by Alysa Day
Except they were in the kitchen. With a crazed lunatic, possibly assassin, out cold on the floor. The thought was more powerful than a cold shower, and he abruptly released her. He stepped back, trying to control his breathing, but then he realized that Rose was breathing hard, too.
“I must be the worst P-Ops agent in history,” he said ruefully.
“It’s probably a matter of practice,” Harold offered from the floor, startling them both.
“I warned you,” Alejandro said, and then he pulled out his gun and fired.
CHAPTER 9
Rose yelped, which was just as undignified as it sounded, and jumped away from Alejandro. “You shot Harold! Are you insane?”
Alejandro pointed at the still-open kitchen door. “No. I shot a warning shot over the head of the basilisk that was trying to sneak into the house. Harold’s fine.”
They both looked at Harold, who was unconscious again.
“He doesn’t really have the stomach for this job, does he?” Rose murmured, almost fond of Harold at this point. So he was crazy, and he’d threatened her. So what? If he hadn’t stormed into her kitchen, then maybe the Kiss That Rocked Rose’s World never would have happened.
And that would be a tragedy.
Alejandro sighed. “What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know,” she said, suddenly feeling shy. “I think we need to at least explore this attraction, um, this . . . whatever this is between us.”
“I meant about Harold. But definitely yes to the exploring.” His smile faded as he looked at the door. “Once we fix Mac.”
“Right. I’m calling my mom to deal with Harold, and then we’ll start brewing more potion.” Rose made the call, and for once her mother didn’t ask seven million questions.
Several minutes later, Harold had recovered enough to sit up by the time Sue walked in.
“Why is your door hanging open, and what in the world is he wearing?” Rose’s mother stopped dead in her tracks and stared at Harold, who smiled almost bashfully back at her.
“It was the closest thing to villain wear I had handy, since most of my costumes are at the dry cleaners,” he explained, and Alejandro started smacking himself in the forehead, over and over.
“Flamingos?” Sue shook her head. “Not really scary. If you’re into birds, I would have gone with hawks or something.”
Rose rolled her eyes. “Hawks? Ravens would be far more frightening.”
“This is the man who threatened your daughter, Senora Cardinal,” Alejandro said in that low, dangerous tone. “He is lucky to be alive, let alone discussing his clothing choices.”
In a heartbeat, Sue went from cheerful neighbor to terrifying and powerful witch, raising her hands in the air and beginning to chant in a low tone.
Rose knew the cadence of that chant. Harold was about to be very, very sorry. Possibly for the rest of his unexpectedly short life.
“Mom. It was mostly a misunderstanding. Harold is an actor. He’ll tell you all about it. Take him away, so we can make more potion. Please.” Rose put the plea in her voice as well as in her words, praying to the goddess that her mother would listen. She just didn’t have the energy to rehash it all again.
Sue opened her mouth and then shut it. “Fine.” She shot a shrewd glance at Alejandro and then smiled sweetly at Rose. “I’ll just leave you two alone, shall I? Come on, Harold. Let’s discuss how lucky you are to be alive over a cup of tea.”
A befuddled and babbling Harold followed her mother out the door, keeping one fearful eye trained on Alejandro all the way.
“He was sure you would have shot him,” Rose told Alejandro.
“He was right,” Alejandro said. “I’m going to check on Mac again while you start that potion.”
“He’s going to be okay. I promise. I once heard of a person who stayed stone for nearly a year and came out of it just fine. He had a slight eye twitch and a pathological fear of pigeons afterward, but no other side effects,” Rose said, trying to be reassuring.
From the expression on Alejandro’s face when he stalked out the door, she’d failed badly at it.
***
By the time he came back in, she’d put together the potion ingredients, covered the pot, and set it aside to process.
“It will be ready by morning,” she told him, tired but proud of her mastery of the difficult spell. “I really need something to eat. How about you?”
