Maddy’s eyes widened in surprise. “He did?” She set the bag back in the truck, looped her arm through Eve’s, and started walking out the driveway. “When? How? What did you say? You’d better not have said yes.” She turned down the road toward the ocean. “You’ll eventually say yes, of course, but you can’t make it easy for him. It’s a woman’s obligation to make a man sweat for a while.”
She stopped and turned Eve to face her. “Did he propose in a fancy restaurant, or pop the question on a romantic moonlight walk?”
“He took me for a horseback ride up the mountain.”
“And? So what did you say when he asked?”
“Um…I threw up on his boots.”
Maddy tossed her head back in laughter. “Oh, that’s priceless! The man was a ball of sweat just taking you on a date; I can’t imagine what condition he was in when he asked you to marry him.”
She let Eve go and started them walking again. “I hope he kissed you before you hurled. He did finally kiss you, didn’t he?”
Eve nodded. “Oh, yeah. But when I tried to move things along to the next level, he told me he wouldn’t make love to me until after we’re married.”
“Is he nuts?”
“No, he’s just really old-fashioned. The woods up there are just crawling with throwback highlanders. I swear there must be something in the water in Pine Creek: all the men are as tall as pine trees, all are drop-dead gorgeous, and they all act like they’re from the twelfth century.”
“Robbie MacBain has certainly been turning heads in town these past few days. Susan tried batting her false eyelashes at him, but when I told her he was happily married, she burst into tears. We really need to find that poor woman a man. So,” Maddy said, “after he proposed, did you tell him about the baby?”
“How could I, when he won’t even make love without our getting married first?”
“I bet all you have to do is get naked with him again. And you did discover one thing that’s very important. Since Kenzie asked you to marry him without knowing about the baby, you know he wasn’t asking because of it.”
“That’s true. But when I asked him why he wanted to marry me, he said it’s because he wants me.”
“Wanting’s good.”
“But then I asked him if he loved me, and he said that women love their husbands but it’s different for men. That men only need their wives.”
Maddy looked appalled. “Is he for real?”
“But I’m thinking of saying yes, because I’ve fallen in love with him.”
“Even if he might never love you back?”
Eve didn’t answer the question. “He wants us to get married on the fall equinox.”
“Why then?”
Eve shrugged. “I have no idea. But all the MacKeage girls were born on the winter solstice, and Winter’s baby was just born on the summer solstice. They must have this thing about the seasons. Their children are adorable, and all their husbands seem really nice, if unusually old-fashioned.”
“How so?”
Eve shot her a grin. “They like to lecture their women.”
Maddy snorted. “That’s not old-fashioned, it’s inbred into all men. I can’t tell you how many lectures from Dad I sat through.”
“Yet when Camry and I got into trouble in a barroom, Kenzie very nicely refrained from lecturing me.”
“You went to a bar? What happened?”
“Two guys got physically aggressive with Camry and me. I broke my guy’s nose and fingers, and Camry dislocated her jerk’s knee.”
“And Kenzie didn’t go up one side of you and down the other?” Maddy asked.
“Nope. He just kept hugging me.”
Maddy looped her arm through Eve’s, and started walking toward the ocean again. “Okay then, I give you permission to be in love with him. Because I gotta tell you, Billy would have killed me if I’d gotten into a bar brawl. And I can’t even guess what my father would have done.”
Eve stopped and pointed out to sea. “What’s that?”
“It looks like a water spout.” Maddy pointed to the west. “There’s another one. And another one!” She looked at Eve, her eyes huge. “That’s weird. I didn’t think water tornados formed this far north.”
They stared out at the unnatural phenomena, which swiftly grew in number and size a few miles from shore.
“Omigod, that’s it!” Eve cried. “They’re unnatural! Come on, we have to get back to the house. I have to find Kenzie!” She started dragging her friend. “And Mom is walking down by the ocean!”
“Eve!”
