An Imperfect Witch (26 page)

She was not going to let that be her DNA.

“Too careful, huh?”  His voice sounded soft—and terribly sad.  And when he finally spoke again, he couldn’t meet her eyes.  “I think you know what I want.”

The aching desire when he’d seen her cuddling Kenna pummeled her heart again.  “You want babies to hold and family dinners and little kids bouncing on your head in the morning to wake you up.”  Her mind added what her heart didn’t have the courage to say. 
And you want it all right now.

Something akin to astonishment flared in his eyes.

She stuttered to a stop, totally confused.  “That isn’t what you want?”

“Eventually, yeah.”  He shrugged helplessly.  “Don’t you?”

The three words she hated fluttered hopeless in her chest.  But they were her truth.  “I’m not ready.”  Hell, she was barely ready to be Auntie Lizard.  And “sister” had her quivering in terror.

His hands were so wickedly gentle.  “Forget the timeline.  Pretend you’re fifty and it’s already happened.”  He waved at her tea, cooling on the table.  “Or seventy.  When you’re old and gray and crazy smart like Moira, what do you imagine your life to be?” 

Lizard stared at the telltale tea cup.  The guy never freaking missed
anything.

And he’d just innocently stripped naked the biggest difference between them of all.

Lizard took a shaky, awful breath.  He needed to know.  “In the world I used to live in, you didn’t wish for things.  Two years ago, I barely thought past the next meal.  I learned to want what I already had.”  Her voice wobbled.  “And what I have now is pretty great.”  She closed her eyes, knowing how far she’d come—and how short it was of where she needed to be.  “I do dream a little now.  I can sometimes imagine next week.”

He sat still for a very long time.  And when he spoke, he sounded like a man on an alien planet.  “You don’t think about the future?”

People in prison didn’t look out the windows.  She bet he didn’t know that, either.  “Not really.”  God, she sounded like such a stunted human being.  “I’m not so good at this grown-up stuff.”

“It’s not—”  He stopped, carefully studying her face.  “Kids dream about what they want to be when they grow up.”

Not this kid.

The man across the table read her eyes.  And quaked.

Lizard prepared to break.

And then the rumbling quieted, and his hand touched her cheek.  “The timelines don’t matter.  But someday, I’d really like to know what
you
want.”

His eyes were earnest, his mind full of support and love and the unending belief that Lizard Monroe could indeed grow up.

But she had the oddest feeling that Josh Hennessey had just punted.

-o0o-

Lauren stumbled into her cottage, in desperate need of coffee and space.  Insane day.  Two new clients had walked in the door first thing in the morning, and realtors who had just gained new sisters got the nice, normal people.

Which had left the crazy cat lady who carried orange goggles in her purse and muttered about needing a garage for her buckets.

Lauren had no intention of asking what she stored in them.  Body parts, probably.  She slipped into the kitchen, digging out the necessary paraphernalia for her late-morning caffeine fix.

She’d taken the woman on a quick tour of several neighborhoods and then sent her off to a friendly banker.  Which was going to cost at least a week of lunches to keep said banker friendly.  More if the orange goggles had come out.

Maybe Lizard would have better luck in the afternoon.  The Kennedys had looked like a sweet young family.

She hit the switch on her favorite kitchen device and wandered down the hall to the comforting sound of grinding coffee beans.  And prepared for her second crazypants session of the day—this one, planned.  Dev and Fuzzball had been dispatched to amuse themselves elsewhere.

Home alone—just a slightly harried realtor and her crystal ball.

She walked over to the corner of the living room, eyeing the orb. 
Time for you and me to have a little chat.

Nothing changed.  Just a simple white dust catcher.

Yeah, see, that’s all an act.  I’m pretty sure you can hear me just fine. 
The day it had tried to talk to Aervyn had been eye-opening.  As had its Halloween antics. 
I almost made you puke once, and I can do it again.  You want my attention, you have it.  But there are some rules.

She had the weird but clear image of a void yawning.

That was a little creepy.

First off.  Ditch the whole mysterious thing.  Gravedigger spies?  Not cool. 
And not remotely helpful in figuring out what had actually been stalking Lizard.

Royal disdain.

