Read Online Sympathetic Magic (The Witches of Cleopatra Hill Book 4) by Christine Pope - Free Book Online Page B

planned to do things his way in the end. And I’d meet him when he was done with classes sometimes, and we’d have a few beers and talk about the D-backs, and — ”
    Margot felt her eyes widening. Damon Wilcox, plotter and mastermind behind Angela’s kidnapping, was just a regular guy who liked baseball? “I find that hard to believe.”
    A shrug. “Believe it, or don’t. He had a whole lot of different sides, like most people. I suppose it’s just that Damon didn’t show many of his. But we’d known each other since we were kids. I think he appreciated that he could relax around me, that I never asked him for anything.”
    “I’d think it was the other way around,” she remarked. “Don’t tell me he never asked you for investment advice.”
    “Oh, he did that all the time,” Lucas said easily. “Why not? Using my gift to help the clan seemed a natural enough thing. It didn’t hurt anybody.”
    No, she supposed not. Well, maybe some people would call Lucas’ supernatural inside information a way of gaming the system, but she really didn’t think so. It really wasn’t all that different from having Adam nudge a few storm clouds closer to Jerome so everyone’s wilted vegetable gardens could get some much-needed rain in the midst of a long, hot summer.
    “I’m sorry,” she said softly, and Lucas sent her a surprised look.
    “Sorry for what?”
    “I’m sorry for your loss. Like you, I can’t excuse or forgive Damon for the things he did, but still, it hurts when you lose a friend. So I am sorry for that.”
    Several indefinable emotions flitted across Lucas’ face — surprise? confusion? — but then he gave her a considering nod. “Thanks, Margot.”
    They fell into a long silence after that, finishing their salads without speaking, waiting until the plates were taken away and their entrees brought. At last Lucas spoke.
    “You’re a surprising woman, Margot Emory.”
    “I am?” she said with a small laugh. “Really, I think I’m sadly predictable.”
    “Not so.” Now his gaze was warm, and she forced herself not to shift nervously in her seat, to keep herself looking back at him as if being studied in such an admiring way was something that happened to her every day. “Don’t sell yourself short.”
    Well, it was easy to do that when everyone else did. Then she chided herself for the self-pitying thought, which wasn’t even true. The worst she could say of her clan members was that they expected her to be as she was: an elder, there when a dispute needed to be mediated, a spell shored up, a decision made when changes in the outside world necessitated some alteration of the clan’s policies. And could she really fault them for that? They were only doing as they’d always done.
    “I’ll try not to,” she said lightly, then looked away from him to the food on her plate, and made something of a show of cutting a few pieces and eating them slowly, making herself concentrate on the thick, rich taste of the antelope and not on the expression of the man watching her.
    He seemed to take the hint, and ate quietly as well. Even when their conversation resumed, it was on lighter topics — whether there would be much snow this winter, what with the ongoing drought, and whether the maternity ward at Flagstaff Medical Center was large enough to accommodate the hordes of Wilcoxes and McAllisters who were certain to descend as soon as the twins were delivered. Inwardly, Margot could only thank Lucas for letting the matter drop. Who knew a Wilcox could be so perceptive?
    After dinner he called a cab, as it was past the time when the free trolley was running.
    “We could walk,” she protested. After all, it was barely half a mile from Tlaquepaque to the plaza in uptown where they’d met.
    “No, thanks,” he said easily. “Half a mile uphill, some of it with no street lamps. I’m not saying it’s dangerous or anything, but it’s really not a walk you want to make.”
    So she acquiesced,