Genie Knows Best (28 page)

“An orange tent? I thought we agreed on blue?”

“You see my problem.” David smoothed the arch of his eyebrow. “You have to speak to him so I can get him to pack up. I’ll eat the labor costs, of course.”

She patted David’s arm. “I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding. I’ll handle it.”

“Good. Because the acrobats are having issues so I have to deal with them. You’re a love, Samantha.” David air-kissed her cheeks and was off to put out another fire.

***

The tent was definitely orange, but it was far enough from the others and behind the copse of pomegranate trees her father had planted in Mom’s memory that Samantha realized why she hadn’t seen it earlier.

Straightening her shoulders and fortifying herself with a deep breath, Samantha pulled back the fabric that covered the opening.

Brass lanterns hung from the posts, plush rugs covered the floor, and comfortable sofas and cushions were spread throughout the tent, the same as the rest at the party.

The guy standing before her, however, was nothing like anything else at the party.

“Hello, Samantha.”

He knew her? Interesting, because she didn’t know him and she
definitely
would have remembered meeting him.

“Um, hi?”

“You don’t remember me, do you?”

That wasn’t a question you could bluff your way out of. “No, I’m sorry. I don’t.”

He took a step closer. “Yes, you do, Sam. I know you do. You have to. Think, Sam. Really hard.”

He was so intent. So intense. So gorgeous.

Samantha scoffed at herself. Was she one to be swayed by a pretty face?

But she
was
swaying. And her hormones were dancing. Her thighs tingling.

Her thighs were tingling?

She looked up at him again. Studied him from his gorgeous wavy hair to his warm, dark, melted-chocolate eyes. His high cheekbones and a perfectly formed set of lips that curved up at the corners. A killer set of abs framed by the open vest he wore, with an orange stone in the shape of an eagle on the chain at the base of his throat…

Wait. She recognized that stone.

Didn’t she?

Samantha shook her head. She was being ridiculous. Wishful thinking, that’s all. “I’m sorry, but I don’t. Where did we meet?”

“Izaaz.”

“Is what?”

He smiled then, and if he’d been gorgeous before, now he was devastating. A twinkle in his eye, the dimple in his cheek, the shape of his lips—

“You said that last time.”

“Last time?”

He reached for her hand. “You don’t remember.”

It wasn’t a question.

“I’m sorry, but you must have me confused with someone else.”

He cupped her cheek. “Someone else named Samantha?” He took a step closer and Samantha’s legs wouldn’t move to take one back. “With the most gorgeous green eyes on the planet and the hint of lilac clinging to her skin?” He leaned in a little closer, the web his words were weaving making her glad she wasn’t moving. “With that sexy beauty mark on her hip?”

Samantha let his words wash over her. She did have green eyes, but gorgeous? That was debatable. And as for the lilac body wash she wore, well, lots of women wore that.

That beauty mark, however…

“Which hip?” she whispered.

He stared at her mouth. “The left one.”

Oh, God, she did have a beauty mark on her left hip. How she wanted to be the Samantha this guy knew…

“Come on, Sam. Think. You know me. I know you know it.”

But she didn’t, and how sad was it that they both wanted her to but she didn’t?

Though…
Sam.
There was something about the way he called her that.

Samantha shook her head. Wishful thinking and, thanks to Albert, self-esteem that could really use this guy’s brand of pick-me-up.

She nibbled on her bottom lip, then took a deep breath. And a step to the side. “I’m sorry. I wish I could remember you, but I don’t.”

“What did you say?”

Samantha cocked her head. “Um, I wish I could remember you?”

When he smiled this time, it transformed his face—

Or maybe that happened when he waved his hand and it was as if a veil had been lifted.

She saw everything so much more clearly.

She saw
Kal
so much more clearly.

Kal. Who’d sent her home just as she’d asked.

Kal, who’d made her forget what had happened just as she’d asked.

Kal, who’d broken her heart.

“Kal.” It all came rushing back. Izaaz, Dirham, the leprechauns.

The pain. The disillusionment. The nasty reality.

How much more was she going to have to take today?

