Killing Time (The Witches of Mingus Mountain #3)

2. An Understanding

2

AN UNDERSTANDING

He’d known that some changes must have been made during the twenty-one years he’d been gone, but Seth still stopped just inside the door to his bungalow, pausing there so he could try to absorb how very different the place looked.

The dark beams that crisscrossed the living room ceiling had been painted white, and so had the fireplace mantel. The only structural elements that appeared to have remained the same were the blue tile firebox surround and the oak floor under his feet, although it looked as if it had been sanded down and restained a lighter color.

All the paintings and knickknacks were gone, but someone had left behind a flowered couch and matching curtains, along with an angular coffee table. Seth had no idea why they hadn’t taken those items with them when they moved, except maybe they’d gotten tired of the busy floral print in shades of blue and green.

Goddess only knew that it was giving him a headache after just a few minutes standing in the room.

“What a shame,” Devynn murmured, and he looked down at her.

“What’s a shame?”

“That they painted over the woodwork,” she said, and pointed at the ceiling. “Someone must have come along and restored it at some point, because it’s definitely back to the original dark wood in my time.”

That was something of a relief, although, after wrestling with the reality of his prima -in-waiting being kidnapped by Jasper Wilcox, Seth wasn’t sure whether he could count on Devynn’s future to even come to pass.

“Good to know that people in your time have some taste,” he remarked, and she set down the bags she was carrying and came over to give his arm a squeeze.

“I know it’s a lot,” she said. “But at least we’re here, and we’re together. We’ll figure out the rest of it. I know we will.”

He got the feeling she said those words more to boost his spirits than because she had any real confidence that they’d be able to best Jasper Wilcox, who had to be one of the most powerful warlocks in living memory, but that was all right. Better to be falsely confident than preaching doom and gloom the whole time.

Besides, she was right about one thing. They were here together, and that mattered more than he could say. He found it a little surprising that no one — not Abigail, not the elders — had made any noises about an unmarried man and woman sharing a house, how it might look to outsiders, but he supposed they had more important matters on their minds at the moment.

Also, with the civilian population of Jerome so greatly reduced, the McAllisters probably didn’t need to worry so much about what other people might think.

He managed to smile, then said, “You’re right, of course. Let’s get this stuff put away, and then we can figure out what to do next.”

Devynn appeared game, because she immediately bent down to pick up the bag of clothing she’d set down on the floor. Since the day was so nice and cool, they’d left the groceries in the trunk for the time being, figuring they’d put them away once they’d hung up their clothes and gotten the lay of the land.

They both headed toward the main bedroom — Seth noticed at once how she hadn’t even inquired if she should take the smaller bedroom and was very glad of that — and then she stopped, peering into the bathroom with obvious delight.

“Well, that’s one upgrade I can get on board with,” she said.

He peeked over her shoulder to see the space had been completely redone in blue tiles in a color that matched the fireplace surround, with a darker border running midway along the wall. To his surprise, the sink and toilet were also blue.

A blue toilet?

“Is blue your favorite color?” he asked, figuring he should try to be polite.

She grinned. “I wasn’t talking about the toilet. I was talking about that glorious shower.”

Seth looked over to his left, in the spot where the big clawfoot tub had once stood. In its place was a blue bathtub — to match the toilet and sink, he assumed — that was built into the wall. Above it, a shower head had been mounted in the tile.

“You don’t like bathtubs?”

“Hate ’em,” she said cheerfully. “It’s been torture not being able to take a shower. So, while I can’t say I approve of repainting the woodwork…or that awful floral print in the living room…I have to say the shower more than makes up for it.”

Despite everything that had happened over the past hour, he couldn’t help but feel his spirits lift as he looked down into her cheerful face. Yes, they had entered a dark and dangerous time, but sometimes it was the small things that got you through it all.

“Then I’m sure you’ll have fun with it in the morning,” he replied.

She nodded, still beaming, and followed him into the master bedroom. It didn’t do much to earn that title except to be slightly larger than the guest room, but at least it overlooked his tiny yard with its patch of grass and single oak tree, now glowing gold with autumn color. Here, too, much had been changed, with wallpaper striped in green and blue on all sides and dark blue velvet curtains at the window, but he was glad to see whoever had lived here had left the bed behind.

He wasn’t much in the mood to sleep on the floor.

Devynn began to walk over to the closet, then paused and gave him an uncertain glance.

“Maybe I’m assuming too much,” she said. “I just figured we’d be sharing this room, but if you want me to sleep next door — ”

No way would he let her go any further than that. He set down the bags he’d been carrying and went to Devynn so he could pull her into his arms.

