by Gigi Moore
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as he got to his feet. “Neat trick.”
“Isn’t it though?”
From the utopian surroundings and the divine company, Prentice realized he was back in familiar territory—the Summerland.
For someone who wasn’t particularly spiritual or even a good, faithful, Wiccan, he seemed to find himself in the Summerland a lot more than he would have ever imagined.
“Bad and good are relative terms. As you’re probably aware, nothing is all black or all white. Not even your soul, contrary to popular belief.” Prentice glanced around, trying to find the source of the voice, wanting to see the being whom had been responsible for sending him back and taking him away from Earth.
“I am everyone you have ever met and I am no one. I am in your heart and in your soul. I always have been even when you disavowed me. You do not need to see me to know I am.”
As Goddess spoke, the truth of her words washed over him like a restorative salve, reassuring and warm, suffusing him with a long-sought sense of security.
Prentice closed his eyes, tilted back his head and aimed his face at the sun like a flower or a tree, searching for further nourishment.
“You must go back.”
The stark simplicity of the statement filled his heart with dread even though he understood the necessity.
He had left so many things undone. He still had so much to learn, so much to contribute. He owed people. He owed himself.
“Do you want to live?”
Was that a trick question?
The sound of chuckling filled the air and Prentice thought how much it reminded him of Brielle.
“Do. You. Want. To. Live, Prentice?”
He wanted to love and be loved. He wanted to make amends. The only way he could do any of those things was to go back.
“Is that your final answer?”
Now Prentice laughed. This Goddess-being was something else.
“I have to warn you, the trip back is going to be a lot rougher than the trip here. You’ve left me with some serious damage to repair.”
“If you’re referring to the bullet wound, I didn’t have much of a choice.” It was either take the bullet, or let Lucy die. The latter was unthinkable.
“I wasn’t complaining, just saying.”
“Oh.”
Goddess laughed at his stiff tone. “You did good down there, by the way.”
“I tried.”
“That’s all I’ll ever ask of you.”
Prentice swallowed hard and nodded. “Okay. I’m ready.”
A burst of white light blinded him and Prentice steeled himself for the journey.
Right before Goddess spirited him away again, he heard her say, “Aura, Brielle, and Caith want you to know that they are very proud of you.”
* * * *
“It’s just not fair. It’s just not…”
“I know, Lulu. I know.” Ki rubbed her back in what should have been comforting circles, but Lucy wasn’t comforted at all.
She had let him down.
She wasn’t supposed to let him die. She had promised him that she wouldn’t let Boone kill him and when the chips had been down, she had failed him. She had failed the only man who had ever cared enough about her to save her from Rance. Even when he hadn’t been all “good,” Prentice had always been good to her.
Lucy looked down at her hands, blood-soaked from when she had ripped open Ethan’s shirt and tried to staunch the flow of his life’s fluid, desperately pressing against his chest.
She refused to let him go like this. “You’re not going to die, damn you. Not when I’m finally free to love you, not when we’re finally all together!” She smacked her hand against Ethan’s chest and it felt so good to get out her frustrations that she did it again until soon she was pounding on his chest with her fists, her head thrown back as she screamed at the sky.
She barely felt Ki move to sit behind her.
He caught her wrists and brought her hands down in front of her, wrapping his arms around her as he held her hands against her stomach.
She shook her head. “He’s not gone. He’s not…”
Ki rocked her in his arms like the baby she was acting while she cradled Ethan’s motionless head in her lap. Her sobs and the sounds of the surrounding forest encroached the peaceful night.
She assumed Boone was dead and didn’t know how to feel about that. She thought she should be glad that Ethan had killed him, that he had saved her and Ki the way he had saved Isaiah from Rance. What good did it do, however, if Ethan was dead and gone and unable to enjoy the freedom of not being a hunted man anymore?
Things had just been starting to look good to her. She had just started to feel comfortable with her life, with her men in it, and had believed that they could make this relationship with the three of them work. She had just been starting to believe in fairy tales again.
Her life had never been a fairy tale though. Even when she had gotten her prince, there had been a catch. Maybe that was why Ethan was dead. God had been angered by her greed, by her faithlessness, that she hadn’t appreciated her bounty when she had received it. No woman deserved two good men like Ethan and Ki, except…
“I do,” she whispered.
“You do what?”
“Deserve you and I love you.”
“I don’t deserve you, Lucy, but it hasn’t stopped me from loving you yet.”
“You deserve me. And so did Ethan. I just wish I had told him how much I loved him. I don’t think he knew and now I’ll never have the chance.”
A cough shattered the air.
At first she thought it was Boone and his last death rattles, but the noise was too close.
“Did you…?” Ki started then trailed off. “My God. It’s…it’s a miracle!”
Lucy followed Ki’s wide-eyed stare, glancing down at Ethan’s chest. The bullet that had penetrated his torso was slowly working its way out as if Ethan’s body found the metal distasteful and was spitting it out.