“I’ll eat when Mac can,” he said, scowling out the window. “This is my fault. I should have been more prepared, instead of falling for the initiation nonsense. I’m no untested rookie.”
The meaning behind his gruff declaration struck Rose a little too hard, and her heart thumped in her chest. “You’re used to taking care of everyone, aren’t you?”
He didn’t answer, just shifted restlessly, and she realized she wasn’t the only one who was tired of being trapped in her kitchen.
“That’s it. We’re going for pizza,” she announced. “There’s nothing we can do until tomorrow, and I need food or I’ll fall over.”
“I don’t want to go for pizza,” he growled, suddenly menacing in the fading light of dusk. She hadn’t yet turned on the lights, preferring to work her potion spells in natural light, and she hadn’t realized how dark it was getting until now, when she had a real predator in her kitchen.
Hawks and ravens, nothing. Alejandro was a dragon.
Metaphorically speaking.
Wow. She really was reeling from that kiss. Time to shake it off, Rose.
So she shrugged, pretending a lightheartedness she was far from feeling. “See you later, then.”
In one long stride, he was blocking her way. “You’re not leaving without me. Basilisks in your yard and crazy actors breaking into your house. No. Forget it.”
A delicious shiver ran through her at his protectiveness, but she hid her reaction to him behind a layer of cheerful defiance. “Come with me or move aside, Buster. Nobody keeps me from my pepperoni and extra cheese.”
CHAPTER 10
Alejandro secured the back door, sent a silent mental apology to his partner, and then led the way through Rose’s house to the front. He gestured for her to stay back while he cleared the yard and was surprised when she actually obeyed.
Obeyed. Hah. Not Rose. He already knew that she was a woman who would do something only if she decided it was what she wanted to do. Stubborn, proud, and confident. It was incredibly hot.
She was incredibly hot. And funny, smart, and loyal to her family.
He was in trouble.
“It’s clear,” he called out. She appeared, framed in the doorway for an instant, and a fierce rush of longing swept through him. If only he could have someone like her. A woman whose life was summer and sunshine; gardens and family. A woman whose most serious problem was an infestation of lizard-chickens, or a no-talent actor.
No, he corrected himself, driven to brutal honesty by her smile. Not a woman.
This woman.
“It’s a short walk,” she said, shaking him out of his ridiculous fantasies of a peaceful life. “Right around the corner. One of the best geographical features of the neighborhood.”
“Pizza?”
“Pizza.”
The little restaurant was bustling, and as soon as Alejandro smelled the tomato-and-cheese-scented air, he knew why.
Rose caught him sniffing the air. “It smells wonderful in here, doesn’t it? Gianni and his family opened the restaurant more than a hundred years ago.”
The restaurant looked like all of the other Italian restaurants that Mac and his other fellow rookies had dragged him to, all candlelight and red-and-white-checked tablecloths, but he’d never smelled anything like it. He wanted to grab a knife and fork and dive into the aromas as an appetizer, even before they got to the actual food. His stomach suddenly rumbled, and Rose laughed.
“Guess you’re hungrier than you thought.”
The host, a short, middle-aged man wearing a dark suit and a
welcoming smile, patted Rose’s cheek. “You bring Gianni a nice young man to inspect, my Rosa?”
Rose blushed, and Gianni turned his affable smile on Alejandro. “Welcome, welcome. Any friend of Rosa’s and all that.”
Alejandro nodded his thanks and started to follow Rose to the table, but Gianni’s hand shot out and he grabbed Alejandro’s arm in a punishing grip.
“I don’t know you, but I know trouble. You’ve seen it, and you’ve dealt it,” Gianni said in a low tone.
The man’s eyes flashed gold, and Alejandro tensed to reach for his gun, but Gianni only shook his head. “You might want to watch yourself. You’d be dead before you hit the floor,” the older man warned him. “I only want to tell you to have a nice dinner, and then get the hell away from Rosa. She’s too good for you.”
Alejandro laughed, but there was no amusement in it. “Don’t you think I know that?”
