The Touch of Magic Series, page 88
He laughed. Maybe there was hope.
CHAPTER 12
Rae sighed, watching as the two swing dance teachers stood together in perfect form. Their arms managed to stay stiff without looking robotic, each finger, each muscle in exactly the right position to demonstrate how a man should hold his partner and how she should hold herself. Add to that Meredith and Ken were decked head to toe in fabulous swing outfits, including obviously expensive dance shoes. The outfit showed off not only perfect physiques but also perfect style.
Rae’s own jeans and slightly heeled loafers just didn’t seem as cool as they had when she’d chosen them earlier tonight. She’d liked her own outfit, right up until she’d entered the front door.
“Come on.” Sam’s voice pulled her back to reality. Which, to be honest, wasn’t much better than the slow downward spiral of jealousy and self-doubt she’d been riding all evening. “You need to stop slumping.”
Excellent. She was slumping in front of a guy who had kissed her senseless. She didn’t think poor posture had ever made anyone’s top ten ways to catch a man list. “Hmmm.” It was all she could think to say without incriminating herself.
His hands left her, vacating their positions at the small of her back and holding her other hand out. The raised hand felt odd, hanging out in space.
He’s given up on me already. The thought flitted through her mind, but dissolved when both his hands appeared at her waist, just resting on her hips. His voice was low, and difficult to pay attention to, as his hands were running up her back, slowly but surely causing the intake of breath that was straightening her spine. Maybe slumping was underrated. Maybe she should do it more if it earned her this.
His words were not seductive. Crap. “We’re not going to look like them right away, that takes years of training.”
“And a great wardrobe.” She murmured back, noting the brief warm smile her comment generated.
Teacher Ken’s voice cut through her thoughts, “We’ll be learning two moves tonight. A more basic move . . .” He didn’t finish the sentence, just started dancing with no perceptible motion to Meredith. They moved in perfect time to nonexistent music, after a moment of simple steps he spun her out slowly, then wound her back in close and dipped her. “And a more difficult move.”
Their feet never stopped, and he and Meredith realigned, but only for a heartbeat. Then he spun her fast enough to show off the perfect flare of her skirt and the ruffled matching panties she wore underneath. He continued to speak while moving his feet and still leading Meredith through a series of three turns in different directions and a variety of holds.
They finished side by side with Meredith not looking the slightest bit winded or dizzy, although Rae had experienced both sensations just watching them.
“All right,” This time it was Meredith’s dulcet tones that rang out over the crowd. “Let’s take the beginners on the entry-side of the room with me, and the more experienced dancers on the window side with Ken.”
Rae let go of the near-death grip she had on Sam and went back into her slump. Sam belonged on the advanced side of the room. She did not. “I guess I’ll see you later, then.”
But he grabbed her hand and pulled her back to the appropriate position, facing him with about two feet in between. “You paid my way in, I’m going to earn my keep.”
“Oooh,” she smiled, “I got me a man-ho for the evening.”
“No.”
Just that one word and she knew she’d been put back in her place. She should not have said that. It was offensive. She was opening her mouth to offer a truly sincere apology, but she was honestly afraid that opening her mouth would let her put her foot right back in it.
Her fear only lasted a moment until Sam eased her concerns. “I don’t man-ho for this cheap, and my man-ho moves are certainly far too good to use in public.”
Her fear and tension dissipating, Rae laughed and almost missed that Meredith had asked them to line up all facing the same way and she was showing the basic footwork and they should all practice by copying her.
There were a few people who instantaneously began doing the proper moves, Sam among them. But within a few minutes, Rae could keep up with the music and didn’t embarrass herself. There were a couple people who obviously had zero sense of rhythm, and Rae tried not to look at them, afraid they would throw her off beat. At the same time, she was fascinated with how a person couldn’t feel the thrum of the music.
A short while later, Ken left the advanced group doing a few minutes of practice, while he joined Meredith to show the proper hold again and add in the footwork.
