Ravenous

schedule fell behind. The sink is plugged. I was going to try a little plain old handyman know-how.'

'Good idea.'

'I got your message about today being the registration deadline,' he said. 'I wanted to come over and say congratulations in person. So, congrats for taking the plunge. Happy studenthood. Everything go okay?'

'Yeah.' Today was the deadline to pay up and make her registration official. Raglan's job had come in the nick of time. 'I skipped the bookstore. It was a mob scene.'

'You should wait until I can go with you. I get a discount.'

'Thanks.' With a contented smile, Holly pulled off her jacket, hanging it on a hook by the back door. Somewhere behind her, Kibs crunched the cat chow in his bowl. The kitchen seemed peaceful, a refuge, the light falling on the old counters exactly as it had when she was too small to reach the cookie jar.

'Did you get any sleep last night?' she asked.

He shrugged. 'A bit. I'm really restless. I can't seem to stay still for two minutes. May as well take advantage of all this unfocused energy, so I washed the dishes while I waited for you.'

'Thanks for that,' she said. He was a much better housekeeper than she was. 'I know it wasn't easy to come here.'

Moving close to Ben, she kissed him. His lips were soft, his shirt damp with dishwater. Giving a little grunt of surprise, he returned the kiss with one of his own. His warm tongue touched hers swiftly, the merest teasing brush. He had been eating chocolate.

'What's all this?' he asked, his tone far from complaining.

Holly didn't respond. She was concentrating on the chocolate. There were so many things she deeply appreciated about Ben. He did not brood and did not wear black. He liked golf and key lime pie. He was inventive in bed and happy about it afterward. He liked to think he was complex, but he really wasn't. Ben was cheerfully normal.

'I should attend to your plumbing more often,' he said, pushing his hands into her back pockets and snugging her hips up against his.

'Uh-huh.' she wriggled a little, wanting his hands back in motion.

'Just think if I'd actually found some drain crystals.' He grinned. 'Then you'd have to reward me for getting the job done.'

Holly liked the mental picture of manly wrench action more than chemical warfare, but whatever. 'Most people would want a self-fixing house,' she teased. 'More time to play.'

Ben smiled, sort of. It was a rueful expression. 'That would be a hotel. I like to handle problems myself. It's a guy thing.'

There was nothing to say to that. Guy things were arguments she would lose, because she never quite got the rules. Instead she slipped her hands around his waist and under his sweater, warming them against the heat of his lean back. If he chose guy tactics, she could opt for feminine wiles.

He sucked a quick breath in through his teeth as her fingers skated up his spine. 'Ow, you're cold.' He broke the embrace.

'Sorry.' She crossed her arms, feeling a little lost without his warm body to hold.

'I think you might have to call a real plumber. I'm out of time.' He reached for his tweed jacket where it hung over the back of a chair. 'I'm tutoring tonight.'

The sink suddenly blurped and the water gurgled out. Ben turned and stared, his expression cross. With an abrupt gesture he ran water into the sink, rinsing out the leftover suds and then peering into the cupboard below to frown at the pipes. 'Huh,' he grunted. 'I hate that. That's so creepy. It was completely stuck before.'

She shrugged. 'The house is like that. Never cleaned the gutters. Never had to unplug the perimeter drains. Never owned a caulking gun. You see, not all these houses are psycho killers.'

Ben's face grew serious as he shrugged on his jacket. 'I'll see you tomorrow. There're some condos going up by the waterfront we should look at.'

Holly frowned in confusion. 'What do you mean?'

His expression went tight. 'I… um. I actually came here to show a Realtor around the place this afternoon.'

Holly groped for the back of the chair behind her. 'You what? Here?'

He looked at the floor. 'Just to get an idea what this place might sell for. The location is great. It's got a good view. You could do really well.'

'Ben, I'm not interested in selling. I want us to live here.'

'She's going to crunch the numbers and fax me a suggested listing price tonight.'

'Ben! '

'Holly, I can't be here. I hate sleeping over. It's too effing freaky.'

'No, it's not!'

'I can't survive in your world.'

'Oh, no,' Holly breathed. 'Don't do this.'

He extended his hands in a placating gesture. 'I've already put everything that was mine in the truck. That way it's all clean and simple if you don't want to hear this.'

Holly's heart squeezed as if it were stopping. Every detail suddenly seemed too sharp. The soap bubbles in the drain. The folds of a dish towel. The scraped skin on Ben's knuckles. The clear, green hazel of his eyes. It was like sliding off a cliff in slow motion.

'I'm not giving up,' he said. 'But things have to change. I saw what happened last night. I saw the kind of pain you were in. How can I let you do that? You're dear to me. How can I not try to shelter you?'

'From what? My job?'

'Holly, you were screaming. I nearly died. What kind of a job is that?'

This was it. The difficult stuff the two of them never talked about. They had reached a crisis point if this was coming out of the box. Holly felt her mouth go dry as ash.

'Ben, I understand your concern, but it's no worse than what a fireman does. Policeman. Soldier. There're risky jobs out there. I just happen to have one of them.'

'But why you?'

'Because I can.'

'But do you need to do it?'

'There aren't too many people with my talents. I like to think I have something to offer.'

'Is it so important that you risk everything for it?'

Holly felt her good judgment waver, like a glass wobbling on the edge of a table. 'I saved your life last night, remember? Was that important?'

Ben looked away. He was biting back some barrage of words he knew she wouldn't like.

She felt a lance of anger so sharp it was almost beyond pain. 'I respect what I do. It's who I am. It's important to me.'

'I get that.'

'Then maybe you should support me. Learn some simple spells. There're a few things humans can learn for basic self-protection. Then you might feel better about my world.'

'No way. It frightens me,' he said quietly. 'I didn't think it would, but it does. You can do all this stuff I can't even comprehend.'

'Get over it. You're an economist. Nobody understands you guys.'

'Don't joke. Not now.' He shoved his hands into his pockets. 'You grew up around power. You have so much power. I had no idea you people existed until a few years ago.'

You people. How many groups through history had heard that phrase turned against them?

One shoulder hitched up, nearly touching his ear. The gesture was oddly boyish. 'This new world is hard to get used to. I'm not comfortable being that close to so much magic.'

Sleeping with it.

'I just can't compete. It's like suddenly being demoted down the food chain. I don't even understand why you want to be with someone like me, a plain, ordinary guy with no superpowers. It doesn't make sense.' He shuffled his feet. 'But if I don't see what you can do, I can forget about it. I can relax. That was working for me, but last