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He supposed he should have prepared himself for the possibility that she would be pretty.

No, he thought as he pulled out of Sedona Vines’ gravel-paved parking lot and headed back toward Cottonwood. Not just pretty.

Beautiful, with that rich coppery hair and those clear gray eyes, the full mouth that mostly had been quirked with amusement but at the same time promised all sorts of lush delights.

He shouldn’t be thinking about her mouth, though…or anything else, really, except why his talent had tried to tell him something was going on with Bellamy McAllister.

Exactly what, he had no idea, because she’d said that her life was pretty darn boring, with nothing to indicate why his gift had zeroed in on her, for whatever reason.

And yet…what had been going on with that strange gust of wind that had blown through the patio at the wine bar, catching her long red hair and sending the other patrons’ cocktail napkins swirling all over the place?

Bellamy had looked almost guilty when it happened.

Was that her gift? Working with the wind?

Maybe, but even if that were the case, he could tell she hadn’t meant for the breeze to play such havoc on the patio.

He would have asked, except it was generally etiquette among members of the various witch clans not to inquire as to a person’s magical gifts, and instead to wait for them to volunteer that information when they thought the time was right.

Clearly, Bellamy hadn’t felt the need to tell him that much about herself.

Frowning, he found himself passing his hotel in Old Town Cottonwood and continuing along 89A as it went through tiny Clarkdale and then began climbing the hill to Jerome. Although his mother had let his grandmother know he was coming to the Verde Valley, he hadn’t reached out to Tricia yet, since he wasn’t sure when he’d be able to swing by.

But with his conversation with Bellamy pretty much a bust, he figured it might be a good idea to talk to his grandmother and see if she had any insights to offer about the troubling dream…vision…he’d had.

Far more traffic was coming down the hill than going up it, signaling that most of the tourists seemed to view Jerome as a day destination rather than a place where they planned to hang out and sample the nightlife.

Was there even any nightlife in Jerome? He had the vague idea that there were a couple of bars on Main Street, places that might have live music, but obviously, his parents wouldn’t have taken him and his little sister Lucy to those sorts of venues when they were here visiting the grandparents.

He had to hope Tricia wouldn’t mind too much if he dropped in so close to dinner.

But of course she welcomed him with a hug and said she hoped he would stay to eat, so that seemed to be the end of that. His grandfather didn’t seem to be anywhere around, though, and she only smiled and shook her head when he asked.

“Oh, he and a couple of his friends are up by Williams, doing some quail hunting,” she explained. “That’s why I made a big pot of soup — I figured I’d eat it over the next couple of days until he gets back.”

“I don’t want to eat up all your stash — ”Marc began, but she only smiled and shook her head.

“It’s fine,” she told him. “And I made some bread, too. A growing boy like you needs to eat.”

Now it was his turn to smile. “I think my growing days are kind of behind me now.”

Good thing, too, since he’d shot up six inches his sophomore year of high school and the experience had been excruciating, to say the least. But now he topped his father’s six foot two by almost half an inch, so all those worries that he was going to turn out to be a runt had been mercifully left by the wayside.

“Your mother told me you had one of your dreams,” Tricia said as they headed into the dining room. A warm, rich aroma drifted in from the kitchen, and his stomach rumbled.

Whatever that soup was, it smelled delicious.

“I did,” he replied. “That was why I went to talk to Bellamy, since she seemed to be the only person in the McAllister clan with the right color hair.”

Even as the words left his mouth, he thought how foolish they sounded.

But Tricia didn’t seem to think they were foolish, and instead frowned slightly. He knew from old family photos that her hair had once been the same coppery blonde shade as her daughter’s, but now her sleek bob was pure white. However, like Caitlin, her skin barely bore any lines at all, only a few crow’s feet around her eyes and another line right in the middle of her brows, probably etched there after managing the McAllister clan’s business for the past twenty-plus years.

“Yes, we don’t have a lot of redheads right now,” his grandmother said. “Well, Lisbeth’s daughter, but she’s only seven, so she couldn’t have been the woman in your dream.” She paused there, and added, “You go ahead and take a seat. I’ll have the food out in just a minute.”

“Do you need any help?”

“No, I’m fine,” Tricia assured him. “You just sit tight.”

Feeling a little awkward — even though he knew any more offers of assistance would only be met with additional refusals — Marc sat down at the dining room table, which was covered by a cheerful flowered tablecloth. As far as he’d been able to tell, that table was never bare, since it always had worn a seasonally appropriate cloth the few times his family had come to Jerome for the holidays.

His grandmother came back out with some flatware and a bowl of heavy cream-glazed stoneware, along with a cloth napkin that matched the tablecloth. “There you go,” she said, putting the place setting in front of him. “Would you like a glass of wine, or is water okay?”

