by Jane Cousins
Quinn sped up the memory triple fast, which made Hadleigh feel slightly nauseous as the family group finished lunch in record time … urgh. Then abruptly the memory ground to a halt. Maureen had a cup of coffee in her hand and a large slice of untouched Christmas pudding on the plate in front of her. Hadleigh couldn’t figure out why they had stopped at his point in the memory when Maureen suddenly leaned back tilting her head slightly so she could, ah, hear the conversation between Alma and her older brother Edward who was seated on the other side of Alma. Good old eavesdropping cousin Maureen.
“I know it was you Ward.”
Hadleigh couldn’t see Great Uncle Edward through Maureen’s eyes, but she could picture him, close cropped grey hair, serious brown eyes, no doubt dressed in blue jeans and a comfortable shirt.
“It’s a crime to want my baby sister to come home for a visit?”
Alma huffed a small laugh. “You could have just asked Ward. Salmonella was a bit drastic don’t you think?”
“No.” Edward responded in a teasing tone Hadleigh didn’t think she’d ever heard before. “An iceberg would have been drastic.”
Alma laughed freely this time. “And very hard to explain in the Bay of Bengal.” Alma let out a small sigh. “It’s a wasted visit Ward, I can’t do it anymore.”
“Can’t or won’t? There is a big difference Alma. Look at us. Really look at the family. Here right now, even with only a fifth of our number present we might look strong, but you can sense we are dying out, the family grid growing weaker. It’s inevitable if things continue to go on as they have.”
“Has no one stepped up? No one even tried?” Alma sounded angry.
“Yes, a couple of years ago Maybelle took up matchmaker duties.”
“Maybelle! That ditz?” Now Alma sounded horrified.
“She was willing to try. Long story short; three marriages - three divorces.”
Alma smothered a small gasp. “The council allowed non meld marriages to occur?”
“We were desperate. But the fall out was worse than we could have foreseen. The current generation, well, they’re very anti-marriage now.”
Alma snorted softly in amusement. “Ward, every generation is anti-marriage. You forget yourself, man about town, out with a different girl every week until I put Annabeth in your path.”
“And I thank the Goddess every night for your actions.”
“But you didn’t at the time I recall. Of course back then I was only just coming into my powers, I grew much more subtle in my approach as the years passed.”
Now it was Edward’s turn to laugh. “That is not the story I hear from some of the younger generation, the stories they tell of your meddling ways still make me laugh.”
Alma joined him chuckling. “Ungrateful little snots, the lot of them.”
“You know they still call you the Sherman Tank.” Edward teased.
Then a new voice broke into the conversation. Suddenly I was yanked out of second cousin Maureen and found myself across the table with a coffee pot in hand; splashing liquid over the brim of an already overfilled coffee cup.
“Subtly can kiss my ass, match me.”
Instantly I knew I was in Gaia’s body, filled with her memories of the day and not just that day, I was assailed by a completely alien feeling of despair. No wonder Gaia had gone a little bit gaga, behind her sweet exterior hid a soul deep need to be a wife and mother that bordered on painful. Gaia had overheard the tail end of the conversation between Alma and Edward from across the table as she’d stopped to refill someone’s coffee cup.
“Gaia, this is not the time.” Edward’s modulated warning tone would normally have Gaia quivering in her shoes and apologising for her outburst.
But not today, not with this ray of hope that was suddenly within her grasp. Ignoring Great Uncle Edward, the Head of the family council, Gaia remained solely focused on Alma. “Match me!”
“Be careful what you wish for little girl and how you go about asking for it.” Alma’s brown eyes sparked with anger and strange little golden flecks that flashed and winked.
“I’ve been asking the Goddess every night for fifteen years. I’m tired of waiting, of being patient. I’m thirty-five years of age and I’m not getting any younger or any more fertile. So fuck subtly! Match me! I don’t care if he had one eyebrow and doesn’t speak a word of English. I want a husband and babies.”
