Utterly Charming (17 page)

Nora’s hands felt clammy. “My office will issue you a refund in the morning.”

“No—”

“I don’t need any more money.”

He smiled. “True enough.” He started picking up the ID. “So, would you get her for me?”

“No,” Nora said.

“No?” He reacted in much the same way Blackstone had. Did no one say no to these people?

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because Emma’s my client now.”

“She can’t be. She has no identity, no money, and—it’s some sort of conflict, isn’t it?”

“No,” Nora said.

“But you were to guard her for me. And then when I came for her, you were done.”

Nora shook her head. She was waking up and spoiling for a fight. She hadn’t realized it, but she had been spoiling for a real fight all day. “You asked me to guard a microbus and its contents. You said nothing about a woman.”

“She was in the microbus. You know that. You helped her get out this morning.”

“For all I know, she crawled in this morning, and I helped her escape,” Nora said.

Sancho narrowed his eyes. For some reason, that look on him scared her a lot more than it had when Ealhswith had made the same expression. “I asked you to guard Emma.”

“I can show you my notes from the time,” Nora said. “I keep detailed notes. But I also have an excellent memory. And I believe what you said to me was that you wanted me to store the microbus. You gave me a little worksheet to show how you came up with the figures for my payment, and on top was the phrase ‘Microbus Storage.’ I told you I would not inspect the contents of that bus, and I would not relinquish the keys to anyone but you.”

“Then why did you?”

“Why did I what?”

“Inspect the contents of the bus.”

“I didn’t.”

“You have Emma.”

“I opened the back because I had been having horrible nightmares. There I found an envelope with my name on it. I followed the instructions in the envelope.”

“Seems like you broke your word.”

“I did not.”

He shrugged. “She was in my bus.”

“As of this morning,” Nora said. “But no human could be in there for ten years.”

“Who says she’s human?”

“Who says she’s not?”

They glared at each other. “You’re going to be difficult about this, aren’t you?” he asked, and she could swear that she thought he was suppressing a grin.

“No,” she said. “I’m just sick of the way that Emma’s been treated.”

“Really?”

“Really. Your friend Blackstone thinks that she will just run into his arms after he’s robbed her of centuries.”

“Don’t judge him too harshly.”

“Why not?”

“Because you don’t know the whole story.”

“Do you?”

He shook his head. “I think it’s still playing out.”

“Would it make a difference if I did know the whole story?”

“Probably not,” Sancho said. He shoved the ID at her. “You’ll need this.”

“I can’t use illegal ID.”

“You won’t. Emma will.” Then he frowned. “She is all right, isn’t she?”

“No,” Nora said. “She’s scared and traumatized and thoroughly confused by this world. And she won’t accept Blackstone’s help to get her through the hurdles.”

“I thought you wouldn’t let her accept Blackstone’s help.”

“Magically. He said he can give her a memory of the last thousand years.”

“Stupid infant,” Sancho said. “That’s not what she needs.”

“Oh?” Nora asked. “What does she need?”

“A good teacher. And frankly, my dear, you’re not it.”

“Why not?”

“What were the Europeans doing to the pagans in 1575?”

“Burning them, I assume.”

“Assume.” He frowned. “And the Chinese?”

“What about them?”

“What were they doing to people with magical abilities in 1575?”

“Our 1575?”

“Your 1575.”

She shrugged. She didn’t know enough about Chinese culture to know if they had a particular attitude toward magic or not.

“What about the Jews?”

“What about them?”

“When, if ever, did they accept the wisdom of the Kabbala?”

“The Kabbala?”

“What about Africans?”

“What about them?”

“How did they feel about magic?”

“When? In 1575?”

“Sure, for the sake of argument.”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“Clearly,” he said. “You know so little that you didn’t even ask me which tribe.”

“I didn’t ask you that about Europe, either.”

“I assumed you knew.”

“Don’t assume,” she said.

“Exactly.”

“I don’t know anyone who would know all that,” she said.

“Except me, Blackstone, and Ealhswith.”

“I’m not having any of you get near Emma.”

“I can.”

