Free Sympathetic Magic (The Witches of Cleopatra Hill Book 4) by Christine Pope Page A

car. “No,” she gasped. “I can’t — I won’t — do this.”
    His breathing sounded hoarse, uneven, and he stared down at her in consternation. “Margot — ”
    “No,” she said again. “I can’t. I’m — thank you again for dinner, Lucas.”
    And she bent and grabbed her purse, then her keys, and scuttled away from him, keeping the reassuring bulk of her Forester at her back, as if by doing so she could prevent Lucas from attempting to pull her into his arms again.
    He didn’t, though. He only stood there, watching her with sad eyes as she got into the car and gunned the engine, then drove off.
    She didn’t dare look back.

5
    A ll right , maybe he shouldn’t have pushed it quite that hard. But he’d looked down into her face, seen the way she gazed at him, her lips slightly parted. In every other woman he’d ever been with, that sort of expression was a clear invitation to intimacy.
    The problem was, Margot wasn’t like any other woman he’d been with.
    He drove home, going too fast, knowing that if he were anyone else, going fifteen miles an hour over the speed limit at nine o’clock at night on twisty 89A as it wove through Oak Creek Canyon would be an open invitation for a speeding ticket. Especially in a bright red Porsche.
    But he’d never gotten a speeding ticket in his life. Or a parking ticket. Never been audited by the IRS, never broken a bone or chipped a tooth or even gotten a bad meal. Of course not. Those things happened to other people, not “lucky” Lucas Wilcox.
    He hadn’t been so lucky tonight, though, had he?
    Even though it was probably in the forties outside, he pushed the button to pop the top, hoping the cold air rushing through his hair and over his face might help to clear his head. Instead, the contrast only seemed to intensify the memory of how warm Margot’s lips had been against his, how soft and eager.
    Well, eager for a few seconds, until she realized what she was doing and who she was doing it with.
    “Shit,” he said aloud. He’d really blown this one.
    Okay, acknowledging that…how did he fix it?
    Good question. It was as if she were fighting with herself, some part of her attracted to him, but the other part — the responsible part — telling her all the reasons why this whole thing could never, ever work.
    And that mystified him. Okay, the McAllister/Wilcox truce was still a little new and fragile, but it was getting less new with every day that passed, and clearly there were some, like Adam and Mason, who were just fine with that. But Margot was not fine with that at all.
    Somehow he’d have to figure out a way to get her to change her mind. If it were simply that she wasn’t attracted to him, he’d let the whole thing go. That wasn’t it, though. He’d felt the heat between them, felt the way she pressed herself against him, opened her mouth to his. She’d wanted it…until she didn’t. Why?
    He didn’t have the answer to that, but the next day he was going to talk to someone who might.
----
    N ormally , he would call before dropping by Connor’s and Angela’s house. Today, though, he hadn’t wanted to get into any of this on the phone. If they were out, well, he’d try again later. It did sound as if Angela wasn’t getting out much these days, except to go to the doctor’s and the store, so Lucas thought he had a fairly good chance of catching her at home.
    And, sure enough, she was the one to answer the door. Her eyes widened as she looked up at him, one hand pressed to the small of her back, as if standing up even this much pained her. “Lucas?”
    “Hi, Angela,” he replied, already feeling guilty for barging in on her so unexpectedly. All this mess with Margot must have screwed up his head even more than he thought. “Sorry I didn’t call, but — ”
    “It’s okay,” she said. “Come on in. Connor didn’t tell me you were coming over.”
    “That’s because I didn’t tell him.”
    She sent him a searching glance, as if