“You remember?”

She nodded. Yes, she did. Every single detail.

Why couldn’t he have let her forget?

She spun around to leave, but Kal grabbed her wrist—and held out the lantern pendant she’d left behind.

“Please, Sam, let me say this, and then if you still want to leave, I won’t stop you.”

She shouldn’t. She really shouldn’t.

But she did.

Because he was him. And because she was in love with him—well,
had
been
in love with him.

He turned her hand over and placed his lantern in her palm. “When you picked it up from O’Malley and Paddy, you became my master again. And I can’t think of one I’d rather have.”

She shoved it back at him. “Take it, Kal. I don’t want it and I know you do. There. Be free. I wish it.”

Her voice hitched at the end. If only he’d come because he loved her and wanted to spend the rest of
her
life with her, she could have lived with that. But as an obligation?

No way.

Kal looked at the lantern, then at her. “Okay, so now I’m free. But it doesn’t matter because I’ve earned the job I wanted.”

“I’m happy for you, Kal. Truly. Enjoy your job and your magic.”

“I can’t.”

“What—”

He cupped her cheek again, and she let herself sink into it for a second.

“Because I love you, Sam.”

Those were the words she’d longed to hear but the last ones she thought he’d say. “You do? Why?”

“Why?” Kal looked taken aback, but, hey, if he’d been in her shoes, he’d understand.

She looked down at his feet. The curled slippers they’d both worn in Izaaz.

What had O’Malley said? Samantha didn’t have to struggle to remember, not with the way the memories were flooding her. She could see it as if it were yesterday. Actually, it might have been yesterday. Or today.

Samantha shook her head. When it was didn’t matter; the words were as clear as if O’Malley were standing right here, saying them all over again.

Genies
cannot
love
mortals
or
they’ll lose their magic and immortality.

“Yes, Kal. Why? Why would you say that? Doesn’t that take your magic away?”

He ran his thumb over her bottom lip. “I don’t care.”

“But—”

“Sam, I realized something when you made that last wish that I was honor-bound to fulfill. I hated doing it. Hated knowing you’d be back here not remembering anything about me. About us. I didn’t want to live the rest of my life knowing that you wouldn’t remember.”

He brought his other hand to her face, raised her chin, and brought her closer. “Don’t you see? For the past two thousand years, I’ve been driven to clear my name and best Faruq, the guy who’d taken it all from me, to have the highest job in my world.

“Well, I did, and you know what? It’s not enough. I thought it would be. I thought it was what I wanted. But I’d forgotten what it was like to be alone. Truly alone. No friends, no family, and now, no master. All I’d have to look forward to was living in my palace and ruling others like me.

“But then you came along and I fell in love with you, Sam. It didn’t start out that way, but something about you made me want to be with you. To protect you and take care of you, that had nothing to do with who I was as a genie, but who I am as a man. What you and I have, it’s unlike anything I’ve known. It’s real. And I want that, Sam. I want you. I want a life with you. A real one. With real joys and a real relationship. A family, not like Bart and Maille, but what they could have. Not this mere existence I’ve been living.

“I want to marry you. I want to live out the rest of my mortal life with you. I want to have children with you. I want to make memories and relive them when we’re old and gray. I never want to be alone again, Sam. Having the title means nothing if I don’t have you. All the magical powers in the world don’t come close to the magic, the wonder, of loving you. Because I can’t go—”

Samantha kissed him. He’d said enough.

For now.

A little while later, he pulled back. “Say it, Sam. I need to hear it.”

She smiled then and linked her hands behind his neck, pulling him down for another kiss. “As you wish, Kal. I love you.”

He kissed her again, a quick hard peck. “No, Sam. As
we
wish.”

Djinn are religious figures in Islam, and while I tried to incorporate that history and culture into my world-building, this story is based more on U.S. pop-culture references. No disrespect or insult to anyone’s beliefs is intended.

Scheherazade, the famed Arabian storyteller, had to come up with a thousand and one nights’ worth of tales to save herself.

Eden should have it so easy.

