Jason gathered her into the warm strength of his body, giving her all the comfort she could have wished for. His hand swept gently along her naked back. “If she can’t,” he said, “it has nothing to do with you. The first time we met, I loved you without even trying.”
“I love you, too.”
He continued to soothe and caress her, until the embrace began to seem somewhat more lecherous than comforting. “You know,” he said thoughtfully, his hand slipping beneath the sheet, “this whole relationship has moved so damned fast, I don’t see any point in slowing down now. I’ll ask you the right way later, but Justine, sweet love … you’re going to have to marry me.” He paused. “That wasn’t an order, incidentally. It was … imperative begging.”
“Marriage,” she repeated, stunned. “Oh, let’s not even go there. It’s too soon.”
“We’re already sharing a soul,” he pointed out. “We may as well start filing joint tax returns.”
Justine let out a rueful laugh, knowing that once Jason set his mind on something, he was nothing short of relentless. “I can’t begin to imagine how the logistics would work.”
“Logistics are easy. Full-on marriage, twenty-four-seven, living in the same house and spending every night in the same bed. We’ll spend most of our time on the island, but occasionally you’ll spend a week in San Francisco with me. We’ll hire a manager to help take care of Artist’s Point whenever you’re gone.”
“But not just anyone can do what I do,” she protested. “Usually guests at a bed-and-breakfast expect a warm and personal experience, like they’re visiting someone’s home.”
“We’ll hire a warm and personal manager. I’ll have Priscilla find someone.”
“I do not want any help from Priscilla.”
He asked gingerly, “You’re still annoyed with her for helping me borrow the Triodecad?”
“Steal. And yes, at the moment she has all the appeal of finding a hair in a biscuit.”
“None of it was her fault. I was the devil who made her do it.”
“Yes.” She let out a breathless laugh as he tugged the sheet away from her. “But you’re my devil.”
“And you’re my gorgeous little witch.”
“A witch with no magic,” she said, but she was smiling as he pulled her onto his lap.
“There’s magic in every part of you,” he told her.
“Prove it,” Justine said throatily, linking her arms around his neck.
They both knew that Jason Black was not a man to back down from a challenge.
Discussion Questions
1. What is the significance of clocks and time in the story? What kind of message does it convey about how we measure our lives?
2. Do you believe that there are people whose abilities go beyond the realm of the five senses? Do you think this is magic, science, or perhaps a little bit of both?
3. Do you believe in the concept of soul mates? Why or why not?
4. At the start of the story, Justine does not believe love is possible for her. Do you think that some of this is a self-fulfilling prophecy? Have you ever known anyone like Justine?
5. When was the first moment you realized that there was a spark between Justine and Jason? Why do you think he was watching her in the garden?
6. Jason Black is demanding, perfectionistic, inflexible, and impatient. Are these qualities always bad ones? Do they help make a person successful? Are they attractive in a man? Why or why not? Are they attractive in a woman? Why or why not?
7. When describing his abusive childhood to Justine, Jason says, “Words lie, actions don’t.” Do you agree or disagree?
8. At one point Justine asks Rosemary and Sage, “Don’t you understand the difference between love and control?” Is it difficult for some people to tell the difference? Have you ever viewed the actions of someone who loves you as controlling?
9. Justine’s relationship with her mother is certainly complicated. Do you understand any of her mother’s actions or do you think she was completely unjustified?
10. What do you think of Rosemary and Sage’s relationship? How do they fill the mother role that Justine is so sorely missing?
11. What is it about being an innkeeper that works with Justine’s past hurts and vulnerabilities? What do you think would be appealing about running an inn?
12. Which moment of the book felt more like a turning point for the relationship between Justine and Jason: when he rescues her from the kayak accident, or when he steals the grimoire?
13. What did you think of Jason taking the grimoire? Did you understand or condone his actions? Was there another course of action he could have taken?
14. Did you think Priscilla was an adversary or an advocate? Did you like her or dislike her? Why or why not?
15. What do you think of the resolution between Justine and her mother?
16. If you could have the powers of a hereditary witch, what would they be and why?
For more reading group suggestions, visit www.readinggroupgold.com.
Don’t miss LIGHTNING BAY by Lisa Kleypas. Coming in September 2013. Read on for a preview.
Chapter One
Every day on earth, an average of one hundred and fifty four thousand people died. The man walking along the dock had no idea that he was about to become one of them.
Only minutes left, ticking down to the last breath, the final heartbeat.
An angel named Friday waited unseen by the man’s side. It was his responsibility to collect the soul of the departed and escort him—or her—to the next world.
Most people died by degrees. But some, like Zachary Logan, were caught by surprise. He was thirty-five but looked forty, his dark good looks blunted from having lived too fast, seen too much. As a foreign correspondent, he had reported from war zones around the world with no apparent concern for his own safety. Although he had won awards and accolades for his work, there had been a price for every story he’d written. He had paid out pieces of his heart like coin silver, until he had eventually stopped caring about things that should have mattered.
