by Cate Lawley
Glenda had it. After digging through some highly suspect spells, some less-than-accurate mythology posing as history records, and some dubious potions, she’d found a possible solution.
Everything hinged on the manipulation of space and time. That was the root cause of the memory loss, and, from what she’d read on the light web, the only way to bring back memories that had been magically repressed by altering time-space.
She did a little math, and figured there were two possible problems. But hopefully, they weren’t insurmountable. She picked up the cell she’d recently purchased and dialed Devlin’s number.
“Hello?”
“Devlin, this is Glenda.”
Silence followed.
“Devlin? It’s Glenda Goode. From The Goode Witch Shoppe?”
“Yes, sorry. I just didn’t expect a phone call. How can I help you? Or do you have some information for me?”
“I do. I think I’ve found a way to recover Felicity’s memories—if she still has them.”
A brief silence followed, and then Devlin said very quietly, “She still has the ring I gave her when we were kids.”
“That’s interesting—and encouraging.”
“But if her memories are gone and she kept the ring because she thought it was pretty?” Devlin asked.
“I’m not sure it’s so simple. Evidence of your existence faded from reality as you pushed and pulled at time and space. I wouldn’t think a fondness for an attractive piece of jewelry would be sufficient to anchor it to our reality.” Glenda tapped the edge of her reading glasses thoughtfully. “But it’s all so theoretical—I just don’t know.”
“So let’s go with a best case scenario and assume she has the memories, buried but there. What’s next?”
Glenda’s heart ached a little for the lost promise of Devlin and Felicity’s former love. It made her uncomfortable how invested she was with this project, but her magic did predict a good outcome. She simply needed to give this case her best. That was no difficulty, as she always gave her best. Her resolve firmed, she said, “You have some rather challenging choices. You have to convince Felicity that magic is real.”
He laughed but without humor. “You’re kidding. We’ve barely spent any time together. She’ll think I’m insane, and I’m pretty sure she already has plenty of doubts without adding that one to the pile.”
“I have to send you back in time together—and to do that, you both have to believe. Not only in magic, but also time travel.”
Glenda heard a faint groan, as if Devlin had shifted the phone away from his face or covered his mouth. Eventually, he said, “I hate to be less than appreciative, but that’s a tall order given the current state of our relationship.”
“Try. I can dream-shift a subject through time without their participation, but I’m not sure that’s sufficient. And for corporeal time travel the subject has to participate in the transportation, minimally on a subconscious level. That means a belief in magic and time travel.”
“You can drop people into different times?” Devlin, the former Grim Reaper, who had bent time and space in order to reap the souls of the dead each day, sounded astonished.
Tamping down her amusement, she replied, “Yes. I actually had a rather successful match not too long ago between a Victorian gentleman and an Austin local.”
“As wondrous as the world is, I’ve learned that there’s always something new on the horizon—but it still sneaks up on me.”
“You can do this. Woo her; win her over. Be your charming self.”
Devlin barked out a laugh. “And then drop the magic bomb on her? You, Glenda Goode, are a devious witch.”
“I am, but only in the pursuit of love.” Glenda smiled. She’d never been called devious by a subject—though they have thought it. “Oh, and think about a point in time when you were both together in the same place, preferably a place that evokes some strong emotion. Where you first kissed, your first dance, something of that nature. The more significance the place has, the more likely the jump back in time is to produce the memory jolt we need.”
“All right. I assume you need an exact date and time to go along with that place?” When she agreed, he said with a grumbly tone, “Naturally.”
After she ended the call, Glenda went back and reviewed the math. She didn’t linger over the beauty of the glowing numbers as they tumbled through the air to form tidy lines of equations. She was too distracted.
She ran the numbers three times, and each time the outcome remained decidedly poor, almost certainly unsuccessful, for the transportation of a person not initiated into the magical community or familiar with the concept of time travel. Glenda knew she could manage a dream-shift without the subject’s participation—but it simply wasn’t enough. While transport through dreams gave all of the appearances of a physical experience, the subject was not, in fact, physically present.
Devlin needed to make a believer out of Felicity. Otherwise, Glenda couldn’t transport them back in time, and there would be no possibility of Felicity regaining her memory. And without her memory…Glenda shook her head. That created an inequity that made her very uncomfortable. And that wasn’t a relationship she’d want to bet on.
Chapter 12
Felicity had seen Devlin and Fred walking in the neighborhood at least three or four times since they’d met for dinner, and she’d managed to avoid them each time. She’d even changed the time she retrieved her mail so she didn’t bump into the duo on Fred’s after-dinner walk. Worse, she’d started to peek out of her front door to make sure the coast was clear before heading to her car.
All of which was completely ridiculous, because Devlin had never been pushy, and she certainly didn’t see him failing to take a hint should she provide one. Then again, it wasn’t Devlin’s behavior that she was concerned with. There was just something about him that made her forget she wasn’t interested in dating. She huffed, and gripped her ice tea tighter. Why was she so comfortable around him? And these odd moments, not quite déjà vu, more like flashes of familiarity, kept sneaking up on her. His name, the ring, even his laugh—they’d all triggered that same familiar but unknown feeling.
