Defender (The Witches of Cleopatra Hill Book 11)

by Christine Pope

“I’m sure they’re working on that, too. The most immediate matter, though, is the warlock here in Arizona. What we really need to do is relax and sit tight, and let some of the powers-that-be do the heavy lifting for a little while.”

  “Relax.” Kate shook her head and drank some more wine, finishing off what was in her glass. Jack picked up the bottle and poured more for her; she didn’t protest. “I think relaxing is about the last thing on my mind right now.”

  “Maybe so, but I’ve already told you that we’re fine here.” He refilled his own glass and then put the bottle back down on the tiled surface of the table. “Now, drink up. We’ve got about an hour before the moon rises, which means this is the best time to get a good luck at the stars. Once the moon’s up, it’ll overpower a lot of the smaller constellations.”

  “I had no idea you were such an expert,” she remarked. She didn’t argue, though, but swallowed some more wine, and then went to work on finishing the last few bites of the pizza on her plate.

  “I wouldn’t say I’m an expert, but I like to keep track of these things. In my line of work, it helps to know when the moon is full, when it’s going to rise.”

  “Full moon…all the crazies come out?”

  “Something like that.”

  Once again she nearly smiled, but it faded almost as soon as it had come. “It was a full moon when Jeff was killed, wasn’t it? That was important, right?”

  “There are a lot of rituals that require a full moon. But there are just as many that need the moon to be dark, so I honestly don’t know how much bearing it had on your husband’s death.”

  Her mouth opened, as though she wanted to protest that Jeff hadn’t really been her husband anymore, at least in anything more than name. But she appeared to stop herself, and instead drank another mouthful of wine.

  Watching her, Jack couldn’t help being somewhat encouraged. He’d already gotten the impression that she’d removed herself emotionally from her estranged spouse a long time ago. In the eyes of the law, yes, they were still husband and wife when he died. But her heart and mind had divorced themselves many months earlier.

  There were so many things he wanted to ask her, although he knew that they hadn’t yet crossed over into any kind of real intimacy. They’d spoken of the matters that tied them together — Jeff Nichols’ murder, the tangled complexities of inter-clan relations — but he still had no true idea of what was in her heart. She seemed open and friendly enough, and yet there seemed to be something at her core that was known only to her. Which was as it should be…if they were going to continue as they had so far.

  He wanted more, though. So much more.

  Abruptly, he pushed back his chair and stood. “Let’s put away the leftovers. We can finish the wine after we’ve done our stargazing.”

  Kate didn’t appear to be put off by his change in tone. “Sure,” she said, then removed the napkin from her lap and set it on the tabletop. Without commenting further, she gathered up the salad bowl and tongs, while Jack picked up the wooden peel with the uneaten portion of the pizza sitting on it. They both went inside, and he took care of packaging everything up and putting it in the fridge, since he knew where the storage containers and the plastic wrap were kept.

  “I’m going to grab my jacket,” she told him. “It feels like it’s starting to get chilly.”

  “Good idea.”

  It was hard not to watch her go, to allow himself to drink in her long legs in the close-fitting jeans, the curve of her ass, nicely rounded despite her overall slenderness. But he forced himself to focus on what he was doing, to make sure she didn’t discover him gawking. He’d hoped that sitting down and having something to eat and drink would relax him, but he felt even more keyed up. The way he was reacting to Kate now — he hadn’t responded to a woman like that in a long time, if ever.

  Behave yourself, he though. You’re going to look at the stars, and then you’re going to go to bed early and hope you have a better grip on yourself tomorrow.

  Problem was, he didn’t know if he’d feel any different about her the next day….

  15

  They took a detour to the garage, where Jack brought out the telescope from a storage area in the back of the space. “I wouldn’t trust this baby with any of the people who’ve rented out the house,” he explained as he took off the vinyl cover that protected it from dust. “But it won’t take long for me to set up.”