Today Zachary intended to meet with a boat agent to discuss pricing for a cruiser sailboat he wanted to sell. The vessel was moored at a small private bay in San Juan Island, the dock co-owned by a nearby condo development. Making his way to the foredeck, the man frowned at the cold-breathing ocean, the rustling sky. Waves slapped the hull, causing the deck to bob gently beneath his feet. Sharp little breezes broke the surface of the bay and whistled through the halyard lines strung from the mast.
Rain-fattened clouds tumbled slowly across the sky, their hearts filled with lightning.
Friday guessed that the air was fresh with storm-smell. He had vague recollections of having once enjoyed the scent of rain, the feel of cool wind or hot sun on his skin, the taste of buttered bread, or beer from a chilled brown bottle. Of course, there was a lot about being human that he didn’t miss—pain, stress, hunger. Paying bills. Mosquito bites. Hand dryers in public bathrooms. Screaming children in restaurants.
But there were some things Friday wouldn’t mind experiencing again. Live music, played loud enough to thrum through his bones. Eggs and bacon for breakfast. Sleeping late on Sunday mornings. Most of all, he missed women. The scent and smoothness of their skin, the tangly-soft disorder of a woman’s hair when she woke up in the morning. Friday had never settled down with anyone in particular, which in retrospect might have been a mistake. If he had it to do over again—
His musings were interrupted as Zachary used a cell phone to call the boat agent and let him know that the storm was coming in faster than predicted. They agreed to reschedule the meeting.
Three minutes left.
According to his file, Zachary’s considerable pile of good works had earned him a place in heaven.
Lucky bastard.
Friday had never been allowed to set one foot inside the main gate.
“All you need concern yourself with,” his supervisor Elsegoode had told him only that
morning, “is guiding souls to their afterlives as efficiently as possible.” Elsegoode was a former British majordomo who ran his celestial department with all the relaxed charm of a man firmly seated on a porcupine.
“How long do I have to do this? When do I get in?”
Elsegoode had seemed genuinely perplexed. “In?”
“Past the gate.”
“Friday, you’ve been assigned to the lowest order of angels in the hierarchy. You can ascend no higher.”
“Until when?”
“There is no ‘until.’” Elsegoode’s tone had gentled as he saw Friday’s bewilderment. “This is your eternal existence.”
“But…what if I do a good job? Don’t I get a reward?”
“Your opportunity to earn heavenly rewards was during life.”
“No one told me that when I was down there.”
“There are nineteen major religions, any one of which could have helped to improve your character. Why didn’t you try any of them?”
“I didn’t know I was supposed to!”
“You were supposed to do good for others, Friday. That is the purpose of every human existence. But you spent every moment of your thirty years thinking only of your own needs. Pursuing pleasure for its own sake. The only reason you managed to obtain placement in my department is because your life ended with a feat of heroism. You should count yourself fortunate indeed.”
“Oh, I’m lucky as hell,” Friday had replied bitterly.
“Any more profanity and I’ll double your daily quota of soul transfers for the next century. Now, back to work.”
Resigned and surly, Friday now watched as deadly static charges built in top-heavy clouds.
Stepping along the side deck to the cockpit, Zachary Logan made one last call. “Neva,” he said.
Friday looked at him alertly, recognizing the name. It had been noted in the file that Zachary been engaged briefly to a woman named Neva Landry, but he had broken it off about six months ago. Zachary still loved her as much as any man could with a heart as hard as a pine knot.
“I’m here on the island,” Zachary continued. “A couple of days at most. I’m staying at one of the condos at the bay. I thought I might come by and get the rest of my stuff, if that’s…” He paused for a moment. “Tonight works for me. You’re sure it’s no trouble?” He scrubbed his fingers through his hair, the dark brown locks cropped short and uneven. “Thanks, but it’s probably better if I don’t stay for dinner.” Another pause. “I’m doing okay,” he said. “No complaints. How about you?” A reluctant smile emerged. “What was that?…It sounded like you just said you’re going to buy a llama.” He gave a brief laugh. “Jesus. If you say so.”
Friday stood right in front of him. “Why don’t you tell her how you feel?” he suggested with a touch of exasperation. “You’ve got thirty seconds left on earth.”
The man couldn’t hear him, of course. Only guardians or messengers were allowed to perform the delicate task of intervening in a life-in-progress, even if that life were just about to end. But even though Friday had never been the sentimental type in life—and even less so now—he thought it was a pity that Zachary Logan’s last words to his former fiancée would be so meaningless.
“There are things you’ll wish you’d told her, once you’re gone,” Friday added.
“Storm’s coming in,” Zachary said brusquely to the woman on the phone. “I’ll talk to you later.” He ended the call and methodically tucked the phone in an inner pocket of his windbreaker.
“There is no ‘later’ for you,” Friday said, staring at the man’s averted face.
The cloud was sullen with unshed rain, the storm settling against the hem of unbroken cloud. Zachary’s head lifted as a metallic crackle filled the air, as if the sky itself were being unzipped. His hair stood on end, his body caught in a streamer of energy snaking upward. A faint lavender glow surrounded him.
I’m too close, Friday realized at that moment.