But at least her life wasn’t on the line like Scheherazade’s, so that was a plus. Her mind, though, was another matter. There was only so much magic a genie could do to pass three thousand years of confinement and not go mad.

Unwilling to succumb to such madness, Eden flicked her wrists and snapped her fingers, her magic sending the butterflies, hummingbirds, and twirling glass balls she’d bewitched toward the ceiling of her bottle so she could have a better view through the hazy saffron glass. The rain of yet another Pacific Northwest storm streaked the storefront display window she’d inhabited for the last forty-five years, two months, and thirteen days. If the Arabian weaver of tales had used Eden’s last half century as the basis of the stories that had saved her life, the poor woman would have been dead before her first sunrise.

“Mornin’, babe.” Obo, the cat she’d been cursed—or blessed, depending on one’s viewpoint—to share this latest part of her penance with, leapt onto the shelf beside her bottle, licking his Egg McMuffin breakfast from his whiskers. The cat was a master forager. “Whatcha lookin’ at?”

“Wilson.” Eden nodded to the tree in front of the store. She’d watched it grow from a sapling to its current block-the-rest-of-the-world-from-view size for so long that she’d named it.

“Kind of pitiful that you named a tree after a volleyball.”

“It worked for Tom Hanks.”

“Yeah, but he was stranded on a deserted island. You’ve got the bustle of the city and hundreds of people right in front of you to keep you company.”

Hundreds of people she couldn’t interact with. She was on the outside looking in—well, actually, she was on the inside and wanting to
get
out. But the High Master had sealed her bottle with so much magic that nothing short of an explosion would set her free.

“And me, of course.” The cat winked at her, his yellow eyes against his black fur making the motion noticeable. “You’ve always got me. I know I’m the bright spot in your day.”

“In your dreams, Romeo.”

“Speaking of lover-boy, has he been by yet?” Obo nudged the copper ashtray with the mermaid cigarette holder out of the way and curled his tail around her bottle before plunking himself onto his belly. Mr. Murphy, the store owner, hadn’t shown up yet, so Obo could get away with hanging out here. Once the man did, however, all bets were off.

It was a sad state of affairs to look forward to these daily chats with Obo, who was high on her list of Least Favorite Beings ever since he’d let her take the fall for
his
necklace heist from Ramses II’s tomb. It showed just how lonely and bored she was that she even deigned to talk to him, let alone looked forward to it. Other than her thoughts and her magic, she had only him to keep her company.

Oh, and “lover-boy” Matt Ewing. Couldn’t forget him. And she didn’t. He was pretty unforgettable, and heavens knew, she thought about him more than she should.

“No, he hasn’t been by. I guess this weather’s keeping him inside.” Almost every morning, Matt jogged around the corner of the store in those tight, form-hugging running clothes. The perspiration slicking his face, that sexy curling hair, the controlled, even grace of his movements had fueled her fantasies ever since Mr. Murphy had moved her glass bottle to the front window.

“Or he could have had a hot date last night and it carried over.”

Eden curled her legs under her, the curly toes of her slippers catching on the piping around the edge of the new sofa. She propped her elbow on the back cushion and plopped her chin onto her palm. “Thanks, Obo. That’s helpful.”

The cat licked his paw and swiped it over his ear. “Just callin’ it like I see it.”

Eden turned to look at him, brushing a wayward hummingbird out of the way, her gold shackle, er, bracelet flashing in the lone weak beam of sunlight that somehow fought its way through Wilson’s leaves and the steady rain. “And how
do
you see it, Obo? You’ve been to his house. What’s his world like?”

The cat shuddered and tucked his paws beneath his chest. “A damn sight wetter than yours. You should be thankful you’re in this place. It’s a monsoon out there.”

The cat could be tight-lipped when he wanted to be. Which was often. All she asked for was news of the outside world and its people, descriptions of the smells and sounds, and the general feeling of being free to come and go as she pleased, but other than getting Matt’s name out of Obo, the cat barely shared anything else. He had no idea how lucky he was to have the ability to go where and when he wanted.

