Whatever the reason, each couple could only ever have one child. Their obligation was to have that child and raise it to adulthood together.
Because of this unexplainable but indisputable fact, nobody within the Dragon Clan had ever experienced having siblings, or having more than one child to take care of, and it left them somewhat inadequate in coping with children that came in multiples. Eamon’s only experience with children came from his casework, but in those situations, he rarely dealt with a child one-on-one.
Now he was suddenly going to a mall to meet with two girls under the age of ten and persuade them that he was not to be feared or avoided and that he had no romantic designs on their mother.
It was a tall task, particularly since, under other circumstances, Eamon would definitely have had romantic designs. Autumn was his opposite in many ways. He was six-foot-two and she was probably a full foot shorter. She was tiny and delicate, while he was broad and muscled. He found that sentences that contained the fewest words were most effective, while she clearly ascribed to the opposite philosophy.
But if she hadn’t been his client, and if she hadn’t had two kids, he would definitely have been working out the best way to ask her on a date right now. He wondered if she had any idea, and what she would say.
Under different circumstances.
He pulled into the mall parking lot and glanced over at Autumn so she could direct him as to where to park.
“Oh,” she said, sitting straighter in her seat and looking around. “Uh, down that way. They’re by the south entrance, Tamara said.”
He nodded and eased his way down the busy parking lot, heading for one of the parking spots closer to the south entrance. From a distance, he saw a particularly good spot, and he put his foot down on the gas pedal, his Mazda3 hatchback singing as it leapt forward, zoomed around a corner, and slipped into the parking spot before any other car could grab it.
“Woah,” Autumn said, gripping the arm of her door. “I didn’t realize this car had so much get-up-and-go. I’m driving a twenty-year-old Nissan. Its version of get-up-and-go is more like give-up-and-slow.”
Eamon smiled at her, unbuckling and getting out of the car so he could join her on her side.
“You know, you have this weird habit of not replying when I say something,” Autumn said, as they walked toward the entrance. “Do you do that with everyone, or do I annoy you?”
He looked at her in surprise. “You don’t annoy me.”
“You just do that with everyone then?”
Eamon looked ahead of him as they crossed the street from the parking lot to the mall entrance. “I don’t talk much. I never have. Sorry if I was rude—I don’t always realize that people are expecting a reply.”
“That’s okay,” Autumn told him. “Just, with the kids—”
Whatever tip she was going to give him didn’t have the chance to come out of her mouth. As they approached the mall entrance, a small child with hair the exact color of Autumn’s came flying out the door and into her mother’s arms.
“Momma! You’re never going to guess what,” the child said, wrapping her skinny legs around Autumn’s waist as her mother—somehow—picked her up and held her. “So I was in the toy store, you know? The one with the doll that can wet itself? You know I wanted that one for a long time, and I was lookin’ at it. And then—then a woman gave it to me! She said I could have it, like for a present! Tamara says she has to hold it until you can see it and say if it’s okay, but Momma! She gave it to me, like for a present!”
Autumn had her arms underneath her daughter’s legs, holding the child up on her hips as she listened to the flood of excitement pouring from her pixie-like face. As Eamon watched, Autumn nodded along with every word, right up until the little girl said that a woman had given her the doll. The concern that came over Autumn’s expression was unmistakable—at least to Eamon—and he had to admit that he shared her concern.
Why, all of a sudden, had a stranger decided to bestow such a generous gift on a little girl, and was it really a coincidence that it had happened right after Autumn’s family, and her children specifically, had been threatened?
“Momma!” The little girl was clearly disappointed with her mother’s lack of excitement, and she was tugging on Autumn’s collar, her bottom lip out. “Say I can have the present, pleeeeease?”
“Hold on,” Autumn said, kissing the girl’s temple and lowering her back to the ground. “Let me just think about it and talk to Tamara.”
Eamon glanced to his left to see that an older woman and a child who was older than the excitable one and much calmer had stepped out of the entrance, and he assumed that they also belonged with Autumn.
