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The road to hell, Sam decided, was paved with intentions - and they didn&039;t have to be good He&039;d intended to stride back into Mia&039;s life, face her fury, her tears, her bitterness She was entitled to all of those, and he would be the last to deny it

He would have accepted her rage, her curses, her accusations He&039;d intended to give her the opportunity to vent every drop of resentment she had harbored for him And, of course, he&039;d intended then to sweep them aside and win her over

A done deal, in his calculations, in a matter of hours at best, days at worst They&039;d been linked since childhood What was eleven years compared to a bond of blood and heart and power?

But he hadn&039;t intended to face her cool indifference Oh, she was angry with hie But overlying the anger was a thick, icy shield Chipping through that would take ies Lulu had blasted him, Nell had slapped at him, and Ripley had bared her teeth Mia had done none of those things, but her response had leveled hi to have her look at hi her again had stirred all thethe Love He had loved her, obsessively, outrageously And that had been the root, or one of the led roots, of the probleers idly on the steering wheel He refused to believe she didn&039;t still care for him There had been tooleft

And if there&039;d been nothing, that spark, that one instant of connection when their hands had touched, wouldn&039;t have happened He was going to hold on to that, Sahtened and released on the wheel Whatever else ca on to that one spark A deterood spark Winning her back, doing what e His lips quirked He&039;d always enjoyed one

He would have to do et past the dragon - and Lulu was no pushover And he&039;d have to deal with the women who flanked Mia: Nell Todd with her quiet disapproval, and Ripley with her infaainst four women, that man had best have a plan And very thick skin Or he would be ground to dust in a heartbeat

He&039;d work on it Sa out of the car, rounded back to the trunk There was tiht have liked under the circumstances, but there was time

He hefted two suitcases out of the trunk, started up the walk Then stopped and took his first real look at ould be his ho, he realized Neither the photographs he&039;d studied nor his e justice It had been white once, as he recalled, and a bit run-down The yellow paint war, cheered it That would be Mia&039;s doing, he iined She&039;d always had exquisite taste and clear vision

She had always known precisely what she wanted

Another tangled root for hie was quaint, tiny and private, on a pretty corner lot that bled into a sh to the water that the ru trees It had the advantage of quiet solitude and the convenience of being an easy walk froht Mia would have known that, too The clever girl, he mused as he continued up the walk, had beco out the house keys

The first thing that struck him when he stepped inside was the warmth of welcome, the smooth, open hand of it Come in and ering sensations or energy spurts fro as well, he was sure She&039;d always been a thorough witch Leaving his suitcases by the door, he took hi roos had already been laid in the hearth The floors gleamed, and thin, lacy curtains fraht, but he could live with that There were two bedrooms, one cozy, the otherwell, he only needed one The bath, scrubbed and cheery, was also a narrow box designed to give a tall rief The kitchen at the back of the house would more than do for his needs He didn&039;t cook, and didn&039;t intend to begin He opened the back door to find , and a tidy patch of lawn that slid right into the spring woods

He could hear the sea, and the wind, and, if he listened carefully, the hu, and the playful yap of a dog

He was, Sam realized, alone With the realization, soathered in his shoulders eased He hadn&039;t understood just how much he craved solitude It wasn&039;t a coreat quantities over the last couple of years

Nor was it soht in the day-to-day scheoals to achieve and points to prove, and such ambitions didn&039;t allow for the luxury of solitude He hadn&039;t understood that he needed to find that serenity of aloneness again, almost as much as he needed to find Mia Once he had had both whenever he wanted them And once he had cast them both aside Now the island he&039;d run froive theh the woods, or down to the beach Or driving, he thought, to his old house and seeing his bluffs, his cove, the cave where he and MiaHe shook that idea and those memories away It wasn&039;t the time for sentiment

There were practical matters to be dealt with Phones, faxes, computers The little bedrooh he planned to base his work at the hotel He needed supplies, and he knew that as soon as hetheh dry kindling

He would see what he would see

Turning from the door, he went back inside to unpack and set his place to rights Well- And a curse At the moment, two of hers were crammed into her office

"I think you should kick his ass," Ripley announced "Of course, I thought that ten years ago"

Eleven, Mia corrected silently Eleven years, but who&039;s counting?

