.5 To Have and To Code Read online

  To Have and To Code

  by Debora Geary

  Copyright 2012 Debora Geary

  Fireweed Publishing

  Kindle Edition

  A note from Debora:

  Step back in time to 1997—

  and enjoy!

  Part I:

  A Spark

  Chapter 1

  “I’m begging you.”

  Nell Sullivan looked over her menu at her best friend in all the world. “No way. I came, I listened to the whiny guy with the accent, I even wore a dress. But I am not eating snails.”

  “They’re fancy French snails. In some kind of sauce.” Sammy’s lips twitched. “And it’s a nice dress.”

  When you grew up with six brothers, wearing a dress was pretty much asking to have your underwear flashed to the world. Nell surveyed the menu in disgust. “Can’t you just feed everybody cheeseburgers?”

  Burgers—the universal food. And given Sammy’s mother’s penchant for firing caterers, probably the best way to make sure there was actually food at the wedding.

  Sammy laughed, the beads on her flapper headband doing a little blue dance. “No way the parentals would go for that.”

  Yup. Rich vegetarians tended to frown on anything that had once mooed. Especially when their only daughter was flouting all sanity and running off to Texas to marry a cattle rancher.

  Well, they were running off after they got married, but that wasn’t making Sammy’s parents any happier.

  “Help me out here.” Sammy pushed over something orange in a glass. “We have to pick. I didn’t make you help with the dress or the flowers or the invitations.”

  That was probably a good thing—the state of California frowned on murdering your best friend, even with just cause. Nell leaned over and sipped. “Tastes like peach Bellini.”

  “Better than the mint one?” Sammy looked at the line of drink glasses on the table and sighed. “Do you remember which one tasted like mint?”

  No, but they damn well needed to get themselves organized before she ate snails by accident. Nell squinted at the personalized menu, which listed four drinks, six appetizers, five main plates, and a bunch of things in French that were possibly desserts. “Shouldn’t they have given us a spreadsheet or something?”

  “Bad for business,” said Sammy wryly. “Not everyone shares your affection for computers, and we brides are fragile creatures.”

  Sammy was about as fragile as a tank. “Well, maybe if you bat your eyelashes and look like you’re about to break, someone will bring us little sticky notes so we can identify the food.” Preferably ones in toxic orange for the snails.

  “Ha!” One flapper headdress disappeared below the table for a moment as its owner rummaged in her monstrous purse. A hand emerged and thunked two pens on the table, followed in quick succession by chewing gum, a condom, two gigantic ladybug hair clips, and a water pistol.

  Nell tried not to bust up laughing as the maitre d’ guy with the fake French accent looked on in abject horror. She knew better than to interrupt Sammy’s bag diving. And the water pistol might come in handy if the snails got frisky.

  Her friend’s head finally re-emerged, along with a fist clutching pink, heart-shaped Post-It notes. “Knew I had these in there somewhere.”

  Sammy’s bag was a bottomless pit of questionable treasures. Nell surveyed the loot on the table, grinning. “Sample wedding favors?” People gave brides-to-be all kinds of weird free stuff. Condoms and water pistols might liven things up a fair amount, especially if her brothers didn’t remember their solemn vows to behave.

  “I have a bunch of witches coming to my wedding, and you think I’m going to arm you with water pistols?”

  Nell snorted. “I can shoot lightning out of my fingers.” She glared at the bride-to-be. “And if any of Shane’s cute cowboy cousins get any ideas, don’t think I won’t use it.”

  Sammy regarded her with a suddenly serious face. “One day you’re going to find a guy who isn’t scared of your magic. You know that, right?”

  Nell had her doubts. She’d learned the hard way as a teenager—even a couple of sparks sent most guys running for the bushes. “Maybe.”

  Bright blue eyes gleamed out from under blue flapper beads. “Promise me that if he shows up, you aren’t going to scare him off in the first five minutes.”

  That sounded way too much like a deathbed promise. “Or what—you’ll send a Texas cow posse to make me behave?”

