Habit made me want to say that I didn’t need my mama and daddy to look after me…but maybe in this case, I did. Donovan was supposed to come by the apartment this evening, though, and I wanted to see him. I couldn’t reveal to him what was really going on, of course, but at least I could tell him that I had to go out of town for a few days and make up some family emergency to justify it.
I would miss him – just thinking about not feeling his touch and not tasting his kiss for more than a few hours made a terrible pang of loss go through me – but sometimes these things couldn’t be helped.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll come to your h-house…tonight.”
His frown deepened. “I think we should go now. Throw some things in a bag and let’s get out of here.”
“I can’t,” I insisted. “There’s something else I have to do. Something p-personal.”
I could tell that he wanted to insist on an explanation, but he had learned over the years to back off whenever I took a certain tone, and this was one of those times.
“All right,” he said, “but you have to stay here until then, with the door locked, and I’ll come and get you. You don’t want those two who came after you on Halloween night to show up again.”
“What about them?” I said. “Do you have any idea wh-why they were crazy that night and n-normal today?”
“Of course, and you do, too, if you’ll stop and think about it.”
Once again I felt like slapping my forehead in exasperation. “They were being compelled by a sp-spell.”
“That would be my guess,” my dad nodded. “They were handy weapons, probably just driving along in the vicinity when someone planted a compulsion in their heads and altered their personalities.”
“Angela,” I said, and my voice was flat and hard and dangerous. At least, that was the way it sounded to me. “Why is she out to get me? Why did she set me up to discover my powers in the first place?”
My dad shook his head. “I don’t know. We’ll have to find out, though, because you probably won’t be safe until we do.”
Matilda wandered over and started rubbing against his legs…the same legs she had sent vanishing through time when she was possessed by Angela. I worried about the effects such a possession might have had on her, but she seemed to be all right. My dad picked her up and petted her, but from the intent look on his face, I could tell he was also searching for any signs of remaining mystical influence clinging to her.
“Nothing,” he told me with a shake of his head. “She’s clean.”
“Of course she is,” I said as I took Matilda from him. “Cats are c-clean animals.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes, I do. Thank you for checking.”
“What time do you want me to come back and get you?”
Donovan had said he’d stop by around seven. “How about eight?” I suggested. That would give us time to say a proper goodbye, or maybe a slightly improper one.
“All right, eight o’clock. I’m going to put a ward on that door, too, so anything mystical in nature won’t be able to come in without a fight. That should create enough of a disturbance in the atmosphere to warn you.”
I knew what he meant. Most witches know it when another witch’s powers are being used somewhere close by.
Angela Vandermeer might be sneakier than that, however, and have a way of cloaking her activities. She had possessed Matilda without me having a clue what was going on. At least my dad had picked up on it right away.
The ward was a good idea. It wouldn’t have any effect on Taylor or Beth or any other human who approached the door, but if Angela showed up in person…
I almost hoped she would. I was going to put my afternoon to good use, thinking up some spells designed to take that arrogant bitch down a notch.
Chapter Sixteen
Even with the mystical ward and the door being physically locked as well, I felt a little nervous after my dad left. I went around and checked all the windows, making sure they were secure, too. Matilda followed me around while I was doing that, and while I hate to admit it, she creeped me out a little. I knew that my dad had checked her out and declared her free of witchly possession, but how could I be sure that Angela hadn’t sneaked back in somehow? After all, she had fooled me once, and the fact that she had been inside Matilda, spying on me, bothered me as well.
I picked up the cat and sat down on the sofa. “Are you really just a cat now?” I asked as I stroked her head.
She looked up at me, all apparent innocence. I wish I could believe it, but all the sudden changes in my life had made me a little paranoid, I guess. I was starting to see enemies everywhere.
Or one particular enemy, anyway.
Matilda didn’t do much but sleep, though, and after a while I relaxed some. I fixed lunch, took a nap during the afternoon – although I didn’t know why I needed a nap, considering how well I had slept in Donovan’s arms the night before – and then packed the things I would need to stay a few days at my folks’ house, while they reported Angela’s transgressions to the witches’ council. I just hoped they would take action against her quickly, so I could resume my normal life.
As if it would ever be normal again, after discovering I could cast spells after all and then meeting Donovan.
My roommates came in within fifteen minutes of each other that evening, first Beth and then Taylor. Beth was on me instantly, wanting to hear all about Donovan and my date with him the night before, but I managed to stall her off until Taylor arrived so I’d only have to go through it once.
Once they had me on the sofa with one of them on each side of me and Matilda in my lap, I was trapped. I told them about Donovan – Taylor had already heard some of that, of course – and how he lived in the guest house behind his mother’s mansion on Ocean Drive.
“So he comes from money,” Taylor said. “Excellent.”
“I don’t really c-care about that,” I said.
“No, but it never hurts, unless he’s dumb enough to have renounced his family’s wealth, and it sounds like that’s not the case.”
“Don’t be shallow, Taylor,” Beth said.
“There’s a big difference between shallow and practical,” Taylor replied archly. She turned back to me. “Go on.”
