The Sign of Seven Trilogy (77 page)

He had to admire that.

She spent a full fifteen minutes over poultry, examining, rejecting chickens until she found one that somehow met her standards.

“We're having chicken? All this for chicken?”

“Not just chicken.” She tossed back her hair, gave him that sidelong smile of hers. “It's a roasted chicken made with wine, sage, garlic, balsamic—and so on. You'll weep with joy at every bite.”

“I don't think so.”

“Your tastebuds will. Your travels have probably taken you to New York a time or two over the years.”

“Sure.”

“Ever dined at Piquant?”

“Fancy French place, Upper West.”

“Yes, and a New York institution. The chef there was my first serious lover. He was older, French, absolutely perfect for the first serious lover of a woman of twenty.” That smile turned knowing, and just a little sultry. “He taught me quite a bit—about cooking.”

“How much older?”

“Considerably. He had a daughter my age. Naturally, she despised me.” She poked at a baguette. “No, I'm not settling for the bread here, not this late in the day. We'll stop by the bakery in town. If nothing there works, I'll just bake some.”

“You'll just bake some bread.”

“If necessary. If I'm in the mood to, it can be therapeutic and satisfying.”

“Like sex.”

Her smile was quick and easy. “Exactly.” She rolled the cart into line. Leaned on the handle. “So, who was your first serious lover?”

She didn't notice, or didn't appear to care, that the woman ahead of them in line looked back over her shoulder with wide eyes. “I haven't had one yet.”

“Well, that's a shame. You've missed all the wild passion, the bitter arguments, the mad yearnings. Sex is fun without it, but all the rest adds intensity.” Cybil smiled at the woman ahead of them. “Don't you agree?”

The woman flushed, moved her shoulders. “Ah, yeah, I guess. Sure.” And developed a sudden—and to Gage's eyes, bogus—interest in the tabloids on the rack before the belt.

“Still, women are more prone to look for all that emotion. It's genetic—hormonal,” Cybil continued conversationally. “We're more sexually satisfied, as a gender, when we let our emotions engage, and believe—even if the belief is false—our lover's emotions are as well.”

When the belt cleared enough, she began to load her purchases on. “I cook,” she told Gage, “you pay.”

“That wasn't mentioned.”

She gave the bird a pat as she set it on the belt. “If you don't like the chicken, I'll give you a refund.”

He watched her load. Long fingers, palely painted nails, a couple of sparkling rings. “I could lie.”

“You won't. You like to win, but like women and emotion and sex, the win isn't as satisfying for you unless you play it straight.”

He watched the items ring up, and total. “It better be damn good chicken,” he said as he pulled out his wallet.

Four

SHE'D BEEN RIGHT ABOUT THE CHICKEN; HE'D never had better. And he thought she'd been right to decree no discussion of her experience, or any demon-related topic during the group meal.

It was fascinating how much
other
the six of them had to talk about, even though they'd been in one another's pockets for months. Wedding plans, new business plans, books, movies, celebrity scandals, and small-town gossip bounced around the table like tennis balls. At any other time, in any other place, the gathering would have been exactly as it appeared—a group of friends and lovers enjoying each other and a perfectly prepared meal.

And how did he fit into the mix? His relationship with Cal and Fox had changed and evolved over the years as they'd gone from boys to men, certainly when he'd yanked out his roots in the Hollow to move on. But at its base it was what it had always been—the friendship of a lifetime. They simply were.

He liked the women they'd chosen, for their own sakes, and for the way they'd meshed with his friends into couples. It took unique women to face what they were all facing and stick it out. It told him that if any of them survived, the four of them would buck the odds and make the strange entity of marriage work.

In fact, he believed they'd thrive.

And if they survived, he'd move on again. He was the one who left—and who came back. That's how he made his life work, in any case. There was always the next game, and another chance to play. That's where he fit in, he supposed. The wild card that turned up after the cut and shuffle.

