When a Gargoyle Awakens (10 page)

Kylie flicked her eyes in his direction, and instead of the simpering adoration his good looks usually elicited from her, she felt queasy.  She certainly hadn’t liked the way he had almost interrogated her after the party the other night.  Now, she was worried that if he did start asking her questions she really would crack and tell him everything about Luc.  She had a very bad feeling that if Holling knew about Luc, it wouldn’t end well.

“I still say he should get a nose ring,” commented Maggie, as she took a predator size bite out of her cheeseburger.  Seriously, where did she put it all?

Kylie blushed and looked down as Holling caught her staring at him.  Suddenly, her salad was incredibly interesting.

Maggie kicked her under the table.  Kylie looked up, ready to give her an earful, and started as she realized Holling was standing next to their table.  The man moved like a freaking cat.

He smiled in what he clearly thought was a disarming manner.  Maggie agreed with him on that matter, or at least she must have because she was actually fluttering her eyelashes and touching her hair.  To Kylie, his smile was just chilly.

Holling said hello to Maggie before turning to Kylie and giving her his undivided and unwanted attention.  “Kylie, how are you?”

“Ummm, fine,” she replied, mystified.

His eyes didn’t leave her.  In fact, she didn’t think he was actually blinking.  “I heard you were in trouble last night.”

Maggie looked at her curiously and belatedly Kylie remembered about her mugger or thwarted mugger at least.  With all the excitement about Luc, she had completely forgotten about him.  Huh, she wondered what happened to that guy.  Hell’s underwear!  She hoped that damn idiot didn’t run off and mug someone smaller and weaker than her.  No, if that had happened, she would have heard about it by now.  Things like that didn’t stay quiet for long.  After a couple of kids stole one of Ms. Perkins’ chickens everyone heard about it within an hour.  They were drunk and wanted eggs.  It all ended well, for the chicken at least.  Ms. Perkins clobbered the boys with her purse.  She keeps bricks in her purse in case of rapists.  She just turned sixty-five and sported a moustache that Tom Selleck would envy, but she didn’t take any chances.

Kylie smiled in polite confusion.  “Oh, I don’t know where you heard that,” she bluffed. 

Holling stared at her.  It wasn’t an angry stare, no, it was a stare that could see into her very soul and the stare knew that she was lying.  He crouched on the ground next to her and took her hand as tender concern crept over his face.  Kylie stiffened at his touch in surprise.  His eyebrows furrowed at her reaction, but he soon smoothed them back into his endearing, puppy dog face.

“How’s your head?”

“Hmmm?”  All thoughts were currently directed on coming up with a plan to get her hand back.

“You hit it the other night – I was worried about you.”  There was that tender concern again.

“I’m fine,” she shrugged. 

Hmmm, what was with this reaction?  He wasn’t worried enough to visit her yesterday, nor did he send flowers with the motto ‘hope you get better soon’.  This concern was a little leftfield and a little unsettling.  For the past four weeks she had been, a little pathetically, trying to get his attention and hinting about wanting to go to dinner with him.  Sadly – or maybe un-sadly, all of her hints had fallen on deaf, uninterested ears.  Even at the party he had only talked to her because he seemed bored.  But what?  Was she was supposed to believe that because she hit her head two nights ago he was suddenly desperate for her company? 

Her eyes slid past Holling and his look of almost mocking earnestness and saw that Lara was glaring at her with hatred.  Well, that was new – what had she ever done to Lara?  Oh, gawd!  Was she getting into the middle of some tedious love triangle between Lara, Andrew and Holling?  Well, with her presence it would be a love square.  She giggled, and a brief stab of annoyance passed over Holling’s face.

Kylie felt a rush of impatience.  She didn’t invite him over to ruin her day – really, he had no right to get annoyed.  “Really, Holling, I’m fine.  I’m just having lunch with my friend.”

He pouted ever so slightly at the brush off, and Maggie had to hide her smirk.  She doubted Holling had ever been turned down by a woman, and certainly not by a chubby woman he usually wouldn’t even give the time of day.

