Chapter 11
“You’re a nice girl and all.” Luke played with the napkin holder on the table, avoiding Shanna’s gaze. “But you’re so … zealous. We don’t have to spend every day together. A man needs some time for himself, you know?”
“I know,” she said, staring at the table.
“So it’s best if we call this off. It’s not easy for me. Trust me, I’ll miss you.”
“Don’t worry.” She sighed. “I’m sure you’ll forget all about me in a few days.”
***
That evening was torture for Shanna.
She was pretty certain Simon had intended to kiss her back in the park, and she spent the next hours—as they grabbed dinner, then went to a hotel and got their rooms—flip-flopping between telling herself rejecting him was the right thing to do, and figuratively hitting herself on the head because that was such a stupid thing to do.
Why did she pull back when it was all she’d ever wanted?
As hours dwindled into the late evening and she and Simon prepared for their respective beds, the scale finally tipped toward her having done the right thing. Simon hadn’t said a word about it or tried anything else, so he must have not regretted the rejection.
That night, it took her two full hours to fall asleep, and she was acutely aware of every little rustle Simon made on the other side of the room.
They’d just gotten ready in the morning, exchanging innocent small talk, when Chris knocked on the door.
“Ready for police lineup, session two,” she said.
Right—she and Simon had to continue trying to find the man who’d ordered Simon’s assassination.
“Go ahead.” Shanna let her into the room, glancing at Simon. “I need some air anyway.”
She closed the door behind her and walked across the small courtyard of the hotel complex to a bench underneath a fluffy palm, about as far as the bond allowed her. Sitting down, she made her daily morning call to Gran.
“How is the best granddaughter in the world?” Gran greeted.
Shanna smiled, Gran’s warm voice instantly filling her with optimism, even though none of the news she had were particularly optimistic. “I’m fine, Gran. How are you? And Jinx?”
“He’s right here. Hold on.” Some rustling and then panting followed.
“Hey, Jinxie! Are you being a good boy?”
Jinx woofed.
“He makes a great assistant, too,” Gran said. “Real talent for spellcraft, he has.”
Probably better not to ask.
“And how are you, dear?” Gran said.
Shanna sighed. “I found where Mom had been in the park, but there were no other tracks. We read there was a gold rush in the late nineteenth century in the mountains to the south. A place there might relate to the next postcard. It’s in the direction of Milford Sound, anyway, so we’ll take a drive down the coast and see if we stumble upon anything. ”
“That’s all fine and dandy.” Some clanging came from Gran’s side; must be preparing lunch. “But I asked, how are you?”
Shanna knew she couldn’t run away from her poking, and truth be told, she didn’t want to. Who else could she confide in but Gran?
“Simon tried to kiss me.”
“Oh, no. Don’t say he got into an accident before he could.”
“No, it wasn’t my fault—well, it was. Because I told him not to.”
“You what?”
In the back, Jinx barked disapprovingly. Thanks for the support, buddy.
“You know I can’t do it,” Shanna urgently whispered into the phone, checking her surroundings.
Simon was still in the room, occupied with what actually mattered to him.
“It’s never going to work. He’s gone through the curse.
He can never love me again, if there was ever a seed of it in the first place. ”
“Balderdash,” Gran said.
“Hey! Don’t you spell-curse in front of me!”
“You could use a spell or two. Not for him. For yourself. The boy’s trying to kiss you, you want him to kiss you, and you say no?”
“It was just lust! It’s not the same.” What had she been thinking anyway, doing skinny dipping in front of the man? She brought this upon herself.
“But you’ll never find out if there could be more if you reject him from the start.” Gran’s voice softened. “You’ve gone to such lengths to get him back.”
“That doesn’t mean he owes me anything. Especially not love.” Shanna picked at her skirt. “Any progress on your end? Did you find the book with the rest of the conditions for the ritual?”
“The …?”
“So we can break the bond once we have the Mercurial Crystal?”
“Oh! Right. Yes, yes … I have it somewhere …” Gran’s voice faded, and she was gone for a minute. “Got it! There are a couple of things to be done before the ritual. Long story short, you’ll need to mingle. Romantically.”
“What?” Shanna almost dropped the phone and scrambled for it in the air.
“As in, a date. You, as one of the people involved in the bond, must go on a date.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I want the long story.”
“Really? All ten pages?”
Ugh. Fine. Gran was fully capable of reading an entire book about witchcraft to her, and currently, Shanna didn’t care for it. “So, just a date? No other conditions, like what has to happen on the date?”
