“I’m sorry,” I said softly. All that time I’d been agonizing over losing him, and I’d barely spared a thought for what he must be going through on his end. He’d never thought he would be primus, never thought he’d have to do anything except live quietly in his brother’s shadow. And while I certainly didn’t claim to know much about wills and trusts and all that, I could only imagine that managing the disposition of Damon’s estate probably hadn’t been terribly easy.
A hint of surprise flitted over his features, and then he shook his head. “You don’t need to be. I mean, after my head cleared, I realized there really wasn’t anything else any of us could have done. In clearing out the house and getting it ready for sale — ”
“You didn’t keep it?” I asked, surprised despite myself. For some reason I’d thought Connor would hold on to the house, if only for a while longer.
“How could I? My brother died there. Jessica was murdered there. He left it to me, but I sure as hell didn’t want it. So I sold the whole place — furniture and everything — for a price that Lucas told me was criminally low. But I didn’t care.”
I supposed I could see that. After all, I was used to talking to ghosts, and even I wouldn’t have felt all that comfortable living in a house where two people had died. After I nodded, Connor continued,
“Anyway, when I was clearing out the house, I came across some of Damon’s papers, his writing. Most of it was theoretical stuff I couldn’t make much sense of, but it wasn’t until I read what he’d written that I understood how insanely obsessed he was with you, with using your powers to break the curse. I guess I’d realized it on some level, but seeing it written down really brought it home to me.” Connor reached out and took my hands in his, and I wanted to weep at feeling those familiar strong fingers wrap around mine, comforting, real. “He doomed himself, Angela — and he did so knowingly, and willingly. I still haven’t forgiven him for that.” Green eyes searched my face, urgent, pleading. “But I did forgive you. There really was nothing else you could have done.”
Oh, how I’d longed to hear him say that! Even so, I asked, “Then why didn’t you call me? I’ve been dying a little every day I haven’t heard from you. All this time we could have been together — ”
“I know,” he said, the guilt clear in his voice. “And I was going to, I swear it. But then Marie told me to wait.”
“What?”
“She did. I told her about ten days after I sent you back to Jerome that this was crazy, that I was going to call you and tell you I was an idiot, that I’d made a horrible mistake — and she said I needed to wait, that she’d seen you would contact me at a critical moment, and that it was very important I not say anything to you until then.”
Marie. I’d never liked her, but in that moment I hated her, hated that she’d kept Connor and me apart for no apparent reason. “That’s just stupid,” I snapped. “What, did she say it was another of her goddamn visions or something?”
“Well, yeah, more or less.”
That did stop me. Despite my dislike for the woman, I couldn’t deny that her visions were true ones, her instincts stronger than those of anyone else I’d met. “What else did she say?”
“That’s all.” He paused, then added, “Well, that I needed to wait, and then when we did reconcile, that we needed to speak to her immediately.”
The last thing I wanted was to go talk to Marie. What I wanted was to drag Connor to the nearest hotel room for some make-up sex. But ignoring the seer when she obviously had something important to say was probably not that good an idea.
“So, what, you want me to go with you to Flagstaff to meet with Marie right now?”
A glint I knew all too well entered his eyes. “Well, what I want is to head over there” — he jerked a thumb toward the Los Abrigados resort — “and see if they have any rooms available, and forget about anything else for a while. But since Marie was pretty adamant about seeing her, I think we probably should do as she asks.”
I found myself smiling, despite everything, because of the way Connor’s thoughts had run almost exactly parallel to mine. “Rain check on that hotel room?”
The grin he sent me in reply was positively ferocious. “Damn straight.”
* * *
I decided to follow him up to Flagstaff in my own vehicle, not because I thought I needed an escape plan, but because I didn’t feel comfortable leaving my brand-new Cherokee for an unknown amount of time in the Tlaquepaque shopping center parking lot. Connor’s eyes widened a bit when I went to the car and unlocked it.