Читать книгу Kiss Me Forever/Love Me Forever - Rosemary Laurey - Страница 12

The click of Dixie’s lock brought Christopher to his senses. Four hundred years of discipline and he’d fallen for shining green eyes and a smile that made him forget he was no longer a man. She was honest, open and giving, and he’d seized like a soulless vandal and violated every promise he’d made himself. With the taste of her blood, heady and sweet as aged mead, on his tongue, he knew one taste of her would never be enough. His body hungered and his mind yearned for more. Her richness and warmth acted like potent drugs.

Despising himself, he moved to the back of the house and watched as upstairs lights went on and then parted the curtains a few inches. She slept. A pale figure, her auburn hair spread like a warm halo on the pillow.

Lust roared through every fiber of his being as her blood sang to him. He fought the urge to cross the windowsill, beat back the desire to taste her again, and killed the need to feel her scented skin under his lips. She’d trusted him, offered him friendship, something he’d never expected except from his own kind.

His own kind. That was what he needed. There was his strength. With a last wrenching glance, he stepped from her window ledge and took himself thirty miles east.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that, Kit,” said a voice from the wingback chair. “I would like some warning. What if I were entertaining company?”

“Any company you entertain here would be friends of mine,” Christopher replied, as he stepped from the open window and sank into the companion chair the other side of the marble fireplace.

“Who’d want to be your friend? You bury yourself in the wilds of the country and only come up to town when you want something. Not like the old days when you couldn’t wait to come to London.”

Christopher nodded, “You’re right, Tom, as always. I need something now.”

His old friend smiled. “And I thought you came to share a glass of port. I’ve got a nice vintage ruby in the decanter.”

Christopher poured himself a glass, swirled the dark liquid and sipped. After Dixie it tasted like water. He sighed and leaned back in the chair, pressing his shoulders and hips into the upholstery. “I’m in trouble, Tom.”

“The books?” Tom Kyd asked, raising his cigar to his mouth. He exhaled with deliberate slowness, watching Christopher through a haze of smoke.

“Not the books. I found what we expected and a few more. She’s perfectly willing to sell. They’re getting valued and I offered to pay market price. It’s…” He looked across at Tom blowing smoke rings. “I wish you wouldn’t smoke those things.”

“Worried about my health? Who introduced me to Walter Raleigh?”

“Cut it out. I’m not in the mood for your humor.” He stared at the empty grate, angry at himself and his bad manners. “Tom,” he said at last, “I’m falling apart.”

“That, I doubt,” Tom replied. “Seizing up seems more like it. If it’s not the books, what is it?”

Christopher told him.

“You fed from an unsuspecting human and now you’re riddled with angst. Why? Did you harm her? Did she resist? Does she feel violated?” Remembering the moonlit gleam in Dixie’s eyes and the smile on her sleeping face, Christopher shook his head. “Stop worrying. You fed. Survival demands that. When did you last feed?”

“I didn’t feed. I tasted her. I never intended to feed. It happened.”

“When did you last feed?” Tom repeated.

Christopher leaned an elbow on the chair and dropped his forehead into his hand. “From a human—three years.”

Tom’s eyebrows rose. “How do you manage?”

A dry, unamused chuckle shook Christopher’s shoulders. “I live in the country. Lots of cows and horses and nice plump pigs.”

Ash fell from Tom’s cigar as he shuddered. “And when did you last feed from one of your barnyard friends?”

“A couple of weeks.”

Tom whistled through his teeth. “By Abel and all who went before us, you’re a fool. You’ll weaken yourself. No wonder you fed from this human. It was need pure and simple.”

“I didn’t feed,” Christopher growled, “I tasted.”

“And she was willing? She never resisted?”

His eyes stung as he shook his head, remembering her body molding against his in the dark and the warmth of her white neck, the scent of her skin, and the intoxicating richness of her lifeblood.

Tom leaned over and thumped him on the knee. “That’s the answer, old man. Feed from her again. You need her strength. She’s willing. Why not? No harm done. She’ll go back to the States and tell her friends about this wonderful Englishman. Better be careful, though, or they’ll be coming over in droves to find a legendary English lover.”

