Beck looked immediately back to me and cupped my face. “You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m not hurt.”
He kissed my lips tenderly, and I began to cry. I’m not sure who was more alarmed, me or him. He tugged me to him and let me bury my face into his chest. “You are hurt.”
“Why do you say that? I’m not hurt!” I wailed, rubbing my wet nose into his shirt.
“Well, the crying is a giveaway. You’re not the sensitive type.”
I pulled away and gave him an incredulous look. “I am sensitive.”
He cocked his head at me and stared. Before long my angst broke, and I began laughing. He smiled and hugged me again. “You’re sensitive in your own way, but you’re not emotional so this sudden outburst worries me. The woman I plan to spend the rest of my life with doesn’t generally break down in tears.”
Again, I jerked away from him, this time with astonishment on my face. “The rest of your life? As in marriage?”
“Well, of course as in marriage. You know I’m in love with you. I just know you’re not ready yet so I haven’t worked up the nerve yet to ask. Are you hungry? I could put something together. Do you have any thing in the fridge?”
“Yes.”
“Good, what would you like?” He stood.
“Yes, I’ll marry you.”
That stopped him in his tracks. His hand was on the swinging door to the kitchen, and he turned immediately back to stare at me. “You want to marry me?”
My composure was returning, or else I knew I’d have ended up in a puddle of tears again at that question. I took a deep breath and nodded my head up and down. “Of course I do. Eventually. But right now I need to tell you what happened the other night when you were trying to call me.”
He approached the couch again and sat down. “I kind of hoped that had something to do with the kidnapping.”
Telling Beck about my suspicion of him and Breena was difficult. But confessing my situation with Prieto was the hardest thing I could ever remember doing. He listened stoically, one hand on the back of the sofa and the other on his knee. I could see the whites of his knuckles, indicating the tension in him, but he let me finish my story without saying a word.
“So, the deal with Prieto was… his influence?”
I closed my eyes and swallowed. I loved this man with all of my being. I wanted to spend my life with him, and although marriage scared the ever-loving hell out of me, one day I wanted to be his wife. I liked my house and my life and wasn’t quite sure I was ready to change any of that, but I knew without a doubt that I didn’t want to lose Beck.
“He’s an attractive man, Beck. I can’t deny that. But according to him, his powers pressed me in ways I couldn’t control.”
Beck dropped his gaze and stared with far too much interest at the stripes on my couch. “What you need to know about Breena is that she’s pretty much head over heels for some fairy guy in Tulsa. He’s broken things off with her, and I couldn’t get her to stop crying long enough to give Jilly a single lesson the other night. Anything you think you saw was just me trying to get her to stop blubbering long enough for her to leave.”
Bile churned in my belly and I wanted nothing more than to wave my wand and disappear. Still, facing the reality of my possible transgressions was better than even considering a reality without Beck. “I screwed up, Beck.”
“Is he gone? I don’t want Prieto around you anymore. Tell me he’s gone.”
“I don’t think he’s coming back. I won’t let him come back.” I was ninety-nine percent certain Prieto wouldn’t contact me ever again. But on the off chance he might, I would just have to talk to Tig about making sure he couldn’t get to me. Surely we could figure that out.
“How am I supposed to compete with a bunch of creatures that can just wield this kind of power? I mean,do you realize what kind of disadvantage this has me at?”
“I suck at this, Beck. I suck at being a girlfriend and I’m going to suck…”
He stopped my words when he dropped one of his hands on top of mine, patting me harder than he probably meant to. He was squeezing my fingers, tension vibrating from his body to mine, and I couldn’t help but notice that he still hadn’t looked up at me. “Don’t. We aren’t going to do that again. Giving up isn’t right for us. We both learned that lesson, didn’t we?”
I nodded in agreement. That didn’t mean I didn’t still feel guilty about my reaction to Prieto. Here I was bringing up marriage with the man I knew that I loved and yet my body had still wanted, on some level, to be with the fallen angel.
