Even a truly excellent dream couldn’t take the edge off Fairy Jane’s latest infuriating instruction: pencil him in?
Bossy, cheeky, impossible to get along with ... No wonder Jane Austen had never married.
A little bitterness eased out of me as I realized that last jab wasn’t fair. As far as I knew, this whole situation had absolutely nothing to do with the literary darling. Beck had broached the idea of Jane Austen as the voice behind the journal, and I’d latched onto her, the familiar in an outlandish situation, a writer who’d made a career out of impossible matchmaking and happily-ever-afters. Right now I was hanging my sanity on a Jane Austen obsession, because without a face, a name, a personality, there was nothing—it was all a nebulous mystery. And yet, it was almost as if Mr. Darcy of the Journal was warning me off the unsuitable Wickham, a.k.a. Brett Tilson. As if.
Goose bumps were popping up like pinpricks along my arms as I hurried down the hall to the living room and unceremoniously shoved the journal into the bookcase, hoping, I suppose, that this simple act would relegate these recent bits of advice to the realm of romantic fiction. Completely separate from me and my well-ordered life.
I stared at the journal’s black leather spine, conscious of the fact that the little book looked pretty comfortable leaning on P&P, as if the two were gossipy old friends. I crossed my arms over my chest and turned away. This latest directive had left no room for interpretation. It was personal now—on a whole new level—and I was feeling pretty pissy.
I rubbed at the goose bumps, wishing this staggering feeling of vulnerability would disappear too.
How was it possible that I’d hooked up with Sean, a whirling dervish of mischief and charm, in a reception full of geeks? It boggled the mind. Unless Fairy Jane had truly conjured him—or meddled in whatever way that fairies do.
Quite the dizzying one-eighty for a girl who didn’t believe in magic two short days ago. I didn’t want to think about it. Not to mention the possibility that Fairy Jane might have stepped outside the bounds of the journal—I most certainly wasn’t ready to deal with that.
I still needed to call the number we’d weaseled out of the Shop Nazi’s computer: a Mr. Elijah Nelson. But nine on a Sunday morning felt a little too early to be discussing magical journals with strangers.
I needed something to keep my hands busy and my mind occupied. Today could very well be the perfect day for the Samoa cupcake recipe I’d stumbled across on a delectable little cupcake blog. Inspired by the much-loved Girl Scout Cookie, it involved a brown sugar butter cupcake spread with chocolate ganache, topped with a toasted coconut macaroon cap, and finished with a drizzle of ganache. I’d put off making it, slightly intimidated by its complexity. But today a challenge was exactly what I needed.
Tying on my apron, I did a quick check for ingredients and began pulling out the necessary baking paraphernalia and mentally breaking down the recipe into a series of mini tasks. I was sliding a tray of golden brown coconut back out of the oven when the phone rang.
“Wanna get brunch?” Gabe offered.
Glancing behind me at my cupcakes in progress and then at the clock, which read quarter to ten, I said, “What time?” Not being in on the Big Secret, Gabe was the ideal companion right now.
“Noon?”
“That’ll work. Where’d you have in mind?”
“How about Moonshine?”
Perfect. Slightly upscale but down-to-earth.
“See ya there.”
I glanced again at the clock the moment I hung up and decided to risk the temper of Mr. Elijah Nelson.
As the phone rang at the other end, I squared my shoulders and psyched myself up for an awkward conversation. On the fifth ring, I felt my shoulders slump a little in disappointment. On the tenth, I gave up on him having an answering machine and actually pulled the phone away from my ear. With my thumb poised over the End button, I was jolted back to attention as a gravelly old voice rumbled over the line.
“Hello? Hello?”
I slapped the phone back against my ear and stuttered to catch up, to be heard over the third, rather cantankerous “Hello?”
“Hello—hi. I’m here.”
“Well, where the hell were you?”
Okay, so he was a little prickly in the morning.... “I was here, I just didn’t have the phone up against my ear.” Start out competent, that’s the ticket.
“Well, you were hoping to talk to someone, weren’t ya?”
“Yes. Sir. Yes, I was. Are you Mr. Nelson—Mr. Elijah Nelson?”
“Who’s askin’?”
“Um ... my name is Nicola James, Mr. Nelson. I’m up in Austin, and I got your number from the owner of Violet’s Crown Antique Shop—”
“Violet who?”
I shook my head, trying to dispel the confusion. “No, sir, Violet’s is an antique shop.” I heard myself getting louder and tried to relax. “The owner recently purchased a lady’s boudoir table from you.”
