"But not too close."
"No, not too close." Our eyes met and held. "Much too tempting."
Damn, I had it bad for him. Sure he was a stick-in-the-mud about some stuff, he was sometimes cranky and easily annoyed, and he came with a ton of baggage, but he was also generous, caring, protective, and so incredibly sexy. Plus he wanted to be with me despite the fact that I was a mess and a half and had an unfortunate habit of running off headlong into danger.
I'd never been so in love with anyone in my life. It was a little scary.
No, actually it was a lot scary.
I'd figure a way out of this curse. I would. I wasn't going to let it get in the way of my being with Thierry. Not after everything we'd already been through. And if the witch wouldn't come to me, I was going to track her down and go to her.
But that was after I got my Plan B.
I'd given the necklace in question to Amy for her birthday. Doing this served two purposes. First, I knew she would hate it and hide it safely away in her jewelry cabinet where it would never see the light of day again. Second, I'd forgotten to buy her another present in time for her party.
I remember her reaction when she pulled it out of the gift bag, past the secondhand tissue paper.
Her eyes had widened at the glint of gold, and then narrowed with disappointment that it wasn't something good. "What the fu—?" She stopped, blinked, and looked at me. "Uh, I mean, what a fu-uu-abulous gift! Thank you, Sarah! I love it!"
And, just as I'd predicted, she hadn't worn it once. Perfect. It was safe and sound and locked away. I felt the oddest sense of certainty come over me. I didn't know how the Red
Devil knew about it, and I didn't really care. If it did what he said it did, then I wanted that hunk of junk back. I would wear it proudly as I emerged into the daylight again. It had only been a day but I already felt starved for sunshine and was probably pastier looking than normal. I might even go get a spray tan to celebrate everything working out okay when this was all over.
"Amy!" I walked straight toward her. She eyed me warily.
"Um, yeah?"
I grabbed her arm and felt her flinch as I pulled her off to the side and out of earshot of everyone else. "I need to ask you a question."
"No, I don't want you to bite me."
I blinked. "I wasn't going to ask you that."
She crossed her arms protectively in front of her. "I mean, I know we're friends. Best friends. And I know you're probably looking at my neck and thinking about how delicious it must be. But that doesn't mean that I want to experiment with you. I'm not into that, Sarah. I don't feel comfortable taking our friendship there."
"What in the hell are you talking about?"
She looked confused. "Barry told me that you're dangerous and I should stay away from you as much as possible, but I don't want to do that. I don't want to be afraid of you, but the things he's told me about nightwalkers…" She grimaced. "They're like sex-crazed mosquitoes who don't care who they seduce to get what they want."
Okay, that was an image.
"I'm not sex-crazed or a mosquito. And even if I was, trust me, you're not my type."
She appeared to relax a bit. "Really?"
"Really."
Then she frowned. "Why not? Is it the pink hair? Because I have an appointment booked to go blond again."
I cleared my throat. "Look, this is going to sound odd to you, but do you remember that birthday present I gave you? The gold chain?"
"Of course I remember." She appeared to stifle a shudder.
"I can't go into the major details right now, but I need it back for a little while. Maybe we can pop over to your house and grab it."
"You need it?" She looked confused. "But you gave it to me as a present."
I looked over my shoulder to see Butch still glowering at me. The sound system was playing Sinatra's "Lady is a Tramp."
"I know, it sounds bizarre," I said. "Just humor me, please. I know you never wear it, so I can't imagine you would mind my borrowing it for a little bit. And I wouldn't ask if it wasn't excruciatingly, vitally important."
"Excruciatingly?" she repeated weakly.
I frowned. "What's the problem?"
"Is there any way another gold chain will do? I have a few you can borrow. Most are a little more wearable than that one." She paused and then added. "Not that I don't appreciate the thought, of course."
"I know you hated it. It's okay. And I promise to replace it with a much better belated birthday gift. But I need that one in particular."
"Oh, dear."
"Oh, dear what?"
She began to wring her hands, and she met my eyes with what looked like… guilt! "I… I actually don't have it anymore."
"Excuse me?"
She twisted a finger through her short pink hair. "I'm so sorry. I know this is the absolute worst thing, but… but I knew I was never going to wear it. I put it in my jewelry box and every time I opened it up it was just staling up at me giving me the evil eye."
"A necklace doesn't have eyes."
"It felt like it did. I never in a million years thought that you would want it back, and if you had asked me in a couple of months or years why I never wore it I was going to tell you that I lost it."
"What did you do with the necklace, Amy?" I asked tightly.
"Well, one day I was at home vacuuming and the TV was on in the other room and I heard a commercial. It was this guy talking about…" She stopped and her bottom lip quivered.
"Talking about what?" I prompted her.
"Talking about selling your used and unwanted jewelry. For cash." She covered her face with her hands. "Oh, I am so ashamed."
"You sold the necklace?" I managed, not believing my own ears. "You sold it? I gave it to you as a gift!"
"I wasn't going to wear it." She touched her ear. "And I was able to buy these earrings with the money the guy gave me. It was only the day before yesterday."
I felt the blood drain from my face. On the one hand I was furious that she would sell a present I gave her, even though it was admittedly not really a present at all. On the other hand… those were some really cute earrings.