by Neely Powell
Harry and Riley watched him leave, and then turned back to Jake. Harry said, “We’ll discuss this at length during the next meeting.”
As the two men left, Jake stood to greet Brenna’s parents. He hoped they weren’t here to report more trouble.
“Was that Fred Williams?” Delia asked.
“You know him?”
“We grew up together.” Delia laughed. “Fred was always stuck on himself. Very handsome, of course, but vain and selfish. He was president of his senior class and thought he ran the world. I didn’t like him.”
Jake had to laugh. “He hasn’t changed much.”
“I’m not surprised.” Delia gave Jake a concerned look. “I bet dealing with him is a pain.”
“A big one,” Jake admitted. “What brings the two of you to the courthouse?”
“We were looking for you,” Dr. Burns said. He hesitated. “We wanted to talk about Brenna.”
Jake frowned. This wasn’t a conversation to have in a public meeting room. “Let’s go back down to my office.”
County employees in nearby offices directed curious stares their way as Jake led the Burns up the stairs. He supposed they were used to stares. She was uncommonly beautiful with her bright red hair, delicate skin and petite figure. Aiden had a distinguished presence. Together, they exuded a European air.
As they went through his outer office, the couple greeted Brian and called Gladys by name.
Jake offered them tea and coffee, but they declined as they went into his office and sat. He closed the door, afraid if he didn’t Gladys might strain her neck trying to listen to the conversation.
“What’s going on with Brenna?” he asked as he took the chair behind his desk.
“We’re worried about her,” Delia said. “She’s convinced Celia’s warning about betrayal in the coven is serious. To say Sarah doesn’t agree is an understatement.”
Her husband added, “In the journals she got from Inez, Brenna found evidence that there’s been discord in the coven before.”
“We can’t dispute that we Connellys haven’t always been devoted to one another.” Delia sighed. “But Sarah will not have it. Brenna is threatening to leave.”
“She and Brenna have been at it again all morning,” Dr. Burns said.
Delia rubbed her forehead. “Those two have matching tempers, and neither of them gives an inch.”
“Sarah’s worse than Brenna,” her husband said.
“Aiden.” Delia’s voice had a warning.
“Sorry, sweetie, but it’s true.”
Delia sat forward in her chair. “Jake, we know you and Brenna have been spending a lot of time together.”
Jake shifted in his seat, not quite able to meet Brenna’s father’s eyes as he thought about how he spent his time with Brenna.
“Eva Grace thinks the world of you,” Delia continued. “She says Garth loved you like a brother. We’d like you to talk to Brenna. Maybe you can help her see how unwise it is to leave her grandmother’s home.”
Jake laughed. “You think Brenna will listen to me?”
“It’s more likely she’ll listen to you than either of us,” Dr. Burns said. “She doesn’t exactly trust us.”
“Oh, Aiden, she despises us,” Delia said quietly. “We’re concerned, Jake, and we thought you’d be the best person to talk to about it.”
“What about Fiona and Eva Grace?”
“They agree with Sarah, so for maybe the first time in her life, Brenna’s on her own,” Delia said.
Jake rubbed his chin and wished he had a cup of coffee and a donut with sprinkles. A cake donut, in fact. Yeah, that’s what he needed…and to be anywhere but here.
As a loner, like most of his nature, he wasn’t used to family dramas like this. He had never been approached by the parents of a…lady friend? Girlfriend? He knew he was already embroiled in it, but did he want to get deeper? Weren’t he and Brenna just pals, just enjoying each other? Wasn’t it stupid of him to get in the middle of a family feud?
He knew all of that, yet he couldn’t look into her mother’s green eyes full of concern and turn her down. “I’ll think about talking to Brenna,” he said at last. “I can’t guarantee she won’t turn me into a toad, but I’ll try.”
“Delia made me a turtle once.” Dr. Burns’s tone was matter-of-fact.
“A tortoise, my love,” Delia corrected him. “I made you a big, beautiful tortoise once when you were trying to rush me as I was getting ready for a party. I needed you to slow down.”
