Smiling peacefully, she laced her hands behind his neck and pulled him down to her. Slowly she took more of his weight, enough to feel he was real, solid. “You’ve had some security classes,” she accused, knowing finesse like that came only with practice.
“Summer camp. My parents are proactive when it comes to safety.” Kal gave her a sound kiss, then rolled off, sitting up beside her on the makeshift table. “Though we never practiced anything like that. This is no longer my favorite suit,” he said as he kicked off his shoes, then his slacks. “You can keep the tie if you want.”
“I’d rather keep the key,” she said, seeing the tie on the floor beside her boots. When did that come off? The words had sounded real and convincing as she said them, probably because there was a kernel of truth to them, and she felt a moment of guilt. My God, the man has skills.
A smile quirked the corners of her lips up, lingering as she looked at the remnants of their date. Kal was nice when he wasn’t being a jerk.
He reached past her, bringing up a corner of the blanket to cover her. He lingered, brushing the hair from her face, his eyes never leaving hers as he sent his hand lower, a tingle tracing from his careful fingertips. “I’ve never run into anyone who wasn’t afraid to use ley lines like that.”
She propped herself up on an elbow. “Is that what you call this? Run into?” She laughed to tell him she wasn’t serious. “Did you just run into me, Dr. Kalamack?”
With a savage growl, he spun, eyes alight, and pinned her to the straw, delighting in her shriek, muffled as he kissed her again, bringing her alive once more. Her breath was fast when he pulled back, still holding her down. “It’s been a while,” he said as if apologizing. “Sorry that was so fast.” He let go and eased down beside her, tugging the blanket up more until they were both under it. “It’s early yet. More wine?”
Fast? It felt as if they had been dancing toward this for two weeks. Content, she spun to lie on her front so she could reach for the bottle of wine. “Yes. Thank you.”
But then she almost dropped it when he ran a rough-smooth hand from her shoulder down to her backside, lingering suggestively until she quivered.
Turning to face him, she caught his eyes with her own, waiting until he saw her concern. “Kal, where do we go from here?” she asked, no longer sure.
He cupped her face and pulled her closer, his lips so light on hers they were almost not there. “I suggest you follow your own advice, Dr. Cambri,” he said when he drew back. “The night is not for thinking.”
No, it isn’t, she thought as he kissed her again, his hands gentler this time while he began to explore her, unhindered by anything, anything at all.
15
The musty smell of her oldest books usually put Trisk into a content mood, but tonight, as she took them from her built-ins and stacked them in produce boxes, it only filled her with a heavy melancholy. It had been a week since she’d made plans to go to Kennedy and Kal had signed off on the Angel’s patent transfer. It gave her freedom, but NASA was the only lab that had shown any interest in her résumé. That the enclave had found a replacement for her at Global Genetics so quickly didn’t bode well, either, and her stomach hurt. She couldn’t decide whether she was hungry or she’d eaten something that disagreed with her.
I’m never going to get these back out of storage, she thought as she consigned another armful to a box. She’d taken the day off with the excuse that she needed to pack, but the truth was she was avoiding Daniel. She hadn’t realized how much their lives intertwined until she started untangling them. The real estate agent had said her place would sell better with the furniture. That was fine with her, but there was a dismayingly small pile of boxes beside the front door and in the bed of her truck to take to storage. Three years, and nothing to show but twenty-five acres of sticks in rows.
Depressed, she didn’t look up at the soft scuff of sock feet on the smooth floors when Quen left the kitchen, his steps light as he came down into the sunken living room. “Three thousand miles away,” he said as he set one of the two cups of coffee in his hands on the low table. “You sure you want to do this?” he asked, sitting on the couch with a sigh.
Ignoring the mug for the moment, she stretched for the masking tape. The brrrp of the tape grated on her, and she pushed the box aside and set an empty one in its place.
Elbows on his knees, Quen held his mug under his nose and breathed deeply. “I know why you’re doing this, but I still think going to NASA is a mistake.”
