by Jane Cousins
“What?” Cara grabbed the very end of her braid protectively.
Gwen laughed. “Oh, I don’t mean anything drastic. We just need to look busy until the swarm gets bored and finds fresh gossip elsewhere.”
“Um…” Cara looked out the window, noticing the ladies were still hovering. “Err…” she glanced around the cream and gold expensive looking salon and then at Gwen’s blunt cut light blonde hair with candy coloured hot pink tips. “I’m not sure…”
“Please, you’ll be doing me a favour, just a wash and blow dry, I promise.” Gwen was already herding Cara back towards the basins as she spoke, determination on her heart-shaped beautiful face. “Besides, everyone knows, it’s the law of hairdressing, as soon as you have one customer you’ll get a rush, and the way that lot out there have been scaring off my customers all morning, I need a rush today.”
“Oof.” Cara found herself sitting. Gwen was a lot stronger than she looked.
“Wow, will you look at your hair.” Gwen’s nimble fingers had already succeeded in undoing half of Cara’s braid. “This is amazing, the curls… you are so lucky.”
Lucky? Cara almost laughed, in what universe did having a headful of frizzy uncontrollable curls equate as lucky? “Err…” She didn’t get a chance to say anything else, suddenly finding herself pushed backwards, the back of her neck resting on the basin.
“Don’t worry, we’ll just add some curl relaxant….” Gwen started drenching Cara’s hair with water. “And maybe some frizz-ease… and perhaps…”
Cara was no longer listening. The warm water felt like heaven as Gwen began to massage her scalp. Oh, she felt completely relaxed, almost boneless. For the first time in eighteen months, since her mother had died and she’d gone on the run, she felt completely and utterly safe and at peace. Wow, with hands like this and the gorgeous salon, she was surprised Gwen didn’t have a line of people around the block waiting for one of her head massages.
An hour later Cara was staring at a stranger in the mirror. One with glossy red gold hair that cascaded down to her waist in beautiful soft ringlets. “Wow.” Was that really her?
“Double wow.” Gwen fussed for a few seconds longer. “There… now I’ve already tucked a shampoo and conditioner in your bag with a little frizz-ease formula added…”
“Oh… I couldn’t…”
“Na-ah, it’s my welcome to the town gift to you. Besides with this glorious mane, you’ll be a walking advertisement for my skills, not even that flock of gossip hungry biddies will be able to keep my customers away.”
“Um…” Dazed, Cara stood up, letting Gwen lift away the plastic protective wrap she’d been wearing and just like that, as her dull dowdy clothes came into view, harsh reality returned with thud.
Who was she kidding, this hair wasn’t her, it just attracted attention, way too much attention… an attention was bad. Quickly she pulled a spare hair tie from the pocket of her suit jacket and began to pull her hair back into its normal tight braid, except the stuff was so glossy now, almost slippery, it was difficult trying to make it behave. “There.” She huffed out a relieved sigh when she was finished, the style much more suited to the nasty thick broken glasses, dowdy outfit and don’t look at me aura she was trying to present.
Gwen didn’t comment, though her smile dimmed slightly.
“I… really need to get going.” Cara edged towards her suitcase and the door.
Gwen laughed softly. “Well, don’t be a stranger. Watch out for the gossip biddies and if you want to get those glasses of yours fixed, I recommend you head to the Spectacle Hut two doors up.”
Cara murmured her thanks and stumbled out into the bright afternoon sunshine, hoping she hadn’t hurt Gwen’s feelings but knowing that flying under the radar was her best, perhaps only, hope of not doing anything stupid. Like sending this picturesque town sliding into the sea, God, she hoped someone had double-checked if it was on a fault line before sending her here. Or tsunamis… merda, she’d forgotten it was a beachside town.
A myriad of natural disasters were running through her head when she heard loud voices and the pounding of footsteps, oh no, not the ladies. Not stopping to think she dashed up the street and ducked into the second door on the right. A small tinkling bell sounding overhead and a booming male voice making her jump.
“Welcome to the Spectacle Hut, how can I help you today… oh, you know, I think I have the perfect spectacles for you young lady, just wait right here.”
