Brayden caught my gaze, and my insides fluttered, turned over. He nodded, and they pushed through the crowd.
“Hi, Jayce, Lenore.” Finn wasn't wearing anything beneath his brown, v-neck sweater. Copper strands of hair glistened against his chest. “Can we join you?”
“Why not?” Lenore asked. “But you'll need to find an extra chair.”
“That I can manage.” Finn plunged into the crowd and returned a minute later with a chair. He clunked it down between Lenore and I. “Don't let your food get cold on our account.” He nodded to the wrap and the burger on the table and pointed to Brayden. “The usual?”
“Yeah,” Brayden said, leaning across the table and snaking one of my fries. It was a casual, almost intimate gesture, and I felt the warmth of connection between us. Which just goes to show how far gone I was. The guy had been pushing me away, and I get excited because he steals one of my fries? What was wrong with me?
Finn leapt up and pushed through the crowd to the bar.
No one spoke.
Lenore took a bite of her burger and swiped at her mouth with the red paper napkin.
Finally, Brayden said, “I didn't expect to see you two here.”
“Is that why you came?” I asked, waspish.
His tanned face flushed. “No. I didn't think you'd be here, but I'd hoped you would.”
Lenore scraped back her chair. “Excuse me. I need to find the ladies room.”
My mouth twisted. That was subtle.
We watched her make her way through the pub.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
“Better, now that Karin's going to be all right.”
We sat in awkward silence.
I gulped my drink and nearly choked on an olive.
“Jayce—”
“Brayden—” I said at the same time.
We smiled briefly.
“There are so many times I wanted to tell you about my parents,” he said. “The time never seemed right.”
I wrapped my hands around the cool glass, slippery beneath my fingers. “You mean you were afraid I'd react badly.” My lips tightened. It wasn't as if I'd been completely honest with him either. I'd never told him the full story of the curse that killed off the Bonheim women in childbirth and their husbands around the same time. I spoke quickly. “I don't blame you for what happened. I'm not even sure I can blame your mother. It was an accident.” Or his mother had been a pawn in that centuries-old unseelie curse.
“What's wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing. I'm telling you it's all right. And I know my sisters will think the same.”
“No, there’s more to it than that. I think I know you well enough to read your expressions.”
I rubbed my thumb around the edge of the glass. “The accident might not have been your parents' fault.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don't think it was an accident at all.”
A vein pulsed in his jaw. “My mother was wrong not to stop, but she didn't do it on purpose.”
“I know.” I shook my head. “That wasn't what I meant when I said it wasn’t an accident.”
“Then what did you mean?”
A burly man brushed past me, knocking into my shoulder.
I leaned closer to Brayden, so I wouldn’t have to shout. “You know I'm a witch.”
He smiled. “You haven't exactly been keeping that under the radar.”
“And the Bonheim curse.” I doubted anyone but my sisters and Nick knew the details, but the legend was public knowledge — at least among the old timers.
His forehead wrinkled. “Right. Sure.”
“There's more to the story than you know. According to legend, one of my ancestresses cast a curse to catch her husband, and it rebounded on her.”
He smiled, and dammit, I responded, my lips parting. “Is that what you've done to me?” he asked. “Cast a spell?”
I ignored the warming in my core. “No. The story is wrong.”
“Sure it is.” His broad shoulders lifted, dropped. “There's no such thing as curses.”
I ground my finger into the wooden table. “I mean the story is wrong. My ancestress didn't cast any love spells. The original story is that a fairy became infatuated with my ancestor, Nathaniel. She cast a love spell on him and charmed him into her fairy bower. But his wife was a witch with her own magic, or maybe it was just true love, and he returned to her. The fairy was furious and cursed them both. That’s why the Bonheim women die in childbirth, and their husbands die around the same time. And their firstborn — and lastborn —are always girls, so the cycle continues.”
