Spellbound Falls [5] For the Love of Magic

by Janet Chapman

  “I’m torn between admiration and pity,” Peg said, “when I think of you being married to him for thousands of years. You want me and Charlie to walk up the road to give you a little privacy?”

  Rana reached over to stop Peg from unbuckling her seat belt. “That isn’t necessary. But listen closely,” she added, patting Peg’s arm, “and maybe you’ll learn an impressive trick of your own for the next time Duncan starts flexing his muscles at you.” Rana then pressed the button to lower her window when the small red car backed up and stopped beside them again. “If you’re heading to Missy Maher’s,” she said to her glowering husband, “I don’t believe she’s returned from her grange meeting yet.”

  “What makes you think I’m going to Ms. Maher’s?”

  “I can’t imagine why you would be driving down this road other than to show off your fancy new car to the most eligible spinster in Spellbound Falls,” Rana said, reaching over and squeezing Peg’s arm when the woman started choking.

  “I’m down here to see my wife.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I must have missed your phone call.”

  He had the good grace to look contrite. “It appears I left without my phone this morning. Therefore,” he went on when she tried to speak, “I decided to simply ask you in person to have lunch with me today.”

  “I’m rather busy today, Titus,” she said as she started raising the window. “Try calling me later on in the week.” But she suddenly stopped the window halfway up as she made a point of running her gaze over his newest purchase. “Did the motorcycle turn out to be a little too spirited for you?”

  “I purchased this car so you would be comfortable on our dates.”

  “Oh,” she said with a pronounced pout. “I was looking forward to our zooming through the countryside on that motorcycle together. You remember how I used to wrap my arms around you and hold on for dear life, don’t you, my love?” she said in a husky purr as she slowly started raising the window again, “when I’d sneak away to meet you in the meadow and we would race the wind on your powerful warhorse?” She started the truck, then gave the slack-jawed blackguard a jaunty wave as she headed out the camp road at the speed of a racing turtle.

  “I want . . .” Peg cleared her throat. “I want to amend what I said earlier. I don’t know whether to admire or pity Titus.”

  “I specifically asked him not to drop in unannounced,” Rana explained, only to mutter a curse—in Greek, for Charlie’s sake—when the truck stalled again.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me and Charlie to take a hike?” Peg drawled when Rana’s window lowered without her touching the button.

  “Why are you driving the MacKeages’ vehicle?” Titus asked when he halted beside them again. His eyes suddenly widened. “Zeus’s teeth, you don’t drive!”

  “Of course I do. I’ve been driving for nearly four years.”

  “Electric carts on resort paths.”

  “Same concept, different applications,” Rana said. “We’re leaving on our errands now, and I would appreciate it if our vehicle continued running.”

  “Wait. You didn’t say why you are driving.”

  She gave a negligent shrug. “Peg was kind enough to let me try out her truck to see if this is the model I should buy.” She made a production of running her gaze over the small red sports car again, wondering how the man had folded himself inside it. “But maybe I’ll buy myself something more fun. Good-bye, my love. Enjoy this beautiful day.”

  “Thank you,” Peg murmured when Rana started driving down the road again.

  She glanced over in surprise. “For what?”

  “For making my day. So, how about we drive to Turtleback so I can pick up a couple of bags of chicken feed? That way we’ll be killing two birds with one stone.”

  Rana gently braked to a stop when they reached the main road. “You expect me to drive all the way to Turtleback Station? It’s over thirty miles one way,” she added, frowning. “And what two birds are we killing?”

  “One, you’ll be driving like a pro by the time we get back,” Peg said. “And two, we really will be doing errands, so you didn’t just lie to your husband.”

  “If a woman can’t lie to her husband, who can she lie to?”

  Peg’s beautiful blue eyes widened. “We’re supposed to lie to them?”

  “Every chance we get.” Rana glanced in the rearview mirror to make sure Titus wasn’t behind them, then lifted the shifting lever into park. “In fact,” she continued as she unfastened her seat belt and pulled her cell phone out of her jacket pocket, “it’s our duty to lie to them.”

  “It is? Why?”

