Bigfoots Don't Do Mini Coopers (Kate Storm Book 1) (20 page)

And then it hit me. Morgan would have definitely done her research.

“Or did you not want to admit you were related us?” I stopped yelling. “Were you ashamed of us? Our mortality?”

I wouldn
’t have thought it possible, but Morgan went white at my words. Not just pale, but pure white. Nearly translucent. Enough for me to see the veins beneath her skin. Blue and rich and throbbing with the blood of her immortality.

I turned and walked out the door.

I thought I heard her call my name as I gently closed the front door, but I wasn’t sure. And I didn’t care.

It didn
’t matter. Nothing mattered.

23. Getting Better.

The phone rang.

I ignored it.

My chair cushions cradled my body, feet propped comfortably on the ottoman. Sunlight warmed my skin. A slight breeze kept me from being too warm.

Perfect.

I took a sip of my Vodka Tonic.

Perfect.

The phone rang.

“Doll? Ya gonna answer that?” Al jumped up next to my bare feet.

“
Nope.” I took another sip.

“
Do ya wanna talk about it?” Al tilted his tiny head, ears twitching.

“
Nope.”

The phone rang.

“It’s Aunt Tabs.” Al nudged me with his wet nose.

“
Don’t care.” I loved my Aunt, but I did not want to talk to her. I’d talked to her earlier. She’d been
thrilled
to discover Morgan was actually related to us.

She wanted to know how we were related. After all Morgan was a vampire and we were witches. Was it a matrilineal relationship? Did we have more relatives?

Did she know anything about the curse?

I didn
’t know. I hadn’t thought to ask. I’d been too busy being devastated and pissed off.

What I
’d wanted was to invite my aunt over to my pity party. I’d decided against her invitation when she’d acted
happy
. Aunt Tabs seemed to think there was a reasonable explanation.

Reasonable was not part of my vocabulary at the moment.

I’d ousted it. Along with all other rational sounding words.

I
’d settled for my physical feelings and vodka.

Everything else was simply too much.

The phone rang again.

“
She’s not happy about your keep out spell.” The spell was working. And I wanted my privacy. I’d also cast a sleeping spell over Harley. I was not in the mood to be a nice witch.

“
Better answer the phone. Ya don’t want to get into a spell casting contest with your Aunt.”

We wouldn
’t. Aunt Tabs had understood the last time I’d used  the same spell. I’d been twelve and the other witches at the Witch Academy had cast a wart growing spell on me. Aunt Tabs forgave me. She’d do so again. After all, we were the only relatives  . . . Oh, right. I’d forgotten.

I took another sip of vodka.

“That’s your fifth one, Doll.” Al licked my ankle. “Ya might wanna think about stoppin’.”

Fifth? Must
’ve lost track somewhere between two and four.

“
S’all good, Al.” And it was. My world was finally rosy and warm and
not-achy
.

I wasn
’t thinking about Ash, blood, Morgan, detectives, Ash, Harley, Morgan, Claud Portier, Morgan, Ash or the ant crawling up my leg.

Actually I was thinking about the ant crawling up
my leg. It tickled. I brushed it off my leg. I could handle the ant.

Go me.

I raised my glass in a toast and took a large slurp.

Such a nice view. Housetops and mountains.

I toasted that too.

Morgan floated into my view.

I lowered my glass. “What’re you doin’ here?”

“
I’m here to talk.” Morgan tilted her head. I picked up my wand. “If you want to curse me, you might want to sober up to try it. You can’t cast a spell when you’re drunk, Kate.”

Ha. She would know since we
’d tried it . . . Nope, not going there.

I put down my wand and took another drink. Rosy, warm and blank. Perfect.

“Yo, Morgan.” Al turned to face her. His sunlight warmed fur brushed my foot. “You got on some UVBGone?”

“
Yep. Hey, Al, you mind if I have a word with Kate in private?”

Oh no, she
didn’t. She was not going to run Al off. This was his house too. She wasn’t going to . . . Wait, was Morgan going somewhere?

I rubbed my hand over my forehead. For some reason my mind wasn
’t working very well.

“
Yeah. Go ahead. She’s been acting weird since she got home. Won’t talk to me. Maybe she’ll talk to you.” Al walked up my legs and my torso. He reached up and licked my lips. “I’m throwin’ out the rest of the bottle.”

“
Okay.” What bottle? “I love you, Al.” I scratched him behind one ear. Ran my nose over his tiny, furry head.

Al licked my lips again. “
I’ll tuck ya in after you and Morgan chat, okay, Doll?”

“
It’s not nighttime yet.” I peeked around his tiny body. Nope, still daylight.

“
I know, I thought we could . . .”

“
You’re not taking advantage of her while she’s drunk, Al.” 

“
He can do whatever he wants, Morgan.” Something seemed wrong about that statement, but I couldn’t figure out what.

Al trotted down my body to the ottoman. He jumped onto the porch deck and headed through the door that led to
my bedroom.

“
I’ll be waitin’ inside for ya, Doll.”

“
You know he’s probably inside trying to figure out how to light candles.”

I was pretty sure Chihuahuas couldn
’t hold matches. No matter how determined they might be.

“
Damn it, Kate. I know you like to avoid things, but we are going to talk about this.”

I shot to my feet, stumbled over the ottoman and fell on my face. I decided to cast a spell. I mumbled the words into my deck floor. The moment I was sober - and damn it all I had a good one going - I got b
ack on my feet and whirled to face her.

“
You want to talk about avoidance issues? Fine. How about we start with yours? You’ve had years to tell me the truth. And you’ve never said a word.”

“
I know. I’m sorry.”

“
Sorry that we’re friends?” She’d lied to me. Friends didn’t lie to one another. Not in my book. So what the hell did that make us?

