Hollywood Demon (The Collegium Book 6) (2 page)

Clancy winced, and hoped she hid it by hurrying through the gate. Her parents were currently touring Europe; more specifically, its gardens. They were landscape gardeners by profession and obsession. They were also unaware that she was back in California. “They’re good. They’re in France. Mom is fascinated by potagers, French kitchen gardens.”

“And Jeremy?” It was no more than a polite question. Mark’s attention was on the slowly closing gate.

“He’s on track to get tenure at the university. Doris told you he got his PhD?”

“Only about a dozen times.” He grinned at her. “You must be proud of your brother. First doctor in the family.”

“Yeah.” She heard the lack of enthusiasm in her voice and forced some energy into it. “Dr. Jeremy Ramirez sounds very professorial.”

“Jeremy was always smart. Focused, too. I guess he learned determination, beating leukemia as a kid.” Mark was a year older than her big brother. He and Jeremy had never been friends, but they’d had a distant kind of respect for one another. Jeremy had been the brainy one to Mark’s good looks, popularity, and effortless sporting prowess.

“Do you still swim?” she asked abruptly.

“Every day, and I surf when I get a chance.”

They reached the house and took the side path to the kitchen. If she’d entered the estate alone, she’d have gone right instead, heading for her grandma’s home, the housekeeper’s cottage hidden by the garage.

The main house had been built in the 1920s. It had the romantic Spanish style of its era with white stucco walls, faded red clay roof tiles, arched windows and flowing lines. Little seemed to have changed since she’d lived on the estate as a child. With Jeremy ill for so long with leukemia and her parents focused on the fight against it, she’d spent a lot of time with her grandma until Jeremy was about fifteen and able to use his growing power as a geomage to heal himself. The earth’s energies lent themselves to most other magics, including healing.

The swimming pool dominated the inner courtyard. Clancy and Mark walked around the corner of the house and there it was. It looked inviting even on this cool morning. Kidney-shaped and dazzlingly blue, it was a quintessential element of Hollywood glamour.

“I learned to swim in that pool,” she said, halting beside it.

“I remember.”

She glanced at him, surprised. “You do?” The Yarren family—Mark’s parents and grandparents, aunt and her husbands—had come and gone from the estate. It was Clancy’s grandparents, Grandma alone for the last fifteen years, who’d occupied it continuously. The housekeeper’s cottage was far older than the main house. You could say it was a family inheritance even if it sat within the Yarren Estate.

“You were three years old,” Mark said. “A chubby little bundle of energy.”

“I was never chubby!”

“You were at three. Grandfather said it was dangerous to have a child running loose near a pool.”

Which was true, but, “Grandma would have kept an eye on me.”

“She did. However, Grandfather—do you remember him?”

Clancy laughed. “Could anyone forget him? How is he enjoying ranch life?”

“Loving it. He’s more Texan than a longhorn bull.”

She laughed harder, well able to picture the old man’s enthusiasm. Mark’s grandfather had never done things by half-measures. When he married his Texan wife and moved there six years ago, he’d gifted Mark the Hollywood family estate, saying that it needed fresh blood.

“Grandfather taught you to swim by having you dog-paddle out to me.”

She shook her head, staring at the pool and trying to picture the scene. Mark at eight, herself a chubby toddler, both of them splashing in the glamorous pool. “I don’t remember that, I just know Grandma always said I learned to swim here. I figured that’s why I prefer swimming in a pool to the limitlessness of the sea.”

“Could be. Or could be your geomagic preferring contact with the earth.”

She stared at the crystal clarity of the water, shimmering blue from the pool tiles. Her magic. How many of her life choices were shaped by her magic? It was too strong for her parents—and Grandma—to have let her ignore it. And too weak for the Collegium or anyone to grant her respect. She’d been taught to use it in a low level way.

After graduating from the Collegium’s geomage training, she’d become one of its field agents. Her cover had been that of a freelance photographer as she wandered the world’s literal hotspots. Hawaii, Iceland, New Zealand; wherever there was geothermal activity she’d drifted in and out. The geomages who held each territory had readily granted her permission. It wasn’t as if her weak magic could challenge theirs.