  “To kill two birds with one stone.”

  “Um, which two birds are you talking about?”

  “The first reason is to keep them from taking us for granted.” Rana tapped a picture, hit the speakerphone button, then smiled at her gaping passenger. “Oh, I’m sorry, sweetheart,” she said when Titus answered with a hesitant although expectant hello. “I seem to have accidently called you. But aren’t you glad to discover you didn’t forget your phone after all? Talk to you later, my love,” she finished, tapping the END button on his silence. She refastened her seat belt and pulled the shifting lever back into drive. “And that, my friend, is bird number two.”

  “Ohmigod,” Peg said behind her raised hand. “I can’t believe you just did that.”

  “What can’t you believe?” Rana asked, pulling onto the main road in the direction of town. “That I knew Titus was lying about forgetting his phone, or that I let him know I knew he was lying?” She gave an exaggerated sigh. “Sometimes I can’t decide whether to admire or pity myself.” She shot Peg a wink. “But the majority of the time I feel like the luckiest woman on the planet.”

  “Cinibums!” Charlie suddenly cried as Rana idled through town watching for determined grange ladies. “Mama, cinibums!”

  Peg muttered something under her breath and turned to her son with a huge smile. “The cinnamon bun fairy is taking a nap, Charlie. But I bet if you take a nap, too, you’ll see her in your dreams and she’ll give you a bun.”

  “Lying to children, however,” Rana drawled when Peg faced forward again, “will always come back and bite you on the behind.”

  • • •

  Titus stood on his wife’s beachfront, facing the large metal whale rising out of the wind-driven waves, and wondered yet again what Rana was hoping to accomplish by leaving him. Any fool could see that needing a breath of fresh air was merely an excuse to mask the real reason for her little rebellion, because last he knew, loving wives did not abandon their loving husbands while continuing to call them “sweetheart” and “my love.” Nor did they blatantly flirt—at least not in front of others—much less allude to their youthful and decidedly passionate antics. As for her desertion being a means to force him to explore the everyday wonders of this world . . . well, that was an even more futile attempt to direct his attention away from the real problem.

  Studying the detailed features layered into the rusted patina of the twenty-foot whale, Titus couldn’t help but appreciate what a feat it must have been to set the massive statue in place. Either Averill Latimer had enjoyed a good challenge or he’d loved his grandson very much to have wrestled that supporting post into the granite seabed, which would only be exposed for short periods of time during low tide.

  Titus smiled at the realization that he at least knew why his wife wanted to create beautiful works of art under the tutelage of young Zachary, as the teenager really was quite talented. And early in their short courtship, he had discovered that Rana had been the driving force behind her father redesigning the utilitarian utensils he forged by encouraging him to keep in mind the women who used them, which had smartly elevated the humble blacksmith to that of artisan.

  But Rana needn’t have run off in order to try her hand at metalwork; she need only have asked to set up a workshop at Nova Mare or at home on Atlantis. And she very well knew that. So despite alluding to it
during his visit a few days ago, recapturing her youth was no more convincing than her needing a breath of fresh air.

  Titus sat down on a boulder and rested his arms on his knees. Despite being only fifteen at the time, the beautiful and spirited and surprisingly astute maiden he had fallen in love with the moment he’d looked into those big brown eyes had agreed to marry him only if he agreed never to use his magic on her. He’d nearly broken that vow when she’d given birth to Carolina, but even then the woman had been adamant that Providence be the one deciding her fate. Well, he thought with a humorless laugh, Providence and Rana’s own determination not to leave her two precious children in his care.

  His beautiful wife was not, however, averse to using the magic when it suited her purposes, such as turning a blind eye when Olivia had asked Maximilian for help persuading Roger Bentley to come practice medicine in Spellbound Falls. Nor was Rana reluctant to dip into her husband’s bottomless satchel of money whenever she needed funds for one of her projects. Or to purchase a crooked house and a tired old sailboat, he thought with a groan. But then, whatever was his was hers, as he could deny her nothing.

  Titus stared down at his clasped hands dangling between his knees and decided the woman must be hiding something so horrifying, she had felt the need to—

  He suddenly straightened. Horrifying, yes, but only because it concerned him!