Lauren had learned a little something watching Nell handle teenagers. 
Yeah, lose the attitude, too.  Apparently practically no one can hear you, so you’re stuck with me, and I’m not a big fan of hocus-pocus or obscure omens or myriad other forms of bullshit.  Straight talk, or I’ll donate you to a museum and tell them you’re an oversized marble.

The milky surface of the ball moved.  Turbulence.  Or possibly a building tantrum.

Time to shift gears a little. 
The woman I got you from comes from a long line of witches who believe that great magic comes with great responsibility.  Since you hung out with them for a few centuries, I assume you believe that too.

Affirmation.  Great wafting billows of it.

Progress. 
Well, I can’t be responsible if you don’t give me what I need.  And murky clues that I’m likely to misunderstand aren’t very helpful.

Something that felt very much like “feeble humans.”

Damn straight.
 Lauren cracked a grin and tried to pretend she was talking to Spock. 
You give me stuff I can use, I’ll be happy to listen.  But dim the hocus-pocus.  I’m not that kind of witch.

A silence.  And then the surface of the orb began to move again.  Inviting this time—or perhaps more like an arrogant request.

Lauren leaned in and watched the pictures unfold.  Circles, ones of great power.  The orb, seated in the hands of the matriarch.  Held aloft in streaming, potent magic.  Touched with reverence.  And in the eyes of some—worship.

A message not at all hard to understand. 
Used to a lot more respect, are you? 
In Moira’s family, that would make sense.  Lauren looked at the crystal ball again.  Dethroned and tossed out in a strange land where the locals weren’t all that accommodating. 

She felt a sneaking pity.  And knew now wasn’t the time to offer it. 
Moira tells me it’s no accident you decided to talk to me after all these years.  So I assume there’s a reason you’re on my turf. 
She wasn’t about to ask what it was.

Assent.  Slightly bitter.

Fine.  Then help us both be useful.  You want respect here, you’re going to have to earn it. 

The ball went silent.  No answer.

Probably pouting.  Lauren rolled her eyes and went to get her coffee.  One line in the sand, neatly drawn.

But damned if she didn’t feel slightly sorry for the darned thing.

-o0o-

“You are one strange cat, you know that?”  Dev reached up and helped Fuzzball down a boulder.  “You’re supposed to sit on a window ledge and eat kitty bonbons or something.”  Not go hiking down goat paths by the ocean in November.

A wave sent up spray, closer than usual, and Fuzzball gave it the evil eye.

Dev chuckled.  “Tide’s coming in.  It only gets worse from here, dude.”

“That’s comforting,” said a dry voice behind them.

Devin turned and watched Josh make his way down the last few feet of spur trail.  The guy was a pretty decent goat.  “I didn’t know you clambered around on these cliffs.”  There were a few enterprising souls he sometimes met, but only a few.  Climbers, mostly.

“I was looking for you.  Saw your car.”

A point of embarrassment, since they were only about half a mile from the cottage.  Dev shrugged.  “Fuzzball wanted to come.”

Josh stared at the cat.  “Does he know he’s really weird?”

Not a chance.  “He lives in a house with a temperamental crystal ball, a caffeine-addicted realtor, and me.”  With frequent outpatient trips to other Sullivan-clan abodes.  “What do you think?”

“Point taken.”  Josh’s lips quirked as he slung his butt on a fairly flat piece of rock.  “It’s nice up here.”

Dev wasn’t all that ready to stop his cliff ramble.  He looked down at the inviting expanse of blue-green sea below them.  “You swim?”

Josh followed his gaze.  “Down there?  You nuts?  Among other issues, it’s officially winter.”

“Water witches don’t get cold.”

That got met with amused snorts.  “I assume your head still mashes when it meets with a rock, just like the rest of us.”

The waves were definitely a little more energetic at this time of year.  Dev studied the water as it crashed against the cliffs, getting a read on the currents.  “If we jumped off that spiky part over there, it would be fine.”  Probably fine without magic—definitely doable with a little spellwork.

“You’re serious.”  Josh looked dubious and intrigued all at the same time.

“Yeah.”  Maybe the fun wasn’t over after all.

“I’d need a wet suit.”  Josh studied the spiky spire.  “And probably my climbing gear.”

A vibrating ball pushed against Dev’s leg.  He sighed and scratched a bossy head—Fuzzball would pitch a fit if he went cliff diving.  “I’d probably need to leave the cat at home too.  Sometimes I don’t think ahead very well.”

