Almost all Wilcox warlocks were tall and dark and good-looking, and Liam’s quick flash of a smile had reminded her a bit too uncomfortably of Cooper Wilcox, whom she’d dated her senior year of college before starting the nurse practitioner program. She’d been very clear with him about both her career and her educational goals, and that although she’d be in Flagstaff for the duration of her academic career, she’d have to return to Jerome and the Verde Valley as soon as she was fully certified.
Cooper had acknowledged all this, but he must have been listening with half an ear. Or maybe he’d just thought that she’d change her mind once she was confronted with the reality of losing what they had together. She still wasn’t entirely sure what had been going on in his head, but either way, when she’d suggested that he could always come with her to Jerome, he’d looked at her like she’d lost her mind.
“Leave Flagstaff?” he’d said blankly, and she’d planted her hands on her hips and given him a very direct look.
“Why not?” she’d returned. “It’s not as if there aren’t Wilcox witches and warlocks who’ve moved to McAllister territory.”
“And there are lots of McAllister witches and warlocks who’ve relocated to Wilcox territory,” he’d said calmly.
Well, that was true enough. Roslyn hadn’t been keeping anything close to a running count, so she didn’t know if it worked out evenly or not, but these days, it wasn’t so strange for witches and warlocks to move into a different clan’s territory…if that was where their heart led them.
But she’d always known she couldn’t be so blithe about her own situation. Her clan needed her in Jerome…or Cottonwood, or Clarkdale…and that meant she could never pull up roots and live somewhere else permanently. Her time at Northern Pines had been a necessary evil, since there weren’t any four-year universities in McAllister territory where she could have earned her NP degree.
Cooper should have known that.
Actually, he knew that very well. Roslyn’s father was a journalist, and her mother was a witch with an unusual gift that allowed her to see the thoughts of everyone in about a mile radius when it decided to activate. That didn’t happen very often, thank the Goddess, because it was like having ten migraines descend at once, but the combination of her mother’s talent and her father’s journalistic integrity was such that both she and her younger brother Owen had been taught their entire lives that honesty wasn’t an option.
It didn’t seem like Cooper had gotten that particular memo, or at least, he was only honest when honesty served him.
The breakup had been messy, not the least because Roslyn had three more years at Northern Pines to get through to finish her NP degree. Luckily, Cooper had been content to get his B.S. in mechanical engineering and immediately landed a cushy job at one of the many Wilcox-owned businesses in Flagstaff, and except for the odd encounter at a coffee shop or a restaurant, she didn’t have to see him after that.
The sting of it should have been gone by now. Seeing Liam Wilcox and her cousin Lainey together shouldn’t have been a big deal. And maybe if Roslyn had been happy in a relationship of her own, she wouldn’t have experienced that unwelcome little spike of something that she knew wasn’t jealousy but was probably a first cousin to it.
Rather than dwell on her own uncomfortable emotions, she concentrated on putting away the last few supplies, then wiping everything down for a second time with some rubbing alcohol. More than once, her parents had encouraged her to hire an LVN or at least an office manager to help her with the more mundane tasks around the clinic, but Roslyn hadn’t seen the point. For one thing, she’d have to hire someone from her clan, because a lot of the healing techniques she used wouldn’t pass muster if a civilian nurse was observing her too closely. And also, what difference did it make if she got home a half hour later than planned because she stayed to get a little extra work done?
It wasn’t as if anyone was waiting for her. She didn’t even have a pet, mostly because her hours were so erratic that she would never make an animal put up with her crappy schedule.
Everything was in order. Still, she sat down at the computer in the reception area to check tomorrow’s schedule so she could get her mental space in order well in advance. Not too busy, just five patients — two in the morning and three in the afternoon. Of course, as Liam Wilcox’s visit had just proven, people’s lives often didn’t run exactly to plan, and there was always the possibility that she’d get a few drop-ins.
Roslyn’s lips thinned. Her own family history had taught her all too well that things could change in an instant. She’d never met the woman who was her namesake; her mother’s younger sister Roslyn had been murdered by a trio of dark warlocks long before her niece was born. Even though she knew her parents had given her that name to honor someone who was torn from her life long before she’d truly gotten to live it, she still thought it felt a little odd, as if some ghost of the first Roslyn hovered around her no matter what she did.
Which was just silly. Not because ghosts weren’t real — plenty of them still hung around Jerome, and Angela, the clan’s prima, talked to them regularly, because that was her gift — but because everyone knew Roslyn McAllister had moved on. As horrible as her death had been, she’d moved on to the next world and hadn’t lingered.
Frowning a little, Roslyn logged out and shut down the computer, then went back into the exam room and retrieved her purse and sweater from the closet where she kept her personal items. A quick check of her phone to make sure she hadn’t missed any messages — she hadn’t — and then she slid the iPhone back inside her oversized bag, went over to the window, and flipped the sign in the window around to CLOSED.
Most people would expect a small health clinic to be closed at six-thirty at night, but she figured it was better to be safe than sorry.
Not that there was any need for her to be in a hurry, not when what she had waiting for her in her small rented house in Cottonwood’s historic district off Main Street was leftover pizza from Bocce and a half-drunk bottle of wine. True, the wine was some Chupacabra from Merkin Cellars and therefore excellent, but it lost some of its savor while drunk alone in front of the TV and accompanied by cold pizza.
The parking lot was nearly empty. A few cars sat in front of the nail salon, which stayed open until eight on weeknights, and a man was loading boxes into a van outside the State Farm office. The light was fading fast, Cottonwood darkening into a premature twilight as the shadows from the Black Hills to the west stretched across town. A few clouds blazed in bright salmon against a lavender sky, but Roslyn didn’t look up. Gorgeous sunsets were a given in this part of the world, and right then, she just wanted to get home. She reached into her purse to click the key fob for her Volkswagen…
…and then the world turned inside out.
There was no pain, at least not in any way she could begin to describe it, but the sensation was so disorienting that pain might have been better. At least pain was something she understood. This was more like being pulled through a space that had no dimensions, a feeling of compression and expansion happening simultaneously, as though every cell in her body had been disassembled and reassembled in the time it took to draw a breath.
And when she did pull in a breath, it tasted wrong. It felt almost heavy on her tongue, damp in a way the air never was in the Verde Valley, even during the height of monsoon season. This air tasted of salt and the kind of moisture that never really went away.
Where the hell was she?
Almost reluctantly, not sure she wanted to know the answer to that question, she opened her eyes.
She was lying on a narrow bed with an antique iron frame, and the mattress beneath her was thin enough that she could feel every individual lump. To her left was a tall window framed in heavy velvet drapes that were open just enough to show her a sky she knew was the wrong color for Arizona. It was gray and lowering, without any trace of the coppery sunset she’d been looking at moments ago.
Moments? That sounded right, but she had no way of knowing how much time had passed during that…whatever it was. Her body felt heavy and strange, the way it did when she awoke from an unexpectedly deep sleep, except Roslyn knew she hadn’t been sleeping. No, she’d been standing in a parking lot in Cottonwood, reaching inside her purse for her car’s key fob, and now she was here.
Wherever “here” was.
She sat up slowly, fighting a wave of dizziness that made the unfamiliar room want to spin around her. She was still wearing the clothes she’d had on at the clinic — dark jeans, a turquoise cotton blouse she’d bought at a boutique in Old Town Cottonwood because it was so close to the color of her eyes, the comfortable brown flats she always wore when she knew she’d be on her feet all day, the brown cardigan she’d slipped on right before she headed out for the evening — but her purse was gone.
