Only a few people dined here in mid-afternoon—a couple who couldn’t get enough of each other and a few businessmen and -women trying to impress one another.
Cornelius rose as the maître d’ led me to his table in an alcove by a window. The smoked glass gave me a view of the gardens and the distant pool where I’d battled for my life. Cornelius held out my chair for me and pushed it in when I sat.
He seated himself again and said nothing while a waiter laid my napkin in my lap for me. I almost punched him before I realized what he was doing.
Cornelius smiled as though he understood my awkwardness. I consoled myself that even though I didn’t know how to act in a swanky restaurant, I looked kick-ass in this dress.
“The chef is preparing a meal to my order, but if you don’t care for any of the dishes and want something else, you have but to ask.” Cornelius gave me his kind look. “Do you drink wine?”
Another waiter hovered with a bottle. I didn’t drink much, but I enjoyed a glass of wine every once in a while. Cassandra had taught me what good wine should be like, and Janet’s saloon, when it was whole, stocked a decent selection. “Sure,” I said.
The sommelier poured a dribble of red into Cornelius’s glass. Cornelius smelled it, sipped it, closed his eyes to really taste it, and nodded. The sommelier, with a look of gladness, filled my glass then Cornelius’s, and discreetly backed away.
I took a dainty sip, savored the wine’s rich flavor, and set the glass down. “Very good.” I knew better than to talk about how fruity or spicy or woody or whatever it was, because I had no idea. It tasted like wine to me.
Cornelius dipped his head as though pleased with my assessment. “I am certain you are wondering why I wanted to speak to you.”
“Crossed my mind.” I glanced around. “This is all very posh, and you’re ordering food and wine for me like you’re my sugar daddy. Is that what you want? To be my sugar daddy? I probably wouldn’t mind for a while, because I like you, but I warn you, I’m a free spirit. I’d get bored, and that would be it. I’d be gone.” I waved my hand at the outside world.
And if anyone tried to keep me from leaving, walls would fall down, and people might get hurt, including Cornelius.
Mirth danced in his eyes. “No, my dear. I have a wife I adore and a daughter, as I told you.”
“One my age, yeah. She anything like me?”
“She finished her doctorate in engineering at MIT last spring. She’s already started a job at a company in Germany—she’s very excited. She loves Europe.” Pride radiated from him.
“So,” I said. “Nothing like me.”
“You have the same determination,” Cornelius said. “She decided her course and let nothing stop her. Her mother and I hoped she’d do her schooling in California and find a job closer to home, but she fought to get into MIT and worked hard to get her doctorate, no matter what. I see the same strength in you. If you set your mind on something, you will achieve it.”
“I suppose that’s true.”
I sipped wine while I thought about his observation. I complained a lot about how much Grandmother Begay restricted me, but I also knew that if I didn’t really want to stay in Many Farms and listen to her admonishing me to not destroy everything in sight, I wouldn’t.
Grandmother Begay, Mick, and even Janet were convinced that they dragged me back to Many Farms every time I got restless and ran off, but I knew I would never return to the little house in the desert if I didn’t want to.
And whenever I did get restless and run, where did I go? To visit Janet at the Crossroads or elbow my way into her girls’ weekend with Maya. They hadn’t wanted me to come, but they’d realized they might as well give in, knowing I wouldn’t go away, because I was a brat like that.
Was I really? I took another gulp of wine.
“What I am talking my way around to is offering you a job,” Cornelius was saying. “Are you interested?”
I choked on my wine. I quickly brought up my napkin so I wouldn’t stain the beautiful dress, and wiped my mouth and streaming eyes.
Cornelius watched me in concern, but before he could signal the waiter to help, I shook my head, waving the attentive man off with my napkin.
“A job?” I gasped out. “Why would you give me a job? Doing what? Cleaning rooms? I’m bad at that. Ask my sister.”
Cornelius’s wide smile told me I amused him. “A job as a mage, my dear. You are quite powerful. I could use you here.”
My heart thumped and a frisson of fear spread its way through me. “I thought your brother owns the hotels.”
