Thoroughly Kissed (17 page)

“You know, we're not in any hurry,” he said. “Darnell can handle an evening alone.”

“I'm just not used to places like this,” Emma lied. In truth, she used to eat in a restaurant like this one quite often. Aethelstan owned a place that was, in her opinion, much nicer than this one.

“Well,” Michael said, leaning back in his chair. “I figure what's the point of traveling if you don't get to enjoy things?”

“The point of this trip is to get me to Oregon as quickly as possible.”

“I suppose,” he said. “But if we were really going to do that, we'd drive nonstop from here to there.”

“Nonstop?” she said.

He nodded. “But I figure you're having enough control problems as it is. I don't know anything about the magic you're dealing with, but if it's like anything else, it's harder to control when you're tired.”

That was very astute of him. One of the first lessons she'd had as a girl—one of the only lessons she'd had—was on the importance of rest.

“It seems like we're doing all right so far,” he said.

She held up her hand, too late to stop him from finishing the thought. “Don't jinx it.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I suppose the day's not over yet.”

“The trip's only just begun. If we make it all the way with nothing happening, then I know someone's looking out for us.”

His eyes brightened. “Do you think someone is?”

She shook her head. “It's not anyone's job.”

“You mean like a guardian angel?”

She smiled. He was a mixture of sensibility and complete impracticality. “No. We don't have guardian angels. Not really. It would be against the rules.”

“But your friend, Merlin? He said I could call him a guardian angel.”

She sighed. “Yours maybe. You're mortal. But I think he was just saying that to make sure you wouldn't ask any more questions.”

“Probably right,” Michael said.

The waiter approached, a linen napkin over one arm, a bottle with a corkscrew in the other hand. Another waiter followed with a silver wine bucket, filled with ice.

Michael said nothing as the waiter went through the inexplicable ceremony concerning the wine. First the examination of the label, then the examination of the cork (Michael, Emma noted, was so sophisticated that he knew better than to sniff the silly thing), then the tasting of a small bit of wine. Emma had never known anyone to send wine back after that tasting, but she supposed it was possible. Then, with so much gravity that it seemed as if he were a judge approving a life sentence instead of a man approving a bottle of wine, Michael nodded.

The waiter poured two glasses, put the bottle in the bucket, and slipped off, not quite as discretely as the maître d', but close. Perhaps one didn't become a maître d' in a restaurant like this until he could vanish with appropriate discretion.

Michael was studying Emma. Her gaze met his, and she was startled at his intensity.

“What did I do?” she asked quietly.

A small smile touched his mouth. It wasn't that amused look, which annoyed her, but something else, something almost embarrassed.

“What's it like?” he asked softly.

“What's what like?”

“Growing up, knowing you'll come into all this power one day.”

She swallowed. He believed that she had grown up in the same world he had. She had to be careful how she discussed this.

“I don't know,” she said. “It's—it's a curse.”

He raised his eyebrows. “A curse?”

“Yeah.” She picked up her wine glass. Until this moment, she hadn't realized he'd ordered a white. It was an amber color that actually looked appealing.

“Most of us”—he used his hand to indicate the rest of the room—“fantasize what we'd do if we suddenly had magical powers.”

“Fantasize,” she said. “Meaning you'd want this.”

“Yeah.” He sounded wistful.

She sipped the wine. It was sweet and fruity, and not nearly as tart as she had thought it would be. She set the glass down before she drank too much too fast.

“When I was a little girl,” she said carefully, “it became clear to my parents that I would have powers one day.”

“Clear how?”

“I don't know,” she said. “I never got the chance to ask them.”

“They're dead?” His question was gentle.

“Long dead,” she said.

“I'm sorry,” he said.

She almost told him not to be, that she had gotten over her parents so long ago that she had almost forgotten them, but that would raise questions she didn't want to answer. So she said the only thing she could. “Thanks.”

“What happened when your parents figured out you would have powers?”

“They apprenticed me to a woman in another village.”

“Village?”

She cursed herself silently. “Yes. I was born in—England.”

“Really?” He leaned forward, looking fascinated. “I would have guessed Sweden or Norway. Your accent doesn't sound English at all.”

She hid her smile by taking another sip of wine. “It's my heritage.”

“The magic?”

“You could say that.”

She set the glass down and played with the stem.

“Apprenticed,” he said. “It sounds like something we would teach.”

“Doesn't it though?” She knew she sounded formal, but she couldn't help herself.

“Weren't you angry? I mean, being sent off like that?”

“I didn't have time to be angry,” she said. “My—mentor—put me to work almost immediately.”

“Training you?”

“No. Doing menial tasks she didn't want to do.”

“You sound as if you didn't like her.”

“Well,” Emma said softly, “you could say she was the model for every evil stepmother you'd ever read about.”

He whistled softly between his teeth. “You're kidding. She was that bad?”

“Worse, actually.”

“And your parents didn't care?”

“My parents didn't know.”

“Why didn't you call them? Tell them?”

She looked at him, trying to keep her expression flat. “That just wasn't possible.”

“Why didn't you run away?”

“And go where?”

“Home.”

“My parents would have sent me right back.”

“Even though the woman was horrible?”

“I was a girl,” she said. “They would have thought I didn't like her because I didn't like the training.”

“Oh.” He frowned. “How did you get out of it?”

“It's a long story.”

“We have the evening.”

She shook her head. “I don't want to tell it.”

Then she looked at him. He seemed—hurt was too strong a word—slightly wounded, maybe, that she wouldn't open up to him.

“No offense,” she said. “It was, without a doubt, the most unpleasant event of my life.”

