Authors: Keri Stevens
Stone Kissed
Stone Kissed
By Keri Stevens
When Delia Forrest talks to statues, they talk back. She is, after all, the last of the Steward witches.
After an arsonist torches her ancestral home with her estranged father still inside, Delia is forced to sell the estate to pay his medical bills. Her childhood crush, Grant Wolverton, makes a handsome offer for Steward House, vowing to return it to its former glory. Delia agrees, as long as he’ll allow her to oversee the restoration.
Working so closely with Grant, Delia finds it difficult to hide her unique talent—especially when their growing passion fuels her abilities.
But someone else lusts after both her man and the raw power contained in the Steward land. Soon Delia finds herself fighting not just for Grant’s love, but for both their lives…
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To my three sons—thank you for putting up with all of the gross lovey-stuff.
And to my first and only Hirogai, Steve, for encouraging me to leap…and for catching me.
Thank you to my agent, Jill Marsal, and my editor, Deborah Nemeth, for your wisdom, guidance and reassurance.
Thanks also to my critique partners Becke Martin and Gabriella Edwards for your honesty and optimism.
“Yes. Right there, again, please!” The marble satyr moaned his pleasure as Delia scraped away bits of lichen from the groove of his outer thigh.
“Just shut up.” She reached for her boar’s hair paintbrush. For the past two hours she’d been in Mrs. Hansdorf’s Bethesda, Maryland, garden maze cleaning the lewd little flirt, and he was relentless—as were most statues. This satyr was four feet tall and had been sculpted mid-leap, his arms outstretched for the nymph who stood on her own pedestal five yards farther around the turn. He was doomed forever to chase the nymph, who taunted him mercilessly.
“Hurry, Delia. I’ve got an itch,” the nymph called, eternally giggling over her shoulder.
“You shut up too.” Delia laughed and returned to the task at hand—the enormous task. From what she could remember of sex, this fellow was disproportionately large. But Mrs. Hansdorf had said her late husband had commissioned these particular sculptures, and the nymph bore a striking resemblance to a young Mrs. Hansdorf herself. Which begged the question…
“It’s a completely accurate representation.” Eleanor Hansdorf sniffed, coming up the walk with a tray in her hands.
Delia closed her eyes. The little twits hadn’t warned her. She shook her head and kept brushing his flank. She’d earned a reputation as one of the fastest and best stone conservators in D.C. thanks to her ability to speak to sculptures. When they complained of a telltale itch or an odd pressure, she looked closer. The work of cleaning away old damage, patching in new compound and carving the perfect curve could be grueling and dull, but her charges filled the hours with centuries of stories and all the unsolicited advice a single woman with no social life could wish for.
“Delia,” the satyr said. “Just a little lower, to the left.”
She squinted up into the divots that created the illusion of his pupils. She’d already threatened twice today to snap off his “lower to the left” if he didn’t cut out the pervy talk.
“They look so lovely in the sun,” Mrs. Hansdorf sighed. “Marvin made them for sunlight.” Her wrinkled face widened into a huge grin. “And inspiration. Sunlight and inspiration. Speaking of inspiration…”
Mrs. Hansdorf settled the tray, with two tall glasses of lemonade and a china plate of oatmeal cookies, on the stone bench behind the satyr and handed Delia a condensation-coated glass. “You should meet my grandson. He looks like Canova’s Perseus. Minus the Medusa head, of course.”
Delia smiled noncommittally. Her cell phone rang, so she fumbled to remove her cotton glove and dig the phone out of her tool belt. It was a Stewardsville number, which never meant anything good. “Forrest Preservation, how may I help you?”
“Miss Forrest, this is Ian Baldridge of Baldridge and Sons.”
The frail little man from the law office in her old hometown. Her stomach flipped. Good God. What had Father done now?
“I’m sorry, Delia. There was a fire at Steward House this morning. Your father was inside.”
She dropped her lemonade. As his voice cut in and out, Delia watched the blood from the shattered glass well up on the top of her foot. His words washed through her and she responded, although she wasn’t entirely sure what she was saying. When he finally stopped speaking, she closed the phone gently.
Mrs. Hansdorf had already knelt to clean up the glass. She rose, placing another shard on the tray. “Is he alive?”
“Yes. He’s in ICU.”
“Where’s your home?”
“Five hours south. Four. I’ve got to go.”
Mrs. Hansdorf held the other glass of lemonade up to Delia’s lips and pulled the phone from Delia’s hand. “Of course, dear. But a few minutes won’t make a difference. You’ve had a shock and need the sugar.” She closed Delia’s fingers around a cookie. “You have time.”