Eve turned at the sound of Kenzie’s voice, and saw him running toward them. “Kenzie, look!” she cried, pointing at the spouts.
“I see them,” he said when he reached them. He took her hand and started leading her back up the road. “Come on. You both need to get in the house.”
“But we have to find Mom! She’s walking down by the ocean.”
“MacBain went after her,” he said, breaking into a jog, forcing her and Maddy to run to keep up. “I want you two to gather some flashlights and blankets, then take Daar and Mabel down to the cellar and stay there.”
“Only if you’re coming to the cellar with us,” Eve said as they reached the driveway. She couldn’t bear to think of him in danger again.
“Nay,” he snapped, glancing toward the path beside the barn. “There’s Robbie. He’s carrying Mabel. Come on.”
“No! You are not going after whatever the hell that is!”
“Jeesh, Eve, they’re just water spouts,” Maddy said, walking toward the house. “They’ll probably break up the moment they touch shore. “Let’s find some flashlights and get in the cellar until they pass. We’ll play cards and eat junk food.”
Kenzie swept Eve off her feet and into his arms. “And you stay in the cellar until I come get you, understand?”
She dug her fingers into his shoulders. “But…I’m afraid you might not come back.”
“I’m not alone this time, little one. Robbie MacBain will be with me.”
“Why can’t we all sit in the cellar until it leaves?”
“Because if I do nothing, it will likely kill William.”
Eve drew in a shuddering breath, terrified and confused. “What will kill him? I don’t understand any of this.”
He bounded up the stairs onto the porch. “Trust that I will come back for you.” He gave her a quick kiss on the lips. “And when I do, I will tell you everything.”
The door opened and Robbie stepped out of the house, holding a sword very similar to Kenzie’s in his left hand.
“Did Maddy see that?” she hissed, glancing in the kitchen.
“No, she’s in the cellar with Daar and Mabel,” Robbie said, looking Kenzie in the eye. “We need to go now.”
Kenzie set Eve on her feet. “Give me your word you’ll stay in the cellar. I can’t keep my mind on what I’m doing, if I’m worried about you coming after me.”
“O-okay. I promise.”
“No matter what ye hear, you keep everyone down there until I return.”
“I will.” Eve pulled down his head and kissed him full on the mouth. “You make sure you come back.”
“Aye, I will,” he said gruffly, his golden eyes locked on hers.
Then he left, the screen door slapping shut in the rising wind. Eve went to the window over the sink and saw Robbie and Kenzie disappearing down the path to the ocean, heading directly toward the unnatural storm.
She turned, hugging herself tightly. Something dark and sinister had followed Kenzie and William to Midnight Bay, and it seemed determined to stay until one or both of them were dead.
Oh God, she hoped he’d remembered to take his magical burl and pen.
“Will she stay put?” Robbie asked as he stood beside Kenzie on the island, facing the angry tempest heading toward them. “Or did you have to lock her in?”
“She gave me her word,” Kenzie said, stripping off his shirt, then pulling his sword from
its sheath just as William came running over to stand beside them. “I thank ye, MacBain, for staying to help.”
Robbie shrugged to loosen his shoulders. “I believe it’s in my job description, that Guardians have to help protect even bogeymen.”
“You’re a bully, MacBain,” William said, arching his neck to glare past Kenzie at Robbie. “You didn’t have to frighten Mabel like that.”
“You’re a fine one to talk,” Kenzie said before Robbie could answer. “Ye terrified Eve the night she came looking for me.”
“The woman needed prodding,” William snapped. “She was taking forever to get to you.” He glared at Robbie again. “But Mabel’s not right in the head, and she didn’t want to go with you just now because she couldn’t remember who you were. You didn’t have to carry her home. I almost had her talked into going.”
“There wasn’t time to persuade her, as she refused to leave unless you agreed to go hide in the cellar with her.”
“I hide from no one and no thing,” William growled. He eyed the tempest growing closer, then looked at Kenzie. “Where’s your fancy pen?”