I was really hoping this was enough to jog his memory.
“I got rid of plenty a while back, all at the Trade Days, before I moved down here to New Braunfels, and into Misty Glen. But I can’t say as I remember who bought what. I never tried to pass anything off as a valuable antique. Don’t tell me that Violet charlatan did.”
“No, sir,” I hurried to assure him. “She didn’t.” Or if she did, I didn’t know about it. “I’m actually calling to ask about a journal she found in one of the drawers—it’s black, with a fancy brass key plate and a little doorknob.”
Silence.
“Is this ringing any bells for you?”
“Don’t you worry, young lady, I can keep up just fine. I watch Jeopardy! every afternoon—I could give those contestants a run for their money.”
My lips curled into a grin, but I kept silent, sensing he wasn’t finished.
“Harrumph. So that’s where that book was hiding. Good riddance as far as I’m concerned. And as for you, young lady, what is it they say? Caveat emptor—I think that’s right.”
My smile suddenly melted away, and I stood straighter, my lower back rigid against the kitchen counter.
“Caveat emptor? Let the buyer beware? Why do you say that?”
“All that magic mumbo jumbo. Cat would have done just fine without it.”
“Who’s Cat?” I felt breathless and urgent.
“My sister.” The words sounded bitter, sad, and resigned. “Supposed to marry my best friend. Everything, all of it, arranged—until she stumbled across that journal.”
He stopped there, and with no other choice, I waited. I wanted answers, and I was willing to forgo good manners and bust out the nosy curiosity, but first I needed to get my voice back. Because right now I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t get a single word out. All I could think was that I wasn’t the first. This journal had belonged to someone else, worked its magic on someone else. I was, rather unbelievably, on the right track here—I just needed a little more information. Closing my eyes, I took a deep, shuddering breath and tried to inhale a little patience, a little calm to temper the piston firing of my heart.
“What happened then?” I finally asked quietly, reverently.
“Cat called off the wedding and hared off to parts unknown with big ideas.”
“What sort of big ideas?” The words caught in my throat, but I forced them out. I needed to hear this story.
“The war was on, and Cat wanted to be where things were happening. In the thick of it, I suppose. Always was a busybody.”
“And the journal?” I cringed inwardly, suspecting I knew the answer.
“When she broke it off with Tyler, she told me it was her journal’s idea. I thought that was bullshit and told her so, so she showed me the page with the words, one little bossy instruction: ‘Don’t marry him.’ ’Course I accused her of writing it herself. So then she slid the key into the lock—”
“Hold on. There isn’t a key—or a lock. The key plate is just decorative.” Could this possibly be a mistake? Was there another magical journal floating around somewhere between here and Fredericksburg? Beck would be thrilled.
“It’s all part of the ruse,” he assured me, an edge to his voice. “And once she turned the key, it was impossible not to believe her. Her words reappeared—and everyone else’s right along with them—”
I heard a rushing pop in my ears, and my eyes telescoped, seeing only the journal, propped innocently beside P&P in the bookshelf. Everyone else’s?
“And I read them. Didn’t change my mind, but hers was made up. So she left, taking the book with her.”
Now we were getting somewhere....
“So how did you ... ?” At this point I didn’t even know which part of this whole thing to try to wrap my head around first.
“She died. In England. And that magic book of hers got shipped over in a brown box with the rest of her personal effects. Right about now you’re probably wishing that book had been forgotten across the pond somewhere, aren’t ya?”
“It’s too early to tell,” I told him honestly, determined not to get distracted. “So what happened to the key?”
“Oh, it came back too, but I never slipped it into the lock again—chicken, I guess. I take it from all the questions that it wasn’t with the journal.”
“No,” I confirmed, slumping in my seat, a little defeated. “It wasn’t.”
My free fall back to ignorance came too fast, and all at once I was dizzy, my head spinning. Okay, deep breath, start again. “Any ideas?”
“I’d start with that Violet character. Best lead you got.”
“You’re right. Thank you very much for your time, Mr. Nelson, and I’m sorry to have brought up sad memories of your sister.”
“Never mind that. It’s past.”
On impulse I asked one final question. “Just out of curiosity—was she happy with her decision?”
“Far as I know. Sent plenty of postcards from all over. Didn’t seem to miss Tyler one little bit. Him, on the other hand, never stepped foot outside Gillespie County. But that doesn’t prove a thing—Cat done gone and messed with fate.”
“Yeah,” I answered, my voice sounding faraway. I could relate to Tyler’s situation. I’d recently come to the conclusion that my dad had planned Walt Disney World vacations around hurricane season and trips to Europe around the impossibility of scoring last-minute passports. Cat Nelson may have messed with fate, but at least she’d gone somewhere.