She gasped and covered her mouth with her hands at the sight, watching as Ethan’s wound slowly sealed shut and the blood surrounding it seemed to vanish right before her eyes. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” she asked Ki, just to be sure.
“I think so, yes.”
His awestruck tone didn’t escape her and Lucy knew exactly how he felt. She knew exactly how Kelly O’Brien must have felt too when Ethan had come back to life in the icehouse, except that she wasn’t scared. She was too busy being grateful to be scared.
And that’s when Ethan’s body started to violently convulse.
Was he rejecting his good fortune? Did he not think he deserved to return? Did he not want to return?
The seizure seemed to go on forever, Ethan’s face no longer frozen in a serene mask of death, but distorted with suffering.
Lucy tried not to cry, but couldn’t stop stray tears from rolling down her face. She didn’t want Ethan to see her like this when he finally opened his eyes.
If he opens his eyes.
“Hold on, my Ethan. Just hold on,” Ki murmured as he held onto their lover’s shaking body.
Finally the convulsions stopped and Lucy could see Ethan’s chest moving up and down as he took a deep breath.
She held her own breath as she stared and waited before she and Ki were finally rewarded when Ethan coughed once more then opened his eyes.
His gaze instantly found hers, moving from her to Ki and back again before his face broke out into a half smile, half grimace from what must have been leftover pain.
“Are you all right?” Lordy, that was a daft question. The man had come back from the dead—twice. Neither could have been an easy experience.
Ethan reached up to cup her face, his grin widening as his brandy eyes twinkled.
Lucy saw a glimmer of her Prentice then—cocky, ironic, intense, and so vulnerable it made her heart ache.
“Ethan, say something. We need to know you’re all right.”
“As long as you both love me, I will be.”
“We both love you,” Lucy and Ki chorused then each burst out laughing as they looked at each other.
Lucy pulled Ethan close with one arm and reached her arm out to bring Ki into the circle, hugging him as tight as she hugged Ethan.
For the first time in a long time she felt tranquil and free and she knew she was finally ready for whatever both her men and the world had to offer her.
Epilogue
Prentice had never been as nervous as he was right then.
Everyone who rightfully resented his existence was gathered at Lily and Wyatt Baldwin’s house to welcome the couple’s latest addition.
“Will you stop squirming? You’re about as skittish as spit on a hot skillet,” Lucy said.
Prentice chuckled and grinned to prove to her he wasn’t skittish at all, which was a bald-faced lie since he was.
How was he going to face Lucy’s closest friends now that they all knew the truth?
He knew how he would feel if the man responsible for their kin’s death, responsible for almost killing them, walked in the door, and he wouldn’t have been very welcoming.
Prentice tried to tap into that reserve of bravado and nonchalance that had gotten him through his childhood and the business world in the twenty-first century. It had all been a façade, of course, but one he had learned to pull off flawlessly.
Now there was just him in this plain and simple town with his plain and simple love for Lucy and Ki. The latter was the only thing that kept him moving forward, looking ahead with hope, and making him feel like he was really worthy of absolution.
The trip to Europe for Lucy’s big art exhibit debut, from which the three of them were just returning, had been encouraging and invigorating, imbuing Lucy with the kind of self-confidence Prentice had always known was just under the surface of her prickly exterior.
Several important art aficionados had purchased some of Lucy’s pieces, ensuring that her name would travel in the right circles and that she would more than likely go international.
If Ki had anything to do with it, she certainly would.
While in Paris when they weren’t all doing the touristy thing around the city or making love in their hotel room, Ki had started to grease the wheels of the art world, laying the groundwork for Lucy’s next exhibit in New York. Maia, Thayne, Cade, and Sabrina had all already promised to attend.
Prentice, however, was more worried about seeing the close-knit group now, especially Maia, Thayne, and Cade, after what had happened in the woods.
He hadn’t had any real contact with the three of them since the shower.
After the incident with Boone, Prentice had kept a low profile, leaving the explanations for Ethan’s murderer’s death to Lucy and Ki once Maia arrived with the sheriff and his deputy.
As to his own “death,” aside from a little residual soreness that several days spent in the French Riviera with Lucy and Ki had gone a long way toward his convalescence, Prentice had never felt healthier. He knew that he had Goddess to thank for that.
He had known, however, that if Thayne did any sort of examination of Boone’s body, much less an autopsy, he would know what had happened and more importantly who had been responsible for the killer’s death.
In the days following his and Lucy’s abduction and rescue, Prentice had been on pins and needles, waiting for a confrontation from at least one of the threesome. None of them, however, had come knocking on their door and by the time he had left the country with Lucy and Ki for their ménage à honeymoon he had begun to hope that he could survive the fallout of killing yet another person with his powers.
Lucy put her hand on his cheek and caressed his face. Her touch grounded him as well as her next softly-spoken words.
“It’s going to be okay, Ethan.”
“Lulu’s right. And besides, we’re here for you, come what may.”
Prentice just smiled, allowing Lucy and Ki their illusions and enjoying the way they closed ranks around him as they all approached the front door as if to shield him from any harm.
