17. Revealed

17

REVEALED

I was a little startled to see Seth coming up the front walk that Friday morning. We already had a date set for that night, and even though I was more than happy to be around him at every possible opportunity, I knew his schedule was busy enough that coming to see me in the middle of the day — except on a Sunday, like when we’d gone on our picnic — just wasn’t in the cards.

So what was he doing away from the mine on Friday at a little past ten?

He wasn’t wearing his working clothes, either, but an outfit he’d sported during one of our dates — pleated linen trousers and matching vest, a striped shirt and tie underneath. While I had to admit he looked particularly dashing in the ensemble, it wasn’t exactly the sort of thing you’d put on to supervise a bunch of sweaty men at a dusty mine.

Because I’d already seen him approaching the front door, I was ready when he knocked, opening it almost as soon as he began to lower his hand.

“Hi,” I said. “Come on in.”

Normally, I wouldn’t have been nearly as free with such an invitation while staying at someone else’s house, but Ruth had already told me it was fine for me to have Seth over whenever I liked. I supposed she didn’t view him exactly as a gentleman caller, since he was part of the family.

Also, she and Timothy had driven down to Cottonwood to do some shopping, so I was alone in the house and didn’t need to worry about anyone listening in on our conversation.

“Thank you,” Seth said, stepping inside. His gaze moved past me toward the hallway beyond, almost as though he feared his aunt Ruth might be lurking behind a door somewhere, doing her best to eavesdrop.

“They’re down in Cottonwood,” I said helpfully. “Would you like some lemonade, or a glass of water?”

“No, thank you,” he replied, then paused. Something in his manner seemed almost nervous, a description I probably wouldn’t have applied to him before now. Maybe we’d had an awkward moment here and there, but he’d never seemed truly ill at ease around me.

Might as well put it out there.

“Is something the matter?”

Those clear blue eyes met mine. “A few things have happened,” he said. “My brother Charles just got engaged to our cousin Abigail.”

For a second or two, I could only stare back at him as my brain did its best to accept the enormity of what he’d just told me.

Seth’s brother would be the prima -in-waiting’s consort.

I had to believe this wasn’t as happy a bit of news as one might have expected, judging by the serious set to Seth’s jaw, the way he hadn’t smiled at all as he told me about this latest change in his brother’s circumstances.

“Um…congratulations?” I offered, and now he smiled just the slightest bit.

“I’ll pass those along,” he said. “But the main reason I needed to tell you about what happened is that his engagement changes a lot of things. He now has his inheritance, which means he’ll no longer be working at the store. I’m taking over his position.”

This time, I was genuinely startled. Sure, I understood in a sort of abstract way that most consorts didn’t work, and yet this was the first time I’d seen this sort of transition occur in real time.

“Has your family suffered a loss?” I said, thinking that was a natural question to ask when an inheritance was in play.

“No, no,” Seth said quickly. “That is, the inheritance was left in a trust for Charles years ago when one of our great-aunts passed away. The stipulation was that he wouldn’t receive any of the money until he got engaged. But with him planning to marry Abigail before the end of the month, the money will be coming to him very soon.”

A clever way to explain why a man in the prime of life would suddenly stop working to play devoted house-husband. If they even had those in the 1920s, which I kind of doubted. Although the McAllisters were probably more equitable about such things than the general population, I couldn’t help noticing that labor here in Jerome was definitely divided along sharp gender-defined roles.

Whereas people living off their inheritances had seemed to be around since time immemorial, so I doubted anyone would probe Charles McAllister’s change in circumstances very deeply.

“What about your job at the mine?” I asked then, and Seth’s shoulders lifted in a shrug that I didn’t believe for a moment.

“I like it, and I’ll miss it,” he said, being a bit more frank than I’d expected. “But family is more important, and my parents need me at the mercantile.” A flash of real humor lit up those clear blue eyes as he added, “At least I won’t get as dusty and dirty there.”

No, probably not. And I’d been in Jerome long enough to know that the store opened at eight and closed at five, which meant he’d have much more relationship-friendly working hours.

Something in my gaze must have been questioning, because he went on, the words coming out a little faster than he’d probably intended, “My parents told me I could start whenever I liked this morning, since I had to tender my resignation at the mine and get a few things worked out. And that’s why I wanted to stop and talk to you.”

“To give me the news?” I asked, and he shook his head.

“Not exactly. Or rather, sure, I needed to let you know I would be at the store from now on, just so you wouldn’t be surprised if you came by and saw me working there.” He paused, and his expression grew much more sober. “No, the problem is that my parents had already planned to do inventory tonight, and they need me there. I’ll have to cancel our date to go dancing in Cottonwood.”