“Okay then. Good luck to you.” He hung up with a click in my ear, and it barely registered, my thoughts were in such a tussle over this new information. Evidently I needed to go back, yet again, to Violet’s and fend off the Purveyor long enough to find the key. A key that was likely to ratchet up the insanity yet another dubious notch.
The cupcakes momentarily forgotten, I unearthed my laptop and powered it up, crossing my fingers that Violet’s was open on Sunday. It wasn’t. My search was going to have to wait until Monday. I was going to have to sneak off to search for a magical key on the same day I hoped to be promoted to manager. Perfect.
As I turned back to the morning’s cupcake distraction, I was conscious of the fact that I should call Beck. I knew she was waiting to hear from me, and I had plenty to tell her. But while I was confident she’d forgive me for rousing her so early on a Sunday, I didn’t really want to go into the whole business right now. I’d call her eventually ... or she’d call me.
I was assembling the cupcakes, my hands coated with gooey macaroon mixture, when the phone rang again. Of course it was Beck, a.k.a. Karma.
“Hey,” I answered, the phone jammed between my ear and shoulder.
“Hey! What are you up to today? Wanna meet up?”
“Um, sure,” I blurted, thinking fast. If I invited her to brunch, I’d only have to rehash the wedding details a single time. “How about brunch? I’m already meeting Gabe, and he’s as avidly curious about my one-night solo social whirl as you are.”
“Okay, sure,” she enthused.
“One thing, though—he doesn’t know about the journal.”
“So you want me to keep Fairy Jane on the down-low?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“Not a problem. As long as you promise to fill me in later.”
“I’ll do you one better. I’m meeting Gabe at Moonshine downtown at noon. Meet me there ten minutes early, and I’ll catch you up.”
“Gotcha.”
With my afternoon satisfactorily arranged, I hung up the phone and returned to the task of forming little coconut caps on the cooled, ganached cupcakes, easily sliding into the unruffled calm that comes from mindless repetition. It didn’t even occur to me to call Gabe to see if he minded a third.
Beck made an entrance in a swirly red miniskirt and turquoise sweater, her hair pulled back in a sparkly barrette, causing me, in my jeans and nubby sweater, to feel just the slightest bit drab. Squelching that feeling, I waved from the bench seat beside the hostess station, and she hurried over, all giddy anticipation. She dropped a hug around my shoulders and then sat back, clearly ready to get right to it.
“So? Spill it, chick. Did you call the dude in Fredericksburg?” Seeing my nod, she continued, “Tell me about that first. Then the wedding, then whatever else you got.”
“Fine, but as soon as Gabe shows up, we’re nixing all journal-related conversation and sticking with the wedding replay, okay?”
“Got it.”
I relayed the general gist of my conversation with Elijah Nelson amid a great deal of gasps and the occasional wild-eyed comment: “Shit! There’s a key? Wow—and she never came back? Un-freakin’-believable.” When I finally finished, she seemed confused. “And you didn’t go back in to look for the key?” Her tone was distinctly accusatory.
“I waited to call him until this morning,” I said, speaking slowly. “And it turns out they’re closed on Sundays. Finding a matching key amid all that clutter seems like kind of a long shot, though. Unless the Nazi knows where it is and is willing to say.” I raised my eyebrows to indicate my level of confidence in that turn of events.
“I don’t know how you stand it. The suspense is killing me. Don’t you wish life could be like the movies, all action without the filler?”
“Um, no. I’m a big fan of the filler.” She cut her eyes over to me, clearly wondering if I could possibly be serious.
“What’s your Plan B, if the key doesn’t want to be found?” she said.
My eyebrows crinkled down in reaction to the ongoing LOTR analogy and I said, “A lot of the same: floundering around without a clue, hoping things start making sense on their own. But I’m not holding my breath.”
Leveling me with a hard stare, she seemed to have no better alternative. “We’ll deal with that later. Tell me about the wedding,” she insisted, edging closer on the bench.
It was quite the novelty to realize that for once I wasn’t the one living vicariously—I was the one with the exciting life. Or at least the exciting night. And already that one night was more than I could handle.
“So did it all come true? Did you meet him?”
“You don’t want to know about the cake?” I teased.
She shot me a dangerous “very funny, but get serious” look and I straightened up quickly.
“Would you believe that they had the ceremony outside, under the trees, at dusk? It’s March, for God’s sakes, and freezing!”
