Completely Smitten

by Kristine Grayson

  And completely uncertain of it.

  If she had met him before, she would have remembered him. She had never seen a man who looked that remarkable in her life.

  Still, her heart was pounding as if he were as handsome as Darius. Perhaps she felt this way because she associated him with Darius—because she had been expecting Darius to get out of that plane as well.

  Evelyn reached inside the plane and tugged on something behind the seat. Duke came around, head bent against the rain, and tried to help her.

  Vari continued to stare at Ariel as if she were the first woman he had ever seen.

  She stared back, unable to tear her gaze away from his. He walked toward her, and she resisted the urge to hurry to his side.

  It took all her strength to stay exactly where she was.

  * * *

  He hadn’t expected her.

  Darius had been concentrating too hard on the landing to pay attention to the people on the ground. Duke was a marginal pilot at best—used to the mountains, yes, but careless in the plane—and when the storm hit, it had taken all of Darius’s magical powers to keep them from being killed in midair.

  So he had sat for a moment after they stopped, gathering himself, pretending at nonchalance, and trying not to shake. Usually he was out of the plane and gone long before Evelyn could approach, but somehow she managed to get the ladder in place (making him feel smaller than he actually was) and the door open before he completely realized that he was safe.

  Then he climbed out, trying to maintain what dignity he could, and he saw her, Ariel, standing next to the building as if she had been there all night.

  Her skin was no longer ghost-white. The pallor was gone and so were the pain circles under her eyes. Even though her beautiful hair was wet from the rain, she looked prettier than she had at the house—and she had been stunning then.

  She was watching him, her expression unreadable. It almost felt as if she knew who he was. But that was impossible. No one knew. His closest friends had never recognized him like this.

  And she didn’t dare either. How would he explain it? How could he? His job now was to stay away from her until he finished his sentence, so that he wouldn’t have to help her find the person she was destined for.

  He couldn’t be polite. He couldn’t give her any hint that he was the man who’d kissed her in the mountains.

  He would have to be the Andrew Vari everyone knew and despised.

  Darius swallowed hard. Usually it wasn’t difficult to play the curmudgeon. In the early years, the dyspeptic attitude hadn’t been made up at all. That had been his mood—angry, bitter, and caustic. Later, it became a shield, one that worked well for him.

  He’d been doing it so long that it took no effort at all.

  Except today. Today it would take all the energy he had left.

  He walked across the parking lot, the wind whipping around him but not mussing him, the rain missing him too. He’d forgotten to remove the shield spell from himself and it was too late now. She’d notice.

  She hadn’t stopped watching him. She seemed to record each movement as if she were trying to memorize it. He even got the sense that she was nervous.

  What was she doing here? He had sent her away. He’d hoped that she would be back wherever she had come from, long gone, the episode in the mountains forgotten—at least by her.

  He doubted he would ever forget.

  He had almost reached her when he realized he didn’t have the appropriate insult. In fact, he didn’t have any prepared insult at all. He wanted to complement her, to tell her she looked a lot better, to tell her he missed her.

  To kiss her again.

  If he could borrow Evelyn’s stepstool.

  That last thought sent a bolt of anger through him. Damn his sentence. Damn the punishment that made him small and ugly, looking on his best days like a lawn gnome and on his worst like some sort of hideous doll from a Twilight Zone episode.

  No insult, and feeling insecure. Wonderful. His plan to drive her away was failing even before he opened his mouth.

  He’d have to play it somewhat safe then. He’d try to get past her without any conversation at all. And since she was waiting for her precious, gorgeous Darius, all six feet of him, she probably wouldn’t even notice the troll walking past her.

  As he reached her side, he caught the scent of her perfume, a trace of lilacs mixed with the clean smell of soap. He clenched his right fist, willing himself to keep moving.

  “Excuse me,” she said.

  He stepped past her.

  “Sir, please,” she said. “Excuse me.”

  “Why?” he asked, making his voice even more nasal than it usually was. “Did you fart?”

