CHAPTER THREE
Claudia~
This evening was not going well. After all the trouble she had taken to get Mom to babysit, to do her hair, and to transform her old dress into something suitable for the fanciest restaurant in Mystic Bay, Kevin Spicer was turning out to be a totally self-absorbed jerk.
Claudia tuned him out while she planned tomorrow’s activities with Jimmy. They had the usual round of Saturday morning chores to do, but if the weather stayed nice, they could play in the woods. She came out of her private thoughts when her dinner companion fell silent.
Kevin was clearly waiting for a response. She gave him her brightest the-customer-is-always-right smile. “It all sounds very interesting,” she murmured. “Do tell me more.” That ought to be safe enough.
But Kevin’s handsome features tightened fractionally. He was pissed, either by her response or by her inattention. Claudia didn’t care which. But it wasn’t his fault exactly that she found him boring and pretentious. He had invited her to the best and most expensive restaurant on the island. The least she could do was be gracious. She kept her smile in place and pretended she didn’t know he was angry.
He reached across the table and patted her hand. It was the first time Kevin had ever touched her bare skin. They had had no skin-to-skin contact in the Bean and Bran coffee shop where they had shared a table several times a week in fifteen-minute stretches. Tonight, on the way to his car he had placed a proprietary palm in the small of her back. Through her good wool coat, she had felt exactly nothing.
Now she suppressed her urge to yank her hand away. Instead she casually placed it on her lap where she could surreptitiously rub his touch away. Across the table, Kevin took a sip of the chardonnay he had carefully chosen for them. He smiled broadly and the twinge in the back of her hand became a stabbing pain.
For goodness’ sakes, the little wizardling was attempting to bespell her. As if. Automatically she raised her talent and turned it into a shield his spell could not penetrate. If his talent hadn’t been so low voltage to begin with, she would have noticed his attempt sooner.
Kevin was as cagey about his talent as she was. Whereas she concealed how powerful hers was, she had assumed he wanted to hide the fact that he was weak. She couldn’t be mistaken about how slight his talent was. But plainly he was vague about the nature of his talent because his hypnotic spells worked best if they were directed at the unwary. Besides, who wanted to do business with, or date, a mesmerist? Not her.
“You are never going to get anywhere at Parker’s bank,” he said, as if he had said it before. “Whereas I expect great things of Spicer, Inc. We could ride the wave together.”
What wave? “I thought this was a date,” she countered. “Sounds as if you are conducting a job interview.” What on earth could he want her to do for a public relations firm? Could he really have enough business to need a full-time accountant?
“No reason it can’t be both.” He smiled that boyish smile she had found so engaging over coffee. His voice was pitched low and seductive. But all his charms, physical and psychical, bounced off her talent. If he wasn’t careful, his spell would rebound on him. The shifty little creep would wind up hypnotizing himself.
After that the date careened downhill. Kevin kept up his line of patter and periodically tried to pierce her bubble, but it would take a much stronger sorcerer than him to dent it. She had nothing to fear from this furtive little two-watt wizard.
Claudia kept smiling and pretending all was well. She did not want to get thrown out of the dining room for making a scene. Kevin seemed more puzzled than angry by his failure and he had endless stories to tell about himself. His stuff. His house. His car. Why had she never noticed how tedious he was?
Even though she declined both dessert and coffee, the meal dragged interminably. But finally he was escorting her to the parking lot and his car. He put his hand out to direct her from behind, but this time she was ready for him and stepped smartly sideways as she greeted the inn’s security guard.
“How’s it going, Wally?”
“Good, good,” Walter Babcock replied, beaming at her. The little rabbit shifter had worked for Robin Fairchild for years. He was also one of the Mystic Bay Police Department’s three deputies. A part-time position given the lack of crime on the island.
“How’s your little feller?” His voice was amused.
Claudia hesitated. At least Wally wasn’t bearing a grudge. But on Wednesday his daughter had been sent home from daycare for punching Jimmy. A fight which her son had provoked by stalking her. “How’s Jess?” she asked tentatively. “I’ve told Jimmy he will have to apologize for chasing her.”
