Olivia looked back and saw the one bird still resting its head on the seat staring at them—as if it were actually listening—as the other two sat nestled together behind it. “But one of them is injured. What if she can’t ever fly again? Maybe we should at least hand her over to someone.”
“Her mate and their friend won’t leave her behind,” he said with a shake of his head. “And all she needs is a few days to get her strength back.” He took her hand again, rubbing his thumb over her palm. “I realize what I’m asking may seem strange, but my heart tells me it’s the right thing to do. So can you not only trust me but stretch your imagination to consider that maybe we’ve just been given a gift.”
“What kind of gift?”
“Since the beginning of mankind, whenever an animal showed up where it didn’t belong, people have considered it an omen. Animals are usually messengers, Olivia, and that you and I are the ones who found three albatrosses walking down a road in Maine is not a coincidence. Do not send them away without hearing what they’ve come here to tell you, as it may be something you’ve been waiting a very long time to hear.”
“But I don’t speak albatross,” she said with a smile. “Do you?”
He lifted her hand and kissed her open palm, then folded her fingers closed. “Some languages are universal, marita,” he said, just as the bird resting its head on the backseat made a snorting noise.
Olivia laughed, and just because she could, she patted Mac’s big broad chest. “Okay, you big sentimental softy, I won’t call anyone. But I’m not—”
He pulled her to him, catching her gasp to slowly and quite thoroughly kiss her.
Their feathered audience started chattering loud enough to wake the dead.
Mac turned to them. “Enough!”
All three birds immediately went silent.
He gave her a crooked smile. “It appears they understand English,” he said, just before kissing her again. Except that he stopped the moment she wrapped her arms around his neck, his eyes serious. “So can I assume this means you trust me?”
“I’m pretty sure I trusted you last night with a lot more than just keeping a few birds a secret,” she whispered. She batted her eyelashes. “Isn’t there some syndrome where captives become enamored with their big, strong, sexy captors?”
“And have I captured you, Olivia?”
She pulled away with a laugh, grabbing her door handle. “If you haven’t, then your stupid truck sure has,” she said, giving the handle a yank to show him she was locked in, only to have the door pop open.
She immediately jumped out and started backing away.
Because really, this was getting downright eerie.
Mac walked around the front of the truck and gently closed her door before heading toward her.
“I swear that stupid door was locked. I pushed every button I could find and it still wouldn’t open.” She bumped into Ezra’s store and slowly lifted her gaze to Mac. “I’m not kidding; I think your truck is possessed. And… and I think it doesn’t like me.”
“I like you,” he said, taking her hand and leading her around the side of the building in a hurry. “What time does Ezra usually open up?”
Olivia heard the vehicle approaching just as they rounded the corner of the store, and recognized Vanetta’s pickup crossing the bridge. She pulled Mac behind the rack of propane tanks. “He opens at eight but comes in around seven. That’s Vanetta. She owns the Drunken Moose, which opens at six on Sundays. No, she’s still on winter hours, which means she opens at seven.”
Vanetta drove past and pulled into the narrow lane between the Drunken Moose and the Grange hall, and shut off her truck. “It’s what… around six?” Olivia whispered. “She’s probably in early to start making the best cinnamon buns this side of the Canadian border,” she told Mac, smiling up at him. “They’re the biggest, gooiest, most decadent buns you’d ever hope to taste. Maybe we could get the birds settled and bring Carolina and Henry and Sophie back for breakfast.”
“Stay focused,” he said, pulling her toward the back of the building. “Do you have any suggestions as to how we can get inside?”
“Why don’t we just wait for Ezra?”
He stopped to raise a brow at her. “And just how do you plan to explain your sudden need for several dozen baitfish?”
Olivia gaped at him. “You intend to break in and steal them?”
“We’ll leave cash,” he said, reaching for the handle on the door next to the loading dock. And some strange reason, Olivia wasn’t the least bit surprised when it opened the moment he touched it.
Rather like she had last night.
“Wow, do you know how to show a girl a good time or what?” she said, following him inside. “I can’t wait to see what you’ve got up your sleeve for our next date.”
Chapter Seventeen
“Is there a reason that instead of appearing happy and sated this morning you’re so tense the forest is about to go up in flames around us?” Carolina asked just as Mac helped her across a brook in the overgrown road. She stopped, her sharp green eyes searching his. “Oh, Mackie, please tell me you didn’t blow it last night. You knew Olivia hadn’t been with another man since her husband, so where in hell was your legendary patience?”