He wondered if they knew how cute they were, trying to protect him now the same way they had protected him out in the woods when they had only had each other to count on.
That night seemed so long ago, but he still had nightmares about that bullet ripping through his chest. Lucy and Ki were always right there when he woke up in a cold sweat though, soothing his fears and driving away the mental pain.
Maia pulled open the door before any of them could knock and smiled a greeting. “You made it! Good.”
Was it just him or did she rest her smiling eyes on him for an extra moment?
“Well, come on in, we’ve been waiting for you.”
Maia stepped aside to let them in the house, playing the hostess for an incapacitated Lily.
Prentice brought up the rear as Maia led them through the well-furnished great room, up the stairs, and to the bedrooms.
She paused outside of one of the doors placing a finger against her lips. “She just put the baby down to sleep for her nap.”
“You should have said something. We could come back,” Lucy said.
“Not on your life. You’re here now and we’ve all been waiting too long to hear how your exhibit went. Telegrams and such just don’t do that sort of thing justice.” Maia put her hand on the knob to open the door. “Besides, the little princess sleeps like a log once she’s down. She’s the sweetest baby in the world. Almost makes me want to have one myself.”
Lucy, Ki, and Prentice all laughed softly as Maia finally opened the nursery room door.
The large space was exquisitely decorated in colorful shades of pink and various, bushy-tailed, doe-eyed woodland creatures. Prentice could definitely see Maia’s handiwork in the design and puerile paintings on the wall.
From allusive, erotic images of Lucy to whimsical drawings, Maia’s talent transcended genres, incorporating her sense of humor, passion, and sensuality through all her work.
Prentice noticed the look of appreciation and longing on Lucy’s face and could just picture her in a room like this, nursing a baby at her breast as she swayed to and fro in an old-fashioned rocker.
She glanced up at him, taking and squeezing his and Ki’s hands as if she had been reading Prentice’s thoughts.
Soon.
He watched her lips form the single word and wondered if there was supposed to have been a question mark at the end of it or not.
Did she mean…?
Prentice was tempted to slip into her mind the way he had out in the woods and confirm or deny, but the situation with Boone had been life-and-death. He had promised himself to use his abilities the way Maia, Thayne, and Cade did and not without an individual’s permission unless it was a matter of life-and-death.
He thought that Aura would approve of this new leaf he had turned over.
Unable to let it go, Prentice tried to remember if Lucy had been suffering any symptoms of pregnancy during their trip abroad or since they had returned. He couldn’t remember any kind of morning sickness, but then he had been preoccupied about this visit and whether or not he still would be welcomed into Thayne’s practice.
“Come closer. She won’t bite,” Wyatt said.
Like sentries, he and Dakota stood on opposite sides of the hand-carved cradle within which their newborn baby girl lay peacefully sleeping.
Lily sat in a large cushy rocker adjacent the cradle and Wyatt, appearing ethereal and beautiful as she looked upon her baby’s face.
Prentice hung back as Lucy and Ki crossed the room to congratulate the three parents when he noticed the rest of the adults gathered in the nursery.
Standing around the foot of the cradle with their backs to him were Thayne, Sabrina, and Cade who all wordlessly made room for the two new arrivals around the cradle.
Maia stood beside Prentice and put her hand on his shoulder. “It’s all right, Ethan. You’re welcome here, too.”
Prentice, however, was frozen to the spot, hypnotized by the reverent stillness in the room until Lily and Wyatt’s little boy slid his hand into Prentice’s.
“You must come and meet my little sister, Winona,” Little Wyatt whispered.
Prentice smiled down at the boy and suddenly felt like a spotlight had been shone on him when everyone standing at the crib turned around to look in his direction.
He caught Lily’s, Wyatt’s, and Dakota’s tentative smiles first, gathering his nerve to look upon the faces of Thayne and Cade.
He hadn’t been in the same room with them and Maia all together since the incident in the barn last year, and he sucked in his breath when he caught the two brothers’ gazes.
They nodded at him, their expressions impartial rather than warm, but at least not cold and murderous. Neither did he pick up any antagonistic vibes from them.
Prentice wondered if maybe Maia had spoken to them and smoothed things over.
Or maybe Brielle and Caith had. After all, why should he have been the only one blessed with any contact from them?
While he was busy speculating, Thayne abruptly broke away from the group and made his way over to Prentice.
When Thayne paused beside him and placed a hand on his shoulder, Prentice froze somewhere between relaxing and tension.
“I’m counting on you to help me deliver a lot more babies in the future, especially your and Ki and Lucy’s baby when the time comes. I mean, since you missed out on Winona’s delivery and all.”
“You mean I can work with you?”
“The job is yours if you still want it.”
“Of course I do! I want it.” Prentice was almost near tears with happiness. The only thing that could have made things better was if… “So is she pregnant?” Prentice blurted.
“She is,” Lucy said and made her way over to Prentice and Thayne with a flabbergasted Ki on her tail. “I see my doctor has let the cat out of the bag?”
“Whoops.” Thayne shrugged, looking just barely contrite.