Wally’s watery eyes blinked. His nose twitched. “How are Jimmy’s eyes?” His narrow shoulders were squared and there was the hint of a swagger about the security guard. By gum, he was proud of Jess. Wally looked like a pushover, but he was anything but.
“The swelling has come down.” Cougars healed fast and her son’s black eyes were now only yellowish green.
“Good, good. Jess doesn’t know her own strength. I’m sure she didn’t think she’d hurt him.” Wally’s smirk spoke louder than his apologies.
“I’m sorry she was sent home,” Claudia offered.
“Kids will be kids.” Wally leaned forward confidentially. “You tell Jimmy that she’ll be back at daycare on Monday. You have a good evening now.” He opened the door Kevin had unlocked.
“Thanks.” She was in the car and buckling up before Kevin knew what had happened.
But he was a persistent nuisance. He took the scenic route to her house and pouted when she declined the opportunity to look at the view from Lover’s Outlook. As if she were some idiot seventeen-year-old. Even Dominic Rutherford hadn’t assumed she was stupid.
And then he tried to kiss her goodnight at her door. Fortunately, at that moment her mom opened the front door. Mom had excellent intuition. “Did you have a good evening, honey?” Virginia asked sweetly.
“We did,” Kevin answered for them both.
Virginia made no move to back up. That excellent intuition. Claudia put out her hand, bracing for the nasty shock. But she had worn old Two-Watt down. The zap was barely perceptible this time. “Thank you for a pleasant evening,” she murmured. “Drive safe.”
She could see him decide that even a kiss on the cheek was not happening. He smiled stiffly. “We’ll have to do it again,” he said through his teeth. “Night, Claudia. Goodnight, Virginia.”
“What happened?” Mom asked as Claudia hung up her coat. “Did he make a pass at you?”
“Sort of. He attempted to bespell me,” Claudia said.
“What!” Virginia was shocked. “The little stinker. So what is he?”
Claudia chuckled. “Hypnotist.”
“No!” Virginia shook her head in disbelief. “Imagine that. Mesmerism is a pretty low-rent talent for a Spicer. Those sorcerers think their poop is laced with fairy dust.”
Mom had every reason to be shocked. Hypnotism was right up there with sleight of hand as the preserve of scoundrels. Con artists were notorious for using those talents to deceive their victims.
Claudia’s own powerful intuition pinged. “I’ll bet that the reason the Spicers have been known as financial wizards for the last hundred years is because hypnotism is in their bloodline. Kevin may be an unusual Spicer only because he’s so underpowered.”
“What did he want you to do?”
Claudia shrugged. Wrinkled her nose. “Quit my job and go work for Spicer, Inc. Have his wicked way with me.” She laughed and took the pins out of her hair. “If you could have seen his face when his spell started to bounce off my talent. P-p-priceless.” Her shoulders shook.
Virginia’s eyes widened. “And yet he was still trying to put the moves on you when I came to the door.”
“He’s not the sort of guy whoever believes he’s undesirable.” He probably figured that between his good looks and his money he could have any woman.
“I take it this was your first and last date with Kevin?” Mom asked dryly.
“Oh, yeah.” There was no way she was going to let old Two-Watt goose her senses a second time. That kind of taint was bad for your system. Besides, she hadn’t had any fun tonight.
“Well,” Mom said. “I certainly don’t want a mesmerist for a son-in-law, and I know your dad will agree with me. But at least having a Spicer buzzing around you took some of the pressure off you and Jimmy. Because you do understand that if you and Kevin aren’t an item the council is going to put your residency to a vote?”
“Honestly! It’s ridiculous, Mom. I was born on West Haven. In the Mystic Bay Hospital. We’re what? Fourth generation islanders?” Claudia took a rapid turn around the little sitting room.
“Fifth,” said Mom. “But who’s counting?”
“No one is really afraid because Jimmy’s a cougar-sorcerer hybrid,” Claudia said impatiently. “What they’re afraid of is me. Or my talent.” Which was the same thing.
Virginia sat down hard on the couch. “But it’s a secret,” she wailed. “You’re registered as a talent detector. No one could be afraid of a talent detector. It’s such an essentially useless talent. No matter how strong you are.”