  Kate nodded, then followed him out of the garage and back up to the main level of the property. The telescope was a big one, with what appeared to be a mount for a camera and a whole bunch of complicated dials and switches. It looked like it must have been very expensive. No wonder Jack didn’t leave it out for the Airbnb-ers to play with. Homeowner’s insurance would have taken care of any damage to the property itself, but she doubted it would cover something like that telescope.

  He led her to the rear of the house, where the landscape seemed to stretch toward eternity in every direction. The moon still hadn’t made an appearance, but that hardly seemed to matter because of the fiery splendor of the sky overhead, the starlight so bright, she could still see the faint outline of her shadow behind her.

  After setting down the telescope, Jack said, “Look up. You see it?”

  Kate tilted her head upward. A huge misty arch seemed to cover half the enormous vault of the heavens, glowing in the darkness. “That’s the Milky Way?”

  “Yes. You need to be someplace like this, with hardly any light pollution, to be able to really see it. Tucson is lucky — they’re a designated Dark Sky city, so even in the city limits, you can still see a lot.”

  She’d heard the term before, knew that it meant a town or city where the local ordinances ensured that businesses and homeowners followed strict guidelines so the lights on their buildings were directed downward rather than pointing up at the sky. Never in a million years would Phoenix follow those rules, so she hadn’t needed to adhere to them in her city planning work, but it was still nice to see the practice being followed here in the Tucson area. All right, Jack’s house was actually fifty miles outside Tucson, but she’d visited Colin in Jerome and was still able to see the lights of Phoenix from almost a hundred miles away, so distance didn’t always help.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said. And it was. Smudges of light that could be stars, or galaxies, or nebulae. Hundreds of millions of them crowding into an area she could cover with the palm of her hand. And yet…watching them didn’t make her feel any better about her current situation. Wasn’t looking up at the stars supposed to provide you with a sense of proportion, to make it seem as if your own petty problems weren’t that big a deal? Problem was, she didn’t think the problems she was facing — or that the Arizona witches had to deal with — were petty at all. She didn’t exactly sigh, but she did let out a breath before she went on, “I guess this is where I’m supposed to say that they all make me feel small or something.”

  Jack chuckled, then bent over the telescope and made a few minute adjustments, as though he had a specific target in mind as he focused it. “Don’t feel bad. I never really bought into that idea, either. It’s not like looking at the stars is magically going to make your own problems go away.”

  “Oh, good. I was worried that I had a raging ego issue or something, since I didn’t really see the attraction in being insignificant.”

  He straightened then and looked over at her. Even in the darkness she could feel the impact of that gaze, the way his eyes seemed to focus on her and nothing else.

  “I don’t think you’re insignificant.”

  A tremor went through her. It had to be the night breeze, growing colder now that the sun was gone and the dry air released the heat it had held during the daytime. Somehow she managed to give a small laugh, albeit not a very convincing one. “Well, that’s good to know. So what are we looking at tonight?”

  “Saturn,” he replied, in quite a different tone of voice. “It’s very clear, so you should be able to make out its r
ings without too much trouble. Come take a look.”

  With an odd reluctance, she moved toward him. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be near Jack, more that she was a little afraid she wouldn’t be able to conceal her reactions to him if they were in close proximity. But to hang back would be even more obvious, so she walked over to the telescope. “Do I need to do anything in particular?”

  “No,” he replied. “Just be prepared for the image to be a little shaky. Atmospheric interference. It’s something people usually aren’t prepared for when they look through an actual telescope for the first time. Look in here,” he added, tapping the eyepiece, which jutted out from the main body of the instrument.

  Bending down, she did as he asked, bringing her face close to the eyepiece. Although Jack stood off to one side, he was still very close — less than a foot away — and she was acutely aware of him, the faintest scent of cologne on the cool night air, the slight crunch of the hard-packed sand under his feet. She almost fancied she could feel the warmth coming from his body, although she knew that had to be her imagination. He certainly wasn’t standing close enough for her to sense something like that.