Rae watched for a few measures, finding Ken to be an amazing dancer with moments of blinding fabulousness. As she watched, she sent up a quick prayer that she could follow along. Then another that dancing with Sam would undo whatever spell that Christmas kiss had visited upon her.
Even as she was having that thought, Sam took her hand in his, tugging her close. First, he used his free hand to position her fingers in the proper hold over his own, then he ran his fingertips down her arm creating the proper dance space and calling to mind wicked images of Dirty Dancing.
She fought to hide the shiver that shimmied up her body at his touch.
Competing sensations warred in her brain. Sam’s hand, creating a warm pressure on her lower back, or her own palm collecting heat from his well-muscled shoulder, through soft cotton. Her legs, almost locked from her inability to think about anything else.
Oh yeah, and she was supposed to be paying attention to her feet? That was not going to happen.
After a few minutes Rae gave up wishing that something here would snap her out of it. Sam didn’t have a femme side. He wasn’t rude or pushy about her lack of ability. He didn’t even seem to mind being stuck on the beginner side of the room. She wasn’t getting over that kiss. If anything was happening, the opposite problem was occurring. She was getting more tangled up in it all. Even though she really had no idea what it was. But broad muscles, soft T-shirts, and a ready laugh weren’t helping her let go of her growing fantasy.
Then Ken suggested they each pair up with a more experienced partner. And Sam was suddenly gone. Off to find a more experienced partner than himself. Rae stood alone, looking around the class, knowing she needed to find her own partner. Just as she’d told Sam she would do.
Instantly there was a broad palm, with a light dusting of hair on the forearm, and a voice, “Hi, I’m Oscar.” And she looked up and smiled into a handsome set of brown eyes and shook his hand, even as she felt the bucket of ice water douse her. Oscar was hot, friendly, and even sweet.
Still, he was no Sam.
Rae tried not to watch Sam performing the same set-up on a thin, dark-haired beauty who beamed at him with a smile that reached to her eyes and beyond. Sam smiled back at the woman, as casually as he had with her. And why shouldn’t he? He was used to this. It was just her. Just that stupid Christmas kiss that pulled the rug out from under her. She fought to find her own voice and her own decency for the nice man who’d rescued her from being left over.
“Hi Oscar, I’m Rae, short for Rachel.” And with that she put her arms and her mind into Oscar’s capable hands.
CHAPTER 13
Rae thumbed through the jumble of mail she pulled from the vertical mailbox in the lobby. It had practically fallen out in her hands, there was so much of it. She stood in the lobby, tucking business size envelopes under her chin as she chucked pieces of junk mail into the overflowing lobby trash. When she looked at the bin she could practically reconstruct the tree that had been killed to offer everyone in the building that low, low interest rate credit card. Knowing her friend didn’t want a new credit card or plastic surgery either, she threw away some of Sheree’s mail, too.
With letters laced between her fingers in three categories—Sheree, Rae, both—Rae climbed the steps. There was an elevator, but it wasn’t fast by any stretch. And there was no better way to a great ass than climbing actual stairs. She wound up through the stairwell that the manager clearly didn’t expect anyone to use. It was neglected and dingy compared to the rest of the building, which as a whole was pretty nice for the mid-level rent.
She wanted to thumb through the catalogues that had arrived, but they stayed tucked in her left hand, as she didn’t have a fully free hand to open the heavy fire door from the staircase and she didn’t have enough fingers to operate the key to the apartment door. Setting all the mail and her camera cases at her feet in the hallway, Rae searched her purse for her keys before remembering she’d shoved them in her pocket.
Pushing the door open, she spilled into the unit, smiling at the bright colors she and Sheree had painted the walls last summer when work had been slow for both of them. Bit by bit, she hauled all her things inside, cameras, mail, catalogues.
