"Maybe not for nothing," he said.
She looked down at him, and for the first time, he saw hope in her eyes. "Why?" she asked. "Have you heard something?"
Heard something? He just shrugged. "What if some good looking senior came over here and asked you to go to the drive-in with him?" he said, as suavely as he could manage. And then he waited for her eyes to light up.
And they did. Widened and lit and shone, and she started to smile.
"You have heard something, haven't you? Is it him? Is it Bobby Ridgeway? Is he really going to ask me out? I had a feeling he was, but I didn't trust my own...oh my Goddess, here he comes!"
Nathan stood there feeling as if he'd just been dropped into a play where he didn't know the lines, while Bobby Ridgeway, the biggest jock in school, and until this very second one of Nathan's best buds, pulled up in his dad's station wagon and blew the horn.
"Hi, Bobby!" Aurora waved so hard that Nathan thought her hand would fall off, and went running down the steps to the car.
Nathan couldn't hear what they were saying after that. Just Bobby revving the Ford's motor once in a while and Aurora's deep, soft laughter. She didn't giggle. He'd never once heard Aurora giggle. A minute later she got in the passenger side and the wagon roared away.
Bobby Ridgeway was no dummy. Apparently he, too, had noticed that there was more to Aurora Sortilege than an overdeveloped brain and an Addams Family upbringing. Only he'd noticed a lot quicker than Nathan had.
The front door opened and Aurora's Aunt Fauna, five feet tall and three feet wide with blazing orange hair, stepped out looking heartbroken. "Oh, Nathan," she said, as if she knew. "I'm so sorry."
He wiped the stricken expression off his face and got up. "Hey, sorry for what? You oughta be happy. That niece of yours finally got a date. I was beginning to think it'd never happen." He turned to go, then turned back again and thrust the small, clumsily wrapped box into the woman's pudgy hand. "Give this to her when she gets back, will ya?"
"Of course I will. Thank you, Nathan. That was so thoughtful."
He shrugged and turned to leave. Thoughtful, heck. It was a pity gift, just like it would have been a pity date. He didn't even like Aurora. Never had.
Never would.
#
Aurora’s Graduation Day
Aurora was valedictorian of the graduating class. She could have felt a little bad about that. Probably should have. After all, she was only sixteen, and was graduating early, and most of the other seniors thought one of them should have won the honor—that she should have been disqualified because she didn't really belong.
She'd never really belonged.
But she refused to feel guilty. Because the salutatorian—the sap who would have made valedictorian if not for Aurora—was none other than Nathan McBride. And he'd been a lousy jerk to her all year long. Sure, they'd never really gotten along, but he'd been worse than ever this year. It seemed to Aurora that it had begun about the time she'd started dating Bobby Ridgeway.
And she used to think Bobby and Nathan were friends!
Well, apparently not. But she didn't see why Nathan was taking it out on her. It had ended with Bobby, anyway. He'd pulled a hamstring at football practice in the middle of the season, and was going to have to miss an important game. So, being bound by oath and ancestral blood to help others whenever possible, Aurora had offered to work a healing for him.
He'd acted as if she'd claimed to have two heads. Said he didn't think all the talk about her being a Witch was anything more than gossip, or he'd have never asked her out. He called her a psycho and a weirdo and a dozen other names, and dumped her like a carton of sour milk. And as if that wasn't bad enough, he went around telling everyone at school that Aurora really believed she was a Witch. As if it was impossible, for goodness' sake!
And then Mindy had tried to help. She really had. It wasn't her fault it backfired. Mindy had moved into town only last year, and she'd felt like an outsider too, at first. Aurora, being who and what she was, had tried to make her feel welcome when everyone else had just ignored her. They'd become friends, and even when Mindy started hearing the gossip, she'd stuck by Aurora.
One day, Mindy heard some of the jerks scoffing about the Wallingford High Witch, and she jumped in their faces. Told them how Aurora had sped up the healing on her broken leg earlier that year, and how she'd been able to play soccer again before the end of the season, against the doctor's predictions and everyone's expectations.
