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TWENTY-FIVE
Ihad been planning to leave in the morning to avoid driving at night, but I decided to leave right away.
“Sorry, fella,” I told Ralph as I was getting packed. “If I take you to New York you might get eaten by a rat.”
He sat up in his teacup and wiggled his nose. “Don’t worry,” I said, going to add warmer boots to my suitcase. “Brock knows all about you and who better to take care of you than the guy who made you?”
When I turned back to the desk Ralph was no longer in the teacup. He wasn’t in his basket or in my sheepskin slippers or any of his other favorite places either. He must be sulking that I wasn’t taking him with me. Who knew magical doormice were so moody?
I turned off all the lights downstairs, turned the heat down to 65, and wrote a quick note to Brock telling him to give Ralph the rest of the brie in the refrigerator. Then I locked the door of Honeysuckle House behind me and left it to its own devices.
Navigating the dark country roads to the state highway took all my concentration for a while, mercifully giving me no opportunity to dwell on my recent behavior. But when I reached Interstate 17, scenes from the party and afterward began replaying in my head. What had possessed me to make a deal with Anton Volkov? I didn’t even know if the names he’d givenme would do me any good. I’d never heard of Abigail Fisk, but I recognized Hiram Scudder’s name as Ballard’s business partner, whose wife had committed suicide after the Great Train Crash of ’93 and its resulting shame and bankruptcy. Good enough reason to curse someone, I imagined, but if Scudder’s descendants were easy to find then someone at Fairwick would have done it by now. Even if I could find the descendants of Abigail Fisk or Hiram Scudder, what was the likelihood that I could convince them to take the curse off Nicky? So I’d compromised myself for basically useless information—and that wasn’t the only way I’d compromised myself. Why had I gotten so upset at finding Liam and Fiona in the coatroom? It was none of my business if they wanted to hook up—they really were perfect for each other…both irresistible to the opposite sex…
But then why had Liam kissed me by the gate?
At the memory of the kiss my limbs loosened…and I nearly swerved into the left lane in front of a tractor trailer. Shaken, I gripped the wheel tighter and glued my eyes to the white lines. The kiss meant nothing, I told myself. Certainly it meant nothing to him. He’d told me a whole long sad story about why he never fell in love, but he hadn’t said anything about the occasional dalliance. Clearly Fiona was the Moira-type. And what was I? I didn’t really fit the Moira or Jeannie profile. I had suggested to him the possibility of finding someone who wasn’t either a Moira or a Jeannie—had he thought I meant myself? Is that why he kissed me? Buthadhe really kissed me? Twice I’d thought he’d been about to and I’d been wrong. MaybeIhad kissedhim.
The thought was so mortifying that I nearly swerved again. What had come over me lately? First I’d had sex with an incubus—well, I hadn’t had much choice about that…or had I? There had to be some reason that the incubus had been able to seduce me. After all, Matilda Lindquist had lived in Honeysuckle House for decades without having sex with the incubus.Maybe there was something about me that drew him. Something that wasunsatisfied.
Well,duh, my boyfriend lived three thousand miles away and I only saw him a handful of times a year. No wonder I was unsatisfied. No wonder I was going around seducing incubi and sexy Irish poets and vampires. I was becoming “a woman of loose moral standards,” as my grandmother Adelaide, who would never use a common word likesluteven when it was perfectly clear that’s what she meant, would say. You’re not satisfied, she would probably add, because of all those foolish fairy tales your parents read to you. And she’d be right. I was still waiting for my fairytale prince to come and sweep me off my feet. That’s why I hadn’t made a firmer commitment to Paul. That’s why we were still living on opposite sides of the country.
Well, it was time for me to stop waiting. If Paul really did have a job in New York and he did want to marry me, I couldn’t keep up this long-distance nonsense. I had to move back to the city even if it meant taking adjunct jobs until I found something full time. I’d put Honeysuckle House up for sale and use the rest of my trust fund to buy a decent apartment in Brooklyn—or Queens, or Westchester, or even New Jersey—with Paul. By the time I’d reached the George Washington Bridge I’d made up my mind and was confident I was making the right choice. I couldn’t wait to tell Paul.
