Burning Bright

by Anne Stuart; Maggie Shayne; Judith Arnold

The stars were appearing in the sky already. How long had it been since she’d spent any time outdoors, in nature, or with her own spirituality? How long?

  She’d given up. Why bother? It hadn’t done her a bit of good. She’d lost everything. Every penny. She’d had to let the apartment go, liquidate her investments at a crushing loss just to pay her bills. She’d lost her job. No one else would hire her for reasons that defied explanation. And within a few weeks it had become clear the beautiful British Witch, Sara, was after her position in the Pagan community. Before long she’d taken it, and all those women Dori had guided and trained and mentored turned to the newcomer, instead. And Dori refused to believe any of that had been due to her own withdrawal from them. She had lost everything.

  And here she was, in the middle of nowhere with nothing and no one.

  Maybe it was time—

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the telephone ringing. She was still musing as she answered it.

  “Ms. Doreen Stewart?”

  “Yes?”

  “Jen Stevenson, Turner Books. This is a courtesy call to let you know that the position you applied for last week has been filled. Your résumé looked very good, but in the end…”

  The woman droned on, her message the same one Dori had already heard from ten other companies this week. They hadn’t all given her the courtesy of a phone call. She’d been the one to make the call a few times. Others had sent letters. But the dozen résumés she’d just bragged to Jason about having submitted last week had generated eleven rejections. And she had no reason to believe the next would be any different.

  She’d been a high-powered executive with a six-figure income, had had wealthy lovers if and when she wanted them, a Mercedes and a bright future.

  Now she slept alone, waited tables and depended on tips from strangers in order to survive.

  She had been a revered holy woman within her spiritual community. Now she didn’t even wear her pentacle in public.

  “What did I do to deserve this?” she asked the Star Goddess. And then she felt her heart darken. Why was she talking to a hunk of plaster and paint, anyway? What was the point? It wasn’t real.

  Nothing was real.

  She yanked the plaque off the wall, carried it into the kitchen and dropped it into the garbage can. “I’m done with you. Do you hear? I’m finished. I’m not your priestess anymore.”

  THE WOMAN AT THE DESK leaned over Dori’s application form, her eyes zipping along the lines from behind black horn-rims that looked great on her. Dark hair, short and fluffy. Black eye-liner and violet eyes. Pretty woman.

  There were other desks in the little room at the town hall. Christmas songs jingled merrily from a radio on one of them, and white holiday lights, twined with silver garland, dipped and draped from the windows.

  The woman looked up, smiling. “You’re Gerald’s niece, aren’t you? The one who used to come out summers and help him run the Champ tours?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “Well, that makes more sense, then.” She slid the application back across the table. “This isn’t gonna do, hon.”

  “I’m sorry?” Dori wasn’t sure she’d heard the woman correctly.

  “Well, see this is a holiday craft fair. The tables we rent are for folks who want to sell arts and crafts. You know, quilts and afghans, homemade candles and centerpieces, floral arrangements, jewelry.”

  “I know what crafts are.” Dori pushed her application back across the desk. “Reading tarot cards is a craft.”

  “That’s all well and good, but it’s not what this craft fair is about, Ms. Stewart. This isn’t some New Age freak show.”

  “Well, then we’re in luck, because I’m not some New Age freak. And there is nothing in the list of rules and conditions you have posted that precludes me telling fortunes at my table, so long as I pay the fee and am a resident of the town. I’m paying the fee and I’m a resident of the town. So you can’t deny me a table.”

  The woman picked up the application form this time and handed it to Dori. “This is not in keeping with the holiday spirit on which our event is based.”

  “Seeing the future on the night of the Solstice is one of the oldest holiday traditions around.”

  “According to whom?”

  “Dickens, for one.”

  “Dickens who?”

  “Charles Dickens, you illiterate twit.”

  “I…I…” The woman rose from her chair, her face reddening.

