The Second Summoning

Now what? Was he supposed to say he loved her, too, or would she think he was just saying it because she’d said it even though he did, and had known it since he drove away and left her standing all alone in that parking lot even though he hadn’t realized he’d known it until this very moment?

And then what?

“Dean?”

“What’s the matter?” Diana made another unsuccessful grab for the receiver.

“He’s not saying anything.”

“Give me the phone.” Claire stared down at the cat.

“What?”

“The phone, give it to me.” When she hesitated, he sighed. “Trust me, it’s a guy thing. You need to break this up into bite-sized pieces.” As the silence from the other end of the line continued, she laid the phone down on the bed beside Austin who cocked his head so that his mouth was at the microphone and one ear pointed at the speaker.

“Dean, you still there?”

That wasn’t Claire. Where had Claire gone? “Claire?” Austin’s tail tip flicked back and forth. “She’s here, but right now, we need some answers. Do you love her?”

Dean sighed in relief. That, he didn’t have to think about. “Yes.”

“Do you want to be with her?”

“Yes.”

“Write down these directions.”

He shook his head to clear some of the adrenaline buzz and grabbed a pen off the end table beside the sofa bed. Paper. He had no paper. Pulling the fabric tight over his leg, he wrote the directions on the sheet, repeated them, and hung up.

“Well?” Claire demanded as Austin lifted his head. “What did he say?”

“He said yes. Hang this up, would you. If you’re thinking of what to get me for Christmas, I’m fairly certain I could manage one of those large-buttoned phones they have for seniors.”

“Austin.”

“Just think of the time you’d save if I could order my own food.”

“Austin!”

“What?”

Claire managed to avoid throttling him but only just. “He said yes, and?”

“And I expect he’s folding his underwear into his hockey bag even as we speak.”

“He folds his underwear?” Diana snickered.

“He folds everything,” Austin told her, fastidiously smoothing a bit of rumpled fur.

“Austin . . .” Claire ground the cat’s name out through clenched teeth. “. . .

what does Dean’s underwear have to do with anything? And you . . .” She turned a warning glare on her sister. “. . . can just shut up and let him answer the question.”

“It has to do with packing.” When she continued to glower, Austin sighed.

“Packing to come here. And you’re welcome,” he gasped as jubilant Claire scooped him up into her arms. “But I’m old, and you just drove a rib through my spleen.”

“Do cats have a spleen?”

“I think you’re missing the point.”

“Sorry.” She set him back on the bed and, suddenly conscious of her sister’s smug expression, stiffened. “What?”

“Don’t you have appreciation to show to someone else? Someone who, oh, made the initial contact?”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“And I would have told him without your help.”

“Oh, sure. And Babe would’ve been nominated for that best picture Oscar without my help.”

“Diana!”

“I was a lot younger then! And it’s not like it won . . .” It was not possible to drive from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Kingston, Ontario, in seventeen hours. For reasons unknown to mortal man, although most mortal women were aware of them as they involved asking for directions when trying to get out of Montreal, the trip from east to west took eighteen hours. Dean actually had to drive past Kingston through Toronto, to London, then north to Lucan. The whole trip took him twenty-three hours. He saw one police car parked at a doughnut shop. He saw no moose.

Chapter FOUR

“That’s his truck. He’s here!”

“Claire . . . can’t breathe . . .”

“Sorry.” She loosened her grip on the cat, who squirmed out of her arms and stalked to the other end of the couch, tail lashing from side to side. Brushing drifts of cat hair off her sweater, she murmured, “I can’t believe how nervous I am.”

“I can’t believe how nerdy you are,” Diana sighed. “You love him, he loves you, yadda, yadda, yadda. Now haul ass out there and let him know he’s at the right house.”

“Keepers don’t . . .”

“What? Make spectacles of themselves with Bystanders in public?” Diana’s mimicry of her sister was cuttingly accurate. “If you wait until he comes up to the house, you’ll have to invite him in. If he comes in here, he’ll have to make nice with Mom and Dad. If, on the other hand, you meet out there, you can take him directly to your place and make nicer with each other. Your choice.” Eyes locked on the figure getting out of the truck, Claire hesitated . . .

“You know Dad’ll want to show him the photo album.”

. . . and decided.

“Now haul ass out there and let him know he’s at the right house?” Austin snorted as he walked over to stand beside Diana at the open door. “I never knew you were such a romantic.”

Fireworks! Claire thought with the small part of her brain still functioning.

Then she realized it was just the Christmas lights on the front of the house reflecting in Dean’s glasses. He tasted like coffee and toothpaste. Or coffee-flavored toothpaste.