  “Poseidon’s teeth,” he quietly growled. “She’s protecting me.”

  Rana feared nothing, not even dying. And that meant the only thing with the power to make her run was if she thought she was protecting him. But he was virtually invincible. Hell, the combined power of the gods hadn’t been able to defeat him in the thousands of years he’d been championing mankind.

  Surely the woman didn’t believe he was in mortal danger. She not only knew the width and depth of his power, she also understood the more subtle nuances of the magic he commanded. In fact, they had been married only a few months when his still relatively young wife had begun serving mankind right alongside him—though she tended to focus more on women’s issues.

  So if Rana truly was protecting him, it must be from something she felt had the power to destroy him. And that put her in harm’s way as well, because if he was sure of anything, it was that his wife would not sit idly by while his enemies rose against him.

  But which enemies?

  And more importantly, how had Rana sensed the threat when he had not?

  Titus cradled his head in his hands and stared down at the incoming tide lapping the toes of his boots. Rana had no command of the magic, which meant her female intuition had sensed he was in danger, and she had apparently decided running away was her only means of protecting him.

  Not that she’d run very far. But if that were the case, then purchasing a house in the same town, not to mention the same century, didn’t make sense. Unless she wanted to be nearby when . . . No, it simply didn’t make sense. And no matter how confounding she might be sometimes, Rana was always sensible.

  He was no closer to figuring out what was going on than when he’d found himself crawling into an empty bed seven nights ago. At this rate, hell would be frozen solid before—

  Titus snapped his head up, then rose to his feet when the massive whale breached dangerously close to shore. “Leviathan,” he called in surprise as the ancient warrior slapped back into the water. No sooner had the splash settled when a handful of orcas surfaced, the largest of the sea wolves breaking away from the pod and speeding toward shore. “Kitalanta, no!”

  Frantically looking to see if any neighbors were around as well as scanning the water for nearby boats, Titus raised his arms to capture the percussion he knew was coming and muffled the boom of the orca’s transformation as it slammed onto the gravel beach. “You accursed beast,” he said tightly, striding toward the four-legged, fur-covered wolf stumbling to catch its footing. “You know you can’t pull this kind of stunt in broad daylight within sight of mortals.”

  Only instead of becoming submissive, the large northern timber wolf turned to face the water, its hackles raised as it gave a menacing growl. Titus stiffened and also looked out at Bottomless. “What is it?” he asked just as Leviathan surfaced, the whale emitting a series of low-frequency clacks.

  Titus muttered a curse and began undressing. “You will stay and guard your queen’s home,” he instructed the wolf as he shed his jacket, his focus now on the storm squall forming to the south. “Stay hidden and do not let so much as a mouse on the property.” He sat down and took off his boots, stood up and looked around again to make sure they were alone, and took off his shirt. “Any threat will be coming by sea, though I doubt whoever it is will dare venture this close to Maximilian’s magic.” He unbuckled his belt. “I will leave half your pod to patrol out front and send the other half to guard the entrance to the fiord. All of you are to remain on duty until you hear from me personally.” He dropped his pants and walked into the water up to his waist, then stopped and looked back. “And Kitalanta? Mortals are not the threat, so don’t eat any of them, especially my wife’s young employee, should he show up.”

  Confident his orders would be obeyed, Titus turned and dove into the sea—only to have his urgency change to that of curiosity when he sank below the surface and felt a new and unfamiliar energy pulsing through the water.

  Chapter Six

  Rana tightened her grip on the steering wheel when a gale-force wind suddenly buffeted the truck just as lightning lit up the trees to their left.

  “Wow, where did this come from?” Peg said as a curtain of heavy rain swept over them from the direction of Bottomless. “That second lever on the left side of the steering column turns on the wipers. Just twist the end of it.”

  Rana felt for the switch, not wanting to take her eyes off the ominously darkened road. “Maybe I should pull over and let you drive.”

