accidental 11 - accidentally ever after (15 page)

Cormac’s ring finger, and a phone call from Stas with a warning:
Talk and he dies
.

Chapter 8

A
s the snow fell, her head on Jon’s shoulder, his free hand stroking her hair, she bit the inside of her cheek to keep from crying. “I called the police anonymously to report Cormac missing, but they said I had to come in to file a report. I had an appointment with a detective. And I went…”

Jon stroked her arm, his gentle fingers soothing her. “But?”

“But I took a risk, and I went to the police station. I even wore that same ridiculous disguise I wore to my apartment. I asked for the detective I’d spoken to on the phone and the police officer at the desk pointed him out. Thankfully, I wasn’t in Stas’s line of vision, but I saw him. I saw him rubbing elbows with the same damn detective I was supposed to talk to as if the two of them were old friends. I know he showed up there that day because he’d been given a head’s up. I knew it was Stas’s way of sending me a message that no one was going to listen because he owned the cops, too. The detective is dirty, maybe they all are. I don’t know. I just know in my gut, he was a part of covering up what Stas and Andre did,” she whispered fiercely.

“How did you end up at this store you speak of so often?”

“After that, I ran to the farthest part of Jersey I could get to without leaving the state altogether because I wanted to at least be nearby if I found anything out about Cormac. I hate that I ran, but I didn’t know what else to do. I was no good to Cormac dead, and no doubt Stas would have killed me if he could find me. So I took every last bit of money I had out of my savings account and I ran as far as I could get with what I had. I ditched my car in case Stas might have it followed.”

“And then what did you do, milady?”

Toni sighed, her eyes tearing. “My money ran out pretty quickly, but Cormac and I used to camp a lot as kids, so when I began to run low, I camped in the woods for days. I found odd jobs for a little while, stayed in homeless shelters until the dust settled, and then I got the job at the outlet mall, using my dead mother’s social security number, of all things. We share the same name, and it makes me sick to my stomach to do it, but if Stas and his people go looking for me with their connections…Anyway, that’s where I’ve been ever since. But I didn’t stop looking for Cormac. I scoured the internet for any mention, an article maybe,
anything
about an unidentified body. I kept calling the police from prepaid cell phones. I—”

“This cell phone you speak of, explain. Also, the intor-net, is it? How does one scour a net?”

Toni placed a hand on his broad chest, trying not to relish the feel of his hard pec beneath her palm. “I promise I’ll tell you later all about how much easier it is to live in Jersey in my time. Our forms of communication are superior to the ones here in Shamalot.”

Jon chuckled, the soft rumble reaching her ear as he settled her back against his chest. “So you’ve hidden away all this time with no luck finding your brother?”

Sorrow seeped back into her bones, that ugly helplessness she’d lived with for what felt like forever.

“Not for three years. Nothing. Not a trace of him. I even went back to his house, but there was a new family there. I guess the bank foreclosed…”

She shrugged her shoulders. Cormac had worked so hard for that house. He’d loved every inch, every room. Watching the people who’d moved in from behind a maple tree two houses down, laughing in the sunshine out in his sprawling front yard, playing Frisbee with their children, had almost made her want to run to them and scream the house wasn’t theirs to enjoy.

They had no right to laugh when she was so miserable, but it wasn’t their fault Cormac was gone.

It was hers.

“I feel like a coward. Like there was just one more thing I could have done to find him that I didn’t, you know? Maybe that’s why I got on that dragon’s back. Maybe all my pent-up aggression over Cormac, my helplessness, is forcing its way to the surface. Maybe I’m metaphorically saving Cormac over and over.”

“Might I speak freely, Toni?” Jon asked, ever formal.

She nodded her head, too wrung out from the day’s events to protest.

“You’re no coward. Never say such. You feel guilt because of your brother. This guilt relates to Nina, too. You fight so fiercely because you want to make up for the loss of your brother. And it all leads back to this bastard Stas, whom, I assure you, should I ever encounter, will leave such encounter with no head.”

His possessive tone made her shiver, but his words made complete sense. Her life spinning so far out of control had all begun with Stas and the murders, which had eventually led her to working at the outlet mall for Attila The Bree, which then had led to meeting the ladies from OOPS.