  She wrenched her mind away and made herself concentrate on the image inside the eyepiece. Yes, there it was — a small planet, faintly peach in color, its disk partially eclipsed by the rings that encircled it. She thought she could even see the shadow of those rings on the planet’s surface. So small, and yet she knew it was hundreds of times the size of Earth. As Jack had said, the image did seem to jump around slightly, and she had to work to keep it in focus. It wasn’t like looking at a still photograph at all. And yet…it seemed so much more real.

  “It’s beautiful.” Yes, she’d just said the same thing a moment earlier, but she didn’t know if she possessed the words to express what she thought of what she was seeing, a world so many millions of miles away from where she stood.

  “Yes.”

  When she looked up from the telescope, she realized Jack wasn’t gazing up at the heavens, however. No, he was staring right at her. For the longest moment they stood that way, both of them frozen, as though they knew that whatever either of them did next would change both their futures forever.

  Jack took the first step. He came toward her, closer, then closer again, and then his arms had gone around her, and his mouth was lowered to hers. And oh, God, the touch of his lips sent a shockwave through her, a burst of heat so intense she forgot about the cold desert wind as it pierced her denim jacket, forgot about everything except that he was holding her and kissing her, and it was better than anything she’d ever experienced before.

  That miracle of a kiss lasted for a very long time. At last, though, he drew away — not far, just enough so he could reach down and push a strand of wind-blown hair away from her face. His dark eyes searched hers, looking, she thought, for some reassurance that it was okay, that he hadn’t just done something desperately stupid.

  No, he hadn’t, but….

  “I shouldn’t have done that, should I?” he asked at last, voice quiet, worried.

  “I — ” Kate had to stop there, because she honestly wasn’t sure what she should say. The kiss had been amazing, and she knew she wanted another one, but…. “I don’t know,” she said at last. “I mean, I wanted you to. To be honest, for the past two days I’ve been thinking about what a kiss from you would be like. But with everything that’s going on, with what happened to Jeff….” The words trailed off, and all she could do was shake her head. “Are we crazy?”

  “I know I am,” Jack replied. “Crazy about you. Believe me, I know how inappropriate this is. I thought I could stay professional, not let you get to me. But it looks like I was wrong.”

  “Well,” she said, trying to smile, “if you really thought I was that irresistible, maybe it wasn’t the best idea in the world to bring me down here to your desert hideaway.”

  He let out a grim chuckle at her comment. “You’re probably right. It just seemed the safest place…that is, safe from the warlock. Clearly, you weren’t safe from me.”

  “I don’t want to be safe from you,” Kate returned, a little surprised at her own boldness. Wasn’t this where she was supposed to retreat into platitudes about how the timing was bad, and maybe they could revisit this after all the other craziness blew over? But she realized she couldn’t do that. She didn’t want to. Never in her life had she ever met anyone like Jack Sandoval, and if the timing was spectacularly bad, so be it. Either people would understand, or they wouldn’t. If they didn’t…well, she’d deal with those repercussions when the time came. She looked up into Jack’s dark eyes, saw the trepidation and dawning hope there. “I want to be with you.”

  And she went to him and wrapped her arms around his waist, felt his lips touch the top of her head, then move once again to her mouth. Oh, yes, this was exactly what she wanted. His arms were so strong, the beating of his heart so steady. She was safe here. She knew he would keep her safe.

  When they moved apart this time, he reached down to cup her cheek. “You amaze me.”

  Had anyone ever said that to her before? She didn’t think so. “Well, I think you’re pretty amazing, too.”

  He laughed. “Thank you. And I’m also getting cold — how about we move this party inside?”

  “We didn’t get much stargazing in.”

  “Do you mind?”

  “No.”

  “That’s what I thought.” He picked up the telescope, and they headed back into the courtyard, where he deposited the instrument on the covered patio. Then he opened the door. “After you.”

