KICK ASS: A Boxed Set (60 page)

Once the hotel operator answered, she asked, “Can you put a call through to Sydney, Australia, please? The Jasper Museum. Thank you.”

Mariah’s chest tightened with every ring. She had to steady her hands just to push the buttons for her mother’s extension. It was after seven o’clock at night down under, but as she guessed, her mum was still in her office and answered the call absently.

“Hey, Mum.”

“Mariah? Is that you? Darling, what’s wrong?”

A thick lump formed in her esophagus. “Do I only call you when something’s wrong?”

“What do you think?” Dinah asked. “Last time you called was to wish me a happy birthday six months ago.”

“Actually, it was my birthday,” Mariah countered with a nervous laugh. “But since you did all the work, I figured you deserved a bit of credit.”

The cadence of Mariah’s speech instantly changed, picking up the inflections and rhythms of her homeland.

“When are you coming home? It’s been too long since we’ve had a proper visit.”

Mariah nodded, her throat constricting. Had her mother ever said anything so motherly, and yet so unexpected? Did she ask this question as a matter of course, or because she truly wanted to see her only daughter?

“That’s not a bad idea,” Mariah answered. “Maybe a trip home is just what I need.”

Her mother hesitated. Mariah’s eyes suddenly stung with humiliation.

“Are you in trouble again?” Dinah asked. “With the law, I mean?”

Mariah laughed, though somehow the sound nearly came out like a sob. “Nah,” she replied. “I can’t say I wasn’t in some trouble recently, but I got it all worked out. Well, the law part anyway. Mum, what do you know about Gypsies?”

It was almost automatic, engaging Dinah on a professional level, where it was safer than digging into the emotions they both protected so fiercely.

“What Gypsies, sweetheart?”

“Eighteenth-century. London or thereabouts. Germany, maybe. I heard tell recently of a colony of sorts called Valoren. I was wondering what you knew.”

She should have made this phone call weeks ago. On the other hand, she might not have stumbled onto Rafe if she had. Angst aside, she did not regret knowing him or making love to him or even battling Farrow Pryce with him. She regretted only being unable to break his Gypsy curse.

“Hold on,” her mother said, and even though they were half a world away, she could hear her mother’s fingers flying over the keyboard of her computer. She had access to databases that ordinary people simply didn’t have—scholarly collections that the general public wouldn’t much care about. If not for her mother’s work at the museum, Mariah would never have met Ben. Seventeen and angry and anxious to not only spread her wings, but to do so in a way that would scandalize her mother, she’d left without so much as a note.

And yet, a decade later, the woman still took her calls.

“I see only one reference here,” Dinah announced. “A scholarly article written by a Paschal Rousseau. Valoren was a secret enclave of banished Gypsies. Pervasive magical mythology. Why? Planning to steal something from there?”

“Already did,” she answered.

“You don’t sound happy about it,” her mother observed wryly.

Mariah allowed a tiny smile. She could have done without falling off a cliff, but otherwise, things hadn’t worked out so badly, had they? Except for Rafe needing what she wasn’t sure she was capable of providing.

“It’s been a load of trouble, as usual, but it could work out.”

“It will,” her mother said with a lighthearted laugh. “With you, Mariah, it always does.”

“How can you say that? I’m a thief, Mum. I don’t even make my living stealing for myself. I do it for other people. I don’t give a damn about what I take or whom it hurts. I just—”

“
Survive
, darling. That’s what you do. I’m not going to condone your lifestyle. You and your like are the bane of the existence of curators like me. But I’ve been telling myself all these years that at least you were happy. Living an exciting life, not trapped on some dusty desert ranch in the middle of the Northern Territory, pregnant and penned in…”

“Like you were,” Mariah filled in.

Mariah’s mother cleared her throat.”Yeah, like I was. I know you and your brothers paid a hefty price for my leaving, but I had to go. I thought marrying your father would be one great adventure. I’d have access to digs in parts of Australia that few have been able to explore at their leisure. And for a while, I was the happiest woman north of Alice Springs. But, honey, it wasn’t enough, and I—”

“You don’t have to explain, Mum.”

