The Reluctant Goddess (The Montgomery Chronicles Book 2) (2 page)

Square peg, round hole

The air smelled of rain, something always welcomed in South Texas. I hoped it would storm. I loved booming thunder and lightning zigzagging across a black sky.
 

I walked back to the castle slowly, still not all that certain of my balance and grateful for the lights lining the path.
 

Night imbued Arthur’s Folly with magic. Topiary animals crouched at the front and corners of the three story structure built of Texas granite. The gray stone was transformed to silver in the floodlights, each of the mullioned windows glittering like amused eyes.
 

You didn’t expect a medieval castle in the middle of the Texas Hill Country. I suspect Arthur’s Folly would look strange in any setting. Still, the sight of it made me smile and that was a feat, considering the evening I’d had.
 

I was tired, but it was fatigue caused by too much worry. Now that I’d done the only thing I could think of doing, I was stymied.
 

What did I do now?
 

Take the potion my grandmother had sent me to ensure I wasn’t pregnant and pray to God it worked. Find a place to live, somewhere free of vampire intrusion. Learn more about who I was, what I was. Find out more about my father, if that was possible.
 

Confront Dan.

Eat something.
 

Not necessarily in that order.
 

I approached the front door of the castle, complete with faux drawbridge and a ditch wide and deep enough to be considered a moat. Somewhere between the lake and here, I'd lost my dog. No doubt Mutt was going to open the door in his human form and pretend ignorance of any shape shifting ability.

Dan wasn't at the door, but Mike was. Dan’s number two was tall and broad, with chocolate skin that made the flash of his smile even more appealing. He wasn’t smiling now. I had slipped past him once. His look told me I wasn’t going to be able to do it again.
 

"Dinner's ready," Mike said. "Do you want it in the dining room or in your room?"

I stared at him, flummoxed by the question. Dinner was ready? I had just poisoned a very important vampire, been saved by a shape shifting dog, and dinner was ready?

Thank God.

"What are we having?" I asked, although it didn’t really matter. I was starving.
 

"Steak, potatoes, and salad. Cheesecake for dessert."

I had a feeling I wasn't going to get any cheesecake until I finished my dinner like a good little girl. I really wanted the cheesecake first, but I kept my mouth shut except for telling him that I'd prefer the dining room. I didn’t want to be alone just yet.
 

He turned on his heel and I followed him, hoping that he wouldn’t simply lead me to the room and abandon me at the door.

What I needed right now was companionship. I wanted to pretend that my life was normal. I wanted to be human or human like, not a very odd vampire. I wanted to talk about current events, the Spurs, the Stock Show and Rodeo in a few months, Fiesta. Conversation anyone else could overhear and not think odd.
 

To my relief, Mike didn't leave me at the door, but escorted me to a throne like chair at the end of a long mahogany table.

He sat in the middle, opposite a woman I’d never met. She turned and smiled at me, nodded, then returned her attention to Mike.

Introductions were not forthcoming. I wondered if I should say something or settle back into silence. You couldn't screw up when you didn't say anything. Nobody thought you were an idiot when you were silent.

The woman looked my age or even younger. Her hair was black, so deep a shade it had the same bluish tint I’d seen on a grackle as it strutted across my patio. I had a strange and fleeting thought that she might well be a grackle with her imposing nose and piercing green eyed stare.

Her dress, a rich brocade in purple and red and brilliant greens, had a scoop neck and sleeves slit to the elbow. Each of the metallic threads captured the light from the two silver candelabras on the table. The flame shaped light bulbs were the only concession to the present. Otherwise, the room mirrored Arthur’s love of the middle ages.
 

A tapestry featuring a castle, a forest, and frolicking unicorns was hung from one wall. A massive fireplace with a marble mantle took up another wall. I knew for a fact that Arthur’s Folly had central air. But in winter was everyone expected to stand in front of a fireplace? A good thing Arthur had built his castle in South Texas. Our winters were temperate. We rarely got to freezing, except in the Hill Country and we weren’t quite there.
 