Fifteen minutes later Cara was stomping down the street, trying to get used to her new light weight cat-framed glasses… free glasses, as someone had forgotten to pick them up and they just happened to be her prescription and looked kind of fantastic on her. The clear plastic colour, wrapped around a guaranteed indestructible titanium frame, picked up the colours of what she was wearing and made her blue eyes sparkle brightly.
Damn, she pushed at a strand of glossy hair that had slipped free of her braid, if this kept up she wouldn’t recognise herself in the mirror soon.
Racing down the street she was determined not to get waylaid in any more shops or be set upon by the swarm of ladies looking for a fresh victim to drain of all gossip. She would find a supermarket, grab some meagre supplies, head to the cottage that had been made available to her and hunker down until it was time to start work tomorrow morning. No mixing, no mingling, no talking, chatting, no getting attached and no having a panic attack.
It was a plan that had merit; Cara deemed it remarkably sensible and was looking forward to implementing it. There was only one looming problem… the ladder.
There was one directly in front of her, outside one of the ridiculously quaint shops with their covered walkways, wrought iron balconies and lush hanging ferns and flowers. She couldn’t cross the road, there was too much traffic. Damn, well there was no cause to be alarmed. It was just a ladder, an inanimate object. And it wasn’t like she was being asked to climb it or even go near it for that matter, as someone had sensibly set out two red cones to keep pedestrians at a safe distance.
As she drew closer she realised the reason for the red cones was because of all the tools scattered underneath the ladder, the very sharp… very dangerous tools. Just breathe Cara, she reminded herself, tightening her grip on her suitcase, preparing to barrel on past. A few feet away she noticed there was actually someone on the ladder already. Well, better them than her.
It would be fine, he was a stranger… nice butt though. Huh, don’t think about his butt Cara, no matter how nice it was in the faded denim jeans he wore. Seriously woman, get a grip.
She was almost parallel now and couldn’t help but glance upwards, past the tightly fitted white t-shirt that clung to a broad solid muscular chest. Her breathing began to speed up, but it was fine… early days on the scale of one of her panic attacks. So it wouldn’t hurt to slow down a fraction and sneak a little peek higher, would it?
Goodness, look at those bare tanned arms, she’d read of the term ‘rippling muscles’ in a romance book but never thought she’d have a chance to see the reality. Oh my, his hair was dark chocolate brown, messy, longish, reaching past his ears, falling across his face, currently obscuring her view, damn it.
Honestly, what was the matter with her? The man was balancing precariously on a ladder, adjusting a large wrought iron sign to the outside of what looked like an old fashioned candy store. His life was in her hands… and the poor man didn’t even know it. Move Cara, run Cara… save the God in the tight jeans from your disaster-magnet super powers.
She picked up her pace once more, a few feet past him now, not quite a run but it was getting there. For some reason she looked back and up, just as the man on the ladder flicked back his head, revealing his gorgeous tanned face, high cheek bones, well defined rugged jaw with the hint of a five o’clock shadow and those lips, something about those lips. Cara had barely had the thought when the molten ball of lava that had been simmering contentedly and quietly in her chest for the last few hours dropped a
lot lower in her body and went supernova bright, bursting out of her with no warning, no wavering vision, no slowly ramping up panic attack. One second she was fine, the next… disaster.
She cried out a warning, even as she heard something metal shear away, something wooden crack, swearing and a large body was falling. Oh God, she’d killed him, turning she went to help but got caught up by her suitcase, falling to the ground with a thud, her head striking the ground with an audible crack.
Ouch, as her vision blurred, she could have sworn she saw the God from the ladder hovering over her with eyes so blue they were like shards of cobalt. The God hovering over her had to be a ghost because that’s what she did after all, caused chaos and killed perfectly innocent handymen.
“Goddess, Erik, are you alright?” A concerned breathless female voice sounded close by. “Who is she?”
“I don’t know.” The ghost replied. “But whoever she is, I’m seriously considering keeping her.”
Huh, what? What had the gorgeous ghost just said? That couldn’t be right, she must have cracked her head harder than she thought, the world started to spin and then she knew no more.
