Page 46 of The Vanishing Bookstore
‘Why are you being so loud?’
‘Because no one cares. And why are you still in denial about who you are? After the last twenty-four hours and what we’ve tried to show and tell about your heritage, you still think we’re talking a load of crap.’
Lenny leaned back as the waiter approached carrying a tray with another drink. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from Lenny who looked as though she had just devoured him with hers.
A voice shouted, ‘Hey Mike, order’s up.’
Finally looking away from Lenny he walked away.
‘What’s happening?’ Dora asked.
‘Nothing. Obviously you don’t really believe in any of this witching or bewitching stuff so don’t worry about it.’
‘I have a headache.’
Lenny waved her hand dismissively in the air. ‘Not sure all this confusion is helping you, Dora.’
She swirled ice cubes around in the glass and Dora must have heard the clinking. ‘Are you drinking?’
‘I’m not going to be flying for a few hours, there’s no availability until later. I have a date.’
Dora sounded shocked. ‘You do?’
Lenny was smiling at Mike. ‘The bar man can’t take his eyes off me; this old bird still has life in her, you know.’
‘You are incorrigible.’
‘I know, but you love me, right. I love you, Dora, don’t ever forget that. As do Sephy and your mom.’
Dora’s voice was a whisper. ‘I wish I remembered them, the good times.’
‘They weren’t always good, to be fair a lot of them were tragically dismal and downright terrifying, but we’ve always had each other.’
‘Can I not go back to London with you?’
‘I think that maybe it’s time to let you live a little on your own steam and right now there is no safer place on earth than Salem. It might be what you need to jerk your memories out of whatever place it is you’ve locked them away in. And as I told you, when Mike gets off, we’re going to have a good time before my flight.’
Dora laughed. ‘I love you, be safe; I can’t believe I’m saying that to my old aunt. Please will you ring when you know what’s going on?’
‘Less of the old, I’m young at heart.’
Lenny smiled. She loved her niece more than anything, but she had a feeling that this lifetime for the English sisters was hurtling to its climax and was about to have the most spectacular ending of them all. If that was so she was going to enjoy herself, maybe lose herself for a couple of hours in Mike’s company where she could forget all her past and present witch wounds, and for the first time in a very long time maybe live a little and have pure, hot, wild sex.
28
Lenny had spent the most glorious two hours in Mike’s company. He lived in a small apartment close to the airport and had not even flinched about asking her to go back there with him. She’d known he was a player and must hit on lots of single women in the bar. She had been pleasantly surprised by how neat his apartment was, she’d expected it to be a typical bachelor pad, all empty take-away cartons and six-packs of Bud. Not that she’d spent much time admiring his cleanliness. It had been so long since she’d felt this way about a man, she had almost forgot how it felt to be with someone who made every part of your body tingle.
He was snoring now and she was pleased that she’d managed to exhaust him. Extracting herself from under his arm and leg she crept around the bedroom, picking up her clothes. Slipping out of his room, she washed up in the bathroom and dressed. She would go home to her apartment in London for a long soak in the bath, but she had been missing for far too long already. She knew Sephy would be going out of her mind and sent her a quick text saying she’d met an old friend at the airport while waiting for her flight. But she knew her sister was a proper worrier and wouldn’t settle until she was home.
She let out a sigh and hoped that Dora was okay. At least Mike had helped to take her mind off the impending doom heading the English sisters’ way for a short while. She left his apartment and began the walk back to pick up Sephy’s van, which in all probability had been towed away. Damn it, she should have moved it.
The early evening traffic whizzed past her, and she wondered if she was going to have to pay for a cab back to Salem when she came home or if the van would be there. As she reached the pedestrian footpath, she passed the pick-up point for arriving passengers and felt a chill rattle her entire body.
She stopped in her tracks and slowly turned around. He was here or close by, he had to be. She had the same reaction every time she was within a certain distance of George Corwin.
A tall man had just got into a cab. Slamming the door shut, the driver set off just as his passenger slowly turned to stare at Lenny through the window of the back seat, his eyes locking with hers. He looked nothing like the Corwin she knew from the 1600s but her inbuilt sensor didn’t steer her wrong.
Panic filled her chest and she found herself back in 1692. She could smell the mud and the horses as she was bundled into the cart to be taken on her last journey before they hanged her.
