Toren almost smiled at the reaction of the kids.
Miss Lisa stepped up on a chair with a full bucket of water.
“When I say three, Miss Lisa, dump away.” The woman’s expressive eyes turned back to the children and she moved her eyebrows up and down making them giggle. “Watch closely, children. Water doesn’t stick to me.”
Curious whispers filled the room as large eyes stared at the woman in the fish tub.
Toren couldn’t take his gaze off her. Once again he was seeing more of her beautifully sleek and rounded body. But he was more drawn to the spirit in her face that transformed her into the most bonny lass he’d ever seen.
“One, two, three…”
Miss Lisa poured the full bucket on top of the woman’s head. The water drenched her fully and filled the tub at her feet. The kids gasped, clapping wildly.
“How’d you do that?” was accompanied by, “I don’t believe it! He’s completely dry.”
To Toren, the woman was completely soaked and looked chilled. Her nipples stuck out, causing his groin to tighten. He readjusted his offending member and tried to focus more on the absolute bizarreness of the situation, instead.
She took a bow, stepped out of the tub, flourished a black cape which she tied under her chin, and waved goodbyes as she walked out the back of the room amidst cheers. Some of the kids pointed at the wet footprints she left behind.
Toren pushed away from the corner and headed down the corridor. He wouldn’t let her escape again. He halted and flattened himself against the wall, waiting.
The woman crossed to the kitchen in front of a full mirror facing him. The reflection in the mirror was someone very different, a man with a mustache and black hair without a drop of water on him. A prickle ran down the muscles of Toren’s straight back.
Sorcery? He knew enough about the black arts to respect them, but the woman didn’t look anything like the witch. This woman was young and beautiful, but she definitely possessed some sort of magic. And she currently possessed his necklace, which he must reclaim.
Toren heard the back door click shut. She’d gone outside. Toren followed, pulling the door closed. The wet footprints were easy to follow behind a squat little building at the rear of the orphanage. He rounded the corner and stopped.
She gasped when she saw him, her gaze darting as if seeking escape. The cement block building on one side, the fence behind, and prickly bushes on the other side made escape improbable.
Toren watched her.
Fear. She was afraid.
Of him? Toren frowned. He didn’t like the thought of her fear. He relaxed his stance. If she were afraid, she wouldn’t talk to him, he told himself. That was why he felt compelled to lessen her anxiety.
“How do ye do that?” he asked casually.
The woman’s eyes grew round. “Do what?” she asked in the deep male voice. She obviously thought that she still looked like the magician.
Should he reveal that he knew her secret, that he could see through the charade? Caution was usually the best approach with a cornered animal. Plus, knowing an enemy’s secret when they didn’t know you knew their secret was a powerful weapon.
He jerked his thumb back towards the orphanage. “Inside just now. How did ye do the water trick?”
Toren found it amazing that her eyes could grow even larger, her wet lashes sticking together in a fan over the blue orbs.
“You were inside?” she asked in her male voice. “Watching?”
“Aye, and ye are quite good, Mr…”
“Reynolds,” she said. “Did you alert anyone that you were inside?”
“Nay, no one answered when I knocked, and the back door was unlocked…”
“That’s breaking and entering!”
“No one saw me,” he defended. “And I have a need to find a lass who works there.”
The woman’s breath caught. “Why?”
Toren looked into her stormy blue eyes. “She has something of mine.” He paused, watching the striking woman sweep a wet length of hair over the scar on her right cheek.
“She’s left town.”
“Oh? When will she return?”
The sound of the kitchen door squeaking open behind caught his attention, but Toren didn’t take his eyes off his prey.
“Kat! Kat! Where are you,” Miss Lisa called and walked toward him. “Can I help you?” she said to his back.
Reluctantly, Toren turned to her.
She gasped. “You…you’re the art collector.”
“Artifacts,” he corrected and plastered on his grin.
She smiled back, then glanced around him to the woman.
“Mr. Reynolds, do you need anything else? I was told your services were free today because you were filling in for someone, but I’d like to give you a tip. You truly made the day special for the kids.”
