The Matchmaker's Mark (12 page)

"What was that?" he demanded, his brutal voice shattering the quiet around her.

"Helping." Amy sighed and turned, snapping her fingers for the greyhound's attention. Her expression: part satisfaction, part serenity, and all wistful, took the leading edge off his anger.

"You can't help all of them. It's best to stick with the ones still living. She had a place here."

"The wrong place. She and her love, her husband were an odd, but perfect match. She came South with him, to a life as foreign to her as another country. He left, had to leave her for some business.

"They died on the same day. The same day, Dare! I'm not sure how I know, but they were so close, so perfect together. They were two halves of one whole that neither could live – literally – without the other. Here, alone, she was heartbroken. I could fix it."

"They had their chance in life."

"So they don't deserve a blissful eternity in death?" She tsked at him. "His body has never been returned here to the family plot. I know that much from the tour guides. But as the 'Matchmaker'," she used air quotes, "I felt how he pines for her too.

"I could fix it, Dare," she repeated, winding down. "They were the perfect love match. Isn't that what the Matchmaker's all about?"

Not even close. "Amy." How could he make her understand? He wasn't sure he understood it himself, but he could see what fixing it had cost her. Shifting to the more immediate issue, he asked, "How did you know?"

Her head tipped up and he followed her gaze to bare sliver of moon visible through the trees. It was pale as the ghosts who'd approached her. More solid, but just as real.

"Back home, there's always a big Fourth of July display over the lake. I remember one year, I was probably four or five. It was hot and muggy like any other Midwestern summer. The air was heavier with spent gunpowder after the fireworks, but there was a cinnamon scent too. Like warm rolls fresh from the oven. It was lovely."

He watched her inhale as if she were living it all over.

"I was tired, but the smell drew me, made me all awake again. I wandered off – just a little – I could still see my family headed toward the car, but I went toward the smell. She was lovely and sad and not much older than me."

"A ghost."

"Yes. We only had a minute, but I felt her here." She tapped her fingers over her heart. "The girl watched the fireworks and the people every year. She probably still does, but I only saw her that once."

"You spoke to her." She nodded. "How long have you known you've had this magic?"

"What magic is there in communing with the dead? I've had a moment or two through the years, but this was the first I'd felt compelled to do something about it."

"This is the first I've seen spirit magic in action." It unnerved him that she didn't understand the danger. "That was a foolish risk. You could've been hurt." Or more likely captured in a murky limbo. He could almost hear the separate factions celebrating and mourning in equal measures.

"But I wasn't hurt. Tonight was much the same as that long ago Fourth of July." But she shivered as she said it. The need to protect and guard was as much a part of him as his pointed ears and he reached out, tugging her coat closed.

"There's more to you now, a bigger purpose." He lowered his voice. "As Matchmaker, your power and any inherent gifts will be a beacon to others."

He'd been debating the idea of continuing in service to this Matchmaker, wondering if assisting her might help him learn Camille's fate. After this episode, that plan was not an option. She needed different protection. Protection far beyond his skills.

Dare looked at her, searching for some way to explain. "You don't believe me. Not about the risk."

She shook her head. "Hard to argue what happened here isn't significant. You seem worried about my ability to speak with ghosts, but what makes it so different than any of the other magic of the Campbell women? Surely my aunt was a force of her own."

"No truer words, as they say, but you are different."

"I don't feel different, Darian."

A gasp and a thunk of a loose brick on the path cut his reply short.

Between them, Guinness leaned forward, ears perked and tail wagging.

"Wait here." Dare nudged her back against the low fence that surrounded the family plot of the ghost she'd helped. "Stay," he said to the dog. "Do not move," he grumbled at the Matchmaker, hoping she'd obey as he moved silently into the shadows. Bouncing his senses off the trees and plants, he circled around to cut off the escape of whoever had been eavesdropping. Horrible possibilities rattled around in his head, twisting his gut again. Only the strength of the old growth and the vitality of the new growth in the churchyard kept him upright and mobile.

My dearest Amy,

How is your love life, dear? You haven't mentioned Stephan in months. I assume he completed his term and returned to Germany. I do hope you weren't heartbroken. I don't mean to pry, workplace romance is on my mind. A member of our team was so enamored with a member of the client's team...well, let's just say I'm now hiring. If you know someone with experience in mediation and arbitration, do share my contact information.

Love,

Auntie Camille

Lily's head pounded, the past and present warring for her attention. Seeing no way to avoid the confrontation, she stopped moving and waited for her pursuer – none other than the legendary Darian of the Elite Guard – to catch her. Just like old times, she thought. In all those childhood games of tag and hide and seek, the little halfling always got caught by those who were better with their magic.

She'd heard stories about him from her brothers. Cade held him in high esteem, mostly for heroics in the field. No one she knew had seen him since he'd devoted his life to the Matchmaker.

She braced herself, but still the contact was rough and strong. His hands gripped her arms and a bolt of awareness shot through her and kept sizzling. Like lightning that couldn't escape her body.

"I'm not running. I won't run." At least her voice sounded calm. "Let go."

He cooperated a little, hauling her by one arm toward the only available light near the cemetery's gate.

She trembled, wishing she could shake off this prickling energy of attraction. Wishing he would just go. She tried a charm, envisioning the cooling effect of rich black soil, but without a flower to focus, it failed. "I wasn't doing anything wrong. Just walking by."

"Eavesdropping," he accused.

"Public place," she shot back.