“Water is fine,” he replied. That one glass of rosé hadn’t had much of an effect on him, but he still didn’t think it was a good idea to have anything else tonight, not when he still had no idea exactly what had been going on with that damn dream.

His grandmother smiled at him before returning to the kitchen. Soon enough, she had a tureen of soup sitting on the table, along with a loaf of gorgeously crusty bread and some butter.

“I know it’s a little silly to be having soup on such a hot day,” she said as she ladled some into his bowl. “But I just got a craving for green chile corn chowder, and since your grandfather wasn’t here to tease me about it, I made a big pot anyway.”

“It smells amazing,” Marc said. Corn chowder was his favorite soup, so he thought it positively providential that his grandmother had whipped up a batch today.

And no, she wasn’t a seer like her daughter and her grandson, but she was still a powerful witch, and maybe she’d somehow known this was just what the doctor had ordered.

“What did Bellamy have to say?” she asked after they’d helped themselves to soup and bread, and taken a couple of bites.

Marc found his mouth twisting. “Not a whole heck of a lot. She said there hasn’t been anything of real note going on in the clan, and she couldn’t figure out why I would have a dream with her in it.”

His grandmother had just buttered another slice of bread, but she set it down on her plate as he made that comment, her expression now thoughtful.

“Oh, we’ve had a little excitement,” she said. “A witch named Devynn Rowe — she’s a Wilcox, but was working here at the mercantile — traveled in time and came back with a fiancé from 1926, Seth McAllister. Turns out he was one of the family who owned the store back then, so he’s basically running things now.”

Well, that was something. Not many witches had the gift of time travel, but to return to the present day with a significant other in tow?

He wondered why Bellamy hadn’t said anything about that. Maybe she’d thought it wasn’t the sort of thing that would have any bearing on his dreams.

After all, he’d dreamed about her, not this Devynn Rowe person.

“But I assume Seth being here is a good thing for the McAllister clan,” Marc said.

“Oh, it is,” Tricia assured him. “And he and Devynn are very happy. Still, it’s a little out of the ordinary, even if I can’t see how it would have anything to do with that dream you had.”

He couldn’t see it, either.

“Does Bellamy control the wind?” he asked next, thinking he should try to clear up that one small mystery. “When we were talking on the patio at Sedona Vines, this weird breeze came up out of nowhere. She didn’t say anything, but….”

He let the words trail off, even as his grandmother frowned.

“Yes, that’s her talent,” Tricia said. “But I’ve never heard of her losing control of it. In fact, she’s never really used it all that much, except to call in a breeze when some of the clan’s children wanted to fly their kites and the day was too calm. It’s one of those magical talents that exists but doesn’t seem to have a lot of practical use.”

No, he supposed not. Sure, maybe back in the day, witches and warlocks of the past had used such a gift to turn the sails of a windmill to grind their grain or whatever, but it wasn’t the sort of thing anyone would have needed for a long, long time.

Then again, how useful was his own talent? It had sent him signals now and then that allowed him to see something of the future, but they had never been anything remotely earth-shattering. Honestly, if it really wanted to be of some help, then it should have warned him that Simon Escobar was going to steal those grimoires from the various de la Paz clan members who had them stashed in their houses.

But his gift hadn’t told him a damn thing.

“I’m sure there’s a completely rational explanation for what happened,” Tricia went on. “It might not have been Bellamy’s talent at all. Sedona can get some odd winds, probably because of all those red rock canyons. We just don’t know that much about it because the McAllisters have never lived there.” A pause, and her brows drew together. “Even if Bellamy is living in Sedona at the moment.”

“She is?” Marc replied, a little startled. Despite growing up in de la Paz territory, he knew that Sedona had always been a kind of neutral ground in between the McAllister and Wilcox lands.

“Yes,” his grandmother said, and helped herself to a spoonful of corn chowder. “Not permanently,” she added, as though she needed to clarify the situation so he wouldn’t think they were being utterly reckless. “But some rich man who owns a ranch in West Sedona wanted someone to live there while he was trying to sell the place, and Bellamy agreed to be his caretaker. I assume she’ll be back in Jerome once the ranch is sold — or maybe Cottonwood or Clarkdale. Housing in Jerome is always at a premium.”

Marc could see that. The tiny former mining town had fewer than five hundred full-time residents, and that meant competition was fierce whenever a house or flat became available. Nothing he would ever have to worry about, of course, not when the de la Paz clan had all of southern Arizona to choose from when it came to living spaces, but he supposed he could see why Bellamy might have wanted to have something of an adventure and camp out in Sedona for a while.