But instead of helping, it only made matters worse. Everyone knew about her leg, and the unusually speedy recovery. But until then, no one knew the rest. And until then, everyone had ribbed and teased Aurora about the whole Witch thing, but no one had really believed it.
Now they did. And everything changed after that. When Aurora walked down the hall, conversations would stop, and wary eyes would watch her. Students, and even a few of the teachers, would step well out of her path to give her a wide berth. It was as if they were afraid of her.
Except for Mindy, of course.
And lousy rotten old Nathan McBride. He wasn't afraid of her, didn't believe in magick anyway, and probably wouldn't have been afraid of her even if he had. He laughed at the kids who acted skittish around Aurora and kept right on teasing her just the way he always had. "Hey, Broom-Hilda," he'd yell, because he was too dense to know the name was Brynhild and that she was a Valkyrie, not a Witch. "Get your broom outta your locker and fly it over here, will ya? I spilled something." Or " 'Rora, you'd best get your butt into that science lab and turn the eighth period class back into humans again before somebody dissects them!"
She hated that boy.
He would always follow up by thumbing his nose at her, turning to his pale and wide-eyed companions, and saying, "See? I'm still in one piece. No warts, no locusts. I told you nothing would happen."
She figured he was probably tormenting her to prove she wasn't a Witch at all. Just a crazy teenager with delusions. And if she hadn't had the Witches' Rede drilled into her for most of her life, she might just have supplied him with whatever proof he required, the more painful the better.
But she couldn't do that. Wouldn't do it. She was a healer. She was going to medical school to become an even better one. If she went around causing harm, she might just lose the healing gift she'd been born with, and that would break her heart.
At the graduation ceremony, she delivered a short speech no one really wanted to hear, about kindness and tolerance and open-mindedness and freedom. And she wore a tiny pair of emerald earrings.
When it was over, and everyone threw their hats in the air, someone turned to hug her impulsively, and she impulsively hugged back. And then she realized it was Nathan, and backed away with a gasp.
He blinked and looked as surprised as she was. Then his gaze shifted downward just slightly, and he smiled. "You wore them," he said.
The crowds surged around them, tugging them apart. She was surrounded by her loving aunts, and he was being slapped on the back by his father and a bunch of relatives from out of town.
And that was the last time she saw Nathan McBride for a very long time.
Chapter One
Present Day, October
Nathan McBride stared across the fancy restaurant's most secluded table into Elsie Kincaid's big blue eyes. The taper candle set her blond hair aglow with its golden gleam, and cast shadows into the depths of her cleavage. And he did mean depths. It was like Davy Jones's Locker down there, and he was more than ready to go diving. The way she kept leaning over the table suggested she was ready, too.
And so what if those baby blues eyes were a little vacant? It wasn't as if he was looking for a prospective brain surgeon here. He just wanted to get laid. Period.
He felt a little guilty for that rather unenlightened thought, but damn, frustration would turn a red-blooded man into a chauvinistic beast pretty fast. He ought to know. He'd been frustrated for well over a decade now.
He pushed his plate aside
, reached across the table, took her hand in both of his. "You ready to order dessert?" he asked her softly.
"Oh, Nate, I think you know what I'd like for dessert."
He clenched his teeth and managed not to grimace when she called him "Nate," which he detested. It wasn't hard to ignore that minor irritant when her foot, minus its spike-heeled shoe, began running up the inside of his leg under the table.
Hot damn, this is it.
"So, um, can I take you back to my..." He bit his lip. "Your place?" No more taking chances by bringing a woman back to his place. He was beginning to think it was haunted. There was the night with that blue-eyed blonde, Suzanne, when the heating ducts decided to spew black smoke. And the time with that other blue-eyed blonde, Rebecca, when the air conditioner mysteriously caught fire. And don't forget the blue-eyed blonde, Anne Marie, and the SWAT team with the wrong address.
Nope. Not with...er...Elsie. Yeah. Elsie. With a chest to match the name, he thought. Then he realized he was turning into a real pig.