“No,” she said. “You can’t. I met you as Blackstone’s friend. Right now, he’s a danger to her.”

“Says you.”

“Says Emma.”

“As if she knows. He’s protected her for a thousand years.”

“So you say.”

“Can’t you believe the evidence of your own eyes?”

“What I’ve seen makes me wonder if he stole her from Ealhswith, who, granted, wasn’t taking good care of her either. I have to go with that.”

“You have to go with your heart.”

That stopped her. “What does that mean?”

He grinned. “You know.”

“Just because Blackstone is good-looking and charming doesn’t mean I’ll accept whatever he does.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You were implying it.”

“No, I wasn’t.” He chuckled. “But I like your misunderstanding.”

In spite of herself, she blushed. “You need to get out of here.”

“No, I don’t,” he said. “You invited me in.”

“Now I’m uninviting you. Get out.”

“You still have something that’s mine.”

“If you’re referring to Emma, you’re about a hundred years out of date. People can’t be property anymore.”

“Actually, I was referring to my microbus. I want it back.”

“Fine,” she said. “Come to my office tomorrow. We’ll liquidate the escrow account, and I’ll give you your keys.”

“Give them to me now.”

“No,” she said. “We’re going to be official about this.”

He grinned. “You like to say no.”

“Not really.”

“Yes, really. And you’re good at it. This is so wonderful.”

“I don’t see why it’s wonderful,” she said.

“You will,” he said. “Believe me. You will.”

***

Ultimately Nora chickened out and left the identification for Amanda to explain to Emma. Nora had trouble enough with the shower. The idea of bathing every day was apparently a novel one to someone from the Dark Ages. Which was why, Nora supposed, as she grabbed a bowl of cereal before heading to the office, they were called the Dark Ages. It was probably a bastardization of their real name: the Dirt Ages.

At least Emma hadn’t screamed when she went into the shower, but she had cringed for a very long time. It took Nora a while to figure out that Emma was also afraid of the hot water, after her experience the day before. Nora turned the water temperature from frigid to lukewarm, and Emma was happy. At least she was happy until Nora showed her the soap.

Emma came out of the bathroom looking fresh and rosy and even more beautiful than before. She made Nora’s favorite sundress look much better than Nora did. Darnell followed Emma wherever she went; he hadn’t even shown up for breakfast that morning, the little traitor. Which made Squidgy happy. She had all the food to herself.

For a ten-year-old cat, Darnell sure was loose with his affections. Particularly when, in the past, he wouldn’t give anyone except Nora the time of day.

Nora left the moment Amanda arrived, not willing to answer any more questions abut how cereal was made; where the cows were; how the refrigerator worked, and why she wore shoes that elevated her several inches off the ground. As Nora walked out the door, she promised Amanda some help in the next day or so, and she gave her permission to take Emma to a small park nearby. Fortunately Portland was a city of parks—it had, Nora once heard, more parks per capita than any other city in the nation. What it meant for her was that she didn’t have to go far to find greenery.

Nora did make her mother promise to take her cell phone along and not to let Emma out of her sight.

The office, after the chaos of her house, was a welcome respite. It didn’t matter that the staff had a million questions for her or that her message pile had duplicated. It didn’t matter that Max’s attorney wanted yet another list of the assets that Nora had taken from their joint home, unwilling to believe, she supposed, the first one. This one she would have to sign and notarize. The next step would probably be to get a deposition or a court order to search her loft. At some point, she would have to have her own attorney call Max and remind him that Nora was not a prosecutor, trying to hide her tactics to get Max put away on federal charges.

She breezed through the partner’s meeting, skipping over her business with Emma and the reason she had met with Blackstone. That was one of the nice things about owning her own law firm; she didn’t have to answer to anyone. They all had to answer to her.

Her mood was almost buoyant when she went to her own office. The mood collapsed immediately when she saw both Sancho and Blackstone waiting in Ruthie’s uncomfortable chairs.

Ruthie looked at Nora with a pained expression on her face. “I asked them to wait in reception,” she said. “Somehow they talked me into letting them remain here.”

