“Spoken like a true prima. Well, except maybe for the ‘suck it’ part.” He got up and extended a hand to me, and I took it and rose from my seat. “Let’s get our stuff out of the car, and then you can show me around.” A pause, and then he added, “But that drink did sound like a good idea. I could use one.”
“You and me both,” I replied, and let out a shaky laugh.
* * *
After that we went and collected our things, then took them upstairs to the master bedroom. I could see the way Connor’s gaze flicked toward the king-size bed, and I felt a smile pull at my mouth. Later, I promise, I thought.
I didn’t say anything, though, just gave him the nickel tour of the house. He was properly appreciative of the place, although he gave the claw-foot tub in the upstairs bathroom a dubious glance. “I think I’m missing my apartment already,” he remarked.
“I was planning to remodel all that,” I said. “I’ll admit that your bathroom has me thoroughly spoiled. So this should reassure you that I’m not planning on staying here forever — I don’t think I could put up with that tub for more than a few days, either.”
“Thank God,” he said casually, and I raised an eyebrow. Here in Jerome we usually swore by the Goddess, but I had to admit the Wilcoxes weren’t particularly attuned to the feminine divine. Maybe he used the more conventional form of the deity’s name as yet more of the protective coloration his clan employed to hide their true nature from everyone around them.
Just then the doorbell rang. “Great. If it’s the elders coming here in force to convince me of the error of my ways — ”
“Tell ’em to suck it,” Connor suggested with a grin.
I shot him a pained look but headed down the stairs to answer the door. The bell rang again, and I grimaced. Right then I didn’t feel like dealing with anyone else. I just wanted to finish showing Connor around the place so we could go out and get a much-needed drink. Or five.
When I opened the door, expecting to see Margot Emory and Bryce McAllister and Allegra Moss, the three clan elders, instead I saw my Aunt Rachel standing on the porch, a scarf wrapped around her neck against the cold and a worried expression on her face. When she saw me, the worry didn’t precisely go away, but her eyes went bright with tears.
“Oh, thank the Goddess,” she said, moving forward and folding me in her arms. “When the word came down that you were home, I couldn’t quite believe it. Since I hadn’t heard back from you, I didn’t know — ”
Her words broke off as she noticed Connor standing a few paces away in the foyer, his figure shadowed, since the light from the narrow leaded-glass windows framing the door didn’t reach that far. She let go of me slowly, then took a step backward.
Again, no easy way to do this. I lifted my chin and said, “Aunt Rachel. This is Connor. Connor Wilcox.”
She didn’t quite gasp, but I still heard her breath go in. “But — ”
“He’s my consort.” Half-turning from her, I gestured for Connor to step forward. He did so, but I could see the reluctance in every tense line of his body. Despite that, he reached out and took my hand in his, held it tightly.
“That’s not possible.” Like Margot and Boyd and Henry, she wouldn’t look at Connor, instead kept her gaze fixed squarely on my face.
“It is. He is.”
She remained silent, staring at me in a sort of numb horror, as if her brain had frozen and she couldn’t get it working to process what I was telling her.
Wanting to fill that horrible, empty pause, I said quickly, “Well, at least now you know why none of the candidates worked out. We just weren’t looking in the right place.”
The joke fell flat, as I realized it would the second it left my lips. Nothing for it, though. I floundered for something else to say — anything, as my aunt was staring at me as if I’d been diagnosed with some sort of horrible, infectious, and ultimately fatal disease.
To my surprise, Connor said gently, even as he took my hand, “We know this sounds crazy. We’re still trying to figure it out ourselves. But Angela wanted her family to know the truth. So we’re here. And I want you to know that I do love her. Very much.”
At last my aunt found her voice. Not that I wanted to hear what she said next. Her brows pulled together, and I saw the same loathing she’d shown when we encountered Damon Wilcox in Phoenix a month earlier. “Love? That’s something you Wilcoxes know nothing about.”
She turned on her heel then, marching down the porch stairs and along the path that cut through the postage-stamp lawn, now yellow and dead with winter’s frosts. I took a step after her, then felt Connor’s hand gripping mine, holding me back.