Enchant the Dawn (8 page)

Chapter Six

It had been a stupid thing to say.
Mama was right—a girl can be far too clever for her own good
. It had been a long slow weekend waiting to catch a glimpse of a dark stranger around every corner. She’d gone up to some of her usual haunts but had been back home before midnight. The music, the energy, the hedonistic thrill that was Jazz Harlem didn’t thrill as much anymore. The bands still played music that moved her to dance but it didn’t allow her to lose herself anymore. Her brain was still whirring a mile a minute with questions she couldn’t answer by herself.

Instead she went home and lay on her empty bed and rubbed herself until finding a release of tension but not a lot of pleasure. She pictured those big hands and a cock to match. She imagined riding him and then being ridden, all hot hard muscles and sweat and the luscious smell of sex.

She wondered what it sounded like when he laughed. Whether he would steal all the covers in bed. If he wouldn’t mind finding a nice cottage somewhere in the middle of the country where the frenetic energy of millions of people wasn’t spilling over and sapping her soul.

Ahhh!
She was generally losing her mind. One kiss and one medieval comment and she was ready to paint a picket fence and have little black-haired, green-eyed babies.
Christ I am pathetic
. She couldn’t even get away from him once she finally fell asleep. Instead of the occasional sweet dreams of the time she’d pinned Jimmy up against a tree to get a good solid French kiss out of him, she was besieged with visions of a dark man pushing her into the hard bark of that same tree, his tongue in her mouth and his cock deep enough to hit her womb.

She woke up wet and breathless and so horny she had to get herself off again just to have the will to get up and get on with the day. After a week of this she was frustrated and aching. March had come in like a lion and went out like a bear, the chill refusing to let up. April didn’t look to be a whole lot better. The pounding in her head wouldn’t let up and she could barely keep down any food. The city that had sheltered her from her own life for so many years was becoming a tormentor.

Shuffling through her morning routine and hurrying through the cold blocks she descended into the subway. Pushing onboard an already crowded train, she clutched a ring and swayed with the train as it sang its hollow underground roar. The mechanical syncopation was just enough to focus her mind for a brief instant on the here and now, giving a startling moment of clarity even here in a crowd where the multitude of auras made her temples throb.

I will miss this
. She would miss the city but it wasn’t her home. It had never been her home.

* * * * *

“Sophie’s early! It’s a miracle!” The slightly gap-toothed grin of Alan Lowbridge greeted her as she walked in the empty pharmacy’s jangling front door. She rolled her eyes. He knew she hated being called Sophie. Sweeping past him doing his morning routine of stocking the soda fountain, she shrugged off her coat and hung it up at a peg on the back wall.

“Oh, Soph my dear, oh wise woman of the Ohio tribe, I don’t know if taking off your coat is such a good idea. The
special,
”
he waggled blond eyebrows, “pipes burst last night, ruining a huge batch of hooch. Dad’s fainted from the fumes and we’ll all have to hoof it and go on the lam to get away from the vengeful gangsters. Just you and me against the world, my little tomato!”

She blinked at him with raised brows. He was such a goof. “What is that? The plot to the latest Clara Bow flick?”

He frowned. “You are such a flat tire lately. So much for April Fool’s. And no, Clara’s gone on to bigger and better things than gangster pictures.”

Oh lord, she’d forgotten it was April Fool’s. The college kids and the like would be pouring in today, trying to buy itching powder or exploding cigars or whatever prank they thought of next. And Alan, who still kept up close ties with the NYU chemistry department a couple of blocks away, he’d be right there trying to help the kids out.
Ugh
. She feared for the student population of New York, given his weird sense of humor and his general dissatisfaction with the current state of his employment as chief babysitter to the still downstairs. He was too damn smart for just making bathtub gin. Too bad Mr. Lowbridge Senior didn’t recognize that. Rather than confront his father, Alan buried himself in all-night movie showings in the Village and weird chemistry dabblings in the basement. Someday, either Alan or one of his experiments was going to blow.