He wasn’t in the mood for Tom’s wit. He ground his heel into the Turkish carpet. “No good, Tom. An eternity of feeding wouldn’t satisfy my thirst.” In the silence, Christopher heard the clock tick on the mantle piece, a conversation across the street as guests left, and a taxi change gear at the corner and drive down Curzon Street.

Tom’s eyes widened; horror froze the muscles of his face. “You’d mate with her? A mortal?”

Christopher smiled, knowing the impossibility. “Mate? Mortals use another word.”

“But you’re not mortal. Mortals betrayed and killed you. Feed from her. Let her strengthen you. But for Abel’s sake, Kit, never that!”

Christopher shook his head. “Don’t fret so, Tom. I’ll stretch naked in the sun first. She’s safe. I’ve enough willpower for that.” If he didn’t walk with her in the dark and touch her in the moonlight.

“Keep away then. Stay here in town until she leaves.”

“No. I must go back for the books. Too many curious and mischievous parties in that village for those volumes to remain there.” He smiled at his friend. “You worry too much.”

“Maybe. But the time of your revenance is close. Not two weeks away. That’s when you’re most vulnerable.”

“As you have warned me every May for the last four hundred years and still I survive.”

“More by luck than judgment.”

“Luck has carried me this far.”

Tom propped the stub of his cigar on a porcelain ashtray. “Dawn comes in two hours and the day is forecast to be sunny. Do you have strength to fly against the sun or will you stay?”

He’d stay. The flight had drained him. He needed rest. Dixie was safe for the night and if the day was sunny, he couldn’t protect her even if he were in Bringham. “Your hospitality is always welcome, Tom.”

The cleaners arrived as Dixie poured her second cup of coffee. Faced with a flurry of mops, moving furniture and warnings about wax on the floors, Dixie took her coffee outside into the sunshine. She found a perch on the crumbling wall that surrounded the flagstone terrace.

Before she finished the cup, the garden called her. She’d given the house all her attention since she’d arrived; the only time she’d really spent in the garden had been traipsing around, half-blind in the night, or dallying with Christopher. She blushed at the memory. She’d had to wear a turtleneck this morning to hide a monumental hickey.

She paced through ankle-deep lawns, grass-filled brick paths and rough gravel walks with creeping weeds. The dark shapes she’d hidden between with Christopher’s arm round her shoulders proved to be lilacs in need of pruning. The odd hummocks the intruder tripped on that first evening were untrimmed topiary boxwoods. Weeds choked a rock garden, and green scum covered an ornamental pond with a silent fountain.

Dixie strolled down a rickety pergola overhung with wisteria and found her way through an arch in a yew hedge into a kitchen garden. A rickety tool shed leaned against the high brick wall, but what caught Dixie’s attention was a door in the wall. The old hinges rasped as Dixie grabbed the rusty knob. She had to use her shoulder to push the door. Two old ladies could never have opened this. Half open, the door jammed—but it was enough. Dixie walked into her hidden garden.

And shivered.

The garden appeared a perfect square about thirty or forty feet each way. High brick walls on all four sides shaded everywhere but the center. Wide stone paths ran along all four sides and across to meet in the center. A mossy stone bench stood against one wall but it looked too high and too wide for comfort. Some garden designer’s mistake, Dixie decided. Until she saw the crumbling pentagram carved in the wall above. What had she found?

The garden seemed desolate and unwelcoming. On the stone paths, Dixie noticed marks and carvings like strange hieroglyphics. Some looked like zodiac signs, others indistinct letters and runes. Dixie followed the paths to the center where they met at a square of green she’d first thought was grass but now, she realized, was some herb or other. Rubbing the leaves between her fingers, she tried to place the smell and remembered the chamomile tea Gran used to drink.

This must be centuries old. Didn’t chamomile lawns date from Tudor times? Impressed but still uneasy, Dixie looked around. About eight feet square, the lawn stood at the center of the garden. The sun must have shone on this patch for hundreds of years, but the thought didn’t give Dixie any thrill.

A moss and lichen encrusted obelisk stood at each corner of the lawn. Dixie took a few steps towards them for a closer inspection and froze. These weren’t obelisks; they were stone phalluses. What had she discovered? Did she even want to know? She marched out and dragged the door shut behind her.

