Crescent Moon - By Lori Handeland Page 0,72

from her at the kitchen table, sipping from a glass of something complete with a tiny umbrella.

I took a big swig. "Fruity."

Probably had twelve types of alcohol. Just what I needed. I took another glug. "What do you know about love potions? Maybe a charm or a spell?"

Cassandra took a ladylike sip and set down her glass. "More than you, I suspect. Why?"

I wasn't sure. Adam had insisted he couldn't love me, didn't want me to love him. What good would a love spell do?

But Luc was another matter. The child wanted a mother. If I fell hopelessly in love with him, wouldn't I take the job?

I couldn't bring myself to tell Cassandra about the boy. Adam didn't want anyone to know. And while I trusted Cassandra with my life - had on several occasions already - it wasn't right for me to trust her with Luc's. He wasn't mine to give.

"You're talking about Adam," she murmured. "You love him?"

'I something him," I muttered. "I don't like it."

"Just because you don't want to love the man doesn't mean you've been put under a spell. In truth, if you had been, you'd be thrilled about it That's part of the magic."

I took a huge slurp, and the end of the paper umbrella went up my nose. Sneezing, I tossed it aside.

"You better slow down," Cassandra said. "You're going to be smashed."

"OK."

I'd been right about the twelve kinds of alcohol. Right now, every one of them zipped through my bloodstream, both relaxing and revving me. My cheeks felt on fire.

"I love my husband."

"Shouldn't you say loved?'

"I don't know how to stop," I whispered. "He still feels alive to me." I touched my chest. "Right here."

"Maybe that's why you saw him in your dream. In your heart he's still alive. You need to let him go."

"No."

The idea of letting Simon go, of giving up, giving in, going on, was too much for me. Maybe that was why I had come up with the notion that my feelings for Adam had been induced by voodoo. They couldn't be real, because if they were, I didn't love Simon anymore. And if my love for him died, then so did he.

I know, I know, he already had. But when was love ever rational?

I took another swig of courage before blurting what I'd been wondering since I'd seen Simon at the window. "Could you raise him?"

I stared at my fingers, clutched together in my lap. Cassandra took a quick, sharp breath and held it. Afraid she'd pass out if she didn't breathe, afraid I'd panic if she didn't speak, or maybe if she did, I glanced up, then right back down again. The sorrow, the pity, in her eyes made me want to crawl under the table and stay there.

"I'm not that powerful," she said softly. "Not yet."

Something in her voice made me tense - hope and fear at war. "But you might be soon?"

"Someday, perhaps. But even if I was, I couldn't raise Simon."

"Why not?"

"How long has he been gone?"

"Four years."

She reached across the table and took my hand. "He wouldn't be the same, Diana."

"I don't care."

"You would care. Dead is dead; there's no going back."

"There is - you said so yourself. There are zombies. They're real."

"But they aren't alive. They aren't the same people. They aren't even people. You want to rip Simon out of the afterlife, reanimate his disintegrating body, have him look at you with hollow, lifeless eyes? Wonder why he's here? Ask who you are?"

"He'd know me."

"Maybe."

"I miss him."

"I know."

She squeezed my hand, and I met her gaze once more. "Simon didn't have to die. I could have saved him."

Cassandra stared at me for several seconds. "So that's what this is about? Guilt?"

Now that I'd started talking, I couldn't seem to stop. "I didn't believe him when he said he'd found a werewolf. Again. I was so sick of his wild-goose chases. We went here; we went there. He saw something and every single time, when I got there, there was nothing. Everyone thought he was crazy."

I took a deep breath and admitted my secret shame: "I started to think so, too. Then that last night, I lost my temper, shouted at him, and we fought. He stormed out alone. The next thing I knew, he was dead."

"I missed the part where your going with him could have saved him."

I shot her a glare. "I'd have saved him."

How I wasn't sure, but I'd have tried. And if I'd failed, I'd be dead,