“No need for a tip, Miss Gibson. I’ll be on my way.” She stepped widely around them.
“Miss Gibson,” Toren said quickly. “I have an invitation for your associate.”
“For Kat?”
The woman slowed. She stopped at the edge of the orphanage and picked up a bag. She was still close enough to hear.
“There was a woman yesterday at my exhibit. Golden red-brown hair, amazing blue eyes, taller than ye.”
Lisa laughed. “That’s Kat.”
“Kat,” he repeated her name slowly, feeling it on his tongue. Aye, a good name for the lass, he thought, and watched her out of the corner of one eye. She moved like a cat.
“You know Kat?” Lisa asked.
“She came to my exhibit yesterday. And there was…an incident.”
Lisa frowned. “So she snuck away to that exhibit.”
“She seems to have an interest in artifacts,” he said, still keeping track of Kat in the periphery.
“She earned her degree from UVA in medieval and renaissance history.”
He looked back at Lisa. “And she works in an orphanage?”
“Well it wasn’t our first choice, but when we came home to see the place,” she said indicating the home behind them, “it was about to be shut down. We couldn’t let that happen to the children, so we bought it.”
“Ye and Kat?”
“Yes. We were raised here.”
“She’s an orphan?”
“We both are. So we took over, but it hasn’t been easy.” Lisa’s eyes narrowed. “You said you had an invitation for Kat,” Lisa reminded him expectantly.
He realized that his smile had faded. It was probably his scowl that scared the woman into remembering her tongue. So Toren smiled again, but the humor did not reach his eyes.
“I’m hosting an artifact exhibition dinner party tomorrow evening to raise money for charity.”
Lisa’s glare softened. “What a wonderful idea. What charity?”
He’d originally thought to send the money to one of those children’s hospitals he’d seen advertised on the television late at night, or to those starving children in Africa. “That is why I want her to come, and ye, too, should come,” he said catching her hand in his. “Sister Mary’s Home for Children sounds like a worthy cause.” Though he held Lisa’s hand, his eyes moved back to his prey.
Kat stopped puttering and turned towards him. She’d obviously been paying attention.
“The orphanage is a very worthy cause,” Lisa said breathlessly, stretching up and down on the balls of her feet. “Wait until I tell Kat. She’ll be so relieved.”
Toren glanced down at the petite brunette. “She worries about money then?”
“We both do. The grants have about run out. The church has cut their charitable donations, and the government doesn’t seem to understand why we won’t just close this place and split up the children, no matter how many ways Kat explains that this is their home, their family.” Lisa shook her head. “Kat will be very excited to hear about your generosity. Thank you.” She smiled up at him, once more trusting. Naïve woman. He smiled back and released her hand to leave
. “It’s dinner and cocktails at eight tomorrow evening. Ye’ll tell her?”
“Certainly.”
He bowed slightly, which caused the woman to giggle.
Kat picked up the sack that had taken her ten minutes to pack and began to walk the other way.
“Mr. Reynolds,” Toren called out. She turned to look at him, the cape blowing away from her luscious curves covered by only a scrap of orange material. Her eyes still seemed overly round.
“Yes.” Her voice squeaked and then she cleared her throat.
Toren pointed overhead where a swarm of butterflies gathered. “They seem fond of ye.”
“They’re attracted to magic. Have a good day.” She turned and walked stiffly away. The butterflies hovered around like a blanket, some landing on her wet hair.
Toren shook his head and glanced up where he sensed the necklace lay hidden. He knew now that the third window to the right on the second floor belonged to Kat. “They aren’t the only creatures attracted to magic.”
Under that softly rounded exterior lay a witch, a witch whose powers seemed not to work on him. Why? And to what extent were her powers, and how was she linked to the necklace? For now he’d let her keep the bait. Perhaps she knew something of the magic that had stolen his life from him.
