Page 3 of Wind Called

He shook his head. “No, she seemed taller. And although her hair was red, it was a couple of shades darker than yours.”

Yes, after he’d thought about it, he realized the dream-woman’s hair had been a dark copper, not the paler, almost strawberry blonde shade his mother had always sported. Marc had no reason to believe she’d ever helped it along with any sort of dye, or she probably would have been covering up those silvery strands that had begun to make their appearance over the last six months or so.

“A witch?” his mother asked, and he shrugged.

“I don’t know for sure. But…maybe.”

“Well, a red-haired witch would be part of my clan,” she said. “We always had a redhead sprouting here and there, although there are a lot more McAllisters who’re blonde or have light brown hair. I suppose I can ask Angela who in the clan has red hair — I’ve been kind of out of touch down here in Tucson, and haven’t been paying much attention to what’s going on with the McAllisters.”

No, Caitlin McAllister had made her choice decades earlier to go and live among the de la Paz clan, and although their family had traveled north here and there to visit and check in, their last trip had been several years earlier, just as he was about to start his final year of college. She’d never seemed too worried about missing Jerome, which made sense.

Her life was here, after all.

But something told Marc it was probably foolish to be bothering theprimaabout a dream that didn’t even have any real details, just a general sense of foreboding. And although everyone agreed that his talent was real, it still didn’t mean that some of his dreams weren’t just that — dreams and nothing more.

Before he could say anything in reply, though, his mother gave a shake of her head, looking rueful. “I swear, I don’t know where my brain is these days. I don’t need to contact Angela — I’ll just give your grandmother a call. She’s got her finger on the pulse of all things McAllister, maybe even more than theprimadoes.”

Marc supposed his mother was right about that. Tricia McAllister had been a clan elder since before he was even born, and she lived in Jerome full time rather than dividing the months between the touristy former mining town and Flagstaff, the way Angela and Connor did, doing their best to split their time evenly between their two witch families. Maybe if you sat down and calculated the numbers, they probably spent more days in Jerome, but still, they didn’t live the entire year in any one place.

“Sure,” he said, trying to sound unconcerned about the whole thing. Although he’d been dealing with dreams and visions for the past thirteen years, he still didn’t feel entirely comfortable with the concept, partly because even in witch clans, people tended to look at those sorts of gifts with some serious side-eye.

Especially when they came from a man.

His mother probably knew all too well what he was thinking, but she looked utterly at ease as she got up and went into the kitchen, where she’d left her cell phone sitting on the countertop. As she walked back to resume her seat in the living room, she was already typing away.

It seemed nothing too pressing must have been happening in Jerome, since her phone pinged a moment later. His mother gazed down at the screen and nodded.

“Your grandmother says the clan has a few redheads right now, but only one who would be around the right age.”

Marc didn’t know if he could even have assigned an age to the woman he’d seen in his dream, considering how she’d been turned away from him. Still, she was obviously an adult, not a child, which he supposed could narrow things down a bit.

“Who’s that?” he asked. Maybe it was a bit strange that he knew so little about his relatives in Jerome, but his family just hadn’t visited there all that often.

His mother smiled.

“Her name is Bellamy.”

2

The groupof tourists hurried out of Sedona Vines so they could climb into their bus and head to their next destination — which sounded as if it was going to be Javelina Leap over in Page Springs — and Bellamy let out a relieved breath. Although she supposed she should be glad for the business, it was always a lot of extra work when one of the tour buses stopped by, since everyone wanted to cram in the maximum amount of wine tasting before they went on to the next stop on their route.

Honestly, she wasn’t sure why they even came to the wine bar at all, since it wasn’t a winery, per se, only a place where vintages from all over the world, not just the Verde Valley, were available. On the other hand, Sedona was pretty short on actual wineries, since they tended to be clustered in Cottonwood and Page Springs and yes, in Jerome.

Before this, she’d worked at Caduceus Cellars just a couple of doors down from McAllister Mercantile, where she’d also picked up some part-time hours, but after she got her enology certificate in June, she’d moved on to bigger and better things. It had been a little hard to accept that she wouldn’t be pulling shifts at the store anymore, but with Seth McAllister now settled down in Jerome following his trips in time with Devynn Rowe, the two of them were pretty much running the shop these days. In 1926, his immediate family had managed the place, and Rachel McAllister, the current owner, had decreed that she was giving the whole thing over to Seth to handle.

At any rate, they didn’t need her to work a few hours here and a few hours there anymore, which was why Bellamy had jumped at the chance to take over the assistant manager job at Sedona Vines when the position became available. While she adored Jerome and would never seriously think about living anywhere except the Verde Valley, she had to admit it was something of a relief to be working in a place where no one knew all that much about her except that she was a McAllister, just like so many other denizens of the area.

And even though her dads weren’t totally thrilled about the whole Sedona thing, she knew they were happy she’d found a job that so neatly dovetailed with her education and her interests. While she was getting her enology certification, she’d taken many classes on making wine, of course, and probably could have gotten work at one of the wineries in the area. However, although she loved learning about the science involved in winemaking, she’d never had much desire to actually create her own vintages.

No, she was much more into talking about wine, suggesting varieties and blends that she thought would tempt a customer’s palate, leaning into the mystique of the whole thing. It was just fine with her if she never again had to be up at the crack of dawn harvesting the grapes so they’d be picked at the peak of perfection…or nervously eyeing the weather when a late frost threatened the delicate buds.

Much better to enjoy the product of those labors rather than having to agonize over every single bump in the road.

A few more customers came in, and she chatted them up, asking them whether they liked white or red, dry or sweet. They had a good crowd this particular Saturday afternoon, just enough to have a nice ebb and flow without things getting too crazy. Of course, as the day bled into evening, they’d get busier, with people coming in to amuse themselves before they headed off for dinner.

Or just stayed here. While Sedona Vines didn’t have a full kitchen, they had snacks and charcuterie boards that were big enough to substitute for a meal, and plenty of people hung around and nibbled and drank rather than going in search of some real food. The space had been set up to invite people to linger, with its mixture of round bar-height tables and chairs and conversation areas with comfy couches, not to mention the welcoming reclaimed-wood bar, so they often had clients who stayed there for hours and hours.

There would be live music later, too. Bree played here sometimes, although not tonight, since the group on the calendar today was a husband and wife duo from Missouri who’d been making the circuit for the past couple of years. They always offered a good time, though, so Bellamy couldn’t let herself miss Brianna too much, especially when she knew her gigs at Enchantment tended to earn her bigger tips.

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