After that admission, he’d had enough of being polite. He broke Gianni’s hold with an ease that clearly surprised the man. “And you might want to watch yourself. Maybe I’d be dead, as you say, but I wouldn’t be the only one.”
Gianni nodded, and there was a hint of respect in it, but Alejandro wasn’t fooling himself that he’d made a friend. And he already had far too many enemies, so he’d be happy to count this one a draw. “I’m glad she has you in her corner.”
Alejandro made his way to their table, and he and Rose talked a little, about nothing much, until the food arrived. The pizza tasted even better than it smelled, and he devoured several slices before coming up for air. Rose, who’d eaten three slices herself, finally sighed and reluctantly put her napkin down.
“You were right. We needed food, and this was amazing,” he said.
She nodded, but he could tell her mind was elsewhere. Far away from him, maybe. He was surprised by how much he didn’t like that thought.
“Tell me about her,” she said quietly. “The woman who left you for your friend.”
Alejandro turned the question over in his mind as he studied her. The candlelight made her beautiful, but also different, in a less approachable way. Too beautiful. Too not-for-him.
He didn’t like that, either, and he didn’t understand why a woman he’d only met that morning was having such a strong impression on him.
“Maria,” he finally said. “She was young and beautiful, and I think she wanted me because she was afraid, and I made her feel safe. Not because she loved me.”
“I’m sorry. You must have loved her very much.”
“Is that what your gift tells you?” He regretted his harsh tone the second he saw the hurt shimmer in her eyes, but he’d never known how to make pretty words or gentle speeches, and he was probably too old to learn the art now.
“I’m from a tiny town in Guatemala you’ve never heard of, and vampires killed most of my family and friends before I was old enough to learn how to fight back,” he said flatly.
“That’s horrible. I’m so sorry. I lost my father when I was young, too, not that I’m comparing a car accident to your village’s overwhelming tragedy. I’m just saying that I know how hard it is to lose even one person you love.”
“It is horrible. But it’s in the past, and it’s why I do what I do now.” He shrugged, as if it didn’t matter, but Rose probably saw right through his pathetic pretense.
Thankfully, she didn’t call him on his crap.
“We’ve never had a problem with them here, because, well, witches. We’re a pretty vibrant community, and the vamps in this region all know we can hurt them very badly if they ever try anything. So they leave us alone, and we leave them alone as long as they behave,” Rose said.
“How civilized of you.” The bitterness in his voice hung in the air between them.
“I’m sorry. It must sound horrible to you, but the vampires I know personally aren’t like the ones who killed your family. They’re just trying to figure out their place in a society that suddenly knows that they really exist,” she said, and the kindness in her eyes disarmed him, making him want to be someone else. Someone who belonged in a place like this with Rose.
Someone he could never be.
She reached for his hand and held it in both of her own, and he knew he wasn’t imagining the electric sense of connection between them, because her eyes flared wide at the sensation. In the soft candlelight, her eyes were dark pools of mystery. The curve of her cheek was a poem; the fall of her hair was a song.
But he had no talent for poem or song; he was nothing more than rage fashioned into a blunt weapon.
“I don’t—I’ve never felt that before. And I don’t understand why I do now. You’re not even my type,” she said, laughing a little but looking confused.
Anger flared through him at the thought of any other man being her type; a hot, almost feral emotion that he had no right to feel. “What is your type?”
“Nerdy guys with a good sense of humor, pretty much,” she confessed. “And you’re so not that.”
He had to think for a few seconds to come up with the definition of nerdy, but then he smiled grimly. “No. Never that.”
“She must have been crazy,” Rose blurted out. “To leave you for anyone else. You’re special. I’ve only known you a day, and I know that.”
He didn’t know what to do with the feelings she caused to rise up in him, so hopeful and tentative, so he pushed them aside, down deep where he kept painful memories and his knowledge of the viciously real nature of the world. But sunlight was the enemy of pain; it brightened shadowed corners and gave a gleaming polish to the battered edges of what he supposed might be called his soul.