Managing to get Sheree’s mail into the inbox she’d set on the entry table, Rae held onto her own. Then she sorted her own bills into the other box and started shredding through her own mail while sitting at the dining room table. The chair was hard and the mail wasn’t all that fun. She had a bill for her student loans. Which she could cover, but she’d forgotten about it, and there went those leather boots she wanted. She frowned when she saw the return address on a plain white envelope. The Webber Gallery. The Webber was a local place for fine and semi-fine art. Rae had a piece there on commission and another in the back room, that she hoped they’d get out and dust off soon. Neither had sold, and it had been a while.
With a deep breath she steeled herself to open the letter, just praying it didn’t say they hadn’t been able to sell either piece and could she please come reclaim them?
But the letter didn’t say that at all.
In fact, she wasn’t certain what the letter said at all, because a beautiful baby-blue business check was clipped to the front. For a good handful of hundreds of dollars.
Holy shit.
She had to shake her head to clear it. Wondering if it had all been a mistake, she gingerly lifted the edge of the check and began reading the attached letter. Her mouth formed a round ‘o’. She had sold The Towers. At full asking price. And she’d been pretty certain it had been the one they’d initially put in the back. Maybe they had rotated it out front instead of Butterfly.
“Hey! I’m home!” Sheree’s voice came from just beyond the wall.
Rae assaulted her with a huge hug.
CHAPTER 14
Sloan took her out to celebrate. Rae thought it was only appropriate that she buy the dinner with her fat check, but Sloan wouldn’t hear of it.
“Fat checks are awesome, but they can go through your hands like water,” Sloan had told her over shrimp scampi. “Put as much of it into savings as you can. But you can get one pair of boots.”
Rae grinned. She had the best big sister.
Sloan went on. “When I first got this job, the pay was definitely higher than I’d gotten before. And the first three months, I did nothing of value with it. I could not tell you where that extra money went.”
Rae nodded. Big sister wisdom to the rescue. “At least yours was steady.”
Sloan nodded. “But I’m doing the nine-to-five thing. It’s not for you.” However, she smiled and raised her glass of wine. “Here’s to your first big sale, and may there be many more!”
Rae could drink to that. By the time she left, Sloan had piled all the to go boxes into Rae’s hands and told her to take them for herself.
“I can feed myself!” she protested.
“I know. I do. But I also know how it feels to be concerned about money.”
Yes, Rae thought, there was a rough two months after she graduated when she was just starting out with her first company. Then Sloan had stepped in. But that’s what you got when you had a math degree that she got in three years, followed immediately by an MBA. So she took the food. She was the creative one.
She leaned back against the headrest in Sloan’s nice sedan and moaned. “I think dinner gave me the body shape of that cannelloni.”
Sloane laughed at her. “Stuffed to the gills? Me too. But it was so good. It was worth it.”
“I won’t be able to climb up the stairs,” Rae moaned.
“Shall we go walk along Hollywood Boulevard?”
“Oooh. Yes.” Though she drove it often, it had been a while since she’d gone crawling in the various shops. A lot of them turned over rapidly, so there was plenty to explore. She directed Sloan to a side street near Zoe’s apartment, and they climbed out. Rae felt it as she unfolded. She almost moaned again. She’d definitely over-eaten and walking would do her some good.
They crossed to the south side of the street and ducked into a shop full of kinky shoes first. Next, they passed a jewelry store, then a t-shirt shop that would spray paint anything onto a shirt for them. They graciously refused. They made it all the way down past Vine, before turning around to head back.
As they crossed at the light, Rae grabbed Sloan’s hand and tugged her diagonal across the road. “Look, we have to go in there.”
“Blessed Be?” Sloan was running, though it wasn’t that easy in her heels. “What is it?”
Rae had better vision. “It’s a magic shop.”
“What? I don’t need magic tricks.” Sloan was on the corner of the sidewalk now, having made it across, but no longer following Rae. The shop was less than half a block down.