She pondered this as she tied on her green apron over the conservative blouse and skirt that she wore for work. When she left, would anyone miss her here in the big city? Would Alan finally lose it and go off on his own? Would Mrs. Andrews still manage to deal with her arthritis or Mr. Banbury his stomach troubles, or any of the other folks whose faces she’d learned to recognize even in the anonymity of New York? Somehow, she knew they’d all make it through. It was herself that she wasn’t too sure of.

“Hey, it looks like one of the pickup artists got lucky for once!” Alan snorted derisively at the scene out the window. Sophia looked up and sure enough, there was a guy chatting up a good-looking girl on the corner outside the store. There was almost always some guy hanging around outside trying to make a move on some young thing. Except this time, Sophia was very sure this wasn’t your typical lollygagger. The man was Daron West.

She seemed frozen in place for a moment just staring and almost missed the moment when the blonde turned around and entered the front door. This time, it was Alan’s turn to be frozen. June came walking in, almost like a breath of warm air. She didn’t perform her usual little trick of staring at the floor to make herself invisible. Sophia smiled at her with encouragement, for it was plain to see from her expression, not just her aura, that the woman was worried. Before she could open her mouth to ask anything, she felt a flare of odd heat to her left and then a high-pitched squeal as the soda dispenser went nuts, coating the floor and Alan with fizzy water.

Alan was still staring at June until he realized that his pants were soaked and the soda machine was going haywire. Sophia couldn’t help but laugh at him and even June cracked a tired smile. Alan bustled about for a minute shutting off the machine and made rapid excuses, disappearing with speed down the hall to the stairs in the back. Sure, Alan was tongue-tied and awkward around girls but this…this was just plain cute. She wished he’d have the nerve to talk to the girl, rather than making a fool of himself. He had a lot to offer to the right woman.

Turning back to June, Sophia was surprised to see the slightest touch of wistfulness in those lovely blue eyes, mirrored in the soft swirls of her life energy. Sophia didn’t even have to close her eyes to feel the pull this woman had toward the man who had just departed so swiftly. The fey sadness was quickly replaced with cold resignation and the weight of worry. Sophia knew now that Miss June would need just a bit of a push to find her own happiness.
Then again, who am I to think I know anything about love or happiness?
Her eyes flickered to the street corner outside, where Daron West had simply disappeared.

She repressed an aching sigh. “Can I help you, June?”

“Hello Miss…”

“Remember, just Sophia is fine.”

June nodded with that same weary smile. “I know you must be busy and all…”

Sophia interrupted again, “No but even if I was, I’d have time for you. I know you wouldn’t come all the way down here for something that wasn’t damn important.”
And I know you wouldn’t bring along Mr. Mysterious unless it was practically life-threatening.

June understood it was time to cut through all the polite bushwa. “It’s Hester, my little girl. She’s sick.”

Sophia pursed her lips and nodded. June wouldn’t necessarily have the money for a doctor and what passed for a hospital was just a place to pick up even worse sickness. “How long?”

“Near to three days now. More like all her life, on and off, if I’m going to be truthful.” Sophia saw June was fighting tears. Storms arose beneath the mask June always wore, as her love for her daughter threatened to break down all of her carefully constructed walls. Lashed by the waves of this turmoil, Sophia struggled to focus.

“What kind of sick? Fever? Coughing?” Sophia threw a glance toward the back room, where Papa Lowbridge was still buried in his newspaper. Could she get the time off if there was a sick child to see to? Did she want to work here badly enough to obey the man if he wouldn’t let her leave?

“Coughing, of a kind. Mostly, her chest makes this terrible sound. It sends chills down your spine. And she’s so scared, she can’t catch her breath.” June’s eyes were pleading but they lacked hope.

“You’ve seen doctors?” Sophia was already taking off her apron.

June nodded. “Every one who would see us.” Sophia knew the unsaid words which followed.
And not that many would
.