“He does, but I run this one.”
I regarded him in suspicion. “What do you need a mage for? So guests can live out their icky fantasies?—I don’t even want to know what any of them are. I can guess.”
Not long ago, three men in a gas station in Winslow thought it would be great fun to put a shotgun to my face and demand I do whatever they wanted. They’d thought wrong.
My rage and fear had built into a killing fury, and I’d let them know my displeasure as I’d thrown them around the convenience store. If Janet hadn’t stopped me, I’d have toasted them, and I knew it.
Of course, watching the guy’s faces as shafts of magic had banged them against the ceiling had been very funny. The memory brought a smile through my trepidation.
The smile made Cornelius relax. “I do know what goes on at my brother’s Los Angeles hotel, my dear, and I don’t approve. Because of him, the C has gained an unsavory reputation, which I would like to negate. I want people to stay here without fear, and I will turn away those whose needs are distasteful.”
I turned my wineglass by its stem. “And you want me to help you do that?”
“I want you for protection,” he said. “To make sure that no people with dark needs or the means to fulfill those dark needs are allowed to stay at this hotel, and if they manage to slip in, to banish them.”
“Like warding, you mean? I’m not sure you need me for that. I can do wards, but I’m more a fighting magic kind of girl. I have friends who are good at warding, though.”
Mick, for one, who kept Janet’s hotel safe. Cassandra for another, but I wasn’t about to tell the brother of John Christianson that I knew Cassandra Bryson. She was still hiding out. She’d changed her name, but I had the feeling Christianson could find her if he wanted to.
“I’m not sure what wards are,” Cornelius said. “I did mean I need you for fighting magic. My brother called me this morning saying his clairvoyants woke up with dire forebodings—told him something was coming. Something to do with magic. I don’t understand everything John talks about, but he’s usually not wrong. If the mages he’s hired say something dire might happen, and might happen in the C, I’m going to listen.”
I flashed back to the dragon slayer when I’d tackled him in the casino, after he’d tried to tear Drake apart. Your Beneath magic will not prevail, he’d said, staring at me with his intense eyes. The Earth is rising. You woke it from sleep.
I still didn’t know what he meant, but the chill inside me when he’d voiced the words had been real.
“And your brother suggested that you hang out at the tables until you found yourself a mage?” I asked.
I didn’t like the pain that suffused me as I spoke. I’d thought Cornelius was being kind to me for myself, not so he could assess my destructive powers.
But wait, he’d been nice when I first sat down, and he couldn’t have known about my Beneath magic then, could he?
Cornelius shook his head. “My brother told me nothing. I didn’t realize you had … potential … until you began to fight the man who was cheating. I hope I haven’t offended you, my dear.”
He had, but I admit I was quick to take offense. All my life no one had wanted to be near me because I was crazy, had a drunk for a father and a hell-goddess for a mother, and pretty much endangered everyone I encountered.
So when someone showed interest in me, I immediately figured they wante
d something, and it was painful when I discovered I was right.
“No,” I said, smiling sweetly. “I’ll get over it. Hey, you bought me this amazing dress.”
“Which looks well on you. My compliments.” Cornelius raised his glass to me.
“Chandra helped me pick it out. She has good taste.”
“She does. A very talented woman, is Chandra. I’m trying to convince her to return to practicing medicine.”
“What’s her deal?” I asked in curiosity. Wondering about someone besides myself was more interesting and less unnerving. “She said it wasn’t the path chosen for her. What happened?”
“That I do not know. I imagine Chandra will impart her tale when she is ready.”
I deflated. I enjoy a good gossip. Grandmother Begay says she disapproves of it, and in the next breath tells me the dirt on every single person she knows.
“I’ll let you think about my offer,” Cornelius said. “Don’t let talk of business spoil your meal. Ah, here we are.”
The waiter brought over steaming bowls of orange-red soup with a dab of sour cream floating in the middle. “Tomato bisque,” the waiter announced.
The steam rising from the soup smelled fantastic, and the crackling wafers of bread with cheese baked onto them looked good too.