  Flapper beads danced in time to Sammy’s giggles. “Maybe.”

  Nell grinned and felt something that had been dangerously tilted inside her heart right. “You need to work on your intimidation skills.”

  “Okay.” Sammy reached for the ladybug clips. “How about this—if you don’t help me settle on food for the reception in the next thirty minutes, these are going to be the hairpiece for my maid of honor.”

  It was an excellent threat—and given Sammy’s mother’s fashion sense, not entirely out of the question. Nell sobered and surveyed the menu again. If they ruled out the snails and all food she didn’t recognize, that narrowed the choices down quite a bit. “Which one’s the shoestring potatoes?”

  The bride-to-be pointed at a small plate off to the right. “Maybe these things that look like French fries on a diet?”

  French fries in any form were probably safe. “I pick those.”

  “I think we’re actually supposed to taste them,” said Sammy dryly. “You’ll make the chef cry.”

  After what he’d done to some poor, innocent snails, Nell was probably okay with that. She reached out and popped a couple of the anorexic fries her mouth. “Taste like potatoes. They’re good.” Actually, they were really good, even if they were named after shoe parts. Maybe she wouldn’t starve to death at the wedding.

  Sammy grinned. “You just don’t want to have to try the tofu paté.”

  Avoiding tofu in all its forms was pretty much a life goal. Nell jumped to the dessert part of the menu—hopefully lacking in tofu, and she could probably survive the wedding dinner on potatoes and some good chocolate. “How come you’re not gonna serve your stuff for dessert?”

  “Because I’m making my parents mad enough by leaving,” said Sammy softly. “So they get the wedding they want.”

  And her best friend would get the life she wanted. It was a conversation they’d had way too many times in the last six months, and one that made Nell acutely aware of just how awesome her family was. She surveyed the floofy choices on the table. “Your cookies are better than anything here.”

  Sammy ran Berkeley’s hottest gourmet cookie business. People lined up for a mile to snag cookies out of her little hole-in-the-wall bakery—and her parents were still embarrassed by the mysterious left turn their daughter had taken out of law school. Nell sighed. Best friends didn’t stew over stuff that couldn’t be changed—and they didn’t let wedding planning descend into misery, either. “The cows in Texas aren’t going to appreciate you nearly enough.”

  “I will mail you cookies.” Sammy’s eyes flashed with humor—and gratitude. They’d learned to avoid detours into sadness as often as possible. “Every week. And you have all the recipes, and you’ve helped me make them a hundred times.”

  Being cookie sous chef mostly involved hefting flour and trying not to eat all the chocolate chips. “Yours are better.”

  “And they’ll still be available.” Her friend’s voice was wistful now. “Just not down the street.”

  Sammy’s Sweet Stuff was going virtual—Nell had built the website herself. Mail-order cookies, sent with love from Texas. But the boxes weren’t big enough to hold the chef too. She was going to miss a lot more than her daily dose of flour and sugar. “I’ll come visit as soon as
we get the next game release out.”

  “I know.” Sad eyes met and then looked away, a mournful dance that happened all too often these days.

  They’d been attached at the hip for nine years, ever since some comedian at the university had put them in dorm rooms across the hall from each other. Nell—gamer, math geek and fire witch, with the personality to match. Sammy—spoiled child of sixties hippies who had made a surprise fortune off herbal teas and promptly joined the country club.

  Somehow, it had worked. Sammy had embraced the geeky, prickly girl across the hallway—magic tricks, computer parts collection, odd love of math, and all. Nell had figured out the rituals of girl talk, late-night ice cream, and how to talk a friend down from a fashion crisis at the vintage thrift store.

  They’d hit sworn sisterhood in less than a week. And now Sammy was moving to Texas to bake cookies for cows and a guy who was so freaking perfect for her that it hurt.

  But they still had a week and a half—and Nell refused to spend it mooning about lost cookies or staring at dead snails. She picked up the menu again. “Okay, so the shoestring thingies, Bellinis to drink… How about risotto for the main course?” Jamie made that for their family dinners sometimes and nobody had died yet.