“I’ll be just a moment.” She turned but Alan was already talking to his dad, making uncharacteristic sweeping gestures taking in Sophia and June. Sophia had been so focused on reading the maternal worry that consumed June that she hadn’t noticed Alan appear behind her to listen in.

Alan barreled out of the office, almost knocking Sophia down in his haste. He’d managed to put on a clean but crumpled pants and a shirt so new the tag from the tailor was still hanging off the sleeve. She almost giggled but there was a look of worried determination of his face that made him look rather dashing. “Sophia and Miss…” He blushed to the roots of his hair as he looked at June. “Well, I’ve got a car round the back. I’d be happy to drive you somewhere if it’s an emergency.”

Sophia was open-mouthed with shock at such a can-do attitude from the normally stumbling Alan Lowbridge. But, if it got them uptown any faster, she wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. “Let me pack up some supplies and we’ll meet you in the back.”

Alan grabbed his beaten fedora and a coat off the coat rack and disappeared out the back to coax Ol’ Nellie into action. Alan’s 1916 Packard Twin Six was his baby, even more than his cadre of chemical tinkering projects. He’d nursed that car from a beat-up wreck into a fine little automobile. Emphasis on the little.

She bent down to pull out a couple of her jars of herbal remedies and paused to drop a couple of pennies in the till in return for a jar of some mentholated mineral oil. She folded away the apron and put on the coat she’d so recently taken off and then she turned to June only to find that June was no longer alone.

Daron West stood there as well, those green eyes boring into her, sending a bolt of need straight to her womb.
I’m supposed to be mad at the asshole, not want to jump him the minute he deigns to show his sorry mug.

“Hello Miss Hunter,” he spoke softly, his accent just enough to send a frisson of desire racing over her skin. “I’m sorry to inconvenience you but I thought we might be able to help Hester.”

“Of course. I hope that I can.” She bit off her words, unable to stay calm and unemotional around him, no matter how much she’d like to appear unaffected by him. He’d left her high and dry for far too long, only to show up at the side of one of the most beautiful women she’d ever met. Even though she could plainly see that there was nothing more than a calm familiarity in the swirling energies of the two striking people before her, the taste of jealousy was bitter and revealing of her own attachment to the man. She closed her eyes and then it became even more clear, as the living tendrils of desire snaked out from the blazing life force of the man she craved, stroking against her own energies, making her nipples harden and her breath quicken with the bright flare of want.

Her eyes snapped open and she shook herself, ignoring the knowing smile tugging at his full lips. She pulled June through to the back room, refusing to see if Daron chose to follow. Mr. Lowbridge raised a bushy eyebrow at the parade through his sanctuary and put down his newspaper, heaving himself out of his chair in order to see to any customers out front. Sophia bit her lip and shrugged her shoulders at him but he just waved her on. “Go, go. If a kid’s sick a kid’s sick. I’ll manage somehow. But I reserve the right make you listen to the Yankees cream the Indians on the radio this summer, you hear!”

“Yes sir!” she laughed but felt a pang in her gut. She was pretty sure that she wouldn’t be at Lowbridge’s come summertime. She wasn’t sure where she’d be.

* * * * *

This was pos-i-lute-ly insane. And incredibly arousing. Alan and June were cozying up in the cab of the Packard and here she was holding on for dear life as Alan swerved through the madness that was morning traffic on Park Avenue. But she wasn’t jammed into the rumble seat—no, she was perched on Daron West’s lap as he jammed his long legs in that little seat. Alan couldn’t have found a nice six-seater touring model Packard to lovingly recondition—oh no! He had to juice up and spit polish his green and mahogany 1916 Roadster. Ol’ Nellie was his pride and joy, a sweet little car meant for two. Not four. The rumble seat was just wide enough for Daron to sit with a bit of room but nowhere near big enough for both of them. June had insisted Daron had to come along and not walk or take the subway. Alan’s face had fallen with that announcement and so for Alan’s sake Sophia had done the stupidly noble thing and insisted June be up front. The boy needed to understand that June and Daron were not an item. Hell, Sophia herself needed to understand that.