She definitely didn’t understand why he chose to be
here
. In this musty old shop, surrounded by things other people wanted to get rid of. How Mr. Murphy stayed in business was beyond her, because most of the stuff had been here as long as she had, and there certainly hadn’t been any runs on antique plant stands or tarnished brass headboards.

Flicking her wrists again with the accompanying finger-snap that completed her Way of doing her magic, Eden arced a rainbow from one side of her bottle to the other, the purple ray disappearing into the shadow of the bottle’s neck. The butterflies immediately began flying through it, and the hummingbirds raced along the ribbons of color that matched their wings.

She snapped her fingers again, and Humphrey
poof
ed onto her arm like a trained parrot. The dragonlet, a baby dragon about the size of her palm and her latest “foster child,” reminded her of Bogart in his early movies, with a long face, high forehead, and large eyes, hence the name, though the dragon’s eyes were blue to Bogart’s brown.

In that, Humphrey reminded her of the High Master, but Adham was such a lofty name for such a tiny thing. And besides, like the Humphrey of those on-demand movies, this Humphrey was on loan, too—until he reached unmanageable proportions, which, with a dragon, was usually around the one month mark, meaning she had about five days left with this one before the hormones kicked in.

She stroked Humphrey’s golden scales, then pointed to the rainbow. He gave her the tiniest nip on her palm—full blown dragon love could be really painful—then fluttered his little wings, his strength increasing daily. Today was probably the last day he could fly with the butterflies. The hummingbirds were fast enough to evade his beak-like jaws, but the butterflies wouldn’t be a match; they’d more likely be lunch. But for today, he could play among the colors with them. Dragons loved rainbows.

She did, too, because of the happiness they innately engendered, especially on dreary days like today. But rainbows were infrequent manifestations for her because, while Mr. Murphy couldn’t see in and most things couldn’t pass through the magical barrier of her bottle walls without her okay, rainbows required an inordinate amount of light and, therefore, could be seen. Light shining from a dusty, and supposedly empty, old bottle would definitely be noticed.

“Uh, babe?” The gentle
whoosh
of Obo’s fur thrummed softly along the ribbed lower portion of her bottle as he brushed his tail against the outside. “The rain might be murder on pedestrian traffic, but it’s upped the vehicular kind. And the traffic light is red. A couple of interested kids, and your beacon there is going to get some notice.”

Eden sighed, hating that he was right, but flicked her wrists anyway. The rainbow dissipated, leaving traces behind on the winged creatures. Humphrey sported a blue stripe down the ridge of his back and one of the iridescent Blue Morpho butterflies was going to have to change its name to Purple Morpho.

“Why are you here again, Obo? With the free run you have of this town, I’d think this has to be the most boring place you could be.”

Obo’s tail paused mid-flick and his ear twitched. “Ah, well, you know… I, uh, can’t talk to mortals without freaking them out, and none of the animals in this country have been on the planet as long as me. Who else can I share the good ol’ days with? You’re the closest I get to normal, babe.”

Which was sad because nothing in her life had been
normal
from the moment she’d gone to live with the High Master over two thousand years ago following her parents’ death.

Eden sighed and gathered her magic to summon a pomegranate smoothie on the teak inlay table next to the lime green sectional she’d ordered last month. The persimmon-colored pillows weren’t pulling the whole look together as she’d hoped. While she loved color, the backdrop of the saffron bottle made her art deco a little too avant-garde. Ah, well, she’d do some redecorating today to keep herself occupied. The satellite dish Faruq had given her for her birthday a few years ago came in handy.

Not that she’d ever admit it to Faruq. The High Master’s vizier, charged with monitoring Genie Compliance, already had too much control of—and too much interest in—her life.

She sipped the smoothie. The dish, and the high-def TV that had replaced the antiquated electronics she’d accumulated over the years, were gods-sends. Much easier to shop, teach herself new languages, keep abreast of changing societies and customs, and learn all about new technology and the selling power of J.D. Power and Associates. Not to mention, how to make smoothies.

And with her bottle’s magical ability to alter its interior without changing the dimensions on the outside, she could order up a swimming pool and Mr. Murphy would never know the difference.