  The warmth inside the house did feel good. The half-drunk bottle of wine still sat on the counter, flanked by their glasses. Jack picked them all up and pointed her toward the Arizona room on the east side of the house. “The show isn’t totally over. Follow me.”

  They went into the enclosed patio, and he set the glasses on the table there. After filling each one halfway, he put down the bottle of Sangiovese and extended one of the glasses to her. She took it, glad that he was allowing them this little bit of breathing space. Where would the evening end? She didn’t know for sure, but it felt good to sit here, to watch the jagged mountains to the east become backlit by the rising moon. It was now past full, not entirely round, but still large and bright nonetheless.

  Kate sipped her wine, eyes adjusting to the semidarkness. Across the table from her, Jack stirred.

  “Mind if I ask you a question?”

  “Um, sure.” Please don’t let it be anything too incriminating….

  “Why Jeff? I mean, I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, but….”

  Oh, damn. Well, the question would have come up sooner or later. She had another sip of Sangiovese to fortify herself, then said, “You’re not the first person to ask me that question, if it makes you feel any better.”

  “I’m not sure it does, but thanks for letting me know.”

  “Well….” She had to stop there, not because she didn’t know the answer, but because she wanted to think of the best way to reply, one that wouldn’t sound trite, or silly, or self-pitying. And then she realized if she sat there and waited for the perfect words, they’d never come. With a lift of her shoulders, she said, “When I was in high school, I was kind of awkward. Braces until my junior year, gawky. I wasn’t exactly the type to attract male attention, if you know what I mean. It wasn’t until I got to college that I came into my own, so to speak. And Jeff was the first guy to pay that kind of attention to me. I mean, I dated a little, but it wasn’t like anyone was really pursuing me.”

  Jack’s head tilted to one side. Was he thinking over her words, or merely attempting to picture her as the awkward girl she’d once been? “Late bloomer” was what Colin had called her. And he’d been right. Yes, she wasn’t going to assume false modesty and try to say that she hadn’t grown into her prettiness, but every once in a while she still found herself startled to look into the mirror and see the woman she’d become, rather than the s
kinny girl with the mouth full of braces and the hair that never did what she wanted it to.

  After taking another sip of wine, she went on, “Jeff was different then, too. He played football. Was good at it, too, although he knew he wasn’t good enough to catch the eye of any pro recruiters. Anyway, he was sort of a golden boy, and I suppose I was flattered beyond belief that he would show any interest at all in me. But….” She hesitated. Okay, she’d kissed Jack, and so their relationship was now on a very different level than it had been even a half hour ago, but was it right for her to be completely honest now? How much did she really want to share?

  “But…?” he prompted. The light from the rising moon had begun to fill the room, and she could see his features more clearly now, the strong outlines of his nose and chin, the shimmer of moonlight along his dark hair.

  God, he was good-looking.

  She swallowed. “But I guess for Jeff, getting me was sort of like winning a game. He worked very hard at our relationship when we were dating, was kind of the perfect boyfriend — flowers on my birthday, a romantic date on our six-month anniversary. That sort of thing. As soon as he knew he had me…pretty much as soon as we were married…that all disappeared. I was a wife. He’d already won the prize. So I guess he figured he didn’t have to work at it anymore. And there I was, this stupid deluded girl, twenty-three years old, starting to realize I’d made this huge mistake. I was just too stubborn to admit it to anyone, let alone myself.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  All she could do was shrug again. She didn’t quite trust herself to look at Jack, and so she kept her gaze fixed on the rising moon, on the pale wash of its light across the desert stretching beyond the windows. “Don’t be. It’s a pretty common tale, after all. I’m just glad I figured out that I needed to leave sooner rather than later. We didn’t have kids, and I only lost a few years of my life.” Oh, that sounded terrible. She wished she hadn’t made that particular comment. Those years weren’t really “lost,” after all. She’d gotten her master’s in urban planning during that time. Anyway, how could she possibly compare four years of nagging unhappiness to what had happened to Jeff? He’d lost his entire life….