Susan's Summer (4 page)

“Yeah,” she said, without any hesitation. She darted to one of her bags and dragged out a case. “There are probably some colors in there you can wear.” I nodded and moved over to the large mirror set against the wall. It was part of a beautiful vanity that looked like it was hundreds of years old. That made sense, because this had to be a family home, especially if magic was involved. Most magical families had one place they made their base; Summer and Winter Fairies tended to have two.

“Oh my GOD, I love this place,” Mae yelled out to me.

“Don’t get too comfortable,” I muttered.

Mae took almost as long in the shower as I had, but I let her, because I now knew what it felt like to be totally comfortable and happy for a few brief moments. Sadly, it was never going to last.

Mae emerged wearing a yellow sundress that contrasted with her dark hair. I had put on jean shorts and a green blouse that pulled the color out of my eyes. I slipped my feet into brightly colored sandals and was ready to go.

Once she had applied a bit of makeup of her own Mae asked, “You ready?”

“I guess,” I said, and followed her to the door.

Mae was right. The hall was empty. It was also just like our bedroom: impeccably decorated in an understated way.

“A very stylish girl must live here,” Mae mused. “I wonder who.”

“Whoever she is she has some explaining to do,” I said as we moved onto the red carpet.

“Which way?” Mae asked.

I pointed toward the light. At one end of the hall was just a window, but at the other there was light streaming in from another part of the house, and possibly a staircase.

“Come on,” said Mae, grabbing my arm and pulling me in that direction. She was so excited she was practically skipping.

“You know,” I said, “I can’t hear anything.”

“What do you mean?” Mae asked, pausing at the top of the stairs. I looked over her shoulder and gasped. The stairs spiraled downward, all warm wood and red carpet. At the bottom was more wood, in striking contrast to the marble floors of the entrances to the Roths’ homes. This was more rustic and more welcoming. Despite its size, I didn’t feel intimidated at all.

“Do you hear anything?” I asked, pausing to raise an eyebrow at her.

Mae didn’t move, just cocked her head to listen. “No, but what difference does that make?”

“It’s too quiet,” I insisted.

“Wouldn’t want the decorating monster to attack! All you do is worry,” said Mae, shaking her head. “Stop it. But really, what do you think is going to happen? Pink arrows are going to fly out of the walls and axe murderers in tutus are going to jump from behind doorways?”

“I worry because I should,” I told her. “One of us has to. We probably shouldn’t have showered. There was probably poison in the water or something. It’s going to kill us slowly. And by the way, you have an overactive imagination.”

“Yes, of the two of us I’m the one with that problem.” Mae’s face told me I was being an idiot, but before she could elaborate, a greeting rang out from below.

“Hello there.” It was a soft and feminine voice that floated up to us.

Surprised, Mae jumped, wrapping a protective arm around my shoulder as she shot into the air. I fought the urge to duck, as if some dangerous missile was going to hurtle toward us.

We looked down. At the bottom of the stairs was a girl with long dark hair and a warm, round face. She wasn’t very tall—she looked like she would barely come up to my elbow—but she had a bright smile. There was something familiar about the set of her blue eyes and her straight nose, but I couldn’t place it. She wore a white belted dress and was waving merrily at us. She was beautiful. She looked a bit younger than I was, but I felt sure that if I had ever seen her at any of the Fairy parties I would have remembered her.

“Morning,” she said happily. “Come on down. Breakfast is ready. Seth’s just out in the garden getting some garnishes and some stuff for Susan’s head.”

“Our decorating monster,” Mae murmured.

All fear was forgotten when I heard that. Medicine? Seth? Food! And how did she know my name?

Still, “What’s he getting for my head?” I called down warily. Mae, refusing to let me be rude, bounded down the staircase, raced right up to this girl we didn’t know, and hugged her. I followed her down the stairs but hung back when I got to the bottom. The name Seth also sounded familiar, but I hadn’t talked to anyone named Seth in years, so again I couldn’t place it.

“How’s it going?” the small girl asked, coming up and hugging me warmly before I could stop her. “Did you sleep all right?” She peered at me and I suddenly felt self-conscious about the tired circles under my eyes.

“Yeah, I slept fine,” I said, stepping back and clasping my hands awkwardly.

“So anyway, I am SO happy you two are here. It’s not just that my brother NEVER brings girls home. I mean, he doesn’t, but I wish he did. Anyway, he never brings anyone else home either. I’m sure Susan is familiar with this phenomenon. It has driven me crazy for years. And THEN this morning I wake up and find that he’s brought not just one but TWO. So cool. Anyway, I was pretty excited. I hope you both slept all right.” She said it so earnestly and looked at us with such pleading that just for a second I thought we might not have been kidnapped.

“I was really hoping the two of you were comfortable,” the girl went on, “and it’s so nice to see both of you I just want you to enjoy it here, so if there’s ANYTHING I can do to help, please let me know.”

“Katie, did you introduce yourself or just jump right in?” a light male voice asked. I turned so fast I almost bumped into Mae. My eyes locked on a guy as he came striding down the hall, and I was stunned to see that it was the guy from the bar last night.

No, not that guy, or that guy. It was the first guy, the one we thought had bought us the beers, the gorgeous one who had taken my breath away with his wind-blown dirty blond hair and a hot smile on his wide mouth. Instead of jeans and a white t-shirt, today he wore khaki shorts and a blue t-shirt.

Now that I saw him in full daylight I decided that my initial reaction to him hadn’t been wrong. He was gorgeous. If anything, I was even more bowled over than I had been the previous night. Literally, my breath left my body. When had that ever happened to me before? Not even when I used to look at Samuel. And there were no guys who were better looking than Samuel. At least, I hadn’t thought there were. Neither did Autumn, Carley, Lydia, or Leslie. Yeah, there were no guys better looking than Samuel.