The table was mahogany, well polished and draped with one long crimson silk runner on which the candelabras sat. The chairs were heavily upholstered in a tapestry like fabric, but there were only four of them, leading me to think this might be considered the family dining room. No doubt there was a grander room for company.
 

The door at the opposite end of the room opened and Dan strode through, dressed in black trousers and a crimson polo shirt. He smiled at me, went to the woman in the middle of the table and bent down to place a kiss on her cheek.

"Have you met Marcie, Mother?"

"I have not," she said turning and sending a brilliant smile in my direction.

Mother?

Was she a shape shifter, too? If so, it was certainly a beauty regimen. Her face was smooth and unlined, her lips full and crimson colored. I’d always thought that women should lighten up on the lipstick the older they got, because it made them look a little creepy and Noirish, but Dan’s mother was the exception.
 

“Janet Travis,” she said, extending her hand to me, fingers draping toward the floor as if the effort was almost beyond her.
 

I stood and moved to take her hand, knowing, before I did so, that her fingers would feel like the underbelly of a week old fish.
 

Why do women shake hands like that? Give me a woman with a firm handshake and I am liable to trust her more than someone who made me feel like I should kiss her ring.
 

Janet only wore one ring, but it was a doozy. She probably had to have some kind of ring sunshade on it so it didn’t accidentally start a fire on a sunny day. You didn’t need a laser with a diamond like that.
 

“You’re a Montgomery?” she asked, her voice holding a tinge of the old South. “Of the Dallas Montgomerys?”
 

“No,” I said. “We’re San Antonio natives.”
 

“Pity.”
 

I searched my mind for something witty and sparkling to say, but was thankfully saved by the appearance of dinner.
 

Mike's laconic description didn't do it justice. The steak turned out to be a filet mignon with a wine and mushroom sauce. The potatoes were fingerlings brushed with butter and pepper. If the cheesecake was half as good as the rest of the meal, I would be in heaven.

Dan was seated at the head of the table, which made me wonder why I was sitting at the foot. Wouldn't that be a more proper position for his mother? I could quote you from actuarial tables about railroad accidents. I wasn't versed in high society. Nor, until this moment, would I have put Dan in that category. But he looked comfortable using the tongs to select his asparagus from the platter.

Mike didn't have the same finesse, going so far as to wave off the vegetable platter and concentrating, instead, on his steak. They should have brought him two or three. I eyed his bulk, wondering what kind of animal he became. A bear, probably. Something stolidly built.

I buried any more speculation beneath my hunger.
 

For the next few minutes we talked about wine, cooking, asparagus, anchovies, and artichokes. The vegetables grew at Arthur's Folly. The steak had mooed not long ago in the pastures around the castle.

I was grateful the conversation was desultory so I could concentrate on my meal. The pleasure center of my brain, located right between my eyes, was being probed with each bite.
 

The steak was buttery, nearly dissolving on my tongue. The asparagus was crisp, tangy with a vinegary sauce and the potatoes crunched with their slight char. The wine, a deep full bodied red, was a perfect accompaniment to the meal.
 

Even my headache, no doubt a result of the confrontation with Maddock and all the stress of the last day, wasn’t enough to dim my pleasure. If I’d been alone, I’d probably be humming.
 

How shallow am I that it only takes an excellent meal to make me happy?

The siren made me jump. The sound was a whoop, whoop, whoop like one of those tornado warnings. We weren't exempt from violent weather in South Texas, but it was rare to experience tornadoes. I suspected the siren also warned of a breach in the castle’s perimeter.

Dan looked at Mike, then put his napkin on the table and stood. Mike joined him, both men leaving the room vampire fast. I watched them go, my stomach clenching.

Had Il Duce come back? Had he returned with reinforcements?

Whatever was happening didn't disturb the maid who entered the room with a tray filled with cheesecake. A woman after my own heart. Nothing interfered with my love of cheesecake. For the time it took for me to eat a slice of cheesecake, the world was a perfect place.