“You’re not the only one,” murmured Josh quietly. 

Uh, oh.  Dev watched the cat turn one last time and settle into a sunny depression.  Two against one.  Hike over.  He found himself a seat and squirmed, trying to make it comfortable.  Not a whole lot of flat rocks in the area. 

“Do you have an idea of what your life’s going to be like in thirty years?”

So much for idle chit-chat.  “Yeah.  Doesn’t everyone?”

“No.”  Josh was still staring off to sea.  “Lizard doesn’t.  What you just said about not thinking ahead—I thought maybe she wasn’t alone.”

It was like trying to imagine a car without an engine.  “My mom used to say I was really good at living in the moment.”

Josh grinned as the rogue wave tried to spray them again.  “You find some pretty cool moments.”

“I always have.”  His greatest gift and occasional curse.  “But that doesn’t mean I don’t think about the future.”  He tried to imagine the inner workings of Lizard’s head.  “Maybe she just doesn’t want to talk about it?”

“That’s what I thought for the last two years.”  Josh tossed a small rock in the direction of the sea spray.  “Turns out that she doesn’t actually think about her life much beyond today.”

Something twigged in Devin’s mind.  “Lauren said something like that.”  He dug for the rest of the memory.  “She wanted to host one of those networking gigs.  Asked Lizard when her fall classes might be.”

“She decides that stuff the day before term enrollment.  I’ve seen her do it.  Just sticks her finger in the catalogue and picks.”  Josh’s words trailed off.  “And I was too dense to figure out what that meant.”

Dev was still trying to catch up, but he wasn’t about to interrupt a guy whose brain was making that much noise.

The sea spray made another blow Fuzzball’s direction.  The cat just gave it the hairy eye and went back to sleep.

“She would have been a dreamer,” said Josh quietly.  “All that imagination and poetry and passion—she would have been born with that.”

No argument from a guy born with water powering his soul.

“And then her dad left.”

Even a slightly dense hiker could follow that trail.  “She’d have wished him home.”

“She was three.”  Josh’s voice was full of sadness—and a fury Devin would have stayed very far away from in a dark alley.  “And all she would have wanted was her family, whole and unbroken.”

He was catching up now.  And his heart was breaking for a tiny girl with Lizard’s eyes.

“I think she stopped wishing for anything.”  Josh’s eyes were in some far-gone place.  “She just took whatever came.  And now I’m asking her to imagine a family again, whole and unbroken.”

Ooph.  Devin Sullivan said the first thing that came to his mind and sore heart.  “You still gotta ask.”  Lizard deserved dreams—and so did the persistent, very smart man who wanted her in his.

“I thought I had been.”  A long, gear-grinding silence.  And then Josh Hennessey kicked a good-sized boulder.  “I think I was doing it wrong.”

Devin winced in sympathy for toes and hearts and everything else that hurt.  And wished he was the right Sullivan for this job.  “You really don’t want to be asking my advice.  You know I’m the guy who asked my wife to marry me in the middle of my niece’s birth, right?” 

Josh stared—and in his eyes, the hint of dawning hope.

Uh, oh.  “Really.  I can send you to some of the wiser people in my family.”

More staring.  And hope, taking root.

Devin glanced at the rocky spire in desperation.  He could get them both into the water safely.  Probably.

And then Josh stood up.  “Actually, I’m pretty sure I came to just the right guy.”

That sounded bad.  “A lot of my ideas don’t end all that well.  My mother can give you a list.”

A quirky, infectious grin.  “Lauren married you, right?”

Oh, hell.

Josh picked up a pebble and hurled it far out into the ocean spray.  “I’m gonna take a cue from you, and from that wave that keeps trying to get us wet.”

Devin squirmed, pretty sure he was hopelessly outclassed in this conversation.  “And what would that be?”

Bits of rock slid as one tech geek started to make his way back up the goat trail.  He turned to look out at the sea one last time.  “Say the most important thing really clearly, and screw the timing.”  Josh flashed a grin.  “Thanks.”

Dev didn’t bother to answer—the guy was a pretty speedy goat.  He looked down at his sleeping cat and shrugged.  “You know what’s going to happen next, right?  We’re going to end up getting a whole bunch of credit we don’t deserve for that conversation.”