Defender (The Witches of Cleopatra Hill Book 11)

by Christine Pope

  “About a half hour. The place is secluded, and the way the property is set up, we’ll be able to easily see if anyone is approaching. It’s safe.”

  She nodded, but he saw how her brows drew together, as if she wasn’t quite as thrilled by that particular piece of information as she should be. Was she worried about being alone with him, out in the middle of nowhere?

  Jack couldn’t really blame her — he knew he was slightly on edge at the prospect. Not because he thought they had much chance of being attacked out there, but because he didn’t know how he’d handle himself, alone with a beautiful woman, with not much to occupy their time.

  You will be a perfect gentleman, he thought. The woman just lost her husband.

  Almost ex-husband. Someone she was no longer in love with.

  Damn it.

  “I think you’ll like the place,” he said. “It has a lot of fun touches. Homey. The people I bought it from put a lot of work into it. And the stars at night are incredible. There’s a telescope.”

  That comment made her smile. “Really? That would be fun. I always wanted a telescope, but they’re expensive. Anyway, the light pollution in Phoenix makes it hard to get a good look at the stars.”

  True enough. “Well, you won’t have to worry about light pollution where we’re going.”

  A nod, and the smile she wore began to fade. “I really need to call my work, though. If I’m disappearing into the desert for lord knows how long, I’m going to have to tell them something.”

  Just as he was going to have to make his excuses very soon as well. The story he’d told Grace would work to cover him for most of this afternoon, but he’d have to hand over the “death of a relative” story in the very near future.

  “Tell them the truth,” he said, and Kate lifted an eyebrow.

  “Excuse me?”

  “All right, part of the truth. They’ll certainly know by now that your estranged husband was murdered. Say you’re going through a difficult time and that you need to take some time off to handle things. No one can argue with that.”

  From the way she frowned, he could tell she wasn’t entirely convinced. And he could understand her worry — unlike him, she was new on the job, without any real seniority. In that kind of situation, you generally wanted to be careful. But what was going on here — it was much more important than a mere job.

  Easy for you to say, he told himself. If the Scottsdale P.D. dumps your ass for going AWOL, it won’t be the end of the world. You don’t need the money. But Kate….

  He glanced over at her, and surprised himself by experiencing a strange surge of protectiveness…of tenderness. Right then, he wished he could take her in his arms and tell her that it was going to be okay. That no matter what happened, he’d take care of her.

  Where the hell had that come from? It wasn’t like him to go all alpha male. He was a curiosity among his clan, a man who’d made it to his mid-thirties without ever encumbering himself with a wife or family. No one had ever tempted him enough to give up his freedom, even though most witches and warlocks tended to marry young. But with Kate, all he could think about right then was how much he wanted to keep her close to him.

  Crazy. Then again, all of this was crazy.

  “I’m going to have to do the same thing,” he went on. “Well, make excuses to my work, I mean. Do you want me to go first?”

  She managed a tired smile. “Are you teasing me?”

  “No.” And he wasn’t. He just wanted to provide a little moral support. “I know it’s hard. But you’ll get through this. Okay?”

  For a few seconds, she didn’t respond. Then she said, “Okay. I’ll go ahead and call. Best to get it over with. But it’s not just work — my family will need to know I’m all right, and so will my friend Samantha.”

  Right. He’d almost forgotten about Kate’s friend, the one who’d stayed with her that first terrible night after the murder, but of course she’d need to be contacted, too, just to put her mind at ease…or at least, as much ease as possible, considering that Kate couldn’t provide any details, could only say she was going out of town for a few days.

  He hoped it would be a few days. Right then, he really didn’t have any idea how all this was going to play out. The most important thing was to get Kate out of harm’s way, but then they’d also have to get to the bottom of who had been committing all the crimes here in the Phoenix area, not to mention the identity of the null who was currently orchestrating a particularly nasty coup out in Southern California.

