Spell of Summoning (23 page)

“Holden?”

“Yes. The first time.”

“It must be hard. …Is it hard?”

On his hands and knees, he drew a spell circle across the sheet with a red marker. His symbols looked a lot like blood spreading beneath him.

Swallowing, she knelt to help keep the sheet taut. “Is your grandpa around, too?”

“No.” He huffed a derisive laugh. “Grandpa is in heaven where he belongs.”

“Why isn’t your grandma in heaven?” Rebecca said and then immediately regretted it. “I’m sorry. Never mind. It’s none of my—”

“She’s here for me.” Holden drew a lopsided harp. “She gave up heaven to help me through my, uh.” He surveyed his drawing. “Ordeal.”

“I don’t know what that means,” she admitted.

Holden sat back on his heels. “When you die, your spirit is supposed to move on. To heaven or the other side or whatever you want to call it. Some spirits stay here.”

“Unfinished business?” she guessed.

He nodded. “By choice or not, they stay here in our world. She was in heaven when I got there. When I returned—was resuscitated—she came back with me.”

“You were fifteen?” She would do the same thing. In a heartbeat. Her fifteen-year-old relative in pain, scared and alone? Yeah, she’d give up anything to help him.

Holden bobbed his head again. “But she’s not happy here.”

Of course. “Because you’re not fifteen anymore.”

“She misses her husband. She’s alone here except for me.”

“Why can’t she leave?”

He tossed the marker aside and focused on his design. “Me. She’s stuck here because of me. Because I’m a fuck up.”

Grams had sacrificed her afterlife to help him through a traumatic experience. Becca adored her. Completely. But Holden wasn’t a traumatized kid anymore. It was his turn to do something kind and selfless for her.

“Then, Holden, let her go.”

* * *

Holden knelt on only his third attempt at a spell circle and inhaled loudly, blowing out a stream of fear-choked breath. He’d never had to explain his and Grams’s situation before, and saying it out loud only made his selfishness more obvious. He’d guilted her into staying so he wouldn’t be alone, but it wasn’t fair to either of them. It kept her from her husband, and it turned him into a perpetual loner.

Speaking the Latin Cole had taught him, Holden called friendly spirits to show themselves. No power surged this time. It was simply a psychic shout into the world to attract attention. Immediately an overweight man in overalls shimmered on the edge of the sheet.

“I need help,” Holden said. “I don’t know how to say…” He shifted positions, both legs numb from the knee down. “I need you in case I have to cast a spell tonight.”

“Sounds good.” The guy smiled, revealing gaps in his teeth. “I’m up for anything.”

Holden nodded at Rebecca and the demon clinging to her. “I have to protect her,” he explained, his voice thick with barely controlled anxiety. “From everyone and everything. Can you help me do that?”

This person wouldn’t be his first choice, but since he was the only spirit who’d answered his call, Holden had to trust him. For now.

“Don’t be such a wuss.” The guy sneered. “I’ll blast you with all kinds of juice. Name’s Ned. You?”

“Holden,” he answered, climbing to his feet. “I guess we’re ready.”

* * *

The house was a cute, well-cared-for bungalow on a quiet residential street with flower boxes and a flag of a butterfly hanging from the porch. It was perfectly ordinary, and that petty, awful part of Rebecca wanted it to be run down and smell like cat urine. But it was just a house like any other home in any suburb in America.

Holden got out and offered his hand to help her down, but she sat still, not quite ready to face her mother.

“Are you sure you can do this?”

She snorted. “No.”

“Do you want me to stay in the car?”

“If you leave me alone in there…” It was one thing to face Nancy Ann with a supportive friend at her back. It was something much worse to face her alone.

“All you have to do is shake her hand.”

“Right. No problem.”

Rebecca marched toward the front door too quickly. There was no time to take a breath and plan what she’d say before she pressed the doorbell.

Chapter Sixteen

After twenty years, there stood Nancy Ann. Her hair was short and messy. She had lines around her mouth, and her clothes were average, small-town-mall stuff. In other words, she was the prototype of an aging soccer mom. And Becca found she had no feelings, positive or negative, about her at all.

The former Mrs. Powell blinked. “Rebecca?”

“Did Daddy tell you we were coming?”