  “It might interest you to know the police chief thought it was a great idea that I buy a table at this stupid little show.” Yeah, the police chief she’d been thinking about all night. Having him in her kitchen had been like throwing a switch—powering up feelings she’d buried long ago. She’d dreamed about him!

  Clearing her throat, she continued with her rant. “But if you insist on discrimination, I’ll be happy to organize the noisiest, most un-Christmas-spirited protest march outside this event that you could ever hope to see!”

  They stood facing each other over the desk. The entire room went silent as everyone stopped to stare.

  Then a heavyset man came trundling over to the two of them, his cheeks as red as Saint Nick’s. “Now, now, ladies, what seems to be the problem here?”

  “This woman refuses to process my application for a table at the Holiday Craft Fair,” Dori accused.

  The man’s eyebrows shot up and he turned to the woman. “Mrs. Redmond, is this true?”

  “She wants to set up a Gypsy fortune-telling booth, Thomas.”

  “A tarot-reading booth,” Dori corrected.

  “It’s ungodly. Un-Christian. We can’t have it.”

  “Oh, now, Mrs. Redmond, it’s not up to us to decide what’s godly or ungodly. This isn’t a church-sponsored event. It’s for the whole town.”

  “But…but—”

  “Now, Miss uh…oh, say, you’re Gerald Stewart’s niece, back from New York City, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. I’m Doreen.”

  “Ah. Well, that explains a lot.” He reached to take the application from the black-haired demoness with one hand and patted Dori’s shoulder with the other. “I’m Thomas Kemp, town supervisor. Now I want you to rest assured that I’m going to handle your application personally, Ms. Stewart.”

  “Th-thank you.”

  “Did you leave your check?”

  “She wouldn’t take it.” Dori pulled the folded check from her pocket. Seventy-five hard-earned dollars. But she would make several times that much if her table was busy.

  “I’ll call as soon as everything has been processed, Ms. Stewart,” Thomas Kemp, town supervisor, said, taking the check from her hand. “Don’t you worry about a thing. You have a nice day now.”

  Dori took only a moment to send the demon spawn a smug look of triumph before heading out the door. She felt good when she hit the streets. She hadn’t had a spirited battle like that since trying to get a parade permit for Pagan Pride Day in Manhattan the first year they’d held it. Damn, she missed being in the thick of things.

  She reminded herself that that part of her life was over. She wasn’t backtracking; she wasn’t “priestessing.” She was just going to tell fortunes to make a few extra bucks.

  She sucked in the crisp, fresh air as she strolled along the sidewalks. It was snowy in Crescent Cove. Snowy enough to make it as beautiful as a Currier and Ives Christmas card. It wasn’t too cold, either. Cool enough so her breath made little steam puffs, but not quite enough to numb her fingers or burn her nose. She actually enjoyed her walk down the block and across the street to the diner to begin her day’s work.

  When Jason came in around noon, wearing his black leather cop jacket, he sat at the counter, not at his usual table. She tried not to assume it was because he wanted to be closer to her, that maybe he’d changed his mind and was finally going to ask her out again.

  She was still attracted to him. She’d been nursing a bad crush ever since turning him down the first time he’d asked, and she
was beginning to detect those old feelings stirring to life deep down. He’d always been so good-looking, so attentive, and goodness knows, she hadn’t found a better lover since. Even though it had been his first time, too.

  It had been in the summer, in a secluded cove near the shore, the moon riding high. He’d brought a blanket, a bottle of wine and a condom. Everything needed for teenage romance. And it had been incredible.

  She smiled at him for a change, unable to banish the memory from her mind, and brought him a cup of freshly brewed coffee. “On your lunch break?” she asked.

  “You guessed it.” He moved his gaze over her face in a way that made it clear he liked what he saw. He’d always been able to flatter without a word. But he hadn’t looked at her like that in a long time. Why now? she wondered. Or was it all in her mind? Her inner thoughts manifesting in an overactive imagination?

  “What’ll you have?”

  “Ham and cheese on potato bread. Side of fries.” His voice stroked her nerve endings. She’d been better off when he’d basically ignored her existence.