He sat quiet for a long moment. “As much as I'd like to blame that car accident on something supernatural, I don't believe in curses. My mom was driving too fast. She panicked. We make our own good or bad luck.”
I bounced my foot in frustration. “Not always. Look at Darla.”
“Your assistant manager?” He frowned. “What does she have to do with anything?”
“She's unlucky. The fairy’s cursed her as well, just like it’s woven its spell around all of Doyle.”
He shook his head. “We make our own fortune. It's been scientifically proven.”
I snorted. As if science could prove something like that! “I've seen Darla’s curse. It looks like a butcher knife hanging over her head.” My assistant manager’s bad luck was more than clumsiness and a defeatist attitude.
“My father was a dirt bag. My mother panicked and ran. And your father died as a result. It was my father's fault, not a fairy’s.”
“Well, yeah it was his fault. But placing your parents and my dad on that road at just the right moment... Don't you see? This has been going on for over a hundred years. Karin's documented every strange death.”
“I'm sorry, Jayce. I can't believe in curses. This is about responsibility. I'm responsible for the results of my actions, and so are you.”
My head reared back. “What's that supposed to mean?”
“I know you feel responsible for what happened to Karin—”
“Of course I do. But that has nothing to do with what I’m telling you!”
A shadow of annoyance crossed his face. “The only person responsible is the person who made the choice to shoot at you and hit her instead.”
“Yes, the shooter’s responsible. But we're somehow being maneuvered...” Defeated, I slumped in my chair. He didn't believe me. How could we ever be together if he didn't understand the risks? “Do you even believe I'm really a witch?”
He blinked. “Why wouldn’t I? I've seen you mixing potions and casting your spells.”
“But do you believe they work?”
“They seem to work for you.”
He was being evasive. I lowered my gaze to hide my hurt. Brayden didn't believe. He'd never believed.
“Jayce, I've read about this stuff. There's science behind it. Look at quantum entanglement, where the parts of a split photon will spin in the same direction regardless of distance. Studies have shown that visualization improves performance. That we make our own luck through the power of our belief. Or take the placebo effect — people believe fake medicine works, and so it does. Or the reverse – the curse effect, where people believe a curse is attacking them and they feel the results.”
“Do you really think all my ancestresses died in childbirth because of a reverse placebo effect?” I heard the anger in my voice and bit my bottom lip in dismay. His common sense and logical mind were a big part of what I loved about him.
“In the past, dying in childbirth wasn't that uncommon. Maybe your family has a genetic predisposition—”
“Brayden, you have to believe this.”
“Why?”
My fingers twitched. “Because we can't be together unless you understand what you're getting into!”
“Jayce...” He shook his head. “You can't force someone to believe. Isn't it enough that I accept what you believe?”
“Not if it will kill you!”
“The line at the bar was crazy.” Finn plunked two beers on the table. Foam slopped over the sides, cascaded down the glass. “Did I miss anything?”
“No,” we said in unison.
Finn's blue eyes widened, and he laughed. “If you say so. What happened to Lenore?”
My sister wove through the crowd to our table and glanced at Brayden and me. Understanding flashed across her face. “Are you ready?”
I grabbed my purse and sleeveless parka from the back of my chair. “Right, I forgot.” I smiled at Finn. “Sorry, we've got to go.”
“Is it something I said?” Finn pressed his freckled hand to his chest, rumpling his sweater.
“We promised Karin we'd stop by the hospital,” I lied, “and it's getting late.” For the first time in a long time, I was eager to escape a bar. All I wanted was to go to Ground.
Finn’s reddish brows pulled downward. “I heard what happened to your sister. Please give her my best.”
“Will do,” I said cheerily and breezed from the pub. No one hurtled themselves into my path. No magic dragged at my footsteps. In fact, I think I felt a breeze pushing me out.
The front door slammed behind us, and the old bell by the door clanged faintly. I kept walking, my stilettos skidding on the loose earth and stones. My feet felt like they were on fire now, arches aching, toes pinching, skin hot. What was wrong with these shoes?