  “Naw,” Peg said above the sound of the pummeling rain and frantic slap of the wipers. She touched a button on the dash, which Rana assumed was the defroster when warm air pushed up from the windshield toward her. “It’s not cold enough to freeze, so the road won’t get slippery. And this is just an ordinary old rainstorm. Um, isn’t it? I mean, we don’t usually get thunderstorms this time of year.”

  “I’m sorry,” Rana said with a laugh, hoping to mask her own alarm. “You seem to have me mixed up with the men in our lives. I wouldn’t know an ordinary rainstorm from an epic event, since I’m usually hiding under the bed when either one arrives.”

  “You mean that even after being married to Titus all these years you still can’t tell the difference? Well, bummer,” Peg said when Rana shrugged in an attempt to appear nonchalant. “I was hoping Duncan’s magic would eventually rub off on me and I’d be able to start doing . . . stuff.” She held up her left arm and pulled back her jacket sleeve to expose the wide metal cuff on her wrist. “This thing doesn’t do anything unless Duncan wants it to. Or his mountain feels like freaking me out and starts making the stupid thing vibrate for no reason.” She dropped her arm. “I’m never going to be able to do anything?”

  “Sorry, I’m afraid magic-makers have a monopoly on—” Rana stomped on the brake, the tires chattering on the wet pavement as the truck jerked to a stop. “Sweet Athena, what is that?”

  “It . . . they look like . . . those are friggin’ trees running toward us,” Peg said over the racing thump of the wipers.

  The truck rocked on another gust of wind just as the two-legged tree in front of no less than a dozen other trees suddenly spotted them and also halted, then held out two leaf-covered branches to stop the small . . . grove and apparently say something to them. The group suddenly split, with half bolting into the forest toward Bottomless and the other half—including the leader—into the woods on the opposite side of the road.

  Rana heard her passenger heave a relieved sigh. “I know what they are. Or rather, who they are,” Peg said. “We’re not far from that colony of weirdos that Duncan has decided are just a
bunch of nature nuts. Probably beechnuts and acorns,” she said with a snicker, waving at the woods. “They must dress up like trees when it rains and run around being one with nature.” Peg checked on Charlie in the backseat, then faced forward again. “Too bad he’s sleeping, because I bet the little guy would have loved to tell his brothers and sisters he saw a whole herd of tree fairies. Ah, you might want to get going,” she added, gesturing behind them. “And next time not stop in the middle of the road, especially in a storm. Unlike the resort paths, you’re likely to get rear-ended by someone going sixty miles an hour.”

  Rana quickly started down the road again as fast as she dared, considering it was still raining hard enough to keep the wipers on high, and decided a bit of small talk might help calm her own nerves as she kept an eye out for more two-legged trees. Because in truth, she was fairly certain this was not an ordinary rainstorm. “So, Peg, have you made peace with Providence for giving you another set of twins?” she asked. “Seven children are a few more than you planned on having, isn’t it?”

  Peg looked over in surprise, then smiled. “Can you keep a secret?” she asked, only to tap herself on the forehead. “What am I saying? You’re the queen of secret keeping.”

  “Yes,” Rana said dryly, “everyone knows how much I love secrets. So what’s yours?” she quickly added, realizing she may have sounded sarcastic.

  “Well, if you want to know the truth,” Peg said hesitantly. “I wouldn’t mind having a dozen little heathens.”

  Rana frowned out the windshield. “But did you not have an operation after Peter and Jacob were born to prevent you from having more children?”

  “Yes, I did,” Peg drawled, sounding more than a little sarcastic herself. “But apparently nobody told Providence—or Duncan, either—that having your tubes tied is supposed to prevent pregnancy.” She sighed again. “Billy would have loved to have more children, but four were all we could comfortably afford. But now that money is no longer the deciding factor, and seeing how Duncan wouldn’t mind having two dozen, we’ve decided to . . . Well, if it’s a choice between abstinence and letting Providence decide how many we end up with, I’m going with Providence.” Rana glanced over to see Peg shake her head. “I know people in town are whispering behind my back,” Peg continued, “and wondering if I’m an idiot for getting pregnant again, but I don’t care. I like children, and I’ll damn well have a big family if I want to.”