Beck and I had tried running from each other before, yet here we were together again. When he finally looked up at me and I saw the way his eyes passed over my face, like a tender caress, I decided things were going to be all right.
~oOo~
The table was full of lots of yummy goodies. My mouth salivated as my gaze flicked from a huge roasted turkey, a casserole dish of candied yams, a bowl of mashed potatoes, and a platter of steaming rolls. Everything looked so perfectly delicious that I wondered how it had all gotten on my dining table.
“It’s a disaster waiting to happen.”
I turned in the direction of the voice and saw a little man, feathers sticking out of the backside of his britches. It took a minute to realize he was dressed as a turkey.
“What’s a disaster waiting to happen?”
“Nothing this good lasts forever. Danger can’t be dressed up to hide its truth.”
Squinting, I tried to follow what he was telling me. About that time another little man hopped onto the chair beside me. He had a pilgrim’s hat on his head. “It can’t be avoided. It’s coming.”
The brownies again. Even in my dream state I could remember that they had visited me at least three times in as many days. I had yet to figure out what they were trying to warn me about.
“What is coming? I need you to be clearer about this. I know you’re trying to help, but these riddles aren’t doing it for me.”
“Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy. This might be your last,” another brownie advised, struggling to use a huge carving knife to slice up the turkey.
“Thanksgiving isn’t for weeks. What is going to happen?”
My aggravation was mounting, but the brownies weren’t concerned by my annoyance. They began munching like ravenous little animals on the goodies on my table. I stood to walk away, then felt the edges of the dream become blurry. I knew I was about to wake up.
I sat up with a start, Beck’s arm dropping away from where it had been wrapped around my waist. He groaned a little but otherwise rolled over and continued sleeping. The foggy vestiges of the dream I’d been having made their way back into my psyche.
I wondered for a moment if the dream were somehow related to the mind control Prieto and Nelson had played on me. But something inside me instinctively knew it wasn’t that. The brownies were still trying to warn me of some impending danger. I glanced at the little indentation in the covers where I knew Patch had been sleeping, but the pup was nowhere to be seen in the room.
I slipped out of bed and padded my way into the hallway, calling for her in a whispered tone. When I got to the stairs, I finally heard her growling down somewhere in the vicinity of my kitchen. I breathed a little sigh that she was clearly all right for the moment, then conjured my wand into my hand and started down the steps.
“Patch, all of this fuss better not be a mouse or something.”
She whined a little as she ran in my direction, then she paced nervously in front of the swinging doors of the kitchen. I tiptoed to the door, my hand outstretched to push it open, but before I could get there, a loud crack sounded and the ground fell out from under me.
I landed hard on my backside, the air gushing from my lips with a “Humph!” For her part, Patch ran in behind me, her puppy teeth grabbing the neck of my shirt and tugging me away from the kitchen. I knew that I was slipping but it took me a minute to realize what exactly was happening.
&n
bsp; The floor of my house had collapsed, though I couldn’t quite figure out why until I pointed my wand and illuminated the room. “Holy crap! A sinkhole.”
And it was getting bigger. Patch had the right idea, trying her best to pull me away from the ever-growing opening in the ground. The incline of my broken floor was sucking me and my house into it, engulfing my kitchen into a great pile of debris. And the hole was moving in my direction.
“Beck!” I screamed, but he was already awake and running down the stairs. He took over for Patch and helped me get off of the sharp gradient that was determined to send me into the mouth of the beast.
“What the hell happened?” he demanded, heaving me towards the front door of the house.
“I don’t know. It’s a hole. And it’s eating my house!” Panic was welling up within me. I love this house. It was a one-of-a-kind place that had been my only refuge and safety for the past decade and a half.
As Beck forced me outside and into safety I pondered how I might stop the natural disaster that was unfolding before my very eyes. In desperation, I yanked free of my boyfriend and knelt in the grass just beside the ever-growing hole. With a scream I stabbed my wand into the ground and used my magic to pump magical concrete under the hole to try to prop the ground back up.
