“Sure,” she said, taking the hint. For whatever reason, the subject of college seemed a touchy one for him. Maybe she’d get to know him well enough that she could ask what that was all about.
Or maybe not. She was only here to help find Danica and Roslyn, right?
Frowning, she followed Alex to the kitchen. The travertine tiles were cold under her feet, and she wished she’d thought to pop into the guest room and slide on her flip-flops. Well, Alex was wandering around barefoot, so she’d do the same.
After setting his cell phone down on the counter, he got a glass out of the cupboard, then went to the fridge and retrieved a large plastic jug full of tea. Once he’d poured some for her and returned the jug to the refrigerator, he busied himself with getting a pot of coffee going.
Caitlin sipped her tea and tried not to watch him, although that was difficult. Something about the way he moved, the way he looked…everything…seemed to draw her eyes, no matter what she did. “So…what’s the plan for today?”
“It depends, I guess.” He turned away from the coffeemaker and leaned against the counter, arms crossed. “I’m supposed to work, but I’ll get someone to cover for me.”
She hadn’t even thought about that. It was Thursday, a normal work day. Or at least a normal work day for most of the world. She knew a lot of the Wilcox clan had regular jobs, acted as if there wasn’t anything particularly special about them, and it seemed to be that way down here in de la Paz territory as well. In Jerome, people worked, but even the shop owners tended to be fairly haphazard about their business hours. And since so many of the McAllister witches and warlocks were artists and artisans, they set their own schedules, such as they were.
The coffee began to perk. Caitlin inhaled the aroma, wishing coffee tasted even half as good as it smelled. But the jug tea was actually pretty good, and she could feel herself becoming more awake, more on top of things, as the caffeine started to flow through her bloodstream. There was a downside to being more alert, though; as her brain woke up, memory started to flow as well, the nightmarish images of Danica in Matías’ arms, of her letting him touch her. Violate her.
“Hey,” Alex said, the brittle note completely gone from his voice. He’d stepped closer to her, and she hadn’t even noticed. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” she replied, forcing a smile. “It’s just…memory can be a bitch sometimes, you know?”
He reached out and ran a thumb over the back of her hand. Briefly, and purely out of a desire to reassure her, she knew, but warmth flooded through her at that touch. She remembered how he’d held her last night, how it had felt being pressed up against his bare skin, how she hadn’t wanted to pull away but had done so because she knew it was dangerous to let him continue to hold her.
Yes, memory definitely could be a bitch.
“I know it’s rough. But we’ll get through this. Okay?”
She nodded, then made herself sip some more tea. Alex seemed to get the message, because he backed away and busied himself with retrieving a coffee mug from the cupboard and fetching a small container of cream from the refrigerator.
Just as he was pouring some coffee into his mug, his phone pinged. An email, it sounded like. He finished with the coffee, stirred in some cream, and then went to pick up his phone. As he read the message, he seemed to simultaneously relax and tense up.
“What is it?”
“The good news — I’m off the hook for work until this is all settled. My father’s going to keep an eye on things.”
“Oh? Doesn’t he have another job?”
Alex shook his head, his mouth pulling into a slight frown. “No, he’s sort of retired. That was his fiftieth birthday present to himself. He used to run the store, but now it’s my turn.”
He didn’t sound too pleased about it, and Caitlin wondered if that was where some of the apparent bitterness about his education had come from. Someone with a double major in marketing and communications had probably planned to do something a little more exciting than manage his family’s neighborhood store.
“And the bad news?” she asked.
His gaze returned to the email. “It sounds like Marie Begonie — that’s the Wilcox seer?”
Caitlin nodded.
“Anyway, she’s coming down to Tucson. My mother gave her directions, so I guess she’s heading straight here to the house. It sounds like she’ll get here a little after one.”
Great. Well, it was probably to be expected. No way would Angela allow all this responsibility to rest on the shoulders of an untried seer, even though Caitlin knew deep down that Marie wouldn’t be able to help. For whatever reason, rescuing Danica and Roslyn was Caitlin’s responsibility.