The Lost Enchantress (24 page)

Their association had ended badly, all the way around, and when it was done Hazard swore he would never allow himself to love so deeply or need so desperately. And he never had. Now, in spite of his resolve, Eve Lockhart threatened to become a sweet addiction.

And he refused to let Taggart make him feel guilty for it.

“I’m going to watch as many times as it pleases me,” he said in reply to Taggart’s question.

“Humph,” Taggart responded, obviously annoyed. “I only asked because they’ll be giving the results of the races at Churchill Downs on that sports channel, if you’re interested.”

“I’m not,” Hazard countered.

“And Starry Night, the black stallion brought over from Isle of Wight, ran today. I thought for sure you’d be interested in seeing how he did.”

That was a lie. If Taggart actually cared about what Hazard wanted to see, he would go away and leave him to watch his clips of Eve in peace. Starry Night. The name did strike a chord. Because, he realized with sudden irritation, it was the name of the horse owned by a mage who specialized in equine trickery, a horse whose failure to cross the finish line anywhere near close to first had already cost Hazard a tidy sum to cover Taggart’s losses.

Pressing the Pause button, he turned to eye the other man suspiciously. “Tell me you’re not placing wagers.”

“I’m not placing wagers,” parroted Taggart, eyes wide and innocent. “Sheesh. Can’t a man try to do you a favor without accusations being made?”

Hazard sighed. That was another lie, but not one he wanted to spend whatever time he had left before Eve arrived grousing about. He glanced at the clock on his desk.

“She’s late,” observed Taggart.

“She said she’d be here
around
six o’clock,” Hazard countered. “I’d hardly call 6:03 late, especially when you consider the traffic at this time of day.”

Taggart strolled over and dropped into the chair beside his. “Maybe she’s changed her mind and won’t come at all.”

“She’ll come.”

“How can you be sure? You hardly know her now, do you?” Taggart was right. And wrong. It was true he hadn’t known Eve for more than a handful of days, but in that time he’d used his considerable skills to learn all he could about her. Thanks to her status as a local celebrity, there was plenty of factual information available. And if you were willing to dig deep enough—which he was—there were also comments and recollections from teachers and old friends buried in years of stories and interviews.

He’d taken that jumble of facts and carefully pieced them together until he had a detailed picture of her life, and a good look at the woman she was.

“I know she’ll be here because once, in the middle of a blizzard, she commandeered a snowplow and convinced the driver to take her across town to deliver an eightieth birthday cake to the man who used to run the newsstand outside her building because she promised him she would.

“And,” he went on, “because once a year she dresses up as someone called Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and reads a book by that same name to a classroom full of children.” He tried not to smile as he recalled what Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle looked like on the book jacket and wished he could see Eve dressed in a white ruffled apron and a flat straw hat with a black ribbon. “She does it simply because she did it once, with great success, and it has become a rite of passage for children in that grade. Something they look forward to all year.”

Taggart’s face was scrunched with confusion. “So you think she’s coming here to read us a book about a pig?”

“No, you dolt. She’s coming because she said she would come, because she promised to help, and she’s not the sort of woman to break a promise.”

As if on cue the doorbell rang; Hazard stood but made it only a few steps toward the front door before Taggart stopped him.

“You’re sure, Gabriel?” he asked. “You’re sure this is what you want?”

Hazard scowled. “You need to ask?”

“Aye, I do, because there’s no turning back, is there? If I’m right, if it works, it can’t be undone.”

“I know that,” he said quietly.

Taggart was on his feet now too, his expression earnest. “There’s no rush, is there? Maybe we should hold off a bit, until we can learn more about this ritual, the fine points of it, I mean. I’ve never performed it personally, after all, only heard about it . . . and not firsthand. It seems we ought to know . . . more.”

It wasn’t the first time they’d had this conversation in recent days. Hazard understood Taggart’s concerns; he just didn’t have any more time to debate them.

He reached out and put his hand firmly on Taggart’s shoulder. “Trust me; I’ve given this a great deal of thought. It’s what I want . . . now more than ever,” he added, thinking of Eve, and where his growing attraction to her could lead. “And the rush is to get it done while Eve is willing to let us use the talisman.”