Cornelius waved at me to start, and I lost myself in the soup. Grandmother Begay was a good cook, but she stuck with fairly ordinary dishes like stew and corn. This soup was heaven, with the bright taste of tomatoes soothed by the velvet texture of cream, contrasted by the savory saltiness of the bread.
The next course was a spice-rubbed chicken breast on top of a warm salad with pumpkin coulis, this being October. I had to ask what coulis meant, but apparently it’s a sauce, this one spicy, warm, and pumpkiny.
I ate everything the waiter slid in front of me and still had room for the blackberry sorbet for dessert.
I learned more about Cornelius as we ate—how he’d convinced his brother to open a hotel in Las Vegas, and how John had agreed if Cornelius would run it. It was a lot of work, Cornelius said, but he’d been lucky to put together a good team. He wanted it to be the perfect home away from home for his guests.
He told me more about his daughter, and also his wife, who lived in Los Angeles, from where he commuted when he needed to be at this hotel.
Thankfully, he didn’t ask much about me, or talk about the fact that I was Apache, only inquired with mild interest where I was from. I told him Arizona, and that was all. It’s a big state with one massive city, a few less massive ones, and a bunch of towns. Let him guess.
Janet and Grandmother Begay would never approve of me working for Cornelius, or staying in Las Vegas, or having any kind of life of my own. I was the evil Gabrielle, who needed to be contained. Mick would try to talk me out of it, and if I argued too much, he’d simply carry me off where everyone wanted me to go.
Cornelius signaled for our empty sorbet bowls to be taken away and coffee to be poured. I didn’t like coffee, but I sipped it to be polite. As far as coffee went, it wasn’t bad.
I smiled at him over the rim of my cup, as the angry voices of Grandmother Begay, Janet, and Mick danced through my head.
“I’ve decided,” I said. “I’ll take the job. When do I start?”
Cornelius beamed in relief. He opened his mouth to answer, but was interrupted by a shout from the maître d’.
“I said you can’t come in here, sir.” The “sir” was obviously a placeholder for “asshole.”
A big man in sweat pants and a T-shirt threatening to rip at the seams shoved the maître d’ aside and strode across the restaurant, his blue eyes flashing all kinds of dangerous.
A wave of joy lifted me to my feet. “Colby!” I rushed at him and threw my arms around his large, hard body.
Colby lifted me, cupping his hand around my face. “You’re all right,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Thank all the gods.”
Chapter Eleven
Gabrielle
Colby’s hug crushed my ribs, and then he planted a fierce kiss on my mouth.
Fire filled my body, stirring up magic, which wanted to embrace him back—Beneath magic and Earth magic intertwining. I knew that was a bad idea and suppressed the urge, but I liked the heat flashing through me all the way to my fingertips.
Colby’s lips were strong, hot, smooth, and he could kiss. Caressing, coaxing, heating, stroking. He didn’t try to shove his tongue inside my mouth, but it didn’t matter—his lips were plenty talented on their own.
I heard Cornelius, in his quiet voice, tell the maître d’ and waiters to leave us. He didn’t say a word to me, but I felt him standing nearby, watching in disapproval.
I eased back from the kiss. Colby cradled me against him, his hold so strong I knew I’d never fall. Sparks swam in his eyes, and I could barely breathe.
Colby set me down, but with reluctance, and with even more reluctance, slid his arms from around me. I wanted to cling to him, something I never do, but since we stood in the middle of a flash restaurant with my new boss right next to us, I suppressed that urge as well.
I didn’t know what to do when Colby let me go. Wipe off my lips? I didn’t want to—the kiss tingled there. Pretend nothing happened? I didn’t want to do that either.
In spite of my wicked talk, I didn’t have much experience with kissing, no matter what I’d once told people I’d done with Drake. Drake had let me run on without contradicting me—either he’d been too embarrassed to speak, or maybe he’d wanted Colby to believe more had gone on than had.