  “Mayo on the sandwich?”

  “Let’s go with the honey mustard today. And no cheese.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re dieting.”

  “Real men don’t diet. This is strictly preventative.”

  She smiled and turned to shout the order through the window into the kitchen.

  When she turned back, he said, “You sure seem cheerful today, Dori.”

  “Do I? Well, I suppose I have you to thank for that.”

  “Yeah? Why?”

  She smiled and thought about last night’s extremely pleasant dream. But she wasn’t going to confess that. “I took your advice. Applied for a table at the craft fair.”

  He didn’t smile back. He frowned, instead. “When did you do that?”

  “This morning. Oh, it wasn’t at all pleasant at first. Some little twit of a female—a Mrs. Redmond—tried to say I couldn’t have a table, but then this Thomas something or other—”

  “Kemp?”

  “Yeah. He stepped in and said he’d handle it personally.”

  “I…see.”

  “What?” The bell rang behind her and she moved to pick up his sandwich, then brought it back to him.

  “Uh, I’m going to move to a booth. Do you have a break coming up?”

  “No.”

  “You do now. Join me.”

  “But—”

  “Mort, cover the front,” he called. “I need your waitress for five minutes. It’s official.”

  Mort emerged from the kitchen, grouchy as always. She was old, tough and mean, dressed in a purple warm-up suit, with her silver hair in a long braid down her back.

  “Five minutes,” she snapped. “And it’s coming out of your lunch hour, Dori.”

  Dori sent Jason a scowl that faltered as soon as he clutched her hand in his and drew her around the counter. He hadn’t touched her in ten years, and the impact of it now was damn near stunning. That warm hand, so strong, closed around hers, holding it…she remembered it cupping her cheek, cradling her head while his mouth made love to hers.

  What was wrong with her?

  She was lonely, she realized. She’d been painfully lonely since coming back here—no, no, that wasn’t quite right. She’d been lonely in New York, too.

  She let him lead her across the diner, then slid into a booth across from him. He released her hand and she managed not to weep for the loss. “What?” she asked.

  “Kemp. I had a visit from him this morning, and I was afraid it had something to do with you. Now I’m convinced of it.”

  She lifted her brows. “Go on.”

  “I know I told you we’re not all ignorant in this town—and that’s still true. We’re not all ignorant. But that doesn’t mean we’re all enlightened, either. There are still a few narrow-minded idiots around, and I’m afraid Kemp is one of them.”

  “Jason, what on earth are you talking about?”

  He sighed. “Kemp was poring over town statutes this morning. Old ones. Turns out there’s still a law on the books making ‘fortune telling’ illegal.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  He pursed his lips, shook his head slowly. “Nope, it’s there. He showed it to me, asked me if it was enforceable.”

  She lifted her eyebrows. “Is it?”

  “It’s easily worked around, Dori. You’re going to have to post a disclaimer in plain view on your table, stating that the readings are for entertainment only. A game, not a real prediction. You do that and his hands are tied.”

  She blinked twice. “So I’m supposed to put up a sign saying I’m a fraud.”

  He shrugged. “Only if you’re charging for the readings. You could do them free….”

  “That would defeat the whole purpose. I need to pad my income a little.” She pursed her lips and sighed. “So I put up a sign that says I’m a fake. Well, what the hell, at this point I’m not sure it would be all that inaccurate, anyway.” She pressed her palms to the table and stood up.

  Jason stopped her, covering her hands with his. They were firm and strong and they sent all those old feelings spiraling up her arms and into the center of her chest. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.

  She looked down at his hands on hers. He didn’t move them. Experimentally, she turned hers over, palms up against his palms now. His eyes shot to hers, but he didn’t take his hands away. The intimacy of his palms on hers almost brought tears to her eyes. “I don’t know anymore,” she told him.

  “Sit back down, Dori,” he said. His voice was rough, as if he needed to clear his throat.

  “I have to work—”

  “Not for another two minutes. Sit.” He closed his hands on hers, squeezed.

