Storm Born

by Christine Pope

  The words sort of drifted away, and his gaze moved from me as well, apparently fixed on a painting that hung on the opposite wall, what looked like an original oil of Flagstaff’s San Francisco Peaks with a field of sunflowers in the foreground.

  “You just what?” I prompted, wondering why he seemed so hesitant.

  Still looking away from me, he responded, “I just never thought I’d feel anything like that again.”

  “Because you felt it with Sarah?” Even though I knew it was probably foolish to feel that way, I couldn’t quite repress a stir of jealousy at his obvious devotion to his former fiancée. Good one, Addie, I chided myself. Getting jealous of a dead girl.

  “I did,” he said simply. “We were crazy about each other. And when she was gone, I thought that was it for me. People just aren’t lucky enough to find two soul mates in a lifetime.”

  What could I say to that statement, uttered in such a matter-of-fact tone? Did his comment mean he thought I might be his soul mate as well? Asking the question outright felt horribly presumptuous, so I only sat there in silence, hoping that my need and my worry weren’t too obvious in my expression.

  But obviously Jake saw something, because he said, “And yet…I think I might be that lucky. Maybe it’s crazy to be thinking that kind of thing when we’ve only known each other for a couple of days, but on the other hand, that’s sort of how it works with witches and warlocks. If we’re right for each other, we know it early on.”

  Those words awoke a cautious joy in my heart. I wanted to be right for him. He was the first person who’d ever made me feel like this, as though I could do anything, accomplish anything, as long as I knew I had him by my side.

  “I think I know it,” I whispered, and he took my hand and pulled me to him so he could kiss me again, the touch of his mouth enough to make me tremble with need.

  “I know it, too,” he replied. “So now…now we just need to figure out what to do next.”

  18

  Randall Lenz was staring at the sign on the back of his hotel room door, the one that stated checkout was at 11 a.m., and wondering whether to stay another night or get the hell out of California, when his phone rang. He’d left it sitting on the nightstand, and so he had to hurry over to pick it up before it went to voicemail.

  Agent Dawson.

  “I think I might have something, sir,” she said.

  “What is it?” he asked, his ennui of a moment before disappearing as if it had never existed in the first place.

  “Well, as you requested, I had the name ‘Adara’ flagged because it’s unusual. There are fewer than fifteen hundred women in the U.S. with that given name.”

  “Yes, I know that,” he said, not bothering to keep the testiness out of his tone. He didn’t need a lecture on “Adara” and its statistical popularity — he needed to find out where the hell one particular Adara had gone.

  Without missing a beat, Dawson said, “Yes, sir. This morning, I had two flags pop up — one was a set of checking and savings accounts registered to an Adara Wilcox at Chase Bank, and then a vehicle purchase by an Adara Wilcox.”

  Wilcox. Why did that name sound vaguely familiar to him, as if he’d run across it in the not-too-distant past? “Where?”

  “Flagstaff, Arizona.”

  The location also felt as though it should be tripping some mental circuits. Wait a minute —

  He hurried over to his laptop, which he’d left sitting on the table by the window. It wasn’t currently connected to his phone, and therefore didn’t have any internet, but that didn’t matter. The file in question was still sitting open on the screen.

  Lenz’s gaze scanned down the list of names and came to a halt at one of them.

  Jake Wilcox, Flagstaff, Arizona.

  Coincidence?

  His time working for Homeland Security had taught him there was no such thing as a coincidence.

  “Dawson, do a scan for a Jake Wilcox in Flagstaff, Arizona. Transmit any information you find directly to my phone.”

  “Working.”

  A pause while she got to work, her fingers making faint clicking sounds on the keyboard as she performed the requested search. A moment later, she said, “Sending the files now.”

  “Thank you, Dawson. Hold for a moment.”

  He put her on hold, then went to his email and found the information she’d just sent. As an image of Jake Wilcox’s Arizona driver’s license appeared on the screen, Lenz felt a slow smile spread across his lips.

  There was his man. Definitely the same person who had come to Adara Grant’s doorstep in Kanab, Utah, the same man caught on surveillance video in that St. George convenience store.

  And there was his address: 52 West Birch Avenue. He should be easy to find — and Lenz had no doubt that wherever he found Jake Wilcox, he’d find Adara Grant as well, no matter which last name she was currently using. Had she taken Jake’s last name in an attempt to make herself more difficult to find? Most likely; he doubted that the couple had gotten married in a quickie ceremony while hiding in Las Vegas, although after the week he’d had, he supposed anything was possible.

  It wasn’t her surname that had given her away, though, but the unusual first name her mother had bestowed upon her at birth. Adara was going to regret that oversight. If she was going to change her name at all, then she should have changed the whole damn thing.

  A quick calculation on his phone told him the journey to Flagstaff would take around six and a half hours. If he left now, he could be there by five o’clock.

  He took Dawson off hold and said, “Leaving now. Flagstaff ETA is approximately seventeen hundred hours.”

  “Should I assemble a team?”

