The house was quiet and still, the only sound the hum of the refrigerator as we came in through the back door. In less than a week this stillness would be effectively destroyed by the arrival of the contractors and all their equipment, and I was glad that the start of the remodel had been delayed until after Memorial Day. It would have been awful to come back here with Connor, only to have a bunch of workmen knocking out walls and tearing out countertops.
“I’ll call my aunt,” I said as Connor dropped his bag on the kitchen floor. “She’s working, but since it’s Tuesday, she’ll be closing up at five. Then we can go over and talk to her.”
“Is she going to be okay with that?” he asked, expression dubious. “I mean, I have a feeling she wasn’t too sad about my being out of the picture these last few months.”
“Well, she’ll have to be okay with it, because you and I are together, and that’s not changing ever again.” I paused, considering. He’d been right when he said Rachel wasn’t all that broken up about the separation. She’d been as comforting as she could manage, but even with that I could tell that she thought the universe had righted itself, with me back here in Jerome and Connor in Flagstaff, and a safe span of miles between us. The news that he and I were back together would not be exactly welcome.
“No, it’s not changing,” he agreed, coming over to me and pushing my hair away from my neck so he could place his lips on the sensitive skin there.
That welcome fire licked through my veins, and I thought longingly of the king-size bed up in my room, and how much I’d like to be lying on it with Connor. But we’d made love only a few hours earlier, and we had business to take care of. The bed would have to wait…but not for too long, I hoped.
I went to the old rotary-dial phone that hung on the wall next to the refrigerator, bit my lip, and dialed Aunt Rachel’s number.
* * *
As I’d expected, she welcomed Connor’s return with about the same enthusiasm the residents of Hamelin must have greeted their town’s infestation of rats. Still, she did agree to let us come over around five-thirty, which was about all I could ask for. And when we arrived at the apartment, I saw that, being Rachel, she’d set out a pitcher of iced herbal tea and scones she’d baked that morning, along with a bowl of strawberries.
“Thanks for all this,” I said, putting a scone and a strawberry on one of the small dessert plates she’d put on the coffee table with the rest of the refreshments.
She shrugged, but I couldn’t help but notice the way her expression softened as Connor bit into one of the scones, chewed in apparent ecstasy, and said, “Wow, Angela, now I really understand how you turned out to be such a good cook. You definitely learned from the best.”
Even so, she made a dismissive gesture with one hand. “We do what we can. Anyway, I don’t really know how much I can help you. You’ve asked me so many times before, and all I can give you is the same answer. Sonya never told me anything when she came home all those years ago, and believe me, it wasn’t because I didn’t keep asking.”
That I could believe. My aunt was pretty good at the whole third-degree thing. “How in the world did she explain me?” I asked after breaking off a third of the scone and trying to eat it in small, decorous bites rather than wolfing it down. Rachel did make the best scones.
“She didn’t.” My aunt leaned forward and poured herself some of the tea, although I noticed she ignored the scones. “That is, all she told me was that she’d met somebody, which was sort of obvious. I mean, we’re witches, but we don’t really believe in immaculate conceptions.”
Next to me, Connor made a noise that sounded like a cough but was probably a suppressed chuckle. Ignoring him, I said, “So she never gave a name? A place? Anything?”
“No names.” She set down her glass of iced tea. “I have your birth certificate, but it didn’t have anything in the field where the father’s name is supposed to be.”
“Can I see it?” I asked.
The briefest of hesitations, and then she nodded. “Sure. You should probably keep it now anyway, along with your other important papers. Just give me a minute to dig it out.”
She got up from her chair and went upstairs, presumably to her room. I knew she had a small chest on a shelf in her closet where she kept her own paperwork — the deed to the building, insurance papers, passport, that sort of thing. What she wanted with a passport when she’d never even left the state, I had no idea, but I supposed it was a good piece of identification, if nothing else.