* * *
Cara awoke to heaven. The smell of mint tea tickled her nostrils, soft French jazz soothed her soul and she felt as if she was lying on a comfortable cloud. Still, after eighteen months on the run she’d learnt to be wary, keeping her breathing slow and even, she opened her eyes a tiny crack.
She was in a gorgeous light filled room with blonde wood floorboards, pale coffee coloured walls and high ceilings with sweeping decorative archways held aloft by carved cream columns. Long transparent cream curtains filtered the light, covering two huge floor to ceiling windows… front windows. She was in a shop? Her eyes popped open as she scoped out the two mannequins in the windows and the two long wooden racks of clothes pushed up against the far wall, almost as an after-thought.
“Hi.”
She was lying on a cream coloured chaise lounge, her shoes off, her cardigan gone. Cara blinked and sat up. “Who? Where?” She noted the occupant of the large high-backed cream coloured chair across the low coffee table. On the table a tea set fought for space with piles of sparkly thread, rhinestone buttons and bobs, pearl fasteners, rolls of coloured lace, feathers and handfuls of jewelled stones.
“Take it easy.”
Cara blinked again, studying her companion sitting curled up in the large armchair, a pile of clothes on her lap, a needle in her hand and a merry gleam of amusement in her light green hazel eyes. She was perhaps one of the most beautiful women Cara had seen outside of a magazine. She had shiny dead straight black hair that fell in a silken waterfall to her shoulder blades and a longish fringe, the ends of which tickled her over long black eyelashes. She was clearly of mixed raced heritage, a smash up of english rose meets asian princess, her skin was smooth and lightly tanned with a faint smattering of freckles across her small nose. Her lips were red in colour, bow shaped but wide, the sides tilted upwards readily into a smile.
“It’s Cara, right? You took quite the hit to the head. Just take your time. There’s mint tea when you’re ready.”
Cara took two deep breaths. “Who are you? Where am I?”
“I’m Riya, and you’re in my shop ‘Un Peu de Magie’.”
So she really was in a shop. Wow. It must be one of those really exclusive boutiques that hardly displayed any clothes. She could imagine Riya’s clients sitting on this lovely chaise, sipping champagne, trying on glorious outfits in the large arched alcove off to the side. “Un Peu de Magie?” She frowned, searching her memory for the French translation. “A little bit of magic?”
“Yes.” Riya looked pleased, not bothering to look down as she continued to work on the garment in her lap, she appeared to be adding something sparkly to the garment… hey, that wasn’t just any garment.
“That’s mine.” Cara looked over at the pile of garments next to Riya, saw what looked like more of her clothes, folded neatly, piled high. They looked different…. “What did you do?”
Riya shrugged, smiling unrepentant. “I was bored and you were taking ages to wake up.”
“Um…” She should say something, but yelling at this lovely girl for invading her privacy, going through her personal things seemed harsh an ungrateful. If only she’d stuck with her plan of keeping her head down… why hadn’t she? “Oh, no…. the handyman! I killed him didn’t I?” She covered her mouth in shock. Looking out through the narrow double glass doors to the covered walkway, no sign of the police or the coroners van in sight. How long had she been out? Her breathing started to come in ragged pants, a leaden feeling of dread swamping her.
“Handyman?” Riya frowned for a moment, but even that expression was lovely. Then she started to giggle, a husky melodic sound. “Handyman!” It took her a few seconds to wind down, to catch her breath, grabbing her tea she took a large gulp. “Sorry… no, you didn’t kill the handyman. He’s fine, the only thing that didn’t survive the encounter was Gigi’s new sign, bent all out of shape now.”
“So the….” She stopped herself from saying the word God, she couldn’t bandy that word around so casually now that she knew that they were real, that she was a descendant of one. “The handyman really wasn’t hurt?” She watched as Riya folded one of her plain cream no nonsense blouses… did it have sparkly rhinestone diamond buttons now? No, surely not.
“E… the handyman is fine, he just had to go home to clean up. The sign landed right on his very hard head… damn, I wish I’d seen it.” Riya picked up another garment, barely looking as she plucked sparkly thread off the table and some pearl buttons.
“Oh, the poor man.”