“In my truck.”
He snorted. “That’s a hell of a place for it.”
“If I use it, the old hag will retreat just like last time. The pen is for protection, and merely protecting ourselves solves nothing. We need to dispatch her and her minions to hell where they belong.” He used his sword to point inland. “If ye don’t want to face your demons, Killkenny, then go to the cellar with the women.”
“Or you could just open your black heart,” Robbie muttered, flexing his grip on his sword. “That would put an end to this mess quick enough.”
“I don’t know what that means!” William roared, the blast causing Kenzie and Robbie to step back. “Don’t you think I’d save myself if I did!”
“Christ, you’re hard-headed,” Robbie said, brushing soot off his chest. He turned his back to face Kenzie, blatantly dismissing William. “Did you ask Eve to marry you, then?”
“I did.”
“And?”
“And she threw up on me.”
“The pixie threw up on you?” William repeated. He cocked his head. “So would that have been a yes or a no?”
“It was a maybe.”
“Did you explain the magic to her?” Robbie asked.
“Nay. But I believe the magic has been explaining itself to her.” He nodded toward the approaching storm. “Today she finally asked me what this was about.”
“And you told her…?”
“That when I got back, I’d tell her everything.”
“Including your own past?” Robbie asked, arching a brow.
Kenzie hesitated, then nodded.
“Well, my friend and our hard-headed nightmare,” Robbie said, lifting his sword as he turned to face the howling gale. “Let us fight the good fight!”
No sooner had Kenzie raised his own sword and shouted the Gregor war cry, when the tempest slammed into the island, surrounding the three of them in a vortex of screaming demons.
The battle was fierce, and more than once the outcome was in question. Kenzie knew he was the old hag’s true target, since he was the one trying to break her curse on William, but the dragon took the worst beating. And though he’d been born in this modern time, MacBain wielded his own sword with the lethal precision of a true highland warrior.
Robbie MacBain was a Guardian, pledged to protect innocent mortals from getting caught up in the struggle between the dark magic and the drùidhs’ work of nurturing mankind, and Kenzie was glad and honored to have MacBain fighting beside him.
William, however, seemed only intent on hacking his way through the demons to get to the hag who had cursed him. Kenzie let Robbie guard the dragon’s back, and focused on weakening the witch’s dark powers by slaying her minions.
But it wasn’t until he saw several of them break off and head to the mainland that he grew truly alarmed. Had the old hag sent them to the farmhouse, suspecting Eve had become his greatest weakness?
He fought harder and with renewed anger, desperate to shorten the hag’s reach now that her focus was split between fighting the battle and finding Eve. MacBain also must have realized what was happening, because he left William to come fight beside Kenzie. Together they methodically dispatched the vicious demons to hell, their swords growing black with the vile blood of evilness.
The witch, forced to call back her army in order to protect herself, retreated out to sea with a bloodcurdling scream of defeat and vow of revenge.
Chapter Nineteen
The howling wind had gotten so loud at one point, Eve could have yelled at the top of her lungs and Maddy, sitting beside her, wouldn’t have heard it. They’d heard doors banging, windows shattering, dishes breaking, and wood splintering as the century-old farmhouse shuddered on its foundation. At the height of the storm, Eve would have sworn the floor above shook under the weight of footsteps tromping through the house, as if someone—or something—was searching for them.
Now there was just stark, chilling silence.
Which was even scarier.
“When…whenever they interview tornado survivors on TV, they always say it sounded like a freight train,” Maddy finally whispered. “But it sounded to me like people screaming.”
Eve snapped on the flashlight that she’d turned off when she’d heard the footsteps, illuminating the cellar. Mabel and Daar sat beside them, blinking in the sudden light. Mabel was clutching Daar as if she was still afraid he might blow away, and Daar was clutching his rosary beads.
Maddy clung to Eve with equal fervor.