He took her hand and kissed it. “I guess I did deserve that spell.”
“And I turned you back.” His lovely red-haired spouse smiled at him. “For that you can be grateful.”
Jake gulped. “So Brenna really could turn me into a toad?”
Delia considered him a moment. “Well, it might be difficult, given that you’re already a tiger, but Brenna’s very talented.”
“She summoned the wind when she was two,” Dr. Burns said with pride. “Sarah called us. I think we were in Turkey.”
Delia beamed. “Brenna is an exceptional witch.” Her eyes narrowed as she studied Jake. “I do hope you realize what you’re getting into with her.”
He wasn’t sure he liked that terminology. He hadn’t intended to get into anything but justice for his murdered friend.
The couple stood. Dr. Burns shook Jake’s hand and Delia thanked him. “I hope you will talk to Brenna.”
“I’ll try.”
Delia spoke to Gladys on the way out as Aiden waited patiently by the door. The older woman hugged Delia and they parted with plans to meet for lunch.
Jake walked over to the coffee pot and poured a cup, thankful it was freshly brewed.
“How do you know Delia?” he asked Gladys as he studied the donut remains in the box from the morning. None of the broken, hardened pieces looked appetizing.
“She was a friend of my daughter.”
Jake knew Gladys’ daughter had succumbed to leukemia before her fifteenth birthday.
“The Connelly twins were so good to my girl,” Gladys added, looking toward the door where the Burnses had exited. “When all the other kids stopped coming by the house, the twins still visited. Celia even tried to heal her, but the cancer was determined to take her. Even magic couldn’t help.”
“So Eva Grace’s mother was a healer, too?”
The older woman nodded. “She had the sweetest, kindest soul.” Gladys sighed. “We all nearly grieved ourselves into the grave when Celia was killed. I knew how Delia felt, but I and too wrapped in my own pain to help her much. I have no idea how Sarah carried on.”
“They had Brenna and Eva Grace to raise.”
Gladys clucked. “Oh, my, now that was a shock when Celia came home pregnant. She had been out west at some fancy school. She never even told Sarah she was expecting. Just came home, big as a barn, and delivered Eva Grace at the same time Brenna was born.”
“Kind of amazing. Twins having almost twins.”
“But Celia was never the same after that,” Gladys continued. “And then she died, like a young Connelly witch always does.”
The words hung in the air.
Gladys’s eyes filled with tears. “I hope that doesn’t happen this time, Jake. But I’m afraid.” She blinked. “You know it’s not over.”
“No, it’s not,” Jake said as he patted the older woman’s arm. Fear twisted his gut.
There must be something he could do to protect his witch and her family.
His witch.
Oh my God, he thought. What in the hell was he doing?
Chapter Twenty-Two
At Jake’s cabin, Brenna pulled her SUV to a stop. His cruiser wasn’t around, so she pulled over to the side. Hot summer air closed in as soon as she shut off the engine. Even here in the tall trees, the heat was oppressive on this Friday evening. Since Tuesday, the days had been steaming and the nights unnaturally warm. The weather seemed ripe for a thunderstorm, but no clouds appeared and no moi
sture fell.
“I’ll fix that,” Brenna murmured.
She got out and raised her arms to summon the wind. A breeze responded, but it was like heat radiating from a fire, a wave of heavy, smothering air. She cursed in frustration, then closed her eyes and cleared her mind. Still no cooling rain came.
Brenna kicked at the dry grass beside Jake’s driveway. Just as the town’s ghosts weren’t responding to Fiona, the elements were not cooperating with Brenna. Last night, after arguing with Sarah, she tried to call up a storm to rattle the windows of the home place. All she got for her efforts was some distant heat lightning.
She left Sarah’s house this afternoon. She just couldn’t stay there and wait for the next terrible thing to happen. The coven needed to be doing anything they could to find a way around the curse. If there was a traitor in their midst, Sarah should ferret her out. They should be making sure no demon remained to make mischief in town. Instead, they did nothing.
