Cursed: Gowns & Crowns, Book 5 Page 10

  She frowned. “And if I make the wrong choice?”

  He swept his glance over the flat space. “There aren’t any walls, Edeena. You can’t make the wrong choice. You simply turn around or, worst case, walk off the field.”

  “Oh.” She flushed, then reached for his hand. “Sorry, you’re right.”

  She moved around the first turn and hesitated as the path cut to the right. “How do you choose? I honestly am not ‘feeling’ whether right or left is the right direction.”

  “Okay,” Vince said. “How about I ask you a question. If your answer is yes, you turn right. If it’s no, you turn left. Fair enough?”

  She flashed him a delighted smile. “Fair enough.”

  “We’ll start with an easy one. Do you love your sisters?”

  Edeena grinned and immediately turned right, moving them around the circle. The next opening came in only a few steps, and she looked up at him expectantly.

  “Are you enjoying America so far?’

  “Oh, very much,” she said, turning right again. The path angled to the left without giving them an option, and it took another few moments for them to reach the next choice. By the time they did, Vince was ready.

  “Did you enjoy the little stunt we pulled the other night, kissing at the Sea Witch?” he asked, and his voice had dropped a little. Edeena looked up quickly, her cheeks coloring, but she turned resolutely right, pulling him along. The next turn came all too soon, and she hesitated there, not looking at him.

  “Would you mind if I kissed you again?” he asked. His words were quiet now, almost a whisper, but he watched the frantic beating of Edeena’s pulse in her neck as she turned left into the next passageway. She resolutely didn’t look at him again, however, focusing on the ground as she followed the curve of the stones. When the maze opened up again, she paused.

  Vince didn’t say anything at first, and Edeena glanced up at him, her eyes liquid, her lips parted. Despite the bright sunshine and the fact that they were standing in an open back lot of the coffee shop, the moment felt completely secluded, almost intimate. Almost unbidden, his next words rushed out, low and intent. “Would you like me to do more than just kiss you?”

  Edeena’s eyes seemed to dilate despite the bright sun, and she drew in her breath with a soft gasp. The blush washed further up her fair skin, but she tugged him along the pathway, definitively to the right.

  A moment later, though, she stopped short. “Oh,” she murmured, looking around, clearly flustered. “We . . . we’ve reached the center.” She gave a shaky laugh. “I’m not sure if this has managed to clear my mind any, though. I confess I was . . . a little distracted.”

  “The labyrinth isn’t finished yet,” Vince murmured, and he pulled her around to face him. Slowly, with exquisite care, he dropped her hands and lifted his palms up, his hands framing her face as his fingertips grazed softly along her cheeks. “Just one more thing.”

  He lowered his mouth to hers.

  They’d already kissed once, even twice before, but it was as if he was touching Edeena’s lips for the first time. Excitement bolted through him, thick and surprising in its intensity even though he’d been expecting at least some reaction. Part of it had something to do with how jacked up his body had been since the night at the Cypress Resort . . . and part of it had a lot to do with Edeena’s reaction right here, right now.

  Her lips parted willingly beneath his, and she swayed forward, as perfect and right as the wind rustling through the breeze, the bright sun in the sky. Her hair smelled like honeysuckle, and the light touch of her hands on his waist sent the entire lower half of his body into rock-hard readiness. He leaned in, deepening the kiss, and something more stirred deep within him, something as sure and true as he felt about his business, his family, everything that ever had been important to him or ever would be.

  Edeena Saleri was his.

  Maybe not forever, maybe not even for very long, but while he held her in his arms, she was his to protect, his to support, his to give all that he could. Her laughter, her smiles were everything to him, but it was her soft sighs now that were twisting into his heart, tying him to her as readily as if she’d thrown a rope around him and pulled him close. Her hands lifted, soft and firm as she slid up his shirt, and she stood up on her toes to bring them yet closer together.

  Finally Vince pulled back, staring down as Edeena’s face broke into a wide, wondering smile.