Glancing pointedly at her watch, Beck warned, “Time’s a-tickin’, girl. Start with him, and go from there.”
“Okay. Well, I definitely met him.” Lust shimmied up my spine just remembering, and I could feel my lips beginning to curl up.
“And?” Beck’s lips parted slightly in anticipation.
“And I had a very nice night,” I admitted, my smile fully in place now. “But I definitely don’t trust the journal’s ability to make sensible decisions.”
Beck’s lips twisted in a wry smile. “Kinda seems like you skipped all the good stuff, Nic.”
“Just wanted to make that clear.”
“Okay, let’s put him on hold for a minute. What happened? What’d Fairy Jane say now?”
“That ... fairy ... is a menace! The latest leftover was ‘change of Plan—pencil him in,’ but that’s only part of it.”
“I assume that ‘him’ is him, who, I might add, I’ve yet to hear anything about?” Her eyebrows crinkled down in annoyance.
“Seems pretty damn likely.”
“Him who?” said a familiar voice a few feet in front of us.
Naturally it was Gabe, dressy casual in dark denim and a sharp-looking green polo, his hair gelled up into some sort of style. He reminded me of a blade of grass nudging his way in.
“No one important,” I quipped, shooing the moment away and earning a smirk from Beck. Gabe and Beck had met previously but had had little time to get to know each other, as Beck’s hours at Micro were a little sporadic. I refreshed the introductions, gesturing first to Beck. “Rebecca Connelly—Beck for short—intern extraordinaire and über-hip chick, meet,” and then over to Gabe, “Gabe Vogler, longtime coworker, self-professed geek, and all-around good guy.”
With the introductions finished, I stood to catch the hostess’s eye. When I turned back, Gabe was staring, quite possibly hypnotized as I’d once been, by the winking, blinking pink stud in Beck’s nose. I snapped my fingers quick and hard as near his face as I dared, and Gabe whipped his head around in my direction, his eyes dark and distracted. I glanced at Beck, smudging her lips together, eyeing Gabe in all his nerdiness, and I couldn’t help but wonder if my one wild night had already become old news. Not a problem.
Further conversation was put off until we were seated, Beck and I sitting on one side of the booth sipping Moonshine mimosas (both ordered by my just-barely-legal mentee) and Gabe on the other, sticking with iced tea.
“UT engineering, huh? What year?” Gabe asked, cautiously curious.
“Junior,” Beck answered with a nod and a dimpled smile.
Judging by the tiny movements of Gabe’s lips, I assumed he was doing the math, calculating that Beck was a good five years his junior. Evidently he wasn’t spooked by the nose stud or the magenta hair—good for him. I smiled at him and kept one eyebrow raised, waiting for the numbers to click. When they did, he flicked a quick glance at me before determinedly turning his attention back to Beck.
“So how goes the mentoring?”
“I’m gonna let Beck answer that,” I said, sliding out of the booth, heading for the buffet, and crossing my fingers that Beck could dodge the question.
The booth was empty when I got back, toting a syrup-doused waffle topped with strawberries and pecans. I glanced toward the buffet line to see Gabe leaning down to speak into Beck’s ear, her shocking pink hair skimming the edge of his face. She looked up at him, her face glowing. It would definitely be interesting to see how this played out.
Once we were all settled back at the table, it was only a few bites before Gabe remembered what we’d arranged to discuss.
“So how was the wedding last night?” he asked, forking up a bite of chicken fried steak and letting his eyes stray to Beck, who was concentrating rather intently on buttering her cranberry orange muffin. I made a note to snag one of those on my next trip to the buffet.
“I left early.”
“That can’t be the best you can do,” Gabe insisted. Beck’s thigh bumped up against mine in an obvious I-told-you-so.
I bumped her right back, resisting the urge to turn and glare. Then I took a deep breath and launched right into things.
“I did meet a guy—a stranger,” I added, preempting Gabe. “We talked, we danced, we had cake. Then he walked me out, he kissed me on the cheek, and that was that.” It seemed a shame to encapsulate the evening like that, but also very sensible, all things considered.
“Did you give him your number?” The question came out slightly muffled, having dodged Beck’s mouthful of muffin.
“Not exactly.”
Suddenly it was a two-flanked stare-down as both Gabe and Beck stopped chewing to gaze at me, wide-eyed.
“What does that mean?” I imagined this was a joint question, but it was Beck who voiced it.
“He invited me out Thursday night, I said okay, we said good-bye.”
“But no phone number?” Gabe fired this one, and it occurred to me that I was being tag-teamed.