But California was different. California was her brother’s territory.

Clancy wrenched her gaze from the pool. Had the water just sloshed, as if rocked by a tiny earth tremor? Her darn magic! When she got upset it slipped out of her control. It was part of the reason she’d failed at the Collegium. Her talent as a geomage wasn’t just weak, it was unreliable.

“Grandma’s in the kitchen?” she asked too brightly.

Mark was staring at the pool.

She risked a glance. Yep, the water was definitely quieting after sloshing. Those weren’t ripples driven by the wind. She turned her back on the swimming pool and hurried to enter the main house.

The house was built like a giant “T” with a shortened leg. The flat top of the T-bar faced the street with entertaining areas to the pool side—dining room, lounge, ballroom—and more private rooms on the far end, like the study and music room. After a significant remodel three years ago the kitchen was part of a vast casual living area in the shortened leg of the “T”. Clancy had seen photos.

Now she walked in and ignored the magazine-beauty of the space. Emotion squeezed her heart and made her eyes hot with tears she wouldn’t shed.

Her grandma stood at the stove, unaware of Clancy’s entrance, singing and stirring something on the stove. Doris was Clancy’s height, but solider. Still strong and upright as she closed in on seventy. Her hair flamed a defiant red, set in puffy curls. She wore a velour sweat suit in vivid turquoise.

Clancy cleared her throat. “Hi, Grandma.”

Doris spun around, wooden spoon abandoned in the saucepan. “Clancy!”

The bag on her back was weightless as Clancy ran across the kitchen. She hugged her grandma.

“It’s like trying to hug a turtle,” Doris complained, patting at the backpack, but her eyes were suspiciously shiny despite the humor.

Clancy shrugged off the bag and they hugged properly. “I missed you, Grandma.”

“You should have come home, earlier.” Which was Doris’s way of saying she’d missed her, too. Her hug squeezed Clancy tight.

“You know I couldn’t.”

Abruptly, Doris let her go. “I know nothing of the sort! That rubbishy idea the Collegium put in your brain—”

“Should this be bubbling up?” Mark interrupted from the stove, peering into the forgotten saucepan.

Doris rushed back to the stove. “No, it’s a tamarillo sauce for our rice porridge. It needs to simmer twenty minutes. It’s nearly done.”

Thank you
, Clancy mouthed at him while her grandma’s back was turned.

He smiled faintly in acknowledgement. “Don’t worry about breakfast for me, Doris. I’ll grab a shower while you and Clancy catch up.”

“Don’t be silly, Mark. There’s plenty of rice porridge for all of us.”

Unfortunately
.

Clancy read his thought easily, and had to cough to disguise her laughter.

“We’ll wait for you,” Doris said.

He accepted his orders and left, presumably to shower.

Stirring the tamarillo sauce, Doris gestured at the coffeemaker. “Pour yourself a mug, hon, and top up mine, please.”

Clancy picked up her duffle bag and propped it out of the way against a wall before obeying. Then she leaned against a counter, sipping the strong coffee, and studied the room. “Grandma, this place is awesome. Did Mark really let you design it?”

“He had his own ideas, but yes. He said I’d be the one using it most, but actually, he often sits here to talk with me or watch TV. We both watch the baseball.”

Clancy stared around at the room. The entire back wall was glass, shaded by a deep veranda, and looking back toward the sprawling garden with just a glimpse of the pool. The side walls also had a generous supply of windows, making the whole space feel alive and open; something that the high ceiling helped with. The sofas were long, deep and a mix of cinnamon-colored leather and a surprising raspberry, fabric-covered three-seater. Armchairs were clustered near three tall potted palms. The hardwood floors were a light oak and the rugs a subdued sage-green.