He’d been given specific instructions about collecting a soul after a lightning-strike. The most important one: keep your distance until the final shockwave had radiated from the strike path. It wasn’t that Friday wasn’t concerned about his own safety; he was already dead. Nothing could happen to him. But there would be plenty of bitching from Elsegoode if the procedure wasn’t done properly, and Friday wasn’t in the mood for any more lectures.
Too late, Friday tried to escape the lightning’s path.
Too late, Zachary perceived the danger he was in and tried to scramble from the boat.
But a chill of brightness had already bloomed around them, and the sky had split with a vicious wrack of light. Branches of plasma wriggled downward, embroidering volatile paths through the air as they searched for a positive charge…until they found the one reaching upward from the unfortunate man on the sailboat.
The strike was instant. Massive. White oblivion caught them both, a billion electric volts pouring simultaneously through flesh and spirit-matter. The bolt crossed Zachary’s heart, followed by a flash that separated his soul from its fragile container of human fabric.
This was the moment when Friday was supposed to take custody and guide Zachary safely through the transition.
Except that Friday had found himself caught in the traction of something he couldn’t escape. He’d been swallowed by a cold and howling darkness that pulled him downward. Everything was chaos. The bottomless descent threatened to pull him apart, the force of acceleration tearing at esse and thought, until what was left of him came to rest, buried, in some lost frozen place.
He couldn’t move nor speak nor hear nor see.
This wasn’t death. It was something much worse.
What’s happening? For the first time since he’d become an angel, Friday experienced fear.
And then he felt pain.
But that wasn’t possible. Angels were beyond corporal sensation.
Nevertheless he became aware of a kind of sickening, suffocating weight all around him, as if he were some tiny winged creature drowning in resin, doomed to an eternal amber prison.
He could not speak or think, could only radiate a despairing voiceless plea.
Someone would have to find him. Someone would have to help him. Wouldn’t they?
He struggled against the hideous entombment, spewing blasphemies like some bound demon. The pain slashed and stabbed at intervals, catching him by surprise each time.
After a measureless period of torment, Elsegoode’s familiar starched tone pierced the shroud of darkness. “Friday.”
Wild relief flooded him as light flourished and he could finally see. The supervising angel stood before him, looking dour and disapproving. Instead of his usual raiment, Elsegoode was dressed in mortal clothes, including a plaid vest, flannel trousers, and a straw boater hat.
“Thank God,” Friday blurted out. “Elsegoode. I’ve never been so glad to see anyone. I don’t know what happened. I was standing with the mortal—“
“Zachary Logan.”
“—and then the lightning struck, and I lost him. What happened to the soul? Did you—” Friday stopped abruptly as he took in his surroundings. They were in a sunlit green meadow, thick-frosted with brilliant wildflowers. Nearby, a sparkling clear creek rushed gently past a small rustic cottage with a thatched roof. “What is this place?”
“One of my favorite boyhood memories. Whenever I’m called upon to appear to someone in a dream, I usually bring him here. The surroundings are quite soothing, aren’t they?”
“Why are we here?” Friday asked warily.
“This is, at present, the only way I can manage to communicate with you.”
“You mean…we’re inside a mortal’s dream?”
“Yes.”
“Whose?”
“Yours, Friday.”
“But angels don’t dream.”
“Quite.”
“Then how—“
“I will explain, if you would refrain from interrupting.” Elseg
oode gave him a narrow-eyed glare. “This time you’ve made a real dog’s breakfast of it, Friday. You were give specific instructions to keep your distance from lightning strikes. Was that too difficult to understand, or did you simply decide, as usual, that the rules weren’t worth bothering about?”
“I was careless,” Friday admitted. “But since I’ve made only one mistake in ten years, I think I deserve a pass.”
“What you deserve is to be cast out of my department altogether,” Elsegoode snapped. “And that may yet be your fate. But before anything is decided, the situation with Zachary Logan must be resolved. We’re having some difficulty locating his soul.” Elsegoode looked morose. “I may be reassigned after this.”
“I’ll find him,” Friday said. “I’ll explain to the higher-ups that it was my fault. I’ll take full responsibility—” He paused to grit his teeth as a wave of excruciating pain went through him. It was so intense that he couldn’t control his reaction. “Damn it, what’s going on?”
“Can’t you guess?” Elsegoode asked, his voice shaded with something like pity.
“Nothing makes sense. I’m hurting like a son of a bitch, but I’m dead. I can’t feel pain. So why…” His voice faded, and he gave Elsegoode a stricken glance as he understood.
“You’re in Zachary Logan’s body,” the angel said.
Neva sat in the waiting area of a Bellevue hospital critical care unit, sipping lukewarm tea from a Styrofoam cup. She set the cup aside and dug for a phone from her bag as she felt it vibrate.
It was a text from her younger brother Rye.
Any news yet?
Still nothing, she texted back. Gonna be a long night.
I’ll come wait with you.
No. Stay home and rest.
Rye, a geologist who was constantly traveling, had just returned to Seattle from a long stint on a marine seismic acquisition boat in the Arctic. He had to be exhausted, and there was nothing he could do for her at the hospital. Besides, he was terrible in waiting rooms, all brooding and bored and twitchy.