Changespell 01 Dunn Lady's Jess Read online

  Light flooded out of the room, clearly outlining Derrick's form just inside the door. Way in the back, crowded into the anteroom to the bathroom, were her three friends—and Carey. Derrick's sideways stance and alert posture left no doubt that his attention was trained inward as much as out, and in his hand he held . . . he held Jess didn't know what. But he held it like a threat, and she intuited that it was a weapon.

  Jess slid along the building. Room 16. Room 17. And then she realized she did not have to be alone, and her next step was a pivot that turned into a sprint.

  "Mark!" she cried, bursting through the door to the office unit.

  He jumped off the stool behind the counter, as startled by her ragged appearance as by her sudden entrance and cry for help. "Geeze, Jess, you knocked ten years off my life! Don't tell me it's gone wrong."

  "All wrong," she panted. "Derrick—and another. He still has them! Hurry!"

  "No kidding," Mark muttered, following on Jess' heels as she flung herself back out the door. She looked back once to see that he was still there, and took his hand as they jogged down along the bricks together.

  The light from the room streamed out onto the walk, Derrick's shadow clearly cast within.

  "Jess!" Mark hissed. "You didn't say he had a gun!" But he waved away her puzzled look, murmuring, "Never mind. This isn't going to be so easy. This second guy—is he here, too?"

  "Fence," Jess said, pointing toward the pasture, her hands flashing to indicate the tangling as newly learned language deserted her.

  He took her arm and drew her back, motioning imperiously with his head when she resisted. Together, quietly, they moved into the anonymity of the night.

  "Now, look," Mark said, his hand still closed around her upper arm, more reassuring than commanding now. "We haven't got much time, if you've just got the other guy tangled up in fence. We're going to pretend I'm him, okay? I'm the other guy, and I've caught you, but I need you to fight like hell—and be noisy about it! I want Derrick's eyes on you. Got it?"

  "Be noisy," Jess nodded.

  "Scream and shriek and curse—all the lung power you've got. When we get there I'm going to turn you loose on him while I go for the gun. Ready?"

  It wasn't hard to fight him. It was harder to fight him and not successfully break free. Mark's grip grew tighter as she nearly slipped away, and he shoved her along ahead of him, ducking his head. Jess was brilliantly vociferous, letting loose one equine curse after another—attention getters, every one. In the doorway, Derrick's jaw relaxed into a wide grin.

  "Atta boy, Ernie," he said. "She's a prize."

  Almost close enough to smell him. Close enough so he was beginning to frown, to peer more attentively at the ducking man behind her. Mark gave her a shove and she pinballed off Derrick's solid form. He automatically reached both hands to steady and contain her, slow to realize she was no longer trying to get away—

  —that she had gone for his face with her teeth, unaware, for the moment, that she lacked the formidable incisors and jaw strength she expected to have—so that she merely tore flesh instead of crushing bone.

  Derrick yelped; he batted her away and flung her against the door frame, closing in on her dazed form to haul her up and cock his arm back.

  "Think twice."

  It was Carey's voice and Carey's shaky but resolute arm drawing the bowstring back behind a notched arrow.

  "Think hard." Mark this time, holding the gun like it was an old friend.

  Carey glanced at the gun, frowned uncertainly at it, and maintained the tension of the bow string. "Step inside," he said. "Just one step. Then back into the corner behind the table." The head of the arrow followed Derrick's resentful compliance. "Lady, push that table in against him."

  Jess responded without second thought, meeting Derrick's gaze with her own anger. She stood back and flicked her head in a wrathful gesture, one Carey seemed to be able to interpret and attribute to his own version of Lady, for he smiled a grim smile.

  "Let's get out of here!" Dayna burst out, inching along the wall opposite Derrick.

  "Let's go," Jaime agreed. She brushed by Eric, picked up Dayna along the way, and grabbed Jess as she passed by. Eric followed, careful to stay out of the path of both arrow and bullet. Then Carey, the arrow still trained on Derrick—and lastly Mark, who slammed the door closed behind him and joined the tail end of the group that hustled for Jaime's pickup.