So naturally he doubted it; his soul was long since blackened beyond repair. Ever since he’d shirked his duty to steal a private moment, and people had died because of it.
His fault.
His burden.
His guilt.
“We should get back,” he said abruptly, standing up. “Your cat is still outside, yes? Who knows what the basilisks are doing to it.”
Rose’s small flinch of hurt added another scar to his burden, but he took it gladly. It was what he knew. What he was meant for. Not sunlight or hope, but vengeance.
“Bob is way too smart to get caught by the same trick twice, or I never would have let him roam,” she said, raising her chin. “I’m sorry you think I’m so uncaring.”
He reached out for her, but she turned away, and his hand missed her arm and touched the curve of her hip. A storm of want battered its way through him, and he had to fight not to let himself show it.
“I don’t think that at all, Rose Cardinal. I think, instead, that you care too much,” he said gently.
He put money on the table for the bill, and they walked back to her house in a silence that was far too vast to breach.
CHAPTER 11
Rose tossed and turned for a few restless hours, unable to sleep with Alejandro right down the hall. Her skin was still vibrating with the sensation of his touch on her hip; nerve endings she’d never felt before had flared into almost painful existence.
But her inability to sleep was caused by more than the physical wanting. He’d let her see him—really see him—and now she couldn’t pretend, even to herself, that he was nothing more than an arrogant alpha male come to create havoc in her life.
Although the havoc part was true enough . . .
Impatient with herself, she threw off the blanket and took a quick shower, then dressed in her usual jeans and top and headed for the smell of freshly brewed coffee coming from her kitchen. Alejandro stood at the back door, staring out into the yard.
“They’re getting bolder,” he said without turning around, and she could read the anger in the straight, hard line of his stance without even seeing his face. “I had to chase a few of them off Mac. With all due respect to Astrid Buttercup, it was pretty hard not to shoot them.”
“The potion should be ready by now. We can go turn Mac back into Mac, and you can be on your way to the next P-O
ps problem.” She wouldn’t let the absence of this man disrupt her life. She wouldn’t.
She couldn’t.
Instead, she’d do something useful. She marched over to the cupboard and reached for the rack of clean vials, and then paused.
“No need to bottle this. Let’s just take it all.” She started to lift the heavy pot, but Alejandro was there first.
She followed him out to Mac’s statue, which was almost pretty with touches of rose light on it, and wasn’t even a little bit surprised to see her mother and grandmother heading toward them.
“We thought you could use the moral support, honey,” Sue said, rushing up and giving Rose a hug. She aimed a narrow-eyed glance at Alejandro, who glared right back at her.
“Time to work some magic,” Granny said, grinning madly. Her socks were back on her feet, instead of her elbows, at least.
Rose shook her head. Her family members might be maddening, but they were hers. Alejandro’s story had given her the gift of appreciating them all a little bit more. She’d have that, still, after he was gone.
She squared her shoulders and took the lid of the pot. The sweet aroma of the sparkling pink potion wafted out into the early morning air, and she heard a loud meow from the side of the house.
“Bob’s telling you that it smells good,” Granny said.
Rose ignored her and focused on her mother’s reaction.
Sue stared down at the potion and then closed her eyes and took a deep sniff. “Smells perfect, looks perfect—let’s do this!”
Breathing a sigh of relief, Rose nodded to Alejandro. “Okay, you can pour it on him. Slowly and carefully, being sure to get as much on him as you can.”
“One, two, three, abracadabra,” Granny shouted.
Alejandro shot her a look. “I thought you said--”
“Witch humor,” Rose said, sighing. “Just go ahead. And hope for the best.”
It was triple the amount that should be needed. Just in case. But Rose surreptitiously crossed her fingers behind her back, anyway, as Alejandro carefully poured the entire pot of potion on his partner’s stone head.