“I want you here,” he said, a little surprised by the ferocity in his voice. “I don’t ever want to be separated from you again.”

“You won’t be,” she replied, then tilted her head up at him so he could bend down and kiss her, could taste the gorgeous lushness of her mouth against his and could finally feel her body again, lithe and curvy at the same time, with no corset and heavy gown between him and the woman he loved. After they pulled apart several minutes later, she added, “We’re in this together, you know.”

Yes, they were. Whether in his time or the past or whatever future might become their home, the one thing he knew was that Devynn would always be there for him.

“I know,” he murmured, and then pressed a kiss against her throat. “For now, let’s just see about getting settled.”

She grinned up at him and touched a finger to his mouth. “Might want to wipe that off first. One of the hazards of red lipstick, I guess.”

Seth reached up and passed his index finger over his lower lip. Sure enough, he had a red smudge on his fingertip.

“What, you don’t want me to impersonate a clown?”

“I love you any way you are,” Devynn responded at once. “Still, it’s probably better to get rid of that, just in case we end up going out to eat or shopping or whatever.”

All those options sounded reasonable. Maybe they could make a dinner of canned beans and Spam — whatever the hell that was — but he thought they needed something a little better than that to celebrate their arrival in the twentieth century. Yes, they hadn’t ended up where they’d meant to go, and their appearance here had directly led to Ruby’s kidnapping, and yet he had to believe he and Devynn would find a way out of this somehow.

They’d escaped 1884 Flagstaff, after all, so he could only hope they’d come to this time and place for a reason.

“Okay,” he said. “Let me find a washcloth, and then we can get on with getting settled.”

The closet had been expanded somehow — maybe by taking a little space from the bathroom — so there was plenty of room for their clothes. He and Devynn got their new acquisitions either hung up or placed in the chest of drawers opposite the bed, and then they headed out to retrieve their groceries from the trunk of the big Chevy he’d been given. Seth would never admit such a thing to anyone, but he had to acknowledge to himself that the curvy coupe was a far superior vehicle to the Dodge he’d driven in 1926.

Once the cans had been safely stowed in the pantry and the dry goods had been put away, he turned toward Devynn.

“I was thinking we could go down to Cottonwood for dinner.”

Surprise flickered across her face. “Really? I’d think you’d want to stay here in Jerome and refamiliarize yourself with the town.”

That might have been what a lot of people would have done, but Seth couldn’t help being depressed by all the changes in the place he’d always called home, how sad and empty it now felt. Maybe Cottonwood had suffered the same fate, although he didn’t think so. Some of the miners had lived down the hill, but a great many more of Cottonwood’s residents had nothing to do with the mines, were either ranchers or farmers or small business owners. He supposed some of the business owners might have lost a percentage of their customers when so many of the miners left as the places they worked closed, but there was only one way to find out how the town had fared.

“It doesn’t look like there’s a lot left here in Jerome,” he said. “I noticed the English Kitchen seemed to be open, but I’d rather have something a little more substantial.”

“Well, I can’t argue with that,” Devynn replied. “It’s been hours and hours — and eighty-plus years, I suppose — since I last ate, so I’m ready for something to fill me up.”

That seemed to settle things. They’d get away from this sadly diminished Jerome, and find a cozy table or booth in a restaurant in Cottonwood where they could both eat their fill and have a chance to talk over their situation in some depth…and hopefully come up with a solid plan that would allow them to get Ruby back before the dark of the moon.

“All right,” he said. “Better grab a sweater — it’s going to get cold once the sun goes down.”

“And I need to refresh my lipstick,” Devynn responded with a smile.

Seth managed to keep himself from grimacing. While he had to admit that the red color looked beautiful on her full lips, he couldn’t say as much for the way it got smeared all over both of them when they kissed.

And he planned to kiss her plenty. No reason to hide their relationship anymore, and he wanted to make up for all the time they’d lost while pretending to be brother and sister in 1884 Flagstaff.

“Sure,” he said easily, telling himself they wouldn’t have much opportunity for intimacies anyway until they came back to the house at the end of the evening.

She pulled a sweater — a pretty black thing with some beading around the collar — from the closet and draped it over one arm, then went into the bathroom to refresh her lipstick. A moment later, she emerged, still wearing a smile, gray-blue eyes cheerful and bright, her wavy brown hair pulled back with one of the scarves she’d gotten from the mercantile.

“Okay,” she said, “let’s go see what the 1940s have done to Cottonwood.”