“Duh,” she said as she carefully tucked a stack of paperbacks away. But the truth was she had nowhere else to go. Depressed, she sat back on her heels and picked up the coffee. She took a sip, her face scrunching. “This tastes awful. Are you sure you made it right?”
“I know how to make coffee, Trisk,” he said darkly. “You want tea instead?”
She shook her head, her grip tightening on the warm porcelain. “No, this is fine,” she said. “Bitter or not, I’ll finish it,” she added, thinking of her situation with Kal.
Quen was silent for a moment, then said, “You do know he’s lying to you.”
“Kal?” Not looking at Quen, she set the coffee down so she could put more books in the box. “Obviously.” But she had to stifle a shiver at the memory of their night together in the barn. Damn . . . the man had skills.
“I can’t believe you slept with him,” Quen accused, and she looked up, annoyed.
“I never should have told you,” she muttered. But he was staring at her in silent accusation, and in a burst of motion, she stood and went to the emptying shelves, her toes deep in the red shag throw rug.
“It was my decision, not his,” she said, stacking more books along her arm. “Mine. And I didn’t care if he was lying or not. It felt good to be wanted. I got to bag the cutest boy in school. Big deal. My body, my life.” But it didn’t feel as good as she’d thought it would, and she couldn’t meet Quen’s eyes as she came back, kneeling to let the books spill in disarray on the floor.
“I don’t have much choice but to play this out until Kennedy fires me,” she added, not liking his accusing silence. “It will be a cold day in the ever-after before I give them the keys to my research, but I will have found somewhere else to work by that time.” I hope.
His feet moved, and her eyes flicked up, finding a grudging acceptance in him. “I’m not giving up,” she said. “My research could save so many lives, but I can’t develop it here.”
“You really don’t have a plan anymore, do you?” he said, and she shook her head, finding it wasn’t as scary as she had thought it would be. It actually gave her an odd strength, and finding a sense of peace for the first time in days, she taped up the box and set it atop the first one. All those trees, and I’ll never see any shade, any fruit, she thought as she looked at the darkness beyond the wide windows. It bothered her as much as leaving Daniel.
“You want those in the truck with the rest?” Quen asked, quickly rising to take the box from her.
“Yes, thanks,” she said softly, watching as he easily lifted both boxes at once and took them out. Everything in the truck was going into storage. What she was actually taking to Florida was much less and already packed in her car. Her clothes, her music, a few pictures, and a locked box holding her grandmother’s ashes and summoning supplies, never to be opened again.
Trisk’s thoughts went to the raised circle of flesh on the bottom of her foot, an angry line slashed across it. It was a reminder of the debt she owed, and she refused to show even Quen.
“We have headlights on the road,” Quen said loudly as he came back in, shaking her from her dark musing. “It’s Daniel,” he added as he lingered by the front door.
“Great.” Stretching, she pulled her sneakers close and slipped them on to hide her demon mark. The raised welt bumped under her fingers, and she quashed the feeling of shame. But it was better than killing Daniel, and she lifted her chin defiantly. She’d do it again in a heartbeat.
“I’d recognize his T
-bird anywhere after tailing him all week.” Quen turned from the long window to give her a warning look. “Did you know he goes to the same bar every night to drink a beer and watch the news?”
“Gosh darn it,” she swore mildly as she looked across the messy room to the phone. She’d taken the receiver off the rotary hook this morning when people kept calling, first to find out why she wasn’t at work, and then later to tell her she was missing Daniel’s results release party. As the guest of honor, Daniel would have been there, and she was doing everything she could to put space between them. It was more than making sure the curse stuck; seeing him made her heart hurt. “The curse is holding, isn’t it?” she asked.
Still looking out the long window beside the door, Quen stepped back to remain unseen. “So far, but the more you talk to him, the riskier it is. You want me to get rid of him?”
