by Brea Viragh
“Wait. Magic users?”
It was easy to bring the memories back, even after the two decades Neret had suppressed them. They swam in her mind as clear as the days they were made. As pure as water. Thorvald’s booming laughter, the sight of the sun setting over the lake waters. The sense of destiny she’d never expected and never felt again.
“Was it love at first sight?” Nasira wanted to know. Her fingers twiddled the fork in the air before diving deep into the pie. Quick. Efficient. No movement wasted.
Like her father, Neret thought. Nasira had his eyes, too. The vivid green and blue and amber a legacy. Still, she liked to think the shape of her daughter’s face was her own. And she knew Nasira’s determination and ambition were her gifts as well.
“He was a banker.”
“How did you find a banker? At a bar?”
The flash of emotion across Neret’s face told her that she was correct. “He was handsome, honey. Handsome and different from anyone I’d ever known. There he was with a few work friends, laughing and joking at the bar with his three-piece suit and mustache.” Neret chuckled. “I was blown away. Not really love at first sight but there was something between us. A voice on the wind calling me forward. When he left, through the window I saw a man standing under dim yellow lights, looking out over a rain-drenched street and hunched under his wet jacket. Then he turned. He smiled at me through the glass. As if he’d been waiting for me. Then he came back inside.”
“What did you do?”
“Well, he was married, so nothing at first. He still is married from what I know. His wife is a good woman.” Suddenly she wanted to stand. To stop and say it was time for a break. Her hands curled into fists on her lap without her being aware of it.
“Oh, god. Oh god. Mom!” Nasira let her head fall to the table, plates clinking together. “You slept with a married man?”
“Don’t judge me! It was love,” Neret said slowly. The guilt unbearable until she pushed it aside. “It was love.” She dropped her eyes to their joined hands. “Then there you were, this kink in my plans.”
Nasira let out a breath to push her bangs away from her face. “That makes me feel much better. I’m a homewrecker.”
“No.” Neret was adamant. “You are no homewrecker, and neither was I. Your father and I agreed we would part ways before he knew I was pregnant. He said it was not fair to his wife or to his other children. And I agreed,” she added with a bolstering smile.
“Wait, go back. Rewind.” Nasira glanced up and paled. “Other children?”
“When we met he had three. Two girls and a boy. Who knows if he had any others. We were young, with hope for the future ahead of us.”
There was no regret there, no bitterness over their time spent and a relationship that never was and never would be. Neret accepted the love she felt for a man she should have never loved. Never wanted. Was surprised when he wanted her. She remembered the feeling when she stared at Nasira. The child only one of them had known about.
“I have sisters. A brother. I can’t believe you never told me.”
The wisp of a smile was gone. “What did you expect? Your father doesn’t know you’re alive. Do you think I was going to show up on his doorstep and present you? Ask him to leave his wife? He loved her. What happened between us was a mistake. Showing up was not part of the agreement we made.”
“You made an agreement?”
“Please, Nasira, try to understand.” There was a tiny frisson of fear working its way up Neret’s spine. She turned her head to watch Nasira’s face as she continued to speak. “We both felt it would be wrong to break up his family. I went on my way and vowed to keep my distance. To never see him again. Thus, here we are. And I never looked over my shoulder again.”
There had been more to her vision of Bast than she let on, more than the love and the urgency of the message she had to impart. Neret knew she didn’t have a lot of time to share the last of her secrets.
“Here we are,” Nasira repeated the words as her mind worked. A whole family outside of Boston and Egypt, people who shared her blood. Well, half her blood.
She’d grown up alone with Neret. The rest were too far away for more than the occasional visit. The two of them managed to get by even when times were tough. They scrimped and saved, and perhaps Nasira did not get everything on her Christmas list. Her days were filled with warmth and compassion. Love and laughter and a sense of responsibility because she knew firsthand what it was to work hard.
“I ruined things for you, didn’t I?” she had to ask. “I messed up your plans. Your opportunities to be with the man you love.”
Neret squeezed her hands. Felt like she was struggling to breath under water. “No, my baby. Never. Once I found out about you, my life changed, and so did my priorities. I had help from my family and the great people in town. I wouldn’t change a thing. Everything happened for a reason.”
“You have to say that because you’re my mom.”
“I don’t have to say anything. I say it because it’s true. And it’s time you knew the whole truth. This is a lot to take in. I understand.”
Nasira sat back, breaking the contact. The room was quiet, the brisk spring wind stirring outside the window. But beneath the stillness there was a storm inside of her. Swirling and crashing and making whitecaps in her mind. Tears burned behind her eyes. Her world tilted on its axis. She refused to let it crash.
“Can you at least tell me his name?”
“His name is Thorvald. Thorvald Cavaldi.”
CHAPTER 3
Brock stared at the kitchen, comprised almost entirely of boxes. How could one man and a one-year-old have so many things? And how had he managed to get them on top of his car? He thought packing up the rest of his apartment had been the worst experience of his life. Worse even than caring for a toddler on his own. Surveying the mess in front of him, he knew this would be tough to beat.