“
No!” Morgan flew closer, hit my spell and bounced back several feet. She waved one pale hand towards me. “Would you please get rid of that?”

I shook my head and crossed
my arms tightly over my chest. It didn’t help. The ache there threatened to spill over.

“
We’re friends, Kate. You know that. I know you’re mad and angry and . . .” She bit off the last word. “I have never wanted to hurt you.”

“
Could have fooled me.” The ache had traveled up to my throat, closing it, strangling my words. “Were you ever going to tell me? Or did it shame you to admit you had mortal relatives?”

“
I’ve never, ever been ashamed of you, Kate,” she whispered. Tears swam in her emerald eyes. They pooled over and ran unchecked down her cheeks. “You’re the one who should be ashamed of me.”

Ashamed of Morgan?

“I’m the reason you’re mortal.” She pressed a pale hand flat to her chest and rubbed, as if to soothe a pain. “I’m the reason you’re cursed.”

“
I don’t understand.” Not in the least bit. My world was already tilted, my plane of view totally skewed. And it clearly wasn’t going to steady itself any time soon.

“
I know. I want to try to explain.” Tears continued unheeded down her pale cheeks. I don’t think she was even aware of them. “Can you get rid of your spell?”

I grabbed my wand, whispered my spell and sat back down in my chair. Truthfully, I more or less fell into the chair. Already on overload, I didn
’t know how much more I could handle.

Morgan
floated over the railing and right into the matching chair to my right. The weight of her tears had plastered her red silk shirt against her chest.

I stared at the mountains. It hurt too much to look at her.

“I was born into a family of witches. I had eight sisters.” Morgan rushed the words out, as if afraid I’d stop her at any moment. “We were rather powerful.”

Powerful enough to end up in the Arthurian legends.

“My oldest sister had several children. One of them died in battle.”

“
That would be Mordred? The traitor?” I had read my history books as a young witch. Some of it was coming back.

“
Yeah. My other sisters were not happy with Mordred. He shamed our family name when he stole Arthur’s crown and married Guinevere.”

It was so strange to hear Morgan tal
k about events from memory I’d only read about in books.

“
They used black magic and cast a spell, making Mordred mortal during his fight with Arthur. When he died, my sister Morgause lost it. She used the same spell and cast it back on our sisters. Then she took a knife to their throats.”

Morgan paused here. I looked at her. Pale and tragic and so damn beautiful. She rubbed a slender hand over her cheek, frowning slightly when she encountered her tears. She stared at her hand as if confused.

I’m sure she was. Morgan wasn’t a crier. I could be a wimpy witch at times, but Morgan always had her shit together.

“
What happened then?” I didn’t mean to sound so curt, but it was killing me to see Morgan so vulnerable.

“
Most of my nieces and nephews fled. Morgause was always a very thorough witch. Those she couldn’t kill she cursed to never know love.” Morgan sighed. “I think she meant ‘to never know a mother’s love’, but she wasn’t thinking clearly.” I thought she said “she still isn’t” under her breathe, but I wasn’t sure. And I had other questions.

“
So, how are you to blame?”

“
I knew what Mordred planned to do and I didn’t do anything to stop it.”

“
Why were you responsible for your nephew’s actions?” Morgan scowled at me. I waved her off. “So, why didn’t your sister kill you as well?”

“
I was off with someone at the time.” That would be the newly re-aquainted Drake. Morgan glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. “I liked to date a lot back then.”

Major understatement. From what I
’d read Morgana Le Fay had been quite the little witch when she was younger.

“
I felt the spell when she cast it.” Black magic always hits hard. “To save me, Drake took me to a vampire and had me turned.” She tapped one slender finger over the arm of the chair.

“
That doesn’t sound good.” Now I was the one speaking in understatements. Turning a person or a witch into a vampire is a messy process. And it doesn’t always work.

“
Actually, I begged Drake to do it, but he wouldn’t.” She flicked a fang. “I didn’t care about much at the time other than destroying my sister like she destroyed the rest of our family.”

Now that was the Morgan I knew. Bloodthirsty and not afraid of some payback.

“But you’re not cursed.” Had she lied to me about that too?

“
Curses don’t work on vampires, Kate.”

Right. I knew that.

“So, why didn’t you tell me? Why keep all this a secret?” I flung out my hand to encompass everything. Her lies. My hurt. Our blood tie. “How did you keep it from me when we first met?”

Morgan leaned back in th
e chair. Her head rolled along the edge of the chair. Red locks moving sensuously over the wicker.

“
We never shook hands.”

I scowled at her, trying to remember the details.

“We made a toast. You had a beer and I had my blood. We toasted with those and never shook hands.”

Damn it. I remembered now. “
I guess a hand shake seemed a bit lame at that point.” Morgan snorted. “Cut me some slack. It was my first bar fight. And I really thought those trolls were going to win.”

I shook my head. Now was not the time t
o get caught up in good memories. “So, why not tell me afterwards?”

Morgan looked out over the deck. I thought she wasn
’t going to say anything at all, offer any kind of excuse, and then she finally whispered, “I was afraid.”

What? Morgan afraid of somethi
ng? Who was she trying to fool?

I was the wimpy witch. I was the one who
’d been bullied and ostracized. I was the one who needed to lose some weight. I was the one with all the issues.

Half-bred. Cursed. Mortal. Witch.

Morgan was perfect. She was crazy strong. Brave. Drop dead beautiful. Immortal.

What did she have to be afraid of?

“I was afraid you wouldn’t want to know me. Especially after I told you everything.” She made a soft sound, almost like a sob. “You’re my only family too.”

“
All the other lines died out?” I frowned. “I thought I’d read several of them continued on?”