The kitchen table was oak, too, and massive. It had twelve chairs, well-spaced, around it, and was separated from the cooking area by a large island with six barstools drawn up to it. The countertops were a creamy marble that Clancy stroked, feeling the cool power of the stone. The cupboards were painted a paler shade of the sage-green rugs, and fitted around the expensive stove, two ovens and a high-tech stainless steel fridge.

The vast room was glamorous yet practical, and eminently livable. She sighed. “Whatever place I find to rent will probably fit in here three times over. Grandma, I’ve come home to stay.”

Still stirring, the spoon coated with a deep orangey-red sauce, Doris looked at her. “Am I the first you’ve told.”

Clancy nodded jerkily. She put her coffee mug on the counter and hitched herself up onto a bar stool. “Yes. I’ve quit the Collegium.”

“They never understood you.”

Clancy didn’t argue with her grandma’s partisan support, but she thought that the Collegium had understood her only too well. Her magic was limited and the Collegium’s geomagic department wasn’t going to waste its time on a small talent. Especially a dumb one.

I’m not stupid.
Negative self-talk didn’t help anyone.
I have other talents.
“I’ve given up photography, too.”

Now, Doris frowned. “You enjoyed it.”

“I enjoyed framing a picture, finding a truth in an image. I’m going to take up oil painting, again. Truly study it.”

Her grandma’s frown relaxed. “Smelly stuff, and messy.” But Doris had always let Clancy paint when she’d stayed with her as a teenager. She’d just had to paint on the cottage’s porch.

“I’ll have to get a job, though.”

“You could work here.” Mark walked in. He’d showered and changed into jeans and a t-shirt. It was a concert t-shirt in a faded gray that stretched over his shoulders and hugged his biceps.

She didn’t think he’d chosen it to be sexy, but it was. “I can’t work for you.”

“Why not?” And that was Doris.

Mark shrugged one shoulder, pouring himself a coffee. “There’s always work on the estate. Doris gets people in to help with the cleaning. Then there’s the gardening and security.” A glimmer of laughter shone in his blue eyes, perhaps remembering how she’d thrown him.

Clancy sought for an excuse, unable to confess to the warning sirens blaring in her mind. She had to build a real life, an ordinary one. She’d spent too many years dreaming of unattainable things—and a guy as gorgeous, wealthy and plain charming as Mark was the poster-boy for unattainable. She had gotten over her crush years ago. Best to leave it in the past. “I was thinking of working in retail. You know, get out, meet people, balance out the time I hope to spend alone painting.”

The humor vanished from Mark’s face. In fact, his whole expression shut down. He took his coffee and retreated to the large kitchen table.

Doris got out three cereal bowls and set them down, rattling, on the counter.

O-kay.
Somehow Clancy had put her foot in it. “I’m not in a huge rush. I have some savings. I thought I’d find a place to live, first. Although, that’ll be easier if I can prove I have a job.” She stopped, because any more words and she’d be babbling. “Is there anything I can do to help, Grandma?”

Doris switched off the gas under the saucepan. “No, thanks, hon. You sit down.” Doris  got out a ceramic casserole dish with the rice porridge in that she’d been keeping warm in the oven.

Clancy sat at the table. Mark had seated himself at the head, so she sat on the far side, leaving the chair nearest the kitchen for her grandma. Within minutes they all had bowls of steaming rice porridge in front of them, smelling both sweet and tangy from the tamarillo sauce. Clancy took a cautious mouthful. Doris was a great cook, but sometimes her adventurous spirit could be too bold. “It’s…different,” Clancy mumbled. “Unusual.”

“Healthy,” Mark contributed.

Actually, the sauce wasn’t too bad. It was both sour and sweet. But the rice porridge…not an experience Clancy wanted to repeat. It was like eating mushed cardboard.

Doris put down her spoon. “There’s a sourdough loaf in the bread basket.”

“I’ll slice some for toast to fill in the gaps.” Mark kept eating his porridge, though. He finished it before taking his empty bowl to the sink.

“The recipe sounded so nice.” Doris sighed. “Exotic.”

“The tamarillo sauce would be great on ice cream.” Clancy scraped up the last of her porridge. If Mark could eat it, so could she.