Brenna wanted answers. Her grandmother wouldn’t act. The rest of the coven wouldn’t move against Sarah. So how could Brenna stay at the home place another minute?
She thought about going to Eva Grace or Fiona and asking to stay, but she didn’t want to put her sister or cousin between her and Sarah. Brenna also knew she needed to stay close to Connelly land, that her strength was needed more than ever in the coven. Coming to Jake’s was a natural solution.
Feeling it was natural to turn to a man for help was alien to Brenna. At least to the person she used to be, but every time she tried to distance herself from Jake, something made her come back. He felt like her only ally.
A sexy ally who preferred to be alone.
What was he going to say when she asked to stay?
Trying not to worry too much about that, Brenna looked around. She liked that Jake had cleared as few trees as possible. His lawn was a small patch of grass with bushes and shrubs of various sizes and heights growing near the house and the edge of the woods. She recognized strawberry bushes and oakleaf hydrangea, plants she had seen in Aunt Frances’s garden. Perhaps she could get some work done on the illustrations for the children’s book while she was here. The events of the past week had preoccupied her when she should have been working.
She got out her sketchpad, and then walked around to the small back porch where the shadows were deepening. It was hot, but peaceful. No wonder Jake loved it out here. She let the quiet soothe her frazzled brain as her pencil flew over the page. She drew the pointy-tipped leaves of a strawberry bush with a yellow-green flower drooping in the heat. Beneath the plant, the book’s small caterpillar hero slept in the shade.
Brenna was absorbed in her drawing until she heard a noise overhead. She looked up as her now-familiar owl came to rest on the branch of a tree nearby. “My, but you’re out early again today,” she said.
The bird rotated his pale face, as if looking over his shoulder.
Brenna chuckled. “Are you expecting someone?”
The owl turned his head back to her and hissed.
“I know. It doesn’t seem very smart to leave home now that I’ve done it,” Brenna said as she stood up and walked toward the tree. “But I felt like I had to do something. Sarah and I were arguing several times a day. I was miserable. She was miserable. Leaving seemed like the best choice.”
The owl screeched.
“Well, you don’t have to get nasty.” Brenna turned at the crunch of tires on gravel. Jake was home.
She looked back up. The owl blinked his knowing eyes. “Could you at least tell me where I can go if Jake won’t let me stay here?”
Once again the owl screeched.
“Brenna?” Jake called from the side yard. She stepped around the corner.
They both looked up as the owl flew away.
“I’m here for dinner,” Brenna lied. “I thought you might have something wonderful in that freezer of yours.”
He held up a brown sack Brenna knew was from the diner. Her stomach growled at the delicious aroma. “Is that meatloaf?”
“Lucky for you I got a double order,” Jake said as he unlocked the back door. He waited for her to go inside and followed her. In the kitchen, he got out two plates and put them on the table with silverware while she unpacked the food. He grabbed two soft drinks out of the refrigerator and they sat down.
Brenna ate mashed potatoes, gravy and savory meat, smiling in pleasure. “That’s good. I was starving.”
Jake regarded her with a frown. “There’s something really wrong, isn’t there?”
Brenna ate some meatloaf before responding. “I need a place to stay, and I know you’ve got an extra bedroom.”
“What’s wrong with your place at Sarah’s?”
Brenna ate the last of her potatoes and licked the fork. “I sort of ran away from home.”
“Teenagers run away, Brenna. Grownups leave. I know. I’ve dealt with a few of both situations. What’s up?”
“I just needed some space and I thought I’d see if I could stay here a few days until I find an apartment.”
He was silent and looked reluctant.
Brenna never really thought he would turn her down. “I’ll be working on my sketches for the book and studying Inez’s journals for more on the Woman in White. It’s just a temporary plan, Jake. I’m not moving in for good.”
That suggestion seemed to jar him. He got up and opened the refrigerator to get out a beer. “I’m not sure about this, Brenna. You’ve got family all over town.”