“I thought she wasn’t one to go back on her word,” Taggart retorted.

“She’s not. Unless,” he added pointedly, “she should find out it was given under false pretense.”

The doorbell sounded again, and Taggart trailed him down the hall to the front door, still grumbling.

“False pretense is right. Seems to me that if you’re so sure you’re doing the right thing, you shouldn’t be afraid to say so.”

“I’m not afraid,” Hazard shot back, losing patience. “We’ve been over this. She has no part in what I’m doing, and I don’t think it’s fair that she should feel in any way responsible for . . . whatever happens.”

“Humph,” Taggart said.

Hazard opened the door. And smiled.

Today she was wearing a yellow blouse—the hue as pale as fresh-churned butter—with a black jacket and skirt. At first, he’d wished she didn’t wear so much black, but he decided he liked it because it made the bits of color she did wear appear all the more vivid. And because it allowed her own colors to shine through, the gleaming copper and cinnamon of her hair, and the pale ivory and peach of her soft skin.

He took it all in now, still smiling.

Taggart stepped forward, poking him with his elbow. “He means to say please come in.”

Hazard shook himself. “Yes. Of course. Forgive me.” He took her hand to help her step over the threshold and let it go reluctantly. Still standing in the front hall, he made introductions. He wanted to bring her inside and spend more time with her, an hour or even fifteen minutes, but he didn’t dare. Any time he spent with her now would be too long, and not nearly enough.

Pulling a black jewelry case from her purse, she held it out to him. “Here you go.”

“Thank you. Taggart will return this to you as soon as we’re through.”

“Okay.” She smiled. “Well, good luck.”

“Perhaps the lady would like to watch,” Taggart suggested.

Hazard shot him a warning look.

Her green eyes brightened. “Well, maybe . . .”

“No,” Hazard broke in. He quickly softened his too-sharp tone with a smile. “Eve would rather not go up to the turret. You haven’t changed your mind about that since the other night, have you?”

She shook her head.

“Good,” Hazard caught himself. “I mean good because I know you’ll be more comfortable waiting down here.”

“Why don’t we perform the ritual down here?” Taggart asked.

“Because everything is set for us upstairs. It was you who said the turret has the strongest residual magic in the house.”

“The strongest, aye,” Taggart allowed. “But since the whole place is steeped in magic, I don’t think we could go wrong no matter where we do it.”

“Why take chances?” Unclenching his jaw, Hazard turned to Eve in a way that deliberately excluded Taggart. “Please, go in and make yourself comfortable.”

Taggart got the message and started up the stairs.

Ignoring his own good sense, Hazard lingered beside Eve for just a moment and even that was too long. His fingertips itched to touch her, the temptation was too much to resist. He brought his hand to her face and felt the quick jolt of connection he’d come to expect, like oppositely charged magnets coming together. Putting his palm against her cheek, he slowly coasted down to cup her chin, his thumb moving back and forth over the side of her jaw as that initial burst of feeling settled into a steady current running between them.

Their gazes locked.

He could tell she felt what he felt, and his heart pumped faster.

He bent his head closer to hers. “A kiss?”

His voice was low and just the tiniest bit unsteady. Unsteady. He, who had stolen hundreds of kisses in his time, stolen and seduced and beguiled kisses—and more—from women as willing to give as he was eager to take, women who longed to be conquered as surely as he’d been born to conquer. And now his damnable need for this one kiss from Eve had him feeling unsure, and desperate.

“A kiss for luck?” she countered, her soft, rosy mouth curving into a small smile. “A bit ironic, don’t you think?”

He stared down at her, puzzled. “Ironic?”

“A good-luck kiss to help you break a bad-luck curse. It struck me as ironic.”

“Right . . . the curse. Then let it not be for luck,” he said, savoring her nearness, the fresh scent of her hair and the warmth of her breath on his cheek.

He felt her pulse skitter, and his heart thumped in response.

“For what then?” she asked.