“As long as you’re okay,” he murmured, reluctantly standing to his feet.  He stretched out his tall, gloriously muscled body, deliciously highlighted by a tight t-shirt.  Kylie swore she heard a few sighs from the female patrons of the diner. 

“I’m sure I’ll see you around town.”  He flashed a ten thousand volt smile.  “Enjoy your lunch, ladies.”

He sauntered over to the disapproving Lara, garnering lots of lusty stares from the pink ladies from the local salon – all over sixty and all sporting pink rinses.  A moment later he escorted Lara out the door.  Gary gave Lara a love-sick pup stare – a lot of that going around – and then resumed pretending he wasn’t furtively watching Kylie and Maggie.  He was acting very oddly.  Or, more oddly than usual.  Or, slightly more oddly than usual.

“That was great!” cried Maggie.

“Shhhh!” admonished Kylie, picking at her salad.

“That was great!” she whispered, with no less enthusiasm.  “He’s into you and you turned him away.  Arrogant tit thinks he can have any woman he wants.  Well, you showed him – ha!”

“I’m sure he was just being friendly,” muttered Kylie, not at all pleased with this turn of events.  Couldn’t he just go back to not even caring if she was alive?

“Puh-lease!”

“No, I can’t believe he’s actually interested in me.”  That was a world that involved unicorns, flying pigs and used car salesmen you could trust.

Maggie scowled; she looked like a pixie who’d been told they’d run out of gumdrops.  She was too cute to look really angry.  “Why not?  You’re curvy and cute, and much more interesting than the brain-dead twinsets they grow around here.”

Martha, one of the brain-dead twinsets, and Maggie’s cousin, snorted as she walked past.

“He’s been ignoring me for the past month, and now he’s interested?  No, something fishy’s going on here.  And did you see the look Lara was giving me?  Something tells me they’re more than just friends.”

“So if he asked you out, you’d say no?”

“Well… it depends on how hungry I was.”  She couldn’t be the first woman to go out on a date just because she wanted to eat.  “Plus, I might be a little curious to find out just why he’s suddenly interested in me.”  Although she wasn’t happy about the twinge she felt at just the thought of going on a date with anyone.

“Plus, you should see what you can make him do for you.  To prove how interested he is, and to prove how much he’s willing to put up with.”

“Like what?” Kylie asked with severe misgivings.  As much as she loved Maggie, she wouldn’t be her first port of call for love advice.  But then her last serious relationship ended much the way of the Titanic – so what did she know?

“I don’t know – washing your car, maybe.”

Kylie giggled.  “I’m not going to make him wash my car.”

Maggie snorted prettily.  “Hey don’t knock it until you try it.  Where do you think Eldon is right now?”

“The nervous young man from the party is washing your car?  Seriously?”

“Sure.  He cleaned my oven last night, too.  First time it’s ever been cleaned.”

Kylie chuckled.  “You’re unbelievable.”

“Thank you,” she preened.  “On another subject, I heard from a very reliable source, that there is a witch in town.”

Kylie paused with a piece of lettuce hovering between her mouth and the plate.  “A witch?”

“Yep.”

“Really?  And who was your reliable source?”  She wondered if it was as reliable as the time she was told Bigfoot was paying the town a visit.  It turned out to be a tourist in a mink coat.

“Deirdre’s oldest.”

“You mean the eighteen-year-old whose sole mission in life is to drink booze and make out with her boyfriend?”  Miranda worked part-time in Maggie’s store when she wasn’t lip-locked with her older boyfriend who constantly plied her with beer.  Kylie was very disapproving.

Maggie ignored this.  “She says she saw something flying over the town and making a screeching noise last night.”

Kylie dropped her fork.  That must have been her and Luc.  Blood rushed to her face, and then immediately drained from it.  She was changing color faster than a mood ring.  The noise she made was hardly a screech; it was a yelp at best.  “Miranda was probably drunk,” she said, trying not to sound too shaky.

Maggie smiled and dollar signs practically shined in her eyes.  “Tourists don’t need to know that.  I’m thinking of putting together some more night tours, you know, spot the witch.”

