Kiss Me Forever/Love Me Forever. Rosemary Laurey

problem. Not your fault. These tables! I should have seen it coming.” He looked her straight in the eyes. “It’s not the first time something like this has happened.”

      Dixie decided she really liked Alf. “Since I’ve managed to half-trash your pub, I’d better go home.” She paused. “And maybe you should call me Dixie.”

      Alf smiled and held out his hand. “I’ll be glad to, Dixie.”

      Eight members and two novices sat around the black oak table watching the burning ash twigs in the copper brazier. One of the black candles dripped wax on the polished tabletop. Ida leaned forward to wipe the splatter.

      Sebastian frowned. Couldn’t the old woman wait? If she’d touched the brazier…The coven needed all the strength it could muster. Below numbers for years, the two novices were their most recent hope. Some hope! Maybe Sally held more promise than James. She could hardly have less.

      Emily droned the incantation and stopped as the twigs crumbled to ash. In the silence she placed the gold ring on the ashes. After the prescribed pause, Sebastian stood and blew a long, deep note on a narrow pipe.

      As the echoes faded, Ida asked, “What progress, James? What did you find?”

      “Not a thing. I swear there’s nothing there. I’ve been through that house three times and the old book room volume by volume. What we’re looking for isn’t there.”

      “Really?” She didn’t sound impressed. “Sally, what about you?”

      She had none of James’s bored confidence. She fairly bounced at the prospect of speaking. “I looked when I cleaned the house. I think James is right about the papers. I saw nothing. But…” She paused for effect. Sebastian despised cheap theatrics. “I did discover something. She refused to let me clean out the book room so I wondered if she was hiding something. I got as good a look as I could. No papers, but I found an interesting stack of books. A bunch of old books about magic and Wicca and spells.”

      “I wonder if she’s as unschooled as we believe,” Ida said. “Who knows what knowledge she inherited. Maybe her grandmother…”

      No one seemed happy at the thought.

      Ida placed her wrinkled hands on the table. Eyes turned to her. “We need to find out what she knows and then we can plan. Perhaps recruit her?”

      Sebastian’s mind raced in the ensuing silence. “I think not. The woman LePage is a problem and unreliable. First she seemed willing to let me handle the sale and send her the money. Then, out of the blue, she comes over to spend a week and see her property. Now she’s moved in, started spring-cleaning and developed an interest in certain books. The next thing, she’ll start exploring the grounds….” He paused to let that fact sink in. “To make matters worse, the vampire is cultivating her friendship.”

      “The vampire we can take care of. We know the date of his creation. Let that be his destruction,” Ida said.

      “We can’t kill him!” Sally’s voice shuddered in the silence.

      Emily, who’d been silent, placed her hands on the table. “My dear,” she said, smiling at Sally, “one can only kill the living.”

      Sebastian looked across at Sally and James. Weak links, both of them. They needed forging to the coven. Dealing with Marlowe would tie them both up tight.

      After dropping off the books to be valued and discovering a grocery store big enough to equal any at home, Dixie went home to bake. She planned on making brownies for Christopher as a “thank you” for lunch. It just seemed a neighborly thing to do.

      Back home, unpacking groceries and stacking them in the closets along one wall, she found one door didn’t open. It appeared painted shut. One more thing to get fixed. Later. Today, she had baking to do.

      The brownies cooled on the window ledge; they smelled sweet and chocolatey as Dixie washed up and put everything away. By the time she washed, changed into a clean tee shirt and put on fresh lipstick, the brownies were cool. Dixie piled them onto a plate of rose-patterned china, covered them with plastic wrap and set out for Dial Cottage.

      “Hi there!” Dixie called up at the open windows. Christopher had to be in. His car was parked behind the hawthorn hedge and the upstairs windows were open, but there was no answer. She strolled round the back, rapped on the back door and tried the knob and the door swung open. She stared into the darkness of the interior and called, “Christopher, it’s Dixie.” He wasn’t there.

      Uncomfortable at standing uninvited in his empty kitchen, Dixie decided to leave the brownies and go. She’d see Christopher later at the Barley Mow and explain. She scribbled a note on the memo pad from the phone, tore the leaf off and tucked it under the plate. As she replaced the pad by the phone, she nudged a pile of papers and they cascaded to the floor. She knelt and gathered them up and hoped to heaven no one came by. How would it look, her kneeling on the floor rummaging through Christopher’s papers? She spotted a small leather book. With her initials.

      What was Christopher doing with her appointment book? When had he taken it? In the pub that first evening? Too angry to think straight, she stuffed it in the pocket of her jeans, slammed the back door behind her and marched down the front path, giving the gate a shove as she left.

      Dixie walked back through the village, across High Street and almost smacked into Sebastian.

      “Going to the Barley Mow tonight?” He said it pleasantly enough, but she did wonder what he knew. Had James complained? She hoped so.

      “Don’t think so. I’m getting the hang of cooking on an Aga.”

      “Settling in nicely, I hear.”

      Dixie nodded. “Yes. Very.”

      “Must dash,” he said. “But I know I can count on you for the Whist Drive next weekend.”

      “Whist Drive?” What was he talking about?

      He smiled. He did have very white teeth. “Fund-raiser for the church roof fund. Everyone will be there.”

      She agreed before she had time to refuse, then shrugged. What the heck? What could happen at a parish fund-raiser? He could hardly hit on her in church. Besides, Sebastian might not be her sort, but at least he didn’t take her property.

      “I can’t change your mind?” Tom asked.

      Christopher didn’t even shake his head. “I have business to transact. We all need those books.”

      Tom raised an eyebrow. “Don’t get caught between the covers.”

      Christopher groaned. Tom hadn’t changed in all these years. “You could wish me success.”

      “I’ll wish you caution. You’re stronger, but not strong enough.”

      “Tom, all I have to do is buy some books from a harmless young woman.”

      Tom’s eyes shadowed as if seeing into the distance. “Remember the harmless young woman in Deptford.”

      “That young woman was a trollop.”

      “A well-paid trollop who played her part well.”

      Tom was right about that, but Dixie was different. Her transparency and honesty would impress even Tom. He twitched his mouth. “This isn’t the same. Come down to Bringham, I’ll introduce you to Miss LePage.”

      Tom shook his head. “No, my friend. I have too much sense of survival to consort with humans, if I don’t have to.”

      Christopher! A slow shiver snaked down Dixie’s spine at the knock on the door. She just knew he stood outside and she didn’t want to see him. Her anger and confusion over finding her date book in his kitchen had gelled into a cold hurt. While she’d thought him a friend, he’d been prying into her life. Christopher wanted something from her. Fine. He could have the books