It was a long jog to the Manning House, but he had a need to burn off some restless energy. He took one more look at Sister Mary’s Home for Children. “Kat,” he said, feeling the roll of her name along his tongue. “Beautiful, aye. Magical, aye. Useful,” He paused. “Possibly.”
****
Fury, dark and palatable, stretched and quivered within the swirling mass of thirteen intertwined souls. Bound for thousands of years, the demons fought against each other and against their impenetrable walls. Lust, greed, envy, hatred—foul emotions simmered together, moved together, searched time and space together. They had ripped the magic from the Warlock, Druce, but still needed his soul mate’s half to complete their power, the power to break their bonds. So they moved slowly from year to year across the globe searching for Druce’s daughters.
Their mother, a crafty Wiccan, had hidden the girls throughout time just before they had crushed her useless human body. At least Druce’s magic allowed them to thread through time, searching for the dragonfly power.
“Wait!” The deep voice of Semiazaz radiated throughout the oily pool, causing the chaos to organize along the perimeter into individual souls. He coalesced into his familiar image of a wise, tall man with a long white beard. “Feel that?”
The souls shuddered. “Kill!” “Crush!” “Vengeance!” “Die!”
“Quiet!” Semiazaz’s voice crashed through the chaos. The jagged fragments of hatred and blood lust quelled into a low murmur.
“A tremor from one of Gilla’s daughters. Her purity, it sings to me.” His shadowy essence smiled.
“How is it we hear her now?” Bast, a cat-like Egyptian demon hissed from where she materialized near the edge of their prison.
“Something joins with her own magic, something powerful. Perhaps it will be of use after we rip her magic thread away,” Semiazaz said as he studied the direction from which it came. “Ahh, there it is, North America,” he murmured. Then louder to the group of swirling violence and fury, “we move now, together, concentrate on the vibration!”
The dark storm lengthened, thinning into a dull gray thread and shot up and through the layers of temporal dimensions toward the twenty-first century.
****
“Oh, but you have to go,” Lisa pleaded. “I don’t want to go alone. And anyway, he seemed more interested in you than me. When did you go over to the Manning House yesterday? Why didn’t you tell me?” Lisa fired questions.
Kat sneezed instead and blew her nose with gusto. “I dropped by after my swim lesson.” She cast a pallor over her face. “We talked briefly, hardly at all. I’m sure he’s not interested in me.” Kat wiped a red, drippy nose. “And I’m too sick to go. You go.”
Lisa sat on Kat’s soft double bed with the rose-colored canopy. “Aren’t you excited that he’s giving the money from the dinner to us, to the orphanage?”
Kat rolled her eyes. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
“Why would he suggest that he’d give it to us, if he wasn’t going to?”
“Some people are cruel that way.”
Lisa looked bewildered. “What people, in real life, anyway? Yes, terrorists, people who abuse puppies, those types, but Toren MacCallum doesn’t seem like he’d kick puppies.”
“And you gathered that from talking to him for what, two minutes?”
“Well,” Lisa said, “we were alone in an alley, and he didn’t do anything that seemed maniacal.”
Kat waved her hand. “Whatever. You go. Represent us well, and we’ll see if Laird MacCallum comes through with his money.”
“You know, he could be a real laird. I looked up his name on the internet. Most of the MacCallums have died out. Maybe he’s a long lost descendent of the sixteenth-century clan.”
Lisa finally departed.
Kat watched out the window as Lisa’s little car drove around the corner. They had arranged for two trusted women to get the kids under control and into their beds since Lisa planned to be out and Kat had woken up with a head cold.
Kat pulled on jeans and a long-sleeved sweater. Although it was June, a cold front had come through. Kat whipped her hair back into a ponytail. She pulled out the necklace and laid it on a bandana.
“You are too much trouble. Somehow he found you, found me.” She yanked back when she felt a buzzing against her fingertip. She stared at the image, but it didn’t change. “And I have a feeling he won’t give up until you’re returned.” She hoped her words were true, hoped that once he had the artifact back he wouldn’t try to prosecute or drag the orphanage into this mess. Kat wrapped the necklace up. “You’re going home.”