She chugged a quarter of her iced tea and set the glass down. She was supposed to be working, but all she’d done was check the moisture level of her paints, reorganize her brushes, and flip through her project book. Not a productive start to the day. But how could she focus when he kept intruding. Her head simply wasn’t clear enough. It was time to go inside and do some accounting. That always put her in a foul mood, so now seemed like an excellent time for it.
As she tidied up her desk to make room for her laptop, she stumbled on the thirty-year high school reunion invitation. Hadn’t she recycled that? Not only was she not exactly a reunion kind of girl, it wasn’t even her year. As she reread the invitation, she remembered that J. Devlin Parker had graduated a year ahead of her, so this was actually Devlin’s reunion. What a small world. She should ask him if he was going.
And there it was again. He’d slipped in and made himself at home in her brain without any effort. It was unnerving. Or maybe it was more than unnerving, maybe it meant she’d connected with a human being for the first time in…well, she didn’t want to contemplate how long.
“Enough.” Felicity grabbed the invitation and marched out of the house. She didn’t peer out her window first, either.
As luck would have it, she didn’t bump into Devlin and Fred as she left her house, so she headed across the street and banged on his front door.
Maybe her knock had been a bit too assertive. She was considering how embarrassed she should be, when she heard Devlin holler, “Just a minute.”
And when he showed up in a pair of cargo shorts, no shirt, and a towel slung around his neck, she figured her knock had been assertive enough to get him out of the shower.
He lifted the twenty-dollar bill in his hand and said, “You’re not the pizza guy.”
“Pizza?” Had she been dithering ove
r basically nothing for so long this morning that it was lunchtime?
He rubbed at his wet hair with the towel around his neck. “It’s after 11? Okay, I haven’t been to the store in a few days. Shopping isn’t one of my favorite things. But I am checking out a grocery delivery service.”
She laughed, temporarily distracted from the wide expanse of bare chest at eye-level. “No explanation necessary. I just didn’t realize it was so late. Has your daughter been giving you a hard time about your eating habits?”
He gave her an adorably embarrassed look. “She has.”
“I promise, I won’t judge. I can’t; I love pizza.” She lifted the invitation and was about to ask if he planned to attend, when she realized he hadn’t mentioned where he attended high school. She was so busted. “Ah, I just stopped by to see if you were planning to attend this.” She handed him the invitation, hoping he wouldn’t mention her extracurricular investigations into his background.
He held the piece of paper, transfixed. By memories? She wasn’t sure—but something more than the words on the paper kept his attention riveted. There were only a few words on the page, and he stared at it for what seemed minutes.
Finally, when he did look up, he met her gaze with an intent look she couldn’t read. “I didn’t receive an invitation, but I’ll give them a call. Thank you.”
Even his thanks seemed odd, as if she’d done him some great favor.
Trying to break the tension, she said the first thing that came to mind. “I don’t know why I got the invite, because I actually graduated a year later. A clerical error, I guess.”
“Go with me.”
“Sorry?”
“Come to the reunion with me.” And suddenly the intensity faded and Devlin smiled. “It’s fate. You getting the invitation to my reunion has to be a sign. So come with me; be my date.”
“Yes.”
And thirty minutes later, sitting on her sofa she still couldn’t figure out where the word had come from. It had escaped her lips without thought, and it had felt so right saying it at the time. Why? Because nothing had changed. She was still leery of dating. She still didn’t know him very well. And she was still convinced that there wasn’t a “nice” guy out there for her.
If all of that was true, then why had she said “Yes”?
Devlin couldn’t believe his luck. He literally couldn’t believe it; he smelled magic. Glenda asked him for a location that had some emotional connection, and then an invitation to his thirtieth reunion shows up. A reunion that was being held in the school’s gymnasium, just like that homecoming dance so many years ago: when he first told Felicity he loved her, when he gave her the vintage ring she still treasured after having lost her memory of him. And outside of eighties movies, who held their reunions at the school rather than a nice event location?
If this wasn’t some kind of magical alignment of the stars, he didn’t know what was.
Now…all he had to do was convince Felicity that he was worth trusting. Oh, and that magic was real, and skipping through time would bring back memories that had been repressed as a side-effect of his previous position as the Grim Reaper. And all before the reunion in three weeks.
No problem.
The doorbell rang, interrupting his thoughts. The pizza guy had finally arrived, and not a moment too soon. Devlin could drown himself in cheese and pepperoni as he considered the futility of his task. And after an overdose of cheese followed by a stout food coma, he’d take Fred for a walk and figure out some workable strategy. Because he wasn’t about to give up just when a solution—however challenging it might be—presented itself.
Chapter 13
Devlin ended the call with a sigh of relief. The head of the reunion council had been mortified that Devlin had not only failed to receive a save-the-date announcement, but also the event invitation with the registration details. And then when she’d reviewed the out-of-contact list and found that Devlin hadn’t been listed, she’d apologized even more profusely for that oversight.