That was one place she would not serve tea in.

Among the musty damp and cobwebs in the shed, she found old tools, a wheelbarrow, and a near-antique lawn mower. Grabbing a wooden basket that fit comfortably over her arm, Dixie marched back to the flower garden and worked clearing the rose beds until the light started to fail. Tired and aching about the shoulders, she made it to the Barley Mow an hour before closing.

“Thought you weren’t coming tonight,” Vernon said as she came in. “Alf’s got a nice veg curry.”

Dixie agreed on the curry and sat by the window, disappointed Christopher wasn’t there. Never mind. An evening alone would give her time to think.

Fat chance! Sleazy James sat himself in the chair opposite. “Well, hello. What have you been doing with yourself?”

Doing a bit of gardening and just happened to discover these eighteen-inch-high stone phalluses. Do you know what they’re used for? wasn’t a good opener. “Clearing the garden while the cleaners took care of the house,” worked better.

“Don’t ruin your hands,” he said, running his fingers over hers.

Dixie pulled back her hand and clasped her glass with such determination that the table wobbled. She’d have walked out there and then but Vernon appeared with her curry.

“You’ve got a healthy appetite,” James murmured, with a smirk that irritated more than the innuendo.

“I came in to get dinner,” Dixie replied, fork poised.

“Nothing like a bit of company while you’re eating.” Dixie stopped mid-chew, hoping the knee contact was accidental. “How about dessert somewhere later?” James asked.

This time Dixie almost bit the fork. Accidental, her foot! The jerk was groping her knee. That did it! With both hands under the table, Dixie tipped the table away from her; curry, rice and the better part of her Guinness landed in James’s lap.

“Oh! I’m so sorry,” Dixie lied as James squawked for a cloth. “The table just wobbled.”

“Here you are, Mr. Chadwick,” said Alf, handing him a towel. “Let me get you another, Miss LePage,” he went on, as Vernon picked up the unbroken glass.

“No thanks, I had most of it. Sorry about the mess.”

“No problem. Not your fault. These tables! I should have seen it coming.” He looked her straight in the eyes. “It’s not the first time something like this has happened.”

Dixie decided she really liked Alf. “Since I’ve managed to half-trash your pub, I’d better go home.” She paused. “And maybe you should call me Dixie.”

Alf smiled and held out his hand. “I’ll be glad to, Dixie.”

Eight members and two novices sat around the black oak table watching the burning ash twigs in the copper brazier. One of the black candles dripped wax on the polished tabletop. Ida leaned forward to wipe the splatter.

Sebastian frowned. Couldn’t the old woman wait? If she’d touched the brazier…The coven needed all the strength it could muster. Below numbers for years, the two novices were their most recent hope. Some hope! Maybe Sally held more promise than James. She could hardly have less.

Emily droned the incantation and stopped as the twigs crumbled to ash. In the silence she placed the gold ring on the ashes. After the prescribed pause, Sebastian stood and blew a long, deep note on a narrow pipe.

As the echoes faded, Ida asked, “What progress, James? What did you find?”

“Not a thing. I swear there’s nothing there. I’ve been through that house three times and the old book room volume by volume. What we’re looking for isn’t there.”

“Really?” She didn’t sound impressed. “Sally, what about you?”

She had none of James’s bored confidence. She fairly bounced at the prospect of speaking. “I looked when I cleaned the house. I think James is right about the papers. I saw nothing. But…” She paused for effect. Sebastian despised cheap theatrics. “I did discover something. She refused to let me clean out the book room so I wondered if she was hiding something. I got as good a look as I could. No papers, but I found an interesting stack of books. A bunch of old books about magic and Wicca and spells.”

“I wonder if she’s as unschooled as we believe,” Ida said. “Who knows what knowledge she inherited. Maybe her grandmother…”

No one seemed happy at the thought.

Ida placed her wrinkled hands on the table. Eyes turned to her. “We need to find out what she knows and then we can plan. Perhaps recruit her?”