“No. It’s for real magic. Like witchcraft and stuff!” Rae was still moving forward. She wanted to see what was in that shop.
“Witchcraft. That’s not safe.” But her sister had caught up and was now reading the gold lettering on the sign.
Rae turned and frowned. “What do you mean?”
“That stuff’s dangerous. You shouldn’t play with it if you don’t understand it.” Her expression was deadly serious. Moreso than Rae would have expected.
She stopped on the street and looked at her sister with a serious expression. “Have you played with it, Sloan?”
“When I was in eighth grade, one of my friends got out a Ouija board. It was not okay.”
“Wow, you never told me.”
“We didn’t tell anyone.” Then Sloan’s eyes darted away before her next confession. “My friends said they used it all the time and it only went nuts when I was there. Even if I was just in the room. But by themselves? It didn’t do anything.” Sloan met her eyes then. “It scared the crap out of me, Rae.”
“I didn’t know.” She paused, standing there on the corner of Hollywood and Vine. “I still think we should go in.”
“Why?”
“Because I do.”
“Is it one of your feelings?”
Sloan would trust her if she said yes, but Rae wouldn’t lie to her sister. “Not quite. But think about those feelings that I get. I know we can’t always prove that I’m right, but nothing has ever proved me wrong.”
Sloan nodded solemnly.
“And you see things. You know it. You’ve told me. It’s probably why the Ouija board went wonky around you.” Rae crossed her arms, not comfortable venturing into this territory for the first time with her sister. “Mom always knew where we were and when we weren’t okay. And remember that time Dad canceled our trip? And that plane went down! Both our parents had it, too. That’s why we never really thought it was so odd. But I think we need to go into that store and learn more.”
“Why more? Isn’t it enough to be the weird kid? To learn not to tell people what I see, even when it would help them? Because it doesn’t help them. They get so caught up in how I got the information that they won’t use it!” Sloan’s voice pitched, and Rae realized they never really talked about it. It was an open secret in the family.
The day she’d called her sister and said, “Something happened to Mom, and it’s bad,” Sloan had only replied, “I know.”
Still, Rae’s curiosity had gotten the best of her and she’d done some digging. “Sloan, Mom was an Alberti and her mother was born a Tavani.”
“What about it?”
“Nonna was like us, too,” Rae pushed. “And the Tavanis and Albertis are some of the biggest known families in witchcraft in the old country.”
“What?”
Had Sloan never looked this up? “Were you never curious?” Her sister shook her head, but Rae couldn’t stop now. “You’re an Ellis and I’m a Woodward.”
“Is that supposed to mean something?” Sloan was in full avoidance mode now, her blond hair looking perfect around a face that looked wary, scared, and almost angry at her little sister for bringing it up.
“Yes, they’re families known to be associated with American and English wicca.”
“You can’t be serious.”
But she was, and Rae was reaching out to take her sister’s hand. “Mom is gone, Dad is gone, your birth father is gone. It’s just us now. Maybe we should find out where we come from. And maybe they can help us find our lost cousin.”
Sloan had looked at her weird. Though she’d never agreed, she eventually let Rae pull her along. A bell jingled as they opened the door and Rae looked up but couldn’t see it. Cool trick. Something about the little shop made her feel immediately at home.
CHAPTER 15
“All right.” Rae sighed and gave up. Sam had been pushing her to try out her new swing dancing skills on the main floor for three lessons now. Always before she hadn’t felt up to joining the other dancers who were showing off their moves. They were good. Some were pros, just keeping up their skills or enjoying the sheer fun of it.
Alex hadn’t shown up once, as he was just too busy with his grad school classes, but that was understandable. Sam, on the other hand, had come every time. He always danced with several of the other girls and had become quite a favorite. Though she and Sam usually stayed after classes and watched the other dancers on the floor, she’d never worked up the courage to get out and try it. So mostly they sat at the bar, enjoying some drinks and the show.