“Maybe I do,” she contradicted. “Maybe if I explained, you would stop running and would find what will really make you happy. Before you make the mistakes I did. Trying to be someone you’re not.”

Mariah’s eyes stung. She must have splashed herself with a soap bubble. Or else she was breaking through barriers in her heart that she’d erected so long ago. She’d never thought about being a mother herself, but she supposed her childhood was a prime example of how not to parent. Maybe she could pull off the whole nurturing thing someday if she had the right man to balance out her imperfections.

Someone patient. Kind. Honorable. Someone who would encourage their children to explore the world and be honest and authentic about who they really were.

Someone like Rafe.

A sob broke through from her chest, unwelcome and unbidden.

“Mariah, sweetheart, you tell me what’s wrong right now.”

She couldn’t do this, could she? Open up to a woman she’d distrusted for so long? Was this what Ben meant about letting people in? About putting family ties above all others, even when her mother had not?

“I’m messing it all up, Mum,” she confessed, deciding she no longer had the strength to hold on to her resentments from the past. “He respects me for exactly who am. He doesn’t compare me to his wife or want me to be like her. I’m the only one who does that, and I’m not sure why. He wants me for me.”

“His
wife
?”

Mariah swiped away the tears she now acknowledged were streaming down her face. “She’s dead. It was a long time ago. But I’m pushing him away. I may have already lost him.”

Her mother’s laugh was something between a bark and a cry of relief. “Sweetheart, you’re the expert at finding things that other people have hidden and protected. Use your own talents on yourself. Whomever you’ve lost, you’ll find—if you want to badly enough?”

Twenty Four

Rafe emerged from the stone to find Mariah asleep in a chair near the window, dressed in a fluffy white robe, a telephone cradled in her lap. A tray of food sat beside her, heartily picked over, though Rafe did manage to snag what he now knew to be called a French fry. Even cold, the delicacy pleased his palate. After draining the last of Mariah’s beer—now warm and more familiar than the questionable American preference for serving the beverage cold—he grazed his fingers over her cheek until she woke.

“Hi,” she said, struggling to sit when she must still be sore from their encounter the night before. “When did you, um, wake up?”

‘Just a moment ago,” he said. “I might have suspected I’d finally died, I slept so soundly. I dreamed of you.”

She snatched a half-filled glass of water and drained it in one long gulp. “I hope I was doing something fun.”

“You were weeping.”

And from the condition of the skin beneath and around her eyes, he realized that he might not have been dreaming at all. She blinked and he noticed thick, red veins streaking toward her amber irises.

“Was I?” she asked.

Her nonchalance betrayed her.

“What happened while I slumbered?” he asked.

She poured herself more water from a sweating silver pitcher. “Just had a long talk with my mother. I learned a lot.”

“About?”

“About me. About her. I think, when all this is over, I want to go home to Australia for a while. It’s been too long.”

He heard a change in the melody of her voice, as if wanting to return to her homeland had struck a chord deep inside her—a tune of measured optimism. He forced a smile. He could not imagine going anywhere so far away when he was about to reunite with his brothers—and yet, he hated the idea of Mariah traveling continents away without him.

But he had no right to indulge in melancholy. Night had fallen. It was time for him to meet his brothers. “Where is Paxton?”

“Who? Oh, Paschal. I don’t know,” she replied. “He was supposed to be waiting for us here when we arrived this morning, but he and that Gemma woman must have gone to the island.”

Rafe’s chest tightened. “The island with Rogan’s castle?”

She nodded and yawned, then stood and stretched her limbs. “Yeah. Ben and Cat went after them. Ben said he’d call if anything was wrong, though I suppose he might not have been able to get through. I was on the phone for a while. I’ll call the front desk and see if we have any messages.”

“No,” he said, pointing her toward the bedroom. “Dress. I will call.”

Mariah’s eyes widened, but she obeyed nonetheless. When she’d closed the door behind her, he stared at the phone, wondering precisely how to make a call, when the device rang.

He picked up the receiver and held it to his ear as he’d watched Mariah do so many times. “Yes?”

“Rafe? Rafe Forsyth. Is that you?”