For a moment, I thought it might work as I peeked with one eye and saw that the earth was pushing up and trying to pop back into place like a puzzle piece. But the sinkhole was happening too fast, and my magic wasn’t strong enough to keep up.
“You can’t do it, baby. It won’t work,” Beck told me, his hand on my shoulder. Patch came to stand on my other side, nuzzling me as if sensing my devastation and wanting to bring me comfort.
“I’ll lose everything. Everything I own.”
“Things can be replaced, Lynlee. At least we’re out alive.”
But some things couldn’t be replaced. Granny’s mirror and our family’s book of spells were still in my cedar closet. I had to retrieve them before the sinkhole took them away forever. I retrieved my wand as I pushed my hand into my knee to stand, then grabbed Patch and handed her to Beck. “I have to get my family’s things. I have to. Hold Patch so that she doesn’t follow me and get hurt.” Mad alarm was written all over his face, but I leaned in to kiss him reassuringly. “I promise I’ll be okay. I’ll be right back.”
And without waiting for a response, I ran into my house, which was quickly plummeting through the ground. Inside I was alarmed to see the hole was between me and the entry to my huge walk-in closet. I leaped up the stairs and considered where the closet would be, then I pointed the wand and fired a hole into the floor so that I could drop down into the closet. I could see the sinkhole was beginning to engulf things there as well.
I barely grabbed the mirror from its box before it toppled to the ground. I conjured a backpack, set the mirror carefully inside one pocket and then dropped the book in as well. And because I thought I still had a second or two, I grabbed one of my favorite sweaters and wrapped it around my waist, then slung the bag over my shoulder.
Just as I was making my escape by climbing the shelves in my closet to the opening above, I remembered my grotto. It wasn’t exactly priceless, but it had taken me a long time to find just the right crystals to make my magical transporter for orbing places.
By the time I got through the opening onto my second floor, the entire house was groaning in protest as the sinkhole chewed more and more of it into oblivion. I ran to the bedroom and found my cell phone and a blanket, calling Tig as I shimmied out the window and down a tree in the backyard.
“Beck!” I called, rounding the house to get his attention. He was holding Patch’s wiggling mass of fur in his arms, but when she heard me, she leaped free and ran to me. His shoulders sagged in relief, and he too came running. I handed him the blanket, indicating he should wrap it around his naked shoulders, then I put on my sweater, still cradling the phone.
Me neighborhood was coming alive with people standing around in bathrobes to witness the destruction. Unfortunately, it looked like Mrs. Fenton’s house was also being taken under by the sinkhole.
“Tig’s coming,” I advised him as I knelt down to give Patch a reassuring pet. “I need him to help me move the grotto.”
Beck nodded in understanding, rushing towards my storage building along with me. When I’d first bought this house, Tig had helped me with the inspection and also found the spell that would move all those tons of rock and crystal to this storage shed. I had used a lot of magic already, and I knew I couldn’t try the moving spell on my own. I was by now feeling a little light-headed.
I was rushing so much that I lost my footing, pitching forward and almost landing on my face. Beck grabbed me under my arm to keep me steady. “Slow down, gorgeous.”
My heart warmed a little, but I didn’t have enough time to dwell on how much I loved the man and how lucky I was to have him. The sinkhole was gaining on us, and I was afraid at any moment it would envelope the shed and everything in it. We entered the building, and Tig was already there, sprinkling some dust from a little pouch all around the stone grotto.
“That damned hole is coming fast. We all better get inside and orb with it,” he said over his shoulder as he continued his task.
I frowned. “Can you do that?”
“Would I have said it if I couldn’t do it? Do you know where you want to put this thing or should I just drop it smack dab into Central Park?”
My mind went blank as I tried to think of a place to store the grotto until I found a new home. Trying to buy myself some time to think, I reached down and picked up Patch. The poor darling was shaking with nervousness, but she still managed to lean in to lick my neck affectionately.
“The cave. You can put it in the cave.”