Taylor had been to the restaurant where we’d eaten, Beth hadn’t. I filled up some time with details of what we’d eaten, hoping that would satisfy them and keep them from pressing me too much about what had happened later.
It didn’t. “We want to hear everything,” Beth said. “And remember, I’m a doctor, so you can’t shock me.”
“Well…he made me breakfast this morning.”
“That’s good, very good,” Taylor said. “Now back up.”
“Really, you guys, I don’t f-feel comfortable talking about this. Can’t we just say it was a w-wonderful night and leave it at that?”
“We could,” Beth said, “but we’re not going to.”
I glanced at the clock. Almost seven. Donovan would be here any minute, I thought. It would be fine with me if he showed up a few minutes early. The interruption would be more than welcome.
Instead my phone started buzzing where it was lying on the coffee table in front of me. I tightened my grip on Matilda and leaned forward to pick it up. An image of a cat wearing a fireman’s hat popped up on the screen. I had programmed that into my phone for Donovan because he helped me when I rescued Matilda. “This is him,” I told Taylor and Beth.
“All right, we’ll give you some privacy,” Beth said.
Taylor shook her head. “No, we won’t.”
Beth stood up and took hold of her arm. “Come on, nosey.”
They went into the kitchen, Taylor reluctantly, as I answered the call and said, “Hi.”
“Hi, yourself,” Donovan said. “How are you?”
“I’m fine. Are you running l-late?”
He sighed. “That’s why I’m calling. I’m afraid I can’t make it at all.”
A mixtu
re of worry, disappointment, and anger shot through me. I couldn’t help but think of Ronnie Holt. I didn’t want to believe that Donovan was like that. Surely he wasn’t blowing me off now because he’d gotten everything he wanted from me. I didn’t know if I could stand that.
“Is something wrong?” I forced myself to ask.
“Yeah, a crisis in the Japanese stock market. It’s been pretty volatile and fragile since the tsunami, and I’m afraid I’m gonna have to be monitoring it all night.”
Well, that sounded reasonable, I thought. And even though just talking about the Japanese stock market was rather yawn-inducing, I offered, “I could come over to your place and g-give you a hand.”
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I wanted to recall them. I realized how needy I sounded, and I didn’t like it.
Donovan didn’t seem bothered, though. He laughed and said, “I appreciate it, but honestly, Aren, having you around would be a distraction that my clients just can’t afford. I may be moving investments around pretty fast and furious.”
“All right,” I said. “I understand.” What else could I say?
“Maybe tomorrow – ”
“No.” I’d been upset enough by the change in plans that I’d forgotten to give him the other news I had. “I won’t be around for a few d-days.”
“What?” Now he sounded worried, like he thought I was dumping him because he’d broken our date. “Aren, if it’s that important to you – ”
“No, no, it’s not that,” I said quickly. “I’m g-going to stay with my folks for a few days. Just a minor f-family emergency.” That sounded too vague, so I went on, “My mom’s sick, and my dad, b-bless his heart, isn’t too good at taking care of her.”
“Oh. Well, that’s a relief!” Instantly, he added, “Wait a minute, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I mean, I’m sorry your mom’s not well. It’s just that I thought you might be upset with me…”
“Things come up in life for b-both of us,” I told him. “It’s okay.”
“Can I still call you while you’re gone?”
Now that warm feeling was back. “I don’t see why not,” I said.
“All right. Good. I’ll do that. Tomorrow, in fact.”
“I’ll be looking f-forward to it.”
“I guess I’d better get back to my computers and see what the Japanese are doing now. Good night, Aren.”
“Sayonara,” I said, thinking it might be cute, then wincing to myself as I realized it probably wasn’t.
But he was chuckling when the connection broke, so I guess it was okay.
After a minute or two, when Taylor and Beth didn’t hear me talking anymore, they came out of the kitchen. “Well?” Beth said. “Anything you’d care to discuss?”
“Donovan was going to come by, but now he c-can’t.”
“You mean I’m not going to get to meet him?”
“Not right now, but s-soon, I hope.”
That was a fervent hope on my part, too, because it would mean this whole trouble with Angela Vandermeer was over.
Beth’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Why is he backing out?” she asked.
“Some sort of business emergency.”
The two of them looked at each other and said together, “Uh-huh.”
“Wait a minute!” I protested. “What do you mean by that?”
“You slept with him last night, Aren,” Taylor said. “And now he’s already breaking dates.”
I didn’t want to admit that the same thought had already occurred to me. I shook my head and said, “You’ve got it all wrong. Donovan’s not like that – ”
“You haven’t known him long enough to be sure of that,” Beth said. “You barely know him at all!”
Logically speaking, that was true. I had known him only a couple of days. I had gone to bed with him practically on the first date, no matter how he wanted to count them. That was a crazy thing to do, especially for someone like me whose love life had always been so shy and halting. Had I been so overcome by pent-up lust that I’d allowed it to make me forget all my common sense?
No. The answer came through loud and clear in my mind. Taylor and Beth just didn’t understand. It was like I had known Donovan Cole all my life.