He felt bad for her, but he could hardly say, “My magical background hasn’t had time to catch up with the current reality.” So he’d thanked her and promised to make a contribution to the scholarship fund that the reunion council was supporting.
That was the easy part. Next came the most difficult part of all: waiting. He needed to give Felicity a little time. He’d seen the look on her face after she’d agreed to be his date to the reunion. Conflicted at best.
Not that he could blame her. Reunions were the worst. Meeting up with people one hadn’t bothered to otherwise stay in touch with over the years? Not something he’d call fun. This one should be especially entertaining, given that not a soul would know him.
But Felicity had still said yes.
If he needed to give her some space, then at least he’d finally get some painting done. He might hit the bathrooms first, since they’d been on the list for a while. But he took his time starting. The project had lost much of its allure in the face of his current dilemma.
Devlin had spent five days in a painting frenzy. Once he’d started, he’d realized the harder he worked, the less he thought about Felicity. He’d finished every room in the house, not to mention removing and replacing the baseboards and adding some beadboard in one of the bathrooms. He’d barely slept, and Fred’s walks had dropped to the minimum.
When his doorbell rang, he almost didn’t answer it. He’d just dozed off on the sofa, and he could use the sleep. But he was a dog owner now. A dog owner with a not fabulously trained dog. Fred barked at the door then darted back and nudged him, then ran to the door and barked again. Just his luck his dog decided to make a game of it.
“Okay, Fred. Okay.” He rolled off the couch and rubbed his face. He raised his voice and said, “Coming.”
When he opened the door, Felicity stood on his porch dressed in a sundress and wearing a concerned expression. Her bare shoulders were covered in freckles, where before they’d been sprinkled sparingly. She was so incredibly beautiful.
“I’m so sorry. If it’s a bad time—”
Devlin looked down at his rumpled navy T-shirt and paint-stained basketball shorts. “No, not at all. Would you like to come in?”
“Well, I just wanted to see if you needed someone to walk Fred. I haven’t seen you guys around the neighborhood, so I thought you might be under the weather.” She fidgeted and generally looked uncomfortable, maybe with a shade of guilt. He hadn’t a clue why she’d feel guilty.
“Yeah—he’s overdue. But I’m not sick, just a terrible dog owner. If you’re game, I’d love some company.” When she nodded, he said, “Give me a sec to change?”
“Sure thing.”
Felicity had no idea if she’d somehow caused Devlin’s withdrawal—because that’s exactly what he’d done; he’d hidden himself away in his house—but it made her feel terrible.
And annoyed. Why did she care about this man she’d only recently met? For all she knew, he regularly hid in his house for a few days. People got busy. They had moods and bad days.
But she cared. It had been driving her nuts since yesterday, so here she was.
Worse yet, she shows up and it’s pretty darn clear she woke the guy up. He looked sleepy and rumpled—and pretty sexy.
When he returned, he’d changed into a polo shirt and his ever-present cargo shorts. He also held Fred’s harness in his hands, and the dog was pogoing up and down in youthful excitement.
“It looks like you finished painting the living room.” The light grey wasn’t a shade she would have picked, but it was a popular hue and suited both the room and him.
“The entire house, actually.” He tipped his head in the direction of the bouncing dog. “Hence Fred’s abbreviated walking schedule.”
When Fred heard his name, he paused.
Devlin said, “Sit,” and the dog agreeably planted his rear, never taking his eyes off the harness.
Once Fred was geared up for his walk, Felicity said, “He knows
his new name.”
Devlin snorted. “A little cheese and that was a done deal. He’s really easy to train; well, with the help of my dog trainer, he’s really easy to train. The exuberance is something we’re working on.”
“Ah. I’m guessing he’s not supposed to ping pong off the walls every time you grab his harness.” Felicity couldn’t help grinning. The dog was a character. Now that his harness was on, his fixed attention had transferred from the harness to the front door.
“No, but I’m cutting him some slack since I cut his walk schedule down so much. It’s basically the big excitement in his life three times a day.”
She shook her head. “That’s a lot of responsibility.”
Devlin opened the front door for her—after Fred had first planted his haunches in some semblance of a polite sit—and said, “Well, I don’t have to walk him three times a day, but I wanted the exercise when I got him and that’s the schedule I set.”
She chuckled. “You’re a victim of expectation now, aren’t you?”
“I am, and I’m pretty sure he can tell time.”
They walked side-by-side on the sidewalk with Fred slightly ahead.
Felicity found the silence uncomfortable because without conversation the full force of her attention was on his physical presence only inches away.
“He’s much better.”
“Hm?” Devlin tipped his head to her, a confused look on his face.
Well, at least she wasn’t the only one who was distracted. “Fred,” she clarified. “Fred walks much better than when you first got him.”
“Yes, and I have a great dog trainer recommendation, should you decide to adopt a dog in future.”
She nudged him gently with her elbow. “I think you can take some of the credit.”
“Okay, a little.”
“Do you think you made the right choice?”
“With Fred, here?” Devlin paused then reached down and scratched Fred under his collar. The dog cocked his head and leaned into the scratching.