  Sighing, she sat down, because when he squeezed her hands her knees went weak.

  Still holding her hands, he said, “After we talked last night, I did a little…snooping.”

  She lifted her head and her eyes as one. “Into what?”

  “Into you. Into what you’ve been up to these past ten years in the big city.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and she tugged her hands from his, feeling as stunned as if he’d slapped her. “You investigated my past? Jason, why would you do something like that?”

  Chapter Three

  “Oh, come on, Dori, I was curious. You spring this Witch thing on me, tell me you’ve helped the police find missing people—I’ve never believed in any of that stuff. I had to know more.”

  “Why? It’s not your business.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe I want to make it my business.”

  “You can’t—”

  “I contacted a friend of mine. He did some checking, faxed me some information. Turns out you’ve located seven missing people. Seven.”

  She shrugged. “So what?”

  “I read the files. Figured it could be explained away. Coincidence. Lucky guesses. Inside info. But none of it fit. Then I spoke to Detective Hennessy.”

  Dori blinked at the familiar name. She’d worked with Mike Hennessy on every one of those cases. He’d never ridiculed her, had always taken her seriously.

  “He convinced me—this thing you have, it’s for real.”

  She moistened her lips, lifted her eyes to his. “Again I ask, so what?”

  “So I’d like to know why you’re suddenly questioning it. You just said labeling yourself a fraud wouldn’t be inaccurate. So what happened?”

  “What happened?” She lifted her hands, palms up. “Look around, Jason. Look at my life. I’ve lost everything.” She lowered her head, shaking it slowly, feeling bereft, empty. “I don’t know how many times I’ve thrown the cards, asking why this happened, what’s the purpose. But I get nothing. No answers. I didn’t see any of this coming, and I can’t see when it’s going to end. Or if it’s going to end. I don’t know what I did to deserve this, much less what I’m supposed to be doing about it.”

  “Maybe you’re supposed to be doin
g…this.”

  “What? Waiting tables? Taking people on Champ tours?”

  “Why not?”

  She sighed. “You just don’t understand.”

  “Sure I do, Dori. I think you’re the one who’s confused here. It’s all about the journey, isn’t it?”

  She blinked and lifted her head.

  “That’s what you said in that letter you left me. ‘It’s all about the journey, and my journey is leading me somewhere else.’”

  “I did not say anything like that,” she told him. Not because it was true—she didn’t remember what she’d written in that letter to Jason. But because it sounded far too wise for the girl she’d been when she’d set out to seek her fortune.

  “You said something exactly like that.” Jason yanked something from his pocket as he spoke. And then Dori felt the breath leave her lungs in a rush, because he was unfolding the old piece of pink paper, smoothing it flat on the table, pointing at the lines she had written. “It’s right here.”

  She didn’t say anything, and after a heartbeat of silence, he looked up at her slowly. She was staring at the letter, her eyes filling. “You kept it,” she whispered.

  He shrugged and lowered his head, quickly refolding the letter and tucking it back into his jacket pocket.

  “All this time, you…you’ve been carrying that letter around with you like some kind of…”

  “Memory,” he said softly. “It’s just a memory. That’s all.”

  She met his eyes, not sure what to say.

  “Maybe that part of your journey is done, Dori. You lived in a big city, you experienced big money, big success, learned whatever it was you were supposed to learn from all that. Maybe this is a new phase for you. A new journey. Maybe you’re not supposed to know why just yet. Maybe there isn’t any why. Maybe it just is because it is. And maybe if you stop fighting it so hard, you could enjoy it a little.”

  She sat there staring at him. He might claim he hadn’t changed, but he clearly had. “What have you been doing the past ten years, Jason, studying with a Tibetan monk?”

  He shrugged. “You didn’t lose as much as you think you did,” he said. “You still have a home. You still have a car. You still have a job. Change your perception a little. I know you Wiccans are all into being in control of your own lives, but fate isn’t gonna be cheated out of playing a role. Can’t you take a page from another book? Let go and let Goddess or something?”