Autumn and Tamara exchanged looks that Eamon didn’t catch the significance of, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it. The child who had been put on the ground was now staring up at him with wide green eyes.
“Are you a vampire?”
Eamon had to bite back a spontaneous laugh as he stared down at the small child, not wanting to offend her when she looked so serious about her question. “No,” he said. “I’m not.” Of course, he was in the Dragon Clan and had just spent the night before flying high above the trees before nesting at the top of one, but he didn’t think that adding those details would be beneficial. Instead, he asked her, “Are you?”
“No!” She looked offended that he would even ask, her tiny brow furrowing. “Of course not!”
“Rachel,” Autumn chided, her arm around the older child now. “Be nice. Girls, this is Mr. Cleary, and he’s helping Mommy on a research project. He knows a lot about Boston and the stuff that happens here. We were working, and I thought you might like to meet him. Eamon, this is Anna,” Autumn said, gesturing the older girl tucked under her arm. “Ms. Precocious there is Rachel, my youngest. And this,” she said, gesturing to the older woman standing nearby, “is Tamara. My angel.”
Eamon nodded at all of them and shook Tamara’s hand. “Hi. You can call me Eamon.”
“That sounds like a vampire name.”
“Rachel!” Autumn put her hand on her daughter’s head and brought Rachel back toward her. “We don’t say things like that to people, sweetie. Mr. Cleary is a very nice man.”
“Vampires can be nice, Mom,” Rachel said, tipping her head all the way back to look up at her mother. “Some of them try really hard not to eat people.”
Autumn let out a nervous laugh. “Okay then, sweetheart. But Mr. Cleary isn’t a vampire. He’s just a nice, normal man who is helping me, and I thought that you girls might want to meet him.”
Eamon wasn’t sure that “normal” was the right word to describe him, but he didn’t contest her statement. He crouched down, focusing for the moment on Rachel, who seemed to be the one with the biggest personality—and therefore was the most intimidating one. Clearing his throat, he stuck out his hand. “Hi, Rachel. It’s nice to meet you. You look like your mother.”
She put her hand in his and shook it firmly. “Hi. A lady in a store gave me a present.”
“I heard that, yes.”
“It’s a doll that pee-pees.”
“That’s very realistic.”
“Yeah. It’s pretty cool,” Rachel agreed. “What’s your job? Are you a gravedigger?”
Autumn groaned. “Rachel!”
“Mom, his face is so white!”
“I’m an investigator,” Eamon said, shaking his head at Autumn to assure her that he wasn’t offended. “I solve mysteries and research weird stuff.”
“What kind of weird stuff?”
“All kinds,” he said. Then he looked up at Anna, who was far less receptive to him than Rachel. He nodded to her, not offering her his hand in case she wasn’t into that. “Hi, Anna.”
She nodded back at him. “Hi.”
“She doesn’t like Momma to have friends who are boys,” Rachel said, explaining her sister’s aloof behavior. “She thinks that they’ll become our new daddies, and she doesn’t want a new daddy. Our
s died.”
Eamon nodded. “I know. I’m sorry about that.” Then he looked back at Anna and held up his hands. “I’m just a friend. I already have someone to marry.” It was true—in a sense. Somewhere out there was the woman who was going to be assigned to him as a mate, so he did have someone to marry, even if he had never met her and probably wouldn’t for several more years. The statement had the intended effect on Anna though.
“Nice to meet you,” she said, offering him a small smile.
“Wanna eat slushies with us in the food court?” Rachel asked, grabbing his hand. “Tamara’s taking us.”
Eamon hesitated, glancing up at Autumn. Surely he had done his duty of setting the girls’ minds at ease in case they ever had to run into him. What he really wanted to do was get started on the case—the clearing was calling to him, and he wanted to have plenty of time before nightfall to explore it.
