Hex on the Beach by Kelley Armstrong
Chapter Two
Marius is right. I love parties. I love mingling with young people. That is the advantage of my middle-aged appearance. Oh, I still get admiring looks and seductive overtures from the young men—and some young women—and I will admit I have indulged in both when Marius and I are on a break. But just because he isn’t currently sharing my bed does not mean I want to line up a sexual partner each time I step into a room, and the thrill of constant attention soured a very long time ago.
I have spent my life aching to be seen as a person—forget “goddess,” and certainly forget “goddess of sex and beauty.” When I am with young people, particularly with Marius at my side, I get a glimpse of normalcy.
The problem with such a large party is . . . Well, perhaps I’m worrying too much on another’s behalf. It is entirely possible that I am wrong. I hope I am.
We’ve settled in, post-introductions. Marius has a beer in hand, and I have a plastic cup of spiked lemonade. We’re at the back of the large yard, shaded by two sycamores that must be over a hundred years old. We have lawn chairs—someone made sure of that right away, given our advanced age.
Hope sits on the grass before us, with a couple of her young friends, who are truly adorable in their youth and enthusiasm, as they chatter about college and summer plans. They include us in the discussion, because they are at that age. Young adults past their teen years, who chat with us partly to be polite and partly because they’re coming to realize that not everyone their parents’ age is an utter bore.
I catch sight of Ani every now and then, striding about in full organizing mode. She shares her sisters’ dark hair and olive skin. Hope is considered the prettiest of the three, but it’s a marginal difference only signifying that she has more regular features. She’s the tallest, with a lithe, model-thin figure. Kennedy has the most athletic build, and Ani is the full-figured one.
As the oldest sister, Ani is the head of the family and takes that responsibility very seriously. Too seriously, if you ask me, so focused on her sisters and the business that she forgets to look after herself. Jonathan is here, too. He’s the local librarian and physically smashes every preconception of that stereotype. Tall, handsome and broad-shouldered, with dark skin and dark hair cut to his scalp.
Jonathan is refilling ice, bringing out snacks and unobtrusively helping Ani because otherwise, she’d do it all herself. Ani and Jonathan will, of course, end up together. Just as soon as they both slow down enough to realize what they have. Or, I suspect, they already realize it—they just don’t believe the other feels the same. Terribly frustrating for everyone looking on.
My gaze shifts to Kennedy, zipping about like a butterfly. If Ani is the party planner, Kennedy is the hostess, making sure everyone is greeted and introduced and no one is left awkwardly on their own. Barefoot, she’s wearing the cutest floral sundress with a crinolined skirt that bounces along with her dark ponytail. The only makeup I can discern is a bit of pink lipstick. She doesn’t need anything with her youth and flawless olive skin. As she flits about, her gaze keeps sneaking to the gate, and while she might just be making sure she doesn’t miss any new arrivals, I suspect she’s waiting for one in particular.
“Kennedy’s looking for Aiden,” Hope says, as if reading my mind.
“Who’s Aiden?” one of her friends asks.
“A guy.”
Her friend rolls dark eyes. “Obviously. But who is he?”
“He’s from Boston.” Hope puts on an exaggerated accent. “Went to Hah-vahd. Runs his own company. Comes from money. Old money. ‘Debutantes and daiquiris at the country club’ kind of money.”
“Is he hot?”
Hope wrinkles her nose. “If you like gingers.”
“Oh,” both friends say in disappointed unison.
“Fortunately, Kennedy loves gingers,” Hope says. “She thinks he’s totally hot.”
I give her a warning look, but she only grins. If Ani takes her role as big sister too seriously, Hope is just as devoted to her role as exasperating and embarrassing little sister.
I lean back in my chair, my leg brushing Marius’s. He shifts his closer and reaches one hand to rest on my thigh as one of the girls asks him a question.
I find myself staring at his hand, at the strong familiarity of it, the warmth of it on my leg. It’s a casual gesture of equally casual intimacy, but I still notice. I always notice, and in the last couple of weeks, I’ve done more than notice. He puts his hand on my thigh, and heat licks through me. The heat of lust and of longing.
We’ve separated many times in our lives. Sometimes, frankly, we just get on each other’s nerves. There’s no shame in that. Even when we’re a couple, we’ve come to realize that separate residences help, a place to retreat to and be alone, making our days and nights together so much sweeter.
Other times, a fight drives us apart. An issue pushes us to the breaking point, and we retreat to our corners, unable to reconcile the issue without doing further damage. That’s what happened this time.
Marius and I have children. Many children, some mortal and long gone, some immortal and still with us. Most are our children together. Some aren’t. It doesn’t matter. Whether or not we’re both their biological parents, we are a family. With one exception. A daughter of his who cast me in the role of evil stepmother and will not let me out of it. To call her difficult undersells the matter. She lives up to her name: Havoc, goddess of discord. She is hateful and dangerous, and she only listens to Marius. To control her, he decided he had to keep her close, and that drove me away. Two years ago, he gently shooed her from the nest, but the damage had been done. I’d been beyond frustrated at him giving so much of himself to someone who didn’t deserve it, and he’d been beyond frustrated by my inability to understand his sense of responsibility.
Now that Havoc is out of his life, we should be back together, yes? It never works that way. Once the crisis has passed, we grow closer in friendship as we circle the possibility of more with infinite care. Too much care, in my opinion, which correctly suggests that I’m not the one holding out. I want him back. Have for a long time now. And he circles, testing the water, making sure he will not get burned again. I understand, and I have to grant him that, as much as I burn myself watching his hand on my thigh.