  “Maybe.” Sammy stuck out a fork and picked up a chunk of mystery food. “This crispy tofu curry looks pretty good, though.”

  Growing up in the Sullivan house, you learned not to eat anything even vaguely puke yellow. However, friends compromised, especially a week and a half before the wedding. “Fine. Crispy tofu, and you let me sneak in some of your cookies.”

  Sammy grinned. “Deal.” She picked up a purple crayon and made four big circles on the menu. “Done. Let’s go get a burger.”

  Nell snagged the water pistol before it went back in the bride-to-be’s bag. The world wasn’t ready for Sammy armed and dangerous.

  -o0o-

  Daniel stepped out his front door, bat and glove in one hand, six-pack of beer in the other. The beer was to remind him that this wasn’t college ball any more.

  Pedro Chong pushed off the fence and waved in welcome. “Ready, bro? We’re gonna be shorthanded tonight—Jesse can’t make it.”

  Which meant he and Pedro would be covering shortstop from first and second bases, respectively. And probably meant he’d earn his beer. “He’s missed half the games this season.”

  His buddy, the meanest second baseman in UC Berkeley history, shouldered both bats and shrugged. “He’s got stuff going on at home and at work.”

  Pedro had always been the team’s resident psychologist. Opening a counseling practice the day he graduated had only made it official. Daniel glanced over. “Anything we should be worried about?”

  “Dunno. He’s not talking.”

  That was a bad sign. Even rocks and shrubs talked to Pedro. And girls. And stray old ladies he helped cross the street. “I’ll swing by Jesse’s office tomorrow. Buy him a burger.”

  “Thanks, man.” His second baseman looked over and grinned. “For that, I’ll let you have all the really fancy catches and impress the ladies.”

  At their last game, the only unattached ladies had been two-and-a-half feet tall and covered in sticky Popsicle juice. “You’re a real pal.”

  “I know.” Pedro turned left toward the park. “And for my second true-friend act of the evening, I told Becky you were still heartbroken over your last blind date and unable to bear the strain of another one so soon.”

  “Dude.” Daniel pulled his friend to a stop. “Do not let her set me up on any more dates.”

  Becky was Pedro’s sister—and she’d inherited matchmaking genes from both the Hispanic and Chinese sides of the family. It was her calling—and she was insanely good at her job. She’d hooked up her older brother, several cousins, a grateful uncle, and half their college baseball team.

  Daniel and Pedro had been the last men left standing. Until Christmas, and Chloe—the soft-spoken, potty-mouthed police dispatcher who had knocked his best friend’s heart into the next town’s bleachers.

  It had been like watching a grown man drown. Happily.

  “It’s not so bad, you know.” Pedro dodged a fleeing skateboard and its pursuing owner.

  “What isn’t?”

  “The life you think I have now.”

  Daniel knew enough to keep his opinions to himself. Psychologists ate innocent opinions for breakfast. “Think we’ll break our losing streak today?”

  Pedro snickered and ignored the pathetic attempt to change topics. “Just because you’re still standing in the single-guy swamp doesn’t mean you have to build a mansion there.”

  The time for that warning had long since come and gone. “I’m a loner.”

  That just earned him more snickers. “Like hell you are. The right woman just hasn’t come along yet.”

  If his recent dates had been any indication, she wasn’t anywhere on the continent. Daniel turned the corner and ducked through the narrow gate in the chain-link fence, suddenly grumpy. “Let’s just go play some freaking baseball.”

  “Wasn’t trying to poke at you.” Apology laced his friend’s voice.

  No—but a certain psychologist was damn good at making people poke themselves. “I know. Let’s go earn our beer.”

  “Okay.” Pedro grinned and waved at the monster guy standing behind home plate, and then turned to catch the child-shaped bullet launching into his arms. “Hey, Maddie—what are you doing here?”

  “I came with Auntie Chloe,” said the small girl, fluttering her eyes. “Mama said I was a stinker and someone should take me away before she left me at the zoo with all the monkeys.”