Sebastian’s mind raced in the ensuing silence. “I think not. The woman LePage is a problem and unreliable. First she seemed willing to let me handle the sale and send her the money. Then, out of the blue, she comes over to spend a week and see her property. Now she’s moved in, started spring-cleaning and developed an interest in certain books. The next thing, she’ll start exploring the grounds….” He paused to let that fact sink in. “To make matters worse, the vampire is cultivating her friendship.”

“The vampire we can take care of. We know the date of his creation. Let that be his destruction,” Ida said.

“We can’t kill him!” Sally’s voice shuddered in the silence.

Emily, who’d been silent, placed her hands on the table. “My dear,” she said, smiling at Sally, “one can only kill the living.”

Sebastian looked across at Sally and James. Weak links, both of them. They needed forging to the coven. Dealing with Marlowe would tie them both up tight.

After dropping off the books to be valued and discovering a grocery store big enough to equal any at home, Dixie went home to bake. She planned on making brownies for Christopher as a “thank you” for lunch. It just seemed a neighborly thing to do.

Back home, unpacking groceries and stacking them in the closets along one wall, she found one door didn’t open. It appeared painted shut. One more thing to get fixed. Later. Today, she had baking to do.

The brownies cooled on the window ledge; they smelled sweet and chocolatey as Dixie washed up and put everything away. By the time she washed, changed into a clean tee shirt and put on fresh lipstick, the brownies were cool. Dixie piled them onto a plate of rose-patterned china, covered them with plastic wrap and set out for Dial Cottage.

“Hi there!” Dixie called up at the open windows. Christopher had to be in. His car was parked behind the hawthorn hedge and the upstairs windows were open, but there was no answer. She strolled round the back, rapped on the back door and tried the knob and the door swung open. She stared into the darkness of the interior and called, “Christopher, it’s Dixie.” He wasn’t there.

Uncomfortable at standing uninvited in his empty kitchen, Dixie decided to leave the brownies and go. She’d see Christopher later at the Barley Mow and explain. She scribbled a note on the memo pad from the phone, tore the leaf off and tucked it under the plate. As she replaced the pad by the phone, she nudged a pile of papers and they cascaded to the floor. She knelt and gathered them up and hoped to heaven no one came by. How would it look, her kneeling on the floor rummaging through Christopher’s papers? She spotted a small leather book. With her initials.

What was Christopher doing with her appointment book? When had he taken it? In the pub that first evening? Too angry to think straight, she stuffed it in the pocket of her jeans, slammed the back door behind her and marched down the front path, giving the gate a shove as she left.

Dixie walked back through the village, across High Street and almost smacked into Sebastian.

“Going to the Barley Mow tonight?” He said it pleasantly enough, but she did wonder what he knew. Had James complained? She hoped so.

“Don’t think so. I’m getting the hang of cooking on an Aga.”

“Settling in nicely, I hear.”

Dixie nodded. “Yes. Very.”

“Must dash,” he said. “But I know I can count on you for the Whist Drive next weekend.”

“Whist Drive?” What was he talking about?

He smiled. He did have very white teeth. “Fund-raiser for the church roof fund. Everyone will be there.”

She agreed before she had time to refuse, then shrugged. What the heck? What could happen at a parish fund-raiser? He could hardly hit on her in church. Besides, Sebastian might not be her sort, but at least he didn’t take her property.

“I can’t change your mind?” Tom asked.

Christopher didn’t even shake his head. “I have business to transact. We all need those books.”

Tom raised an eyebrow. “Don’t get caught between the covers.”

Christopher groaned. Tom hadn’t changed in all these years. “You could wish me success.”

“I’ll wish you caution. You’re stronger, but not strong enough.”

“Tom, all I have to do is buy some books from a harmless young woman.”

Tom’s eyes shadowed as if seeing into the distance. “Remember the harmless young woman in Deptford.”

“That young woman was a trollop.”

“A well-paid trollop who played her part well.”

Tom was right about that, but Dixie was different. Her transparency and honesty would impress even Tom. He twitched his mouth. “This isn’t the same. Come down to Bringham, I’ll introduce you to Miss LePage.”

Tom shook his head. “No, my friend. I have too much sense of survival to consort with humans, if I don’t have to.”