Claudia thought. “Maybe someone knows being able to detect talents is part and parcel of being a spell-binder? I can’t be the first one in history.” After all, if you couldn’t tell what kind of spell you were binding, how could you bind it? Or unbind it? Which was what other sorcerers truly feared. Someone messing with their spells. Someone strong.
“Maybe.” Virginia looked worried. “Anyway, there’s trouble coming. I can feel it.”
Claudia decided to ignore Mom’s intuition for tonight. “Did Jimmy go off to sleep all right?”
“He did. I had to read him three stories, but after that he dropped off.”
“See, Mom, I told you life on West Haven agrees with him. He’s pretty much stopped those awful tantrums and running off. He just needed more exposure to nature.”
“No more night terrors?” Mom asked.
“Not since we got back.” Claudia lightly rapped the wooden table to set the wish.
“Good. I used a settling charm on him – just a tiny tweak to get his brain waves cycling normally. He seemed to be coming awake without leaving REM sleep behind.”
“Thank you. But I thought you wanted him to heal on his own?” Claudia was convinced that Jimmy’s night terrors were due to a steady diet of disapproval at daycare. Her decision to come home had been all he needed to recover his balance.
“It’s been six months, Claudia. I gave Jimmy just a wee nudge. Sleep disturbance will stunt his growth.”
Claudia snickered. “Since when is that a problem? He grows out of his clothes every month. And I swear the shoes I bought him last week fit in the store, yet were pinching his toes when we got home. Maybe he needs a stunting spell.”
“You’ll get used to it.” Mom gave her a hug and, despite her forebodings, went home chuckling.
Claudia did her careful round of the windows and doors. Living in Portland had made her a believer in locked doors. They kept out intruders and kept her son inside where he was safe.
Jimmy hadn’t wandered away since she had brought him home, and if he did, on West Haven he was probably safe – from people. But they lived by the edge of the ocean some way out of town. There were plenty of perils for a little boy and not many people to stop him. She had invested in bolts and latches well above the arm’s reach of a three-year-old.
As she lay in bed, she admitted to herself that her date with Kevin had upset her more than she had been willing to let Mom see. What was there about her that attracted con artists? She would have said she was a perfectly ordinary sensitive. Okay, she was trifle hefty for true beauty, but fit and healthy. And moral. Deeply moral.
She kept her over-the-top talent on permanent lock-down and had committed to the world’s most boring career just to demonstrate that she did not intend to capitalize on her ability to interfere with the magic of other sorcerers.
So how come she attracted users like Dominic and Kevin? Did she project an air of vulnerability or sheer dimwittedness to predatory males? It was awfully discouraging to have spent four years afraid to date and to finally test the waters and find herself swimming with a shark.
An innocuous sand shark, it was true. But Kevin couldn’t have known that she would flick his magic aside as soon as he tried it. He had intended to charm her into doing what he wanted. Which meant that he wanted her to do something it was not in her best interests to do. Something wicked. Otherwise, why the charm?
Was it too much to ask for a little freaking honesty in a man?
First Dominic and now Kevin. It was as if she were cursed. Although, with her particular talent, she ought to know if she were under a curse. No, it looked as if the monsters were drawn to her because they recognized one of their own.
Which brought her back to square one. She had a talent that gave her a boundless capacity for evil. Altering spells set by other sorcerers could create untold mischief. But all sorcerers had to learn to restrain their talents.
Her own father never used his talent as a weather worker to do more than deflect the worst of bad weather from his boats. He made no attempt to shield the entire island, let alone the entire Pacific Northwest. Far less bring bad weather to the region. He let the winds blow where they would. Because it was an awesome responsibility to change global weather patterns.
Mom used her talent every day to diagnose and heal. But the flip side of Virginia’s talent was the ability to cause disease. Mom however was a healer through and through. No matter the provocation, she never abused her gifts to put a curse on anyone. Never.
Mom and Dad had brought Claudia and her siblings up to be just as ethical. She was resolved that Jimmy would be a kind person. That whatever powers he grew up to have would be used for good. His father might be a charming son of a bitch, but she wouldn’t buy trouble. There was no need for Jimmy to ever know what kind of a lowlife had fathered him.
There was nothing she would not do to make sure that her son had a good start in life. But where would she take him if the council threw them off the island?