Heart of the Secret: A Witches of Lane County Novella

by Jody A. Kessler

  Rook doesn’t speak in the vision, but I begin to hear the sounds of this place. Always the birds are chattering and singing, but then I notice the buzz of bees and the clicking of grasshopper wings as they hop from one patch of grass to the next. The call of the raven turns my attention to the south and I see the well-marked trail leading away from the backyard and off through the trees. He leads me in that direction next.

  The small barn, a workshop, and Rook’s truck parked next to a tractor all scream at me as being home. This is the home I have dreamed of all my life. The place that would never exist in reality. Then Snowdrop rounds the corner of the barn and approaches the paddock fence looking at me for his molasses oats, a carrot, or some other favorite treat. As I near the barn, I see Perry grazing in the pasture beyond.

  “What are you doing?” I ask as I slip out from Rook’s arms and climb to my feet.

  “Showing you our future,” he says and stands to meet me face to face.

  I take a step back. This part is going to hurt. I can already feel it starting to burn inside. I cross my arms over my stomach with the need to protect myself.

  “How were you doing that? Can you manipulate anyone’s mind?” I hear the accusations in my tone and I hate the sound. This is where I become the person I loathe. The heartbreaker and the crusher of hopes and dreams. Not only my own, but those of the unsuspecting men I love.

  I was in love once before, or at least I thought I was. It was years ago, but I’ll never forget the misery and soul-crushing heartache of breaking up with someone I care about.

  “Aspen,” Rook starts. He looks ruffled to say the least. Confusion furrows his brow, and there’s a line of tension in his jaw that isn’t normally there. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I haven’t shared this with anyone since I was thirteen. The visions I have are real. They don’t come often, but I know when one is true.”

  “You didn’t have a vision of me when you were thirteen,” I say with disbelief. Even if he actually did, I don’t want to hear about it. I can’t have a long term relationship. It’s not in the cards for the Morgan witches. The witches of Lane County are cursed, and even though no one says it aloud, everyone knows it’s true.

  “No. That isn’t what I meant.”

  He sounds frustrated as he rubs the back of his neck with a work roughened hand.

  “I haven’t shared one of my visions with anyone since I was a teenager and this is why. The last person reacted about the same way you are right now. Being inside someone else’s head isn’t a grand idea. Showing them the future is an even worse one. I thought you would like it. I mistakenly thought you would be as excited as I am. My visions have never been wrong.”

  “You’re wrong this time,” I say while staring at my riding boots.

  “I wanted to show you before I have to leave on this internship. Today is perfect. You and me and the horses, here on my land. I knew from the day I was born that I would not live on the family estate in England. I’ve always felt that I was searching for something. I’ve traveled all over and studied the heavens and the stars and now, finally, in this northwest corner of the world I feel like I am home. This place is not for me alone. I know you are part of it.”

  “But I’m not, Rook. You may have found your piece of ground here, but I will never be able to live with you.”

  “You saw your garden and your horses. It’s only a few miles from your family. Why do you keep insisting that you won’t marry me? Why are you so afraid? You know as well as I do that we were made to be together. The stars align for a love like ours only once every few centuries. We both feel it and don’t deny it to my face.”

  He sounds more than frustrated now, and as cold-hearted as it sounds, I can handle anger a lot better than sadness. Fury and resentment toward who I am is always much easier than the devastation of knowing I have no control over my future or my fate.

  “You may be the more sensitive one, but you can’t control my actions. Just because you can plant pretty pictures in my head doesn’t mean you know what my future looks like.”

  “I do. I don’t know how we get there exactly, but I’ve seen the truth.”

  “You’re messing with my head and I don’t appreciate it,” I say, and set my jaw.

  “I’m doing no such thing. I could if I wanted to, but I don’t hurt those I love, which I can see isn’t a policy you subscribe to.”

  “Don’t accuse me of things when you don’t understand what I have to deal with.”