  “Well, first things first,” Jack said. “At least your parents and Samantha know you’re with me, so that can wait a little bit. But you might as well call work now — we’re coming up on Casa Grande, which means you’ll have a decent cell signal for a few minutes. After that, it’s going to get dicier until we reach the outskirts of Tucson.”

  Kate nodded and pulled her phone out of her purse, then unlocked it and went to her contacts list. For a moment she paused, finger hovering over the phone icon on the screen. Then she took a breath and pushed it to connect the call.

  After that, Jack made sure he kept his eyes fixed forward on the road. This was hard enough for Kate without him staring at her while she made the phone call. He couldn’t do much about being able to hear the whole thing, but at least he didn’t have to appear as if he was hanging on her every word.

  “Hi, um, Christopher? It’s Kate Campbell. I — ” A pause, probably because the person on the other end of the call had interrupted her. “Yes, and…thank you. It’s been…well, I guess you can imagine how it’s been. Anyway, I was really hoping that I’d be able to come back in tomorrow, but this has all been a lot tougher than I could have ever imagined. I need to take some more time off.” Another pause, and she shook her head, even though of course the person on the other end of the line couldn’t have seen the gesture. “I’m not sure yet. Can I just say through the end of the week for now, and then we’ll see how it goes?” She paused, the fingers of her free hand twisting in the strap of her purse as it sat in her lap. “Sure. Yes, I can do that. Thanks — I’ll be in touch.”

  She ended the call there and released a little huff of breath.

  “So it’s okay?” Jack inquired.

  “Yes, I think so. Christopher — my boss — was really understanding. He told me to take as much time as I needed, and he’d work it out with HR. I guess if you miss more than a week for something unscheduled like this, you have to take an unofficial leave. But he said I shouldn’t worry, that it’s just standard and he’ll do whatever is necessary to get me reinstated when I come back.”

  “That sounds like it’s going to be fine, then.”

  “I think so.” She’d been looking out the passenger-side window as she spoke, but then she shifted in her seat so she could face him as best she could. Even though it seemed as if the conversation with her supervisor had gone well, Jack didn’t miss the worry in her wide hazel eyes, or the tension in her fine jaw and throat. “For some reason, though, it doesn’t feel fine. It feels…I don’t know if I can even explain it. Like everything should be worked out, but it isn’t. Like I won’t ever be going back to that job.”

  He wished more than ever that he could reach over and pull her into his arms. Something about the tone of her voice sounded lost, full of fear that nothing would ever be the same again. And the problem was — it wouldn’t. Yes, he supposed they could catch her estranged husband’s killer and somehow do something to mend the situation in California, but even accomplishing those worthy goals wouldn’t bring Jeff Nichols back, or Simón Santiago and all the others the null had killed. Something about the fabric of the world had been twisted out of true, and Jack knew it would never go back to the way it was. Not completely.

  Trying to sound reassuring, he said, “It will be fine. Yes, things are up in the air right now, but they’re not going to stay that way.” Pausing, he tried to think of a way to distract her. “I don’t suppose you cook.”

  “‘Cook’?”
she repeated, looking startled. “Why?”

  “It’s just that the house is kind of isolated, so driving into town for dinner every night isn’t really an option. I can barbecue, but….”

  She smiled then. “Yes, Jack Sandoval, I can cook. Actually cook, because for a while I was trying to be a good little wifey, even while going to school and working as a T.A. So you don’t need to worry about starving to death while we hide from our demon-conjuring warlock.”

  Even though it was a relief to hear her say that, he didn’t want her to think that he was trying to take advantage of her. “I didn’t think we’d starve. Get bored of eating steaks and hamburgers…probably. Anyway, I don’t cook, but I’m very good at chopping things up. So I can take over the drudge part of the meal prep.”

  “And the dishes?”

  He liked the dancing light in her eyes, liked the way the afternoon sun streamed in through the window and turned the warmer streaks in her brown hair almost to gold. “I would never ask you to do the dishes.”