If nothing else, it would seriously reduce her commute.

“Well, I guess it wasn’t anything important,” he said, then reached for the butter so he could cut off another chunk and put it on his plate.

“Probably not,” his grandmother agreed.

A warm wind — one Bellamy hadn’t summoned — caught at her loose hair as she stood under a waxing moon. It was nearly one o’clock in the morning, and she knew she should go to bed, even if she had the day off tomorrow…well, today, since it was now technically Sunday.

But an odd restlessness had caught hold of her after she pulled into the huge four-bay garage and entered the ranch house, one she didn’t think would be assuaged by making herself a cup of chamomile tea and watching a few YouTube videos until she’d finally convinced herself it was time to go to bed.

That was why she’d poured some water and gone out into the courtyard so she could stand there and look at the stars. The ranch sat on more than five acres of extremely valuable land — part of the reason why it was listed for a little over seven million dollars — but the courtyard offered a much more intimate space, with an outdoor kitchen off to one side of the covered patio and a modern fountain of granite and brazed bronze in the center. A series of metal wind sculptures ornamented the flowerbeds, and they now moved lazily in the night breeze, never going completely still.

Even though Sedona Vines had been jumping this Saturday night — a tour bus with a bridal party had pulled up only a few minutes after the band got started — Bellamy hadn’t been quite able to put Marc Trujillo out of her mind. She tried to tell herself that of course she would be on edge after a man who claimed to be a seer told her she’d been the central element in a foreboding dream, but she guessed it was something a little more than that.

He was way too attractive for his own good.

Well, for her good, anyway. Unlike a lot of handsome men she’d met, he didn’t seem to have much of an opinion regarding his appearance. In fact, he’d seemed almost diffident when speaking to her, as if he didn’t quite know how she was going to react to what he was saying.

That made some sense, she supposed. No one liked to hear they’d been part of someone’s dark vision, even if the person having the dream in question looked like a male model.

But no…that wasn’t quite right. Marc Trujillo was definitely gorgeous, but he didn’t give off that aura of being way too full of himself like the few models she’d run across while working the wine tasting rooms.

Not that it mattered if he was the handsomest guy in the world, as well as the most self-effacing. He’d come here to see if his dream had any merit, and she’d pretty much shot him down. Maybe he’d hang around for a few days so he could spend some time with his McAllister relations, but there wasn’t any reason why he should seek her out again.

Unless he had another dream, of course.

Bellamy frowned and glanced up at the moon. It continued to sail serenely overhead, just a day or two past the halfway mark, and she guessed it wasn’t going to give her any answers.

Almost without thinking, she raised a hand, and immediately the warm, gentle breeze that had been playing with the loose ends of her hair strengthened, turning into a real wind, one that wanted to whip those strands into her face. Across the courtyard, the spinning of the metal sculptures increased, one of them creaking just the slightest bit with the movement.

She’d need to hit that with some graphite lubricant tomorrow. It wouldn’t do to have those things squeaking all over the place during the home’s next showing…whenever that was. So far, the realtor representing the listing hadn’t reached out to tell her that anyone wanted to look at the place.

Then again, Bellamy had only gotten here yesterday afternoon, and although the property was divine, buyers who qualified for that kind of mortgage…or had that kind of cash just lying around…weren’t exactly thick on the ground. It could take months to get the place sold, which was why Ike Davidson had wanted her living here in the interim. Yes, the house had an elaborate security system, but she could see why he’d needed to make sure the property wouldn’t stand empty all those months.

As quickly as it had come, the wind she’d summoned died down, and she shook her head. She’d had to consciously call the breeze, which meant she wasn’t quite sure what had happened at Sedona Vines when she was talking to Marc Trujillo. Even when she was a ten-year-old kid with her powers just waking up, she’d never made the wind come without thinking about it first, so she didn’t quite know what to make of that odd little display at the wine bar.

Maybe it hadn’t been her powers at all. A coincidence, nothing more.

That would be the easiest thing, wouldn’t it?

Well, she’d figure it out in the morning…or wouldn’t, depending on whether she achieved some sort of illumination overnight. At least it would be a quiet day, one in which she didn’t plan to do anything more momentous than the laundry and maybe a quick trip into town to hit the Safeway and Whole Foods. Once upon a time, she wouldn’t have dreamed of shopping at what her friends called “Whole Paycheck” unless she knew she couldn’t find what she was looking for anywhere else, but now that she was pulling in an assistant manager’s salary in addition to getting paid an extra two grand a month to babysit the ranch, she figured a little splurge wouldn’t hurt anything.

Maybe she would dream about Marc Trujillo.