Sympathetic Magic(6)

He knew it was too much to hope that Margot’s feelings toward him might shift that quickly.



* * *



The days went by quietly after that. Late in the week after their wedding, Angela and Connor returned to northern Arizona, spending a few days in the house on Paradise Lane before heading up to Flagstaff so they’d be there in time for her latest doctor’s appointment. Angela seemed to have gotten visibly larger in only the few days they were away — or maybe it was just that Margot wasn’t used to seeing her normally slender prima so, well, round.

“Everything okay with the house?” she asked of Margot. They were sitting on the front porch, enjoying a mild afternoon breeze, as the house was still somewhat warm.

“It was, after I checked. You did leave the back door unlocked.”

Angela put a hand to her brow. “Oh, wow, sorry about that. But I guess it’s good that I asked.”

“Maybe, except that it was somewhat unnecessary, as Connor had asked the same thing of Lucas.”

“He did?” she asked, her eyes widening. “Oops.” Then she added, her expression growing somewhat sly, “And how is Lucas?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Margot said shortly, glad they were on the porch, so she could make a hasty escape. “I haven’t seen him since. I expect you’ll find out when you go back to Flagstaff.”

And after that she said a quick farewell and departed, inwardly fuming. Had it been a simple mistake…or had Connor and Angela both asked their respective relatives to come check on the house so they’d “accidentally” bump into each other?

Goddess save her from happy couples who felt the need to matchmake every unattached individual in a ten-mile radius.

By the time Margot got back to her house, she could practically feel the scowl she’d dug into her own forehead — a scowl that didn’t lessen when she saw that her mother’s car was parked behind hers in the driveway. True, because of the way the lot was set up, there really wasn’t anyplace else to park, but really, the last person she felt like talking to now was Sylvia Emory.

I knew I should’ve gotten the key back from her, Margot thought in annoyance, although she knew locked doors didn’t stop most witches if they wanted to get in. Still, whatever happened to privacy?

She did her best to settle her expression in more serene lines as she entered the house. The smell of cinnamon tea drifted out to her. Normally, it was a scent she enjoyed, one that evoked changing leaves and colder days and the Halloween decorations nearly everyone in Jerome put up. Now, though, it just told her that her mother had gone ahead and made herself at home in the kitchen.

Attempting not to sigh, Margot entered that room, saw her mother sitting at the round table under the window, watching the late afternoon sunlight slant in through the stained-glass suncatcher hanging there, casting hues of blue and red and gold and green over the white tile countertops.

“Tea?” said her mother, lifting a chubby brown teapot from the trivet that sat in the middle of the table.

“Thank you,” Margot replied. She knew it was pointless to ask her mother what she wanted, or what she was doing there. In time she’d get around to it, but on her own terms.

“I see our prima is back in town,” Sylvia remarked. “Not staying, though, I would imagine.”

“Not for long.” After blowing on her tea, feeling her mother’s sharp blue gaze on her, Margot added, “She has to see the doctor soon.”

“And I imagine she’d rather be someplace cooler. What were those two thinking, going all the way down to Bisbee in September? It must have been a hundred degrees.”

“They wanted to see the vineyards, talk to the growers.” Yes, there were vines planted all over the Verde Valley, but the growers still got a good portion of their grapes from the wine-growing regions down south, especially around Willcox. Margot tried not to think of the irony of that one small town being given that name. Two “L”s, to be sure, but still….

“Hmm,” her mother said, which could have meant anything. Really, why was she here? It wasn’t out of character for her to drop by unexpectedly, but in general she only did that when they hadn’t seen each other for a few weeks. Since not even a week had passed since the wedding, and Margot had shared a table with her mother then, she couldn’t quite figure out why the urgent need to be here now, of all days.

“And what have you been up to?” Sylvia asked then.

Something seemed to click in Margot’s head. She set down her teacup, shot her mother a narrow look, and replied, “Nothing at all. Tending my garden. Reading. Renewing the illusion across Boyd Willis’s driveway again so another drunk tourist won’t back into his garage.”