“He did, but I didn’t believe him.” She patted her hair and then retucked the back of her blouse. “Come on in.” She glanced at Holden as if she hadn’t noticed him towering over Becca’s right shoulder. “Is this your husband?”

Not exactly. “This is Holden Clark.” He had become a lot of things to her in the last few days, but husband wasn’t one of them.

They entered the house, which stank of stale cigarette smoke, and stood awkwardly at the edge of the foyer.

“Have a seat.” Nancy Ann breezed past them, gesturing to the sofa in front of a muted television tuned to a reality show. “I was just watching something.” She clicked off the TV. “Sit. Relax.”

Becca didn’t want to be rude, but the last thing she intended was to flop on the sofa and chit chat over coffee and cookies.

“We can’t stay.” And really didn’t want to.

“You drove all the way up here to walk in the door and then leave?” Her face hardened.

Just shake her hand. And get out.

Holden rested his fingers on the small of Becca’s back and gave her the final push she needed to speak freely. She could have stuck out her hand and gotten the hell out of there. But here was her chance. Maybe her only one. So she sucked in a breath and dove in to the deep end.

“I guess I drove all the way out here to ask you, in person, why you left us the way you did.” The living room wasn’t so bad, and if it represented the rest of the place, the house wasn’t much different from the one she’d grown up in. “Nelly and I could have spent every other weekend with you. Or summers. Or something. Why did you disappear?”

Becca braced for the answer. Worst case? Her mother would admit she didn’t give a shit about her. Best case? Nancy Ann would burst into guilt-ridden tears.

The woman did not burst into tears. “I never wanted kids. I didn’t even want to get married. It was all Doug’s needs and desires back then, not mine. I went along with it because I loved him, but by the time Nelly was born…” She folded her arms. “It was either leave or kill myself.”

Becca just stood there, mute. Her mother would rather die than parent her? A burn flared in her gut, the painful shame of abandonment.

“I mean, what do you want me to say?” Nancy Ann continued, “Huh? That I’m sorry? Fine. I’m sorry. But I’m not a mother kind of person.” She gave Becca a long once-over. “You look like you turned out fine. What do you want?”

“Nothing.” Her voice broke. “I don’t want anything.”

Silence.

Her mother’s defensive gaze bounced from Rebecca to Holden and back again.

Having all the answers she could stomach, Becca cleared her throat. “Thank you for inviting us into your home.” Despite the bile rising in her throat, she extended her hand for a shake. Nancy Ann didn’t look like she was going to, but after an awkwardly long hesitation, she shook Becca’s hand.

With a nod, Becca walked out with Holden. The front door shut behind them, and Rebecca exhaled for what seemed like the first time in her whole life.

“Are you all right?” he asked, climbing into the Jeep.

She buckled herself in and adjusted her hair under his cap. “I didn’t feel any magic, did you?” But she knew the answer. That woman wasn’t trying to possess anyone.

“Nothing.” He started the engine, and it rumbled up through the floorboards. “Are you okay?”

Rebecca studied her hands, flipping them over, splaying her fingers wide. No blood. No tickle of electricity. Just the memory of her mother’s cold flesh.

“I don’t know what I expected. But it wasn’t that.”

“You can let it go,” Holden said quietly, leaning in close enough that she smelled his aftershave and felt his body heat like a warm blanket. “You can stop hating her.”

“Because she’s just a person,” she realized as she said it aloud. “Horrible, but just a person.” She smirked. “I suppose I should throw out a cliché like: She did the best she could.”

“Mmm.” He smiled back. “I don’t know about that. Seems she could have tried a
little
harder.”

* * *

The Jeep pulled into a parking spot near their rooms at the Comfort Inn in Richmond, and Holden got out, stretching and popping his back.

“I’ll be right there,” Rebecca called, remaining in the vehicle. “I want to call my sister.”

She dialed, and this time Nelly answered on the first ring. “Sissy?”

“I saw Mom,” Becca blurted.

“Oh my God. How was she? Are you okay?”

“Let’s never speak of her again.”

“Deal,” Nelly decreed. “So, did you take him?”

“Take who?”

“Your boy toy.”

“I took Holden if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I’ll bet you did.” Nelly giggled. “You naughty girl.”

