“Mother, if you’ve only come up here to ask whether I’m seeing Lucas Wilcox, the short answer is no, I’m not, and the slightly longer answer is, no, I am not, and never will.”
For a few seconds her mother didn’t say anything, only drummed her fingers against the glazed ceramic surface of the teacup she held. At last she said, her tone far gentler than her daughter’s, “Margot, being an elder doesn’t mean you have to live your life alone. That’s not what anyone intended.”
Oh, why was it that mothers always knew the exact wrong thing to say? Even after all these years, the hurt stirred within her, waking memories she’d worked far too hard to put away. “Maybe that’s not what they intended,” she said shortly. “But that seems to be how it’s working out.”
* * *
Before Lucas knew it, October arrived, and with it the first gusts of colder air. People on the streets started wearing jackets and boots. One morning he looked out his kitchen window and saw frost on the grass, and realized the first snows of late autumn might only be a month away.
He thought he’d done a good job of trying to forget about Margot. There were days of golf with his friends while the trees around them shifted into brilliant shades of gold and red and orange. He puttered in the garden, had dinner at Connor and Angela’s house — that girl definitely knew how to cook — read the financial papers and waited for the twinge that would tell him which stocks to buy and which to sell. In between, he sometimes went out to the bars and restaurants in downtown Flagstaff. He met women there, women who were pretty clear about their interest in him. The only difference was, now he found he really wasn’t interested in them. One or two he took out to dinner, then realized there was no point in going any further than that. He’d been down that road before, tried dating civilians, tried seeing a few of his more distant cousins. None of it worked. His love life was where his luck invariably failed him.
Mornings like this one, though…he couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to have Margot here next to him, making tea — he preferred coffee, but he’d make that sacrifice for her — planning a walk in the woods to enjoy the last of the autumn colors…experiencing the afterglow of early-morning sex.
Ha. Considering she’d barely look him in the eye, getting from there to making love was sort of a jump. Never mind that he hadn’t seen her for more than a month. Now, Halloween was just a little more than a week away.
Halloween….
Lucas pondered that thought for a moment. He knew Connor had first seen Angela in person at the Jerome Halloween dance, his identity as a warlock carefully concealed by one of Damon’s clever spells. There was no stricture against Wilcox clan members going now — in fact, he’d heard that Mason was planning to attend, as she and Adam McAllister had been conducting a long-distance relationship over the past month. Her parents were not all that happy about the situation, and his apparently even less so, but the couple seemed to be following Angela’s lead in saying the inter-clan feud was over.
So, great for them. What was he thinking, that he could just go down there and hope lightning would strike for him the way it had for Connor and Angela? History didn’t tend to repeat itself that way. Besides, he had no idea if Margot was even going. She didn’t exactly seem like the Halloween costume type when you got right down to it. Then again, the dance was a Jerome institution, and from what he’d heard, the elders did go to show their support.
Well, that clinched it. He only had a few days to figure out what he’d wear, and maybe he’d end up looking like an idiot, but he wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity to face Margot Emory on her home turf.
* * *
Was there ever a witch with less enthusiasm for Halloween? Margot wondered, and frowned at her reflection. Yes, it was traditional that all the elders go to the dance, but she didn’t quite see the point. It wasn’t as if it were a McAllister function, not really; the dance was put on as a fundraiser by the volunteer fire department, about half of whom were civilians. But she’d given up trying to get out of it.
She smoothed her long skirt, then reached up to adjust the golden circlet she wore on her head. If she had to go to this thing, then she’d go looking dignified, which was why for the past few years she’d dressed up as Eleanor of Aquitaine, in a flowing medieval gown with a jeweled belt and a crown and veil, her long dark hair lying loose over her shoulders. All right, apparently Eleanor had been a strawberry blonde, but Margot somehow doubted most people attending the Jerome Halloween dance were that dedicated to historical accuracy.