“Oh,” I said. Not exactly the most brilliant response, but I was a little startled by the wave of disappointment that washed over me. I hadn’t realized how much I’d been looking forward to having Seth teach me the Charleston — or whatever was popular here in Arizona in 1926 — until I heard that he wouldn’t be able to make it after all. I summoned a smile and added, “That’s all right. I know the family business needs to come first.”

The tense set of his shoulders relaxed slightly. “That’s what I keep trying to tell myself. It’s just rotten timing. But,” he went on, looking a little more cheerful, “I was hoping I could make it up to you somehow. I considered going to the picture show tomorrow, but then this morning, I thought maybe we could also go out for a dinner picnic this evening? My parents understand that this has all happened quickly, so while I’m not free later tonight, we could have an early meal and still get to spend some time together before I have to go help them with inventory.”

That sounded like a wonderful idea. We’d had a great time during our first picnic, and I had to think one later in the day, after the sun had begun to go down behind Mingus Mountain, would be even more entrancing. True, we’d probably need to avoid walking in the woods, just because getting lost there after dark didn’t seem like a very good idea, but if we got our timing right, we might be able to see the moon rise beyond the Mogollon Rim to the east.

Or maybe not, if our meal was early enough in the evening. I hadn’t been keeping close enough track of moonrise and moonset to know for sure when it would be up.

“A dinner picnic would be lovely,” I said, and Seth’s expression brightened even further. “Do you need me to bring anything?”

“Only yourself,” he replied. “I’ll take care of the rest.” He paused there, and the cheerful grin he wore looked much more like the man I knew. “Or rather, I’ll probably have my mother help me put together something tasty.”

Considering that Molly McAllister’s fried chicken was the best I’d ever tasted, I wasn’t about to argue with that proposition. “Then it’s definitely a date,” I said with a smile to match his.

“Perfect. I’ll come by around five-thirty, and then we’ll drive up to the picnic area.” A pause before he added, “Now, though, I should probably get to the store.”

“Yes, you’ll want to be on your best behavior so you can get your mother to make you some more fried chicken,” I joked, but he only nodded, looking earnest.

“You may be right about that.”

He reached out to give my hand a quick squeeze, and then he murmured a hasty goodbye and let himself out.

As much as I would have liked for him to linger, I knew he had somewhere to be. Even though it sounded as if his parents had told him he could take his time this morning, he probably didn’t want it to seem as if he was taking advantage of the situation, especially since they were going to let him leave work a little early so he wouldn’t have to completely cancel on me.

In a way, that was good. It was going to take a minute to absorb how much things had changed over the past couple of days. Seth was no longer in danger of becoming the prima -in-waiting’s consort, and now he’d be working at the store rather than up at the mine.

I had no doubt that I’d be able to come up with all sorts of reasons to visit him.

Ruth didn’t seem too surprised by the news about Charles.

“Oh, yes, the inheritance,” she said as she rolled out some dough for a batch of peach tarts. Even though I’d told her that Seth planned to handle all the meal planning for our picnic this evening, she’d insisted that the tarts would be the perfect thing for our al fresco meal and that Seth would probably be disappointed if I didn’t bring along some kind of special nibble for the two of us.

Since Ruth’s baking skills were top-notch, I decided I wasn’t going to argue with her.

“Their Great-Aunt Adelaide was a little eccentric,” Ruth went on. “Her husband was one of the men who originally discovered copper here, and he sold his stake to Mr. Clarke, who owns everything now. Made millions, from what I’ve heard. But Adelaide never had children, and so she decided to leave most of her money to Charles, as her oldest great-nephew. However, she didn’t want him to fritter away the money on gambling and other wild pursuits, which was why she put the stipulation in her will that he must be engaged before he inherited any of it.”

I supposed the story made sense. Or rather, I knew it sounded plausible enough that no one looking in from the outside would question it too deeply. However, I had a rather unique perspective on the situation, and therefore knew it was a complete fabrication.

“Charles and Abigail are moving quickly,” Ruth continued. “I hear they’re just about to buy a house up here on Paradise Lane, for of course it wouldn’t do for Charles to move his new bride into his parents’ apartment. I’m sure Great-Aunt Adelaide would be pleased that he’s spending his new inheritance so wisely.”

Yes, in most cases, real estate was always a good investment.

Jerome wasn’t most cases, though. I’d heard that a good number of these stately Victorians had fallen into wrack and ruin as the civilian population left Jerome when the mine went bust, and it wasn’t until much later that people began to move back and restore them.

Not the prima’s house, of course. That particular home had been continuously occupied from the day it was built.

“That is fast,” I commented. “But I can see why they’d want to start their marriage with a new house.”

Ruth gave me an approving nod, her expression turning almost sly. “And of course this is good for you and Seth. He’ll be much more available now that he’s here in town all day.”