Christopher! A slow shiver snaked down Dixie’s spine at the knock on the door. She just knew he stood outside and she didn’t want to see him. Her anger and confusion over finding her date book in his kitchen had gelled into a cold hurt. While she’d thought him a friend, he’d been prying into her life. Christopher wanted something from her. Fine. He could have the books they’d agreed on and nothing more.

“Hi,” she said. Whatever else she’d planned to say stayed in her throat. He was beautiful. Hair dark as midnight shone in the light from the door. The same light that gleamed on the leather covering his shoulders and turned the pallor of his skin to nacre. He smiled. Dixie forbade her heart to thaw.

“Hello, Dixie,” he said. It sounded like the opening bars of a sonata. Warmth caressed her skin. Hope and excitement wriggled in her belly. She dug her heels in the doormat and clenched every muscle in her back.

“Why, hello, Christopher.” At this rate the conversation wouldn’t go far enough to cause problems.

“I’ve been away for a couple of days.”

That explained the deserted house but not the car parked in front. “Have a good trip?”

“Visited a friend in town.”

This was ludicrous. Talking on the doorstep, as if he were a brush salesman. She had to get rid of him. She didn’t want him in the house. She didn’t trust herself near him. Just standing this close she could smell him and if she dared think about it, she’d imagine his touch again. “I ran into Guildford today and dropped off the books. I’ll have a valuation by Friday.”

“Wonderful. Just name your price.” He took a fourth of a step forward. “Could I come in?”

“No!” It came out like a muffled shriek that tore the roots of her mind. “Not now.” Ten minutes in the same room as him and her resolve would fade as surely as daylight. “It’s not a good time.” She gestured with her head to imply someone was in the house. The lie ripped deep within her. The look on Christopher’s face made her want to cringe.

“Indeed,” he said and stepped backwards out of the circle of light. A shadow seemed to slip over him. “Get back to me, Dixie. When it’s a good time.”

In the dark, she never even saw him reach the gate. Slamming and locking the front door, she leaned against it. Her heart raced like a Derby winner, her chest heaved so fast each breath hurt. Her blood seethed in her veins, pounded her temples and surged like a boiling flood ready to burst a dam. She wanted Christopher. She wanted his arms around her, his body against hers and his lips’ warm caress. Forget it. Never. Not now.

Visceral pain tore through her. She pressed into the heavy oak door as if pulled by an outside force. She shook and wanted to cry out his name, but hurt gagged every sound but a moan. Her body slumped, her legs wobbled like a newborn foal’s, and her lungs felt filled with concrete. Only her fingers clenched around the doorknob and her hip against the mail slot stopped her from crumpling on the doormat.

Her breathing normalized. Her heart rate calmed. Shaking her head as if stunned, she wobbled back to the kitchen. A half-eaten baked potato waited on the table. Dixie wasn’t sure if she remembered how to chew. That did it! No man was tweaking her buttons. The minute they concluded their deal, she wanted nothing more to do with Christopher Marlowe.

Christopher leapt back from the stoop as if blasted. What conniving human was in there with Dixie? Sebastian, with his slick tongue and scheming heart? James, with his poisonous mind? Jealousy burned like acid, blocking Christopher’s thoughts and shuttering his reason.

Transmogrifying in a blaze of fury, he shot through the night sky in an eastern trajectory until he reached the heart of the city. He found his safe haven high on St. Paul’s dome. Strange, how often he came here to roost—but he’d loved the view ever since the new St. Paul’s rose from the ashes of the Great Fire. He watched the quiet streets beneath his feet, deserted except for the stray taxi, and looked across the river to where the new Globe stood near the site of the old. He could trust London. A city wasn’t fickle like mortals or perfidious like womankind.

Images racked his mind. Dixie was his. He’d tasted and marked her, but without her knowledge. The claim and need were his alone. And alone he’d forever endure his pain. Tom’s warning had come too late. Socializing with mortals brought misery and danger, even death. A quest for knowledge and his own frailty for a pretty mortal had brought him to the rim of disaster but he’d pulled back in time. He’d close the deal then take Tom’s advice and leave Bringham. With the coven strengthening, the village was too dangerous for his kind.

