Chapter Twenty-Four
Reckless
Bands of white morning light broke through the blinds as I woke next to Bryce’s naked body.
It was hard not to snuggle up next to him.
Caress his back. Bury my head in his neck and get lost in his warmth again.
I’d thought all we’d needed was one sleepless night to get it out of our systems. Burn bright for a few hours and then the candle would burn out.
I was so wrong. That ache in my chest to be near him only bloomed wilder as the lull of sleep softened the lines around his eyes and mouth.
When I’d driven to the cabin last night, I’d known what I was doing.
That the hunger and ache in his eyes mirrored mine.
It was crossing that final line. Making a choice I could never take back.
But after yesterday, the way he held me tightly after I’d made it back onto solid ground, tenderly touched me when he removed the dirt and gravel from my hair, said what was happening between us was much more than a game of cat-and-mouse…
I’d never expected this. Expected him. For so long I’d believed I’d always be alone, but now there was this undeniable want.
A thing I was too afraid to say out loud, to imagine for too long: hope.
My stomach gurgled. We’d talked several times about dinner last night, but every time we tried to make it out of the bedroom, one of us would pull the other back, and we ended up burying ourselves back in the shelter of each other’s arms and the mounds of blankets on the bed.
I stretched and the scrapes on my arms and back protested. What I’d done yesterday on the ridge was stupid. Reckless. But I wouldn’t change anything, because this morning Mara and Banjo were waking up safe in their own home.
Bryce let out a contented sigh. For a moment I thought about climbing back in next to him.
Shutting out the world for a few more blissful minutes, but my mind never worked that way.
As soon as I was conscious, my brain began dissecting last night, not just the amazing sex, but the way we had to carefully navigate our way out of the bathroom to keep from stepping on the shards of glass from the broken light bulbs.
Bryce insisted it was the old cabin. That his mother had warned him the wiring and plumbing were ancient, but the way the electricity flared as blood raced in my veins last night, I couldn’t help but worry that it was much more than that.
All my life I’d sworn none of the McGuire women had magic, but I was beginning to question those beliefs.
I needed to see the lights again. Examine the way they’d exploded.
I convinced myself that if I could understand their breaking point, it would assure me that the reason they blasted apart had nothing to do with the supernatural.
After picking up my jeans and shirt off a nearby chair, I inched out the door. Flora snoozed next to Indy a few feet away. I tiptoed down the hall, sliding on my clothes and trying not to groan at the material scratching across my raw skin.
Across the hall from the bathroom was a small den, and curiosity had me peeking inside.
The walls were covered in black-and-white photos.
Some were landscapes. Others were candid shots of the ski mountain over the years.
Children gripped old rope tows. A couple snuggled on a metal chair lift, their old wooden skis dangling in the air.
I moved in closer to the small rounded-edge desk in the center of the room.
The screen on Bryce’s laptop showed an aerial photo of Los Angeles at twilight.
The compact streets and serpentine swirl of homes and businesses reflected below.
A small leather notebook sat open next to the laptop.
Every instinct inside me screamed I should walk out of the room, but I had to remember my vow to my sisters.
To Clo. To make sure that the article wouldn’t tear our lives apart like last time.
I leaned in and scanned his cramped handwriting.
I followed the women up the switchback paths.
There was an unmistakable link between them.
An unspoken language that relied on their connection.
Lia could read the path. Her elite sense of hearing guided them forward.
The youngest sister, Aster, has a unique level of sight, clocking the shifting trees, broken branches.
And then there’s Dani. Animals sensed her presence.
Rabbits scampered out of burrows, colorful birds hopped across tree branches, deer inched out of deep green blinds to be near her.
As the rest of the team continued to look for the young girl, Dani understood how to find her.
She hid it from me, the rest of the crew, but she’d sensed Banjo’s presence the same way she’d sensed Indy’s illness.
There is much more here than the three women claim.
On that trail today, I felt it: the vibration of an unseen force, the strength of an unyielding power.
I will not give up until I get to the truth about this town and what the McGuire women are hiding.
