Absolutely Captivated (41 page)

“What does that mean?” Zoe asked,
again not certain if the offense she felt was a legitimate
one.

“The Fates couldn’t handle what I
consider an everyday task, and I would consider them emotionally
immature. Yet they can do—or they could do—things I can’t. I guess
how you live is a lot more important than how long you live.”
Travers gave her a sideways smile. “That’s all.”

“That’s all?” Zoe asked.

“That’s all,” Travers said, and leaned
back even farther. Was he trying to get out of the
conversation.

“That’s
all
?” Zoe asked again.

“Yep,” Travers said. “That’s
all.”

“What she means,” Kyle yelled from the
bedroom, “is how come it doesn’t bother you that she’s older than
you are.”

Zoe felt her face heat up. She rolled
her eyes. “I guess we should learn not to have conversations like
this around Kyle.”

“Only if we’re broadcasting,” Travers
said. He pulled a key out of his pocket, then took her hand and led
her out into the hallway, closing the door behind him.

The hallway was empty, and it seemed
to go on forever.

“Now, even if he does hear us,”
Travers said, “he can’t interrupt.”

Although Zoe had been grateful for
that last interruption. Kyle asked the question she was dancing
around.

“So,” she said softly, “does it bother
you?”

“What?” Travers asked.

“My age,” Zoe said.

Travers glanced at the door. “Maybe we
should have stayed in there.”

“Why?” Zoe asked.

“Because there’s no good answer to
that question,” Travers said. “If I say yes, then you’ll think I’m
intimidated by your age. If I say no, then you’ll think I don’t
find you mature enough.”

“What’s the real answer?” Zoe
asked.

Travers took a deep breath. He seemed
to realize that he wouldn’t get out of this conversation until he
answered her.

“The real answer?” he said. “It’s
sometimes.”

“Sometimes?” Zoe asked.

He nodded. “When I think about all
you’ve seen and all you’ve done, I’m fascinated and intimidated.
When I think about how easy you are to talk to and how much I enjoy
your company, I feel like there’ s no age difference between us at
all.”

“But there
is
a difference,” Zoe
said, resisting the urge to slip her hand in his.

“Besides the obvious and very fun
one?” Travers asked. “Yes, there is. Kyle.”

Zoe started. She knew that Kyle’s
presence bothered Travers, but it didn’t bother her.

“No,” she said. “I meant the magic. I
know so much more about it than you do.”

“And I know more about corporate tax
law,” Travers said. “So what?”

“So magic is more useful than
corporate tax law,” Zoe said.

Travers grinned. “It hasn’t been in my
life. I’ve used corporate tax law a lot more than I’ve used magic.
Except this week.”

Zoe grinned too. She couldn’t help it.
She really did enjoy his company.

“So my age really doesn’t bother you?”
she asked again.

“Not most of the time,” Travers
said.

“Wow.” And before she realized what
she was doing, she stood on her toes, leaned forward, and kissed
him.

The kiss was as good as the one they
shared in her office. After a moment, Travers’ hands slid around
her waist. Her hands wrapped around his neck, and pulled him
closer.

How had she found this man? And why
was he so important to her? And why was she even worrying about any
of that when he could kiss so very well?

Down the hall, the elevator doors
swooshed open, and both Travers and Zoe jumped back as if they were
teenagers caught parking by a cop. Both of them looked down the
hall, but the elderly couple getting off the elevator didn’t seem
to notice them.

Then Travers’ gaze met
Zoe’s.

“Wow is right,” he said.

“I know you don’t want someone who
won’t stay,” she said, the ideas forming along with the words,
“because of Kyle and everything. But I might be the first woman
you’ve met to whom years aren’t that important. I mean, if you want
to wait because Kyle’s eleven, wait until he’s out of the house,
six years—”

“Seven,” Travers said with a bit of a
smile.

“Seven years isn’t that much to me.”
Zoe couldn’t believe how forward she was being. And how very
vulnerable she felt. She’d never spoken to any man like this. “And
I’m willing to—stay away until then, if you’re worried, that is. I
mean, after we find the wheel and get you mildly
trained.”

“Zoe—”

She kissed him lightly, stopping him.
She didn’t want to hear his refusal, not yet. Not when she had just
revealed herself like that.

“Think about it,” she said against his
lips. “I’ll see you in the morning. At breakfast. We can talk
then.”

And then she hurried down the hall,
trying not to focus on the fact that he hadn’t tried to stop her,
and that he wasn’t calling after her.

By the time, she reached the
elevators, she looked back at Travers door. He wasn’t in the
hallway any longer.

She was alone.

“You know, that’s a really stupid
rule,” Kyle said.

He was standing in the living room,
his shirt and shorts horribly wrinkled from the bed. Bartholomew
Fang was standing near the door to the kitchen, looking expectantly
between Travers and Kyle, as if the dog thought it was food time
instead of conversation time.

Travers pulled the hotel room door
closed. He still felt shaky from that kiss. Zoe may not have
followed a traditional marriage-and-family route in the past 150
years, but she sure learned how to kiss.

And that intimidated him. How many men
had she kissed and how did he stack up?

“What are you talking about?” Travers
asked.

“That rule you’re thinking about all
the time,” Kyle said. “The one about not getting involved with a
girl because of me.”

“It’s not stupid,” Travers said. “It’s
common sense. I don’t want you to make attachments and lose
them.”

“This sounds like something Aunt Meg
told you to do,” Kyle said.

Travers shook his head. He wasn’t
going to blame Megan for anything, especially since she was
arriving soon. He didn’t want her involved with Zoe or the Fates.
He would have to explain that to Kyle before she got
here.