That left Cybil, with her encyclopedic brain, her genius in the kitchen, and her nerves of steel. Only once since they'd come together had he seen her break down. Twisse had triggered the deepest personal fear in all of them, Gage remembered, and for Cybil that was blindness. She'd wept in his arms when that was over. But she hadn't run.

No, she hadn't run. She'd stick it out, all of them would. Then if they lived through it, she'd move on. There wasn't a single cell of small-town girl in that interesting body of hers. Adaptable she was, he thought. She'd settled smoothly enough into the Hollow, the little house, but it was . . . like Frannie Hawkins's holding vase, he realized. This was just a temporary stop before she moved on to something more suited to her style.

But where, and to what would she move? He wondered that, wondered about her more than was wise.

She caught his glance, arched a brow. “Looking for a refund?”

“No.”

“Well then. I'm going for a walk.”

“Oh, but, Cyb—” Quinn began.

“Gage can come with me, while the four of you deal with the dishes.”

“How come he gets out of kitchen duty?” Fox wanted to know.

“He shopped, he paid. I want a little air before we bring the Big Evil Bastard to the table. How about it, big guy? Be my escort?”

“Take your phone.” Quinn caught Cybil's hand. “Just in case.”

“I'll take my phone, and I'll put on a jacket. And I won't take candy from strangers. Relax, Mommy.”

When she breezed out, Quinn turned to Gage. “Just don't go far, okay? Keep her close.”

“This is Hawkins Hollow, everything in it's close.”

She put on a light sweater and slipped black skids onto feet that were so often bare. The minute she stepped outside, she breathed deep. “I like spring nights. Summer's even better. I like the heat, but under the circumstances, I'm hoarding spring.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“Main Street, of course. Where else? I like knowing my ground,” she continued as they walked. “So I walk around town, drive around the area.”

“And could probably draw a detailed map of both by now.”

“Not only could, have. I do have an eye for detail.” She took another breath, this one loaded with the scent of peonies rioting pink in someone's front garden. “Quinn's going to be happy here. It's so absolutely right for her.”

“Why?”

He saw the question surprised her—or, he thought more accurately, the fact he'd asked surprised her.

“Neighborhood. That's Quinn. Developments, suburbia, no, not so much. Too . . . formed. But neighborhood, where she knows the tellers at the bank, the clerks at the market by name? That's all Q. She's a social creature who needs her alone time. So, the town—that gives her the neighborhood. And the house outside town—that gives her the alone. She gets it all,” Cybil decided. “And the guy, too.”

“Handy Cal falls in there.”

“Very. I admit, when she first talked about Cal, I thought Bowling Alley Guy? Q's gone deep end.” Laughing, she shook back her hair. “Shame on me for assuming a cliché. Of course, the minute I met him, I thought, oh, Really Cute Bowling Alley Guy! Then seeing them together clinched it. From my standpoint, they're both getting it all. I'll enjoy coming back here to visit them, and Fox and Layla.”

They turned at the Square, and onto Main Street. One of the cars stopped at the light had its windows open and Green Day blasting. While Ma's Pantry and Gino's remained open—and a few teenagers loitered outside the pizza joint—the shops were closed for the night. By nine, Ma's would be dark, and just after eleven, Gino's would lock it up. The Hollow's version, Gage thought, of rolling up the sidewalks.

“So, no yen to build yourself a cabin in Hawkins Wood?” he asked her.

“A cabin in the woods might be nice for the occasional weekend. And the small-town charm,” she added, “is just that—charming for visits. I love visiting. It's one of my favorite things. But I'm an urbanite at heart, and I like to travel. I need a base so I have somewhere to leave from, to come back to. I have a very nice one in New York, left to me by my grandmother. How about you? Is there a base, a headquarters, for you?”

He shook his head. “I like hotel rooms.”

“Me, too—or to qualify, a room in a well-run hotel. I love the service, the convenience of my well-appointed chamber in a hive where I can order up Do Not Disturb and room service at my whim.”