“We just don’t want you to get hurt,” Taylor said.
“If things work out between the two of you, great,” Beth said. “Just don’t get your hopes up too high right away.”
“And who knows,” Taylor added, “he may even be telling the truth.”
She didn’t sound like she believed it, though.
“You’re wrong about him, both of you,” I said.
Beth looked sympathetic. “I hope so.”
She didn’t believe it, either. Just like Taylor, she was all too ready to think the worst.
The bad thing was, I wasn’t completely, beyond any doubt, one hundred percent sure that they were wrong and I was right about Donovan.
There was only one way to find out.
I put Matilda in Beth’s lap and stood up. “My dad’s coming by here to pick me up in a little while,” I said. “I have to go run a quick errand first, though, so if he gets here before I get back, tell him to wait.”
“Aren, you’re not going to Donovan’s place to check up on him, are you?” Taylor asked.
“N-n-no,” I said.
“Yes, she is,” Beth said. “Look at her. Aren, you don’t want to do that. You’ll look like you don’t trust him.”
“Both of you were telling me not to trust him!”
“Yeah, but you don’t want him to know that,” Taylor said.
I started toward the door. “I’ll be back.”
I know, it was an incredibly stupid thing to do. It was going directly against what my father had told me.
But I was a grown woman and he couldn’t forbid me to do anything, I thought, and anyway, after waiting for so long to find a guy like Donovan, I didn’t want to do anything to risk ruining what we had between us. Looking back on it logically, even without all the witch business thrown in, charging over to his place to check up on his story was an awesomely stupid thing to do.
What can I tell you? I wasn’t thinking straight.
Taylor caught my arm before I got to the door. “I’m coming with you,” she said. “That way you can tell him that we were going out, and I insisted on stopping by there to meet him properly. We really didn’t get a chance to talk much before.” She shrugged. “He’ll probably see through it, but hey, at least he’ll have to give you credit for trying.”
I hesitated. I really didn’t see where it would be a problem. I’d told Donovan about my roommates, and it stood to reason that I’d told them about him, and there was nothing odd about one of them wanting to meet him. We’d just say a quick hello, be in and out of his place in thirty seconds. It would be all right.
“Fine,” I said. “Let’s g-go.” If it was possible, I wanted to be back here before my dad arrived, so he wouldn’t even have to know that I’d left the apartment.
“We’ll take my car,” Taylor said as we headed downstairs.
Her car was a sporty little convertible, which she’d gotten because it was such a contrast to the buttoned-up, conservative life she led most of the time as a lawyer. On the weekends, she’d been known to put the top down, wear the tiniest bikini she could, and cruise up and down Ocean Drive turning heads.
This was the wrong time of year for doing that, and besides, it was night, but soon we were spurting along Ocean Drive anyway with Taylor at the wheel.
“You’ll have to tell me how to find his place,” she said.
I hoped I could. At night, one big fancy house tends to look like another big fancy house.
But a few minutes later, I spotted some decorative wrought-iron posts that I remembered next to a driveway. I pointed them out to Taylor and said, “That’s it.”
“Wow,” she said as she turned in and looked at Donovan’s mother’s house. “And again, wow. Have you been in there?�
��
“Not yet,” I said. I would be someday, I thought. I’d have to meet his mother sooner or later.
“The guest house is in back?”
“Yeah, just keep going along the driveway.”
She did, and a moment later the guest house came in sight, separated from the main house by the four-car garage. The garage doors were all closed, but a Lexus sedan was parked at an angle on the concrete in front of them. I didn’t recognize it.
“Is that his?” Taylor asked.
“I don’t think so. He’s got a Jeep. It’s probably in the garage.”
“Then it looks like he’s got company. If you’d rather not do this, I can turn around easy enough.”
No, I thought, we had come this far. The car probably belonged to some business associate of his.
“We’ll just stay a m-minute,” I said. “It’ll be all right.”
Taylor brought the little sports car to a stop next to the other vehicle. We got out and went along the flagstone walk that led to the front door of the guest house. As we came closer, I heard two voices coming from inside, one belonging to a man, the other to a woman.
Donovan’s mother must have gotten back early from her trip, I told myself.
Please, let that be who it was.
Otherwise I would be faced with the possibility that the man I had fallen so hard for was just another lying, cheating bastard.
Taylor heard the voices, too, and said, “Uh-oh. They sound mad. This might not be a good time to visit, Aren.”
Despite the overpowering urge I’d felt to prove to her and Beth that they were wrong about Donovan, I was starting to think that maybe she was right.
But before we could turn around and retreat to Taylor’s car, the front door of the guest house flew open and the woman who’d been yelling a moment earlier stalked out with light from inside spilling around her.
Well, of course, considering how things had been going the past couple of days…
It was Angela Vandermeer.
Chapter Seventeen
I stopped dead in my tracks, and so did she. A second later, I was afraid she was going to try to make the condition literal, because she whipped a hand up toward me and cried, “To the farthest reaches of the outer realms – ”
Misadventures of a Tongue-Tied Witch: Boxed Set Humorous Witch Series Page 11