Those little flecks of gold in Alma’s eyes flashed searingly bright making Gaia want to look away but unable to do anything but maintain eye contact.
Suddenly thanks to Quinn I was back in my own body, staring up the length of the table at the weird confrontation going on between Gaia and Great Aunt Alma. It was almost strange to hear Alma with my own two ears.
“Done little girl, done. But every wish needs to be earnt.” Alma cast her gaze up and down Gaia’s long flowing flowery smock dress giving a little moue of distaste. “One stormy night soon you will have your one eye-browed foreigner but to catch his eye and keep it you need to start wearing fitted tops, low cut fitted tops.”
“And that is that.” Quinn looked around the table at each of her cousins, her blue eyes glowing softly. Back at the wedding, back in real time. “Gaia threw away all the hippy muumuus and started wearing tube tops and three short weeks later Sergei turns up at Gaia’s house seeking shelter from that hideous storm, speaking hardly more than five words of English. He took one look down her top and the rest as they say is history. Trust me, I’ve seen the memory you don’t want me to share it with you.” Quinn’s delicate shoulders shuddered under the weight of that memory and the many others she held.
“I think all of you are missing the point.” Riya commented as she snagged two more bottles of red wine from a passing waiter. “Alma stayed.” She met the blank looks around the table rolling her hazel eyes in exasperation. “Uncle Edward talked Alma into staying. And if she’s staying I can only presume she has done so to resume her role as matchmaker.” She promptly filled her glass to the brim and passed the bottle along.
“Do you see anything?” Charisse demanded. “Who’s next?”
“Oh Goddess what about me? Do you see me?” Fraser enquired, sounding frantic.
Riya held up her hand to halt her friends as she took a big gulp of wine. Frowning as she spilled a little on her dress, the liquid draining straight to the floor leaving no stain. The material for the bridesmaids’ dresses really was downright scary. “Okay it’s weird I’m getting flashes but not psychic flashes. Just lots of hazy nothing with strange little gold lights flashing and winking.”
“Like Alma’s eyes when she looked at Gaia?” Gigi asked, fear straining her voice to a whisper.
The blood drained from Riya’s face as she met each of their gazes. “Exactly like Alma’s eyes.”
In unison the table looked over in the direction of Alma, who just happened to glance up at the exact same moment. A small triumphant smile playing across Alma’s elegant features as she raised her glass of champagne in a silent toast of acknowledgment.
“I’m going to the back of the line. I’ve been married.” Berry captured the table’s focus.
“I dare you to tell Alma that.” Eli grinned mischievously.
“Why are you smiling?” Berry demanded
“Well I’m the baby of the group. No way she’s going to pick on me when there are plenty of you cows to worry about getting off the market before your milk dries up so to speak.”
Eli was immediately assaulted by a number of bread rolls aimed at her head and a hard cuff to her ear from her big sister Fraser.
“Not helping E.”
“We need to approach this logically.” Nell, their ever level-headed healer of the group stated with quiet authority which immediately silenced the squabbling at the table. Though even Nell looked pale and slightly rattled as she drained the contents of her glass. “Darcy.” She eyed her younger sister, notorious for her devious nature and elaborate payback plots. “You’ve been quiet … thought
s?”
Darcy smoothed her already perfect black bangs back behind her ears. “We can’t kill her.”
Most heads nodded in agreement.
“We can try avoiding her.”
All heads nodded in agreement.
“But I think the best defence is a good offense.” Leaning back Darcy snagged Locke, Hadleigh’s oldest brother by the sleeve of his tux as he passed by. “Locke … Aunt Lucy wants you to dance with Great Aunt Alma, a welcome her back into the family fold gesture.”
Locke’s dark blue eyes scoped the room, searching for his mother.
Darcy answered his unspoken question. “She and your father headed for the cloak room about twenty minutes ago.”
“They’re worse than teenagers.” He grimaced and straightened the jacket of his tux, realigning it snugly across his broad shoulders. “Better go get it over and done with then.”
