Free Hexed and Vexed by Rebecca Royce Page B

mirror to look into.
    “I’m not sorry.” She stared him straight in the eyes, looking for a trace of the man she had known better than she knew herself for a decade. Where had he gone? “And now that I have you alone, maybe I can finally figure out exactly what’s been going on. Once and for all.”
    He scratched his head. “What do you mean?”
    Pride had kept her quiet for six months. But they had nothing but time until either she or Campbell managed to concoct a spell to put them back where they’d come from. He would be more likely to be able to do that considering this one-time occurrence would likely remain that—a one-time occurrence.
    “Something happened to you. One day we were in love and the next day you were in love with her. I barely had time to swallow that it happened and you were suddenly getting married.” She couldn’t look at him and turned to stare at the water. The oceans were something she could count on. The tide came in and went out. Campbell had been like that for her once.
    “We understood this would be hard on you. Sometimes life does these things, and we all have to roll with the punches.”
    She whirled around. “Stop quoting the company line. You’ve said one version of that statement or another anytime you were asked about it. You don’t even sound like yourself. Did Cindy come up with that trash? I don’t want to hear about life doing whatever life does. Talk to me, damn it. When did you stop loving me?”
    Campbell remained silent. During the initial breakup, when he’d come to her with Cindy and they’d, together, informed her that they were destroying her heart, Cindy had done most of the talking. Campbell uttered something so close to the words he’d just spoken, she had to wonder if he’d lost the ability to say anything else.
    “Nothing?” She threw her hands up in the air. “That’s it? Fine.”
    All she’d wanted when she stood in the church had been one more chance to speak to him, one more opportunity to understand what she’d done to turn his love, which had been so steady and all-consuming for over a decade, to Cindy, whom he had never seemed even to like. Maybe, even get a chance to say goodbye in a proper manner befitting their relationship.
    She shook her head. Losing her temper didn’t help. “Look. I don’t want to know all the gory details. Could you tell me what I did wrong?”
    “My love of Cindy has nothing to do with you. These things happen in life. You have to—”
    She interrupted him. “Roll with the punches.”
    Campbell Bane held several degrees in both witchcraft and nonwitchcraft fields. She had helped him achieve the one in public speaking. His family had been part of the ruling class of witches for at least ten generations. He could speak on almost any subject, and yet he couldn’t formulate a basic statement to tell her why he’d fallen out of love with her?
    It didn’t make sense. A seagull cooed above them. Campbell sneezed.
    “Bless you,” she muttered. There were parts of her life, days like the one she found herself in, that were so completely ridiculous she almost couldn’t believe they happened.
    And yet they did.
    “Thanks.” He rubbed his eyes, which were watering. “I guess I’m allergic to something.”
    He looked around rubbing his chin. In less than half a day he’d have stubble there. Campbell had always needed to shave at least twice a day. She closed her eyes. These were the intimate things she knew about him that she had to make herself forget. He didn’t belong to her, and he didn’t seem to want to give her any satisfaction about the whys or the hows of that at all.
    She opened her lids. Perhaps she’d answered her own question. “Campbell, you don’t have allergies.”
    He rubbed his nose, his eyes looked watery. “Maybe I’ve developed them.”
    “What do you suppose you’re reacting to here? The blue sky? The ocean? Some of the green trees? We’ve been to beaches all over the world.