"Sure," she said. "My place is great." She slinked out of the chair and across the floor for his viewing pleasure, pausing at the exit to send a wink over her shoulder at him. She was very good at slinking. He fumbled for his wallet, dropped it twice, and fished out a handful of bills to pay for their meal. Then he got up and wandered out after her.
And the whole time, he was feeling very nervous. Glancing over his shoulder. Wondering what could possibly go wrong this time.
She sat behind the wheel of his car, the Jag he'd spent a small fortune on because no man could drive a Jag and not have constant bouts of wild sex, right?
Wrong, as it turned out, but it had been worth a shot.
Elsie called out the window to him. “Can I drive it, Nate, sweetie? I'd be soooo grateful.”
"Oh, yeah," he said, and stopped near the door to hand her the keys. She started the engine, and it gave its distinctive Jaguar roar when she revved it. Nathan smiled, about to turn and walk around to the passenger side.
He only vaguely heard the change in the engine's sound when she slipped the shift into gear. The way the tires spun when she popped the clutch was a whole lot louder, causing him to spin around in surprise. And of course, he was paying complete attention when the sideview mirror of his car plowed into him like a wrecking ball intent on castration.
Elsie screamed before Nathan ever hit the pavement. Then he landed like a ton of bricks. He heard those heels clicking toward him, heard her babbling about her foot slipping, saw her cleavage in his face as she bent over him and figured that was about as close as he'd ever get to it. He was going to die a virgin.
Then he passed out.
"Ooops!" Fauna said.
She and her sisters stood around the crystal ball, looking on, wide-eyed.
"Oh dear!" gasped Flora. "Did we kill him?"
"No, but we might have damaged something vital!" Fauna shouted. "Did you see where that bubblehead hit him?"
"He'll be all right." Merriwether stroked the crystal ball with her palm. "Aurora is on E. R. duty tonight. Now that she's finally come home, it's high time we see to the business of getting those two together."
"And not a moment too soon. I'm exhausted." Fauna fanned herself. "I vow, Merriwether, I've never seen a man so determined to...dip his wick."
"Fauna!" Flora's shocked voice and red cheeks stopped her sister's mischievous grin.
Merri simply shook her head at the both of them. "You're overstating it, Fauna. Any man would be acting just the same."
"But he tries every night!"
"And every night we have to bring disaster crashing down on his head. You'd think he'd give up after a while, wouldn't you?" Flora asked softly, shaking her head and looking truly sorry for all the havoc they'd been forced to wreak on Nathan McBride's life.
"He isn't thinking with his brain, sisters," Fauna quipped with an impish grin.
"He just doesn't realize that he's been waiting for her all along. Well,, with a little help from us. But once he does..." Flora's clasped hands pressed to her cheek, her lashes fluttering. “Oh, I wish I could be there to see it when their eyes meet across the room for the first time, and Cupid's arrow hits them right in their tender little hearts."
Fauna stifled a laugh and snorted. "I'll admit it would be good to see that man hit with something besides his own car!" She and Flora burst into laughter at that, and while Merri sniffed indignantly at their irreverence, she had to battle a grin herself.
#
"Dr. Sortilege to E. R." the hushed voice on the P. A. system repeated. Aurora hurriedly gulped the rest of her herbal tea and got up from the first break she'd had all night to rush down the hall to the emergency room, her senses pricking to full alertness and telling her all she needed to know.
It was not a life-threatening injury coming in. It was minor, but pretty painful to the victim. Her brain told her those things before she ever set foot inside the treatment room, just as it told her when things were not so good. It was nice, this gift she'd inherited from her ancestors. It gave her time to prepare, and more often than not, helped her make her patients well again.
She'd had the powers for too long to consider them odd. They were just a gift of heredity, like her cornsilk-blond hair and blue eyes. Then again, she didn't broadcast the fact that she was a Witch, either. While she was at work, her gold Pentacle rested under her white coat. But it didn't matter. Everyone in this town knew about those strange Sortilege women in the old house on the hill. She'd thought they might have forgotten while she'd been away, but no such luck. For some reason, though, the whispers and gossip no longer bothered her. Maybe because she was an adult now, sure of herself, who she was and what she was. Confident and proud of both. And maybe because of that change in attitude—or maybe because they'd done some growing up, too—the gossips were not as malicious or mean-spirited as they had been in high school.