“Oh, Mr. Cleary has work to do,” Autumn told Rachel, reaching for her other daughter’s hand and tugging her back lightly. “And Mommy has to go help him for a little while. Then I’ll meet you back here, okay?”
Rachel’s mouth dropped open in distress. “But, Momma! You love slushies with us. And you haven’t looked at my doll yet. Why do you have to go away? I thought it was your day off. You can’t work on your day off.”
“Honey…” Autumn hugged her daughter close and kissed her head. “I know. We’re supposed to spend today together, aren’t we?”
“Slushies are fine,” Eamon said, knowing Autumn was torn. He wanted to go to the clearing right away, but he couldn’t bear to tell her that she couldn’t have a treat at the mall food court with her daughters first. She could always just give him directions to the clearing, but he didn’t suggest that yet. He would see how the slushies went, and if the girls were still reluctant to give up their mother at that point, he would reassess.
But maybe sitting down with them for a few minutes wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. It had been a long time since he’d seen a mother so close with her children, and though it made him wistful as he thought of his own mother, it also made him happy to see how Autumn doted on her kids.
“Thank you,” Autumn whispered to him as she ushered the girls inside and he followed. “We won’t stay long.”
“It’s fine,” he assured her. “Nice girls.”
She smiled at him. “Thanks. I think so too.”
Chapter Six
Autumn
She managed to put off Rachel’s questions about her doll present until she and Tamara had gotten the girls their orange slushies and found a table away from the worst of the crowds to sit down and enjoy them, but Rachel wouldn’t be put off any further as she slurped at her drink and pushed the toy store bag toward Autumn.
“Momma, look, look! Look at my doll. Please say I can keep it. Please?”
Autumn tugged the bag toward her and peeked inside, seeing the boxed doll with eyes that blinked, limbs that moved, and a bladder that released. Rachel had been obsessed with this doll for a long time, but it was over thirty dollars, and Autumn just didn’t have that kind of money to spend on such things. She had been saving the purchase for Christmas or a birthday instead. But now the doll was here, and Autumn wasn’t really sure why.
Easing the doll out of the bag, she looked at it without taking it out of the package, then glanced at Tamara. “So, what happened with this?”
Tamara, sipping on an orange slushy of her own, shook her head. “I was looking at Lego sets with Anna, and Rachel was at the end of the aisle, looking at the dolls. A woman talked to her, and I saw her out of the corner of my eye. An older woman. Very grandmotherly. She seemed sweet. She talked to Rachel for a minute, then handed her the doll and ushered her away. I couldn’t hear what they said, but Rachel keeps telling me the woman said that she’d paid for the doll for Rachel. And when I asked the cashier…sure enough, it had been paid for.”
“She was like a fairy godmother,” Rachel said, awed. “I got a present from a fairy.”
Autumn considered that, if Rachel were right, it wouldn’t be the strangest thing that had happened to her family in the last week. Anytime a stranger tried to interfere with her child, it always sent up a red flag for Autumn. She had worked in the ER for many years, and she had heard far too many horror stories about the things that could happen to children in the blink of an eye at the hand of some stranger. The woman could have been attempting to kidnap Rachel. Or she could be grooming her for some later capture. Or she could have done something to doll…
Or she could just be an older woman with lots of money and nobody to spend it on. Maybe her kids were dead or not speaking with her…or maybe she didn’t have any kids. The woman could have just been doing something nice, and the chances that she was going to use the doll as leverage later seemed slim.
Had Autumn been there with Rachel, she would have kindly refused the woman’s gift and explained to Rachel that they couldn’t just take things from strangers. But the deed was already done, and Rachel was looking up at her with such wide, hopeful eyes that Autumn handed her the boxed doll.
“Okay, sweetie,” Autumn said, smiling at the little girl’s happy face. “You can have it. But you need to know that that’s not—” she broke off as Rachel squealed and began to tear at the top of the box. “Rachel? That’s not—Rachel. Honey.” She put her hand over the box and made her daughter look her in the eye. “That’s not going to happen again, okay? We don’t take things from strangers. I’m sure she was a very nice lady, but if that ever happens again, you find me or Tamara right away, okay?”