I turned to look at Beck after hearing those words. I knew he was talking about the cave on his property, the very place I’d helped banish the troll a year ago when he first re-entered my life. Now his expression was a mixture of tension, affection and resolution. He’d made up his mind. I was coming home with him.
I nodded my head before I could even give it another thought. I was going home with him. For good. And I was okay with that.
Jilly chattered incessantly as she and Rhiannon set the table in Beck’s dining room. I was uncorking a bottle of wine, one of the only things I was competent enough to do in the kitchen, while my man moved around putting finishing touches on several side dishes. Sandy was helping out by carving the Thanksgiving turkeys.
Yes, there were two turkeys. We decided that with Rhia at the table, we’d need extra to ensure the rest of us got a share. She was already salivating, her eyes gazing at Sandy as he worked the electric carving knife.
At least I hoped it was the turkey that had her salivating and not something else as she stared at her boyfriend. I shuddered and began pouring the wine.
I was never one for celebrating holidays. When my parents and I parted ways, there was really no one around to celebrate with. Plus, holidays always used to bring with them bad memories. I’d met Beck around Christmas, and he’d ended up spending that holiday at my house. It was my first Christmas in the mafia house. That was a good memory, but after our break up, I couldn’t recall it without the pain of losing him.
Last year when Beck and I rekindled things, I had to learn about holidays all over again. I figured this year would be a piece of cake. I never imagined I’d be living with Beck, Justin and Jilly and that my friends would be joining us for dinner.
“Hey!” Justin cried out as he ran full tilt into the kitchen. “Mr. Tig’s here and look what he brought me!”
Beck raised an eyebrow at his son. “You know better than that. No running in the house.”
Justin’s expression fell and he dropped his head in contrition. “Sorry, Dad.”
“So what do you have there?” I quizzed, handing Rhia a glass before sipping my own and turning my gaze to his.
Eyes alight, he held up his hand to reveal a jumbl
ed-looking mass of wooden blocks. “Cool, huh?”
“What is it?”
Tig came hobbling into the room with a cocky smile on his face. “It’s a mind puzzle. It’ll keep him occupied for days. Maybe weeks.”
And it appeared my old mentor was right. Without further ado Justin had plopped down cross-legged in the corner of the dining room, back bowed over the little wooden game. I smiled and turned to look at Jilly, who was peeking at Tig through the slats in one of the dining room chairs, her green eyes glistening with hope that maybe he would have something for her too.
“Now,” he said, digging into his pockets. “What I don’t know is what to do with this little pretty. I mean, who would want a pink box with some little fuzzy bunnies?”
“I would, Mr. Tig!” She shrilled, rushing to stand in front of him.
Tig placed the box into Jilly’s outstretched hand, and she delightedly took the little dolls to the corner opposite her brother.
“You’re going to spoil them if you bring them a present every time you come visit,” I chided him.
Just then Patch pranced into the room, her head high and a huge bone protruding from both sides of her mouth. “Her, too, apparently.”
“Well, it’s considered good manners to bring your host gifts when you are invited to dinner.”
I shook my head with a little sniff. “They’re not your hosts. Beck is.”
No sooner had I said the words than my boyfriend slid his big warm body against my back and pecked me on the cheek. “You and I are both hosts, gorgeous.”
It wasn’t easy for me to wrap my mind around the fact that I was living here with Beck and his kids, but I grinned at him over my shoulder and inclined my head in agreement. A little seed of doubt and discomfort seemed permanently lodged in the center of my chest.
Memories of Prieto and my intense attraction to him wouldn’t go away. Part of me thought that I should talk to Beck about it again just to be sure we’d resolved that issue. But whenever I thought it might be the appropriate time, he would do something so sweet and adoring that I couldn’t bear to bring back the pain of it for him. And that just dug the worry in a little deeper, letting it grow into me. I was starting to get comfortable with the anxiety and that in and of itself was cause for more worry.
A Bundle of Trouble (The Lynlee Lincoln Sets Book 1) Page 28