  Chloe had twin three-year-old nieces who followed her everywhere and had wrapped Pedro around their capable little fingers before Becky’s carefully engineered Christmas party had come to an end. Now they were apparently the closest thing the Dustkickers had to a cheering squad.

  Daniel headed off toward first base—watching his best friend get all gooey with a little girl in his arms was just going to make him grumpy again. And it was worrisome. The closer Pedro and Chloe got to holy matrimony, the more likely Becky would divert her gaze long enough to notice someone else was still happily single.

  Becky was death to single—of the happy variety or any other kind.

  Dammit. Since when had the single-guy swamp been unhappy? Daniel shoveled his angst into a dark corner and put down the beer, waving at the guy behind the plate. “Hey, Truck. Ready to catch a few?”

  “Always.” What Truck lacked in agility, he made up for in sheer volume. And he had insanely fast hands. “Sure we can’t talk you into pitching?”

  Daniel didn’t bother to answer—they’d already had that conversation too many times to count. MVP college pitchers didn’t cream recreational players—it just wasn’t cool. Pedro didn’t bat clean-up for the same reason.

  Truck thought they both had an overdeveloped ethics gland—but he’d needed players badly enough to strike the deal.

  Daniel stepped up to the pitcher’s mound—warming up with the catcher fell within deal terms, and it kept his mind off Pedro playing googly-eyes with a certain police dispatcher.

  He lobbed a couple of soft ones at the plate, getting a rhythm moving, working the kinks out of his elbow. Thunk. Thunk. The easy sound of ball on leather, a breeze blowing in off the ocean, and pizza in his future. Forget the swamp. Life was good.

  Two arms wrapped tightly around his knees, nearly tipping him over. He looked down at their owner. Maddie or Carlie—he had no idea how to tell them apart. Maybe all little girls just looked the same. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be out here, munchkin.”

  Auntie Chloe, quick-marching across the diamond, seemed to think the same thing.

  Defiant eyes glared up. “I wanna learn how to throw the ball.”

  The baseball was nearly as big as her head. “You have to grow a bit first.”

  “Do not.”

  Chloe arrived, out of breath. �
�Maddie darling, let go of Daniel’s leg. It’s not safe to be out here—one of these balls could put a big hole in your noggin.”

  “No way.” Maddie grinned and patted his shins. “He throws way better than that.”

  Dang it, how had he ended up a stubborn three-year-old’s best friend?

  Truck shuffled toward the mound, fishing around in his pocket, finally emerging with something small, round, and screamingly pink. “Here, try this.”

  The darn thing ricocheted off Daniel’s glove and nearly blinded Chloe before he snagged it with his free hand. “You want me to pitch a freaking Superball?”

  “Nah.” Truck took up his classic catcher’s position, sans glove, about six feet away from Maddie. “I want her to do it.”

  Daniel watched, stupefied, as a beaming three-year-old drilled a Superball into Truck’s chest—and the man with the fastest hands in baseball fell over backwards, feigning dead.

  And then listened, oddly captivated, as sunshine-bright giggles spread out into the universe.

  -o0o-

  “It’s coming.” Retha Sullivan stared out the window, well aware she was causing her husband of almost forty years significant worry. It couldn’t be helped.

  They’d always called it The Prophecy. Said in hushed tones, with capital letters. It was the only secret they’d ever kept from their daughter Nell—but it was a big one.

  There wasn’t much else they could do. Retha’s precog talent was sketchy and unpredictable—but it had drawn vivid, inescapable pictures of the future on the day Nell made her entrance into the world.

  A child of fire and grit and impressive magic.

  A teenager of glorious power and fierce temper.

  A woman of creativity, drive, and finely honed skill. The best spellcaster of her era.

  Mother to the most powerful witchling of five generations.

  It was the last that had made them absolutely certain. They’d held hands over their baby girl and resolved not to tell her. No small and fragile child deserved to have her growth, her choices, the woman she would become, shaped by a vision. Nell’s life would be hers to live. It had been their own rebellion against the fates.