“Oh, he’s fine… enough about him. You’re the one who lost consciousness, just relax and have some tea.”
“Um…” Cara leant forward, poured herself some tea, frowning at the garment on Riya’s lap. “What are you doing to that cardigan?”
Riya grinned at her, impishly. “I’m making it the best cardigan it can possibly be. Don’t worry about it, you’ll hardly recognise it once I’m finished.”
“That’s what I’m worried about.” Cara muttered, brushing her hair back over her shoulder, wait when had her hair come undone? Stupid glossy silky uncontrollable mess, perhaps it had been a mistake to let Gwen tackle it.
“So… tell me about your visit to Maat Towers… is it really true that Hadleigh cut herself with one of her own weapons?” Riya’s green hazel eyes were wide with wonder.
“How did you hear about that? How do you know Hadleigh?”
“She’s my cousin and if you haven’t worked it out for yourself already… the grapevine here is practically supersonic.”
“Cousins.” Cara almost choked on her tea. The gigantic red headed warrior woman and this five foot nine bundle of impish trouble wearing a bold ruby long-sleeved knit dress were related… in what world? Well, she supposed in the magic one.
Riya must have read her look of disbelief. “Our mothers are sisters. So it’s true about Hadleigh… aren’t you afraid she’s going to come after you?”
Cara gulped hard. “Well I hadn’t been until you just mentioned the possibility.”
Riya laughed huskily again, Cara couldn’t help but join in. She’d fallen down a rabbit-hole; she might as well join in the madness.
Riya finally stopped laughing, raising her teacup high in a toast like gesture. “Welcome to the Southern Sanctuary… where things are never dull.”
“Damn.” Cara muttered. “Dull was exactly what I was counting on.”
Chapter Three
Ten Days Later…
Erik Valhalla was a marked man… hunted.
Normally he would be sharing the pain of that reality with his younger brother, Fen, but the bastard was in Sydney for a two week fire and safety conference. Selfish… selfish, thoughtless little prick.
And it didn’t pay to dwell on the current status of his older brother, Locke. The man was no better than a pod person ever since he�
��d met and fallen in love five months ago with his perfect mate, Serena, an Earth witch. Locke was happy now. He went about smiling for no earthly reason and said things like ‘we’ll get back to you’ and ‘I’ll have to double-check that with Serena’.
Goddess, beat him with a two by four, his older brother made him queasy just thinking about how the mighty had fallen.
Damn, without Fen around to divert attention or Locke to use as a human shield, it only left Erik to face the beast… otherwise known as his mother, Lucy. A woman hell bent on seeing her sons melded and popping out grandbabies for her to spoil and dote upon.
Grandbabies be damned, Erik wanted his life back. He wanted to work in his art studio without looking over his shoulder every two minutes. He wanted not to have to change the locks on his house every three days because his mother kept getting in… somehow… invariably with some eager young woman in tow who claimed to know how to bake and practically had the words - stay at home mother - stamped on her forehead.
He wanted to sleep in. He wanted to be able to go home after a long day rather than put his home under surveillance for an hour to work out if it was safe to enter.
Goddess damn it, he wanted his carefree - love em and leave em - single life back. Why couldn’t they return to the good old days when Lucy’s full and undivided attention was focused squarely upon his six foot six baby sister… affectionately nicknamed Gigantore?
Seriously, with those wide child bearing hips, Hadleigh was the perfect vessel to pop out a legion of squawking brats between fighting off evil and beheading bad guys as part of her role as family enforcer. And she was melded for Heaven’s sake to a man their father… well, not exactly liked, but tolerated and that was saying a lot. It was no easy task getting into Gunther Valhalla’s good graces but somehow Vaughn, a warrior of Maat, had succeeded.
It seemed fairly simple to him, Hadleigh melded to Vaughn should equate to potential grandbaby nirvana for his mother. Yet instead of hovering over the happy couple providing fertility tips, his mother had backed off completely. Letting them enjoy the honeymoon period of their marriage. Whatever the hell that was supposed to mean. All he knew was that Hadleigh had been officially melded for over seven months now and the selfish cow wasn’t even hinting that the thud of over-sized baby booties were on the horizon.