Witches in Flight (16 page)

She eyed his baggy sweater and corduroys.
 
“And you don’t look like a rich suit
with money to burn.”

Half the room snorted with laughter.
 
The other half held their breath.
 
Josh wasn’t at all sure which camp he was in.

Chester’s gaze never moved off Lizard.
 
“You’re the brains behind the maps idea?
 
The one who did the original version?”

Josh landed both feet in the breath-holding camp.
 
Damn Chester and his unswerving
instincts.

Finally Lizard answered.
 
One word.
 
“Yeah.”

“Show me what you made.”

Now Lizard squirmed.
 
“It’s not nearly as pretty as Josh’s prototype.”

Chester just snorted.
 
“You think it’s pretty I care about, girl?
 
I want to know if you have the brains to make something that
really works for the people who do the job every day.
 
Show me what you use.”

Time to earn his paycheck.
 
Josh walked over to Lizard’s side.
 
“If you give me your laptop, Danny will hook it up.
 
You can give us all a quick tour.”

The look Lizard gave him could have melted glass.
 
He really, really hoped Jamie was wrong
on the chicken-dancing thing.
 
He
met her gaze evenly.
 
Chester had
got her into this—he was just trying to help her get out.
 
Don’t flame the messenger’s
brain-cells.

When she handed over her laptop, he felt like he’d planted a
flag on the top of Everest.
 

He wasn’t at all surprised when she took over the controls from
Danny and wrapped the room around her little finger in less than three
minutes.
 
Even Chester was nodding
with interest when she finished—and he rarely showed any reaction.

Lizard closed her laptop and turned to Chester, badass attitude
all over her face.
 
“Good enough
for you?”

Chester waited a moment.
 
Two.
 
And then his face
split in a smile the size of California.
 
“Damn, I like you.
 
I have
two million for your project.
 
Another mil if you get the financing to break-even.”

Josh sat back and grinned as a roomful of people in suits rushed
to pile money on top of Chester’s.
 
They’d have three times the funds they needed.
 
And if Lizard scowled any harder, Chester might just throw
in that third million right now.

She was every kind of awesome.

~ ~ ~

--------------------------------------

To:
[email protected]

From:
Jamie Sullivan <
[email protected]
>

Subject:
She kicked butt.

--------------------------------------

Hey
Aunt Jennie,

I know you’d have killed to be a fly on the wall, so here’s the
official report, coming to you from a quiet corner of Josh’s meeting room.

I’m currently watching an investor stampede.
 
I hope Josh has plans to spend an awful
lot of money, and I’m going to be seriously peeved if he doesn’t let me put
mine in.
 
Lizard worked the room
with a strange combination of delinquent attitude and serious business savvy,
and currently has an obnoxious, tech-allergic billionaire eating out of her
hand (I don’t think she knows about his billions).

However, all that pales in comparison to how Josh worked
Lizard.
 
And I mean that in the
best of all possible senses.

We had a bit of an unplanned epiphany in the hallway before the
meeting (and whoever bet she’d show up in holey jeans wins the betting pool).
 
Lizard and I were having a bit of a
mental chat, and Josh picked up on it.
 
I forgot he knows I can mindread.
 
Anyhow, so two minutes before the investor smack-down starts, Josh figures
out Lizard’s a witch.

She was way freaked.
 
Something about being afraid they would lock her up.

And he takes her hand, talks her down in three sentences, and
drags her into the meeting.
 
Which
takes some serious guts—and some serious like for our resident
delinquent.

I have the sudden, insane urge to wish that, one day, my
daughter will meet a guy that cool.
 
Which makes me feel really old.

Over
and out,

Jamie

~ ~ ~

Elsie slid into her leotard, wondering how she’d managed to live
before discovering the trapeze.
 
For a woman who’d made it to thirty-two years old with very few true
passions in life, she was making up for lost time.

Abe walked over, an easy grin sprouting as he caught sight of
her new leotard.
 
“Nice—love
the sparkles.”

Elsie looked down at the results of a four-hour sewing marathon,
ably assisted by Helga and three very opinionated triplets.
 
“I vetoed rainbows, but it’s still
pretty shiny.”
 
And her heart
adored the silver sequins, but she was a bit worried her heart was permanently stuck
at ten years old.
 
You didn’t see a
lot of rainbows in jazz bars.

Then again, Helga had tried to steal it, so perhaps it wasn’t
quite as childish as she feared.
 
Elsie shook her head—being a child was part of the point.
 
Some days she felt like fifteen Elsies.

Abe was still grinning.
 
“Done with the internal debate?”

She blushed.
 
“Sorry.
 
I used to be a
psychologist.
 
Sometimes I
overanalyze things.”
 