Hazard moved his hand to the back of her neck and slowly pulled her closer. His fingers in her hair, he tipped her face up to his.

“How about just for the hell of it?” He whispered the words against her mouth in that last heartbeat before he claimed it with his own.

When he kissed her, she kissed back, igniting an explosion of sensation, hot and quick and dizzying. Something powerful and unknown stirred inside him and then spread like fire through his veins.

His mouth played with hers. He kept it gentle, as gentle as he could, when what he wanted was to kiss her deeper and harder and longer. He wanted to kiss her forever.

Forever. Now there was irony for you, he thought. They didn’t have forever. And he didn’t have any right to make this more complicated or difficult for Eve. He forced himself to stop and gently disentangle.

She looked dazed.

Hazard took his hands from her slowly, regretfully, sliding down her arm to catch her hand and lift it to his lips for a final kiss. “Thank you.”

It was all he said before starting the long climb to the turret.

Eve hung out at the bottom of the stairs, her heart still beating wildly from his kiss, and watched him go. She ran her fingertips along her bottom lip, replaying the kiss in her mind. He was a good kisser, which is exactly what she’d expected. A man didn’t look the way he looked and charm the way he charmed without racking up a whole lot of experience in that department. What she hadn’t expected was the sharp sense of loss she felt when it ended and he headed upstairs to the turret. So sharp she’d almost called out to stop him from going. Now that would have been embarrassing.

She turned her thoughts to what was going on upstairs and wondered how they would know if the ritual was a success. Flip a coin and see if Hazard could call it in the air? Or just wait and watch for changes in his life? He’d told her that being cursed was like living in chains, that it caused him to keep his distance from others for fear his bad luck would spill over and bring tragedy or disaster to someone else. He didn’t say he felt responsible for the death of his wife and daughter, but she surmised he did, at least in part. Faced with the choice of being a lonely recluse or a threat to anyone who crossed his path, he’d chosen loneliness for himself.

When her knees no longer wobbled, she wandered down the hall to the kitchen and looked around, peeking inside the drawers and refrigerator, telling herself it wasn’t as tacky as looking through someone’s bathroom medicine cabinet and lots of people did that. Whether he preferred whole or fat-free milk and owned matching pot holders wasn’t her idea of highly personal information. It was a moot point anyway since there was no milk or anything else in the fridge and not much in the drawers. Plates, bowls, cups, flatware, that was about it. Plus a healthy supply of white cloth napkins pressed and folded laundry-service style.

What did they eat? she wondered. Then she spotted the containers neatly stacked by the back door, all with the “Catering to You” logo on them. Catering to You was a pricey catering service that specialized in delivering gourmet meals to people who lacked the time or inclination to cook for themselves and were rich enough not to have to. Most people she knew used them only for special occasions. From the looks of it, everyday was special at Chez Hazard.

The sound of footsteps pounding down the stairs and a rowdy verbal skirmish in the hallway interrupted her snooping. Taggart appeared first, his arms full of what could best be described as stuff. Hazard was right behind him, a candle gripped in each fist and a dark cloud hovering above his head. Metaphorically speaking.

“We ran into a small glitch,” Taggart announced.

Eve glanced from one to the other. “What sort of glitch?”

“An imaginary one,” Hazard snapped.

“I didn’t imagine it,” Taggart said with a roll of his eyes only Eve could see. “I tried to get it done.”

“You should have tried harder,” Hazard told him.

“What sort of glitch?” she asked again.

“The sort where we need your help,” Taggart replied.

“
My
help? Oh no.” She looked at Hazard. “I told you I don’t do magic.”

Taggart snorted and jumped in before Hazard had a chance to respond. “Do magic? Madam, you
are
magic. I saw the rune stones out front and the ones at the other doors. You’re an enchantress by birth, a mighty one . . . in fact, if you ask me—”

“No one did,” Hazard broke in. “Can we just get on with it?”

Taggart shrugged. “That’s up to the enchantress.” To Eve, he added, “What we need from you is a power boost. All you need do is focus on what it is we want to accomplish and then lend your will to mine. Simple.”