“My family is not happy with me right now.”
He shifted from foot to foot and took a long sip of the beer.
Brenna felt her face flame. “Okay, so I won’t stay.” Feeling rejected and humiliated, she got up from the table and took her plate to the sink. She couldn’t look at Jake.
She rinsed her plate and silverware. “Thanks for dinner. I’ll call you—”
“Brenna.” She looked up and into his troubled gray-blue eyes. He stepped close and lifted a hand to her cheek. “You can stay.”
“No, you’re not comfortable with me here—”
“Stop it,” he said, cutting her off by pressing a gentle kiss on her lips. He stepped back, his fingers threading through her hair. “You’re upset. You don’t need to be alone. Stay here.”
She relaxed against him, enjoying the feel of his hard muscles as her arms closed around him. “There could be some benefits to this.” She lifted her lips to his again. “You might enjoy them.”
He put his hand up to stop her. “I think we should sleep in separate rooms, keep this on a roommate basis.”
She blinked in surprise. “Roommate?”
“Neither of us wants to get confused here, do we? This isn’t serious. You’re not moving in with me.”
She thought he made that a little too clear. His reluctance was enough to crush a girl’s ego, but he was right. She established the boundaries of this relationship, the same as she always did with males. Just for fun. Just temporary. No doubt it was the situation she was facing with her family curse and the intensity of the last two weeks that made her feel so connected to Jake, so different than she had felt about other males.
So she smiled into his eyes and pushed aside her disappointment in his response to her. “I understand what you’re saying, Jake. I’m just staying with you for a day or two. I’m going to look in town tomorrow for a rental.”
Was it her imagination or did he start to protest?
When he said nothing, however, Brenna said, “I guess I should go get some of my things out of the car.”
“I’ll help.”
“I’ll get it…roomie,” she responded, keeping her tone light as she headed for the front door. “I’ll let you finish cleaning up the kitchen.”
Outside, she retrieved a few essentials from her SUV. She was stacking her small bag on the handle of her rolling suitcase when she heard an angry yowl in the woods. Frowning, she peered into the twilight. A plaintive meow sounded from nearby and a gray cat materializ
ed from the shadows.
“Tasmin?”
The cat yowled again.
“How did you get here?” Brenna crouched to stroke her. “You came all the way from Sarah’s? Was it a scary walk all the way through the woods?”
Tasmin sat down and gave Brenna a look of feline superiority. She wasn’t one to be frightened by a simple walk through the forest.
“All right, so you’re very brave,” Brenna murmured, “but you got yourself dirty.” She picked small sticks and burrs out of the cat’s thick gray and white fur. “All because you couldn’t keep away from me. Interesting that you knew exactly where I was headed.”
The cat meowed and bumped her head against Brenna’s leg.
“I guess this makes it official. I’ve got a familiar.” She picked Tasmin up and hugged her until she purred loudly. “Now all we have to do is convince the tiger you should stay here, too.”
She turned back to the car to pull out a shopping bag full of shoes, piled her bags together and dragged them across the yard. When she walked in the front door, the cat squeezed around her and jumped on the couch.
“What the hell is that?” Jake asked as he came out of the kitchen.
Brenna laughed. “I’d think a tiger would recognize one of his own.”
“In no universe is that animal one of my own. Tigers are majestic and heroic. Domestic cats are…small.”
Tasmin jumped down to sniff Jake. After she finished getting his scent, she sat down and began licking a paw.
“Obviously she appreciates your grandeur,” Brenna said as she pulled her bags over the threshold.
Jake frowned at her, but walked over and took the bags down the hall. Tasmin followed him. With a laugh, Brenna fell in behind them.
The guest bedroom, painted off white, had nothing on the walls. There was a small chest of drawers, a cedar chest and a bed with a brown bedspread that made Brenna think of piles of dead autumn leaves.
“Your decor is flawless,” she said. “Thanks again, Jake.”
“You’re welcome. And beggars can’t be choosers.”