“What happened?” Lenore zipped up her white parka and jammed her hands in its pockets.
I leaned against my F-150. Paranoia had led me to park beneath a lamp, and I eyed the shadows between the parked cars and the surrounding pine forest. “I told Brayden about our curse. He didn't believe me.” My voice broke.
“Oh.”
I gestured futilely. “Nick believed. Why can't Brayden?”
“Nick had already come to the conclusion there was something supernatural happening in Doyle. He didn’t take much convincing. It takes time to get your head around real magic.”
I wondered how much time we had.
In the corner of my eye, one of the shadows moved, and I whipped my head toward it.
Nothing was there.
“Jayce?” Lenore asked.
“Do you sense anything?” I asked.
She closed her eyes and stilled.
I waited, my gaze darting around the darkened lot.
Lenore opened her eyes. “I sense… something. But it’s more like a magical background noise, not much different from what I normally feel inside the pub. I don’t sense danger.”
“I'm not taking any chances. We should go.”
She patted the side of my truck. “Drive carefully.”
I started at the warning, thinking of Brayden's parents in our father's death. But of course, Lenore didn’t know about that.
I stepped into my truck. Waiting for a ramshackle van to pass, I pulled onto the highway.
Brayden didn't believe. I thought he had, but he'd been humoring me all this time. It might not be fair to ask him to share my beliefs, but I couldn't get serious with him if he didn't. It was too dangerous.
The van’s taillights vanished and reappeared, playing tag along the road’s curves.
I had to give Brayden up.
Grief ripped through me, bringing tears to my eyes. I brushed them away with the back of my hand. All these years of pushing him away, keeping my distance, but I'd always loved him. And now I'd have to keep on keeping my distance. Maybe now, knowing it could never be, I could move on.
And if I couldn't?
I parked in the alley behind Ground. But instead of going inside, I walked around the corner and crossed the street to Antoine's Bar. The hell with fairies and the hell with Brayden. I needed some fun.
I walked through the doors and was greeted with a wave of sound — laughter, chatter, a jukebox. A rock beat sizzled through me, exhilarating. In spite of my anguish, my hips swayed to the rhythm.
“Girl, get over here!” Antoine waved to me from behind the long, western-style bar.
I slid through the crowd.
“You're fourth in line,” he said. “What do you want?”
“The usual.”
Beside me, a sandy-haired man about my age turned and smiled. He was pleasantly average, so I knew he wasn't from around here. “Come here often?” he asked.
I laughed. “Does that line ever work?”
We chatted easily, and he asked me to dance. I gulped down my dirty martini and joined him on the floor, let the throb and beat of the music take me, driving away the pain in my good-for-nothing heart.
The crowd parted for us. People clapped and cheered as I danced, partner forgotten, Brayden forgotten, the hurt forgotten.
The music turned, a whisper of warning threading beneath the rock beat. I stumbled.
A mutter rippled through the crowd.
A siren wailed outside, and I froze.
The siren grew louder.
I edged from the dance floor.
“Hey, wait,” the blond said, grasping my wrist lightly. “Want to get another drink?”
Antoine appeared at my side. He touched my arm, his face creased with concern. “Jayce, there's a problem.”
My heart thumped. “What's wrong?” I asked, ignoring my dance partner.
“It's Ground.”
The blond’s forehead creased. “What’s ground?”
I clutched Antoine’s arm. “What's wrong?”
“Outside,” he said. “There's a fire.”
I raced from the bar and scented smoke in the air. More sirens and lights. A black cloud lit with orange billowed upward, blacking out the stars. No, no, no!
Vaguely aware of Antoine behind me, I pounded down Main Street. Fire trucks blockaded the road. Hernandez wound police tape from a wooden beam holding up a balcony and across the street.
I ducked beneath the tape. A wave of heat struck me, made me gasp.
“Jayce!” Hernandez shouted.
I kept running.