  “Why don’t you tell me so we can sort it out together?”

  I ball my fists at my side wanting to scream it in his face, but that’s part of the problem. I can’t tell him. The silence is part of the curse. I can’t speak of the curse with anyone but a direct female descendant of the Morgan family.

  “You’re pushing me toward a future I don’t want,” I lie.

  He sees straight through me and sorrow settles on his face. A shadow clouds the light in his copper eyes. “You’ll even lie to yourself to place a rift between us, but I know how you feel about me and I know what I was shown. We’ll be married one day, Aspen Morgan, and you’ll be happier here than you have ever been in your entire life.”

  I turn away from him and train my eyes on Snowdrop. His head is down as he nibbles on the meadow grass. My horse has been the one true constant in my life that always brings contentment. I’m going to need his daily soothing presence in my life again very soon. Letting Rook distract me so much these last seven moons was a mistake. The last time I had my heart broken, it took a year to stop thinking of my ex every day. The depth of feelings I have for Rook is a thousand times more intense than before. This breakup is going to cause a chasm of pain that even Snowdrop may not be able to fill. “I’m sorry, Rook,” I start, and then steel my resolve at what I have to do. “You’ve made a terrible mistake by dating me, and you don’t know everything about me. I don’t want to live here with you. I don’t want to have anything to do with you anymore and I’m glad you’re leaving for a year. It should make this easier on us both.” I swallow, blink three times and turn to look him in the eyes. “Please don’t come see me anymore.”

  I move toward my horse, intending to ride back to my barn alone. I have to be by myself now. Maybe I can go camp on the beach for a few days so I won’t have to face the aunts and their knowing sympathetic glances.

  He’s fast. Too fast for me to realize and slip out of his grip. He takes my hand and reels me in so I’m standing right in front of him. A wave of his natural cologne washes over me in a cloud of warm cedar and redwood mixed with the faint trace of leather saddles and soap. He guides me in closer to his body and then raises his free hand. The muscles of my back tense and I struggle to keep up the charade of anger. He raises his thumb and gently wipes away the tear at the corner of my eye.

  “Why?” he asks.

  “Because I can’t be who you want me to be.”

  “I don’t want you to be anything but you. I love you exactly as you are and I always will.”

  “You don’t know what you’re saying, Rook. I’m not the girl for you and I’ll never marry you. Ever.”

  That did it. I broke him. The pain in him from my simple declaration is as clear as the cloudless sky overhead. Of course I would choose the perfect day to make myself perfectly miserable.

  As if he flips an emotional switch, Rook all at once shifts and expertly covers his pain with a mask of challenge. I try to pull away but he holds tight.

  The tip of his tongue moistens his lower lip. “I see we’re starting something new between us,” he says as if he’s figured me out.

  “Let me go. I need to leave. I don’t want to see you,” I say, not liking the sudden change in his behavior and the challenge rising like the tide.

  “Just one moment.”

  With that he leans forward and places his lips against my forehead. “You’ll never be able to forget me, Aspen Milan Morgan.”

  His lips travel over to my temple and then down to the edge of
my jaw. I shove against his chest, but he’s unyielding. The warmth of his lips meets my pulse. I feel my body, and my resolve, melting. I’m sure he can feel the blood pounding through the delicate skin. Rook lingers there, teasing my sensitive neck with his teeth and lips.

  “Don’t you dare put a spell on me, Rook Avesbury,” I say, even though at this point he can do pretty much whatever he wants. Goddess, I am such a wimp when it comes to his kisses.