“No need. I know where to find him if I want to,” I told them simply. “And besides, he isn’t ‘the One.’ ”
I was conscious of Beck, frozen beside me, desperately wanting to press for details but holding it together because of Gabe.
“You didn’t give him your phone number, but you let him kiss you?” Gabe demanded, clearly puzzled.
“Oh, he was definitely the one for that.” I smiled, remembering with dreamy fondness that moment of weakness.
Gabe promptly turned to Beck and tattled, “This is classic Nic.”
Glancing first at me, Beck swiveled her eyes back to Gabe and countered, “How so?”
“She has this perception of the perfect, sensible match, and if a guy doesn’t look and act the part, it’s all over for him from ground zero.”
I took my time carving out another bite of waffle, swirling it in the syrup puddled on my plate. I answered before forking it into my mouth.
“He’s an aspiring musician, and his band is being showcased at South by Southwest.” I raised an eyebrow, daring either of them to challenge my decision.
“Are you kidding? That’s awesome.” This from Gabe.
Watching Gabe’s face light up with interest, I was suddenly curious. “His band is Loch’d In, with an ‘h.’ Ever heard of them?” I asked casually.
“Loch’d In? You’re kidding. That’s the Scottish band we saw on Friday night—the men with accents? Pretty big coincidence. He was at the wedding?”
“He was a stand-in for the band’s lead singer, who, apparently, was an imminent father-to-be.” My voice was hollow and distracted. I was remembering Friday night: sparring with Gabe, having just discovered my journal’s special bonus features. Had it been a coincidence? It seemed too big for that—too impossible to believe, as if worlds were colliding.
I couldn’t look at Beck, couldn’t risk meeting her eyes and losing it. Gabe, now focused on his plate and oblivious to the frenzy of unknowns clamoring in my head, asked. “So that’s it then? He’s out?”
“That’s it.”
“He’s the only guy you met?” Beck asked. “Him?”
“Only him,” I said, answering the unspoken question.
“You had to pick a guy with baggage—literally.” Gabe smirked.
Huh? Before I could ask Gabe what he was talking about, he pushed on with, “You have a chance here, Nic, to play with the cool kids, and as an engineer and a self-professed geek, you should jump on it.”
“I probably should object to that line of reasoning, but I’ve gotta side with Gabe on this one,” Beck said, spearing a chunk of pineapple and quirking her lips in friendly apology.
“Except that I’m not looking for cool, I’m looking for compatible.”
“Who’s to say he’s not?” Gabe was clearly rooting for this guy.
“Me!” Surely this should have been obvious. “We have nothing in common. And what about health insurance, a 401(k), job security. . . ?”
“First off, you don’t know he doesn’t have all that stuff. But even if he doesn’t, so what? Not everyone is on the fast track to a cushy retirement, Nic. And I’m guessing your main objection is that he’s not even on the sensible track. Face it, Nic,” he persisted, his smile smug, “you’re a snob.”
“I am not!” And then I wondered. Am I? I decided to concede the possibility. “Okay, maybe I am, but I’m not going to apologize for that. It’s my life.” And just like that, the fight went out of me. “It’s just not gonna work, okay?”
Gabe didn’t argue, merely quirked his lips in a rueful smile. I glanced over at Beck. She’d stayed quiet since the engineer jab, likely forming hypotheses of her own based on her insider knowledge of the journal and Fairy Jane. Or else just distracted by Gabe.
“Okay, so we’ve exhausted that topic,” I announced to the table at large. “Why don’t you go reload,” I suggested, gesturing to Gabe’s nearly empty plate, “and when you get back we’ll discuss the success of your evening. First date,” I informed Beck.
Flicking a quiet glance at Beck, Gabe slid obediently out of the booth. “You two coming?”
Beck looked down at her near-empty plate, but before she could answer, I swung my leg to smack against hers under the table, and like a pro, she looked up at Gabe and smiled. “Not yet.” So Gabe trailed off alone, none the wiser.
He wasn’t even a booth away when Beck whipped her attention back to me and whispered, “So is this true, a ruse, what? Tell me that you did not kiss a Scottish rocker, hand-picked by your fairy godmother no less, and send him on his merry way!”
“Shhhhhh! Yes, it’s true, but as I explained, he can’t have been the One. Fairy Jane must have been mistaken—or insane. Yes, he was charming and witty and sooo sexy, but he’s completely, inarguably ”—I drove this point home, hoping she’d concede the battle of wills before it began—“wrong for me.”
“How do you know it was him?”
“Take my word for it—it was definitely him.”