Maybe, in some twisted way, she was trying to keep everyone from harm by taking enormous risks because she hadn’t been able to save Cormac. But was it a death wish like Nina had pointed out?

Or did she think each time she defeated one form of a villain or another, she was racking up some sort of points to make up for not finding her brother? As if she could turn them in to the mailman with a self-addressed-stamped envelope and she’d get something in return—like the return of her brother.

Toni shook her head to clear the cobwebs. “I feel like everywhere I turn, I leave disaster in my wake. First it was Cormac, now it’s Nina. Would any of this have happened if I hadn’t thought a stupid wish up in my head? I’ve spent a lot of time staying out of any kind of trouble since everything happened. I take a different way home from work every three days. I don’t go out, not that I can afford to anyway. I don’t date, I don’t—”

“Date? I must insist you explain this term in your world’s language.”

“See men. You know, go to one of those movies I’ll tell you about, talk on the phone, go for walks, have dinner,” she said on a soft sigh.

“Ah. Then might I tell you, I’m not displeased you don’t date men?”

Her heart shuddered in her chest and her toes tingled. “The point is, I stay out of the limelight. The only reason I’m doing something as public as working at a store is because I couldn’t find work anywhere else, and I think I’m deep enough into Jersey that Stas would never consider looking for me there. The job stinks, but it gave me a roof over my head.” Besides who wanted to hire a woman with an accounting degree and a killer on her ass?

“There is no need to run here in Shamalot. Here, you’re safe with me,” he said.

She slid forward on the toadstool and gave him a look of utter disbelief. “It’s a good thing you’re pretty. Have you forgotten Queen Angria?”

He leaned forward, too, cupping her chin. “I said you were safe here with
me
, beautiful maiden. I’m not in your land of Jersey. I would always protect you, should you stay here.”

Toni’s throat went dry. “I don’t know what you’re trying to say.”

He slid in closer, splaying his hand across her lower back and pulling her tight. “I think you do, milady. I’m saying, stay here with me,” he murmured, just before he pressed his lips to Toni’s and she melted into him.

The moment his mouth aligned with hers, fireworks went off behind her eyelids. Vivid, colorful sparks, shooting upward as the soft pressure of his lips increased.

Toni leaned into his powerful strength, her back bowing, her heart pounding. She clung to the lapels of his vest, her fingers shaking from the sharp sweetness of his mouth on hers.

Jon slipped his tongue between her lips, the silken rasp making her nipples tighten and press hard against the bodice of her confining dress. The blanket around her shoulders fell to the ground and suddenly it wasn’t cold and snowing, it was hot and maddeningly delicious.

Each stroke of his tongue made her weak, made the space between her thighs hot and achy with need. His thickly muscled arms hauled her closer, his breathing strained, matching the heave of her chest.

She drove her fingers into his hair, pushing away the piece of material he used to hold it back and threading her fingers through the soft silken strands, clinging to him.

Jon moaned into her mouth, tightening his hold as he leaned back, pulling her until her hips were pressed to his, the strain of his shaft against his breeches making her squirm.

Her arms went up around his neck as he took her mouth, devoured it, captured it until Toni felt faint. She wanted this man, wanted to know what he looked like naked, wanted to stop wondering what his hands would feel like on her flesh—

“Hey, Flawless! Quit eatin’ her face off and get the hell in here before you knock her up. The last thing we need is magical fairytale babies!”

Nina?!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!
she mentally shouted as she and Jon pulled apart in guilt.

Jon’s eyes instantly found hers and they held self-reproach. “Milady, my apologies. I’ve risked your honor and good reputation.”

Pressing her hands to her hot cheeks, she took in a shaky breath. She’d been kissed before, and at one point or another she was sure she’d been kissed well, but it was
nothing
like Jon’s kiss.

“You didn’t do anything wrong. Where I come from, we kiss all the time.”

His eyes went wide and one eyebrow rose. “Out in the open when public eyes are upon you?”

Toni snorted. “Uh-huh. It’s not inappropriate to make out. Maybe not in, like, the
Shop Rite
, but when you’re alone in the privacy of your home, no one gets upset.”

“You do this in your land without an escort—this dating? It’s unheard of here.”

