Completely Smitten (9 page)

And where did he get the single rose? She had seen no bushes about. Besides, roses didn’t do well at this elevation, at least not in the dryness of an Idaho summer.

If only she had gotten up earlier. She would have come out here and talked to him while he was cooking.

She would have found out what the personal business was.

How did he even find out about it? Just the night before, he had said he didn’t have a phone.

Maybe Nasal Voice had been using Darius’s radio. Maybe Darius had sent the friend here to help him out.

She grabbed her crutches. Hungry as she was, she wasn’t going to leave here without seeing Darius one last time. Or at least finding out where he had gone.

She did a cursory search of the main level of the house. She found another room beside hers, set up with reading lamps and big comfortable chairs. Books were piled everywhere, along with CDs, record albums, and forty-fives. A tiny shelf system with a five-disk changer sat on top of a console stereo from the 1950s. Beside that was an ancient hand-crank record player that looked as if it were still being used.

The room had no obvious plug-ins, yet all this equipment seemed to be here for someone’s enjoyment. She thought that odd.

A door beside this room led up a flight of stairs. The house was old enough, then, to have doors that cut off entire sections to preserve heat. Or maybe that remained a convention in this part of Idaho since there was no power up here. No sense heating an entire house when one section would do.

At first, she had no idea how to get up the stairs. Then she realized she could do it. She would just have to be careful. First, she’d try it with her crutches, and if that didn’t work, she would sit on the steps and pull herself up with her arms.

She smiled. That would certainly impress Darius.

As if she expected him to be upstairs. If he was up there, he was hiding from her—and after finding that note, she knew he wasn’t. He was somewhere else. But she might be able to tell where he’d gone from something he’d left upstairs.

At least, that was what she told herself. Truth be told, she wanted to see where he slept, to know more about him.

She made her way up the stairs carefully. It was harder than she thought, mostly because the crutches got in her way. When she reached the landing, she tossed them up the remaining stairs, and then, holding the banister, hopped to the second floor.

The second floor was smaller than the first. In fact, the ceiling slanted on the north and south sides, obviously following the roof lines.

There was a large room directly across from the stairs, and another large room at the end of a short hallway. Two smaller doors led to under-the-eaves storage, filled with more junk than she had ever seen.

Darius wasn’t up here at all.

She couldn’t even tell which room was his. Both had beds in them, and both beds were made. There were no suitcases or anything out of place. Everything was hung in closets. The bedside tables all had books with bookmarks in them.

The second story smelled faintly of mothballs mixed with the scent of freshly baked bread. She went to the windows and looked out.

The runway was visible from here. It was long and flat, a scar on the land. Behind it was a huge garage with cars inside that looked as old as the hand-crank record player.

Otherwise the entire house was surrounded by trees.

She saw no sign of Darius. None at all.

For a long time, she stood at the window, staring at the runway. She couldn’t go outside looking for him. She had no idea where he’d gone or how he’d gotten there. She could negotiate stairs with a broken ankle, but not the uneven trail or the cliffside.

Maybe he’d change his mind. Maybe the circumstances would change and he’d be able to come back.

Maybe the pilot wouldn’t be able to pick her up.

Her stomach growled.

Ariel sighed and made her careful way down the stairs. When she reached the living area, she stopped.

The eggs were still steaming.

How in the world had he managed that?

Darius sat on the hillside where he had been when he first saw Ariel. He probably should have popped himself to Boise or New Delhi, somewhere very far away, so that he wouldn’t be tempted to see her again.

But he hadn’t. He couldn’t. He didn’t want to be far in case something else went wrong.

He’d been awake all night thinking about her, about the soft auburn of her hair, the way her cheeks dimpled when she laughed.

About the evidence of a soul mate he’d seen in her lovely green eyes.

He wished he were younger, a mage who hadn’t learned his lessons yet, or one who had no scruples. He would have taken her for himself then, the Fates be damned.

But he knew the price of such an action. The world would be a different place if Camelot hadn’t shattered under the strains of his actions.