  “It worked,” she said, breathless. “I feel so much better now.”

  Chapter Ten

  Edeena tried to hold onto her happy place as they crossed over the bridge to mainland South Carolina. She and Vince hadn’t been able to linger at the coffee shop for long, since he’d apparently promised to bring her to his family’s home for dinner. She’d forgotten she’d asked him about his family, and when she’d tried to dissuade him from taking her to dinner, he’d refused to let her off the hook, muttering darkly about his mother with words like “hell to pay.”

  Now she was unaccountably nervous as the miles fell away, bringing them into the outskirts of the charming city of Charleston.

  “I should have brought something—wine, a gift,” she said, brightening with sudden inspiration. “We should stop somewhere so I can pick up—”

  “Got it,” Vince said, hooking a thumb toward the back seat. Edeena turned to look, and her heart sank. A small grocery bag overflowed with two bottles of wine and a spray of flowers in a wide spill-proof sleeve of water, still fresh. “I planned ahead.”

  He laughed ruefully at her expression. “You should relax, seriously.” She could hear the dismay in his voice, which made her feel even worse. “I promised this to my mother or I wouldn’t put you through it, but she’ll be on her best behavior. She and Prudence go way back, is all. She’s heard about you your whole life, and feels, I don’t know, responsible for you in a way.”

  That caught Edeena off guard. “Responsible? How in the world can she feel that? She’s not even part of the family.”

  “You’ll understand when you meet her,” he said, shaking his head. “She’s really good at responsibility.”

  They pulled up to the house a few minutes later, and Edeena’s eyes widened as she took in the large white pillars on the modestly framed house, the lions at either side of the driveway, and the profusion of flowers. “How many brothers and sisters do you have again?” The house wasn’t very big.

  “Two brothers, two sisters, and about fifty-seven cousins and second cousins, neighbors who act like cousins, and strays my mom has picked up over the years. They’ll all probably be here, but the upside is, you’ll never have to say more than three words without being interrupted.”

  He said the words wryly, but he was looking down the street at the small house with decided pride. Edeena’s heart gave a strange pang and she felt a smile easing across her face despite her nerves. “Tell me about your mother,” she said, “so I’m prepared.”

  “Mom . . . she’s something else,” Vince chuckled, but his words were more gentle when he spoke again. “She and Dad came over to the U.S. when they were barely kids themselves, determined to live the American dream. We had family here, which made the transition easier for them, but she left a lot behind. You’d never know it by her attitude, though. She’s the rock of the family, insistent that we do our best no matter what the challenge—get involved in the community, participate in every pot luck, every church social, every fundraiser. She’s loud and emotional and my father worships the ground she walks on, but she gives all that love back and more.”

  Unaccountably, Edeena felt like crying, and she blinked rapidly, schooling her expression with effort. Vince looked at her, and his expression softened. “Hey, you’ll like her. Really. She’s truly not an awful person, even if she is forcing you to meet my entire extended family for no good reason.”

  “No, no it’s fine,” she said hurriedly. “I’m sure she’s lovely, that they’re all lovely.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t go that fa
r. And hey, don’t get out of the car until I open your door. She’s watching.”

  As Edeena snapped her gaze forward to the silent-seeming house, Vince opened the door of the SUV and slid out, then opened the back to pull out the bag of groceries. By the time he came around to Edeena’s side, she’d noticed the faintest swish of a curtain, but nothing further.

  Vince opened her door. “She truly was waiting to see if you’d open the door for me?” Edeena asked, but she couldn’t keep the smile from her voice. “What about men and women being equal?”

  “They’re equal in other ways, she would say, but not when it comes to basic politeness,” Vince said, returning her smile with a grin of his own. “You take the flowers, I think. It’ll give you something to use as a barricade against the throng.”

  With that they set off, Vince giving her the quick rundown of all his relations, near and far, legitimate and what he called “opportunistic.” By the time they reached the front door, Edeena was surprised to realize that she was laughing, the smell of tiger lilies wafting around her and Vince’s hand firmly holding on to hers.