Not as much as he’d expected. Or rather, while the businesses had changed somewhat and Main Street seemed to have extended southward, Cottonwood’s downtown section seemed just as bustling as he remembered. And sure, the cars looked different — although he spotted a vintage jalopy here and there — but the town seemed to have weathered the years much better than Jerome.

And he was thrilled to see that the Copper Café occupied the same space it always had, and that while the sign over the front door had changed, the fonts used simpler and squarer just as they had been on the mercantile’s new sign, the interior looked almost exactly the same except for the upholstery in the booths that lined two of the walls, the vinyl now a deep turquoise rather than the burgundy he remembered.

As he and Devynn walked up to the restaurant, he wondered what he should do to explain his presence if it turned out some of the same people he remembered were still working there. Tell them he was Seth McAllister’s son? Say he was a cousin visiting from Payson who just happened to have a striking resemblance to the man who’d disappeared more than twenty years earlier?

To his infinite relief, the girl who handed them their menus and led them to a booth in the corner was very young, probably not even twenty yet, and therefore wouldn’t have been born before he’d vanished. She sported bright red lipstick and her blonde hair was carefully curled, lying just barely against her shoulders, but all the outward artifice couldn’t quite hide her youth.

He was glad of that, and of the booth she’d guided them to. Maybe she’d guessed he and Devynn were here on a date, since apparently it was Friday night, although the hour was barely six o’clock, not exactly a prime date time.

And while in his earlier life he might have felt a little guilty about skipping out on Halloween, there hadn’t been much evidence of trick-or-treaters as they’d driven out of Jerome. The Copper Café’s front window was decorated with cardboard images of happy ghosts and cute girls dressed as witches and holding black kittens, but overall, the holiday seemed fairly subdued this year.

Well, according to Charles, the nation had just recently come out of another world war. Seth didn’t know how long it had lasted or how much the United States had suffered, but he had to imagine that it had probably been worse than the first one.

Yet another subject that merited some research, although he doubted he’d have enough time to really dive into it.

No, he and Devynn had other matters to attend to.

But even as preoccupied as he might be with Ruby’s current predicament, he couldn’t help being pleased to see beer and wine and cocktails on the menu, offerings that had been sadly lacking the last time he’d brought Devynn here. Since he had no idea what those cocktails even contained — what the heck was a Manhattan? — he figured it would be safer to stick with wine. The list wasn’t extensive, but his time in 1880s Flagstaff had taught him that pretty much any kind of red would go just fine with a steak.

Prices had definitely gone up since 1926, though, so he was glad of the wallet of cash Charles had provided for him, even if the gift had been given somewhat grudgingly. Then again, some would argue that Seth was still technically part owner of the store and therefore entitled to half its proceeds.

“It’s so nice to see wine on the menu again,” Devynn said as she laid down the little leatherette folder that held the restaurant’s offerings. “I thought Prohibition ended before World War 2 even started, but American history has never been my area of interest.”

“What was your area of interest?” Seth asked. He reflected that they hadn’t had much time to discuss their lives, despite the way they’d been in each other’s company so much over the past month.

Then again, he didn’t think his former life had been all that interesting. Sleep, go to work, come home, repeat the same thing the next day. Sure, he was a warlock, but he still needed to eat and pay his bills.

“Medieval Europe,” she said promptly in answer to his question. “You want me to tell you all the kings of England from the Norman conquest to the birth of King Charles? No problem. Need a list of all the small kingdoms in medieval France? I’m your girl. I suppose I wanted to study places far away in both space and time because I knew I’d never be able to go much farther than New Mexico.”

“So…you went to college?” Although such a thing hadn’t been entirely unusual in the 1920s, it also hadn’t been all that common. He was already a little intimidated by Devynn’s beauty and the combination of her magical talents, but if she had a college degree on top of everything else….

“Graduated only a few weeks before I came to Jerome,” she said blithely, then paused. “Does that seem weird to you?”

“No, not really,” he said hastily. Or at least, “weird” wasn’t the word he would have used for the situation. “It’s just that no one in my clan went to college because there wasn’t one located in our territory. My cousin Freddie took some kind of correspondence courses, but I’m not sure that’s exactly the same thing.”

“It probably depends on what was in those courses,” Devynn said. “Eventually, they built a community college in Cottonwood, but that would have been long after your time — and probably after this one as well. Everyone in the clan who wants to attend a four-year university has to go up to Flagstaff to Northern Pines or down to Phoenix or Tucson, depending on what their grades are like and what they’re interested in studying.”

Seth reflected that the amity amongst the three Arizona clans had a lot more benefits than merely not having to worry whether one of them was going to stir up trouble along your border. However, he couldn’t reply directly, since a waiter approached them then and asked them what they’d like to order.