Enough of that. This weekend isn’t about repairing an old and fractured love. It’s about cultivating young and new ones. And as soon as I think that, the backyard gate opens, and Aiden walks in, and it only takes a split second for me to acknowledge that I was not wrong earlier.
When I’d seen this party, that prickle of anxiety hadn’t been for myself. It’d been for Aiden. I’ve known him much longer than I’ve known Kennedy, and I took one look at this backyard bash and foresaw disaster. Now he has arrived, and I was not wrong. Not wrong at all.
I teased Marius about looking very corporate. The inside joke is that he is corporate. Over the millennia, he’s been a soldier, a mercenary, a spy, and just about every other job possible for his particular skillset. In the modern world, hiring himself out as a mercenary would be a very different thing, no longer the honorable calling as it once was. He’s now in the business of war, or at least the technology required by the modern theater of war. CEO of a small but very successful corporation. So yes, the twenty-first-century god of war is a corporate man. He does not, however, really look the part today. More like a middle-aged guy who might be up for a round of golf or a match of squash, and either way, will kick your ass.
Aiden is different. Aiden looks like . . . Well, Hope joked about country clubs, and that’s where he seems as if he’s headed. To an intimate soirée at a club so exclusive you can’t get a membership unless your great-grandfather had one.
He is impeccably dressed, because he is Aiden, who has an enviable sense of style. Every color complements his fair skin and red-blond hair and green eyes. Every fabric drapes just right on his slender, athletic form. Every fashion choice is both timely and timeless.
All of that is lost on Kennedy, who wouldn’t set foot in a Fifth Avenue shop even if she had a gift card. She’d sell the card—or donate it—and shop at the mall instead. That’s the world she comes from, and it’s the world inhabited by everyone else at this party, all the other young men in jeans and shorts, T-shirts and tank tops and in some cases, no shirt at all. This is a backyard party, where you drink your beer out of the can and the spiked lemonade out of plastic cups, and Aiden just showed up carrying a triple-figure bottle of white wine, while wearing a crisp white linen shirt with tailored gray pants rolled at the hems to show off blue espadrilles.
He opens the gate and freezes, eyes widening, and in that moment, he looks exactly like poor Kennedy when we’d taken her to a black-tie charity event. She’d frozen up, ready to flee, feeling out of her league.
I start to rise, in case Aiden beats a hasty retreat. He is a man of pride, and he is embarrassed by his mistake. He sees a yard full of strangers and realizes this is not his sort of party, not at all.
Before I can get to my feet, Kennedy is there. After all, she has been watching for him. She darts over to greet him, bestowing a smile so bright and genuine that he has no choice but to step through the gate. He nods at the party and says something with a quick wave at his clothing, and I swear I can hear their conversation.
“I think I’m overdressed.”
“No, no, you look great. Come in. Please. Come in.”
I smile as Kennedy ushers him through, deftly closing the gate to keep him from fleeing. Then Ani is there, taking the bottle, and Ani and Kennedy are laughing, probably joking about putting it away to enjoy themselves.
Crisis averted. I exhale and settle back into my seat to enjoy the party.
It seemsI did not misunderstand the party invitation as much as I thought. Yes, there’s a backyard bash, complete with beer and burgers, but the food isn’t long gone before Kennedy is thanking everyone for coming and herding them on their way, with promises to see them at the town festivities. Then it is just us: Marius and myself, the three sisters, Aiden and Jonathan, and the party slows to more of what I had originally envisioned.
We sit in the yard as twilight falls. We break out Aiden’s wine and Marius produces a bottle of lemony-sweet kitro from his overnight bag, and we talk. We just talk, the conversations made so much more enjoyable by the fact that the party is reduced to those who know exactly who Marius and I are. It is a relief not to play a role.
As twilight turns to full dark, Jonathan lights a bonfire, and we gather around, the wine and liqueur replaced by beer and sodas, the lawn chairs abandoned as we stretch on the grass, under the stars and around the fire.
“Are we telling ghost stories?” I begin.
“Do you have any?” Kennedy asks as she plays with her black cat, teasing her with a strand of grass.
“Not exactly,” I say as I rearrange my legs. “But I did stumble across a fascinating mystery associated with your little town.”
Marius throws up one hand, just enough for me to get the message. Yes, I am pursuing this, and he knows better than to try to stop me.
“Lots of mysteries around here,” Jonathan says. “Which one did you find?”
“The tale of the disappearing teen,” I say. “Lisa Lake. 1969.”
“Ooh,” Kennedy rocks forward. “Yes! It’s the fiftieth anniversary.”
“Is it?” I frown, as if calculating. “Imagine that. Seems like a perfect time to reopen the case.”
If Marius rolls his eyes any harder, he’ll rupture something.
“I believe someone is giving a tour on it this weekend,” Jonathan says. “They asked us to put up flyers in the library.”
Ani frowns. “Who?”
He waves. “No one from Unstable. The anniversary did come up at a town council meeting—should we recognize it for extra publicity?—but the general feeling was that it would be in . . .”
“In poor taste,” Ani says. “A teenager disappeared.”
“Well, yes, but also, do we really want to call attention to the fact that a teen disappeared at the same weekend celebrations, even if it was fifty years ago? They decided to allow the tour, which is being run by a historian from Columbia University. Unsolved mystery and all that.”
“Odd that it’s still unsolved,” I say. “One would think that someone would have dived back in by now. It really is a fascinating story.”
“This Lisa Lake is the one who disappeared, I’m guessing?” Aiden says.
“She did,” Kennedy says. “Under the most mysterious circumstances. Does anyone want to hear the story?”
Ani groans.
“I take that as a yes,” Kennedy says. “Refill your drinks and gather round for the tragic tale of Lisa Lake.”