The storm had started weakening about twenty minutes ago, and the house had gone completely, eerily silent five minutes ago.
Still, none of them seemed quite ready to move.
“I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore,” Eve said, shining the light at the stairs.
Maddy’s chuckle had an edge of hysteria. “Do you think there’s still four walls and a roof up there?”
“I suppose I should go find out,” Eve said, not moving.
At the sound of heavy footsteps entering the house, she snapped off the flashlight.
The cellar door opened. “Eve,” Kenzie called down.
“We’re here!” she cried, jumping to her feet and running to the stairs. “We’re all okay!” She stopped with her foot on the bottom step when he motioned for her not to come any farther.
“I need ye to come up alone,” he said, his voice labored. “Ask Maddy to stay with Mabel and Daar a bit longer.”
Oh God, it must be bad. She walked back and handed the flashlight to Maddy, who had obviously heard his request—as well as his tone.
“Go on,” Maddy said, scooting next to Mabel and wrapping her arm around her. “We’ll sit tight until you can get some of the debris cleared away. You stay, too, Father,” she told Daar, pulling the blanket over his legs. “We’d just get in their way.”
Eve gave Maddy a thankful nod, then ran up the stairs. Kenzie took hold of her arm as she stepped into the kitchen, and her knees nearly buckled when she got a good look at him.
“Oh God,” she whispered.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” he said, limping away from the cellar door, detouring around the upended table. He stopped by the gaping hole where the porch door should have been, then turned to face her.
He had a cut over his left eye that was still oozing blood, a dark bruise on his chin, and a large welt on his temple. His bare chest, shoulders, and arms were covered in scratches.
Basically, he looked pretty much like he had after the last…storm.
“Are ye sure you’re okay?” he asked, as if he didn’t believe his eyes. “And Mabel and Daar and Maddy?”
“The cellar was virtually untouched,” she assured him. “One of the tiny windows blew out when a branch hit it, and some old jars and tools fell off the shelves. But nobody got even a scratch.” She touched his cheek. “Is it over? Is whatever was out there go
ne for good?”
“Probably not,” he said, glancing outside. “The house is uninhabitable, and the barn is no longer sound. We’re going to have to camp out until I make repairs.”
“Mom and Daar and I can stay with Maddy for a few days. It’ll be cramped, but that’s what neighbors do for each other.”
He tightened his grip on her shoulders. “Nay. We remain together. I’ll set up a new camp in the forest, away from the ocean. You and Mabel gather up whatever we’ll need and set it in a pile on the porch.”
Eve also glanced outside. “Where’s Robbie?” She looked up at him. “And…William?”
“MacBain only got a few scrapes and is tending to William. Killkenny was hurt, but he’ll live.”
“The burl! We can use it to heal you and William.”
He shook his head. “We’re not hurt badly enough to squander what’s left of its energy. We’ll be fine in a few days.”
Eve frowned up at him, then looked out the doorway. “What happened to the animals? My nannies, and Gretchen, and…your horses?”
“Robbie turned all the animals loose just before we left, even the hens. Those that survived will find their way back.”
Eve buried her face in her hands. “I don’t understand any of this. What is it?”
He pulled her hands down and held them in his. “It’s the dark side of magic, little one.” He pressed her palms against his chest. “But ye needn’t worry. As long as I have breath in me, it won’t come near you.”
“But magic isn’t real!”
“Shhh,” he crooned, running a finger down the side of her face. “Tonight, once everyone is settled in camp, you and I will go for a walk and I’ll explain everything to you. Come,” he said, leading her to the cellar door. “Bring everyone up and send Maddy home.”
“But what do I tell her?” Eve looked around at the wrecked kitchen. “How do I explain to Maddy what just happened?”
“Let her think it was just a freak storm. She already believed the spouts would break up when they hit shore, so she won’t be surprised that the damage didn’t reach farther inland.”
“I-is it going to happen again?”
He placed a finger over her lips. “I will answer your questions tonight.”
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