  The tingling heat from his mouth penetrates deep into my body and I’m filled with effervescence, like tiny champagne bubbles are dancing through my bloodstream. Damn. This kind of sexual attraction should be illegal. He sucks lightly on the nape of my neck and I stop resisting. The point of no return lies in that one magical spot of skin. I whimper and run my fingers along the side of his ribcage and then grip the muscles of his back. He takes my roving hands as a cue and moves his lips to my mouth. A purring growl rumbles out of his chest as he claims me as his for at least the thousandth time. Is it fair to have this much desire and longing for another human being? No. It’s not. Fairness flew out the window the day my many times great-grandmother decided to curse everyone in her family tree. Would it really be so bad spending our final day together satisfying our physical needs? Every day after today is going to hurt worse than I can even imagine, so why not have one last hour to love him and let him love me?

  My overcharged thoughts turn to super-charged currents of lust and I realize that we’re sinking to our knees, bodies entangled. Rook lowers his mouth to my collar bone and I arch my spine, giving him room to maneuver over every exquisitely tender inch of skin.

  He murmurs, “You know I would never do anything against your will, you cursed woman. I’m the one who should be wary of you and all your magical ways and crazy talk.”

  I stiffen. What did he just say? Cursed woman? Has he put it together? The real reason I can’t marry him even though our souls long to be together in every way, physically and spiritually.

  His hand glides down my spine sending maddening shivers right to my core. He palms my ass and pulls me in tight against him, his hips grinding into me. There’s no telling where the source of the heat pulsing between us emanates from. It’s him, it’s me. It’s the connection keeping us locked together.

  “No! We can’t keep doing this.” This time I shove him hard enough away that he tips to the side and I’m out of his arms and back on my feet before he recovers.

  “This!” he says with shock and hurt in his eyes. He rises, steps forward, and then rakes his fingers over his scalp. “We’re making love. The kind everyone wants and nobody finds. What is the matter with you today?”

  “I don’t have to explain myself other than to say we’re through. I love you, but it’s not enough!” I feel the wind pick up with my rage. My already untamable hair flies about my head and I’m sure I become the witch of fabled nightmares. That is if the damned sun wasn’t so glaringly ideal today. Where are the lightning bolts and claps of thunder when you need them?

  “You’re truly magnificent when you’re being irrational. Just look at yourself, darling,” Rook says, his hands on his hips and awe now sparkling in his copper-tinged eyes like he’s just discovered a new and wondrous species. “This is the woman I’ve been searching for,” he exclaims while holding his open palm toward me and staring up at the universe.

  And maybe he has found a new variety of female, but he really doesn’t want to find out that this kind of wild woman rips your heart out, stomps on it, spits on it, and then sets fire to it and watches it burn until there is nothing left but ashes.

  “I’m breaking up with you,” I say in cold monotone. If I keep letting my emotions show, I won’t be able to make it back to my house. I won’t be able to do anything because I know I’ll collapse right here in the meadow where Rook saw our future house with the perfect garden, and the perfect barn, and the unbelievably beautiful life that we will never know. I can’t have one more moment to feel him beneath my hands, to feel him inside of me until we are one soul soaring through the heavens of sexual bliss. This ends now.

  He tips his head to the side, watching my face, looking for my cracks.

  I won’t crack. This is for him! I want to scream it. To shout it out loud that we can’t have a future because he won’t survive the Morgan curse. Instead I take another step back, putting more space between us. The grass crumbles under my boots. The earth knows what I’m doing and is dying along with my love for Rook.

  He glances down and sees the grass change from lush green to brown, dry, and lifeless. Concern etches a groove at the corners of his previously humorous mouth. Now he’s starting to see how serious I am.

  “Why are you taking this so far?” he asks.

  “Why did you have to bring up marriage?”

  “It’s not the worst thing in the world, is it? I want to be with you and you want to be with me.”

  “And I can’t give myself to you. I’ve already told you. You have to take the seven months we’ve had and be happy with it, because there is no more. Goodbye, Rook.” I spin on my heel and run before he touches me, with his hands, or his thoughts, or his heart.

  Chapter Two

  Snowdrop knows just where to take me. Home to his stall. I’m so distraught over what I’ve just done to Rook that I don’t even slow Snowdrop down and let him run all the way back. It will take weeks to retrain this one blunder of letting my horse run home, but right now, I don’t care. At least working with my horse will give me something to do other than mourn the loss of losing the man who captured my soul.