Her skepticism was clear, but she didn’t press it. “So really, that’s it?”
I looked away, confirming Gabe’s far-off location before falling back into the fray. “What do you mean exactly?”
“You’re just going to snub Fairy Jane and to hell with your one-of-a-kind magical journal?”
“I tried to snub her, last night after the wedding. I wrote another entry explaining why things with Sean would never work, explaining about The Plan ...”
“Oooh!” Beck had clearly put two and two together. “And she told you to pencil him in!” Her mouth fell open on a shocked smile. “I gotta say, I like the way she thinks. But how does she think you’re gonna manage that? You didn’t exchange phone numbers. Big mistake.” Seeing my glare, she added, “I’m just sayin’.”
“You’re right, we didn’t. Ergo, I will not be penciling him in. But I figure I’ll give her another shot. I even tried to steer her in the right direction.”
“You didn’t!” Beck demanded.
“Didn’t what?”
Beck and I jerked apart to stare up at Gabe as he slid into the booth with his second plate of food. He seemed to have an uncanny ability to horn in on secret powwows.
“You’re back,” Beck enthused. Her smile was winning, even in profile. “So tell me, where do you take a girl on a first date?” A little flirtatious drawl from Beck, and curiosity had clearly gone skittering from Gabe’s mind. The girl was good.
“Depends on the girl.” Very smooth, Gabe. “Last night we went to Eastside Café.”
“And is there a second date in your future?” I asked, wondering about Beck’s chances, pulling for them.
“All signs point to ‘hell no,’ ” he admitted, with a wry smile and a self-deprecating shrug.
Beck laughed. “Ahhh, the Magic Eight Ball. Ours was a love-hate relationship. I loved to ask, but invariably hated the answers. Same sob story with the Ouija board too.”
Gabe eyed her over the rim of his iced tea glass before informing us, “Well, you’ll love this. She was obsessed with The Amazing Race and was screening potential matches up front for their able-bodiedness, just in case.”
I couldn’t help it: I stopped chewing and stared, and when Gabe moved to shove another bite of food in his mouth, I lunged across the table to block him.
“Wait! Did you put on a good showing?”
Gabe lowered his fork, careful to look sufficiently put-upon. “I’m pretty sure I passed muster in the able-bodied department, just not in the willingness department.”
“You’re kidding. I would have thought you’d be into that.”
“I might have, but she was only interested in my body—and not in a good way. She all but pulled out a clipboard and measuring tape in the middle of dinner.”
I felt a giggle bubbling up but forcibly suppressed it.
“And after the busboy cleared the table, she actually wanted to arm wrestle.”
The mental picture this conjured was nearly too much for my self-control. I tipped my face down, feigning interest in my nearly empty plate.
“So did you?” Leave it to Beck to ask the million-dollar question. My head popped right back up again in my desperation to hear the answer.
Gabe swung his unreadable stare between the two of us, probably wondering how he’d ended up getting double-teamed, with hard-core participation from a complete stranger. Given what I’d just been through, I didn’t have a whole lot of sympathy for the guy.
“No. There wasn’t a lot of room, and besides, she’s ...”
“What?” Beck challenged. “A girl?”
I cut in. “Maybe in the interest of full disclosure, you should specify ‘Unwilling to submit to feats of strength’ in your profile,” I teased. I forked up a last bite of waffle. “Have there been any other recent matchups?” I probed.
Beck propped her elbow on the table and dropped her chin in her hand, apparently just as curious.
“As a matter of fact, I’m in the question-and-answer phase with a doctor,” he informed us, sounding distinctly stuffy. “And I wouldn’t mind a second opinion.” He grinned at his own pun, and with his eyes trained on Beck, it was obvious he didn’t require a third.
“A second opinion on what?” Beck asked, clearly up for whatever this brunch threw at her.
“Her get-acquainted question.”
“Let’s hear it,” she encouraged.
“She asked which three things I’d want with me if marooned on a desert island.”
“Not too original, but lots of potential there,” Beck allowed.
“I used to play that game with my grandfather,” I interjected. “My three things were a playhouse with working kitchen and bathroom, my favorite blanket, and a suitcase full of clothes.” I sipped my sour-sweet mimosa, proud of those long-ago, very sensible decisions.
“So math wasn’t your strong suit early in life, huh?” Gabe said with a smirk.
“What do you mean?”
“It never occurred to you that your tally went way beyond three things? Why didn’t you just tote along a luxury resort, complete with staff and swimming pool? Hell, why not a Super Walmart?”