The voice was female, husky, deep and wholly unfamiliar.

“Who is this?”

“Your destiny, lover. I’m the woman who can set you free.”

* * *

Paschal snatched the phone from Gemma. “Who are you calling?”

The old man could be damned stealthy for someone who should be walking with a shuffle. Or a cane. She supposed she should be happy he didn’t have the latter or he might have thwacked her over the head with it. “None of your business,” she snapped.

He grabbed her roughly by the arm, and though she tried to tug away, his grip remained steady. She was starting to think it was a major mistake to come to this island. Ever since they’d arrived, Paschal had become stronger and incredibly more stubborn. Though he’d given her free rein to explore the island, which was really nothing more than sea grass, palmetto bushes, palm trees, sand, rocks, birds and crabs, he’d hardly let her look around the castle at all. When he’d finally allowed her to enter, he’d kept her corralled in the downstairs rooms—a grand dining hall, new modern kitchens, several studies and a lounge. All had been scrubbed and renovated to far above current architectural standards—meaning, they’d lost some of their authenticity. Besides examining some beautiful mosaics and stained glass reportedly original to the structure, she’d been bored out of her mind.

The furnishings were mostly antique, but Rogan hadn’t sat on a single chair or touched any of the various vases, candelabra or portraits. She’d skimmed a few books on Romani culture from the library, which had kept her entertained while the construction work continued on the upper floors, but she longed to explore the towers and turrets and secret hiding spaces. Now that Ben Rousseau and Catalina Reyes had arrived, Paschal had reinforcements to keep her in check. What she needed was a distraction. What she needed was his brother.

“Tell me whom you called,” he insisted.

She handed him the damned phone so he could check the caller ID. “I called Rafe at the hotel. He and Mariah should have been here by now.”

Paschal’s silver eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Why do you care if he’s late?”

“You want to meet him, don’t you?”

“I’ve waited sixty-five years. I can wait another half hour.”

“I’m bored,” she admitted. And antsy. Before calling the hotel, she’d experienced an ominous sensation that had descended with the darkness. She’d attributed the phenomenon to frustration, but maybe it was something more.

“You’re the one who wanted to come here,” he reminded her.

“To look around,” she argued. “Explore my forebearer’s legacy.”

His clever smile sliced away any chance she might have thought she had of rooting around with no supervision. “Construction workers have been swarming this site for over a year. Do you think we’d leave anything of value just lying around? Like, perhaps, the legendary Source of Rogan’s magical power?”

Frowning, she grabbed her phone back and trudged up the beach toward the path to the castle. He wasn’t lying—but he wasn’t really answering her question, either.

“Maybe it’s the walls,” she supposed. “Those are original, aren’t they?”

“The walls, the windows and the mosaics. Not much else.”

“Then why won’t you let me go upstairs?”

“You don’t have a hard hat,” he replied.

The wind had kicked up around them. Though the small strip of land several miles east of St. Augustine in the Atlantic was called Isla de Fantasmas by the locals, Gemma had yet to meet a single ghost. Or phantom. She was anxious to see for herself if the stories Paschal had told her were really true. A curse that could trap a man’s soul and the essence of his body inside an object for over two centuries would require substantial magic. And she wanted it. It was, after all, her birthright.

That much hadn’t changed. And Paschal knew it. Ever since she’d learned about her psychic gift, he’d taken to keeping his own counsel. Even when reviewing the documents from her former family home, he’d remained close-lipped about any information he’d discovered. He did not trust her, and while logically she couldn’t blame him, she had to admit that the sudden distance stung.

So instead of focusing on that angst, she’d imagined the grand possibilities of meeting his youngest brother, who, still trapped by the curse set by her ancestor, possessed what could be a great and terrible magic. If she got him alone… if she spent time with him, could she absorb his magic as she did other paranormal gifts?

She glanced over her shoulder. The water rippled over the shoreline, spewing white foam that glistened in the moonlight. Clouds scuttled above them, but she could see quite a distance. Not a single boat approached. And yet, why did she feel as if someone were about to pop up behind her and say, “Boo!”

“Did he answer?” Paschal asked.

“What?” she said, startled.