Darkangel by Christine Pope (red queen ebook TXT) 📕

us the candle had prelit it for us — and then pushed through the crowd to set it down in one of the few remaining spaces. The flame flickered a little, but then stood up straight and tall, strong the way my great-aunt had been almost until the day she died.

“Okay, now what?” Adam asked, once I straightened and stood next to him.

Why he was asking me, when it had been his idea to come here, I didn’t know. Maybe he just thought as prima I should be the one calling the shots. I decided it wasn’t worth arguing about and pointed to the next courtyard over, which was where the flamenco music seemed to be coming from.

It wasn’t quite as crowded in that spot, although there were still plenty of people milling around. Here I spied some tables with chairs around them, and a second or two later I saw the reason why: the restaurant at the far end of the courtyard had an outside stand where they were selling margaritas and sangria.

Now that we’d paid our respects to Great-Aunt Ruby, I didn’t see why we couldn’t have a little fun. She certainly hadn’t been above having a drink or two, although her poison of choice was gin martinis.

“Buy you a drink?” I asked, and Adam grinned.

“Sure.”

We went over to the stand and waited for the couple ahead of us to finish their transaction. I stepped up to the pretty Hispanic woman who was taking the orders and said, “A sangria and…” I trailed off, since I hadn’t asked Adam what he wanted.

“Regular margarita — on the rocks, not blended, please.”

She smiled and said, “Just a minute,” then poured our drinks. “That’ll be fifteen dollars.”

I handed over a twenty and told her to keep the change. Her eyes widened a little, but she just thanked me before going on to assist the next set of customers who were waiting for drinks.

Truth be told, it was probably a little chilly to be drinking either sangria or a margarita, but I found I didn’t mind too much. The sangria was good, too. I knew there was probably a lot more to go see. For some reason I wanted to linger here for a while and listen to the guitarist in the center of the courtyard playing intricate Spanish tunes that matched the architecture around me, the white stucco walls and the red tile roofs and the balconies and overhangs of dark wood. The bodyguards had paused a few yards off, pretending to be looking at a display of fine art photographs in a gallery window.

A half-familiar voice said from over my left shoulder, “Angela? Angela McAllister?”

I turned and saw him. All right, not him him, not the man of my dreams, but a close second — the Zorro from the Halloween dance a week ago. I blinked, certain I must be hallucinating. Or maybe that sangria was a lot stronger than I’d thought it was.

“Hi, um….” I managed, realizing that I’d given him my name, but I still didn’t know his.

He grinned, even as I felt Adam shift irritably next to me. “Sorry about that. We didn’t get to the formal introductions. I’m Chris Wilson.”

“Hi, Chris.” Then, realizing that I really shouldn’t neglect Adam, I added, “And this is my cousin Adam.”

“Hi,” Chris said, extending a gloved hand. Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought he looked almost relieved at the word “cousin,” as though he’d been worried that Adam was my boyfriend or something. Or maybe I was just flattering myself.

Adam looked like he really didn’t want to shake Chris’s hand. After I slanted him a sideways glance through my eyelashes, though, he reached out and took his hand, saying, “Nice to meet you.”

“So what brings you up here?” I asked Chris, figuring I’d better step in and keep the conversation going in more or less innocuous directions. From across the way I could see the guardians pause and give him their own inspection, relaxing visibly when they sensed that he was just a civilian, no one to worry about.

“I’m not stalking you, I swear,” he replied with a small laugh. Seeing him like this, in the last of the afternoon light, I thought he was even better-looking than I remembered. I could see that his dark eyes were surrounded with a heavy fringe of lashes, now that they weren’t hidden behind the Zorro mask, and he had nice strong brows that balanced the slightly long nose and high cheekbones. “A friend of mine is getting his master’s in anthro, and he wanted to come up here and check out the festivities. I’d heard about it but hadn’t been before.”

“So where’s your friend?” Adam asked, tone not quite brusque enough to be called rude…but close.