Actually, maybe she’d do that. She’d like to hear Faruq’s comment when he found out he was going to have to magick up a couple thousand gallons of water. And as for getting it through the magic channels to her, well, that ought to give him a few fits.

She took another sip of her smoothie. Such were the pleasures of her life.

“Hey, that looks good.” Obo peered into her bottle, the tapered neck distorting his yellow irises until he looked like the Cyclops she’d seen off the coast of Crete that last summer she’d been on the outside. “Can you conjure one up for me?”

Eden set her treat down on the Egyptian brazier topped with a circular mosaic tile platter she called an end table. Nothing like combining Old World and New. “Sorry, Obo, but my magic won’t leave the bottle for the mortal world while the stopper’s in.” Otherwise she would have zapped herself somewhere warm and sandy years ago.

“Well, could you calm the butterflies down then? Their flapping wings are driving me nuts. And the dragon…” He shuddered and dropped his head onto his paws. “I don’t get
that
at all.”

Humphrey did a loop-the-loop above her head and Eden held out her hand for him to land on as a reward. Baby dragons were so lovable and eager to please. Until they hit that unmanageable milestone—then their fiery heritage took over. It was a treat to be able to enjoy them at this stage, one far too rare for her liking.

As for her other cohabitants, they were the only living things Faruq approved to be in her bottle. She’d tried to talk him into a kitten after a few hundred years of solitude, but he’d refused. Said kittens would grow up to be cats, and cats were sneaky. That any cat he gave her might be able to figure a way out of the bottle.

It didn’t speak well to the High Master’s magic if his own vizier thought a cat could undo it, but Eden didn’t buy Faruq’s argument for one minute. Just one more thing he wanted to control about her.

So she’d volunteered to foster orphan dragonlets and hadn’t complained when Obo had shown up. Not that the cat had any interest in helping her out of her bottle. Knowing where to find her so he could “share the good ol’ days” was incentive enough, apparently, for him to make sure she stayed put. Probably worried what she’d do to him after he’d abandoned her during that necklace fiasco. A few hundred years ago, she might have done something, but nowadays, she was just thankful for the companionship. She’d told him so and had even tried bribing him into tipping the bottle off the shelf with promises of making all his wishes come true, but the cat had turned her down.

She hadn’t held out any great hope of a fall breaking her bottle anyway. She’d been dropped many times over the years as her bottle had changed hands—sometimes on purpose—but nothing had budged that stopper.

She conjured up an acacia seedpod for Humphrey and his blue tongue flicked out to taste it. A bunch of cooing ensued, complete with little claw marks on her arm as he hunched into his “don’t take my food” position over the pod. He happily munched away on the outer casing. Nothing like the throaty rumblings of a contented dragonlet. “What time is it, Obo?”

Obo didn’t even look at the cuckoo clock hanging on the wall by the shop’s door. “Matt’s not coming, Eden. You wore your sexy little outfit for nothing.” He opened one eye and the black slit of pupil thinned even more. “Thinking of auditioning for a TV show, are we?”

Eden shrugged. The costumes hadn’t been purchased specifically with Matt in mind, but if the opportunity ever presented itself, well, hey. She had urges just as much as the next person. And after being cooped up so long with only Obo and Faruq to talk to, those urges were teetering on the brink of meltdown.

But she’d just
had
to buy the harem girl outfits, one in every color, after watching that genie on the television show. She didn’t know who’d ratted out her race, but that Mr. Sidney Sheldon had gotten almost every detail right. Except the costume. No self-respecting genie would be caught dead in this little get-up while in The Service. But it was comfortable and it was colorful. And there was no one but her to see her in it.

“I wonder where Mr. Murphy is? He’s usually here by now.”

Obo sighed and rolled onto his side, his tail whispering along her bottle again. “Probably rowing his canoe in. I’m beginning to wonder if Noah’s up to his old tricks.”

Eden smiled. Crotchety and full of complaints—and a liar and a thief—Obo might be, but he was right; they didn’t have anyone but each other to share the old times with. Unless she counted Faruq. And she wasn’t about to.