A scream from the other room interrupted his frustration. As he tensed to run, the voices on the television changed and Callie laughed, speaking gibberish to the people on the screen. Doc McStuffins, the new woman in his daughter’s life. At least the cartoon character was a good role model. A competent vet, after all.
The show reminded him of Nasira, who was next on his list of things to do. Right after he finished the kitchen and the never-ending process of getting the house in order. He’d unloaded the last box and found three more popping up in its place. They were multiplying like rabbits!
“Callie, sweetie? Do you want a snack?” He seized the opportunity to escape his cardboard prison if only to lose himself in the cooking process.
A happy gurgle was his answer and had Brock moving to the refrigerator. The single father life was not a roll he ever expected to fill. When he sat down in high school, with his yearbook open and detailing how he felt his future would unfold, he pictured travel. Exotic cities and people and food. His wanderlust was the most important aspect of his life and the leading reason why he and Nasira were no longer together. That, and her unwillingness to move.
He’d pictured her there in his future. Traveling alongside him as they toured the world and took in everything life had to offer. Instead, she’d balked, fighting him and arguing with equal fervor for staying at home. She had ended things between them before he even had an opportunity to make a choice.
Brock moved away. And through the experience, a piece of him hoped she would reconsider. She was too stubborn.
But she’d loved him once, which was something spectacular. He wasn’t sure he could have done anything to change her mind after their breakup. At the time, he’d felt he was ready for an all-encompassing love, although he’d never been able to think when it came to Nasira. It had terrified him when she refused to move. More so when she brought the ax down on them.
After college, he’d taken his time touring the United States. He saw the places on his bucket list and drove until the money ran out. Until he found a woman. A sweet, sensual siren who tugged
at his libido and drew him under her spell before he realized what was happening. Wasn’t it always a woman? The great beauties who brought even the strongest men to their knees?
Then back to Los Angeles it was when Ruby said she wanted to be an actress.
Brock would never regret her or their time together. It gave him Callie. But Ruby had never wanted to be a mother, not really, and she had only been willing to keep the baby at his urgings.
Four months after the baby was born, Ruby split, with nothing more than a note on the refrigerator. She’d tried, she told him. She’d tried to give motherhood a shot. The whole family life. It wasn’t for her and she couldn’t live being chained to a white picket fence.
He’d been twenty-four, living in Los Angeles with a child and a job at an accountant firm he hated. What had happened to those dreams? The places to go and things to do on his bucket list? The ones that remained unchecked? His passport was empty of stamps.
More and more his mind returned to home. To another woman with flashing eyes and wild, curling hair. It took him time to decide the best route for him and for his baby. It surprised him when the paternal instincts kicked into high gear. There was no more lamenting the loss of Ruby. He and Callie were perfect on their own and, the more time he spent taking care of her, the better he got. The more of a routine they established.
They didn’t need anyone else.
Brock cut the carrots into thin slices and mixed them with fresh peas, took the entire concoction into the living room.
“Here you are, sweet girl.” He set the plastic late down in front of his bouncing baby. Literally bouncing, the pads of her feet clad in a onesie the color of a spring rose.
He kissed the top of her hair—curls of dark fuzz in need of a trim—and breathed her into his lungs. “You happy with your show?”
She shot him a brief grin before grasping a handful of food, awkwardly shoving the whole fist into her mouth.
A knock at the door interrupted him. Brock rose, walking slowly toward the front.
“I’m coming,” he called out.
He gave the handle a pull, wood squeaking together, and saw his grandmother standing on the front stoop.
“You didn’t have to come over so quickly,” he told her, pulling the door opened. “I mentioned on the phone I want to go see Nasira today and might need a sitter later on. I didn’t mean for you to rush.”
She toddled inside and waved away his concern. “I was in the neighborhood.”
Brock swallowed a laugh. “Oh, really?”
“Yes, really. Leave me be.” Odessa gave him a quick swat on the behind. “Your girl is in good hands.”
Another great opportunity to take a break from the mess in the kitchen. At least he didn’t have to search for a better excuse. He took a second to kiss his daughter, grab a coat from the front hall closet, and scoot out the door before he told himself it was a bad idea.
Nasira lived several blocks over. He knew the way instinctively, had been over to her mother’s house time and again. No. He caught himself and stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. She didn’t live at home anymore. What had Odessa told him? She’d bought a house in town and flipped it from top to bottom. Handled the renovations herself.
He shook his head. It was a Nasira thing, he knew.
It took a little longer to find the address than he liked. His brain had to rewire itself again. Get back into old, nearly forgotten patterns. This was home. This was friendship and family and stability. None of which he’d had in Los Angeles.
Then he turned the corner and his eyes caught on a stout two-level building painted a cheerful yellow. It captured his attention immediately. A bright red porch swing swung lazily in the afternoon breeze. A weathervane in the shape of a dragon told him the wind came from the north. It was a place of peace, of magic. His heart stumbled against his chest and he stepped around to the front gate.
She was in the living room. Right there, several feet away, and the look of her was enough to have him want to burst into a million pieces. She’d always been beautiful. Her metamorphosis from a gawky teenager into woman added polish to her beauty.