More research needs to be done on Ambrosia Perkins and the earlier ancestors.
A raw dryness coated my throat as I turned the page.
Boxes and connecting lines filled the entire paper.
A genealogical chart connected my family line, starting with Sylvia and Ambrosia and leading all the way to me, Lia and Aster.
Under some of the names were small scribbles indicating fire, water, earth, animals, sight.
Each notation attached to only the females in the family line.
A tidal wave of dread crashed over me. Threatened to pull me under. Had he written this yesterday when he came home? Or even last night, while I was asleep? Right after he’d whispered all those promises and then taken me to bed?
Underneath the notebook was a file folder.
I flipped it open and my world tilted. At least a dozen photos spilled out across the desk.
Candid shots taken with what appeared to be a telephoto lens.
The first image nearly stopped my heart: me on the street near the pharmacy.
The next two photos made bile rise in my throat.
Lia in front of the firehouse. Aster talking to a customer inside her shop.
What the hell? Was he stalking us?
I’d made a huge mistake allowing him on the search yesterday. Letting him into our lives at all. He was desperate for a story, and exposing what he believed about my family was the only way to make that happen.
I fled the room and grabbed the rest of my clothes.
Tugged on my shoes and picked up my bag.
With a low command, I called for Flora and she followed me out the door.
I put my truck in neutral and rolled backward.
At the edge of the driveway, I turned on the engine and drove away.
My thoughts muddied as I navigated my truck down the mountain.
A sob jammed its way into my throat. Had the kiss – the sex – been a means to an end for him?
It was too much like Max. How I’d been so sure he’d cared about me, until he walked straight out the door. Bryce wasn’t any different. He’d get what he needed by any means necessary and then leave.
Maybe all this time Belladonna had been right. No man could be trusted.
I steered the truck in a familiar direction. My grandmother was the only one who would know how to clean up the mess I’d made.
Clo sat in the rocking chair Grandpa Beau had made especially for her. It was all smooth lines and rounded arms. The height and width were a perfect fit for her tiny body.
I should not have been surprised to find her out on the deck.
Waiting. Like she knew I was coming. I pulled open the front door and ascended the stairs with Flora close behind.
As soon as I was out the deck’s screen door, she had me wrapped in her arms. My tears fell in a flood and she didn’t say a word.
She was not a ‘touchy-feely’ kind of grandmother, but she knew when the weight of the world was too much for each of us girls to bear.
When my shoulders stopped heaving, and the waterworks slowed to a trickle, she stepped back and held me at arm’s length. ‘I think you might have kept your enemy a bit too close.’
‘You think?’ I said with a rough laugh.
‘Sit down and tell me about it.’
I sank into the wooden chair beside her. Another one of Grandpa Beau’s creations that reminded me of a Stickley. Flora wandered to a shady spot on the deck and lay down. ‘I’ve screwed everything up. Badly.’
She tugged her long white braid over her shoulder, fiddling with the tie at the end. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘I thought I was distracting Bryce. That I could stay on top of this. Prevent him from writing anything wild about us.’
‘And now?’
‘He’s been watching us for what looks like a while. Taking notes. Photos. When we were in the archives, I took a journal that had notes about Ambrosia and hid it, because it claimed she had magic.’ I scrubbed a hand through my hair. ‘Real. Fucking. Magic.’
She pressed her hands against her lap, her shoulders tightening up around her ears. ‘What else? When your cheeks go blotchy it means you’re hiding more.’
The flash and pop of the lights in the bathroom played on repeat in my head.
‘Did you hear how we found Mara?’
Her lips puckered. ‘Yes, Lia and Aster were here last night. They told me you weren’t exactly thinking straight when you went after her.’
She gave me that weighted look I often got when I acted before I thought something through. ‘Seems to be a repeated theme this past month.’ Her gaze flicked to the bandages covering the scrapes on my arms. ‘I’ll give that man credit. At least it appears that he looked after you.’