A window shattered. Flames roared from Ground. Firemen in thick canvas jackets trained hoses on the blaze. A ladder truck, its ladder extended above the roof of my apartment, doused the roof.
“That's my café!”
Hernandez grabbed my arm. “Jayce! Is anyone in there?”
“No,” I said wildly. “Why would someone be in there?”
“We thought you were inside,” the deputy said. “Your truck is in the alley. Wait here.” He hurried to a cluster of firemen.
I stared at the roaring flames, heat from the blaze striking me in waves.
Ground.
I sank to my knees, my grief crushing, raw, primitive. A suffocating ache tightened my throat.
Ground was gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Morning sun glinted through the window of my childhood bedroom. I huddled on the twin bed and fought back tears. My home and business were gone.
My fists clenched in the soft bedspread. The fire hadn’t been an accident. Someone had done this to me. My truck had been parked in the alley. Had the arsonist thought I’d been inside?
Something tapped at my window.
Picatrix sat on the sill. She pawed the glass.
I gaped for a moment, wondering how she’d found me. Then I leapt to my feet, the bamboo-colored bedspread slipping to the floor. “You’re all right!” I slid open the window and the cat meowed. “You can come in,” I said. “Not that an invitation ever stopped you before.” She rose to her feet, then suddenly her back arched, her fur spiking. With a hiss, she whipped around and leapt to one of the eaves, and then into the garden.
“Or you can stay outside.” Cats. At least Picatrix hadn’t been near the blaze. For a moment I watched her, pausing to study the empty birdbath. “You’re not going to find a meal there.” I tugged down the hem of the over-sized t-shirt Lenore had lent me. All I owned now were my pickup, the clothes I'd worn last night, and the contents of my purse. The firemen had promised they'd secure my small safe, and I hoped i
t lived up to its hype, protecting the contents from fire. But even that was small comfort. My family photos. My books of spells. My aunt’s cauldron. These things could not be replaced.
I stumbled downstairs to the kitchen. Lenore had hung the herbs above her butcher block work island. Though they were dry, I almost thought I could smell them. I beelined for the coffee maker beneath the moss-green cupboards.
Tears threatening, I ran my thumb over the coffee canister, and its Ground label. At least I still had a bit of my own blend.
I set it on the counter. The soft sounds of a door closing, of Lenore’s footsteps, drifted down the stairs. I glanced at the wall clock. Ten AM.
Yawning, Lenore stumbled into the kitchen in silky white pajamas. She wrapped her arms around me and said nothing.
“It will be okay,” I choked out. That was what she wanted to hear. “I’m alive, and no one was hurt. That’s what counts.” I tried to feel grateful, but my thoughts overflowed with what I’d lost.
She released me. “I'll make breakfast. Omelettes?”
“I'm not hungry.” I opened the fridge and grabbed a carton of OJ, poured.
“I'll make breakfast anyway.”
“Coffee's on.” I walked upstairs to change. In my bedroom, I stumbled over my discarded heels. Pain lanced my sole, the orange juice slopping onto the sisal carpet.
Wild rage ripped through me, and I hurled the stilettos across the room. I’d been burned out, and my only shoes were these crummy heels?
Breathing ragged, I forced myself to calm. I could buy new shoes. Or borrow something sensible from Karin if worse came to worst. I sniffed last night's turtleneck, draped over a chair. It smelled acrid, of smoke and loss and tears.
I cleaned up the OJ and dressed in last night's clothes. Trudging downstairs, I poured a mug of coffee.
“Why don't we go shopping today?” Lenore asked.
My mouth stretched into a pained smile. “I'll have to. The weekend is my only chance to...” I sucked in my breath. I was still thinking weekends were my only chance to shop, because Ground would be open on Monday. But my business wouldn’t open Monday, or possibly ever. Could I even afford to buy new clothing?
The doorbell rang, and we looked at each other, startled.
Lenore ran her hand over her loose hair. “I'd better change. Do you mind getting that?”
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