Page 8 of Demon Loved (The Witches of Mingus Mountain #5)

A neutral enough question, he supposed. He got the feeling she was doing her best to make conversation until the waitress returned with their bottle of wine, and he could only be grateful for that. Any topic that turned his thoughts away from his true reason for being here could only help.

And at least this time, he could answer her honestly.

Partly, at any rate.

“Not very much,” he admitted. “I read about Jerome, of course, but I suppose I hadn’t realized this area is so focused on wine.”

“It’s kind of hard to miss,” she responded with a grin, although there wasn’t anything overtly teasing about her tone or her expression. “Some days, it feels like almost everything here revolves around the wine industry. We’ve got our own AVA.”

He raised an eyebrow. While he thought his grasp on the English language was quite good, he didn’t think he’d ever heard that term before.

“American viticultural area,” she explained, the corners of her mouth still curving in that beautiful smile. “You know, like Napa or Sonoma.”

Belshegar wasn’t sure he’d heard of either of those places, either. But viticulture had something to do with wine, didn’t it?

He thought so, and also took this opportunity to excuse himself for not being terribly familiar with some of the phrases Brianna had used.

It wasn’t as though he and Elena had discussed wine or winemaking during the times he’d come to keep her company and let her know she wasn’t as alone as she believed.

“Ah,” he responded, and was glad that their waitress had chosen to return at that moment, since her arrival saved him from having to say much of anything else.

Once their wine was poured, however, he realized he needed to make some kind of comment before they drank. Not a formal toast like the one that had been delivered at Elena’s wedding by Alessandro’s cousin Gabriel, but at least a few words to commemorate the moment.

“To unexpected meetings,” he said, and Bree raised her glass and touched it to his.

“‘To unexpected meetings,’” she echoed.

The sentiment behind the words was true enough, after all.

It wasn’t as if he’d come here for the express purpose of meeting Brianna McAllister.

No, he’d arrived in Jerome to find the witch and warlock who held the artifacts the voice had requested, of course.

But he’d had no idea he would meet someone so entrancing while here on his mission.

He couldn’t allow her to distract him too much, though. After all, the entire reason why he’d approached her was that he’d hoped she might lead him to the people he was truly seeking.

Perhaps he was being a bit disingenuous, but he found he didn’t want to analyze the entirety of his motivations too closely.

“I suppose it’s a good thing that I decided to stay in Jerome rather than Clarkdale or Cottonwood,” he said. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been wandering along the main street, wondering what to do with myself.”

“You did seem a little at loose ends when you came into the tasting room,” Brianna remarked, and then sipped from her glass of wine.

Had it been that obvious? And here he’d thought he’d done everything he could to act as though he didn’t have a care in the world.

Being human was more difficult than he’d thought.

“It was a little disconcerting to see all those cars leaving town at the end of the afternoon,” he said. “I wondered if there would be anything for me to do here.”

“Jerome does tend to roll up the sidewalks at night,” Brianna replied.

“A couple of the restaurants stay open, and the Spirit Room usually has live entertainment, but not on Wednesdays. And even then they don’t start until around eight, so I can see why you might have thought you were doomed to eat room service or something. ”

Did the Grand Hotel even have room service?

He only knew such a thing existed because Elena had mentioned taking advantage of it while she was staying at the La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe, doing her best to lie low so her father and grandmother wouldn’t realize she’d escaped the prison they’d created for her.

But he supposed the staff at the Grand Hotel wouldn’t have put the restaurant’s menu in his room if there wasn’t some way of having the food delivered directly there.

“Then I guess it was very lucky that I heard you playing when I passed by the tasting room.”

For a moment, her gaze met his. The lighting was dim enough in here that normal human vision probably wouldn’t have been able to detect the pure blue hues of her eyes, but Belshegar’s sight was anything but normal.

He could detect the subtle shimmers of paler tones, almost crystalline gray, could see the dark ring around her irises, something that only served to make her eye color stand out that much more.

Even if the rest of her hadn’t been equally as lovely, those eyes alone would have made her a beauty.

“I suppose it is,” she said lightly. Her lips parted, as though she intended to ask him something else, but the waitress arrived with their food right then.

A moment was taken up by their plates being set down in front of them and the waitress asking if they needed anything else. Belshegar wasn’t sure why she would pose such a question, not when they hadn’t ordered anything other than their entrées, and those had already been delivered.

But Brianna smiled and thanked the other woman, and said she was fine and everything looked great. Picking up on her cue, he murmured much the same.

And then they were alone again.

He had to admit the food smelled delicious, and the first few bites only supported that impression. It seemed Brianna’s brother must have used magic to create such dishes, for the flavors were blended so skillfully that he thought the food had become far more than the sum of its parts.

Of course he couldn’t ask Bree if that was the truth, not when she knew she must never divulge anything about her magical nature to a stranger…and not when she thought he was no more of witch-kind than the woman who had just brought them their food.

To be fair, he wasn’t witch-kind. No, he was something far, far different, even though he possessed magical gifts of his own.

“How is your food?” he asked politely.

“Wonderful — but it always is when Shane’s cooking.” She paused there, fork resting against her plate. “How’s yours?”

“It’s excellent,” Belshegar replied, knowing he could be truthful about that…if not a host of other subjects. “Your brother obviously has a gift for this sort of thing.”

She blinked, clearly a little put off by the way he’d phrased the comment.

But then something about her seemed to relax, as though she’d told herself it wasn’t such a strange thing to say, and that people made remarks about “gifts” and “talents” all the time without those comments ever referring to the powers that a witch or warlock might possess.

“Yes,” she said as she set down her fork and reached for her glass of wine.

