and terrifying. All the more terrifying because it
was
thrilling. It had felt good. And right.