  She blinked at him in complete surprise, as if no one had ever asked her that question in her life. “No, I—”

  “Then you don’t need to be excused.” He grabbed the glass door’s handle and tugged. Until that moment, he had forgotten how heavy the damn thing was and how awkward it was to open for a person of his (current) height. He always had trouble re-adjusting after he changed back to Vari.

  The wind made it worse. The door was nearly impossible to open. He would have to spell it too.

  Ariel came up behind him and grabbed the handle. Apparently she had decided to assist him, but she couldn’t get the door open either. The wind pushed on it, and she couldn’t maintain her balance on her crutches and find enough force to pull the door open.

  “If I wanted help,” Darius said, regretting every word, “I’d ask someone competent.”

  She dropped the door handle as if it burned her. At that moment, Evelyn came up beside both of them and opened the door with astonishing ease.

  The inside of Emerald Aviation had been the same for decades. Cheap brown paneling darkened the interior. Bad fluorescent lighting irritated his eyes. Shabby orange plastic furniture in the waiting area only made the room seem more offensive.

  This morning, the entire place smelled of burned coffee. A Styrofoam cup of the stuff steamed on Evelyn’s metal desk, the blotter beneath it stained with rings from past coffee misadventures. A large radio set squawked in the back room, and a phone rang unanswered, as if voice mail had never been invented.

  Even before Darius heard the shuffle of crutches on the cheap tile around the doors, he knew that Ariel had followed him inside. Please, he wished silently, please go away. I don’t want to be forced to talk with you any more. Not like this.

  “I’m sorry to bother you,” she said, apparently having rethought the excuse-me approach.

  “Then don’t.” He kept his back to her. Usually he was witty and mean. This time, he wasn’t even witty.

  “It’s just that I wanted to thank you.”

  He hesitated for a fraction of a second. There were a dozen ways to play this one, and since he hadn’t thought he’d see her again—especially with his body in this condition—he hadn’t analyzed which one was best.

  He finally decided on the path of least resistance. Easier might not be better but it was—well, easier.

  Darius turned to face her. “Thank me for what?”

  Her eyes were wide and green, deep, and filled with life. He could still see that hint of a future soul mate floating in them. Dammit, dammit, dammit.

  “Calling for the plane.”

  His heart leapt. So she did recognize him, in some small way. Maybe she had overheard him. Or maybe she knew.

  “Lady,” he said, “impossible as this may seem, you have confused me with someone else.”

  She swallowed visibly. “You’re Andrew Vari, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah.” He crossed his arms.

  “Duke and Evelyn said you’re the one who called for the plane.”

  So she hadn’t recognized him at all. He had to work to keep the disappointment from showing on his face. “Of course I called for the plane. How the hell do you think I’d get out of that godforsaken wilderness?”

  “Not for you.” She spoke caref
ully, as if she were afraid she weren’t being clear. “For me.”

  “Lady, once again, you are confusing me with someone else.”

  “No,” she said. “Duke picked me up at your house a week ago yesterday. I’d stayed there overnight, after I fell and broke my ankle. Your friend Darius rescued me. I was hoping you could tell me how to contact him.”

  The anger Darius had felt earlier at the door, the circumstance, his size, himself, returned. She hadn’t recognized him and she was only interested in beautiful Dar. She was as shallow as the rest of them.

  “I don’t know anyone named Darius. I have never seen you before, and I didn’t call for a plane.”

  “Yes, you did.” Evelyn was standing near the door. He hadn’t realized she was there. “When you signed off, you called me doll face like you always do.”

  “Really?” He made his tone cold. “I don’t remember this phantom radio call.”

  “Duke picked her up at your place.”

  “A week ago yesterday,” he said.

  Evelyn nodded. Ariel was looking back and forth between them, confusion evident on her face.

  “A week ago yesterday,” he said, “I was nowhere near that house.”

