A Valentine Wish (Gates-Cameron 1)

ANNA TURNED quickly to her brother. “Ian, I think he saw us!”

Ian didn’t look so sure. “He must have seen something that startled him.”

“He was looking right at us.”

“No. He was looking at you.”

Anna waved off the distinction.

“You know, it was odd,” she mused aloud, gazing toward the staircase which the man had so abruptly descended. “I had the strangest sensation when he looked at me. Almost as if—as if I could have spoken with him, if I’d tried. He didn’t seem as far away as the others.”

She knew she didn’t have to explain. Ian was all too aware of those invisible barriers that stood between them and the mortals they’d occasionally encountered during the passing years. Only rarely had the barriers lowered enough for the others to see Anna and her brother, and on those occasions the contact had been extremely brief and decidedly unsatisfying.

But this time ... this time it had felt different.

“Maybe I should have said something,” she murmured.

“Even if he’d heard you—and I’m not at all sure that he would have—he would have merely screamed and taken to his heels,” Ian responded cynically. “The way all the others have when they’ve spotted us.”

For some reason, Anna was annoyed by his presumption. “He didn’t look so fainthearted to me. There’s something different about him, Ian. Something ... I don’t know...”

Frustrated by her lack of words, she grimaced. She could still picture the man’s face, strong-boned, firm-jawed, not quite handsome, but definitely intriguing. And his eyes—a deep, piercing blue. Eyes that saw much and betrayed little. “He had kind eyes,” she murmured. “Maybe he’s the one who can help us—if only we can find a way to talk to him.”

Ian snorted, typically impatient with her fancifulness. “He’s just like the others, Anna. He bought the inn on a whim, and now he’ll throw too little money into it, too little interest, and when he becomes bored or financially strapped—as they all do eventually—he’ll abandon it. No one really cares about this place. And no one cares about us.”

Anna tossed her head in annoyance at his pessimism. “Don’t talk like that! We’re here for a reason, Ian. I’ve always believed that someday, someone would come along who would help free us. This man could be the one.”

Ian’s eyes softened as he looked at her. “You always have been the dreamer.”

She smiled back at him. “And you the doubter. We shall just have to see who is right, won’t we?”

His own faint smile faded. “It’s not as though we have anything better to do,” he muttered.

Ignoring the underlying bitterness in his tone, Anna turned away and looked at the staircase again, wondering how she could communicate with the man with the kind blue eyes.

TWENTY MINUTES after leaving the attic, Dean stepped out of his car and glanced around his new hometown. Destiny, Arkansas. Population 5,462—a number he mentally amended to 5,464 now that he and his aunt Mae had arrived.

From the sidewalk where he stood on the east side of Main Street, he could see the two-story, white brick city hall building, the tiny redbrick post office, a convenience store with four gas pumps in front, the aging native-stone building that housed the local newspaper, Destiny Daily, three churches of different denominations, several less-than-flourishing retail establishments and what appeared to be a thriving video-rental store. The Destiny Diner was behind him, where only a few customers remained inside since it was a couple of hours past the usual lunch hour.

Tired Christmas decorations drooped from posts and window frames. Dean suspected they’d been up since shortly after Halloween. There was nothing more dispirited-looking than Christmas decorations in January, he thought wryly.

“I’m starving,” his aunt Mae said fervently, moving to stand beside him. “We must stop by a grocery store on the way home so we’ll have supplies for dinner this evening.”

Dean smiled at his comfortably plump, sixty-year-old maternal aunt. She was an eccentric-looking woman, with her profusion of jangling bracelets, dangling oversize earrings and enormous, stuffed-to-overflowing purse. Her fuchsia sweater clashed cheerfully with her copper-dyed hair, her black slacks were a bit too tight and her eyeglasses were a godawful design of gold wires, red plastic and tiny rhinestones. Dean was well aware that beneath the unusual exterior was a sharp mind, an even sharper wit and a generously loving heart.

He was crazy about her.

Inside the diner, Dean and Mae were greeted by an ample young woman in jeans and an Arkansas Razorbacks sweatshirt. “Table for two?” she asked while chewing on a piece of gum. “Smoking or non?” she continued before they could answer her first question.

Dean glanced ruefully at the small, one-room diner, in which none of the tables was more than a foot or two apart. “Nonsmoking,” he said, deciding to hope for the best.

The tables were decorated with red paper hearts and red and white silk carnations. The decorations were still clean and appeared to be new, making Dean suspect that someone had replaced the Christmas trappings that very morning. It wasn’t hard to imagine that these would soon look as tired and worn-out as the garland and tinsel he’d noticed outside.

“They’ve already decorated for Valentine’s Day,” Aunt Mae said as she took her seat. “It will be here almost before we know it, I suppose.”

Dean picked up a plastic-coated menu and muttered something noncommittal. Valentine’s Day was not a topic that interested him in the least.

Mae sighed. “You should have someone special to celebrate the occasion with.”