  They moved as a single unit until Carey stumbled and sank to the pavement, his meager supply of energy depleted. Jess was at his side in an instant, her eyes full of worry; Eric looped back and hauled him up, ignoring the warning—be careful—in Jess' face.

  She dogged him to the truck, where Jaime flung up the cap door and down the tailgate, then went for the driver's door. Dayna dove for the passenger side as Eric slid Carey into the pickup bed and folded his own length to fit; Jess pushed in behind them and waited for Mark. Instead, Mark slammed the tailgate up and peeled off for the office unit.

  "Mark!" Jaime called, tension riding her voice. "You're not going—"

  "I'm on the desk tonight, Jay," Mark called, still backpedaling for the hotel. "Besides, now that you've got Jess' guy clear, I take it you have no objection if the police suddenly get interested in that room?"

  "Mark, be careful. This isn't a game!"

  "I know that," he said, the scowl clear in his voice. Then it brightened. "Besides, I've got the gun!"

  Jaime growled something unintelligible and gunned the pickup to life. As they pulled out of the parking lot, sacrificing rubber, Jess imagined she saw a man outlined against the fence line, running for the hotel. Then the view swung with their turn onto the four-lane, and the hotel was out of sight.

  And Carey, still panting, barely aware, was here in the truck beside her. Hardly daring to believe, Jess put her hand on his leg, a leg that was so familiar to her side but never to such things as fingers. In some strange way it brought upon her all the depths of despair from the uncontrolled changes in her life, and in this moment that should have been joyous, she found herself crying again.

  * * *

  It was a sober, wrung-out crew that pulled into the giant "U" of Jaime's driveway and disembarked onto the gravel. Carey managed to stay on his feet as they escorted him into the kitchen; then he slumped into one of the table chairs and stretched his feet out, while Jaime went straight to the bathroom to relieve her aching eyes of her contacts. When she came back in glasses, still in that perceiving-the-world-anew mode that came with the eyewear, she looked around at the group and couldn't help the bubble of laughter that escaped. "Will you look at us? We look like we've been on a 20-mile hike under full gear—and we only left this kitchen an hour and a half ago!"

  "I, for one, think we did pretty damn good," Eric announced. "And I'd like something to drink."

  "Drink, or drink?" Jaime inquired, thinking that her kitchen was fast becoming the ritual place for group drink-and-thinks.

  "In between. A beer would be nice," he allowed.

  "I'll have a screwdriver. A double," Dayna muttered, then shook her head at Jaime's inquiring look. "No, a beer is fine."

  "Beer all 'round, then," Jaime announced. "Except for Carey, I think. Food is what he needs—how about some scrambled eggs, Carey? And a glass of milk?"

  Bemused, Carey nodded.

  Jaime reached for the eggs and pointed Eric at the refrigerator. "You're the barkeep," she told him, and turned on the stove. Carey, she noticed, had grown more alert, and was watching every move. "Would you believe," she asked no one in particular, "that I've got a show in two days?"

  "If you can handle this, a horse show'll be a piece of cake," Dayna said.

  Jaime laughed. "I guess you're right at that." And, with hardly any pause, "Carey, after you've had a meal and a chance to clean up, we've got more questions than you'd want to answer in your whole life. I hope you're up to it."

  Carey glanced at Jess. "I'm not surprised," he said wearily. "I haven't seen much of this worl
d, and I know even less about it, but I don't guess you get many like us dropping in."

  Dayna's laugh was short and just short of bitter. "I guess not."

  Eric scooted the last of the beers onto the bar and looked thoughtfully at Carey. "Jaime, you got first aid stuff around here somewhere?"

  "Um, yeah," she said, stirring eggs. "In the downstairs bathroom linen closet. But it'll wait, Eric. Just have a seat and drink your beer. Take a couple of deep breaths. I think we all need it." And while they followed her advice, she finished with the eggs, coming around the bar to slide the plate in front of Carey, adding a glass of milk before she finally grabbed her own drink and settled down on one of the bar stools.

