“To be fair—”
“By all means”—she was proud of her tone, just sarcastic enough—“let’s be fair.”
“I am not a seer, therefore I had no premonition of yesterday’s explosion. You weren’t begging and pleading—you were throwing a tantrum. And I never screwed you, we made love.” He was motionless, quiet, and logical.
She hated that. “Would begging and pleading have changed your mind?”
“No.”
“Exactly. So a tantrum was more satisfying.” She hated that he always seemed in control. Even when he made love to her, he was in control. Except for that one time. That first time. If they could somehow go back to that moment . . .
“Do you not have something smart-ass to say about the distinction between screwing and making love?”
“No.” No, because she was still in bed and rumpled. And easy.
“Then I want to talk about what happened two years ago between us.”
No way, mister. She rolled to the other side of the mattress and swung her feet off the bed. “You go ahead. I’ll go into the bathroom and shut the door.”
“Did you know after we’d been together that week, your mother had a vision about you and me?”
Jacqueline swung her feet back up and faced him. “When? Then?”
“She called me.”
Jacqueline thought back on those perfect days of learning karate, making love, eating, sleeping, and knowing, for the first time in her life, that she belonged to someone. “She had a vision about us . . . together?” The mere thought was beyond embarrassing.
“Perhaps I should call it a hunch brought on by my continued absence at her side. At any rate, she called me.”
“Did she?”
“She asked me what in the hell I was doing with her little girl.”
“And you said?”
“I said very little. I listened, and I . . . agreed.”
She didn’t like this conversation. She didn’t like where it was leading, and really didn’t like the fact that she so greedily wanted the information. “Agreed?”
“I agreed that you were twenty, a college girl.”
She knew this was funny, in an awful way, but she couldn’t smile. “I knew what went where.”
“I seduced you.”
She did laugh now, but bitterly and briefly. “That wasn’t a seduction, my dear. That was a mutual and very satisfying release of pent-up lust. Besides, I don’t know that your penitence is worth much. I was younger than you then. I’m younger than you now. Sometime between two years ago and two days ago, you decided I was old enough to screw.”
“You are older than you were two years ago. I made love to you, and . . . in two years of ample opportunity, you had found nobody you loved. So you can love me instead.”
Her palm itched to slap him, and she closed her hand into a fist to contain the urge. “Do you think it’s that easy? I found no one, so I must take you? And why would I, when you left me on my mother’s command?”
“I left you so you could go back to college.”
“But I didn’t.” A cruel imp made her taunt him. “Do you know why I didn’t?”
“Because I . . .” He stopped.
“Don’t flatter yourself. It had nothing to do with you. When you walked out to return to your job as Zusane’s primary bodyguard, I had nowhere else to go but back to college and that was where I was headed. It was Wyatt King who convinced me that running away was the best thing I could do with my life.”
Caleb slowly straightened in his chair.
She was enjoying herself now. “Yeah. I’ll bet that crushes your poor, meager little ego. It wasn’t you who sent me flying across the country. It was a phone call from Wyatt King.”
The color bleached out of Caleb’s blue eyes until they resembled pure, hard diamonds. “What did he say to you?”
“He told me that his father’s lawyer had gotten him off on all charges. He told me I’d better never come back to that school.” Every word she spoke hurt her, like knives stabbed to her heart. “Because he made sure everyone knew I was a freak.”
“I’ll kill him.” Caleb’s lips barely moved.
“For what? Telling me the truth?” She spread her hands toward herself. “Look at me. Here I am, in a nightgown that’s too small and forty years out of date, in a house with a bunch of other freaks, afraid to go out in case someone kills me.”
He disregarded that, intent on pursuing one subject at a time. “You traveled the country. You supported yourself with all kinds of jobs. You took care of yourself. You should be confident.”
“Oh, I am.”
“I am proud of you.”
“I’m glad of that.”
“So why would you believe something a little piss ant like Wyatt King told you two years ago?”
“Because knowing what I can do isn’t the same as knowing I’m worth caring about. Wyatt thought I was a freak. Mother adopted me because she wanted a clone. You think I should take you because I haven’t found anyone else.” That maddened Jacqueline beyond any of the horrible, terrible facts of her life. “I don’t really know what it is that makes me inherently unlovable, but I deal with it pretty well.”
He would have spoken.
She didn’t give him a chance. She didn’t want to listen to him mouth platitudes about her desirability. Swinging her legs off the far side of the mattress again, she got up, and walked to the bathroom. “I don’t need you to pretend a grand passion for me. We have great sex together. Whoo-hoo! But let’s not get carried away.”
The blue came back into his eyes, and they almost twinkled as he stood up.