I’d never slept with a man either. In high school, guys were afraid to ask me out—when one had tried to get handy with me, I’d broken all his fingers. After that, I was persona non grata, the girl no one wanted anything to do with. Once I’d grown up and left home, I’d never found any man I trusted enough to want to kiss. Then I’d met Colby.
Colby eyed Cornelius in suspicion. “Who is this guy, Gabrielle? Why are you having lunch with him?”
“He owns the hotel,” I said quickly. “I work for him now. Sorry,” I told Cornelius. “This is Colby. My friends are a little … protective.”
Colby’s scowl deepened, and he spoke to me as though Cornelius didn’t stand two feet from us. “What do you mean, you work for him? Janet is going crazy looking for you. I’m taking you to her before she zaps me with lightning or turns me into a toad or whatever.”
I did want to talk to Janet, but not like this—not me being dragged off to stand before her like the bad sister in trouble again.
I didn’t want Janet taking this away from me. Our own mother had tossed me aside and chosen her over me, because Janet has two kinds of magic running around inside her while I have only one.
Now that my insane magic had actually done something useful for me, I wasn’t about to let go of what I’d found and run back home. Many Farms wasn’t even my home—it was hers.
I calmed my roiling emotions and spoke with haughty dignity. “Tell Janet she can come see me in my office, if she makes an appointment.” I turned to Cornelius. “Do I have an office?”
Cornelius kept a wary eye on Colby, who I had to admit looked a bit like a gangster. “You will. But of course, if you need to speak to your family, do so.”
Panic stirred inside me. “No,” I said, trying to remain calm. “Colby, tell her I’m fine but that she needs to leave me alone for a while. Like I said, she can make an appointment.”
Colby was not happy with this. On the one hand, I knew he sympathized with me and the fact that no one trusted me—he had a similar problem.
On the other hand, he was scared of Janet. He’d never admit it, but he knew Janet could fry the flesh off his body or at least make his life hell. And even if she didn’t—she liked Colby—Mick would.
“Tell her I threatened you,” I said, shooting him a grin. “She’ll believe that. I bet I could turn you into a toad—want to find out?”
Colby backed a step, raising his hands. “I’ll take your
word for it. Are you sure you want to work for this guy? What exactly does he expect you to do?”
“Help him with magical problems. It’s fine, really. I can take care of myself, Colby. Tell Janet to back off.” I gave him a melting look. “Please?”
Colby shook his head. “I am so not getting between you two. I don’t want to end up as dragon dust. I’ll tell her, sweetheart, don’t worry.” He at last focused on Cornelius, taking in Cornelius’s charcoal gray suit, elegant shoes, and well-groomed gray hair. “If you do anything to hurt her, you will answer to me, and you will not like that. All the mages in all the world won’t help you then. Got it?”
Cornelius didn’t look offended. “Of course,” he said smoothly. “I want nothing but the best for Gabrielle. She is a very talented young woman.”
Colby nodded. “Yeah, I agree with you.” He gave Cornelius another narrow look. “I’ll tell her, Gabrielle, but I can’t be responsible for how she reacts.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to,” I said, giving his arm a pat. “Thank you, Colby.”
“Yeah, well.” Colby looked uncertain—he obviously didn’t trust Cornelius and wanted to grab me and run. But here I was, asking him sweetly to do this for me.
He heaved a resigned sigh. “If you need me, you call me, all right? I’ll be here in seconds.” He leaned toward me as though intending to kiss me again but straightened instead, brushed a finger across my cheek, turned around, and walked out. Colby’s fine back view beckoned my gaze, which I gave it until he disappeared around the red wall that separated us from the door.
Cornelius looked pleased I’d sent him away, but my heart banged and ached, uncertainty filling me as I watched Colby disappear. He was someone from my real life—if my life could be said to be real. I wasn’t sure I was ready to let that life go yet.
Cornelius offered his arm. “I’ll take you to your office,” he said. “Then you can make arrangements with your sister. I will have one of the larger suites with a kitchen reserved for you if you want, but I won’t require you to live in the hotel. You are an adult; you make your own decisions, live where you like. It is your choice.”
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