  It was standard procedure. However, having a team at his disposal hadn’t helped much in Kanab. Something told Lenz that this time around, he would do better on his own. Jake Wilcox, although fit enough, certainly wasn’t a match for a trained agent. And since his house appeared to be located in a quiet neighborhood of historic homes, the sort of place where people tended to know one another, having a large law enforcement presence would only attract the kind of attention Lenz had been doing his best to avoid.

  “No,” he said after a pause. “I’ll handle this on my own. However, have an extraction team waiting at Flagstaff Pulliam Airport. Once I have Adara Grant in custody, I’ll want to fly her out of there.”

  “Understood. Anything else?”

  There was probably a good deal else, but right then, the most important thing to focus on was removing Adara from Jake Wilcox’s clutches and getting her into custody. Agent Lenz still couldn’t quite figure out what connected the two of them — he knew that Wilcox had never crossed Adara’s path before their fateful meeting a few days earlier — although he supposed he would get those answers out of her once he had her someplace safe for questioning.

  “Nothing else,” he told Dawson. “I’m going to leave the hotel as soon as I end this call. If you have any new information, contact me on the road.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He touched his finger to the screen and returned the phone to his pocket, then quickly and methodically went about packing up his few personal items. No need to go to the lobby to check out; he followed the instructions on the TV screen and left the plastic key card for the room sitting on the dresser. In less than five minutes, he was back in his car and pointing it east so he could pick up Interstate 15 northbound.

  As he went, he smiled. Yes, he’d suffered a few setbacks, but he felt it in his bones that he was on the right track here. By the end of the day, he would have Adara Grant in custody…

  …and then he’d finally get some much-needed answers about who Jake Wilcox was, and why he’d taken such an interest in her.

  Jake had a feeling that sitting around the house after he’d shared that spectacular kiss with Addie would be problematic, to say the least, and so he suggested they spend the afternoon at Lowell Observatory, located less than a mile from his house. She’d looked a
little startled by his proposal, but then she shrugged and said sure, that sounded like fun.

  And so there they were.

  He’d been coming to the Observatory since he was a little kid. Back in those more innocent times, he’d thought it might be kind of cool to be an astronomer, although even then he’d known that astronomers often had to go where the jobs were, which meant traveling. And that was one thing no witch or warlock could safely agree to, not when they were supposed to stay in their home territory and not venture out very much.

  Besides, by the time he’d struggled through calculus in high school and realized his brain just wasn’t suited for that sort of thing, he’d admitted to himself that he wasn’t the kind of math genius who could be a successful astronomer.

  Still, he’d been a member at Lowell for the past five years or so, figuring he might as well put some of that Wilcox cash to good use by supporting a worthy institution like the Observatory. One of the benefits was that he could pop in with a guest whenever he liked. He thought that Addie would probably like the place, if for no other reason than the standard tour offered there also provided a lot of local Flagstaff history, and it would be a good way for her to learn more about the place where her father’s family had lived for generations.

  And it got them out of the house for a while. His body told him how ready he was for her, but Jake knew that falling into bed would be rushing things…to say the least. She’d lost her mother just a few days earlier, and now was not the time to take a huge step like that, no matter how combustible their chemistry might be.

  To his relief, she seemed intrigued by the Observatory, and was game for taking every tour on offer that afternoon, including the one that covered the discovery of Pluto and Lowell’s role in that major step in humankind’s knowledge of the solar system. Afterward, they hung out in the gift shop and bought some T-shirts, acting like a couple of tourists. Actually, he’d been meaning to come by and pick up a few anyway, since he’d messed up one of his favorites by getting paint on it while helping his cousin Aidan paint the new addition to his house.

  Eventually, though, they’d pretty much exhausted Lowell’s offerings, and so it was back down the hill in search of entertainment. Addie drove because she wanted to play with her new toy, but when they came to the intersection where they needed to turn left to go back to the house, Jake was seized by inspiration.

  “Head to the freeway, then go west,” he told her, and she lifted an eyebrow, even as she turned the car so they’d go back out to Milton Road and from there to the freeway.

  “Kidnapping me?” she asked with an amused lift at the corner of her mouth.

  “It’s kind of hard to kidnap someone when they’re doing the driving,” he pointed out, and her smile widened.

  “Okay, carjacking,” she allowed, then added, still smiling, “But where are we going?”

  “Williams.”

  “What’s in Williams?”

  He shrugged. “Just someplace new to see. I figured it couldn’t hurt for you to get more of the lay of the land up here.”

  “Is it still Wilcox territory?”

  “Definitely. All of northern Arizona is, starting about ten miles or so below I-40 and then stretching all the way up to the Utah border.”

  A very small frown tugged at her brows. “Isn’t part of that Navajo land?”

  “Yes, but we’ve been cooperating with the Navajo for generations.” Since Addie didn’t look very convinced by that comment, Jake added, “Really. The Wilcoxes have a lot of Navajo blood in them.”

  “Like Joanna?” she asked. “I thought she looked like she could be part Native American.”