  Then the door opened, and chaos erupted.

  Edeena had taken part in her share of country dinner parties—all with families who were not her own—so she knew she should have expected the sheer volume of sound that billowed out of the Rallis house. But she’d never been the cause of such an outpouring of good cheer.

  “Edeena Saleri! You are every bit as beautiful as your cousin said you would be, and Prudence exaggerates all the time, so I had my doubts.” A petite woman with fair skin and jet black hair shot through with silver bustled up to her, divesting Edeena of the flowers, then stepping in to embrace her robustly.

  “Ah!” she exclaimed again. “Beautiful, just beautiful.”

  “Mrs. Rallis—”

  “Please! Call me Agnes, and I shall call you Edeena, never mind that you are a countess all the way back in Garronia. Here we are all Americans, and we’re very glad to have you.”

  Before Edeena could draw another breath, Agnes turned to Vince and shooed him away with a frown. “Two bottles! Your brothers will finish that before dinner. Go! Go help your aunts in the kitchen while I introduce Edeena to everyone. We are so happy to have you here, my dear. You bring joy to this house.”

  Agnes continued with her boisterous manner and booming introductions until Edeena’s head spun. She was quite sure an entire Greek city had transplanted itself to this tiny Charleston neighborhood, and those who clearly weren’t related by blood seemed every bit at home as the tottering elders and racing pre-school children. She met Vince’s teenage sisters—both of them more wide-eyed than she would have expected for today’s far more sophisticated teens—as well as his younger brothers, his aunts, his cousins, his great aunts, and more neighbors than she could count. All of them were laughing, smiling, and welcoming, but what struck her most was how happy they seemed simply to be there. Not for who was there and who saw them present, but because they genuinely wanted to be in the room, sharing, laughing, talking and eventually eating . . .

  And oh, the eating.

  When Agnes finally summoned them to the meal, it wasn’t in the house’s tiny dining room, but out in the back yard, where long tables had been set up with white paper covers and blue and white decorations. The meal itself was a feast of epic proportions, from the hummus, pita bread, and spanakopita to the kabobs, lamb stew, and breads. Dessert was an endless array of baklava and honeyed donuts and cheese pie and all of it so delicious that for the first time since she’d set foot in America, Edeena found herself the slightest bit wistful for the cooking of her own country, so similar to this but with less meat and more fruit, in accordance with their terrain and the size of their rangelands.

  But that nostalgia was washed away with the very next round of laughter, and Edeena turned to find Vince watching her, a smile on his expressive face, and something approaching relief shining in his eyes.

  “You’re enjoying yourself,” he said, and the return smile she gave him was unfeigned.

  “I honestly can’t remember enjoying myself quite this much in a long time,” she said, staring around as yet another bottle of wine was opened and an appreciative cheer went up. “They’re all so . . . happy. Genuinely happy.” She looked back to him again. “They can’t always be like this, and yet it’s gone on too long to simply be good behavior for a guest.”

  “Good behavior, it is not,” barked Vince with a laugh. Still, his own grin rested easily on his face, and his expression was lit with appreciation as he watched his extended family debate loudly the possibility that South Carolina was protected by hurricanes because the Greek gods knew the Rallis family lived here. He shook his head as the argument rose in volume. “They’re family, and part of that is being loud and happy to see each other, in good times and in bad.”

  “Yes . . .” Edeena kept her smile fixed, but her gaze once more roved the room, and that touch of melancholy was back. Family meant something else to her, she supposed. But Vince’s definition certainly had much to recommend it.

  Vince eased away from Edeena and let his family take over again, the women plying her with after-dinner drinks and asking her everything about Garronia she was willing to share—its people, its traditions, its men. On this last, of course, Edeena was more of an expert than he would have preferred, but the laughter rising up from the group made everyone in the house happy—men and women, old and young. Even he felt the tensions of the day slipping away.