She talked faster. “After all, you have a job to do. My mother told you to keep me safe.” She clapped her hands together and made a shooing gesture. “So you better hit the streets and find out what you can about yesterday’s explosion.” Stepping into the bathroom, she shut the door. And locked it.
There was more than one way to have the last word.
Chapter 20
Tray in hand, Jacqueline stood outside Irving’s bedroom and tried to figure out how to knock. Finally, she used her toes to thump on the wide wooden door.
At once, McKenna opened the door and looked her over from top to bottom, his gaze lingering disdainfully on her bare feet.
She smiled brightly. “I have Irving’s lunch.”
“Yes.” McKenna stood unyielding, like a broad Celtic boulder.
“Let the child in!” Irving called.
With an infinitesimal bow, McKenna stepped away from the door.
She walked into Irving’s bedroom—and stopped short. This cavernous room was more than a mere bedroom. It was a study, a library, a repository of relics. Jacqueline gaped as she looked at the bookshelves, crammed with leather-bound texts and parchment scrolls, with empty-eyed skulls and skilled glasswork and jewelry. African war masks hung on the walls between pieces of exquisitely rendered Italian Renaissance art. An illuminated world globe rested on a tall maple stand.
When she could catch her breath, she said, “This is spectacular. Where did you get all this stuff?”
“Here and there.” Irving sat in a large easy chair set in the sunlight streaming through the window, his legs up on an ottoman and covered with a throw. “McKenna brought up my most treasured possessions from the library. Sadly, I spend more time here than I used to, and I like to be surrounded by my things.” A long library table was beside him, stacked with books and artifacts. He shoved them aside, clearing a space. “This is pleasant of you to bring me my tray.”
Pleasant? He’d specifically asked for her. But perhaps the old man had had a brain glitch. He seemed sharp enough, but he was ninety-three.
Or maybe he knew she’d once worked room service at a Marriot in Phoenix.
She put the tray down and uncovered the dishes, indicating each one as she named the contents. “An antipasto plate, field green salad with Italian dressing on the side, pasta primavera, garlic bread, and for dessert, tira
misu. Martha made it all.”
Irving tossed the throw aside and turned toward his lunch. “Well, Martha is a very good cook.”
McKenna harrumphed in discontent.
“McKenna, you’re a miracle worker, conjuring dinner for all of us last night out of thin air,” Jacqueline said.
“Thank you, Miss Jacqueline.” Amazing how McKenna managed to infuse those four words with such rejection.
“That will be all, McKenna.” Irving flicked his fingers at McKenna. “Shut the door behind you.”
Jacqueline watched McKenna bow again and march out, his spine as stiff and straight as an exclamation point. “He didn’t like me bringing up your lunch.”
“He’s a fussbudget who thinks he is the only one who can care for me.” Irving winked with good humor, picked up his fork and spoon, and dug into the pasta with the appetite of a young man.
“Easy for you to say. He won’t punish you with undercooked chicken.” She had enough people mad at her. Caleb. Her mother. The other six seerless Chosen. Adding McKenna was the icing on the cake.
“Did Caleb go off with our new Chosen?” Irving asked.
“He’s got the men in tow, picking up toothbrushes, clothes, and other essentials. He figures with four guys, if they’re attacked, they’ve got a fighting chance.”
“Will they be attacked?”
“How would I know?” she asked in irritation. Books lay open on the table, and she pulled them toward her. They were old—medieval, perhaps—written in languages she didn’t recognize, much less speak. One had an inkblot in the middle of the page, as if the monk had suddenly died in the middle of scribing a word. She looked beyond the books at the artifacts. They were an unsettling collection of history: a glass jar full of yellowed teeth, a Mesopotamian fertility goddess, a lava lamp.
Worst of all, Irving just happened to have a crystal ball, a beautifully rounded glass ball sitting on a primitive carved wood base.
Was it mere accident that it was out?
She doubted that.
“Sit down.” He waved his silverware at the chair opposite.
She eased herself down, hoping he wasn’t going to demand she produce a vision like some conjurer producing a coin out of thin air.
Instead he said, “Before all this started, I was going through my wine cellar and I found a few bottles that need to be investigated. I know you’re the wine expert—I thought perhaps you could help me out.”
Pleased, because she was off the hook, and because Irving was noted for his fine wines, Jacqueline said, “I’m not an oenophile, by any means, but I have tasted a few wines in my time.”
“I’m holding the Sunset Vineyards cabernet sauvignon you sent me.” He leaned forward. “That was very kind of you to remember me during such a difficult time in your life.”
“I think I can safely say that that difficult time is only beginning,” she said gloomily.