Brock’s idea of her as a teenager merged with the woman in front of him to blend and morph. She let her hair grow. It tumbled in loose curls around her face. Her skin, a delightful dusky gold, would be soft to the touch. Her eyes large and almond-shaped in a strange combination of colors. There were full cupid’s bow lips, strong prominent cheekbones and a long straight nose. She didn’t see the need for face paint, for any sort of makeup.
He took his time studying her, his first thought was that the years had done wonders for her complexion, taking her out of pretty and firmly into the realm of gorgeous.
She caught his gaze through the window and he watched her face shift into a studied coolness. She didn’t smile, wouldn’t smile, as she walked out the front door toward him, dressed casually in a light turquoise sweater and jeans clinging to her long legs.
“I guess it’s true what they say about bad pennies,” she said, letting the screen snap shut behind her. “They keep turning up even after you throw them away. Brock Lockhart, right? Welcome home.”
Brock shook his head. The lyrical voice washed over him with more than a hint of sourness. It was deeper than he remembered. Smoother, silkier. The type of sound that snaked its way into his belly and turned it into knots. He welcomed the sensation even when he wondered over her detachment.
“Bad penny. It’s a hair better than the things you called me the last time we saw each other.” He kept his hands in the pockets of his jeans and shuffled from foot to foot. The picture of an unconcerned male. “It’s really good to see you, Nasira.” He deliberately tried to match her polite tone. “Really good.”
Nasira sniffed and kept her eyes averted, tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Wipe the wry grin off your face and get off my lawn. I have nothing to say to you.”
“Oh, I’m sure you could come up with a few things. You were never exactly the silent type.”
“Who I was and am is none of your business anymore.”
“I like what you’ve done with the house.” He was careful to keep his tone casual. “What I’ve seen of it from the outside.”
The old Miller place had been nothing more than a shack when he left town. Now, under Nasira’s ministrations and monetary attentions, the building had come to life. She’d replaced every window and most of the siding. The shutters were done in pure white and she had added a touch of whimsy with a bright blue door.
The house stood out in the best way.
A stone path wound from the street through the front yard and around the back. Here and there were garden beds in need of prepping for the coming season, with bulbs beginning to push their way into the light. She would nurture those blossoms as surely as she did the cats and dogs under her watch. With the same patience and hope of a natural born caregiver.
She angled her head in a quiet warning. “Too bad you’ll never get the grand tour.”
She saw him through her peripheral vision, the same tall, dark Brock. From a purely female perspective, it was hard not to like what she saw there. She approved of the muscles, strong and lean and barely visible from beneath his long-sleeved t-shirt and jacket. They rippled slightly when he drummed his fingers along the porch rail.
His melded background was visible in the slightly bronzed skin and the black hair long enough to fall to his shoulders. She noticed a few locks dreaded and braided, the sight nearly causing spit to dry in her mouth. His eyes were the same friendly hazel color. Almost out of place with the rest of him.
On a physical level, she found the package delectable. Any woman with a working brain would feel the same way. On an emotional level, she wanted to rip the smug smile off his face and watch him cry like a girl.
He looked the same way she remembered, dark, rugged, lean male. There was a ruggedness to his shoulders and a demand in his face that made him something more than handsome. His persona, at first
glance, put the people he met at ease with a casual grace, the result of years of practice.
“Remains to be seen. Won’t you let me inside?” Instead of letting the casual dismissal phase him, Brock moved closer. Those same fingertips had once touched her with such heat now trailed closer along her deck rail. “It’s a little chilly out here and I’m not equipped for the weather. It seems I ran out of the house without my scarf.”
It took everything she had to cross her arms over her chest. There was a hint of temper in her voice when she spoke again. A hint of bitterness. Hadn’t she had enough spills and thrills on the roller coaster of her life these last few days? “Too bad for you. It’s nice and warm in the living room and only one of us will get to enjoy it. And in case I wasn’t clear enough, it’s me.”
Brock’s lips twitched, holding back laughter. She was the same way he remembered, from the regal bearing of her shoulders to the deep brown edginess of her eyes. His heart began to beat a little faster as he took her in. Every disgruntled and angry inch of her.
She tried to be tough and maintain a stoic façade, but he knew better. He could see the hurt hidden beneath the prickly exterior. She was still one of the most exquisite creatures in the world.
She kept her arms crossed and her gaze carefully latched on the weeds needing to be plucked from the garden. “Well?”
“Well, what? I’m waiting for my invitation.”
“I didn’t realize it was okay to ignore a demand. I think you need to leave. Get off my property.” Arching a brow, she continued when he failed to speak. “That’s your cue.”
“I’m not going anywhere until we have our time. It’s simple, Nasira. We need to talk.”
“Then you’re going to be out here for a while.”
Brock imprinted the details of her into his mind. From the glint of rubies in her earlobes down to the long elegant fingers. There was a sweet scent in the air that had nothing to do with the burgeoning spring and everything to do with the angry woman staring down at him.