“As long as you’re an adult and you’re both consenting.”

“I take back what I said about staying here. I think I like your land better,” he said, his chuckle deep and husky.

She shrugged with a smile, her pulse still slowing but her thoughts far away. “I don’t know, I think I like Shamalot. It’s magical.”

“There is plenty of magic to be had, but we do not have phones and nets and dating. We’d do well to learn from your kind.”

“Either way, there’s nothing to worry about. Besides, who would care if my reputation were soiled anyway? No one. So you’re safe.”

Jon grabbed her hand and captured her gaze. “I would care, milady. I would care greatly.”

She had to look away from his intense stare. “We should get back inside,” she whispered.

Toni rose to leave, her hand slipping from Jon’s. But it wasn’t without reluctance as the warmth of his flesh dissipated.

Making her way inside to where Marty and Wanda sat sipping coffee and eating the sandwiches Hamish had made with a very animated Nina, Toni couldn’t help but smile to herself.

Nina was okay.

That was all that mattered right now. Her brother, what she’d told Jon, their kiss…it would all have to wait.

Sneaking up behind Nina, careful not to unsettle the birds curled up in her hair, Toni wrapped her arms around her neck and gave her a hug—a long, hard one just before she planted a wet kiss on the vampire’s lean cheek.

“I’m so happy you’re better. There’d be no reason to get out of my tent every morning if you weren’t around to offend me and call me ugly names.”

The quick acknowledgment Nina gave by squeezing her wrist was all Toni needed just before she flicked her hand. “I could tell how happy you were. So happy, you almost sucked Flawless’s lips right off his GD perfect face, huh?” she joked on a growl.

Everyone laughed, even Toni.

And in that moment—a moment she was sharing with people she was coming to like—she felt less alone, less like there was no point to getting out of bed each morning.

She liked that. She liked that a lot.

* * * *

“Ye like the lass?” Dannan asked just outside of Ellesandra’s, both of them leaning on the fence with their elbows, watching the rise of the new day.

“Why do you ask?”

Dannan chuckled and winked. “’Twas evident when ye almost gobbled her face off out here last night. ’Twas more evident by the happy tune ye whistled as ye prepared for today’s journey. True love’s kiss is grand, aye?”

That made Jon pause. Was that what this was? Love? Nay. So soon? They’d only known each other a mere few days now.

He was intrigued, yes. The very thought that someone might hurt her back in her land incensed him. To the point he wished to travel to her Jersey, hunt this Stas down like he’d hunted so many before him, and chop his thieving head off.

Thinking of Toni helpless, alone, out in the cold while she camped and had no home to call her own, enraged him.

Thinking of her lips over and over, soft, tasting of the sweetest strawberries, before he finally found sleep last night almost drove him to dive into the cold snowdrifts piled up outside Ellesandra’s path to the front door.

But love?

“What do you know of true love’s kiss, ogre?” he groused, annoyed that he’d been called out. “It’s nothing but a silly legend made up by a bunch of maidens who have too much time on their hands.”

“Then yer mother is a silly maiden? I think she might box yer ears for sayin’ as much, lad.”

Jon turned to look at his longtime blue friend. “My mother? What do you know of her romance?”

Dannan grinned, folding his hands together. “I know the courtship she shared with yer father. Ye forget, I’ve been around more than a hundred years. I was there. Ah, ’twas a thing of beauty. Everyone said as much, and when they talked of yer parents, they talked of yer mother and her story of true love’s kiss. She told anyone who had ears the legend was true.”

Jon rolled his eyes at his friend. He didn’t want to talk of his parents. “You are daft, good sir.”

“Nay. I’m observant, and I enjoy the maiden’s company. She makes me laugh.”

Now he smiled fondly—almost too fondly for his own liking. “Aye, with her talk of phones and cars, she is quite amusing.” So amusing, she made his gut tight and his morals questionable.

“Have ye given thought to what awaits her at the castle? This happiness that chattering Brenda speaks of? What could it be?”

“I have given it thought, yes. I know not what it means. Nor do I know what the shoes mean, but they mean something. Mark my words. I believe they’re responsible for these powers Toni has acquired. It’s as though she’s absorbing her foes’ strengths. How can that be? Have you ever heard of these shoes?”