Some of the locals looked at her oddly. Some were nervous around her and simply avoided her. Some came to her asking for love potions or lottery numbers. But most of the longtime residents just shrugged off her family's weirdness. They'd had generations to get used to it, after all.
She stepped into the treatment room, quickly scanning the chart the nurse handed her. "Hello, Mr...." Her eyes found the name. "McBride?"
She blinked, and lifted her gaze to the man on the bed.
His eyes were closed as he lay there, hurting pretty badly, not looking back at her. But it was him. And she felt something. Some jolt. A psychic buzz. She swallowed hard and shook herself.
"Call me Nathan," he told her through gritted teeth. He turned his head toward her and opened his eyes, but they focused on the front of her lab coat instead of her face. His eyes widened with interest then, and his gaze slid down her body, over her legs to her toes, and back up again. "Call me anything you want, as a matter of fact."
"Nathan McBride," she said slowly, lifting her brows. "You’re the same jerk you always were, I see."
He frowned, bringing his eyes up to meet hers, and then she saw the recognition in them. He glanced at the name tag pinned to her white coat. "Dr. Sortilege. Holy crap, Broom-Hilda's back."
"That's right," she said, and she lifted her chin and forced a smile. If no one else's opinions mattered to her anymore, then why did his lighthearted barb sting? "The little girl who used to play tag-a-long. You must remember. You said I was a pest, and that my aunts were weirdos and that I would probably grow up with warts on my nose."
Her patient's face went a shade whiter, and he licked his lips nervously. "You...have a real good memory, Aurora." He tried for a smile. "Do you hold a grudge as long?"
"Of course not," she said with a sweet smile, and then turned to a stainless steel tray full of instruments at the ready, picked up the longest, sharpest scalpel on it, and tested its edge with her thumb. "Nurse, bring in the cranial drill, will you?"
"Hey, wait a min—"
She looked at her patient and winked. The nurse, Meg, a f
riend of hers, burst out laughing while Nathan McBride, former jerk of the universe, sat in the bed staring from one of them to the other. "You ladies are brutal."
"No more than you were ten years ago," Aurora quipped. She handed the scalpel to Meg. "Get this sterilized, will you?"
Meg nodded and left the room. Aurora managed to stop smiling and leaned over the bed. "I guess you're hurting enough right now without me adding to it."
"Does it show?" he asked wryly. "And here I'm trying to impress you by being too manly to let a little pain bother me.
"You can't hide it from me, anyway, so don't waste the effort."
"Yeah, I forgot. You're a Witch."
"And a doctor," she reminded him, lest he forget.
"A Witch doctor? God help me."
"Watch yourself, Nathan, or you'll be sitting on a lily pad eating flies."
"Very funny." He laid back on the pillow, then eyed her. "You were kidding, right?"
" 'An it harm none, do what ye will,' " she quoted. "It’s a Witch’s only rule."
"Lucky for me."
"You're damn right, it is."
He frowned at her, but she didn't elaborate. "Your nurse filled me in already. So let's see if I have this straight," she went on. "Your date drove your Jaguar into your groin, is that about right?" She leaned over him and lifted his shirt away from his belly. He hadn't gone to pot. He had washboard abs that sent little tingles of awareness up into her fingers when she touched him there. Ignoring the shivers, she probed his abdomen gently. "Is this tender?"
"Yeah. A little bit."
She took her hand away, and held it, palm down, a fraction of an inch above his groin, and she closed her eyes.
"You preparing to grab me?" He sounded a little nervous.
She smiled slightly. "Shhhhh. Relax for a second."
He did. She felt the pain, the bruising, but nodded, reassured that the damage wasn't serious. She'd confirm her diagnosis in a more scientific manner, of course. But she always felt better knowing as soon as possible.
Three Witches and a Zombie Page 2