Your Magic or Mine? (34 page)

He shook his head, started to speak. She, however, kept going, her voice rising.

“Then, based on one and only one experiment, you don’t really
know
, can’t
prove
, that you or the relationship will fail, can you? You’re basing your conclusions on conjecture, and with your mind-set, you’re setting up yourself
and me
for a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s really not about what you
know
here. Sometimes you have to be open to possibilities and to take life
on faith
. Take a
chance
. You want an equation? Here’s one you’ll like: Me plus You, but You either multiplied or divided by your Family—take your choice, but I like divided—equals No Soul Mate, No Possibility of Happiness, No Life. That’s a negative number.”

He had no answer for that. Her equation made too much sense.

“You’re not even giving the process a chance. I agree, we have lots of differences, yet everything I’ve been able to learn—from a bunch of observers and people who’ve actually gone through it—is that the process works those out.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“Then we do—as
thinking adults.”

“Look,” he said in as reasonable a tone as he could muster, “don’t you think I have considered all these factors? Thought of all the counterarguments? I know myself and I know my parents. It’s not going to work.”

She squinted her eyes and stared at him for a long moment. He waited, ready to refute whatever she might say. Instead, she picked up her purse. “In that case, my self-sacrificing soul mate, we have nothing left to talk about at the moment, do we?”

She was leaving. Despite a certain amount of relief that she wasn’t going to argue any more, a stronger feeling of potential loss caused him to say the first thing that popped into his mind to keep her here. “Wait. Tell me, how did you throw me to the ground and hold me there?”

“Oh, that!” She waved a hand nonchalantly. “That was a simple strength spell,
invalescere
. Most women learn it in case they’re ever attacked. To put it in your terms, small
s
is the strength spell you can find in most elementary spell books to channel energy to the muscles. The sub-
T
is of course my talent, but strength is a universal, low-level spell. The cap
L
sub
s
level I use is about at fifty percent to compensate for my size. I dial down the
L
sub small
p
, my level, to twenty percent unless I want overwhelming strength. For cap
E
, I only put a few percentage points of mine into the power/energy part for the same reason. I don’t need a ritual or gestures for the spell, because I’ve made it part of me—that’s the
intuitive
side of casting I was talking about. Ditto on items. I’m sure you can figure it out from there.”

Before he could ask for further explanation, she stalked over to the stairs and yelled, “Delilah!” The dogs came running up the stairs and followed her to the front door.

He hurried to the door to catch hold of Samson’s collar, but the threesome didn’t wait for him, and he trailed them to her car. She opened the door and Delilah climbed in. He took hold of Samson before the hound could do the same.

Watching Gloriana buckle Delilah into the harness, he knew he ought to say something, but what?
Convince me I’m wrong? Stay with me anyway? Please?

She shut the car door and turned to him, stepped close. Since he was bending over to hold Samson, he had to look up to see her face.

Nose to nose, she stared him straight in the eyes. “We’re not done, Marcus. While you’re in your cold bed tonight, walled up in your castle, think about this.” She fisted one hand in his hair and held him still while she kissed him.

The next thing he knew, he’d let go of Samson, wrapped his arms around her, and kissed her back. The way his body reacted, he’d never have even suspected he’d had the most spectacular sexual experience of his life such a short time ago—it wanted more, now. How long they stood there devouring each other, he had no idea, but all too soon, she was pushing on his shoulders. He dropped his arms, and she stepped back. Her green eyes sparkled, her color was high, and her cheeky grin promised trouble.

Without another word, she circled her car, got in, and started the engine. Her radio blared a song, something about “the taillights I may never see again.” She roared off and didn’t even wave as she rounded the corner. The last thing he saw was indeed the red glow of the taillights of her car.

Marcus sighed and looked down at Samson, who stared back. The hound snorted, shook his head, and trotted back into the house. Even his dog was disgusted with him. Marcus followed, rubbing his breastbone. The hole in his chest had assumed the magnitude of the Grand Canyon.

Gloriana thought hard all the way to the farm. She also fumed. She’d wanted to use that strength spell to shake him until all those peculiar notions flew out of his head like the bats from under the Congress Avenue bridge. It was crystal clear however, that nothing she said would make a difference to his foregone conclusions. So, she’d left him to stew before she did him bodily harm. Besides, she needed more and bigger cannons against his walls.

What was she going to do about Marcus? Obstinate, shortsighted, inflexible, infuriating Marcus. Her soul mate. The man she was supposed to spend the rest of her life with. The man who was supposed to be the father of her children. The man with whom she’d had the defining sexual experience of her life.

He’d looked good enough to eat lying there under her on the floor. Perfect. Broad shoulders, toned muscles, blond hair, blue eyes—oh, yes, the way those eyes caressed her and heated her clear to her bones.

Single-minded, self-hypnotized, that’s what he was. He’d told himself for so long that he was not soul-mate material that he believed it. She knew better. No man who kissed like that was meant to be alone. He was hers.

How to convince him?

She had to assume that their lovemaking had affected him as strongly as it had her. Deny it though he might, he was still going to want more. She certainly did.

She couldn’t, however, ambush him again. He’d be expecting it, and while she did it for the reasons she’d stated, she wasn’t going to use that tactic a second time. Lovemaking was something to be mutually enjoyed. Using sex for an ulterior motive or a bargaining chip went totally against her grain.

If she couldn’t come up with solutions herself, to whom could she turn for advice? Her parents? No, they’d want to sit down with Marcus and talk him to death. She wasn’t going to gain a soul mate because of a guilt trip laid on by them. Daria didn’t have enough experience, and Clay would want to zap all Marcus’s computers.