  He lied to her. He hadn’t lied to a woman in need of a soul mate in more than a thousand years. It was one of his post-Camelot vows. No lies when he was trying to help people.

  But he wasn’t trying to help her, was he? He was running away from her. Or trying to, and doing a damn poor job of it.

  Evelyn snorted. “Where would you have gone?”

  As if he couldn’t have gone anywhere on short stubby little legs.

  He drew himself up to his full height—all four feet of him (well, three feet six of him)—and said, “Oh, I don’t know. Down a hiking trail. To a hot springs. To a rafter camping site to meet the chicks. There’s a lot to do in the mountains. Or have you forgotten?”

  Evelyn raised her eyebrows. “I could’ve sworn it was you.”

  “If it wasn’t you, then who was it?” Ariel asked.

  He shrugged. “Maybe this mysterious Darius radioed in.”

  “Using your radio?” she asked.

  “If he could find it.”

  Her eyes widened slightly. Apparently in that cursory search of the house she had done, she hadn’t found it. “You really don’t know who this guy is?”

  “Why would I?”

  “He was staying in your house. He knew how to use the stove. He cooked me dinner and breakfast. He seemed real familiar with the place.”

  Darius turned his back to her and walked to the desk. He had some paperwork to fill out before he left. “Maybe he was.”

  “A man you don’t know?” Ariel asked, her voice rising.

  He found the paperwork without Evelyn’s help. It was the bill that would be dunned against one of the many accounts in the Andrew Vari name. On it, he noted, was $125 for Ariel’s return trip.

  “I’m only at the place two weeks out of the year,” he said, scrawling his Vari signature on the paper. “It’s quite possible some guy has been using the place as his own.”

  “But you were there, or supposed to be.” Ariel had moved closer to him. He resisted the urge to move away. “How could you have missed him?”

  “Sounds like it was pretty easy.” He tossed the paper on the coffee rings.

  “Mr. Vari,” Evelyn said, “if you didn’t call us, you might want to examine that bill.”

  “Already did,” he said, working to keep his tone light.

  “But there’s a charge for Ms. Summers’ plane flight.”

  “Steep, don’t you think, for rescuing someone who broke her leg?”

  Ariel gasped.

  “You know the rules,” Evelyn said. “If it’s not life or death, the state won’t pick up the tab.”

  “And suddenly you’re a doctor?” Darius said.

  “It was a broken ankle,” Evelyn said.

  “Something you could diagnose from the radio.”

  “You told us—”

  He raised his eyebrows.

  “—or at least, whoever radioed told us that she needed hospital care, but that she was all right.”

  “And you trust the word of just anyone,” he said.

  “It sounded like you. He had your call letters.”

  “Posted above the radio,” he said.

  “And he knew how you signed off.”

  “Well, that’s tough to know, ain’t it, toots?” He glared at her, letting his anger show. It no longer mattered to him that Evelyn was in the right. He just wanted to get out of here. “I mean, every radio operator in this part of the state hears the communication between stations if they want to. And I have a hunch I’m known as a colorful character around here.”

  To his surprise, tough old Evelyn blushed. He wondered what she’d said about Andrew Vari, the most colorful mountain man of them all.

  “It’s okay,” Ariel said, swinging herself between them. She had learned how to wield those crutches in the past week. “I’ll pay for the trip. It’s my expense. You obviously didn’t know about it.”

  He glared at her. The last thing he wanted her to do was pay for anything. His treat, but he couldn’t seem kind about it. How to take care of her and push her away? He had no idea.

  “Look, lady, I’m richer than Croesus.” Not that Croesus was all that rich. But no one still alive knew that except maybe a handful of other mages, most of whom liked to keep up the rumors of Croesus’s wealth. “I can pay for this.”

  “But it’s my expense,” she said.

  “Really? It’s on my bill.”

  “Put there by a person you don’t know.”

  He gave Ariel a sideways grin. “No matter what lies she’s told you, I’ve known Evelyn for years.”