"That would make him too important" Nell stuck her nose in the air "She&039;s better off ignoring hinore a blood leech" Ripley bared her teeth "You rip it off and stoe" At her desk, Mia leaned back, studied her two friends "I have no intention of kicking Sa hie, which makes me his landlord"

"You could cut off his hot water," Ripley suggested

Mia&039;s lips twitched "How perfectly childish - but however satisfying itsilly pranks either If I did, I&039;d cut off his water altogether Why stop at hot? But," she continued as Ripley gave a hoot of laughter, "he isthat&039;s spelled out in the lease It&039;s business, and nothinganyplace on the Sisters for six months?" Ripley wondered

"Obviously he&039;s here to take ick Inn"

He&039;d always loved it, Mia ht Yet he&039;d walked away from it just as he&039;d walked away from her

"We&039;re both adults, both business owners, both islanders And though it&039;s a se to run our enterprises, live our lives, and coexist with a minimum of fuss"

Ripley snorted "If you believe that, you&039;re delusional"

"I won&039;t let hie "And I won&039;t let my life be upset because he&039;s here I always knew he&039;d coain, Nell shot her a warning glance "You&039;re right, of course And with the season coet in each other&039;s way Why don&039;t you co out a new recipe, and I could use the feedback"

"You&039;ll get that from Zack No need to pamper o out and get drunk and bitch about eneral?" Ripley perked up "That&039;s always fun"

"As appealing as that sounds, I&039;ll pass I have a nuet my work done here"

"She wants us to clear out," Ripley told Nell

"I get that" Nell sighed It was hard, she thought, to want so badly to help and not kno "All right, but if there&039;s anything you need or want - "

"I know I&039; to stay that way"

She scooted them out, then sat - just sat with her hands in her lap It was self-defeating to tell herself she would work, or to pretend she could h this particular day as if it were any other day She was entitled to rage and to weep, to spit at fate and beat her fists on the face of destiny But she would do none of those things, those weak and useless things She would, however, go hoht jacket she&039;d brought And as she passed her , she saw him

He stepped out of a sleek black Ferrari, his coat a dark swirl around hied out of his jeans into a dark suit and ta with it As her fingers once had

He carried a briefcase and strode toward the Magick Inn like aand what he ly to where she stood in theHis eyes locked on hers, and she felt the jolt, the punch of heat that would once have ht, and without a quiver When enough time had passed for pride, she stepped away froht

Ho stone house on the cliff was too much for one woman But it was, she knew, perfect for her Even when she&039;d been a child, the house had been more hers than it had been her parents&039; She&039;d never minded the echoes, the occasional drafts, or the sheer volue Her ancestors had built it, and noas hers alone

She&039;d changed little on the inside since the house had cos here and there, a few of the colors, some basic modernization of the kitchen and baths But the feel of the house was as it had always been for her E

There had been a ti a family there God she&039;d wanted children Sam&039;s children But over the years she had accepted as, and asn&039;t, and had ardens as her children She had created the the tiht her joy

And when she needed entle pleasure they provided, she had the passion and drama of her cliffs, the secrets and shadows of her forests

She had, Mia told herself, all she needed

But tonight she didn&039;t wander out to fuss with her flowers or walk to face the sea from her cliffs She didn&039;t stroll into her forest Instead, she went directly upstairs, cli until she was closed inside her tower rooe and discovery when she was a child Here she had never felt alone unless alone hat she needed to feel Here she had learned, and had disciplined, the beams of her oer The walls were rounded, the s tall, narrow, and arched The late-afternoon sun streaed wood of the floor Shelves curved along one wall, and on them were many of the tools of her trade Pots of herbs, jars of crystals Spell books that had belonged to those who&039;d come before her, and the ones that she&039;d written herself An old cabinet held other objects There was a wand she&039;d made herself, from maple that she had harvested on Samhain when she turned sixteen A broom, her best chalice, her oldest anthame, and a ball of pale blue crystal Candles and oils and incense, a scrying athered what she needed, then slipped out of her dress She preferred, whenever possible, to work skyclad

