Read Online All Fired Up (Stardust) by Mimi Riser - Free Book Online

like one. What do you call running off the way you did? That wasn’t responsible adult behavior.”
    “I didn’t ‘run off.’ I left a note for Aunt Lydia in the broom closet.”
    “The broom closet ? Who in their right mind puts messages in closets?”
    The glow of triumph on her face said she’d caught him on that one. “Does that mean you think I am in my right mind?”
    “No, I’m taking it as further proof that you’re not.  Why the hell did you leave a note in the broom closet?”
    “Because we took down the Christmas tree yesterday, of course.”
    “Of course,” Slo repeated, feeling a bit like a man who’d just run blindly into a brick wall. “I should have realized that. Whenever a Christmas tree comes down in summer, the logical place to put notes is a closet.”
    Roxanne glowered. “Stop trying to make it sound stupid. It is logical. Aunt Lydia used to keep a little artificial Christmas tree in the kitchen to help her stay cool while cooking – because Christmas makes her think of snow – and we’d been using the tree as a bulletin board. If one of us needed to leave a note for the other, that’s where we hung it. But the tree got broken while Aunt Lydia was playing Charades with Cardinal Richelieu and Cleopatra, so we had to take it down. That’s why I had to put my note in the broom closet. Because Aunt Lydia usually sweeps as soon as she gets up. She says it’s both a practical and symbolic way to sweep the night’s cobwebs out of her head – she used to be a writer, and she does love her metaphors. Anyway, I figured she’d be sure to see it in there. It normally would’ve been the first place she looked.”
    Damned if she wasn’t right, Slo thought in grudging admiration. It was wacky as hell, but it was logical.
    “Even if she missed the note somehow, she still should have realized what I was doing,” Roxanne added.
    Slo was almost afraid to ask why, but he was perversely hooked and, for better or worse, had to see this through to the end (if, indeed, there was an end to this story; he was beginning to wonder about that). “Why should she have known?”
    “Because she was there last night when I decided on a Vision Quest. Black Elk gave me the idea. I couldn’t see or hear him naturally, but Aunt Lydia told me what he said. She gets offended if anyone else asks her to explain what her people are saying and doing – she assumes everyone sees them the way she does – but I can get away with it because of my hearing loss. At any rate, Black Elk said I’ve been doing things ass backward. I’ve been trying to stop my fire when I should be looking for what creates it. He said I should think of control as a light switch. It flips both ways. If I can learn how to turn the fire on, deliberately, instead of it just happening, I’ll know how to turn it off. Black Elk has been dead for decades, but still seems to be very wise. I thought I should trust his advice.”
    “Black Elk?” God, this was like one of those old George Burns and Gracie Allen comedy routines.
    “Black Elk, the famous Native American shaman. He showed up last night right after you left,” Gracie said, frowning at George. “It’s a lucky thing, too, because Aunt Lydia had been expecting you to stay. She made cocoa and little sandwiches and everything. She was really disappointed when she came back to the family room and found you’d gone.”
    “I’m sorry.” What else could he say? That he had left because he’d gotten the distinct impression Roxanne had wanted him to go? As a matter of fact, Slo was getting the same impression now, saw the same wounded look he’d seen in her eyes then. Wounded and wanting, desperate and defiant. A look that said “Hold me and never let go” and “To hell with you” in the same breath. A look that clawed at his core and lacerated logic – that made him feel for a foolish instant he would walk through hell if it would win him the chance to hold her forever…
    Shit.