“I can’t believe you managed to fool ‘lie detector’ Locke?” Eli’s mouth had dropped open in shocked awe and surprise.
Darcy arched a fine dark eyebrow, her blue eyes sparkling with mischief. “What, you thought I became the youngest ever Council Special Liaison because of my looks?”
As Locke walked away, a gorgeous dark auburn haired lamb to the slaughter the table raised their glasses in tribute to Darcy. She acknowledged their toast with a slight regal bow of her head, before looking towards the bar at the large number of single male cousins and distant relatives lingering there.
“Who do you think we should throw under the train next?”
Chapter Three
“Looks like you had more action at the wedding than I did on duty this evening.”
Hadleigh stumbled to a halt in the doorway of the kitchen. Smothering a small hiccup unsuccessfully before making her way carefully to the fridge to grab a large bottle of water before collapsing none too gracefully into a chair across from her apprentice. Declan was slouched nonchalantly in his own chair, his long legs stretched out as he sipped the last of his coffee. His startling dark violet eyes heavy lidded as he assessed her from head to foot in a slow sweep that many women would have immediately assumed was the first step towards the bedroom. But Hadleigh knew better.
It wasn’t Declan’s fault that his eyes smouldered with sensuality even when he was bored or angry. Nor could he help the fact that his sunlit shoulder length blonde hair rippled in unseen breezes that immediately made any female above sixteen want to run her fingers through it. It was his burden that his alabaster skin, high cheek bones, tall lean swimmer’s body and tight runner’s butt made women everywhere sigh and wonder what it would be like to feel his touch. And Goddess forbid the man smiled. Hadleigh had witnessed grandmothers speechless at the sight of his pearly whites and dimples.
Whilst Hadleigh could admire the packaging there had never been even the slightest spark of attraction between them. For one he was her cousin. Okay perhaps not by birth, but abandoned as a baby and raised by her uncle and his partner, for all intents and purposes it made Declan family. Secondly he was her apprentice and whilst his preferred weapon on the field was his charm rather than a sword he took his role as warrior protector in training seriously.
“Slow night?” She queried, his clothes looked slightly mussed but she saw no evidence of any injury.
“Daria Geddes rang about an hour ago.”
Hadleigh winced in sympathy. “Ooohh, not Joker up a tree again?”
“Yes poor thing, he’s not a gerbil who enjoys heights.” Declan sighed heavily. “It’s not so much the faux pet up a tree act I find annoying, it’s the props.” He visibly shuddered.
“Props? We’re not talking leather and chains are we?”
“Small mercy no. Try see-through floral nightie and a rather alarming red wig that kept slipping down over her left eye, very distracting.”
Hadleigh fought hard to keep from laughing. “What did you do?”
“I got the gerbil down tout sweet and got out of there with more speed than grace. Told her you expected to find me warming your bed when you got home this evening.”
Hadleigh spluttered and then groaned. “Tell me you didn’t?”
“Please, every busybody in three towns thinks we’re a couple. I was tired of being polite.”
“Dec, seriously. What if it gets back to the council? It could hurt your chances of being promoted.”
Declan shook his head belligerently. “Anyone who knows you would never believe that you would take advantage of your naive, albeit gorgeous apprentice like that.”
Hadleigh stayed silent, thinking it more likely that no one who really knew them would believe that Abercrombie & Fitch male model material Declan would make moves on a freakishly tall blood thirsty warrior woman such as herself. One who hadn’t been trusted with metal cutlery until she was the age of ten. Though it had been surprising the amount of damage she could inflict even with a plastic fork. Her teasing relentless three older brothers would loudly attest to that fact and quite happily point out all their childhood scars, bunch of cry-babies.
“So the wedding … I can only assume from the early hour that you didn’t get lucky?”
Hadleigh laughed mockingly. “Seriously, did you see this dress?”
Once again Declan’s eyes swept her from head to toe. “If anyone could it should have been you but with your lousy attitude I’ll go with no. What’s that make it now, twenty three months of abstinence?”