  The silence that settled around them was part awkward, part comfortable. Comfortable to be sitting, relaxing, strange mission accomplished. Awkward in Dayna's almost sullen, cross-legged posture on her chair, backed into the corner. Threatened, Jaime knew, by what she still couldn't—or wouldn't—understand. And awkward in the way Carey kept looking around, watching them, double-checking Jess—as if he needed to see again that she was there, long and lean and tousle-haired. Jess herself had withdrawn somewhat, and looked a little befuddled, like she didn't know how to act around a man whom she obviously worshipped—as a horse.

  Jaime heaved a big sigh and wished that she was, indeed, at the relative simplicity of the horse show, where all she had to do was keep straight the patterns of the several different classes each of her two horses was entered in. Training level, test four. Young Silhouette's first class. Enter, working trot. Halt at X. Salute. Her mind quickly fell into the familiar exercise, leaving her as quiet as the rest of them, until Carey pushed his plate back and downed the last of the milk.

  Jaime roused herself. "Through? Feel better?"

  "A little," Carey nodded. "Just now starting to get hungry, now that my stomach's awake."

  "Not surprising. Tell you what—you know how to use the shower?" she asked, remembering Dayna's account of the debacle of Jess and the shower monster.

  Carey ruefully shook his head. "I saw it in the hotel, but I never got the chance to use it. As I'm sure you can tell."

  "I don't think Derrick used it much either," Dayna said dryly.

  "Good," Jess said, interposing her first, fierce contribution since their arrival home. "That way we can smell him coming."

  Eric choked on an endearing, unmasculine giggle, and even Dayna relaxed for a smile of true amusement. "I'll show him around," Eric offered, holding out a hand to haul Carey to his feet. "Start making a list of those questions, Jaime. We won't be long."

  * * *

  Jaime hung up the phone and stared at it thoughtfully. Jess knew it had been Mark from this end of the conversation, but she, like Dayna and Eric—who'd left Carey to take care of himself in privacy—waited to hear what his news had been.

  "He didn't call the police after all," she told them. "Derrick and his friend took off. Mark checked the room and there was nothing left there. He doesn't think Derrick will be back, and neither do I."

  "I wouldn't, if I was him," Eric agreed. He rinsed out his beer bottle and added it to the other glass in the bag by the door.

  "Mr. Environment," Dayna said. "Always recycle, even in the midst of a crisis."

  Taken aback, Eric gave her a puzzled look. "Why are you coming down on me?"

  Dayna covered her face with her hands and scrubbed her cheeks and eyes. "Never mind. I'm sorry. You know chaos drives me crazy."

  Although Eric and Jaime seemed to follow the entire exchange, Jess was left in the dust. But maybe she would have been the first, anyway, to notice Carey coming out of the downstairs guest room, the room where Jess now slept. At the sight of him, something within her relaxed, for he was much more the Carey she was used to seeing—clean-shaven, clean, period; his blond hair several shades lighter than it had appeared an hour ago, if still too long for conservatively polite society. The fatigue from his ordeal still showed clearly in the dark hollows beneath eyes set a trifle too deep, but there was something of his jaunty self-confidence in evidence as well.

  "I'm going to have to tell Arlen about that shower business," he said. "There's got to be some kind of spell that would make it work for us, too."

  "Arlen," Jaime repeated thoughtfully.

  "Jess said something about a man named Arlen," Eric said, then added, "But not much. She really hasn't been able to answer our questions, Carey. That's why we've got so many for you."

  Carey rolled back the sleeves of the lightweight shirt Mark had unknowingly contributed to the cause. The pants, too, were too long, for Carey's build had helped to make him the successful courier he was. Not too tall, leanly muscled as opposed to muscle-bound. Now he sat that rider's frame down by the table again, giving Jess a pensive gaze. "I'm surprised she was able to tell you anything," he said. "Considering her point of view."

  "Which was?" Dayna prodded, and Jess knew what it was about, knew the others were waiting for the answer as well. They wanted confirmation. They wanted to hear from the lips of someone else, someone who seemed infinitely more worldly, that Dun Lady's Jess was who she claimed to be.

  "This some kind of test?" he frowned, sensing the tension that had suddenly diffused the room, pitting Jess defensively against the others. "If it is, maybe you'd better tell me the stakes."