Love, he’d learned slowly and painfully, was something to be respected at all times.

He wrapped his arms around his legs, hugging his knees to his chest. The plane had to come soon.

If it didn’t, he’d go back to her and never leave.

No matter what the cost.

The eggs were hot, but the stove had cooled down considerably. There were no dirty dishes in the sink, no evidence of anyone else’s presence in the house at all.

The hair had risen on the back of Ariel’s neck. She was really and truly unnerved now. The egg platter sat on the tabletop with nothing beneath it to keep the eggs warm.

Maybe she was still asleep and dreaming. Maybe this entire house was a dream—and she was lying on that ledge, delirious.

She grabbed a muffin and stared at the eggs as if they were her enemy. There were too many mysteries here this morning: the man with the nasal voice, Darius’s disappearance, and now the eggs. Not to mention that in her thorough search of the house, she’d found no evidence of a radio.

She took a bite of the muffin. It was blueberry, light and fluffy, not too sweet, yet somehow perfect. The best muffin she’d ever tasted.

Ariel frowned at it. Muffins weren’t supposed to be this good. Just like eggs weren’t supposed to stay warm for an hour, and handsome men weren’t supposed to disappear.

She finished the muffin and helped herself to another, avoiding the scary, steaming eggs. Then she heard the buzz of a plane’s engine, growing closer.

Her ride was here.

She set down the second muffin and went to the porch. The air still held the night’s coolness. Dew dampened the furniture. A brick path wound its way down into the trees. It must have been very hard for Darius to carry her up here. The extra weight, the unevenness of the bricks, must have made him lose his footing more than once.

Yet he’d managed it, and he hadn’t seemed the worse for wear.

The plane’s buzz grew louder. She only had a few minutes left.

“Dar!” she shouted. “Dar!”

If he were nearby and heard the plane, then heard her yell, he might come back, just long enough to say goodbye. That was all she wanted, really. A chance to thank him.

A chance to see him one last time.

Her voice echoed down the mountainside, making her feel alone for the first time on this trip. The buzz had become a roar, and she could see the plane overhead.

One final chance.

“Dar! I’m going to have to leave! Please come up and say goodbye!”

A single-engine plane, battered and old, circled overhead, as if searching for the runway. That didn’t give her much confidence.

She held her breath, looking all around, at the morning shadows under the trees, the path, the runway to her left. No Darius.

But she’d give him a minute. Maybe he was running toward her even now.

Goodbye wouldn’t hurt. One word. Simple, eloquent.

Darius hugged his legs to his chest even harder, making sure his fingers were laced so they couldn’t create a spell.

He’d magic the entire problem away—the ankle, the pain—hell, he’d even magic her memory of the entire event away, later, when they were all done. Who would know?

Besides him.

He let out a loud sigh. He wasn’t that kind of man anymore. He hadn’t been for centuries.

If he did that, he’d loathe himself forever.

Dar!

She wanted to see him. He wanted to see her. So simple. Except for the pilot, who had only met Darius’s alter ego, Andrew Vari, and who would wonder where Vari was— especially since Vari had radioed in for the plane.

That had been hard. Darius had to fake the voice that came with the other body—his short, squat, punishment body—and that had been more difficult than he’d imagined. He almost had to spell himself for that too.

The plane’s engine was so loud now, he wouldn’t be able to hear Ariel even if she were still shouting for him.

What if she were in trouble? What if she needed help? Maybe he should go to her, to make sure she was all right this one last time.

The plane’s engine shut off.

If there were any problems, the pilot could handle them now. Ariel was no longer Darius’s responsibility. And, if he managed to avoid her in the future, helping her find her soul mate wouldn’t be his responsibility either.

In just a few moments, he would have his life back. He would be able to spend the rest of his time alone, just like he had planned.

Just like he wanted.

Like he always wanted.

Even now, when he thought he wanted something else.

The pilot was a tall, rangy man in his mid-fifties, his face tanned and lined from too much time in the sun. He wore a red flannel shirt over a black T-shirt, tucked into a tight pair of blue jeans.

