Chosen by Christine Pope (best romantic novels in english .TXT) 📖

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A week after that, I stood at the window in the living room, looking out over the drive, past the wall to the landscape beyond. Heavy clouds blocked the sky, and I wondered how much we would get out of the solar panels today. We had a backup generator, but we hadn’t needed it yet. I was glad of that — the procedure to switch over from the solar collector to the electric generator didn’t sound all that simple. But the oven ran on propane, so I’d still be able to use that, even if we decided to dial back on our power consumption for the day. All the heat came from the various fireplaces and the wood-fired stove in the sitting room, so the interior temperature of the house wouldn’t be affected, one way or another.

Anyway, it wasn’t the possible loss of power that had me staring out at the brooding vista. What with one thing or another, I hadn’t been paying that much attention to what day it was, although I’d dutifully marked off each one on the calendar in the office, just so I wouldn’t completely lose track of time. But today, when I’d picked up the Sharpie to draw that thick black line, I’d paused and frowned at the date I was crossing out.

October 31st.

“Something wrong?” Jace asked, coming into the living room. He looked a bit surprised, and I supposed I couldn’t blame him. We didn’t spend much time in there, beautiful as the room was. Usually we were either in the kitchen or the family room, or, more rarely, the office.

“No,” I said, then paused. “It’s Halloween.”

“And?” His expression told me he wasn’t particularly impressed by that piece of information. “Did you want to go trick-or-treating or something?”

“Ha,” I replied. My trick-or-treating days were long behind me, although Elena and Tori and I had still gone out on Halloween, mostly as an excuse to get dressed up and go to bars. I’m not going to lie — the year before, we all did variations on the “sexy” something, me as a witch, since it suited my long near-black hair, Tori as an angel, and Elena…well, I still wasn’t entirely clear what her costume was supposed to be, except that it was black and red and sparkly, and showed way more leg than I would ever have dared. Needless to say, we didn’t have to buy any of our own drinks that night.

“It’s not the trick-or-treating,” I said slowly. “It’s more…I don’t know. Like the date is telling me it’s been more than a month since…well, since.”

The light of humor in his dark eyes abruptly disappeared. “You’re right. I guess I hadn’t really thought about it, what with everything we’ve been doing.” He closed the distance between us, coming to stand next to me in front of the window. So close, and yet…and yet, he might have been a million miles away. I knew I didn’t have the courage to reach out and take his hand in mine, to feel the reassurance of his touch. Then he shifted so he was halfway facing toward me, his gaze fixed on my profile. “I have an idea.”

“You do?” I didn’t dare move, didn’t want him to see any of the yearning currently pulsing within me. I wished it could be different, but I just wasn’t brave enough.

“Tomorrow’s the Day of the Dead. Dios de los Muertos.”

“And?”

He smiled, but it was a grave, quiet smile. “I think there are a lot of dead who need to be honored.”

THIRTEEN

We’d been meaning to go back into town anyway, but had been putting it off for one reason or another. Well, today we had a mission.

I drove, of course, since I still felt hinky about letting Jace get behind the wheel of my father’s Cherokee. This time we went to a place we’d avoided, the Albertson’s grocery store near the center of town. So far, we’d either had everything we needed on hand, or we hunted or foraged for it. Although there were items we could have used from the store, neither of us thought it a very good idea to go in there, not with all that food spoiling inside.

Neither did we know for sure what it would be like now, after having the power cut off for more than a month, but it was the best place we could think of to get some of those saints’ candles for our Day of the Dead observance. Maybe Santa Fe had a Hispanic grocery store somewhere, but I remembered the Albertson’s because that’s where the girls and I stocked up on booze when we came to stay at Elena’s parents’ timeshare.

I pulled into the parking lot of the Albertson’s, then reached down and pulled the bandanna I had wrapped around my neck up and over my mouth. Jace did the same. We looked like we were there to hold up the place, but it seemed the best solution, since we didn’t have access to any surgical masks.

“Ready?” he asked.

Probably not, but it was too late to back out now. Besides the candles, there were a number of nonperishable goods we wanted to grab — paper towels, toilet paper, rice, flour, sugar, spices. Of course Jace didn’t know the store at all, but I had a hazy idea of where some things were located, based on my previous visits here. I’d just have to hope it would be enough to get us in and out as quickly as possible.

“Ready,” I said, my voice muffled by the bandanna