  He realized, with sudden surprise, that he hadn’t even checked his cell phone since he’d collected Edeena that morning. That was so unlike him as to make him wonder if he’d caught the flu. He pulled it out now, some sixth sense alerting him in time to shield the move from the watchful eyes of his mother. A quick scan of the phone’s display, though, made him realize he’d need to respond to the multiple texts that had come in. He joined a throng of his singing cousins for long enough that his mother turned away, then he slipped to the back of the yard where the fence had been taken down years ago because the magnolia bushes had provided more than enough barrier.

  Now he stepped through a break in those bushes with the familiarity of long practice, and paused in the cool shadows. Without bothering to scan through the messages, he struck the few keys needed to reach Marks.

  “What’s going on?” he said sharply, when the call connected.

  “You didn’t read my texts?” Rob replied, but his voice was easy, calm, and Vince relaxed a fraction. If there’d truly been a problem, Marks would have been all business.

  “You sent five of them. I figured I’d cut to the chase.”

  “Just regular updates. Sisters safe in town, sisters returned safely to house, Marguerite delivered to her job at the Cypress Club bar, and—”

  “Whoa, whoa. Bar? I thought she worked breakfasts.” Vince passed a hand over his brow. At least the club was a normal nightclub in the main part of the resort. Edeena would kill him if she thought they’d allowed Marguerite to moonlight in the shadier section of the resort.

  “Cindy confirmed it, shortly after Marguerite arrived for work. She appears to be happy with the change, but we wanted to keep you apprised if it came up with Edeena.” Marks paused a beat. “How’s Operation Chillout going?”

  “Better than I’d hoped,” Vince said, smiling as the sound of guitars started streaming through the air. At least his cousins were good musicians. He had a feeling their neighbors would not be so forgiving if they were forced to listen to bad karaoke on the all-too-frequent nights that the family gathered. Normally there were no guitars, but tonight was special, his mother had assured him. Edeena was special.

  And on that, she was certainly right.

  “You there, Vince?” Rob’s voice startled him back into focus and Vince straightened, nodding though there was no one there to see.

  “I’m good. Edeena is solid, maybe a little drunk, but solid. I’ll be bringing her back by midnight, if you could inform her aunt.”<
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  “Well . . .” Rob dragged the word out a little too long, and Vince frowned.

  “What?”

  “I sort of told dear Cousin Pru that Edeena would be spending the night in the city. At your place.”

  “At my . . .” Vince didn’t even try to hide his shock. “Are you crazy?”

  “No sir, I am not. But Prudence was all up in arms over some new boxes that had arrived today while Edeena was out.” Marks slipped easily into Prudence’s cultured southern drawl. “And bless her heart, but Edeena seemed to know exactly what Prudence was thinking before she even knew it herself, so there was simply no way she could hide those boxes from her, and yet how horrible was it going to be when Edeena returned, fresh off her lovely day in the country with that charming young Prince, and here Prudence had to ruin it all because she could not possibly lie to her cousin.”

  “You’ve got to be joking me.”

  “So, of course, since we’re in the business not only of assuring peace of body but also of mind, I stepped in with the most chivalrous response I could muster.”

  “By telling her I was going to be hooking up with her niece at my place.”

  “By telling her that I would kindly suggest to the charming young Prince that he put up Edeena in one of the several safe residences we’d established in the Charleston area for the evening, assuring her of a safe and restful—and did I mention safe?—evening on the mainland, far away from frightening things like . . . boxes.”

  “You told her I had a safe house?”

  “Several of them, yes. She was ever so grateful for our thoroughness.” Once again Rob was talking in Prudence’s distinctive southern drawl, and Vince winced. “She’s expecting you back after breakfast, and you might want to come up with fresh clothes for the woman and attribute it to a shopping spree.” He gave a short laugh. “God knows that’s a language the girls speak. Cindy said they flashed enough plastic wipe out a third-world country.”

  “Noticeably so?”

  “She didn’t think so, and she knew you would ask,” Rob said, chuckling. “Just girls being girls. Girls who maybe didn’t get out all that often.”