And so she cast the circle, calling on her elehted with a breath were blue, for calm, for wisdom, for protection

She had performed this ritual before, several times in the past decade Whenever she felt her heart weaken or her purpose waver She admitted that if she hadn&039;t done so she would have known Sa back to the Sisters before he&039;d arrived So the years of relative peace had their price She would block his from him, and his from her They would not touch each other, on any level

"My heart andincense, sprinkling herbs on still water

"When I wake and when I sleep What once I gave with love and free will, I take back to ers without joined destiny As I will, so mote it be"

With her cupped palms lifted, she waited for the cool flow of serenity, the stream of confidence that would indicate her ritual was coan to shiver Water lapped against the riht back her own teic "My circle is closed to all but me Your tricks are foolish and bore ain without invitation"

At the flick of her fingers, the lights fro Smoke from them billowed, spread, and blanketed the surface of the water

Even then she couldn&039;t find her calrasp of her teainst hers? And in her own hoan had always been an arrogant witch And his ele herself when the first tear escaped, ater In her circle, behind the haze of srapevine spread the news fast By the next an had outdistanced every other tendril of gossip

Conflicting reports had hi it into so everyone a raise

One thing everyone could agree on was that it was very, very interesting that he was renting Mia Devlin&039;s little cottage There was no consensus on what it ather ets, found reasons to drop into Cafe Book or stroll into the lobby of the hotel Nobody had enough gumption to ask Sa for so, slointer

"Still handsohaed Gladys&039;s weekly supply of groceries at Island Market "Strolled in here big as life and twice as bold, and said hello to o"

"What did he buy?" Gladys questioned

"Coffee, milk, dry cereal Whole wheat bread and stick butter Soot bananas on special, but he passed theht himself some fancy cheese and fancy crackers and soe juice in a carton"

"Not planning on doing any cooking or cleaning for himself from the sound of it" Confidentially, she leaned closer to Hester "I ran into Hank froht up five hundred dollars&039; worth of wine, sole malt scotch"

"Five hundred!" Hester&039;s voice lowered to a hiss "You think he picked up a drinking problem inNew York ?"

"Wasn&039;t the number of bottles, but the price," Gladys hissed back "Two bottles of French chane, and two of that fancy red wine you-knoho favors"

"Who?"

Gladys rolled her eyes "Mia Devlin Heaven&039;s sake, Hester, who do you think!"

"I heard she kicked hi He walked in and out again under his own steaeloas in the cafe having lunch with her cousin frohter-in-law at the Pump &039;N Go and told her the whole story"

"Well" Hester liked the first story better "Do you think Mia will put a whaha to say" Then she laughed

"But it sure will be interesting seeing what she does do I think I&039;ll go put these groceries away, then go buy myself a new paperback novel and a cup of coffee"

"You calldevelops"

Gladys winked as she rolled her loaded cart away "You can take that to the bank"

Sa He&039;d have been disappointed if they hadn&039;t Just as he&039;d expected to read trepidation, resent with all department heads at the hotel

Some of the trepidation eased when it becaenda And some of the resentment increased when it became clear that Sa of the hotel but to es as well

"In season we run at near capacity Off season, however, our occupancy rate drops sharply, often dipping to under thirty percent"

The sales er shifted in his seat "Business is slow on-island in the winter months Always has been"

"What&039;s always been doesn&039;t apply," Sauest rate to sixty-five percent off season within the year We&039;ll do that by offering es to conventions, as well as weekend and weekly getaway packages I&039;ll havemy ideas in those areas on your desk by end of week

"Next," he continued, flipping through his notes, "a nu We&039;ll begin next week, with the third floor" He glanced at his reservations er "You&039;llfor acknowledge "We&039;ve had a steady decline in our breakfast and lunch business over the last tenoff our usual business in those areas"

"Sir" A brunette cleared her throat, adjusted the dark-fralasses on her face