I surrendered my dinner plate with enthusiasm, just as the siren faded, the whoop whoop whoop draining to a feeble screech.

Suddenly, Janet stood and came to my side. Before I realized what she was doing, she grabbed my arm. My first thought was that she had really disturbing green eyes. They fixed on me like she was a spider and I was an incapacitated fly. How could this woman possibly be Dan’s mother? My second thought, tumbling on the heels of the first, was that she was hurting me.
 

The bitch was raking her nails down my arm.
 

I pulled back.
 

The girl with the cheesecake tray glanced over at the table, the expression on her face one of surprise. Evidently, Dan’s mother didn’t go crazy all that often.
 

Why now?
 

"You’re a danger to him," she said.

Before I had a chance to explain that I was only here temporarily, and that I had absolutely no intention of disturbing Dan’s life, Janet sat back down.
 

When the maid left, I almost went with her. Thankfully, I wasn’t left alone in the room with Janet very long. Seconds later, Dan returned, but without Mike.
 

“What was that all about?” I asked.

“One of the sensors went off,” he said.

“Where?”
 

He put his napkin on his lap, directed his full attention to me.

“At the southwest end of the property,” he said. “There’s another entrance there.”

“Did someone get in?”

“It doesn’t look like it.” He smiled. “It was probably an adventurous squirrel.”

I doubted he would send Mike to look if he really thought it was a squirrel.

“I understand your grandmother is a witch,” Dan’s mother said. Just like that, my worry shifted direction.
 

My arm stung where she scratched me. I glanced down to find welts starting to form.

What kind of woman does something like that?

Just how much had Dan told her? I glanced from her to him and back again. When she didn't look away, her fork poised midair between mouth and plate, I realized she was probably going to sit that way until I answered her.

"Yes," I said.
 

"What kind of witch is she?"

I blinked at her. "What kind of witch?"

"There are earth witches and air witches, fire witches and water witches. There are all also, if you go by Aristotle, witches of the spirit."

"Aristotle?"

"The five elements," she said. “Earth, air, fire, water, and the unknown. The X factor. Spirit.”

I put my fork down, my cheesecake half eaten, sat back against the throne like chair and put my hands on its arms.
 

"I haven't any idea," I said. What good was lying at this point? "I didn't know until a few weeks ago that my grandmother was a witch."

"She raised you, did she not? And you didn't know all this time?"

"She didn't raise me."

I glanced at Dan who was concentrating on his meal.

The atmosphere in the room was suddenly oppressive.

“Why do you want to know?"

She looked at Dan, then back at me.

"You’re a danger to my family," she said. “It's important to know everything I can about you."

I was in the process of formulating a brilliant response when Dan stood and held out his hand to me.
 

Bemused, I put mine in it, standing and staring at Janet. There was no love lost in her look. The woman definitely didn’t like me.
 

It wasn’t my table manners. I was a very polite eater.
 

"She’s not a danger, Mother," he said. "She's my guest and she's welcome here as long as necessary."

"Are you absolutely certain that's a smart thing to do, Dan?”

He didn't answer her and the question lingered in the air as he turned and walked with me from the dining room. We came to the main entrance with its sweeping staircase and he still hadn't said a word.
 

I had a dozen questions. None of them seemed as important as the one bubbling into speech as we mounted the stairs.

“Does she know I’m a vampire?”
 

“Yes.”
 

The next question was: how? But I wasn’t entirely certain I wanted to know. Was I glowing or sparkly? Did I give off a certain
je ne sais quoi
aroma?
 

"I'm sorry about my mother," he said. "She's excessively protective."

"Does she live here?"

He shook his head. "No, thank God. She has an apartment in downtown San Antonio.”

No doubt overlooking the River Walk where she could watch the tourists and pass judgment over each and every one. A comment I didn't make. I was, after all, a guest in his home. One did not insult the host’s mother.