Hadleigh was grateful she was not the type of girl to blush. Mentally she heaved a sigh of frustration. Two years! Two years since she could be bothered with the hassle of hooking up with a man. And that’s all it ever was. No relationships for Hadleigh. Just quick, way too quick encounters that left her aching for a release that she never seemed capable of attaining. That’s why she’d sworn off men and invested in a trusty pulsating 3-speed showerhead.
“I have no idea where you get your information from.”
Declan gave her a smile that would have had underwear melting if it had been directed at any other female. “Let’s just say I have my ways. So tell me about the wedding, anything of interest happen? Any hook ups for the family with the groom’s one eyebrow compatriots?”
“No we were all able to restrain ourselves when it came to Sergei’s family. I think the wedding went well, just your normal everyday family celebration. My parents disappeared into the cloakroom upon arrival and didn’t emerge again until after the toasts.”
“Harsh when your own folks are getting action and you’re not.”
Hadleigh ignored the dig about her parent’s active sex life as par for the course. “That only leaves the catfight at the altar and Great Aunt Alma’s official return as family match maker.”
Declan sat up straight in his chair. “Now I’m torn. First the catfight. Who was involved? Were any clothes torn off and are there pictures?”
“Goddess you can be such a guy. No clothes were torn off. It was Charisse causing trouble. It was over as soon as I put Gaia in a headlock.”
“You put the bride in a headlock … at the altar?”
Hadleigh rolled her eyes. “As I said, typical family stuff happened.”
“I’m sorry I missed it. Well what about this Great Aunt Alma? I didn’t know we even had a family match maker.”
“We don’t! I mean we haven’t for a long time. Supposedly Alma once filled the role but when her husband died I suppose she lost the taste for it. Long story short she’s back and Gaia was first on her list.”
“There’s a list!” Suddenly Declan looked wary. “How does it work? Online? Mixers? Speed dating? What’s the protocol?”
Hadleigh shrugged. “There is none. According to all the stories I’ve gleaned from my folks and various aunts and uncles, Alma’s usual approach is to meddle.”
“Meddle, hmm, that sounds annoying and tricky.”
“Tell me about it. The girls and I spent all evening devising ways to throw the foot loose males of the family into her path.”
“I wonder if I
’m on the list?” Declan mused, a strange gleam in his eyes as he processed the news of Alma’s arrival.
For half a second Hadleigh could have sworn he looked almost eager. Which would have been a nutty thing for a never date a girl more than once Romeo such as her apprentice to get excited by. Though he was by definition family and nutty was apparently par for the course.
Chapter Four
It had been ten days since the wedding and Hadleigh had spent that time chasing sheep. Not counting them … chasing them.
The problem was second cousin twice removed Cedric. Who put a whole new definition on the word eccentric. The man was absolutely paranoid that his small flock of sheep were plotting against him. In most families Cedric would have been retired off to a nice secure insane asylum. In her family he was assigned a protection detail.
In the last ten days Hadleigh had learnt a lot about Cedric’s flock of sheep. First and foremost was that Cedric had spent his retirement years magically modifying them. To what end exactly Hadleigh had yet to learn but she had an inkling that Cedric had intended them to be of some value to the military. Why else would he make them smarter, stronger, sneakier and of all things invisible?
Their leader, code named - Snowball - had yet to make the flock’s exact demands known. They were still sheep after all and nothing Cedric could do would enable them to talk. Yet they obviously had some kind of vendetta against Cedric if the increasing number of incidents were any indication. They had started off small. Cedric awoke one day to find his house mysteriously ringed in by a barbed wire fence. Then all the man’s clothes had been stolen, including the pyjamas he’d been sleeping in. More recently the sheep had escalated their activities laying an elaborate number of camouflaged man sized booby-trapped holes around Cedric’s property. The purpose of which Hadleigh could only surmise being to capture and contain Cedric. The man himself spent most of his time sitting around the house wrapped in sheets, toga style, scribbling in his notebook documenting the behaviour of the flock, torn between delight and fear at their antics.