  The sight of Rook’s black pickup truck parked in the drive next to my barn is another glaring reminder that he’s not actually out of my life yet. I glance north looking for pursuit from Rook and Perry but don’t see them. I know he’ll take good care of Perry, so I rush to unsaddle Snowdrop so I won’t see them when they return. My undoing has already begun and I won’t backslide and start over, which is a definite possibility if I have to have another blowout with Rook.

  Snowdrop feels my tension as I run a brush over his withers and he rewards my hasty treatment with a stamp of a hoof and a nip on my shoulder. Jumping out of the way before he decides one bite isn’t enough, I quickly decide I’m in no mood for horsey antics. I throw the brush in the bucket of grooming tools, unclip him from the lead rope, and walk over to swing open the gate to the paddock. He prances out of the barn when he sees his freedom. As soon as his rump passes me by, I want to slap myself on the head for making my second mistake in the last few minutes. I just rewarded my gelding for biting me with free time in the pasture. I groan through gritted teeth at my blunders. I wave my hand at the bucket and the rope, willing them with my magic to put themselves away. The bucket is supposed to move to the shelf and the rope coil around a peg. Instead of complying with the swiftness and grace of simple magic, the bucket haphazardly hits the shelf, tips over and spills all my tools on the barn floor. The lead rope follows with a lazy twizzle through the air, misses the peg completely, and then slides down the wall to lie in a heap. Even my magic is against me right now. I am so ready for this day to end.

  Stomping my way to the house while inwardly sulking and trying not to give into my grief takes a ton of effort, but somehow I manage to make it inside without falling apart. I kick off my boots on the mat by the door and step inside the kitchen. It’s quiet and I can’t be more grateful. I don’t know where Aunt Ivy and Aunt Jet are, but if I can make it up to my rooms without running into them, I will say ten prayers of gratitude to the heavens and angels for the next year.

  As stealthily as possible I slip out of the kitchen and into the hall and that’s when I notice the shades are drawn and all the blue candles are lit in the living room and parlor. I pick up speed and tip-toe as fast as I can toward the stairs. A cloud of sparkly mist hits me and the smell of lilacs and cinnamon coffee cake infiltrates my nose.

  “Oh, dear. How bad was it?”

  “Shit,” I curse under my breath.

 
“That’s good. Get it out of your system now, Sweet-pea. The pain won’t be allowed to settle in your organs or anywhere else if you let it go,” Aunt Ivy says as she appears behind me and takes me by the shoulders. I instantly smell sweet peas after she says my childhood nickname and now my stomach is clenching from all the smells she’s sending into the air.

  “Could you tone down the odors? It’s making me ill,” I say as she pushes me into the glowing living room full of burning candles.

  I swear she has about five hundred candles lit. All blue and throwing off lilac perfume like they’re trying to cover up the smell of something dead. Which was pretty thoughtful of Aunt Ivy because, yes, my relationship with Rook is officially dead. Yay for me. I pinch the bridge of my nose and blink away the sudden burning sensation in my eyes. I see a raised eyebrow from my aunt at my gesture, but she doesn’t remark. Neither does she tone down the smells. Instead she sits me down on the ancient Victorian style sofa, and then turns to the gigantic cinnamon cake sitting on the coffee table.

  “How are you holding up?” she starts again. “How did Rook take it?”

  “I can’t do this right now, Aunt Ivy,” I say, willing her to understand. I start to push myself up but she jabs a plate of cake in front of my face and I plop back down so I don’t get my teeth knocked out.

  My part of the house is up two flights of stairs and there’s nowhere else I would like to be.

  “Eat this. It’ll help you feel better. I don’t like the thought of you being alone right now. Remember what happened the last time you had to end things with a boy? It didn’t go well. You were unbalanced for much too long.”