“Over in the next courtyard, taking pictures of one of the altars there.”

I noticed that besides the gloves, Chris was wearing a heavy leather jacket over a sweater, and he had a wool scarf around his neck. “Planning to go up to Flagstaff or something?” I inquired, with a lift of my eyebrows toward the cold-weather gear.

He startled slightly, then grinned and shook his head. “I’m from Phoenix, remember? If it gets below sixty-five degrees, we break out the snowshoes.”

Despite myself, I chuckled. I also found myself wishing I didn’t have Adam there, glaring at me like a chaperone in one of those Victorian novels where the heroine can’t even step out on the veranda without having her actions questioned.

“Have you been to this before?” Chris asked, and I shook my head.

“No, I — that is, we lost our great-aunt last weekend. That’s actually why I had to run out of the dance like that. Family emergency.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” he said at once, the little smile he’d been wearing abruptly disappearing.

“It’s okay,” I told him. “That is, she lived a great life. It was sad to lose her, but not entirely unexpected. She was eighty-eight.”

“A good round number.”

“Exactly.” I smiled up at him, wishing more than ever that we could be alone together. Then again, what good would that do me, except to frustrate me further?

If only he weren’t so damn good-looking….

He seemed to notice my edginess and glanced over at Adam. “Mind if I borrow your cousin for a minute?”

Adam looked as if he wanted to say he minded very much, but he seemed to collect himself and shrugged. “Sure,” he replied, and took a sip of his margarita before glancing over at the flamenco guitarist, as if scrutinizing his intricate fingerwork was the only thing on his mind right then.

Maybe I should’ve been relieved, but I couldn’t help wondering what exactly Chris wanted. He moved off down the walkway that led from the courtyard out to an open area behind the buildings, then paused once we were more or less out of earshot, if not eyeshot.

“I am sorry to hear about your great-aunt,” he said quietly, “but in a way I’m kind of glad.”

“You are?” I couldn’t quite figure out what he meant by that.

“Not that your family lost her. I mean, I’m glad you didn’t disappear like that last Saturday because of something I did.”

“Oh, no. Not at all.”

He hesitated, looking down into my face. I was very glad that I’d taken a little more care with my hair than usual and had put on some lip gloss. Not that my current fresh-faced look wasn’t a far cry from the diva I’d appeared to be at the Halloween dance. Even so, he didn’t seem too fazed by the alteration in my appearance.

“Do you get down to Phoenix often?” he asked.

I shook my head. “I think I might have mentioned I don’t get out much.” An expression of disappointment passed over his features, and I quickly continued, “But we do go down in early December every year for holiday shopping and to stock up on some things that we have a hard time getting up here.” Of course I had no idea whether we were going to uphold that tradition this year, what with everything that was going on, but if it was in my power to make it happen, then it would.

“Okay, that sounds a little more promising. I need to get back to my friend, though. And school’s going to be kind of crazy between now and the end of the semester, so I don’t think I’ll be able to get back up here. But I’d really like it if you’d call me when you’re in town.”

“I don’t have your number,” I told him.

“Well, that’s easy to fix. Can I borrow your phone?”

I dug it out of my purse and handed it to him. He went to the contacts screen and entered his information. I took another sip of my sangria while I waited, then took my phone back once he was done, slipping it into a pocket in my purse.

“I’m not sure when we’ll be down,” I said. “We usually go mid-week, though, to avoid the crowds.”

“You don’t work?”

“Of course we do. I mean, my aunt has a store up in Jerome and I help out there, and I also make jewelry.”

“You do?” he inquired. The note of interest in his voice sounded genuine. “So you’re kind of an artist, too, then.”

“I guess so.” For some reason my cheeks heated as he gazed down at me in admiration. “But anyway, it’s not that big a deal for us to close down in the middle of the week if we need to.” I didn’t bother to add that a lot of the shops in Jerome had rather lackadaisical schedules. If you wanted to close up for the afternoon to go shopping or get your toes done, why not? No big deal when your storefront was