Christopher returned to his cottage less than half an hour before dawn. His body ached like the rotten tooth he’d once had pulled by the barber in Fleet Alley. Tom had been right about feeding; farm animals didn’t offer enough nourishment to transmogrify twice in one day. His empty veins screamed for sustenance. The heart he didn’t have called out for Dixie.

Dixie! She’d been here! He sensed her presence and smelled her sweetness. His mouth watered at the thought as fast as his mind seized with horror. Half-transmogrified hands grabbed the scrubbed pine table. He watched the return of human skin and nails with a wonder that never ceased. Nothing would alter the thrill he always felt at the power within his own body. He splayed his re-formed hands on the table, leaning into it on wobbly shoulders. He had to rest.

His head felt like a cannonball as he raised it and looked across the table. His eyebrows tightened as he noticed the plate on the table. Neatly encased in cling film, the even squares of chocolate appeared like pieces of a puzzle—the conundrum of Dixie LePage. The paper shook in his hand. He recognized a sheet from his own writing tablet. “Christopher,” she had written in a hand as clear and open as her smile. “Forgive me for barging into your house but the door was unlocked. Here are some brownies, Gran’s recipe, a thank you for the wonderful lunch. Went into Guildford this morning and left your books. He promised me a price by Friday so I’ll get back to you. Take care and see you soon, Dixie.”

The note crumpled in his grasp. Too weary to even consider the implications, Christopher dragged himself upstairs to his shuttered study and let sleep swallow his confusion.

Dixie drove back from Guildford in a daze. She had a small fortune in books on the backseat. Her throat tied itself into a dry knot at the prospect of actually asking for a check that large. Had Christopher any idea of their worth? Could he afford that much? She’d find out soon and demand an explanation about her appointment book. It had better be good.

He was in. She knew it as she turned the corner and saw the moss growing on the uneven roof tiles. Of course he was in. He was expecting her.

He was waiting, leaning against the open doorway of his cottage, watching for her from the shade of the front porch. He filled the doorway, with his long, slim legs stretching in front, one broad shoulder propped against the frame, and his head almost touching the lintel. Of course it was a cottage. He hadn’t blocked her doorway quite the same way but he still had the smile that could melt permafrost.

As she opened the gate with one hand, balancing the box in the other, she sensed his excitement. He came towards her. Warm, rippling waves of anticipation came at her like a flowing tide. No one got this excited over a bunch of books. Well, he could want all he wanted. She had a deal to make and a bone to pick. He took the box of books from her. His arms shook as they hefted the weight. “Come on in and let me know the damage.”

She followed him into the kitchen and noticed how his shoulders sagged with relief as he set the box on the scrubbed table. “I’ve got the valuation.” She handed over the sheet of paper and waited for the shock to register.

He read every word and figure, his head moving from side to side as he scanned the paper. A slight crease of his brows and a little tightening of his mouth showed concentration, nothing more. He looked up and smiled, his eye gleaming with something like triumph. “Seems fair enough. I assume you’re satisfied with the valuation?”

Dry-mouthed, Dixie nodded. Satisfied? This was more than she’d earned in six months as a school librarian. “Of course, I said you could have them.”

He reached into the drawer in the table. “Check okay?” he asked, uncapping his fountain pen.

“Yes, I suppose.” She’d never seen anyone write a check that large. He did it as easily as paying for a tank of gas.

“It won’t bounce. I made sure I had enough to cover this.”

“You knew how much it would be?” What sort of job did he have to fling this sort of money around? Come to that, what did he do for a living?

“I had a rough idea. It was slightly more than I expected but inflation affects everything and collectibles particularly.”

“Is this a hobby, buying old books? Or what you do for a living?” She’d been dying to ask. Having done so, she felt like a pushy American.

He didn’t seem to mind. “It’s a hobby. With some old friends, I’m assembling a library on the occult and the paranormal. I offered to buy from your Aunt Hope, but she wouldn’t part with anything. I’m glad you agreed.”

His shirt was open at the neck, showing a vee of fair skin and a few stay curls of dark hair. She forced her mind back to her question. “What do you do for a living, then?” Nothing that she’d noticed so far.