Rebecca laughed, and it felt strangely freeing. “Hilarious.”

“So,” Nelly said, turning serious, “Can you forget about her and be happy now?”

Becca’s eyes tracked Holden’s progress through the stairwell and across the second-floor walkway. “I’m going to try.”

She hung up the phone and followed Holden upstairs.

“Do you feel better about her?” he asked.

“My mother?” Better wasn’t the word Rebecca would use. Relieved. Surprised.
Disappointed
.  “I had built her up in my mind into something else.” She tossed her purse onto the bed.

Holden hung her dry cleaning in the closet and set her overnight bag on the luggage sling. She paused to enjoy the way his shoulders bunched beneath his shirt and the way he moved with easy confidence. Memories from the night before crept into her thoughts, and her breath quickened.

“Thank you,” she said, referring to more than her luggage.

Holden glanced up, his brow creasing at the husky tone of her voice. His eyes turned smoky.

“I want to touch you.” She took a step in his direction. Then another. “You’re all I can think about.” The thought of running her hands up his bare forearms and the gentle friction it would cause sent sparks of awareness across her skin.

He stared at her with such raw desire in his eyes that it was really hard to concentrate, but he made no move to touch her.

“Rebecca,
Jesus
.” He groaned. “I wish to God there was a way I could make this work, but…”

She rocked on her heels. Then it hit her like a bucket of cold water. Grams. “She’s in me, isn’t she?” Becca really fucking hated that necromancer.
Hated
him. Like
loathed.

“Sort of surrounding.” He cupped his hands in the air. “But yeah.”

“That may be the worst news I’ve ever heard.”

He linked his fingers together over his button fly. “You have no idea.”

“The second—”  She pointed a perfectly manicured finger straight at his heart. “—we break this spell, you’re mine, Holden Clark.” Oh, the things she’d do to him. He liked giving orders in the bedroom? Wait until he had to take them.

“I’m yours,” he agreed.

“Well, if I can’t have you,” she said, surrendering, “I’m going to take a shower.” A really long, really hot shower. “Good night.”

And as she stood under the pulsating spray, steam heavy and full around her, it wasn’t sex she thought about, but their visit to Virginia. Holden was right about her mother. She’d spent her whole life trying to be Nancy Ann Powell, the perfect woman. When Nancy Ann couldn’t even live up to that standard.

Becca didn’t want any hurtful ties to the past remaining. Turning her face into the warm water, she decided she would let go of the pain. Not all at once. She didn’t know how to do that. But flake by flake, she’d chip away at those emotions and start fresh, her life a blank page spread out before her.

By the time Becca emerged from the bathroom, her hair dry and her skin slick with scented lotion, the sun had set, and Holden had retired to his adjoining room. But he’d left her bedside lamp on so she wouldn’t have to cross the unfamiliar room in the dark. And that small kindness meant more to her than any grand gestures or passionate declarations.

Quickly, she threw on plaid pajama bottoms and her Donald Duck T-shirt and tiptoed through the connecting doors.

His room was dark and silent except for the soft, steady breathing coming from the rumpled bed. She put one hand on the mattress. Sensing her there, he opened his very blue eyes.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She chewed on her lip for a moment, uncertain for the first time how to express herself. He’d supported her in front of her mother and cared for her and awakened her to a possible future where her happiness was not only her own priority but his, too. How did she express how thankful she was that she’d met him and Buster in that parking lot?

Nelly’s words popped into her head, and Becca blurted, “My sister thinks you’re in love with me.”

He exhaled slowly and then peeled back the sheets. “Is that a problem?”

Becca slid into bed beside him, and he wrapped her in his warm, solid embrace.

“No.”

Chapter Seventeen

“Order breakfast from room service,” Holden told Rebecca as he yanked on jeans over a pair of boxers. “Whatever you like. I’m going to call Dani. Maybe there’s another spell she can cast.” He wandered through the connecting doors and dialed the witch’s cell phone.

It rang and rang, and then finally a robotic message announced the voicemail was full. “That’s weird,” Holden grumbled, finding another number in his contacts list. It was Saturday morning, but people needed childcare on the weekends, too, didn’t they? He called her work.