“That’s not the same at all,” I protested, looking to Beck for a little backup. Her amused, slightly sympathetic expression told me I was on my own. “All right. What would you take, Jack Shephard?” I asked, laying on the sarcasm.
His teeth appeared in a flash of white—clearly I’d played right into his hands. “Okay, three things?” He propped his elbow on the table and made a show of ticking them off on his fingers. “One of those gadgets that can turn salt water into fresh drinking water, an inflatable raft—with oars, and an EPIRB.”
“What’s an ee-perb?” I asked, waspish even in ignorance.
“An emergency position indicating radiobeacon. It’s a device that can send out traceable signals to the Coast Guard and other rescue teams.”
I was speechless. For about two seconds. Then I blurted, “You know with the oars, you’re over three.”
Glancing over, I noticed that Beck was clearly impressed—with him—not so much with me.
“You’re definitely a nerd,” Beck said around a laugh, and I wondered if she was remembering her recently voiced opinion on nerds. “Very impressive,” she added, in a tone that confirmed she was indeed. “If your plan is to get off the island. If you want to stay, I think I’d go with sunblock, a toolkit—if you get oars, I get a toolkit—and a change of clothes. Not a big fan of the coconut bikini. Still, between the two of us, we’d be pretty well equipped.”
“What would the doctor bring?” I asked, interrupting the kickoff meeting of the mutual admiration society.
“She hasn’t responded since I sent back my answer.”
“Maybe a little EPIRB scared her off.”
But by the look of things it wasn’t scaring Beck, and Gabe definitely wasn’t spooked by Beck’s aura of pink. Leaving the lovestruck fiends to discover just what it was they were dealing with, I excused myself to score a cranberry-orange muffin.
Without distraction, my own heady, inescapable infatuation came frothing to the surface, and I wondered, crazily, if I could really walk away from magic. This whole situation was like my own personal fire swamp—I just had to get my bearings before I was sucked in or tackled by the R.O.U.S.’s. Blinking away delusions of The Princess Bride, I grabbed a little pod of butter and turned away from the buffet.
When I got back to the table, it was to find that Gabe had moved his relationship with Beck efficiently into the question-and-answer phase.
“So, do you have any more piercings ... anywhere?” You could almost hear the yearning—my guess was he was hoping for a belly ring.
“Not yet,” Beck answered, letting the words trail off into possibility.
“What about tattoos? Like ’em? Hate ’em?”
I sat silently, riveted by this awkward mating dance of Gabe’s, and ate my muffin.
Beck took a sip of her mimosa before answering and then licked her lips. Gabe stared, clearly enthralled with everything about her, and so did I, fascinated by the pair of them.
“I actually have one, but I don’t think I’d get another one. It stung quite a bit, and I think I’ve outgrown it already.”
She was good. She had Gabe and me both hanging on her every word, desperate to know where she was hiding her tattoo and what it looked like. I glanced at Gabe, wondering if he was man enough to ask her. If not, I’d do it myself, but I figured I’d give him first dibs.
Gabe was looking as if he wanted to lunge across the table for her right then and there. I was actually feeling a little third-wheelish and so leaned slightly away from them, trying to stay out of peripheral vision.
“Wh-what did you get?” His voice cracked ever so slightly.
“It’s corny,” she warned, blushing till she was pink all over from the neck up. “I got a little red heart with big billowy white wings.”
“Really?” For some reason, this surprised me. Gabe just continued to stare, sort of slack-jawed now. “Where is it, or is that to remain undisclosed?” I teased.
“Lower back,” she confided, her tone and expression clearly expecting censure. Not from this pair of awestruck geeks. Personally, I was of the opinion that tattoos could be very sexy in tasteful moderation (and on someone else’s body).
“Can I see it?” I asked, fully content, in this situation, to be living vicariously.
For the briefest moment, Beck seemed startled by my request. Then her lips quirked in a mischievous smile as she reached around to pull the waist of her skirt down a couple inches to give me a peek.
“I like it,” I told her, suddenly feeling a little surge of nerve and inspiration, poised for some pins and needles of my own. Figuratively speaking.
I’d weighed the pros and cons, for Sean and against, and there was no contest—I should walk away. But the pros wouldn’t concede defeat—they were scrappy, devious little fighters, ceaselessly nibbling at my resolve, playing out the what-ifs like a Choose Your Own—Potentially Very Sexy—Adventure. And they’d won this round.
Schooling my voice to sound offhand around the uproar in my brain and body, I asked, “Either of you busy Thursday night?” Had me thinking about where their relationship could be by then ...