And the “used
to” part of that sentence really bothered her lately.

He gave her a friendly nudge in the direction of the
ladder.
 
“Head on up.
 
Colleen and Elliot are trying a new
move today, and they’d like some eyes to help them figure out why it’s not coming
together.
 
Maybe we can put that
analytical brain of yours to work.”

Elsie laughed—she was hardly the one who was going to
solve expert-level-trapeze-trick issues.
 
But it was nice to be included anyhow.
 
“What are they working on?”

“Mid-air kiss.”
 
He
chuckled, climbing the ladder after her.
 
“So far they’re just getting bruised heads.”

She couldn’t even manage romance on the ground.
 
Elsie stepped onto the small platform
and watched the pair on the mirroring platform having a fairly heated
discussion.
 

“Uh, oh.”
 
Abe sat
down beside her.
 
“Colleen’s
finally mad—that’s not a good sign.”

Elsie wondered—Vero had given her a very different window
on intense emotions.
 
“Maybe it
will help them work through to something new.”

Her trainer raised an eyebrow.
 
“That’s the kind of thing Elliot would say, but his family
is full of mad, passionate Spaniards.
 
What’s your excuse?”

She grinned, watching the squabbling couple with new eyes.
 
“My last name is Giannotto.
 
Italians own being madly
passionate.”
 
She blinked.
 
Sometimes the new Elsie talked without
thinking.
 
It was still
disconcerting.
 
Abe, however,
seemed to be taking it totally in stride.

“I don’t know about that.”
 
He shook his head, still watching the opposite platform.
 
“Helga says she’s good German stock,
and she brought that old guy Edric to watch her on the trapeze yesterday.
 
There were some serious sparks flying
between those two.”
 
He
grinned.
 
“I hope my wife and I can
pull that off when we’re their age.”

Sparks.
 
Elsie
rested her head on her knees, lost in thought.
 
Helga had sparks.
 
Nat and Jamie had sparks—big, fat ones.
 
Lizard had plenty flying her direction, even if she ignored
them.
 

Elsie Giannotto wanted sparks.
 
Heck—she wanted raging bonfires.
 
Just once.
 
Maybe with Anton she was finally getting her chance.

She watched as Elliot climbed back on to his trapeze, still
scowling—and transferred his partner to her bar with casual strength and
impeccable timing.
 
A few easy
swings to synch up, a quick flip of positions that had Elsie drooling, and
Colleen and Elliot executed a perfect mid-air kiss.

More proof, if she needed it.
 
Sometimes passion really worked.

Nat looked out at her class, amused and proud.
 
Her husband was in his usual place in
the back row, pretending he didn’t really like yoga—and flowing through
the postures with an ease and willing grace that belied his protests.

Not that he protested very hard these days.
 
He claimed he came because he liked to
ogle her pregnant belly and wait for the day she finally fell over in tree
pose.
 
He had a while to wait
yet—she could feel the comfortable weight in her womb growing roots out
through her feet.

She worked her way around the room, a hand here to correct
alignment, a few words there.
 
She
prided herself on being in the moment with each student—but the antics in
the back row weren’t ever far from her attention.

With a sure and crooked path, she worked her way to the back of
the room.
 
Her husband grinned and
winked as she got close.
 
You
can’t sneak up on a mind witch, sweetheart.
 
Even one really grumpy about triangle pose.

Nat just smiled.
 
Lizard’s triangle pose was quite excellent for a beginner—her
husband had forgotten his early days.
 
She loved helping those new to yoga find their first comfortable
alignment, and her hands moved even now to help Lizard flow more easily.
 

But what touched her heart the most was Elsie—mat down on
Lizard’s other side, making an intentional mess of her own pose and quietly
modeling simple corrections.
 
All
while seemingly ignoring her friend.
 

Good teachers led from the front.
 
Great ones led from wherever worked.
 
And her always-in-the-front-row intern
was teaching.
 
Beautifully.
 
From the back row.

Nat glanced at her husband, expecting that he would have their
usual mindlink in place.
 
She
learns quickly.

He stretched deeper into his own triangle pose.
 
Lizard or Elsie?

Both.
 
Nat watched her two students.
 
Lizard has a good sense of herself
in space—she’ll take to yoga easily enough if she chooses.
 
It was a great irony in her life that
those who most often chose yoga were those who found it least easy—and
the innately flexible walked away.

Perhaps those who walk away don’t need it as badly.
 
Jamie flowed smoothly into half-moon asana, snagging a kiss
as he went, and then looked over at Elsie.
 
Or maybe they come back eventually.

Yes.
 
Elsie had come
back—and returned so very changed from the woman who had walked around
the studio floor with little bits of green tape, obsessively correcting the
organic scatter of yoga mats.