“He knew from the time he was really young that he wanted to be a chef, and he went to culinary school down in Phoenix. Still, landing the top spot in the kitchen here was kind of a coup for him, since he’s only twenty-seven.

Usually, you need to earn your lumps in a sous chef position for a few years before you’re running the back of house. ”

Several of the phrases she’d used were unfamiliar to him, but Belshegar did his best to sort out her words. From what he was able to tell, she was saying that her brother was young for the position he currently held, and that was all due to his unique skills.

“I suppose it’s always good to know what you want to do in life,” he said.

Something about Brianna’s mouth seemed to tighten, and he wondered if he’d said the wrong thing. But then her expression smoothed itself and became almost cheerful once again.

“And what do you do in life?” she inquired, her tone almost teasing now.

Damn. He hadn’t taken the time to concoct much of a story about himself, mostly because he hadn’t thought he would have to do anything more than pose as a tourist interested in local history.

He’d never thought he’d be sitting down to dinner with a member of the local witch clan.

But Brianna was gazing at him with those astonishing blue eyes, so he knew he had to think of something. For him to be here at a time that wasn’t a holiday and with no real itinerary seemed to indicate that he had plenty of leisure time to do with as he pleased.

And he had the example of the Castillos to go on. True, many of them had some sort of career, if only to help obfuscate the true source of their wealth, but others seemed to do very little except paint or write or simply be.

“I live off my investments,” he said, thinking that felt simpler than trying to explain a job he didn’t even possess, and her eyes widened a little.

“Those must be some investments,” she responded with a grin, and picked up her fork again.

Had he misstepped? Well, he’d said the words, so it wasn’t as though he could retreat now.

“And an inheritance,” he added, hoping that would help to explain the situation, and now she actually chuckled.

“Well, I’m glad you’re being honest about it. So, you just travel where you like, when you like?”

“More or less,” he said. That wasn’t completely a lie. Except for those times when Elena had summoned him for companionship and comfort, his time had been entirely his own.

Until the voice sent him here to retrieve the artifacts, of course.

Perhaps some mortals would have said, “Must be nice,” or something along those lines. However, Brianna only looked thoughtful.

“It’s a great thing to be in control of your destiny like that,” she said as she skillfully removed one of the shrimps from its skewer and speared it with her fork. “I like that you’re using your time to learn new things. It’s what keeps your mind active.”

“Are you always learning new things?” he asked, genuinely curious.

Her expression sobered a bit. “Not as much as I would like, I suppose. But I’m teaching them, so that’s something.”

This response startled him. “You teach?”

Somehow, he couldn’t imagine her in front of a classroom full of students, but possibly that was only because he had very little experience of such things.

Now she smiled again. “Music,” she replied, then added, “Guitar and piano and voice. Just at my students’ houses, and I don’t have a lot of kids to teach. But it’s a nice break from all the tasting room gigs.”

Belshegar could see that. To share her love of music with a new generation — to guide them to appreciate it on their own?

That was no small thing.

“Have you always played?” he inquired next, and she nodded.

“As long as I can remember. My parents had a piano that belonged to my great-grandparents on my mom’s side, so I played around with that.

And then someone gave Shane a toy guitar for his birthday when he was eight or nine.

He messed with it for a couple of days but wasn’t all that interested, and I kind of took it over.

I suppose you can say the rest is history. ”

Once again, Belshegar wished he could ask her if music was her magical gift, or whether she wasn’t materially different from all the generations of mortals who had a natural aptitude for singing or composing or playing an instrument.

Unfortunately, he doubted they would ever get to a place where she would be willing to place such confidences in him.

“It’s good when your talent is so strong that you can’t think of anything else you would rather do in life,” he ventured.

Her expression grew almost wistful. “I suppose it is,” she replied. “And luckily, I never had parents who told me that pursuing music was silly and that I should get a business degree or become a doctor or a lawyer or something.”

No, it seemed her parents had allowed her to find her own way. Was it like that in most witch families? He couldn’t say for sure, not when his only real example had been Elena’s father and grandmother…and they’d been anything but supportive.

However, he’d been able to tell at her wedding reception that most of the guests there seemed to be very happy with their lives. Certainly, it didn’t seem as though they’d been forced into careers that were at odds with their talents and skills.

“So….” Bree went on, and again she seemed almost diffident, as if she wasn’t sure how she should broach the topic even if it was something she wanted to discuss. “How long are you in town?”

Could it be that she wanted to see more of him?

That must be the case, or he doubted she would have even asked the question.

Hope fluttered with butterfly wings within his chest, but he tried to sound as casual as possible as he said, “My trip here is open-ended.”

Of course it was. How could he know when he would be going back to his plane when he had no idea how long it would take for him to retrieve the artifacts the voice had requested?

Thank all the various forces in the universe that he’d already provided Brianna McAllister with a perfectly plausible reason as to why he could stay in Jerome for as long as he liked.

Her mouth pursed, partway to a smile. “Well,” she said, also in tones that he knew were deliberately nonchalant, “there’s a folk festival coming up this weekend, and I’m playing Saturday afternoon. Maybe you’d like to stick around for that?”

Belshegar could think of nothing he’d like better. Of course he had no real interest in folk music, but he would take every possible opportunity to spend time in her company.

“That sounds like it would be fun,” he replied.

She seemed to relax against the back of her chair, although he could tell she was doing what she could to hide her relief by spearing another shrimp and popping it in her mouth.

Once she was done chewing, she said, “There’s lots of other stuff besides music, too.

There’ll be food trucks and a craft fair.

We started having the festival about ten years ago, and it keeps getting bigger every year. ”

“Then I suppose it’s a good thing I already have a hotel room,” he told her.

Now her eyes met his, and he could see the anticipation shining in them.

“Yes,” she said. “I suppose it is.”