She sat back on her heels, feeling unprofessional in the jeans and black T-shirt she’d put on this morning. “No,” she said as she took off the handkerchief holding her hair back and shook the long strands out. “I’ll talk to him. You should go hide in the back. No reason to tempt triggering something with an introduction. Right now, he doesn’t know you, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
Quen nodded decisively. “Good idea,” he said as he wove through the clutter of boxes. Jerking to a stop, he returned for his coffee, then his shoes, and finally his coat draped over the end of the couch. All evidence of him in hand, he hustled into the back as the doorbell chimed.
“When will this get easier?” she whispered as she got to her feet. Spending a night with Kal hadn’t had the expected result of easing her heartache, apart from the few hours it had encompassed. Avoiding Daniel hadn’t helped, either, and by the look on his face as he peeked through the window, he was still upset she was leaving.
Flicking on the porch light, she opened the door, saying nothing as she looked him over in his slacks, dress shoes, and brown tweed vest over his usual white shirt. The top two shirt buttons were undone, and he looked more relaxed than usual without his tie.
“Oh, good.” He pushed up his glasses in an awkward show. “You’re here. You weren’t at the party.”
There was a brown paper bag in his hand, and she hoped it wasn’t cake. “Daniel—”
“You took your phone off the hook,” he interrupted. “I was worried you might not be feeling well.”
She hadn’t been, but it was nothing she wanted to talk about. “What do you want?” she asked, wishing she could be honest with him.
He shifted his weight, scrubbing a hand over his five-o’clock shadow. “Look,” he said, mood abruptly shifting, “I get that you have this thing for Dr. Kalamack. You’re a grown woman, and I’m not your . . . brother,” he said, and she wondered if he had been going to say boyfriend. “If you want to follow him to Florida to work with him, wash his flasks, and plan his dinner parties, who am I to say differently.”
She blinked, lips parting. “Excuse me?”
“You probably want to start a family,” Daniel said, his shoulders stiff. “And it’s a good match. You’ll at least understand what he’s talking about when he sits down at the dinner table once they make you go home after you get pregnant.”
Her jaw dropped, even though that was about all any woman had a right to expect, an elf in an elven lab or not. But it still ticked her off. “You don’t have a clue what I want,” she said hotly.
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” he said sourly. “I don’t know why I’m even here, except that you have a problem in your seed field and Angie is out sick. I thought you might like to know before Monday, when everything is dead.”
Her anger vanished, and she looked at the paper bag in his hand. “What’s wrong with my seed field?”
“It’s wilted.” He held out the bag for her to take. “They’re losing their hairs, leaves, and fruit, in that order. I thought you might like to see.” She took the bag, and he looked angrily at the stacked boxes beside the door. “Good luck at Kennedy.”
He turned to go, and the bag crackled in her grip. “Daniel, wait,” she called, and he stopped on the stairs, silent as she fumbled for words. He thought she was giving up her career to cater to a self-indulgent, egotistical snot. It was more than her pride could take. “Don’t tell anyone, but I’m not going to Kennedy. At least not permanently. I just can’t stay here.”
Daniel shifted to face her more fully. He was two steps down, and halfway gone into the dark. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No,” she blurted. Hesitating, Trisk bit her lip, wishing things were different. “No,” she said again, softer this time. “I did. It might take me a while to fix it.”
He was silent, thinking that over and probably getting it wrong.
“How is the release going?” she asked, not wanting him to leave. “I’m sorry I missed it. Is everything hitting the right parameters?”
Daniel looked at his car, then back at her. “I don’t get you, Trisk. I find you packing up your life, your career, and you ask me how my release is going?”
Worried that Quen might come out despite her telling him not to, she shrugged, shutting the door behind her and leaning back against it.
His chest moved as he sighed. “The government is thrilled,” he said flatly. “The military got in and retook the building without a hitch. We need to adjust the dosage levels, though. It’s having a wider effect than we expected. The entire city block is sick, not just the building.” He hesitated, seeming to gather his resolve. “Is there anything I can do to help, Trisk?”
She shook her head, the guilt rising high. “Don’t think badly of me,” she said softly. “This isn’t what I wanted to have happen.”