“Let’s worry about that later.” He brushed her concern aside. Leaning down beside his chair, he picked up a bottle, and placed it on the table. “This is an ’06 Seghesio San Lorenzo zinfandel.”
“I know Seghesio! An excellent winery.” She inspected their pale cream-colored label with the distinctive swooping font. “They’re known for their big zins.”
“Here’s my ’97 Sanford pinot noir.” He placed another bottle on the table.
“Before my time, but I’ve heard of it.”
“And a 1989 Chateau de Beaucastel Hommage a Jacques Perrin.” He produced the dusty bottle with a flourish.
She wrinkled her brow as she thought. “Isn’t that the Chateauneuf-du-Pape red blend? The one with the ninety-eight rating?”
“Very good!” He approved her knowledge.
“But this is rare.” She picked up the bottle, wiped it clean, and examined it. “And expensive. It sells for over two thousand dollars a bottle.”
“I bought a case long before the price reached such an exorbitant level.”
“Oh. Good.” Somehow, she suspected his idea of exorbitant and hers differed wildly.
He placed a cork remover on the table by the lineup of bottles. “The thermostat on my cellar has been malfunctioning. I need to find out if my wines are still drinkable, or if I should throw a party and invite a lot of neophytes. Who better to assist me than you?”
Relieved to hear that was all he wanted, she laughed, stood, and started opening the bottles. “By all means, let me help you with this project.”
“Glasses are over there.” He waved his fork in the direction of the china cabinet.
She got a collection of fine crystal and filled each with a taster’s sip. “We’ll try the pinot first, then the Chateauneuf-du-Pape, then the zin.”
Irving took the first glass she handed him and held it to the light. He swirled the wine to aerate it and put his nose to the glass.
Jacqueline watched him with affection. “I remember when you taught me how to taste wine.”
“You had just graduated from high school and your mother scolded me for corrupting a minor.”
“Tasting that Chardonnay was the wildest thing I did for graduation.” She had always been the odd man out. “Everyone else in my class was running wild, going for a senior all-nighter on the beach, and Mother was personally making sure I remained sober and virginal.”
“You can’t blame her for wanting that.”
“Of course I can,” Jacqueline said lightly. Picking up her glass, she looked, swirled, and sniffed the wine. “This has a beautiful strawberry color. The nose is cherry, but more floral than fruit.”
The two smiled at each other, clicked the glasses, and sipped together.
“Ahhh.” Irving half closed his eyes in appreciation. “Burgundy-esque with cherry notes.”
“And what a finish! If this is representative of your wines, I can’t see that there’s anything wrong with your storage.”
“A little past its prime, though.” He poured his glass full, held out the bottle for her.
She let him fill her glass. “It is a ’97 pinot. It would have been at its peak two or three years ago.”
He applied his fork to his salad. “Help yourself to the antipasto plate.”
While she sampled the prosciutto, the cantaloupe, the black peppercorn cheese, the roasted vegetables, he polished off the pasta, the salad, and half the bread. Both agreed the pinot went down easily. The Chateauneuf-du-Pape was wonderful, but Jacqueline said it was too expensive, and they had a spirited discussion about value versus cost. The zinfandel . . .
She frowned. “The zinfandel smells a little smoky, and not in a good way.”
He sniffed the wine. “I don’t get that at all.”
She lifted her nose out of her glass and sniffed the air. “It’s in the room. It smells like something electrical shorting out. I hope there’s no problem with your wiring.” A fire was the last thing they needed.
“I can’t smell smoke. And it’s certainly not the wine.” He tasted it. “This is excellent, deserving of all its praises.”
Jacqueline sniffed again. Irving was right. The smoky scent had vanished.
Jacqueline took a cracker to clear her palate, tried the zin, and agreed with Irving’s assessment. In her opinion, this was the best of the three. And by the time she had finished three glasses of wine, half of Irving’s tiramisu and the ruby port he insisted she try, she was mellow enough to say, “Irving. There’s nothing wrong with your wine or your wine storage. So why did you ask me up here?”
“I never can fool you, can I?” He leaned back in his chair, his eyes suddenly sharp.
With a shock, she realized the wine that had mellowed her had not affected him in the least.
He went right after his goal. “It’s time to release your fears and become the seer you were meant to be.”
She slapped her palm to the table. “I knew it! I knew we were having this pleasant little stroll down memory lane for a reason!”
“Do you get a shock when you hit your hand like that?
Can you feel that tattoo speaking to you?” He watched her, his dark eyes alive with a probing curiosity.
“No. I can’t feel it speaking to me.” Standing, she stalked over to the curio cabinet and stared blindly at the contents. Then she realized what she was looking at, and asked, “What are you doing with a collection of shrunken heads?”