And knowing Maggie, she would probably have her uncle hang-gliding through town in a black cloak, witch’s hat and fake nose.  “Sounds like a plan,” muttered Kylie.

“Are you okay?  You look very warm.” 

“I’m probably just allergic to lettuce.”  Or allergic to the flavor.

“Me too.”   Maggie pulled out the crisp piece of lettuce from her burger and happily continued eating.

Kylie watched her friend covertly as she munched her way through the remainder of her salad.  She was too preoccupied to notice even the blandness of her food.

Maggie was always prepared to believe anything.  Be it fairies or goblins or even Santa Claus – she’d believe in it if someone told her they’d seen it.  Kylie imagined that she would readily accept Luc’s presence, much more readily than Kylie had.  That thought gave her a twinge.  As far as she knew, she was the only one who even knew about Luc at the moment.  As twisted as it may be, it made her feel special.  She wasn’t sure what would happen if she introduced him to her younger, prettier and friendlier friend.  But then, that wasn’t her decision. 

She would speak to Luc that night, and get some answers.  Then they would discuss how they were to move forward.  And Kylie would warn him about flying too close to the town.  It was all fun and games when he was mistaken for a witch by a drunken teenager, but the last thing she wanted was someone trying to shoot him out of the sky.

Chapter Sixteen

Andrew Hardcastle frowned at his fiancée.  For some reason, she had taken it upon herself to start knitting.  Not very successfully, it must be said.  In all the time he had known her, from the moment they bumped into each other at his favorite coffee shop, and throughout their whirlwind romance, he had never seen her take an interest in… well, anything. 

He hadn’t noticed at first.  When they were living in New York, there was always something to do and somewhere to go.  But in Devil’s Hang, there was nothing to do and nowhere to go.  Comparatively speaking, anyway.  Looking back, Lara hadn’t exactly been interested in actually doing anything.  Art galleries and plays seemed to bore her.  But she seemed to like it when they were busy.  Now that they weren’t, it was clear how little there was to talk about.

Lara swore and threw the knitting across the room.

“Having fun?” he asked, humorously.

She scowled at him and stomped across the room to pick up a newspaper.  She wrestled with the thing for ten minutes before that went the way of the knitting.

He guessed this was all down to his comment the other day about her restlessness.  She wasn’t happy living in a small town; he could tell.  He’d have to be downright oblivious not to notice.  She had taken to sighing more than a southern belle.

He suggested she go back to New York.  He had hoped she would.  A small town was not the place for Lara – and definitely not a moody Lara.  She bored very easily.  But she was insistent that she stay by his side, even though that depressed both of them no end.

Andrew found he actually liked the house and the town.  He regretted he had not visited more over the years.  But he particularly regretted that he had left it so late to get to know his uncle.  In the last couple of weeks before his death, they had actually started to enjoy each other’s company.  It was a shock to both of them!

Ten years ago, after Andrew’s father died, his uncle had pressed him to visit, repeatedly.  But Andrew hadn’t been interested.  He was finally out from under the heel of his nightmare of a father, and he wasn’t about to get trapped by his father’s brother.  It wasn’t fair of him; he knew that.  Uncle Edwin had been nothing like his father.  But, he was twenty-one at the time and not interested in trading one abusive bastard for another.  So he pushed his uncle away, and eventually Uncle Edwin stopped trying and instead took to calling him a wastrel.  Which he was - for a few years anyway.  He dropped out of college and was trying to make it big with his grunge band.  They didn’t make it big.  They were terrible.  While some bands may be able to get away with not being able to play their instruments very well, Spilt Milk – his band – was not one of them.  After a couple of years floating from one friend’s couch to the next, he pulled himself together and started his own real estate company.  It was slow going, but he was tenacious and had actually learned a trick or two from his dad aka Hitler mark II.  Now he had a successful company and a beautiful fiancée.  Although, he was only really proud of one of those things at the moment.

“Why don’t you go back to New York, Lara?  I’ll be fine here on my own.”