She didn’t dare let the necklace touch her bare skin. Somehow Toren had seen her when she’d stolen the piece. But yesterday he’d only seen Mr. Reynolds the magician. The magic within the necklace must have made her visible to him when she’d touched it at the Manning House. She wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. She’d return it while his house was full of guests. The party was a perfect diversion.
If only she could keep thoughts on the plan and not on the way his chest looked in the black T-shirt or the way his jeans molded to his gorgeous backside. Kat’s internal temperature rose as she remembered his powerful arms when he leaned against the garage. A Celtic tattoo encircled one chiseled bicep. His well formed chest tapered into narrow, powerful hips and thighs. She sighed, feeling her stomach tighten and a rush of heat pool down between her legs. “I really need to get laid,” she said mimicking Lisa’s favorite saying.
Unfortunately she never had. Being twenty-six and still a virgin was too weird to explain, and it was something she couldn’t hide once they did it. She had wanted to wait until marriage, which kept her a virgin through college. But now the children and the orphanage took priority. Marriage was not on the radar. Yes, it was time to become a woman after Eve, as Sister Mary had called it.
And even though Toren MacCallum seemed quite able to accomplish that feat, the fact that she’d stolen his treasure and he would most likely have her jailed pretty much ruined that idea.
Kat shivered as her mind wandered over his amazing form again. Toren MacCallum was definitely lion material. “I think a cat would be better to start with. Someone more tame, safe.” Yes, someone who didn’t look like he’d eat her up.
With a big huff, Kat cleared her head. She would consider her options for sin later. Right now she had a reverse heist to pull off. She flashed a sign of the cross and sent a guilty prayer for help.
Kat pulled over to a shaded area about a quarter mile from the Manning House. She guzzled down a twelve-ounce bottle of water and stepped out. The lakeside mansion was lit and glowed like a sparkling chandelier.
As Kat crept closer, she h
eard laughter and a live quartet. Thunder rumbled overhead and she glanced up to the black sky. No moon could show through the cloud cover. Kat didn’t need to hide in the shadows. She held herself invisible, so the darkness only hindered her progress.
Lightning arced downward several miles away, giving a view of the gardens. Cars rolled through the circular drive.
Kat jogged to the rear of the house, droplets of rain stinging her face as she ran. Lightning continued to discharge. Kat crept up to a window and peered inside.
Toren stood along one wall, eyes searching the crowd. His gaze shifted to the window.
Kat gasped and threw her shoulder blades against the house. Could he feel that she was there? Or perhaps the necklace, she thought, and looked down at the tied bandana.
She froze as he opened the window. The screen made it difficult for him to stick his head out.
“Looks like a storm is blowing in.” His rolling burr raced down her spine as he lowered the window.
Breathe, he can’t see you.
With another rumble of thunder, the clouds opened up, dumping their deluge. Her hair soaked through immediately, jeans stuck to legs.
Kat’s adrenaline hummed so that she barely registered the chilly rain against her skin. Now what? She watched the hired help dash out back to retrieve the hors d’oeuvres that were set up in a gazebo. The back door. She’d head inside invisibly, return the necklace and leave.
Kat’s mind clicked from one disastrous scenario to another. She must leave the necklace somewhere safe. If someone else stole it after she returned it, Toren MacCallum would never believe her. Somewhere safe and somewhere he would find it. “His bedroom,” she whispered to the tempest as she ran across the yard and stepped inside. Rainwater pooled onto the floor from the sodden sweater.
“Shoot!” she cursed and dashed back outside and under the swaying lights around the gazebo. Wet leaves, loosed by the gusts of wind, slapped across Kat. As thunder rumbled in the distance, Kat paused.
Maybe she should just hightail it back to her car and send the necklace to the man. Lightning lit the sky across Jordan Lake. No, she’d come this far, she needed to complete her mission. “I’m already wet,” she mumbled and shivered.
Masquerade (The Dragonfly Chronicles Book 3) Page 4