“I made up my mind about this long
before your Aunt Meg finished her degree,” Travers said. “I just
figured it was best for you.”

“Or was it best for you?” Kyle crossed
his arms. He looked very adult, and it unnerved Travers. Sometimes
Kyle was perceptive, but he was rarely savvy—he was still a boy
about some things.

Although that boyhood might not last
much longer.

“Come on,” Travers said, “let’s sit
down.”

He didn’t want his son to keep
standing. He knew that Kyle still wasn’t a hundred percent, even if
Kyle didn’t know that.

They both sat on the couch. Travers
folded his hands together and leaned forward. He wasn’t comfortable
talking about this with his son.

“It’s true that I was pretty shaken
when your mom left,” Travers said. “But I didn’t swear off women
because of her.”

“You don’t date,” Kyle
said.

“I don’t believe I have time for
casual relationships. When you get older—”

“I am older.” Kyle was
sitting cross-legged in the corner of the couch. Bartholomew Fang
had given up his quest for dinner and had come toward them, his
tail no longer wagging. He jumped on the couch and lay down so his
muzzle touched Kyle and his tail touched Travers.

“You may think you’re older,” Travers
said, “but eleven years isn’t that long in the scheme of things. I
can still remember when you were just a baby.”

“So?” Kyle said. “I’m not anymore. I
know how things work. And if you want to date Miss Sinclair, I
think that’s cool, and I promise I won’t break down if you can’t
work it out.”

“You can’t make promises like that,”
Travers said.

“Sure I can.” Kyle leaned his head
back. He was still looking just a bit peaked. The skin around his
eyes was hollow and white. “I watch TV and I know what happens to
my friends’ parents. They all date and those relationships don’t
last.”

Great role models there,
Travers thought, and then hoped he hadn’t broadcast that thought.
However, Kyle didn’t show any evidence of having heard it, so maybe
Travers was off the hook.

“I thought your friends’ parents were
married,” Travers said.

“Some of them,” Kyle said. “Most are
divorced and remarried. I can remember when a lot of them were
dating. Mike Kimbrough’s dad saw a different woman every
night.”

“And that’s precisely the kind of
father I don’t want to be,” Travers said.

Kyle grinned. “You never will be, Dad.
You already screwed that up. I mean, you haven’t seen anyone.
You’re just thinking of Miss Sinclair, and she’s the first woman I
ever knew you were interested in. I can’t imagine you seeing a
different woman every night.”

Travers wasn’t sure if he was pleased
that his son knew him so well or upset that his son didn’t see him
as a man who could attract a different woman for every day of the
week.

“I think you’re just afraid that she’s
gonna walk out on you like Mom did,” Kyle said.

Travers didn’t move. He wasn’t even
breathing. No one seemed to believe that Cheryl’s departure didn’t
bother him. Not even his son.

But he hadn’t even been interested in
another woman until now.

Maybe he didn’t want just any
woman.

Zoe Sinclair certainly wasn’t just any
woman.

“I like her, Dad,” Kyle said. “And
it’s okay if she doesn’t stay. I mean, it’s not okay, but it’s
okay, if you know what I mean.”

Oddly enough, Travers did know what
Kyle meant. He meant that they’d be sad if things didn’t work out
with Zoe, but they’d be sadder if they didn’t try.

“And it doesn’t bother you that she’s,
like, older than Grandma, right?” Kyle asked.

Travers looked at him, stunned.
Travers hadn’t thought of it that way. Zoe was older than Kyle’s
grandmother, Travers’ grandmother, and his
great-grandmother.

“Right?” Kyle asked, looking worried
now.

What was the difference,
anyway? How they looked? Travers didn’t want to go there, either.
Maybe the difference was that he just couldn’t think of Zoe as
old.

Experienced, maybe, but not
old.

“Dad?” Kyle sounded worried. He leaned
forward. “Right?”

“Right,” Travers said. He thought
about it for a moment more, then nodded. “Her age doesn’t bother me
the least little bit.”

Travers leaned over and pulled his son
into a hug. There was one thing he learned that awful week when
Cheryl walked out on him, leaving him with an infant who couldn’t
care for himself.

The best things in life were never
easy.

Like Kyle.

Like Zoe.

Like magic.

Zoe sat in her favorite booth at
O’Hasie’s, tapping her foot. Herschel and Gaylord were late. She
had called them as she left the hotel, and asked them to meet her.
They had promised they’d be at O’Hasie’s, in their booth, with beer
on the table.

She was the one in their booth, and
she was the one who had bought the beer, as usual. She had gotten
stares from the handful of regulars who filled the bar. The poker
players were long gone, and O’Hasie’s had gone back to its local
bar status, with empty tables, a slow-moving bartender, and no
cocktail waitress.

Zoe no longer remembered what she
liked about this place. It felt seedy to her suddenly.

Or maybe she was seeing it with
Travers’ eyes.

Travers. He hadn’t called to her, but
then he had no reason to. She had set herself up as a teacher to
him, as someone much older, not just in years, but in experience.
And even though they’d kissed (how had a man with only a few
decades of life learned how to kiss like that?), the attraction
seemed stronger on her part than on his.

She hadn’t realized how very lonely
she had been in these last few years. When this thing with the
Fates was over, she would have to change how she was
living.

It wasn’t good to spend so much time
alone.

The dark red upholstered door swung
open, and Gaylord entered. He wasn’t wearing his usual studded
leather jacket—probably in deference to the heat—but he was wearing
a black t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off. His thin arms were
layered in muscle, and the ripped shirt, along with his tight
jeans, looked good on him.