“Okay,” Rachel agreed cheerfully, ripping into her box at the same time. “I’m going to fill her with water right away, and then she’s going to go potty.”
Autumn turned to Anna, who, as usual, was watching all of the commotion thoughtfully. “I wish Rachel had been as enthusiastic about the potty when I was potty training her,” Autumn told her oldest, earning herself a smile from the girl. Anna was so much like her father—more thoughtful and serious, always thinking before she spoke. Rachel was a spitfire just like Autumn and they were lucky if she ever stopped talking. But Anna was her sober, serious one, who was far too mature for her nine years.
“I think it’s fine, Mom,” Anna said. “I saw the lady. She looked nice.”
“I’m sure it’s fine too,” Autumn agreed, turning for the first time to her own drink and taking a sip as she looked across the table at Eamon. She felt sorry for him as he sat there at the far edge of the table, clearly uncertain as to how to act around her daughters, but gamely trying to give Autumn the chance to spend a few minutes with them. She caught his eye and gave him a smile that he returned, holding up his red slushy.
“Never had one before.”
“You’re kidding,” Autumn said, putting her hand against her chest. “The humanity! How have you survived so long without a slushy?”
“Who knew?” He shrugged, taking another sip of the ultra-sweet liquid that held just a hint of cherry taste. Mainly all that coated his tongue was ice and sugar.
Rachel was utterly preoccupied with her new doll and with persuading Tamara to get her a cup of water to fill the doll with, but Anna, Autumn could tell, was carefully studying Eamon. After a moment, the nine-year-old spoke.
“Do you have kids?”
Eamon took a minute to realize that she was talking to him, but then quickly swallowed a gulp of slushy. “Uh, no. Not yet.”
“Not until after you marry that woman?”
“That’s right,” Eamon agreed.
Anna’s question reminded Autumn of the strange statement that Eamon had made to the girls, about having someone to marry already. Though they hadn’t specifically discussed it, she had just gotten the feeling that he was single. Maybe it was the way he looked at her every now and then, as though he was appreciating her rather than just seeing her. Had she imagined that? She wasn’t exactly a tall, leggy model-type, but she’d experienced enough admiration in her life tha
t she thought she knew how to recognize it in a man, but maybe she was off her game.
After all, she hadn’t gone on even one date since Robert had passed away, and she had been with him for over ten years. It had been a long, long time since she had been active in the dating scene, and she didn’t see that changing any time soon, given how protective the girls were of her. She also just wasn’t sure she was ready.
She definitely wasn’t ready if she was imagining admiration vibes from an engaged man.
“So you’re engaged,” she said, prompting Eamon. She had learned already that he wasn’t going to offer any information on his own. “How long?”
“I’m…not engaged,” he said, seeming to hesitate. “I just have someone who I will marry. Someday.”
Autumn laughed slightly. “That’s sort of the definition of being engaged, isn’t it? I mean, when you propose, you ask the woman if she will marry you…someday. And if she says yes, then you will get married…someday. So you’re engaged.”
“In a way.”
Confused, Autumn glanced over at Tamara, who shrugged briefly, then went back to obsessing with Rachel over her new doll.
“Okay, well, what’s she like?” Autumn asked, trying to get information that way.
“Couldn’t say.”
Now Anna was curious too. Curious enough that she leaned forward, pushing her slushy to the side. “You can’t say what she’s like? Is it a mail order bride from Eastern Europe?”
Autumn laughed, putting her arm around her eldest’s shoulders. “Uh, sweetie, I’m sure it’s not a mail order bride. Where did you learn about that?”
“One of my friends from school said her dad got one,” Anna said, lifting a shoulder. “Arranged marriages still happen, Mom. It’s a fact.”
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