Because he and Devynn had already decided on their beverage and meal of choice, the process went quickly enough. The waiter headed off to the kitchen, promising he’d bring out their wine in just a minute.

“It feels so…civilized,” she remarked, and Seth lifted an eyebrow.

“Are you saying that 1926 wasn’t civilized?”

“Not exactly,” she replied, although a smile touched her lips, an expression that awakened the small dimple that made its appearance in her cheek from time to time. “But even though this year is very different from the one I came from, it still feels a lot closer despite there only being a twenty-one-year difference from 1926.”

Seth supposed he could see that. Even in his own house, he could point out the progress that had been made — the shower in the bathroom, the ceiling fans in the living room and both bedrooms, the updated kitchen, with an electric stove and an icebox that wasn’t an icebox at all, but what Devynn had called a refrigerator. In a way…despite seeing how Jerome had suffered…he thought it was maybe a good thing that they’d made a stop here so he could absorb a smaller increment of changes rather than leaping forward directly into the twenty-first century.

The waiter returned with their wine and set it down on the table, promising that their steaks would be out in the next ten minutes or so. They thanked him, then waited for him to be out of earshot before they both raised their glasses.

“To moving forward, even if it wasn’t as far as we’d hoped,” he said, and Devynn nodded.

“To forward motion,” she responded, and they touched their wine glasses before taking their first sip.

This wine had been listed as a Bordeaux, and it was very good. Maybe not quite as good as some of the vintages they’d drunk in Flagstaff, but then again, the Copper Café was a small establishment in a small town, and Seth supposed he should just be happy that they’d had any wine on the menu at all.

Devynn sent a brief glance around the room. Although several other couples had entered the restaurant since the two of them had been seated, the newcomers had chosen booths near the front window, which meant no one was around to overhear what they were saying.

“So…what do you think our next step should be?” she asked, and he shook his head.

“I honestly don’t know,” he replied. “I’d love to drive up to Flagstaff and grab Ruby and make a run for it, but I don’t think it’s going to be that easy.”

“Probably not,” Devynn agreed, and went silent for a moment as she took a contemplative sip of her wine. “But I have an idea.”

This comment made him perk up a little. He’d known for a long while that Devynn was intelligent, probably smarter than any other girl he’d ever met…but he also believed the conundrum they were facing was so knotty that he wasn’t sure any of them could find a way through it.

“What idea?”

“You know how the amulet amplifies your power so you can teleport both of us, rather than just yourself?”

Seth nodded, not sure where she was going with this. “Yes. And…?”

She smiled a little. “Well, if that’s what it does — strengthen our witchy powers — then why can’t I make it amplify my gift for hiding my witch nature so it extends to you as well? If I can make it work, then that means the two of us will be able to walk right into Wilcox territory, and no one will know anything except that we seem like a couple of regular people who’ve gone there to sightsee or whatever. We can stay in Flagstaff as long as we need to so we can get the lay of the land and figure out a way to bust Ruby out of there.”

Although he knew they should be cautious, he couldn’t prevent the stir of excitement that went through him as he listened to her suggestion. While he guessed the Wilcoxes had just as many wards in place to protect their territory from interloper witches as the McAllisters did, all those wards were based on detecting individuals with magical powers. If Devynn managed to hide those powers, make it seem as if they didn’t exist at all, then they should be able to waltz right into Flagstaff with no one the wiser.

“That could work,” he said cautiously but had to stop there, as the waiter had come back with their steaks. A few minutes were wasted as the man asked if they needed anything else and whether they wanted chives on their baked potatoes or sauce for their steaks, but eventually he left and they were able to return to their conversation.

“I know it will work,” Devynn said. “After all, I spent several weeks here, and no one in your clan guessed anything was off about me. And I also used to play with my talent a little back when I was in high school, turning it off and on and seeing whether any of my Wilcox cousins noticed. I’m pretty sure it hides my talents from everybody.”

After delivering that comment, she picked up the extra-sharp knife the waiter had provided and cut a few pieces of steak. Seth did the same, mostly because he didn’t want his meal to grow cold while he pondered what she’d just told him.

They could go into Wilcox territory. This time, they wouldn’t have Jeremiah to protect them, but that wouldn’t matter because the special gift Devynn had inherited from the Rowe side of her family would ensure they went undetected.

Well, her gift, along with the amulet giving them a much-needed boost.

“And once we’re there, we shouldn’t have too hard a time finding Jasper,” Seth said. “After all, we’ve already been to the primus’s house.”

Devynn had been in the middle of eating a piece of steak when he made that comment, so she had to finish chewing before she could reply.