I’d thought pretty much the same thing, but I didn’t know whether it was a good idea to let Ruth know how on the nose she was in that assessment. “Well, I’m sure he’ll still be very busy,” I said. “I suppose we’ll just have to see how things go.”

“Yes,” she replied, still with that twinkle in her gray eyes. “I suppose you will.”

As promised, Seth arrived promptly at five-thirty to pick me up. An enormous wicker hamper had taken up residence in the back seat, letting me know this meal might be a little more elaborate than the lunch we’d shared the week before. Once we were walking down the porch steps, he sent an amused glance at the basket I had looped over one arm.

“Aunt Ruth strikes again, I see,” he remarked, and I just had to chuckle.

“She absolutely would not let me leave the house without an offering for our picnic. Peach tarts,” I added, and his eyes lit up.

“Well, I think we can make room for those.”

It was a bit of a squeeze to get the basket in the back seat next to the hamper, but once that maneuver was accomplished, we both climbed into our seats up front and drove off. It was an absolutely stunning evening, the hilltop town bathed in golden light as the sun made its way slowly down in the west. Probably by the time we reached our destination and spread out what promised to be a sumptuous meal, it would have begun to slide behind the mountain and let the world slip into a purple dusk, but the day was bright enough for now, with no clouds at all as far as the eye could see.

I’d brought along a sweater, just in case, although I certainly didn’t need it now, not with the warm wind blowing past as we drove down Paradise Lane and then onto Main Street, which turned back into the highway once we were past the town limits. And even though it was difficult to talk over the sound of the engine, I couldn’t help asking, “How was the store today?”

“Fine,” Seth replied. He had his eyes fixed on the road ahead of us, so I couldn’t get a good read on his expression. “Busier than I remembered. But I suppose that’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

“I would think so,” I said. More customers meant more revenue, after all. Still, even when you knew things were going well, a high enough level of activity with no breaks could leave you pretty beat up by the end of the day.

However, he seemed in good enough spirits, so I had to assume that what he was mostly dealing with was readjusting to work at the family mercantile after several years of being his own man at the mine, which I could totally understand. I loved my parents and my brother and sister, but I had to wonder if we’d all get along so well if we were forced to work together day in and day out.

But I didn’t want to think about that too much, because then I’d also start to think about how much I missed them, missed seeing my mother’s silly texts about what color she was thinking of painting the spare bedroom, or the memes my brother would send whenever he came across something he thought would make me laugh. Or how my father would leave books all over the house because my mother had tried and failed years ago to get him to read on a tablet.

The way my sister Jessica had given me all the pieces from her wardrobe that I’d loved the most after she started college and wanted to completely change her image. Maybe that gift had been a little self-serving, since it kept her from having to drag all that stuff to the local charity drop-off, but seventeen-year-old me had been ecstatic.

By that point, the road had really started to climb, and that meant the engine was laboring harder to get us up the steep incline and around those hairpin curves. I decided it was probably better to let our conversation languish until we reached our destination and didn’t have to be shouting over the noise of the motor, so I instead watched the scenery as it passed, reflecting on how much it looked like what I’d see from the highway in my own time. Sure, the road signs were different, and the asphalt and the markings on it weren’t quite the same, but the scrubby junipers and dry grass, the occasional spiky agave plant that leaned precariously off a cliff edge — those didn’t seem to have changed a bit over the intervening hundred-plus years.

Seth slowed down as we came to the picnic area so he could turn off onto one of the gravel-paved parking spaces. I reached up to push a few windblown strands of hair back into my cloche hat, glad we were going to be outdoors the whole time so I wouldn’t have to take it off and reveal whatever wreckage might lie underneath.

He took the big hamper of food and the folded blanket that had been concealed underneath, while I grabbed the basket of tarts Ruth had given me. The two of us made our way over to the same flat piece of ground where we’d had our picnic the week before, and he set down the hamper so he could spread out the blanket.

With all that managed, we went ahead and seated ourselves, and he started pulling out all kinds of goodies — yummy little meat pies, more of his mother’s amazing fried chicken, potato salad, a bowl of cut-up fruit, some cornbread muffins and darling little bitty jars of butter and honey.

“Do you really expect me to eat all this?” I asked with a grin. “I mean, I’ll do my best, but — ”

He only chuckled. “I told my mother she might be overdoing things, but she didn’t want to hear it. I think she might still be a little giddy from the news about Charles’s engagement.”

I supposed I could understand that. While witch clans tended to be fairly egalitarian — some more than others, since I’d heard a few horror stories about how things were run in the Wilcox clan before Connor came along, way before I was even born — still, to have a son become the consort of the prima -in-waiting was no small thing. Seth’s immediate family had gained a little more standing in their clan, even if no one might want to admit such a thing out loud.

“When I’m giddy, I go shopping rather than cook,” I commented, and Seth only lifted his shoulders.