  “Then I think we’ll be just fine.”

  “Good,” he said. “We’ll stop in Tucson and get some groceries and whatever else we think we might need. There’s a convenience store off the freeway on the way out to the house, but that won’t do us much good unless you want to subsist on energy drinks and Slim Jims.”

  An actual grin, with none of the worry and doubt he’d seen just a few minutes earlier. “I’ll pass on that.”

  He smiled, too, and they drove in silence for a while. Not a tense one, though; Jack could tell she’d relaxed slightly, now that she’d handled the dreaded call to work, which had turned out to be not as bad as she’d feared. Yes, she still needed to contact her parents and her friend Samantha, but that could wait until they got to Tucson.

  And after all that…well, he’d have to see what happened.

  Jack stopped at a Trader Joe’s, and they loaded up on supplies there, and afterward went to a Safeway to get all the things they might need to fill in the gaps. Kate thought his idea of barbecuing at least some of their meals was a good one — less work in the kitchen, and the weather was certainly mild enough that they’d be able to linger on the patio he’d described, cooking the main part of their dinners there, maybe even eating outside, too, if the temperatures didn’t drop too quickly once the sun went down.

  Having those thoughts run through her mind, though, just made her want to shake her head at herself. This wasn’t some vacation getaway. She and Jack weren’t going down to his house outside Tucson just to have a romantic weekend together. There shouldn’t be anything romantic about this at all — they were hiding from a malevolent force or person who’d somehow managed to circumvent all the safeguards that Jack had put in place at his apartment. The only reason why they had any chance at refuge in the place they were headed was that no one appeared to know about it. So she definitely shouldn’t be treating this as some kind of a spa retreat.

  Even so, she realized something as they made their selections at the various stores and then loaded up everything in the back of his Jeep. Despite the underlying sexual tension — something she really couldn’t deny any longer — she felt easy around Jack. Yes, she thought he was hotter than hell, but she also liked him, liked the way they interacted, enjoyed the way he never seemed to get too ruffled about anything. Not like Jeff, who tended to be phlegmatic in the extreme until something didn’t go his way, but more because Jack was comfortable with himself, with who he was and his place in the world. Maybe that was a function of age. Of course he wasn’t old, wasn’t even ten years older than she, but he’d still had time to settle into his work, his routine.

  Whereas she’d thought she’d known where she was going, only to upend everything when she realized she just couldn’t stay married to Jeff. And then when things had felt as if they were maybe going in a good direction, that she’d been able to land her dream job and could start moving forward again, all this had happened.

  Right then she really had no idea where it would end.

  But once they were on the road again, she got out her phone and left a message for Samantha, which was about what she’d been expecting. Her friend’s schedule was so hectic that about all you could do was leave a voicemail and then hope she’d have the opportunity to return the call in a somewhat reasonable amount of time.

  It was basically the same situation when she tried to contact Colin, although Kate guessed that he might be at the doctor’s with Jenny. Apparently, the McAllisters didn’t have a healer in their clan, so they went to see a regular doctor just like ordinary civilians. She left a message saying that she was all right, that she was with Jack Santiago, but the cell reception wasn’t very good where she was going, so she’d get in contact when she could.

  The call to Kate’s mother was more difficult, because of course Lynda had two more questions for every answer Kate provided, but she eventually managed to extricate herself when the phone started glitching as they got farther away from the cell towers of Tucson. Would they have any reception at all at Jack’s house?

  “Okay, I guess I’m a free woman,” she said as she tucked her now mostly useless phone back in her purse.

  “Feels good, doesn’t it?”

  Actually, it did. Maybe it was just the bright sunshine outside the car windows, or the friendly wildflowers blooming along the borders of the highway, but right then she did feel good. Not great, because she couldn’t forget what had happened to Jeff, what might be happening even now in California, but she could accept “good.” Good was better than the opposite.