"Who is with you?" His face was inscrutable in the shadows, but the disapproval was clear in his touch, in the way his magic reached out to scan the cemetery.

"I'm alone." She tried not to envy his ease and control with his power. Living on the human side of things was supposed to shelter her from this much humiliation. She tried not to wince as his magic skimmed over her, learning exactly what she was. "You could've asked politely."

"You're a halfling." He frowned down at her. "You aren't strong enough to threaten her." He hauled her through the churchyard gate.

Lily snorted. Apparently Elite Guards were also specialists of the understatement. As if a half-elf florist would be a threat to anyone. She opened her mouth to tell him what he could do with his sunflowers and security protocols, not caring a whit for his reputation or legendary lineage, but he shook her and her mouth snapped closed.

"When she approaches you will not touch her. You will not make eye contact and you will not speak unless spoken to. Am I clear?"

Her voice didn't cooperate, likely his doing, so she settled for a brief nod.

As the woman approached, Lily wished for better light. This shadowy black and gray world made it hard to see. And as her morphing birthmark went crazy, she wanted a good look at the 'freak-eyed manipulator'. She didn't have a lot of magic but she had brains and a big, romantic heart. Her heart wanted the woman to be kind, maternal, and willing to give her answers about the pesky mark on her wrist. Her brain said the truth would be somewhere in the middle.

But it was pure shock when she saw the greyhound. "Well, hello!" Kneeling, she accepted his kisses while the guard groaned. Looking up at the woman holding the leash, her brother's bitter accusations raced through her mind. "Amy?" She stepped forward.

"Do not touch her," Dare warned, turning to the Matchmaker. "Do you know her?"

"Guinness introduced us." Amy embraced Lily with the greyhound sandwiched happily between them.

He swore. "You marked the florist too?"

"I didn't mark her, Dare."

Lily backed away from the embrace trembling in her own personal earthquake of awareness. Amy knew about her mark, but wasn't responsible for it? Questions – old and new – raced through her mind. Here was the being who could unravel the mystery of her birthmark and maybe shed some light on her prospects. "I'm so sorry I didn't recognize you at the shop."

"There wasn't anything to recognize then. Are you cold, Lily?"

"No, Matchmaker," she replied, avoiding the other woman's eyes as instructed.

"Oh, please. Drop the formalities. We're friends through Maeve and Guinness. And you can look at me. I'm not some Medusa-class bitch."

Between them Dare groaned. "Matchmaker, please."

"Enough with the pomp and circumstance," she said. "Did you come looking for me, Lily?"

"Not specifically you as in Amy." Lily cleared her throat, shaking off the nerves. She took a half step away from Dare's glowering presence and lavished affection on Guinness. "I have thought of looking for you. When I was little. And again, just recently. But –"

"Why are you here tonight?" His cold tone stopped her rambling.

His snotty arrogance was so like her own brothers. "It was a long day and a strange night. I, ah, went for a walk and heard the voices in here."

"Bull." Dare turned to Amy. "There's more she's not saying."

Lily thanked the shadows for hiding her blush. She wasn't about to tell them she'd gone for a panicked run after a Mama Rita burrito and followed their magic trail here.

"Ignore him," Amy suggested. "Why didn't you just come in?"

"I thought it was a ghost tour at first. When I realized it wasn't, I worried it was vandals," she improvised. She wasn't about to admit too much hope and too little information held her captive to the scene with the churchyard's ghosts.

"She's lying."

Lily glared at the annoying guard despite the dark.

"You saw the interlude with the ghost." Amy and Guinness took a seat on the ground. "Thoughts?"

"You were speaking with the Lady of this churchyard." Lily followed Amy's signal and sat beside her. "A tragic tale, but she's the most witnessed ghost on the tours."

"Yeah, yeah, love equals tragedy and loss," Darian snapped. "We're not here for the tourism."

"Just your mom's birthday?" Lily challenged.

"Actually, I am a tourist," Amy said. "Though I haven't been on an official ghost tour yet."

Lily rubbed her arm. It still tingled where he'd held her. She pressed a hand over her mark and wished she'd just gone home to wait for Cade. "The Lady who haunts this place…did you help her?"

Amy nodded. "I think so. She's fretted over her husband and been in limbo all this time."

"So she's finally with him?"

Amy nodded. "Two spirits, one heart. That's how the author put it in the ghost guide book I read, but seeing her, I know it was true. They had the real thing."

Just what Lily wanted. Real love. Someone who'd do anything, risk anything, for the true devotion of the heart. The werewolf's face flashed in her mind. Quickly she weeded that particularly determined creature from her possible future.

"Was helping her like making a match?" Lily heard herself ask.

Amy laughed. "I wouldn't know. I haven't matched anyone yet."

"Except an unsuspecting werewolf," the guard muttered from the shadows.

"What?" Lily tried to swallow the spurt of panic. That thing from the Mama Rita's kitchen couldn't really be after her. Both sides of her family would disown her for sure if she wound up mated to a werewolf. Already on the fringes of polite elf society for all the time she spent with humans, not even her father could protect her from the stain of such an unequal match.

It occurred to her that Cade's timing, arriving just ahead of the werewolf combined with his temperamental reaction to her mark might indicate her father's attempt to interfere and save her from disaster. She made a mental note to get the truth out of Cade when she got home.

She smoothed a hand over the greyhound's sleek coat, taking comfort. "Am I meant for the marked werewolf?"

"You've seen him?" Darian broke free of the shadows with a sneering intensity that only confirmed her fears of how her own family would react. He looked at Amy. "You sent him after her?"