Emotions tumbled through me. I hadn’t felt so much since I lay screaming on my bed when I heard about Holt’s death. Unlike that terrible day, these weren’t bad emotions, just confused ones. The pain must have shown on my face, because the guy—I had to assume he was Seth—walked up to Mae first. Sticking his hand out in greeting, he gave her a warm smile. She grinned back. She was charmed and he hadn’t even said anything to her yet.

“So glad you could join my sister and me,” he said, beaming toward Katie with a brother’s love shining in his eyes.
Good
, I thought, he’s confirming that at least the beautiful girl standing next to us wasn’t competition.
Wait, what?
I’m not supposed to be thinking such thoughts.

Katie grinned at him in return and then turned the smile on us. “Awesome to have you,” she said again, like we hadn’t already figured out that she was thrilled.

“Thanks for having us,” Mae gushed. “You were the one who rescued us last night?” she asked Seth.

“I wouldn’t call it rescuing,” he said modestly, but there was a twinkle in his blue eyes. “More like helping a situation along. I was trying to keep those two guys from getting hurt.”

“Humph,” I muttered.

Mae, still holding his hand, sauntered closer to him. “Whatever you say,” she murmured with a wink.

Seth Whoever He Was looked different up close. Last night I had thought he had dark eyes and pale skin, but that must have been the effect of the dim lighting in the bar. His eyes were a clear blue, like the sky first thing in the morning. They were bright and focused, but in their depths I thought I saw shadows. He wasn’t pale after all; he looked like he spent some time outdoors in the summer, which made sense in light of his sister’s comment that he was getting stuff from the garden. I liked a guy who liked to get his hands dirty—literally.

He was tall, around Holt’s height, and he had a mouth that looked like it smiled easily, or did other things easily. He also obviously worked out. I wanted to think it was from moving tools around in the garden, because I was predisposed to think well of anyone who took care of plants. Then again, this whole house looked like it was well loved and well looked after. I just couldn’t quite bring myself to give that credit to the guy standing in front of me.

Yet.

Those thoughts rushed through my mind in a matter of seconds, and by the time I had reached the conclusion that I was too attracted to Seth for my own good he was already standing in front of me.

I knew I was blushing. It was hard having him that close when I hadn’t even looked him in the eye yet. Instead of doing so even once he was in front of me, I awkwardly decided to focus on his chest area, where the top of the letters on his t-shirt ended. It was intoxicating.

“Hey,” he said. Was it just my imagination or was his voice warmer when he talked to me than when he talked to Mae? To my intense relief, he didn’t try to shake my hand.

“Hey yourself,” I said, my blush deepening. “Care to explain what’s going on?”

Thank God at least I’d borrowed some makeup. It was hard to act offended and angry in the face of gorgeousness when I looked terrible to boot. I was also acutely aware of the contradiction between my reaction to this guy’s presence and my need to know how I had ended up in his house, unconscious, late one night in Vermont.

“Whatever are you talking about?” I heard the laugh in his voice and it only annoyed me more.

Now I had the courage to look into his eyes. What I saw in their clear depths knocked my thoughts right out of my head. He was smiling down at me, not just his mouth, with its perfectly straight white teeth, and not just his face. His whole body was directed toward mine and his eyes, I felt sure, didn’t want to look anywhere but at me. If only I had waxed my eyebrows sometime in the past six months; tweezing just didn’t cut it. I pushed that thought out of my head. If he didn’t care about that stuff, I would stare into his eyes all day.

“Uh, um . . . .” Katie cleared her throat meaningfully. “I believe she asked you for an explanation, Brother.” There was wicked glint in Katie’s own blue eyes that made me think she didn’t miss much.

Seth grinned over at her. He didn’t look at all uncomfortable surrounded by a bunch of girls. We hadn’t yet shaken hands, but I was hesitant. I was afraid that when I touched him things would happen that I definitely didn’t want. I had things to do this summer, and a sadness to keep. I had to remember Holt.

I stepped back, and suddenly there was a gulf of more than mere inches between us.

His eyes widened a little and I tried to ignore the flutter in my stomach; there wasn’t supposed to be any flutter. Seth was still smiling, but he was giving me my space. Katie was looking at him like she’d never seen anything like it before. The old me, the pre-dead cousin me, would have felt some satisfaction that the guy I found so hot obviously found me attractive in return, but this me was still just sad. Well, mostly. Besides, I still had NO idea who he was.

“So, want some breakfast?” Katie asked, already bounding in the direction from which Seth had come.

“What I want is an explanation,” I called after her. I meant for it to come out sounding harsh, but it didn’t at all. I just couldn’t bring myself to be mean and dampen her obviously good mood. Seth, who had turned to follow his sister, looked over his shoulder and grinned at me. He knew what I had almost done and that I had decided not to do it. I hated that he knew and I hated even more the happy expression shining out from his face.

Good timing if ever there was any.

We followed Seth out onto a sun porch. I was sure there was another door connecting the porch to an open kitchen, but I was too awed at the display in front of me to care much. I turned around and around to look at the room, which was another space decorated in soft pastels, all pinks and purples with slashes of greens, blues, and yellows thrown in. A fragrant breeze blew in from the open windows, and when I saw the spread on the table—muffins, breads, jams, eggs, fruits of all kinds, yogurt and granola—my mouth started to water just at the sweet thought of tasting some of the feast before us.

Now I was seriously suspicious.