“I’m not so sure about that,” she said. “The Wilcoxes aren’t like the McAllisters. The leaders of their clan have changed houses a lot. Damon — Connor’s brother — had a big house out in Fort Valley that he bought not too long after he started teaching at Northern Pines University.”

Seth raised an eyebrow at that revelation. “You had a primus who worked?”

A hint of a smile touched Devynn’s mouth as she set down her fork and reached for her glass of wine. “Well, not because he had to. The house was worth over a million dollars, and he bought it for cash.”

A million dollars? Seth wasn’t sure he could fathom such a number, especially when it was spent on a house and not a castle…or a battleship…or whatever other items might be worthy of such an outrageous sum.

“Then…why did he work?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know for sure. He died several years before I was even born. But it sounds like he was the sort of person who needed people to admire him, and it wasn’t enough to have just the Wilcoxes as his willing servants. No, he wanted to have a bunch of students under his thumb — and the faculty and the administration as well, from what I’ve heard. And he was brilliant, no matter what you wanted to say about his other qualities. Anyway,” she added, her expression brightening, “his house was brand-new when he bought it, and Connor and Angela ended up selling it and buying a place in Forest Highlands, which is sort of at the top of 89A as you’re going through the forests above Oak Creek.”

“What’s 89A?” Back in his time, there’d been a road named 79 that went over Mingus to Prescott — the same route his brother had taken to move his jugs of moonshine — but he supposed quite a few things had changed in the intervening years.

“It’s the highway that goes through Sedona and up through Oak Creek Canyon into Flagstaff,” Devynn said. “And actually, it’s what we drove down from Jerome to get here. I didn’t see any signs, though, but then again, I wasn’t really looking.”

“We’ll need to get a map of the area tomorrow,” Seth replied. “I’m sure one of the gas stations here in Cottonwood probably sells them.”

She nodded. “Here’s hoping. Maybe we could ask the waiter? I suppose it wouldn’t be too strange a question coming from some tourists.”

Because that was probably what everyone thought they were — just a couple of travelers passing through. No one he’d seen at the restaurant today was old enough to have worked here back in 1926, so none of them could have possibly recognized him.

He thought that was a good thing. The fewer complications, the better.

“Yes, I’ll ask when he comes back to check on us.”

From there, they both went quiet for a few minutes. And when the waiter stopped by to ask if they’d like any dessert — which they both declined — Seth said, “I don’t suppose you know if the gas stations or any of the shops here in town have a map? My wife and I have decided that we’d like to take a detour up to Flagstaff rather than going directly back to Phoenix.”

Seth knew his cheeks heated a bit as he made that comment about his “wife,” but he’d already realized that was the best explanation for why they would be traveling together. Although social mores seemed as if they’d loosened up a bit over the intervening twenty-one years, he still guessed it was somewhat scandalous for an unmarried man and woman to be sharing a hotel room.

Or a house.

A wicked light danced in Devynn’s eyes, but she didn’t say anything, only listened while the waiter told Seth that they could get a map at the Phillips station at the corner of Main Street and Pima, or in the general store just across the way.

“Of course, they’re not open at this hour,” the man concluded. “But they’ll reopen at nine tomorrow.”

Which was fine. Even though Seth thought he and Devynn had come up with a good plan — or at least the beginnings of one — he knew they wouldn’t go jaunting off to Flagstaff without clearing things with Abigail and the elders.

As much as he would have liked to slip away and not have to offer any explanation, he knew it wouldn’t be very responsible to carry out the plan without discussing it with his clan’s leaders first.

Seth thanked the waiter, and the man headed off to check on one of his other tables. Once he was gone, Devynn gave him a wide, lipsticked grin.

“So, we’re married now?”

He met her gaze as directly as he could. “It seemed the best explanation for us being together on a road trip. Or would you rather have been my sister again?”

“God, no,” she said in tones of convincing horror, and he had to smile right back at her.

“Well, then,” he said, then added in a murmur, “Although I’m not opposed to the notion of actually being married.”

The wicked glint in her eyes disappeared, and now she looked deadly serious.

“I’m not opposed, either,” she replied, her gray-blue eyes meeting his, as if she wanted him to know exactly how she felt about that subject. “So let’s get through all of this so we can start really thinking about the future.”

They still had a little wine left, and he lifted his glass.

“I’ll drink to that.”

She clinked her glass against his and swallowed the rest of her wine. Something about that moment felt almost like a ritual, and even though the formal words hadn’t been spoken, he knew a great deal had changed in those few seconds.

They were bound together now more than ever…and he knew they needed to survive, no matter what.