That was twice in two days Blackstone had made Ruthie do something out of character. Nora would have to forbid him from using even tiny magic spells on her secretary.

“Into my office,” she snapped. “Now.”

Sancho jumped off the chair and saluted. He wasn’t wearing his suit anymore. Instead, he had on a polo shirt and a pair of khakis. Blackstone looked positively underdressed next to him, wearing what Nora was beginning to see as his signature T-shirt and jeans.

She opened her office door, and even the sight of the city, spread out before her, did not please her. She could see haze forming over the river, indicating that the day would be both hot and gray. Just what her mood needed.

She set her briefcase down but did not go to her chair. Instead, she turned, leaned on her desk, and waited until the men came into her office.

It took Blackstone a moment; he was giving Ruthie a small rose—where he got it, Nora had no idea. He hadn’t been holding it a moment before. Ruthie looked pleased and embarrassed at her own pleasure, all at the same time.

When Blackstone entered and closed the door, Nora said, “Stop toying with my secretary.”

He grinned at her, that full-watt kick-you-in-the-stomach grin that got her every time. “Jealous?”

“No,” she said a little too fast. “I just don’t like Ruthie being played with.”

“Protective.”

“At times.”

“You two understand each other better than you know,” Sancho said, and hoisted himself into the nearest chair.

“I know why you’re here,” she said to Sancho. “Why did you bring him?”

“I thought you missed him.”

“I kicked him out of my office yesterday.”

“So he said,” Sancho said.

Nora sighed. She reached into her top desk drawer and removed the microbus keys, along with the key to the lock. Then she wrote down the name of the storage place and the garage number. She pressed the intercom and told Ruthie to figure out the amount left in the escrow, minus this month’s fees, and to close the account, giving the remaining money back to Sancho in the form of a check.

“I believe that’s all our business, isn’t it?” she asked coolly.

“Not really,” he said. “I would like the opportunity to speak to Emma.”

“I’ll ask her about it.”

Sancho nodded as if he had expected as much. Then he turned to Blackstone. Blackstone glared at him. Sancho glared back.

“Is this for my benefit, or can you two stare at each other elsewhere?” Nora asked.

“I think Blackstone would like to ask you a question,” Sancho said.

“Then he should ask it. I have a long day ahead,” Nora said.

Sancho got down off the chair. “I’m going to check on the check,” he said.

“Why does this feel like a setup?” Nora asked as Sancho left.

“Because it is,” Blackstone said. He remained in the back of the room. He hadn’t come close at all this time, and she got the sense that he was nervous. “Look, you and I started off on the wrong foot.”

“Not really,” she said, her grip tightening on the desk.

“I mean, I would like to talk to you a little, get to know you better.”

“So you can grill me about Emma?”

“No, actually,” he said, sounding confused, as if he couldn’t understand why she would think such a thing.

“Then why didn’t it come up before now? You met me ten years ago. That may not be a lot of time to you, but best-case scenario, that’s one tenth of my life.”

He smiled. “You were interested in Max.”

She frowned. “How did you know?”

“The three wishes.”

“What?”

“I granted you three wishes. Success. Financial independence, and Max.”

Her mouth opened, then shut, then opened again. She didn’t say anything for the longest time, and when she finally could get her vocal chords functioning again, she said, “If you granted me three wishes, and Max was one of them, I should be living happily ever after by now.”

Blackstone shook a finger at her. “That wasn’t one of the wishes.”

“I never
asked
you for anything.”

“You didn’t have to,” he said. “You were radiating desire.”

That wasn’t for Max, you idiot, she almost blurted. But she caught herself in time. “You can read minds?” she asked, a second too late.

“No,” he said. “But people’s wishes are usually clear enough, if you observe them.”

“And you observed that the greatest desires in my life were success, wealth, and Max?”

“Not wealth, exactly,” he said. “Enough money to get by.”

“Well, I have that.” She went around her desk to her chair and sat down hard. “And so what you’re saying is that all of this was your doing. None of it was mine.”

He rolled his eyes, then sat in the chair Sancho had vacated. “Why can’t women take gifts?”