“Mortals,” the satyr snorted. “Time’s the one thing you don’t have.”
“I’m sorry.” Delia placed the lemonade on the tray and shook the glass dust from her threadbare sneaker. “I really must go.”
***
The sun had gilded him. The surf had seasoned him. Now Cecily ate him from the inside out, draining him on a kiss and a screw. The muscles in his back and shoulders melted beneath her palms as she sucked his life into hers. He was beautiful, this big, blond young god—an exchange student from Norway or Sweden or one of those countries with a stupid-sounding guttural accent. He tasted so good, so salty, golden and clean. She rolled with him down into the rising surf to feel the sun on her back even as he shriveled beneath her.
The
Star Wars
death march broke her concentration. It was Russ’s ring tone. She had to take the damned call.
Cecily detached herself from the boy with an audible pop and flopped onto her back in the sand. She examined his unconscious, shriveled body with regret as she tapped the screen. She’d overdone it again—his well-muscled calves had become matchsticks in a matter of minutes. His face was grooved and his hair was gray. He was nineteen or twenty, but he looked sixty now.
“And?” she asked.
“It’s done.” Russ sounded weak and jumpy. For his sake and hers, it was time to end him.
“And?”
“The old man got out.”
“How?”
“He’s in bad shape, Cecily. He’s in a coma. But I can’t go back. The cops taped off the house, and the entire volunteer fire department is snooping around.”
“Didn’t you follow my instructions?”
“I thought it would be faster if I—”
“When have I ever given you permission to think?”
“I’ve got to get out of here for a while. I’ve got a cousin in Texas…”
She gritted her teeth and waited.
“…I need some money, Cecily.” His voice quavered, but she gave him points for his residual balls. Thought to shake her down, did he?
“Sure, Russ.” She forced a sweet, melodic tone into her voice. She was beyond frustrated with him, but she could only blame herself for foisting the job off on him. “Are you listening?”
“Yes, Cecily.” His voice was flat and automatic.
“Set your phone and email for vacation. You won’t be back for a month. Wait for me inside and I’ll fix everything.” She warmed and softened the final words. She could hear his breathing slow even through the static of the cell phone.
Cecily crushed the phone in her hand. Shards of plastic cut her skin. She tossed the fragments into the ocean and bent down to wash her palm in the surf. Her cuts, like a dozen prim little mouths, swiftly sealed shut.
Standing, Cecily slid her long perfect fingers into her dark snakelike locks of hair, which she considered proof of her heritage as a descendant of some bastard Steward long ago. Dusting the sand off her arms and the seat of her bikini, she took one last look at the ocean.
Some of the world’s roughest surf slammed into the rock-strewn ribbon of sand of the North Carolina seashore. Countless ships had shattered against that rock. Countless fresh, vital bodies, their cries rising with the seagulls, had been crushed by that mindless surf. Nothing, but nothing, survived its relentless pounding. This was a perfect day in a perfect place, but Cecily had to return to Stewardsville and clean up another mess.
She tugged the frail body back from the tongues of surf. It was a stupid, sentimental risk, but he, unlike so many of her men, had been young and strong and clean. If he came to and his friends found him, he wouldn’t remember her. With some rehab therapy and a high-protein diet, however, he’d be able to wipe his own ass again in a matter of weeks.
If, on the other hand, the ocean washed him away, Cecily could consider it a gift from God or Mother Nature or whatever deity had made the dubious decision to create her—an ever-young, ever-powerful succubus.
***
“You’ll want to see this, Grant.”
Grant yawned and slid his chair back so Lars could place his laptop on the big mahogany desk. On screen was a picture of a house, a late American Georgian. It was small—two stories and an attic, four thousand square feet at best. But it was pretty, welcoming, wholesome and warm. A woman in an apron had stood in that doorway on Halloween and given out popcorn balls. A man in a wide-brimmed hat had planted a rosebush for her around the corner, out of the camera’s range.
Grant shook himself and dragged his eyes away from the picture to read the breaking news of an early morning fire from the
Stewardsville Gazette,
a weekly from a middle-of-nowhere town down south in the hills. He straightened when he saw whose house had burned.
“When?”
“A few hours ago. He may have some good pieces in inventory. It’s worth a look, although, knowing Forrest, he bid too high to get them.”
“How is he?”
“He’s in ICU now. The burns are bad and he’s comatose.”
It had been years since Grant had gone toe-to-toe with Vernon Forrest over a property—back when Grant had put himself through college unearthing the treasures that funded Wolverton International’s first major growth in decades. Forrest had been sly, short-tempered and impulsive. But he’d had luck sometimes and had come across interesting finds.