Navigating the West Side Highway down to Battery Park and finding the Ritz-Carlton took up all my brainpower for the rest of the trip. By the time I surrendered my car to the black-coated, fur-hatted valet (he looked like one of the guards of the Wicked Witch of the West), I was exhausted. I nearly wept with gratitude when the bellhop showed me to my club level deluxe room on the eleventh floor with a spectacular view of New York Harbor. As soon as I was alone I ran hot water in the capacious tub, adding the lemon-scented bath gel that came with the room, shucked off my clothes, and sank into the hot,soapy water. I gently sponged the grit from my scraped knees. Perversely, the pain brought back the memory of Liam’s kiss, the heat of his mouth on mine…
No, no, no! I told myself, dunking my head under the hot water. I held my breath until the image dissipated, then washed my hair and scrubbed myself with the complimentary loofah and lemon shower gel until I’d banished the image of Liam’s face from my head. Then I wrapped myself up in the big lush hotel robe and called the airline to see if Paul’s plane had landed on time. It had landed ten minutes ago, so I figured he’d arrive in about an hour.
The plan had been for him to come to the hotel and get some sleep, and for me to arrive in the morning. I hoped that finding me in bed would be a welcome surprise. I called room service and ordered a bottle of champagne (wincing a bit when I saw the price). There was already a complimentary fruit basket and cheese plate, so I didn’t order any food. I dried my hair and changed into a pink silk nightgown that Paul had given me for Valentine’s Day last year. I didn’t usually wear pink, but I knew Paul liked it on me.
I looked at the clock and saw that I still had at least half an hour until Paul arrived. I tried to arrange myself artfully on the bed, but that just made me feel silly…and cold. All those glass windows facing the harbor made the room chilly. I got up to pull the drapes, but then stood instead at the window looking out at the lights of boats flickering on the black water. I sank down into a chair in front of the window, wrapping myself in the terry robe I’d left there, and stared out at the harbor lights. They reminded me of something…will-o’-the-wisps floating through a dark wood, candles in a vast hall, snowflakes falling out of a black sky…I felt myself drifting with the ebb and flow of the bay’s tide…
I was standing in a dark wood, the same woods I’d found myself in after I’d opened the triptych in Briggs Hall, but instead of being surrounded by diaphanous creatures only onefigure stood before me. It washim, the incubus, my demon lover. He glowed as if lit by moonlight, though there was no moon here, nor sun—there was no time at all.
“Only one eternal night,” he said stepping toward me, “for us to make love in.”
“I sent you away,” I said as he raised his hand to my cheek. His flesh was cold but I leaned into the cup of his palm as if leaning toward a warm fire. My skin tingled from head to toe as if a deliciously cool waterfall streamed over me. The hand on my cheek stroked my throat, my breasts…My nipples grew hard and I felt a corresponding tug between my legs. He cupped my buttocks with his other hand and pressed me against the cool length of his erection. I wrapped my arms and legs around him, wanting to mold my body to his, to merge with him…and that’s what was happening. As he entered me I felt cold white light pouring into me. He was filling me up with liquid moonlight…and I was vanishing into him…
I startled awake, flailing my hands out to grasp something solid and found myself grasping someone’s arm.
“Cal, it’s me, Paul.”
I looked up at Paul’s face and thought, No, that’s not him. Then I shook myself fully awake. “I must have fallen asleep,” I said. “I was waiting…”
“I see that.” He sat down in the chair opposite mine. “I thought you were coming tomorrow.”
I sat up and wrapped the robe around myself, trying to shake off the bone-chilling cold—a cold I had wanted to drawinsideof me—and concentrate. “I decided to come down tonight.”
“I thought you hated driving in the dark.”
“I do, but I wanted to see you…” I looked harder at Paul. He was wearing a suit.Thatwas weird. He usually flew in jeans and a sweatshirt. Why would he wear a suit on a night flight? He’d cut his hair recently, too, shorter than he usually wore it. He looked thinner; the bit of baby fat that used to fillout his face and around his stomach was gone. He looked good—older, a little edgier, but good. But he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking around the room and out the window, but whenever his gaze crossed mine his eyes slid away.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, cinching the belt of the robe tighter. “Was your flight okay? It must be scary to fly after—”
“It was fine. It’s just…I thought we’d talk in the morning…” His eyes skittered past me again—to the bottle of champagne cooling in an ice bucket, to the fruit and cheese—then he wrenched them back to me. Not to my face, but to the robe and my bare legs and the bit of pink silk peeking out. For a horrified moment I was afraid he could sense my arousal from the dream.
“Talk about what?” I asked, my stomach clenching.
He leaned forward and covered his face with his hands. “Callie…I…there’s something I have to tell you and it isn’t easy. For some time I’ve wondered if things were really right between us. You’ve seemed distracted this fall…”
