A.k.a. Goddess

I hated leaving my apartment in a mess. But at least carrying just a backpack meant I wouldn’t have to check luggage.

By the time I made it through the extensive security check and was jogging down the International Terminal, I felt the exhaustion, hunger and stress of the previous night’s events.

The last person I needed to hear calling my name as I dodged travelers in my sprint for the gate was Lex Stuart.

“Maggi?”

It was too huge a coincidence to ignore. I turned in the terminal and, sure enough, he was striding toward me. The crowd seemed to part for him, as if instinctively sensing his importance. He looked good, tall and fit and collected. It didn’t hurt that his eyes brightened just for me.

He could be a bad guy, my head warned me.

Or he might not, insisted my heart. Not Lex.

“This is a surprise.” Lex slowed as he reached me. Even after years with him, I wasn’t sure.

And I still had a plane to catch.

When I started walking again, reluctantly taking advantage of the clear space around him, he paced me.

“Are you all right?” he asked politely.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

He didn’t quite shrug, but it was implied. “Because your apartment got broken into last night?”

Oh, yeah. That. “I’m fine. How are you?”

He ignored my formality. “I regret how I behaved.”

The kiss? Or the argument? “Oh…”

“That’s one reason I’ve missed you so badly this last year. You’ve always been my touchstone.”

“So your own moral compass is still on the blink, huh?”

That wrung a hint of a smile from him. “I only mean to say, you were already having a stressful night. Please accept my apology for complicating matters.”

Proper and polite to the end. But I’d helped, with the argument and the kiss both. Fair was fair. “Apology accepted.”

Except that we were approaching my gate—and he was slowing down too. Just out of courtesy, right? To see me off? Except—

He drew a boarding pass from his jacket pocket. “You’re going to Paris, too? I’m guessing you’re in coach.”

I stared. I wasn’t ready for proof that my suspicions were warranted. But this couldn’t be coincidence…could it?

What the hell. “Have you ever heard the name Melusine?”

He glanced toward the gate, making sure we had time. “Isn’t she some kind of medieval mermaid?”

My heart flinched. He had heard of her!

“You mentioned her in your report on the women of Camelot, in the seventh grade,” he continued easily; if he was covering his guilt, he was really, really good. “You compared her to the Lady of the Lake, right?”

“You remember that?”

“We did work on it together, Mag.” We’d split the workload by gender. His report on the men of Camelot had lingered on the subject of the Holy Grail. He’d compared an Irish legend, Nuada of the Silver Hand, to the Fisher King of the classic grail quest.

“There weren’t a lot of high points to the seventh grade,” Lex said, sounding heartfelt. “But you were one of them. Let me upgrade your seat to first class, and you can tell me all about Melusine and your research and your trip—”

“No.” I hated the suspicion that kept me from saying yes. Foolish or not, I still liked him…or more.

But he wasn’t just a Stuart. He was a Stuart on my flight, feeling me out about my research.

Did he have to pull a gun on me before I learned caution?

“I’ll use my frequent-flyer miles,” Lex offered, pushing it. “You know how many of those I rack up.”

I shook my head, hesitation hard in my throat.

“For God’s sake, Mag, I’m not trying to buy you.”

A gate agent announced that they were boarding first-class passengers and passengers in need of assistance. I was neither. “Enjoy your flight, Lex.”

His eyes narrowed, suddenly dangerous. “I don’t know what’s happened to you this last year, Maggi, or what kind of crowd you’ve gotten involved with. But whatever and whoever it is, it sure isn’t an improvement.”

At my resolute silence, Lex turned away and offered his boarding pass to the gate agent. Maybe ten minutes later my section was called, and I boarded with the other peons, carefully not looking at him…

Just enough of a glance to tell that he, comfortably settled in an oversize leather seat with a cocktail in his hand, wasn’t looking at me, either. The seat beside him was empty, spacious and inviting.

I continued past, found my seat and manhandled my backpack into an overhead compartment, glad for an excuse to vent my frustration. I slid into a middle seat, between a large businessman and a teenager bobbing to his Discman.

I dug my cell phone out of my purse to turn it off.

One missed call, it read.

I thumbed a button and read my aunt Bridge’s mobile number. The screen then read, 1 new voice message.

While other passengers boarded, I retrieved the message.

“Lilith says you’re coming here,” my aunt Bridge wheezed, weak from more than her years as a smoker. Much of my frustration melted under my gratitude that she was even conscious. “I thought you would. My assistant will meet your flight. Be careful, chou. It may be worse than we feared.”

That was it? I checked the display, to make sure I still had a signal. I used the code to replay the message.

That was it.

“Miss?” It was the flight attendant. “We ask that you turn off all electronic devices during takeoff, and keep your cell phone off for the duration of the flight.”

I switched my phone off while she turned her attention to my neighbor’s Discman. Then, before stowing my purse beneath the seat in front of me, I exchanged the phone for the one set of notes that nobody had gotten—because they were handwritten.