“I have to admit that shopping sounds like more fun,” he said. “But then, I’m not my mother.”

No, he wasn’t. He was definitely all man — not macho beefcake man, but someone who could be strong and gentle at the same time, who ticked a whole hell of a lot of boxes I hadn’t even realized I wanted on my checklist for the perfect partner.

Well, except for the part where he wasn’t even from my own time, but considering all his other sterling qualities, I was just fine with putting that small detail aside, especially since it didn’t seem as if I had much chance of getting back to the twenty-first century and needed to make my peace with staying here.

For a moment or two, we were both quiet as we loaded up our plates. Seth poured some water from a bottle he’d brought along with the food. The sun melted behind Mingus, casting the picnic area in shadow, even though everything in the valley below was still bright and golden except the line of dark cottonwoods that marked the path of the Verde River as it wound through the landscape.

Despite the loss of sunlight, the air was still warm enough, and probably would be for a while, considering how long the days were right now with the solstice only a few weeks off. I wondered how the McAllisters of this time celebrated the year’s longest day, whether they gathered in their robes on the promontory just east of downtown as they did in the twenty-first century, or whether they had to perform their observances in secret, surrounded as they were by people who had no idea they were witches at all.

Even if I stayed here that long, I knew I wouldn’t get to see what they were doing, not when they thought I was an ordinary civilian.

“I was wrong,” I said, and Seth blinked at me, a little startled. Smiling a little at his confusion, I added, “I thought your mother’s fried chicken was the best thing I’ve ever eaten, but these meat pies just might have it beat.”

An amused light flickered in his eyes. “I’ll let her know,” he replied. “She used to make them for me all the time when I first started at the mine — needed to make sure I was getting the proper nourishment during a hard day’s work.” Something of the cheeriness in his expression faded as he added, “I suppose she won’t need to worry about that so much now that I’m working at the store instead.”

It seemed obvious to me that he wasn’t as thrilled about being back at McAllister Mercantile as he would have liked me — or anyone else — to believe. On the surface, you would have thought that working at the shop would be a lot less physically taxing than being at the mine all day, but I had a feeling that wasn’t the whole story. Working for United Verde, he’d been able to be his own person, not just an extension of the family business. Things had changed, though, and he was probably trying to find his way to a new normal.

“Oh, I’m sure she’d make them for you if you asked,” I said, trying to keep my tone light.

He nodded and looked a little more cheerful. “Probably. Then again, she made so many for this picnic that I’ll probably be eating them for days anyway.”

I couldn’t help laughing at that mental image, and the tense moment seemed to fade away, replaced by his remembrances of Thanksgiving feasts past, and all the wonderful things his mother made on a regular basis. Hearing this, I couldn’t help wondering if his particular branch of the McAllisters was connected to Rachel in some way. Stepping back her duties at the store hadn’t meant she planned to cut back on her cooking at the same time, and I’d often been the beneficiary of one of her too-large pots of chili or soup, or an extra pan of lasagna because she’d just gotten “carried away” in the kitchen and needed someone else to help her finish it.

Problem was, I hadn’t made a huge study of McAllister genealogy, so I had no real idea who in 1926 was connected to whom. All right, I knew that Ruby had just been born, and that meant her mother must have been Angela’s great-great-aunt, but beyond that, it was pretty much a muddle.

The important thing, I supposed, was that I wasn’t related to any of them, and therefore my relationship with Seth wasn’t a problem…well, besides the part where he’d come from an entirely different time than mine.

Eventually, we were both so full we couldn’t eat another bite, and we put the leftovers away in the hamper and the basket, then set them on the back seat of his convertible. By then, dusk had truly fallen, and, despite being from Flagstaff and generally comfortable with wandering around in the woods, I was glad I had Seth there with me. Somehow, this forest felt much deeper and darker than what I was used to, most likely because civilization seemed a lot farther away in 1926 than it did in my own time.

“Look,” he said, and pointed eastward through a break in the trees. “The moon’s just coming up.”

So it was. Huge and yellow, it had begun to push its way upward from the plateau to the east. Not high enough yet to cast any real light, and yet something about it still caught my breath, made me stand there in wonder.

Seth’s hand stole into mine. “I’m glad we could watch this together,” he murmured.

I was glad, too. Or at least, the warmth that went through me as we stood there, fingers entwined, probably had just as much to do with his presence as the magical scene before us.

He shifted, and I did as well, and suddenly, we weren’t gazing at the moon anymore. No, our gazes locked for what felt like an endless moment, until at last his head lowered to mine and I tilted my face to him, mouths growing closer, closer….

Our lips touched, and it was as if a bolt of lightning had suddenly struck me. My entire body zinged with energy that shrilled along every nerve ending, and at the same moment, Seth stopped backward, his face white with shock beneath his summer tan.

“You’re a witch? ” he exclaimed.