“For consummation with your mate,” her aunt responded.
Ariella began coughing, gagging on the water going down her throat.
“Oh, dear,” Mother said, slapping her on the back. “It must happen before your twenty-sixth birthday, Ariella, otherwise your powers will be taken anyway.”
When Ariella was finally able to speak, she looked at her mother in disbelief. “But why?”
Mother shrugged. “Because you are the family Enchantress, which gives you powers beyond your belief. But those powers must be shared with someone with no evil intentions so that they remain only in our family’s bloodlines. If you mate with the wrong man, it could create chaos.”
After Ariella had said her goodbyes to her mother and aunt, she was on her way. She had a straight shot from New Orleans to Crystal Rock, Wisconsin along 1-55 and I-39 N. She could probably cut back the trip during the night and arrive there in the morning instead of the usual seventeen or eighteen hours by using a spell.
Something suddenly occurred to her as she traveled along the road.
“It’s a good thing I’m still a virgin,” she muttered under her breath, snorting.
Chapter Three
Birch sat at a table in the Dragonfly Pointe Inn Restaurant eating breakfast the following morning.
He’d had a restless night of tossing and turning, envisioning all kinds of crazy things while he’d been trying to sleep.
The woman he’d been thinking of was definitely hard to forget, he realized when he finally decided to get out of bed. He’d never seen her before in his life.
So why did he keep thinking that he knew her? She must have been part of that crazy past again, the one that he didn’t quite remember. Hopefully, Gramps would give him a call back sometime today. After going out to eat and having a few beers last night, Birch had decided to wait until the morning to try and get in touch with him since it had been kind of late.
What would he do today? He was getting a little tired of driving around and trying to find the right place to live. And truthfully, he’d been a little thrown yesterday afternoon, because there’d been a house on that island, and Birch had realized that the island seemed to be the place he’d been looking for all this time.
The house had been dark and gloomy, along with the landscape. He would have to wait and see if what he was thinking was meant to be. In a strange way, Birch had a feeling that everything he’d been working for in his life had been leading him here to Crystal Rock.
He sure wished he could understand why.
As he finished his coffee, he decided to do a little exploring in the Inn’s shops. There’d been one particular gift shop which had caught his attention through the display window because of some of the unique items they carried, and Birch suddenly felt like he needed to have some kind of a good luck charm to hold onto.
After paying and leaving a generous tip, Birch strolled through the restaurant and then through the lobby toward the annex leading to the shops. The store he was looking for was immediately to the right, and Birch realized there were even a few more items in the window than he’d earlier this morning.
His attention was drawn suddenly to a glowing stone which was laying in a box in the display window.
“Hi, there,” he murmured to the woman who was standing behind the jewelry counter.
She smiled. “Is there anything I can help you with?”
“Right now, I’m just looking. I noticed some interesting items this morning when I was walking by outside. Christmas is right around the corner.”
“Tell me about it,” she answered. “Just let me know if you need to see anything close up.”
“Thanks,” he murmured, walking toward the glowing stone, which appeared to have him hypnotized.
Birch’s jaw dropped as he got closer. He could see an image of a woman in the stone, and it was as vivid as a movie. She was in a jeep, and it appeared to be in a parking lot somewhere…
Wait a minute, he thought, as his eyes moved upward, and he gazed outside through the window. It was the parking lot belonging to the Dragonfly Pointe Inn.
There she was, the woman he’d been dreaming about last night, driving away in a purple jeep.
He wanted to go running after her.
Birch shook his head as if he was in a daze. He felt like he was losing it. Birch looked through the window again, and he felt a deep sense of disappointment when he realized she was gone.
“Hey. Could I see this stone that’s in the window?”
“Sure. I think it’s a key chain,” she murmured after stepping away from the counter and reaching into the display window. “I just put this here about fifteen minutes ago. We have a new artist here in town, and Danielle Loughlin, the owner of the Inn, fell in love with all of her pieces and wanted them on display right away.”
Thoughtfully, Birch gazed at the glowing stone, still seeing the woman behind the wheel of the jeep.
Birch decided to test his theory. “Do you see the glow that I’m seeing in the stone?”
“It does have beautiful coloring doesn’t it? It’s a quartz. The light you’re seeing must be the reflection from the sun shining in.”
Just as he thought, the woman couldn’t see what he did in the stone.
“You said there are other items that the woman just brought in? May I see them? I’d like to purchase this too, by the way.”
“Of course,” she answered, laying the box with the keychain on the counter before pointing out some paintings to Birch. “She’s given us some beautiful jewelry to sell. Here are some of her paintings on display on the walls. Danielle has already purchased a few, which she hung onto.”
Birch stared, motionless, checking the first of four paintings. He recognized the island right away. Instead of being cloaked in gray, the island was green and lush, appearing to be full of life.
And then there were the dragonflies.
“I’ll take them all,” Birch murmured, feeling hypnotized as recognition surged through his senses.
With definite humor in her voice, she answered, “Wouldn’t you like to know how much they are?”
“Nope. I don’t care.”
The woman laughed. “Well this has to be a new record for us. We’ve had these items on display for a total of thirty minutes.”
Birch grinned suddenly. “I’ll bring my truck around so we can load them up. I’m not in any hurry.”
“In that case, let me ring them up for you. I’ll send the keychain along from you, and maybe you could give me about thirty minutes to get everything packed?”
“Not a problem.”
* * *
A few hours later, Birch was wondering whether he’d lost his mind while he unpacked the artwork and lined each painting along the cabin wall, propping them above the couch.
No. They were meant for only him to understand, he realized, studying each one.
Four were scenic depictions of the island, while the other two were of colorful dragonflies both in flight and fluttering across a pool of water.
The house was in one, and was painted in beautiful jeweled tones of blues, purple and greens. It should have looked gaudy, but instead, it made Birch feel like he was home.
How could that be? He’d grown up with his grandparents in a small town in Massachusetts, but Birch realized that Crystal Rock had immediately drawn him in, unlike the town where he’d grown up and had never really felt like he belonged.