  “Right — her mother is Navajo. Anyway, it’s not like we tried to settle on Navajo land or anything…it’s more like everyone knows that the Wilcoxes control this part of the state and that it’s better to stay out.” Almost at once, he realized what that remark must have sounded like, so he hastily added, “I mean, that’s the way it used to be. Once Connor took over, a lot of things changed. Even now, though, it’s considered good etiquette to ask permission to travel through another witch clan’s territory.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” Addie sent him a quick sideways glance, a look that had a certain warmth to it he liked very much. “Not that I’m planning on going anywhere anytime soon.”

  “Good.” Yes, he definitely wanted her to remain close — as close as possible. Maybe it was a little weird that she was staying at his house, considering the way their relationship status had shifted that day, but then again, having her right across the upstairs hall might be just what the doctor ordered.

  They drove in silence for a little while after that, ponderosa forest passing by on either side of the highway. There was a good bit of traffic, but everything flowed, and he could tell she enjoyed driving the car and putting it through its paces. Eventually, they came upon the first exit for Williams, and he directed her off I-40 and into the town’s historic district.

  “What now?” she asked after she parked the car in one of the town’s pay lots.

  “Wander around, I guess. There’s a wine tasting room just down the street.”

  Her gray-green eyes sparkled. “Now you’re speaking my language.”

  The wine tasting room in question was fairly busy on that Monday afternoon, since they were now into June and people everywhere were on vacation, but they were still able to snag a couple of stools at the bar. They split a tasting, since they had to drive back to Flagstaff after that, and decided to buy some of the winery’s fun wine in a can. After a detour to put their purchase in the car, they began to roam again, with Addie pausing here and there to look in a shop window.

  “You should’ve gone in,” he told her after she began to walk away from a store that specialized in Native American jewelry and had some pretty spectacular pieces on display.

  She shrugged. “I don’t need any jewelry right now.”

  “Forget about ‘need,’” he said. “What about ‘want’?”

  That question made her stop and look up at him, her full, pretty mouth pursed slightly in amusement. “I think I’ve probably spent enough money today. You know, with the car and the laptop and all that.”

  All right, she had a point there. Even so, he hoped she wouldn’t spend the rest of her life in some kind of scarcity mentality just because that was how she’d been raised. “It’s okay to buy nice things for yourself.”

  “And it’s okay not to.”

  It wasn’t the first time he’d glimpsed her stubborn streak. Not that Jake minded; he appreciated the way she stuck up for herself and wasn’t afraid to make her opinion known. Still…. “What if other people buy things for you?”

  For a second, she stared at him, and then comprehension dawned in her eyes. “Don’t you dare get me anything, Jake Wilcox.”

  “Or what?”

  “Or — or — ” She flailed for a moment, obviously trying to think of a punishment that fit the crime of daring to buy her a piece of jewelry. “Or I’ll leave you here.”

  That was actually a valid threat. Or at least, it would have been, if he didn’t have at least twenty Wilcox cousins who lived in town and who could come to his rescue if necessary.

  “That’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

  Jake turned and went back to the store, then headed inside, leaving a startled Addie standing on the sidewalk, staring after him. There was an almost dizzying assortment of jewelry on display, everything from earrings to huge squash blossom necklaces to fancy concho belts. He doubted she would want anything too splashy — and he’d seen the turquoise ring that never seemed to leave her finger, and so knew she probably wouldn’t want another one — but he spied a pretty pair of earrings in the lightly veined greenish blue from the Kingman mines, simple drops with rope bezels and sturdy ear wires, and thought the color should match her ring pretty well.

  “Could I have those, please?” he asked, pointing.

  The saleswoman got them out for him. “Thos
e are some very nice pieces of turquoise. The designer is Andrew Yazzie — he’s Navajo.”

  “They’re perfect,” Jake told her. “I’ll take them.”

  She smiled and put them in a box, and he handed over his credit card. All told, the entire transaction had probably taken less than three minutes. When he came back outside, Addie was still standing there, pretending to be absorbed in reading something on her phone.

  “All done?” she asked tartly as she looked up at him.

  “Yes,” he replied with a grin, then gave her the box. “Here you go.”

  “Jake — ” she began in warning tones.

  “Just open it. And don’t worry — I didn’t buy you the crown jewels or anything.”

  With an exaggerated sigh, she slipped the phone into her purse, then used her newly free hand to lift the lid off the box she held. Almost at once, her eyes widened in surprise…and delight.

  “They’re beautiful!”

  “I thought they went with your ring.”

  “They do. It’s a perfect match.” She tipped the earrings into her palm and put the empty box in her purse. A moment later, the plain silver hoops she’d been wearing had been replaced by the turquoise dangles. They showed up clearly against her long, dark hair, and somehow seemed to intensify the green hues in her eyes. “Thank you, Jake.”

  “You’re welcome.” He wanted to bend down and kiss her, but they were standing on a sidewalk on Route 66, and he’d never been one for public displays of affection. Well, she could properly thank him once they got back to Flagstaff.

  One hand went up to touch the smooth turquoise drop hanging from her right ear, but she only said, “Now what?”