  Ariel’s mouth thinned. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I know what you meant, honey. It doesn’t matter who decided to put it on my bill. I’ll pay it and you save your money. Or better yet, put it toward food. You look like you need some.”

  She looked startled again. Was no one ever rude to this woman?

  “I’ll pay it,” she said to Evelyn.

  Evelyn shook her head. “He can do it. Since he’s being so rude in other ways.”

  “I don’t take charity,” Ariel said.

  “Consider it payment then,” Darius said.

  “For what?” Ariel asked.

  “Shutting up and leaving me alone.” He turned away from her and walked through the waiting area to the main door. The brown and gold shag carpet, matted from years of use and neglect, would slow her down.

  Behind him, he heard Ariel sigh in exasperation. “Mr. Vari, doesn’t it bother you that some stranger used your home?”

  “No,” he said. “Now that I’ve met you, I forgive you.”

  “I didn’t mean me,” she said.

  He put his hand on the glass door, uttered a small spell so that his exit wouldn’t be ruined by weight and wind, and then faced her. “Exactly what part of ‘shut up and leave me alone’ did you not understand?”

  Her eyebrows went down in an elaborate frown. She opened her mouth to answer him, but he didn’t wait for her words. Instead, he let himself out into the storm.

  The wind buffeted him to the side and thunder boomed overhead. The rain was coming down in sheets. He patted his pockets for his car keys, realized he’d left them on the table in the house, and spelled them to his hand.

  His steamer trunk sat in the rain behind his Mercedes. Duke had at least gotten it that far.

  There was no sign of Duke anywhere, and the women were watching Darius from the inside of the building. He couldn’t spell the trunk into the trunk. He would have to do it the old-fashioned, embarrassing way.

  Dammit, dammit, dammit. He couldn’t be elegant or sophisticated in this body. Even competent was hard.

  He popped the car’s trunk and stared at the steamer. Sometimes his sense of history got him in trouble. He liked using a steamer trunk
most of the time, the stickers on it, the weight. He’d been using this one for more than a hundred years, and never before had it put him in a position like this one.

  Oh, well. Watching him struggle with it would give Ariel a good laugh. If she despised him before, she’d probably hold him in contempt now.

  * * *

  Through the glass door, Ariel watched the little man struggle to put his steamer trunk in his car. The trunk didn’t seem heavy as much as awkward. It was twice as big as he was, and wider as well. Yet he managed to lift it toward the car, staggering left, then right, as he tried to shove it inside.

  “We should help him,” Ariel said.

  “You mean I should help him,” Evelyn said.

  “Or find Duke, maybe.”

  Evelyn snorted. “After that stupid discussion, I’m not helping him with anything. Vari’s always been obnoxious and rude, but I never took him for a liar before.”

  Ariel looked at her. This entire meeting had left her unsettled. She had that same feeling around Vari that she’d had around Darius, as if he were going to say one thing when he would actually say another.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I talked to him,” Evelyn said. “I know it was him. After twenty years on that horn, I don’t make mistakes about the regulars. And no one can imitate that voice.”

  Ariel remembered the throat-clearing, the curse, and the whistling. She wasn’t sure if she believed Evelyn or not.

  “If he hadn’t radioed in, then he wouldn’t’ve paid for the plane trip. And he’s nervous as a mountain goat about letting people into his place. He should’ve been bothered by it.”

  Ariel glanced outside. He’d gotten the steamer halfway into his car’s trunk. Now he was pushing on it with his tiny shoulder. The rain that hadn’t touched him before was drenching him now. His crisp white suit looked like clingy pajamas that were one size too big.

  “Maybe if we help him, he’ll tell us what’s going on,” she said.

  “Naw.” Evelyn crossed to her desk, picked up the paper that Vari had tossed, and sat down. “People keep secrets up here. Maybe he was meeting that guy for a reason.”

  “Like what?”

  “How do I know? Maybe they’re lovers, or maybe the guy’s on the lam from something. Murder or evading child support or running drugs. It could be anything.”