  She nodded. “For a minute I wished I could tell my mother what was really going on, and then I realized that would be the very worst thing of all. Jeff’s murder — that’s terrible, but it’s something she can try to accept. I don’t know how she’d handle finding out about witches and warlocks and demon-summoning and all the rest of it.”

  Jack sent Kate a speculative sideways glance. “So Colin never discussed Jenny’s family with your parents?”

  “God, no.” She risked a quick look over at Jack. His expression was still pleasant, but that could have been merely a mask he wore to hide his displeasure. Maybe he thought Colin was a coward for not telling his own mother and father that he was married to a witch. “Colin and I talked about it. I talked to Jenny, too. And it just seemed…it seemed like too much of a risk. Even if Colin could have gotten them to believe him, he didn’t want to have to worry about either of my parents saying the wrong thing in front of the wrong people.” Kate paused, because she knew that painted her parents in a poor light, and she didn’t want Jack believing they were blabbermouths who couldn’t be discreet. “That is, they wouldn’t say anything intentionally, but when my mother gets going when she’s with her friends, sometimes her mouth engages before her brain does. I guess some civilians have told their families about the witch clan their relatives have married into, and that’s great. In our case, though, we all agreed it was better to let it go, especially with Colin and Jenny up in Jerome where my parents wouldn’t be crossing paths with them all that often.”

  “That was probably wise,” Jack said. “We usually don’t talk about it, either. It’s a similar situation with Alex’s older brother Diego — he married a civilian, and of course Letty knows, but she wasn’t about to tell her parents, from what I’ve heard. Too much can go wrong.”

  Those words reassured Kate more than she wanted to admit. She hadn’t wanted Jack to think Colin wasn’t up to the task of explaining witch clans to his own family. But it had been so much easier to just keep quiet on the subject.

  They continued south on I-19, until Jack pulled off the highway in Tubac. This was an area Kate didn’t know very well; she’d driven through once while going down to Nogales with some friends when she was on spring break years ago, but she’d never had much of an opportunity to explore. It was a small town, but she was surprised to see how many shops and art galleries it boasted in the part of downtown they passed through before heading out
into the open desert.

  “I thought you said there weren’t many restaurants here,” she said, her tone faintly accusing.

  “There aren’t. There are some,” Jack confessed. “But it’s also safer if we’re not seen too much.”

  “You think the warlock could have followed us here?” Despite the sun beating through the window, Kate was suddenly chilled, even though the air conditioning in the Jeep wasn’t turned up that high.

  “No,” he said. “But the thing is, I don’t know for sure. Keeping a low profile just seems like the smart thing to do.”

  She couldn’t argue with that, so she didn’t try. Instead, she gave a faint nod and then turned to look out the window, watching as the countryside opened around them, an expanse of rolling high desert, studded with mesquite and manzanita, and the occasional saguaro cactus. Wildflowers bloomed here, too, along with the warm-toned desert broom. Well, if they had to go into hiding, they’d definitely chosen the right time of year for it. In a few months, this area would be baking in the upper nineties or low one hundreds, but right now the digital thermometer on the dashboard said it was a balmy seventy-eight degrees outside.

  They followed a winding two-lane road for a few more miles, then turned off onto a dirt lane, clouds of dust billowing out behind them as they headed for the house. Kate could just barely see it now, a multilevel structure built into the hillside, part of it painted the same deep purple as the mountains on the horizon. It grew closer, and then they were pulling up to the garage.

  “Remote’s in the glove compartment,” Jack said. “Can you get it out and push the button for me?”

  Kate did as he requested, and a moment later they were inside and the garage door closing behind them. It was very clean in here, empty except for a storage rack to one side filled with neatly labeled cardboard boxes. Well, she supposed Jack wouldn’t have much reason to clutter up the place if he didn’t actually live here. Anyway, his apartment had been equally clutter-free. Unlike a lot of people she knew, he didn’t seem to be all that into “stuff.”