“I'm sorry,” he said. “I didn't mean to bring something like that up.”

“You didn't know.” She took the bread from the center of the table, and pulled out a piece. She didn't want it, but she needed something to do with her hands.

“It's just something, you know, that's the stuff of fairy tales,” he said.

“Oh, I know,” she said, this time a bit too dryly.

His gaze got intense again. “You don't like fairy tales.”

“I think they sugarcoat everything. I mean, who believes in happily ever after?”

He stared at her for a long time, so long that she squirmed.

“Don't tell me you do,” she said.

“I think if a man finds the right woman—”

“Excuse me.” A completely different waiter appeared this time. Emma hated the way people snuck up on her in this place. “Are you ready to order?”

“Not yet,” Michael said.

“Yes,” Emma said at the same time.

“Well?” the waiter asked.

Michael shrugged.

“I'm hungry,” Emma said.

“All right.” He sounded a little disappointed, as if she had thrown off the rhythm of his dinner. “Let's order.”

So they did, and with the litany of choices, it took longer than usual. Long enough, Emma hoped, for Michael to forget the topic of conversation.

But her hope was in vain. After the waiter left, Michael said, “I believe in happily ever after.”

Emma sighed.

“You have to believe in something,” he said. “What's wrong with believing that some people get happiness for the rest of their lives?”

“I don't think it's that easy,” Emma said.

“Nothing that's worthwhile is easy.” Michael spoke softly.

She poured olive oil onto her bread plate. His words resonated in her. She wasn't sure she agreed with him, but she wasn't sure she disagreed either. She wanted to think about that comment.

“That's what you didn't like about my book, isn't it?” she asked. “You think it was too easy. Especially after you found out about the magic.”

“I guess I deserved that.” He was silent for a moment. “Hell, it might even be true. I like to think that I'm more open-minded than that.”

“You seem to hate my work with a passion that suggests more than the average intellectual disagreement.” She moved the topic to the work so that she wouldn't have to discuss magic any more. She had never before talked about magic with someone who didn't have any, and she was afraid she'd let something slip.

“You haven't disagreed with many intellectuals, then, have you?” he asked.

“What?”

He smiled. “It's a joke.”

“Oh.”

The waiter brought their salads. Hers was a mixture of greens with some nuts and blue cheese underneath her dressing. She would have preferred some tomatoes or shredded carrots, something a little less fancy and a bit more tasty.

“Jokes,” Michael said after the waiter left, “deflect.”

Emma lifted her gaze to his. He didn't seem as amused anymore. The lightness had left his face.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I mean, you may have a point. Your book was too easy, for me, anyway.”

She nodded.

“I guess that's why I'm asking so many questions. I'm trying to understand what your magic really is.”

She stabbed the greens and hit a nut. It shot off her plate and onto the linen tablecloth. She picked up the nut with her fingers and, forsaking all attempts at dignity, ate it.

“Is this for your book?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“My magic,” she said slowly, “is something I don't entirely understand.”

“But you were apprenticed to someone who had magic. Surely you have some kind of understanding of it. When you learn to control it, can you do anything you want?”

“Could I turn you into a toad?” she asked. “Send the restaurant and all its patrons to France? Divert the river down I-90?”

“Yes,” he said. “Can you do those things?”

“I suppose.”

“So there are no limits, then.”

“Oh,” she said. “There're limits. A lot of them. And rules, too. We are more highly governed than mortals are.”

“Mortals. You've used that word a lot. Does that mean you're immortal?”

She closed her eyes. That was the question she had been trying to avoid. “Not really.”

“But sort of?” he sounded almost eager.

“I can die,” she said.

“Which makes you mortal.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Then why refer to people without magic as mortals if you're one?”

“Convention?” she said, not too convincingly.

“Emma, please.”

She bowed her head and concentrated on the salad. It wasn't that good. The dressing was too sweet, the nuts too salty, and the greens too bitter.

“Am I making you uncomfortable?”

She set her fork down. “I'm not supposed to discuss this stuff with the nonmagical.”

“It seems to late for that,” he said. “I mean, I already know that you have a lot of powers. And you need my help on this.”

She sighed. He was right. It just felt odd. Part of her wanted to tell him that she couldn't trust him. But that wasn't right either. She could trust him. She had to trust him. That was one of the reasons he was here, in this strange restaurant, in this strange town.

“My life is longer than yours,” she said. “Especially if I'm careful.”

He hadn't touched his salad. He was holding his fork as if he had thought about trying the food, but the conversation had distracted him.

“You see,” she said. “Magic takes energy. If I use too much energy on my magic, I lose years of my life. I'll age.”

“How old are you?” he whispered.

Her stomach turned. At any point in this revelations, he could just leave her. But he had asked, and she wasn't going to lie to him.

“Technically?” she asked, hoping that would sidetrack him.

“Technically?” he repeated. “What does that mean?”

“You mean since my birth or how long I've actually been—functional.”

“Now I'm intrigued.” He set his fork down and leaned forward. “How long have you been—functional?”

“Thirty years,” she said with finality. There. It was done. She had told him how old she was—how old she felt.

“And how many years ago were you born?”

“I thought in this culture a woman's real age was sacred,” she said, knowing that this wouldn't work at all.

His blue eyes were sparkling. “It wasn't thirty years ago, was it?”

She shook her head.

“How long?”

“One thousand forty years ago,” she whispered.

“What?” He sounded stunned. “That's not possible!”

She closed her eyes, and listened, expecting his chair to scoot away from the table, his footsteps to stalk off.

“Emma,” he said. “How is that possible?”