Daniel took a step up, and she fumbled behind her for the doorknob. “No. I’m sorry,” she said as she opened the door and retreated into the house. “I just wanted to know if your project was a success. You should go.”
Jaw clenched, Daniel stopped. “It’s not a failure to ask for help.”
Miserable, she took another step in, almost peeking around the open door. “Thank you for telling me about my crop. I’ll check it tomorrow.”
Daniel took a slow breath as if to say something, but then he turned and walked away without a word, head down and hands in his pockets. Her eyes were stinging as she shut the door. “Damn it,” she whispered as she turned, gasping when she almost ran into Quen. “I hate it when you do that!” she exclaimed, smacking his shoulder. “Don’t you have anything better to do than sneak up behind me?”
“That poor, sad little man,” he said, head shaking as the sound of Daniel’s car leaving filtered in and his headlights flashed in the hall and were gone. “You’re really hard on your boyfriends, you know that?”
Lump in her throat, she pushed past him, going to the couch and flopping onto it. She set the bag on the table and stared at her mug, wanting coffee but not when it tasted like that. “He was never my boyfriend, and you’re not helping.”
“I’d say the curse is holding,” Quen added as he sat beside her and dragged the bag to him. “What’s wrong with your tomatoes?”
“If Angie is out sick, she probably just forgot to water them before she left.”
The paper bag crackled as he unrolled it, and Quen looked in, recoiling with a sudden jerk. “Are they supposed to smell like that?”
Brow furrowed, she reached for the bag. “They smell?” She looked in, seeing the clear lab-sample bag inside. It wasn’t sealed, and a foul stench made her lips curl. She reached in to snap it shut before carefully lifting it out. The vegetation was coated in a black slime, falling apart in places. Daniel wouldn’t have been able to put it in the bag like that, meaning it had decomposed over the course of a few hours.
“That doesn’t look right,” Quen said, poking the bag with a finger.
“It’s not.” Stretching, she reached for her phone and toggled the receiver button for a dial tone.
“Who you calling? Kal?” Quen asked, and she gave him
a dry look as she dialed Angie’s home number from memory. It rang twice before it was picked up and a masculine voice said hello.
“Hi,” Trisk said, pulse fast as she looked at what was left of the tomato. “Is Angie there?”
“Who is this?” the man asked, and Trisk pushed herself up on the edge of the couch.
“Dr. Cambri,” she said, rising to pace within the confines of the phone’s cord. “Angie works with me. I wasn’t in today, and I just found out she was home sick. Is she okay?”
“Dr. Cambri,” the man said, his suspicion replaced by a heavy relief. “I’m glad you called. I’m Andy, her boyfriend. They wouldn’t give me your number when I called this afternoon. Angie threw up this morning, but the fever wasn’t high, so I didn’t think anything of it. But she had a rash when I got home. It’s all over her face and back. I think it’s spreading.”
Shit. Trisk gave Quen a sick look. Vomiting wasn’t a symptom of Daniel’s virus except in an overdose, but a fever and a rash were. How did she come in contact with it?
“We thought maybe she was coming down with chicken pox since the kid next door has it. But she’s coughing up blood now. Dr. Cambri, is she okay?”
Trisk put a hand to her forehead, fighting the nausea. “I would think so,” she said, not knowing for sure. “But it wouldn’t hurt to take her into the emergency room.”
“The emergency room?” Andy said, voice worried. “But it’s almost after six.”
“That’s why they call it emergency,” Trisk insisted. “Make sure they know she works at Global Genetics. Tell them I said to put her into isolation. Just as a precaution.”
“Dr. Cambri?” His voice was higher, threaded with panic. “Is she going to be okay?”
She couldn’t bring herself to say yes.
“Dr. Cambri?” Andy prompted again, and her jaw clenched.
“I think so,” she said, soft so the lie wouldn’t show. “It doesn’t sound like anything we’ve been working with. I just want to be sure. Take her in right now, okay?”