Page 61 of Wind Called

“You’re more than fine,” Marc said, then kissed her gently. “You’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever met.”

Bellamy had always thought she was pretty ordinary — well, at least as witches went — but if he wanted to think she was the greatest thing since sliced bread, she wasn’t going to disabuse him of that notion.

“You’re pretty amazing, too,” she replied, then gave his fingers a squeeze before letting go. A smile touched her lips, and she added, “Well, now that we have most of the day free, what should we do with it?”

He smiled back at her. “I can think of a few things.”

They didn’t spend all day in the bedroom, of course, and went out for a late lunch down in the Village of Oak Creek, ostensibly so he could experience the outflow energies at Bell Rock, but mostly, he guessed, so they’d be far enough away from Sedona Vines that Bellamy wouldn’t have to worry about running into any of her erstwhile co-workers…or worse, her boss.

But they had great barbecue at a place called the Colt Grill, which she told him also had another branch in Old Town Cottonwood, and afterward, they walked the Bell Rock trail to get a feel for the place. It was a very easy stroll, not really a hike, although he could tell if you stayed on it, the going would get a lot tougher the higher you climbed.

That wasn’t their intention, though. The early parts of the hike should have been enough to allow him to feel something, but although the spot was beautiful — if hot — he didn’t think he sensed anything different.

He told Bellamy as much when they paused at a spot where the massive rock formation cast enough shade that they could stand comfortably in its shadow. The place wasn’t deserted, but at this time of year, not too many people braved the trails at three in the afternoon when the August heat was at its peak.

They’d taken things slowly, though, and had bought some bottled water at the Ace Hardware store right next to the Colt Grill. Because of that, neither of them was overheated, although Marc was very glad of the shade that sheltered them now.

Her expression thoughtful, she said, “I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I really believe that we have to sleep on or near a vortex for our powers to get enhanced. Otherwise, every time a witch or warlock came here to shop or go to the movies or whatever, they’d get a juice boost, so to speak.”

He had a feeling she was right about that. Of course, the real test would be tonight — or rather, how he felt tomorrow morning when he woke up after sleeping basically on top of the powerful Airport Mesa vortex.

“Do you think the McAllisters and the Wilcoxes realized that, too, all those years ago?” Marc asked, and Bellamy pursed her lips.

“I don’t know. As far as I can tell, none of the McAllisters who first settled here ever mentioned anything about it. And although I can’t speak for the Wilcoxes, it doesn’t seem as if they talked about it, either.” She glanced up at the red rock formation that towered about them, still looking as if her mind was going a mile a minute. “I think some of the people in my family would probably want to say that if Jeremiah Wilcox had known about the vortexes way back when, he would never have entered into that kind of agreement, since the Wilcoxes were always about grabbing whatever power they could. But….”

“But…?” Marc prompted. His clan had had very few negative dealings with the Wilcoxes, just because their territories were located on opposite ends of the state, and they also had the McAllisters as a sort of buffer between them. However, even he’d heard of how grasping, how amoral, some of the Wilcoxprimusesof the past had been.

Bellamy took a swig from her bottled water, then said, “But my friend Devynn traveled to the past and met Jeremiah Wilcox, so I know he’s nothing like the old horror stories that used to get handed around back before Angela and Connor broke the curse and united our clans. I really think that if Jeremiah had known about the vortex power, he would have brokered that deal just to make sure no one would exploit those energies.”

Maybe that was what had really happened. But since all those negotiations — whatever they’d been — had taken place more than a hundred and fifty years in the past, Marc supposed they’d never know for sure.

Well, unless Devynn McAllister used her gift to go back to the past again, which he had a feeling wasn’t going to happen. Bellamy hadn’t gone into a lot of details, but it seemed to him that Devynn had no intention of using her time-travel ability any time soon, especially with the amulet locked up and no way to use it to help her enhance her magic so she’d be able to guide herself exactly when she needed to be.

“I can see that as a possibility,” he allowed. “And I suppose in the end, the important thing is that the two clans agreed on that one thing. Otherwise, your shared history might have been even messier than it already is.”

Bellamy gave a thoughtful nod, then drank some more water. “It sounds like we mostly stayed out of each other’s hair after those early days, which had to be a blessing. Sure, the McAllisters didn’t trust the Wilcoxes a bit, but with all those miles of open land between our territories, it was easy enough to just…stay away from each other.” A glance up at the sky, and she added, “It’s well after three. Do you want to head back so you can check into your hotel room?

“We’ll have to swing by the ranch first to pick up our stuff,” he reminded her, and she just smiled.

“No worries. It’s probably a good thing if I drop in and out when I can, just to make it look as if I haven’t abandoned the place.”

Her expression was still cheerful enough, but he could tell she was slightly worried about the situation. After losing her main job, she probably didn’t want to do anything that would jeopardize her caretaker gig at the ranch.

Marc kind of doubted that would happen, since she’d already told him the owner was in the Far East somewhere. Maybe he had spies among his neighbors, but the houses in that area were set far enough apart that he thought it would be pretty hard to tell whether Bellamy was sleeping at the ranch.

Besides, the most she’d be gone was two nights. After their test with Bree’s gifts and the inflow vortex at the house off Dry Creek Road, he guessed he’d only need the one night at Sky Ranch Lodge to determine whether the masculine energy of that particular vortex had any effect on him, but he figured he might as well go with the worst-case scenario.

“We’ll check on everything and make sure the alarms are on before we leave,” he assured her.

Those words seemed to cheer her slightly, and she said, “Sounds like a plan. Let’s get going.”

They made their way down the path to the parking lot, which was mostly deserted on this hot Thursday afternoon. Bellamy didn’t show any signs of overheating, luckily, probably because they had plenty of water and they’d done their best to stick to the shade where they found it. Marc, of course, wasn’t too bothered by the heat — it might have been in the mid-nineties here, but it would be ten degrees warmer than that in Tucson, and he was more than used to hot weather.

Still, it felt good to get in his truck and start blasting the air conditioning, and to head north on Highway 179, which would take them back to the heart of Sedona and 89A, the only real east-west route through town. Traffic wasn’t too bad — although people tended to be over-cautious whenever they hit one of the roundabouts that dotted the highway — and he figured they’d be at the ranch in twenty minutes at the most.

Everything looked the same when they got there, along with the incongruously blooming barrel cactus near the gate to the courtyard.

“I wonder how long those cactus flowers are going to last,” Marc commented as he pulled into the driveway and turned off the engine.

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