There was someone else, however.

“We’re going for help,” she told Delilah. “You belong with Samson and I belong with Marcus.” The dog grinned.

She drove past the turnoff to the farm and headed for LaGrange. Before long she pulled up in front of Lulabelle Higgins’s house.

The old witch answered the door with a big smile. “Glori! And Delilah! I’ve been thinking about you. Come on back to the kitchen. I can tell from the look on your face that something’s happened.”

Lulabelle poured Delilah some water and sat down at the table when Gloriana refused her offer of a drink. “First, I have some news about our research.”

“The Rhinedebecks?”

“Yes, and it’s good news. I called all the Rhinedebeck numbers in the practitioner registry and found his son. He talked to me at length. Evidently, his father had spoken of the help I gave him. After Bill found his soul mate, Gladys Kowalski, again, and she rejected him, I told him to keep trying. He went on a campaign to woo her and change her mind. It worked! They married and had several children.”

“Hot damn! Marcus won’t be able to use poor Rhinedebeck for a role model anymore.”

“Oh, dear. He’s still thinking he can defy the imperative?”

“Worse than that.” Gloriana told her the story—well, almost all of the story. She omitted most of the mating details. “Then I walked out. I kissed him within an inch of his life to show him what he was missing and drove off. So, what do you think?”

“I think he’s been playing with those funny equations of his too long,” Lulabelle answered. “His mind is definitely addled. The boy is not in touch with his emotions.”

“My conclusions exactly. What can I do?”

“Let me think on it a minute. How about some of my pecan pie?”

“Your special, magical recipe, Lulabelle’s Texas Temptation? Sure.”

Lulabelle served the pie and poured each of them a glass of milk. She sat down and munched for a few minutes. Gloriana kept quiet as she made her piece disappear.

“All right,” Lulabelle said after a few minutes and most of the slice of pie. “I think you were correct when you said he’s hypothesizing only on his own observations. For all his attempts to be logical and reasoning, he’s thinking much like a little boy here, one who was not much nurtured and who still resents what he perceives as neglect. The behavior of his parents didn’t create much of a family bond for him. Lordy, I’ll bet you Morgans really threw him. All that love, teasing, informality, sheer family goofiness.”

“But how do we get him to change his mind? At least try the soul-mate process?”

Lulabelle smiled, a slight upward quirk of the lips that sent shivers down Gloriana’s back. Oh, yes, she’d come to the right place for advice.

“Let’s fight dirty,” the old witch said. “Let’s pull in the other side of that family and see what they have to say. I’m acquainted with a few university folk. Some of them don’t have the common sense God gave a June bug, or they live so far into their esoteric studies, they can’t relate to the rest of us. Give his parents a call and tell them what’s going on.”

“Just like that?”

“Of course—as their son’s soul mate and prospective mother of
their grandchildren.”
Lulabelle assumed the most innocent expression before laughing. “Oh, and another thing. Forscher is of German origin, right? A number of families with Germanic backgrounds live around here. The older generations don’t show, what’s the term nowadays? Oh, yes. PDA. Public displays of affection. Sometimes not the private kind, either.”

Gloriana thought about the idea for a moment. “I’ll give him another chance before I call his parents. We’ll be in Atlanta next weekend. If he won’t talk to me before we leave here, I’ll drag him off after the debate and make him listen to me.”

“That’s fine, dear, there’s no rush. Find out also where his parents can be reached. It never hurts to have a backup force in reserve.”

The rest of the week was an exercise in frustration for Gloriana. If all her soul-mate problems weren’t enough, there were the nasty e-mails. From vague warnings of dire consequences, the messages had escalated to outright threats, but were still of indefinite origin—Traddie or Fomster? On Wednesday, she hadn’t remembered to mention the escalation in threats to Marcus—funny thing, she’d been thinking about other matters. She sent him a note about them on Thursday; of course, he didn’t reply. She also forwarded the messages to Ed and John.

She decided she could use the e-mail problem to call him, but all she heard was his voice message. She tried George and Evelyn, who had Samson, and they said Marcus had gone out of town. They commiserated with her, relating that they had met the same Forscher stonewall when they tried to discuss the situation with him. Having them on her side was comforting.

Comforting, not helpful.

She actually contemplated reneging on her Friday commitments and following Marcus to Atlanta, before deciding to let him stew. If she was going to have faith in the process, she ought to let the imperative have its way with him.

At least the SMI was leaving her alone to get a good night’s sleep, even if her dreams were filled with math symbols.

Finally, on Saturday afternoon in Atlanta, she looked for, but couldn’t find him. He had checked in on Thursday, and no one knew where he was. She visited the library, an obvious possibility. He had been there the day before, rummaging around in the soul-mate archives. The librarians said he looked grim and angry when he left.

He finally came in to the predebate dinner at the last minute, nodded in general to everyone—except her. He didn’t even meet her eyes when he engaged Ed and John in conversation on the other side of the table.

Lily-livered, stinking, yellow-bellied coward
. At least he looked as awful as a perfect man could, with bags under his eyes and a slightly pasty complexion. Small compensation for what he’d put her through. She smiled brilliantly at him and received one of his penetrating, concentrated stares back. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed his body stiffen when she talked to the very handsome Sword, Tom Schmidt, sitting next to her.
Hah, take that!

On the way to the meeting room, she maneuvered to walk beside him and said, “Can we get together briefly after the debate? I have some news from Lulabelle. Was your research successful?”