“Nope.”
It was strange, and she could ask Gran to mail her pictures of the pages … although the last time she’d tried, she got three pictures of Gran’s face from various, surely unintended angles. Not even someone more tech-savvy like Simon could help with that.
“Okay. I guess I’ll do that. We’ll probably get on the way soon. Talk again tomorrow.”
“Bye, sweetie!”
Jinx also barked goodbye.
Shanna sat on the bench for ten minutes more, until Chris exited the room and came over.
“Any luck?” Shanna asked.
“Nope. We’re running out of the more obvious candidates.” Chris plopped down. “I told him we should try Mafia members.”
“Is there a reason the Mafia would want Simon dead?”
“Nah. But it would be cool.” Chris stretched out her legs and crossed them.
Simon popped out and, upon spotting them, tapped his wrist as if showing the time.
“I’m already packed!” Chris yelled. She turned to Shanna as he disappeared inside. “Why are you weird around him, anyway?”
“What?”
“You’ve been acting weird since yesterday. Like you want to ask him out to prom, but you’re an awkward nerd and he’s a jock, so you don’t know how to do it.”
“I think if anyone, Simon would be the nerd.” A very attractive nerd with a mouthwateringly sculpted body, especially when it was also glistening from him having taken a dive in the ocean …
And she shouldn’t be thinking about yesterday anymore.
“That’s not the point.”
Shanna slumped her shoulders. “Gran told me one of the conditions that need to be fulfilled before we break the bond is to go out on a date.”
“Oh. So you do have to ask him.”
“No!” She stood up. “She didn’t say it has to be him.”
“Why not? He’s cool.”
Shanna looked to the door. Simon was back, hauling out their suitcases. “You never would’ve stabbed him, would you?”
Chris tapped her feet against each other.
“I thought I could. I was fully ready to do it. It was Freddie on one side and some random corporate dude on the other. And if he got an assassin sent after him, I figured he’d done something bad.
Innocent people don’t tend to get contracts on their heads.
” Chris sighed, pausing for a moment. “Even as I stood above the bed, I still thought I could do it.”
Shanna sat back down and carefully reached out her arm. When Chris didn’t pull back, she hugged her around the shoulders. “We’ll help Freddie. And you. I promise.”
Chris looked at the ground. “But why? I’m a random kid who tried to kill someone.”
“And to you, Simon was a random, possibly shifty guy. And yet, you didn’t go through with it.”
Simon came over to them. “Now, will you two be able to walk to the car, or will I have to carry you as well?”
Shanna blushed at the thought, but Chris jumped to her feet with a “Yuck, no,” and walked toward the parking lot.
Throughout the next two hours of their journey, the road winding through the thickly forested mountains delivered them to the wild, rugged west coast. Gone were the tranquil, aquamarine waters of Abel Tasman; here, the grayish-blue ocean hit dark craggy rocks with all its might, the waves foaming white along sharp outcrops and gray sandy beaches. Different, but no less beautiful.
The areas known for the gold rush were further down the coast; it would take a better part of the day to get there—and even longer once the GPS had a seizure and started leading them up a narrow mountain path that barely constituted as a road.
It took them half an hour to figure out this wasn’t the right way, once they’d reached an abandoned forest cabin that could only be the destination in a horror movie.
Simon shot Shanna an unimpressed, knowing look as he tossed the offending GPS onto the back seat.
She smiled apologetically and pulled out her fold-up map. Call her cursed, but she also came prepared.
In the early afternoon, back on track driving along the coast, they passed a sign indicating they were approaching Pancake Rocks. Ahead, the view opened to a complex and a parking lot.
“Can we stop for lunch?” Chris asked. “After our little excursion, I’d kill for a good plate of pancakes.” After a moment of silence, she looked at Simon. “Not you, though.”
“I think this is just a tourist site.” Shanna consulted her map. “It’s the name of the rock formation.”
“Then I’ll kill whoever didn’t think of selling pancakes at a place with pancakes in its name.”
They stopped anyway, and as they entered the restaurant, Shanna was pleased to see an offering of several pancake flavors on the menu. “No murdering to be done.”
“To be fair,” Simon said, “not serving pancakes here would be a massive marketing miss.”
They placed their order and took a table under a parasol outside.
Simon got on the phone, and like an obedient copy, Chris followed, while Shanna thumped her fingers on the wood and played with the drinks menu.
Ten minutes, fifteen, half an hour—finally, their buzzer let them know the food was ready.
“I’ll go get it,” Shanna said.