  Jaime shook her head. "Not really a test, Carey. The problem is, we're trying to believe in things we—well, that we don't believe in. Horses that turn into women. A man named Arlen who makes magic spells. So far, we've been hearing it from Jess—and considering the state she was in when Dayna and Eric found her . . . well, let's just say that we're confused. Anything you can do to help clear that up would be great. Other than that, you don't owe us a thing. There's more than enough gold in those saddlebags to take you just about anywhere you want to go."

  Dayna's head rose sharply at the mention of the gold, and she gave Eric a look that clearly said we'll talk about this later. Eric shrugged, seeming not in the least affected.

  Carey sat for a moment in thought, fingering the plain silver band on his little finger. "Which was," he said distinctly, answering Dayna's question of minutes earlier, "Dun Lady's Jess. Best courier mount I've ever trained. Nearly sixteen hands, black points and the prettiest tiger striping on her legs you'd ever care to see." He gave Jess a sudden thoughtful look, and beckoned to her with a single word. "Lady."

  Jess responded immediately, went to stand in front of him and then went to her knees when he gestured her down. He didn't appear to notice that Jaime stiffened at his casual commands, and that Dayna's jaw had set; with a sure but impersonal touch he tipped Jess' head and pushed her coarse shaggy hair aside. "Lady was branded," he murmured. "I just don't know exactly where the spot would be on this form—"

  Jess closed her eyes as he searched her neck and nape. Part of her thrilled to feel Carey's touch again, but there was definitely a part that wasn't sure about it. And there was a part, too, that was decisively aware, for the first time, of his maleness, as opposed to his Carey-ness. Behind her closed eyes, Jess succumbed to a quandary of opposing feelings, until the only bearable response was, for the moment, to fall back into the relationship that she knew. She was Lady, and he was Carey. He had the Words, the hands that groomed and fed her, and the affection that drove her.

  "There we go," Carey said softly, his fingers touching the raised tissue of a scar in the hair behind her ear. "Look, if you want to believe."

  And they did. Four sets of fingers, in turn, lightly touched her scalp. Four sets of eyes stared at her, and breath gusted lightly down her neck as they all leaned close.

  "It's Arlen's brand," Carey said. "It was set magically, which is how he got the detail."

  The breath and the stares retreated. Carey let the thick mass of hair fall back into place; Jess opened her eyes and barely had time to relax before his fingers caught her jaw, this time tipped her face up to look at him. While the others absorbed what they'd seen—one more chu
nk of evidence in the growing assortment—Carey examined her new features. He brushed back her bangs to stare into dark, slightly-larger-than-normal irises, eyes that gazed trustingly back up into his. He ran his fingers along high, long cheekbones and down the slightly long nose that complimented them so well. Strong jaw, good bones under dusky skin. It was when he lifted her lip to look at her teeth that Jaime spoke, and her voice was distinctly cool.

  "She may have been a horse to you, but she's a woman now. While you're in my house, you won't treat her like an object that you own."

  Carey's hand fell away from Jess' face, but his expression was mildly perplexed. "I think," he said moderately, "that I probably know her a little better than you do, considering that I raised her and trained her—but in consideration of your ignorance of magic and its ways, I defer to your wishes."

  "Oh? You've seen horses turned to people before?" Jaime asked archly.

  Dayna laughed out loud, and startled the rest of them away from the impending argument. "Sorry," she said to their surprised faces. "It just struck me funny. We can't believe she's a horse and he can't believe she's human."

  "What does Jess believe?" Eric asked, looking at her.

  Jess knew with unwavering confidence that she was completely confused, and her expression must have shown it, for Carey once more reached out to her, this time with a consoling touch.

  "Tell us," Jaime said, changing the subject but very little in her tone of voice, "about this spell you're concerned about."

  Carey grew instantly somber. "You said you had my saddlebags. Can I have them?"

  Jess rose to her feet and moved quickly into her bedroom, retrieving the bags from between mattress and headboard. There, she knew no one could take them from this room while she slept, and from there, she could smell the oiled leather that reminded her of Carey, Carey and his careful hands adjusting her tack so none of it pinched or rubbed dun horseflesh.

  She returned with the saddlebags and held them out to him, not certain if she should sit by him or take her seat again.