I pushed to my feet and walked to the railing. The early morning sun inched above the tree line, creating a mirror image against the pale blue water in the lake. Its shores slapped with a heavy current even though there was hardly any breeze.
‘Tell me what’s really bothering you. It’s about more than Bryce and his story.’
I paused, unsure how to ask the woman I’d loved and trusted my entire life if she possessed magical abilities.
‘You’d tell me…’ I hesitated because once I cracked open this can of worms, there’d be no turning back. ‘If… what that journal said was true… if we really did have magic, right?’
She tilted her head. Paused for a minute too long. ‘What makes you ask that question?’
‘One time I thought I saw…’ I shook my head, too embarrassed to admit I’d been spying on her. ‘When I was about twelve we used to make s’mores by the campfire all the time.’
‘I remember. It was your grandfather’s favorite part of the summer.’
‘One night, I thought I saw you light the fire with nothing but a snap of your fingers. And then I read about Ambrosia. That the locals believed she’d used magic to burn down her house with her abusive husband inside.’
She didn’t answer. Instead, she rose and disappeared into the house.
A minute later she was back, her right hand clutched into a fist. Her fingers unfurled, showing me a basic red-tipped match.
‘Your great-grandfather, Davis, used to take me out into the woods on long weekends. He was a survivalist and insisted I learn how to take care of myself in case I ever got lost.’ With a quick flick of her thumb across the top of the match, she brought it to a blaze.
‘Holy shit,’ I murmured.
‘It’s a good party trick, but it’s not magic, Dandelion.
’ She blew out the flame. ‘What I said the other night to Bryce was true. What men don’t understand, they villainize.
After her husband died, Ambrosia sold the mercantile.
She and her mother, Sylvia, ran the apothecary, and it did well.
’ She reached out and held my hands. ‘The men did not like their autonomy. Called them witches to try and strip their power away. These days they’ve changed the word from “witch” to “bitch”, but it’s still meant to steal women’s agency. ’
‘But even if it’s not real, Bryce can claim it is. That could be a lot of clicks and likes for him. It would bring more people to town. Make the tourists act even stranger than they already do. And after the last article…’ All I could do was deflate back into the chair next to her.
‘Would that change how you go about your life? How you care for the animals at your clinic? What about Lia? Would she stop her important work? Would Aster keep quiet about what she felt and saw?’
‘No. We’d push on like we always do.’
‘When Bryce first arrived, I was afraid too. But now that I’ve had time to think about it, I’m not. People here have watched you girls grow up and become an important part of this community. We got through the scandal with the Denver reporter. This will pass too.’
I didn’t believe her. During those darker days, I’d been a witness to the way the shop owners flinched when she’d entered their businesses.
Treated her like she was some kind of demonic entity.
She’d tried to hide it from me, but on those long rides home she’d gripped the steering wheel in either anger or fear, her steely resolve never revealing which.
She reached out and squeezed my hand. ‘The McGuire women have been through a lot harder things than one article in a national magazine.’
I owed this woman so much. She looked after me and my sisters in a quiet and resilient way, which gave us wings.
Allowed us to carve our own path in spite of Belladonna’s whirlwind interferences.
I could say ‘thank you’ a million times to her, and it would never be enough.
She may have not agreed, but I needed to protect her now, the way she’d always looked out for me.
‘While you’re here, we should probably talk about another matter.’ She shifted uncomfortably in the chair as the screen door squeaked open. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, the world proved me wrong.
‘Hello, my precious Dandelion. How come you haven’t been answering my emails?’
Streaks of gray threaded through Belladonna’s dyed black hair. A cavern of lines cut into the areas around her eyes and mouth. That signature deep brown lipstick she always wore bled around the outline of her thin lips.
Clo withered at my pained gaze. ‘She arrived late last night. I couldn’t turn her away.’
My first thought wasn’t about how my mother had once again showed up unannounced. Or how she had crappy timing. My immediate concern was Lia and Aster. What kind of trouble our mother’s presence would cause them.
‘I’m not in the mood for pleasantries this morning. Why are you here, and how soon can I get you to leave?’