“Twenty-four hours a day,” he added. “And somebody comes in and cleans it all up while you're out doing something a lot more interesting.”

“That can't be overstated. And I like looking out the window at a view that doesn't belong to me. Still, there are other types in the world, like many of the people in this town Twisse is so hell-bent to destroy. And they like looking out at the familiar. They need and want the comfort of that, and they're entitled to it.”

That brought it back to square one, Gage thought. “And you'd bleed for that?”

“Oh, I hope not—at least not copiously. But it's Quinn's town now, and Layla's. I'd bleed for them. And for Cal and Fox.” She turned her head, met his eyes. “And for you.”

There was a jolt inside him at that, at the absolute truth he felt from her. Before he could respond, her phone rang.

“Saved by the ring tone,” Cybil murmured, then drew out her phone, glanced at the display. “Hell. Damn. Fuck. Sorry, I'd better deal with this.” She flipped the phone open. “Hello, Rissa.”

She took a few steps away, but Gage had no trouble with the logistics or the ethics of eavesdropping on her end of the conversation. He heard a lot of “no”s between long, listening pauses. And several chilly, “I've already told you”s and “not this time”s followed by an “I'm sorry, Marissa” that spoke of impatience rather than apology. When she closed the phone, that impatience was clear on her face.

“Sorry. My sister, who's never quite grasped the concept that the world doesn't actually revolve around her. Hopefully she's pissed enough at me now to lay off for a few weeks.”

“This would be flat-tire sister?”

“Sorry? Oh.” And when she laughed, he could see her click back to the night they'd met when they'd nearly run into each other on a deserted county road as each of them traveled toward Hawkins Hollow. “Yes, the same sister who'd borrowed my car and left a flat spare in my trunk. The same who routinely ‘borrows' what she likes, and if she remembers to return it, generally returns it damaged or useless.”

“Then why did you lend her your car?”

“Excellent question. A weak moment. I don't have many, at least not anymore.” Annoyance darkened her eyes now, the steely kind.

“I bet.”

“She's in New York, flitting back from wherever she flitted off to this time and doesn't see why she and whatever leeches currently sucking on her can't stay at my place for a couple weeks. But golly, the locks and the security code have been changed—which was necessary because the last time she stayed there with a few friends, they trashed the place, broke an antique vase that had been my great-grandmother's, borrowed several items of my wardrobe—including my cashmere coat, which I'll never see again—and had the cops drop by at the request of the neighbors.”

“Sounds like a fun gal,” he commented when Cybil ran out of breath.

“Oh, she's nothing but. All right, I'm venting. You have the option of listening or tuning out. She was the baby, and she was pampered and spoiled as babies often are, especially when they're beautiful and charming. And she is, quite beautiful, quite charming. We were children of privilege for the first part of our lives. There was a lot of family money. There was an enormous and gorgeous home in Connecticut, a number of pied à terres in interesting places. We had the best schools, traveled to Europe regularly, socialized with the children of wealthy and important people, and so on. Then came my father's accident, his blindness.”

She said nothing for a moment, only continued to walk, her hands in her pockets, her eyes straight ahead. “He couldn't cope. He couldn't see, so he wouldn't see. Then one day, in our big gorgeous home in Connecticut, he locked himself in the library. They tried to break down the door when we heard the shot—we still had servants then, and they tried to break it down. I ran out, and around. I saw through the window, saw what he'd done. I broke the glass, got inside. I don't remember that very well. It was too late, of course. Nothing to be done. My mother was hysterical, Marissa was wild, but there was nothing to be done.”

Gage said nothing, but then she knew him to be a man who often said nothing. So she plowed on.

“It was afterward we learned there'd been what they like to call ‘considerable financial reversals' since my father's accident. As his untimely death gave him no time to reverse the reversals, we would have to condense, so to speak. My mother dealt with the shock and the grief, which were very real for her, by fleeing with us to Europe and squandering great quantities of money. In a year, she'd married an operator who squandered more, conned her into funnelling most of what was left to him, then left her for greener pastures.”