An uncomfortable beat of silence passed as the two of them turned to gape at me.
“You’re gonna go?” Beck asked, quick on the uptake and clearly ecstatic.
“You do remember that Thursday is a work night, right?” Gabe said.
Ignoring him, I pressed, “I’m not getting a good read here. Yes or no?”
“I’ll go!” Beck offered enthusiastically. I was beginning to think that, regardless of the situation, Beck was always up for some crazy escapades.
I glanced at Gabe, daring him to say no now that Beck had agreed to go. He was looking at her, his expression bland, but I could guess what he was thinking: If he went for it with Beck, would she hang on long enough for date number two? Hard to say.
“Okay, I’m in,” he finally said. “If you tell me why we’re going.”
“Because he asked me.” And because I really want to see him again—just one more time—this wildly sexy rock star with a come-hither accent and an inexplicable “thing” for me. “And because I’m not a snob.”
“Reason enough,” Beck agreed, staring across the table at Gabe as if daring him to find a flaw in this reasoning. “Maybe even because you want to give things one more chance?”
I shot her a quelling glare.
Gabe seemed content with that, and by mutual agreement, we turned the conversation back to the mundane. But when Beck casually presented her theory that there might be vampire bats living amongst the gargantuan urban bat colony beneath the Congress Avenue Bridge, it was obvious that Gabe was smitten, and for him, there would be no turning back at all.
Having both parked on a side street a block from the restaurant, Gabe and Beck walked off together post-brunch. I suspected Beck was both pleased and disappointed with this arrangement. I knew she’d love some extra face time with me to dish over the details of the wedding, the man, and the journal, but I got the feeling she’d like a little more time with Gabe too. The way things were going, the face time between them might shortly involve Gabe getting an up-close and personal view of that sparkly pink nose stud.
I’d probably be getting a call later, from one or both of them. But until then, I was actually a little relieved to be alone. I only wished I could escape the tug-of-war in my head. Cueing up a CD guaranteed to pry my mind away from my problems, I let KT Tunstall take me far away. To the extent that my turn into the parking lot of Waterloo Records was not a conscious decision.
And yet I knew exactly what I was doing there. Waterloo Records had a reputation for supporting local music and for stocking the CDs of SXSW performers, not that I’d ever come looking. But as of this moment, I had a personal interest in perusing their selection.
Rather than poke around browsing, I went straight to the counter, a woman on a mission, and found myself face-to-face with two tall, scruffy, very interesting-looking guys.
“Hi. Do you guys know if you happen to carry any CDs by Loch’d In? They’re a Scottish band performing at South by Southwest this year?”
“Definitely,” said the scruffier-looking dude, coming around the counter to help me in my search. His immediate, positive answer whipped my vital signs into a frenzy, and it barely registered that he was still talking.
“They’re actually scattered a couple of places around the store,” he informed me as I trailed along behind him. “Easiest to find is right here.” His tattooed arm gestured toward a display of CDs. He then flipped through a half dozen jewel cases before he turned and extended his hand, holding out the object of my search.
“Great,” I answered, my voice almost unrecognizable as I reached for the CD. My eyes were riveted on the cover, mesmerized by the long, slippery neck of a sea monster surfacing behind the band as they stood on the shore of a loch—and by Sean’s face staring back at me.
Two minutes later, I was back in the car, clawing at the shrink-wrap with my short, blunt fingernails, trying to catch an edge in the plastic and rip it off. I could feel an unfamiliar urgency coursing through me ... and then—finally—it was free. Clumsily I pushed the disc into the changer, sparing one final glance for what I could only assume was the Loch Ness Monster. I was 99 percent certain that the photo had been digitally enhanced.
Desperate once again to be doing rather than thinking, I shifted the car into gear and pulled out of the parking lot just as the haunting music from last night’s Web search filled the car.
Somehow I managed to find my way home with the deep, dark edge of Sean’s voice coursing over me, through me, into me. I could picture him, singing these words, and it wasn’t so hard to imagine him singing them to me. It wasn’t until the CD changer clicked over to the next disc in the queue that I realized I’d been sitting in my driveway, oblivious to the world, for at least a half hour. Evidently the stand I’d intended to take against Fairy Jane had been cut off at the knees, and my willpower was fading fast.
It didn’t help that when I walked inside, threw my keys on the counter, and ripped away Saturday’s page in the quote-a-day calendar, Sunday’s read, “ ‘Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way.’ Emma.” Apparently I needed to get a little cheeky, and everything would work itself out. That didn’t exactly sound like a strategy to live by.