AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“The universe guided me here,” I said, and to my relief, she smiled and took a sip of Walmart merlot.
“I guess a lot of us can say that about where we’ve ended up,” she replied. “I knew I wanted to be someplace that wasn’t touristy, but I wanted a town that was in the mountains, where I’d find something to paint every day.”
Well, she’d definitely found it in Globe. Our surroundings weren’t as breathtaking as what you’d find in Sedona or Flagstaff — or at least, what I assumed you’d find, based on the photos I’d seen — but mountains rose up in almost every direction, and you didn’t have to drive very far to find some truly breathtaking vistas.
“Of course,” she went on, “almost any mountain looks good to me, since I grew up in Iowa. Not much more than hills there.”
I’d never been to the Midwest, but I still knew she wasn’t saying anything more than the truth. Inwardly, I thanked the universe for sending me to a place that had an interesting landscape. After spending my entire life in Southern California, where mountains and hills ranged almost everywhere you looked, I knew I would have felt as though something was missing if I’d ended up in Iowa or Kansas or Oklahoma.
We chatted a bit more, and made plans to meet for lunch the next day at Olamendi’s, the Mexican restaurant down the street. Hazel headed off to talk to Bryan and Kris, the guys who ran the coffee shop, and I found myself thankful as well that our paths had crossed. Maybe I didn’t have many romantic prospects in sleepy little Globe, but at least I’d made a friend, which was more than I’d had back in L.A. People I was friendly with, sure, but no one to get together with and have lunch or a cup of coffee.
I sold some more things after that — crystals and oils and some books, even a few of the embroidered skirts from India I’d ordered to see if anyone would be interested in the kind of clothing you couldn’t get at the local Walmart — and eventually, eight o’clock swung around and it was time to shut everything down. Josie asked if I wanted her to stay and help clean up, but as there wasn’t that much to do, I thanked her but said that wasn’t necessary.
Because everyone had been tidy and had disposed of their used cups and napkins and plates in the recycling bin I’d set out, there wasn’t much for me to do except gather up the uneaten food and set it on the bottom step so I could take it upstairs and put it in the refrigerator when I was done locking up. A pause to transfer that night’s earnings into the little pouch the local Wells Fargo had supplied, and I was just about ready to call it a night.
The bells on the door jingled, and I glanced up, thinking that maybe someone had left a personal belonging behind and had come to retrieve it. But that possibility didn’t quite seem right, since I hadn’t found anything as I was tidying the store.
Then my eyes met those of the man who’d just entered the shop, and my heart dropped to somewhere roughly around my feet.
“Hello, Selena,” said Lucien Dumond.
5
Lucien’s Luck
Since I only stared athim in silence, my mouth dry, he moved a little farther into the store, an unpleasant smile playing on his thin lips. I hadn’t seen him for more than six months, and so maybe that was part of the reason he looked so horribly, terribly out of place in my pretty shop with the soothing deep blue on the walls and Hazel’s intricately painted constellations on the ceiling. His shaved scalp gleamed under the glow of the sconces on the walls, and the silver Scorpio symbol he wore around his throat glittered with each step he took.
“Does this silence mean you’re surprised to see me?”
“I — ”Get it together, Selena,I scolded myself.He’s on your ground — ground you’ve purified and blessed and warded.
Although honestly, I had to wonder how good those wards actually were, since they obviously hadn’t been able to prevent Lucien from entering the store.
“What are you doing here, Lucien?” I asked, glad that I sounded brisk and no-nonsense, and not frightened at all. Then again, the bold tone in my voice was probably due to the glass of merlot I’d finished fifteen minutes earlier rather than any true courage on my part.
His smile only widened. “Why, I wanted to see you. I don’t think that was very fair, the way you just up and left L.A. without telling anyone.” A long pause, during which his deep-set eyes, half shadowed under his sparse brows, seemed to glitter with secret amusement. “Or rather, without telling anyone except your mother. Good thing she was so open to passing on what she knew.”
“If you hurt her — ”I began, fury and fear building in me in equal measures. My mother tended to trust everyone she met, which made her a perfect target for someone like Lucien Dumond.
He put his hands on his hips. As usual, he wore black from head to toe — a black button-up shirt, black jeans, black biker boots. Heavy silver rings shone from all his fingers, and tribal tattoos peeked out from under his rolled-up cuffs and on his neck where the open collar of his shirt revealed them. Even in L.A., he attracted attention, but in Globe, he would stick out like a crow in a flock of canaries.
“Of course I didn’t hurt her,” he said, now sounding wounded. “Why would I hurt someone who was so willing to give me the information I needed? No, she told me that you wanted a change of scenery and had moved to Arizona. She didn’t have your exact address — it seems you told her you’d give her that later on — but once I knew your destination, it wasn’t that hard to determine exactly where you’d ended up.”
I reflected that I needed to tell my mother not to go spilling my secrets to every random guy who called asking for information. Then I realized there wasn’t much point in asking her to be careful. She’d agree and tell me she was sorry, and then she’d be right back at it again. I loved my mother, but sometimes her lack of caution drove me right up a wall.
“So, now you’re here,” I remarked, doing my best to sound bored and unconcerned. “Again I have to ask, what do you want?”
The expression of false affability he’d been wearing abruptly vanished. “You didn’t ask permission to leave.”
“Iwhat?” I said, not sure I’d heard him correctly…or at least thinking that I couldn’t havepossiblyheard him correctly. “Since when do I have to ask permission of you to do anything?”
His eyes narrowed, turning to slits. Tone silky, he replied, “As head of GLANG, I am in charge of all magical practitioners in the L.A. area. You’re a magical practitioner, aren’t you?”
“I’m a hedgewitch,” I shot back, matching him glare for glare. “I don’t work for anyone, I don’t answer to anyone. Including you.”
“How sweet that you think you have an opinion in the matter,” he said, apparently not at all perturbed by the death stare I’d turned on him. That is, I hoped it was a death stare. Since more than once I’d been asked if I was the spokesmodel for a popular game show, I had a feeling that the borderline perky looks I’d inherited from my mother weren’t doing me any favors. Maybe it had been a mistake to give myself bangs. “I am the strongest magical practitioner in the Los Angeles basin. That means I call the shots.”
What a load of garbage. I wanted to tell Lucien that it didn’t matter what kind of rules he made up in his diseased brain; I wasn’t beholden to him…or to anyone else, for that matter.