“I’m Duke Milligan. You must be the injured girl, huh?”

Ariel bit her lower lip. She wasn’t sure which comment she was trying to prevent from emerging—the fact that she didn’t believe anyone, no matter how macho, could be named Duke, or the fact that she hadn’t been a girl for a number of years.

“I’m Ariel Summers,” she said, keeping her voice level.

He nodded, as if he had already known that. “Vari said I was to help you out.”

Vari must have been the man who had used the radio.

“My stuff is inside,” she said. Then she frowned. “But could you help me with something else first?”

Duke Milligan glanced at a scratched analog watch. “I’m already off schedule.”

“It’s just that the man who found me isn’t here, and I wanted to say goodbye—”

“Miss, I’m sorry, but I’ve got some paying customers arriving in fifteen minutes, and I’m going to have to explain to them already about being late. Once the heat of the day starts, flying over these mountains gets a bit dicey, and I—”

“It’ll just take a minute.” She indicated her foot. “I can’t look for him myself. Would you just walk around the house, maybe, see if you see him?”

He let out a small sound, a cross between a sigh and a Bronx cheer. “If we go as soon as I get back.”

“I promise,” she said.

He shook his head slightly, then went around the side of the house, walking with great speed and determination.

He wouldn’t find Darius. Ariel knew that. If Darius had been nearby, he would have come when she yelled his name. But she wanted to make sure. The entire morning had unsettled her, and she wanted to have one final chance at finding him.

She made her way back into the house. She had to pack yesterday’s clothes in her backpack. As she passed the table, she grabbed the note and placed it in the pocket of her shirt.

When she reached the guest bedroom, she stopped and stared at the antique desk. She had a sudden, very clear sense that the note she held had been written on it, using some of the old paper and the inkwell.

But that didn’t make sense. She was a light sleeper. She would have woken up.

“Hey!” Duke yelled from the front door. “Ain’t nobody here but us chickens.”

“How original,” she muttered.

The screen door banged. She still stared at the desk. Duke joined her. “This your stuff?”

“Yeah.” She hadn’t put the clothes in it, but he was already unzipping the pack, shoving the clothes inside.

“Can you walk to the plane?” he asked. “Or do I gotta carry you?”

The idea of being carried instantly lost its appeal.

“No,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”

“Then let’s go,” he said.

“I can’t move all that fast.”

He slung her backpack over one shoulder as if it weighed less than a pound. “Do your best.”

And then he disappeared down the hall.

She went to the desk, pulled the chair back, and grabbed a piece of vellum. Putting her crutches aside, she sat down in the very seat that Darius had used while she slept and slid the inkwell toward her.

The pen had been meticulously cleaned. She uncapped the inkwell and dabbed the pen in it, and then wrote:

Dar—

Thank you for everything.

She paused. There was so much more to say—
You kiss like a dream; you look like a dream; I’ve never met a man like you; call me when you return to civilization
—but she wrote none of it. It all sounded too high school, and she was feeling much older than a high-school girl right now.

Finally, she scrawled:

I
hope we meet again soon.

Ariel

Outside, she heard Duke bellow. She tapped the end of the pen against her lips.

If only she had a phone number to give him, some way of contacting her. But her furniture was in storage and she no longer had an apartment. She had let her cell phone account lapse, and she didn’t know where she was going to end up.

Duke yelled again.

She sighed, capped the inkwell, and wiped off the pen. Then she put the note on the bed.

“Hey!” Duke had come back inside. He was standing in the doorway, looking cross. “I thought you were coming outside.”

“I was,” she said. “I just remembered I hadn’t thanked him.”

“Done now?” Duke asked.

She doubted she would be done with this one for a long time. But she nodded anyway and let herself be led back to civilization.

Darius waited until he could no longer hear the drone of the plane’s engines before straightening his legs. He waited until the sun had moved across the horizon before standing up. He waited until the shadows were so long he could barely see before returning to the house.