Like that house. That house interested Grant very much.
“Poor son of a bitch. He has a kid, right?”
“Yeah, Delia.” Lars elbowed him and Grant gave him his space.
Over a decade ago the two friends had shared a Georgetown dorm room smaller than a prison cell. When Grandfather Wolverton’s failing health had forced Grant to return to D.C. to take over the company, he’d brought his best friend with him.
“She owns the house, but she’s seldom there,” Lars continued. “She’s a stone conservator, and we’ve hired her a few times. The guys say she’s cheap, good and fast.”
Grant raised an eyebrow.
“At cleaning and repairing statuary.”
In the picture on Lars’s laptop, Delia Forrest stood behind a raised caryatid, her hands on either side of the base. The statue obscured her body, but her huge bottle-green eyes peered out from behind its left thigh. Her short dark hair floated in uncontrolled curls down the line of her jaw. She wore white cotton gloves and clutched a chamois in her right fist.
“How old is she?” Grant asked.
“Twenty-five. Single. Never been married, no kids. She keeps to herself—no scandals, nothing of interest. No hook that I can see.” Lars sounded tired and Grant looked up. “You’d have asked.”
Grant nodded. On this point they disagreed. Lars felt Grant took his investigations of clients, competitors and staff too far. Except for Lars, his own sister and a handful of highly screened employees, however, Grant didn’t trust people. In this business—in all business—it wasn’t enough to know your art and antiques. You had to know who you dealt with inside and out.
“About the house.”
“She’s fifth generation, Grant. She won’t want to sell it.”
Grant shrugged and flipped back to the photo of Steward House. The large chimneys at either end of the house lifted the roofline into a wide smile. His fingers tingled on the keyboard. He clicked over to a spreadsheet with the values of the house and estimates of the contents of Forrest’s shop in downtown Stewardsville. “She won’t have a choice.”
As he stared at the screen, the figures blurred because they were irrelevant. He felt the beginnings of the familiar rush of adrenaline, a rush he hadn’t felt in months despite negotiating for the treasures of princes and celebrities alike. He needed to get to her. The house had been hurt and she needed him.
“Get me a car for the day.” He flipped back to the picture of Delia Forrest. His gaze lingered on those huge green eyes. “You’d better make it two.”
***
Get it over with
. Delia stood before the thick oak doors of the Steward County General Hospital four and half hours later.
Waiting won’t make it any better.
“Waiting won’t make it any better,” the statue of St. Francis said from his alcove to the right of the entrance. His speech had slowed and softened over the years so he sounded like the locals who rested on his bench before him.
“I know,” she mumbled between clenched teeth. “Give me a minute.”
“Behind you,” he warned. The bird on his shoulder chirped. Delia placed a knee on the bench and pretended to study him as an elderly couple bustled up the walk. “Is it your mother again?” he asked after the double doors closed behind them.
“No, Frank. She died a few years ago.” Statues, who lived on the scale of centuries, even millennia, had little sense of the passage of time. “It’s my father.” Her legs were still trembling so she sat, her back to Frank and the bird.
“How bad is it?”
“I don’t know yet. I haven’t seen.”
“I’d go in with you if I could.”
She jerked her head back to look up at him again, then tucked her chin just as quickly. She scanned the parking lot, but it was empty. “You would?”
Statues didn’t talk about moving from their fixed locations, and as a small child she’d learned not to ask them if they wished they could walk. It was bad manners to point out that they were dependent on soft-fleshed mortals for even the slightest change of scenery.
“I’ve never seen the inside.”
Delia leaned her head back to look up at the underside of his chin. Frank had a dark streak of dirt there, and she could clean it. Perhaps the work would settle the anxious twisting in her gut.
She stood and dusted off her work jeans. “Okay. I’m going in.”
“I’ll be here for you when you come out.”
Tears of gratitude welled in her eyes. She took five long breaths pushed open the hospital door.
***
Dr. Bustamante, the burn specialist, walked her to her father’s hospital room. The doctor’s face was lined and tired, but his deep brown eyes were kind. He looked like Santa, but he spoke of debridement and swelling and aspiration of the lungs. Delia heard almost none of it.
The body on the bed beyond him was bare, although her father had been draped from the waist down. The skin on the left side of his face and down his arm was a crazed patchwork of livid red and grayish white, like a candy cane crushed in its plastic. Tubes bloomed from a mask where his face should have been. He looked nothing like the lean, rigid man she’d spent the better part of her life avoiding. And he was small, so small. Vernon Forrest was larger than this figure, wasn’t he?