“Some years back, I made a few lucky investments. I’m a layabout. I write when the muse strikes me, drive too fast, ride when the weather’s fine, and get on Caughleigh’s nerves.”

She couldn’t hold back the chuckle. “I’ve noticed.”

He shook his head. “Watch out for him, Dixie. The only person he’s ever helped was Sebastian Caughleigh.”

“I can take care of myself.” Was he pursuing her just to get at Sebastian? “I came by yesterday to see you. The door was open.”

His smile didn’t quite become a laugh. “You left a plate of little chocolate cakes.”

“They were brownies.”

“Brownies.” This time it was almost a chuckle. “You know the local meaning? Brownies are little people. They cause milk to sour, hens to stop laying and haystacks to self-ignite.” His mouth twisted in a way that almost mocked her. “But of course, you wouldn’t believe in them. You’d put them in the categories of witches and vampires.”

“An interesting local myth.” It came out sharper than she’d intended but the hurt look on his face caused a twinge of guilt. “You don’t share my skepticism. The occult interests you.”

He smiled, but not at her. “That’s why I’m building this library. Why not search for knowledge if it’s there to find?” He tapped one of the books. “There’s old lore here. Forgotten ideas. Old dreams and nightmares.”

“I prefer to stick with realities.”

“Everyone has different realities, my dear Dixie.”

That did it! She certainly wasn’t his “dear” anything. He had mentioned realities, she wanted one explained. She reached into her pocket book and closed her hand over her appointment book. “There’s something I want to ask you.” She pulled her hand out of her bag. “I noticed this when I brought the brownies and wondered if you’d explain.”

She placed it on the tabletop and watched his knuckles whiten as they clenched the table edge. She swore she wouldn’t speak first. He owed her the explanation.

“So, the kindly neighbor act was an excuse to come snooping.” An icy cynicism crackled through his words.

“It was not!” Dixie felt the tabletop under her fist. “I tore a sheet off your message pad to write you a note, and the whole stack fell to the ground. I picked it up and just happened to find the agenda I’ve been missing since I arrived.”

“And how did you get in?”

“I opened the back door. You left it unlocked.”

“I did, did I? How remiss of me.”

“Yes, you did, and you’re lucky it was only me. It could have been a burglar. There are enough of them around here.”

“I’m not worried about burglars.”

He actually had the gall to grin. Dixie pressed her palms on the table and leaned forward, her face tensing in a frown. “You’re avoiding my question, buster. Where did you get it and why was it sitting in your kitchen?”

“Isn’t that two questions?” He raised his hands up, palms out, as she leaned across the tale. “Alright, Dixie. You want to know where I got it?”

“Yup.” She waited, determined to stand her ground until she got her answer.

“Caughleigh gave it to me. I offered to return it to you.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I’m afraid I forgot about it.”

She’d worked in schools long enough to know a lie when she heard one. “Why would Sebastian give it to you? I was in his office on Wednesday and I’m seeing him tomorrow night.”

Christopher’s mouth twisted as his eyebrows curled. “Enjoy yourself, my dear.”

That did it! “I expect to.”

“I hope you’re not disappointed.” It was almost a whisper but she heard it clear as day.

“Why should I be?”

“Because, my dear Dixie, Sebastian Caughleigh is not the man for you.”

The laugh came from somewhere deep inside. She shook her head. “I’m thirty years old, Christopher. Old enough to decide these things for myself. Look, I didn’t come here to fight. I just wanted a straight answer. Maybe I got it. I’ll probably never know. Thanks for the check. Assuming it clears okay, our business is over.”

“Maybe,” he replied and walked her to the door. “Take care, Dixie. Make sure you choose the right company.”

Just what did he mean by that?

What was the truth about her organizer? Had she dropped it in Sebastian’s office? If so, why would he give it to Christopher? They acted more like adversaries that friends.

Christopher had to be lying. Why did she want to believe him? Did it matter? She’d see Sebastian tomorrow night. She’d ask him. And why believe him? Being a lawyer didn’t guarantee integrity. She’d learned that the hard way.