Mac continued walking toward the cliffs at the end of Whisper Lake. “Olivia certainly gave it a good workout, but my patience prevailed.”
“Then what’s got you so uptight this morning?”
“I need to visit the Trees of Life, but I can’t because Father has made that impossible. And without being able to access their knowledge, I have no hope of figuring out how to proceed with Olivia.” He gestured at nothing. “Something in her past has been keeping her hiding out here, and I suspect her inability to move on with her life involves more than just her marriage to Keith Baldwin.” He stopped walking. “Olivia has been a true orphan since age four, and all that she faced growing up has led her to believe she has little or no value.” He folded his arms over his chest and shook his head. “Have you ever tried making love to a shadow, Caro? I vow I spent more time last night working to keep Olivia in the present moment than I did pleasuring her. It appeared as if she kept having conversations with herself in an attempt to create a distraction from all the conflicted emotions she was feeling. Only I swear she ended up persuading herself that she should be anyplace but where she was.” He shook his head again. “Can you image Olivia believes she doesn’t deserve me?”
“Personally, I’d be more worried by how much you deserve each other,” Caro said with a cheeky grin as she started down the path his truck tires had made earlier. She took his hand when he fell into step beside her. “And I also think your not being able to access the knowledge might actually be a good thing in this instance.”
“Excuse me?”
“Look at it this way, Mackie; for the first time in your overindulged life, you’re going to have to actually work to get the girl. Like any other man, you’ll have to learn who Olivia is the old-fashioned way: by getting to know her likes and dislikes, what her hopes and dreams are, and what fears are keeping her locked in the shadows.”
Mac walked in silence for several minutes. “Hell, you make it sound as if by using the magic that I’ve been taking advantage of the women I’ve been with.”
Carolina laughed at that. “You do have a rather annoying habit of using it to control people. And you sincerely believe that any means justifies the end result you think is best for someone.” She stopped walking to glare up at him. “And I’m not only talking about your dealings with women; I’ve seen you start wars because you were so bloody angry at the people involved.”
“I did that once, and then only because the evil had imbedded itself so deeply on both sides that those bastards deserved to kill each other.” He shoved his hands in his pockets as he continued walking. “And I don’t know if you happened to notice, but those two particular nations have been living peacefully beside each other ever since.” He pulled he
r to a stop. “Olivia claims my carrying her in my arms is controlling. And that I do the same to Henry.”
Carolina gave him a playful poke in the chest. “Which only proves that Olivia is already learning you.” She started walking again, shaking her head. “And yet the woman obviously likes you anyway. Don’t worry, you’ll learn everything you need to know about Olivia without using your magic—assuming you want to badly enough.” She broke into a jog. “Now come on, I’m anxious to meet our lost feathered friends.”
Mac followed at a walk. Dammit, he wasn’t controlling, he was expedient. And he carried Henry because the boy’s stride was so short it would take them forever to get someplace if he didn’t.
As for carrying Olivia, he liked the feel of her in his arms—and he needed to know everything about her past to ensure that she remained in them.
“Oh, Mackie, they’re exhausted,” Carolina whispered when he rounded the small cliff. She stroked the female’s head on her lap. “She’s in mourning, isn’t she?”
“Yes. She and her mate lost a son to a longline fishing rig floating off the South American coastline a couple of months ago.” He gestured toward the second male bird. “And he lost his mate last year the same way.”
“Is that why they’ve sought you out—to ask you to return their loved ones?”
Mac sat down on the ground beside her. “No, actually, they’ve accepted their losses. They volunteered on behalf of all the sea creatures to come ask me to stop the practice of longline and open-water net fishing that causes many of their friends, both finned and feathered, to get entangled and drown when the lines break free and drift away to continue ghost fishing.”
Caro snapped her gaze to his. “But you can’t stop how mankind harvests the oceans. And the three of you are well aware of that,” she said, addressing the birds. “You know Maximilian can’t do anything that directly interferes in people’s free will.”
“But they also know I have the power to influence that will,” he said. “They want me to draw attention to what’s happening out in the open ocean, so the fishermen will freely address the problem themselves.”
“But you don’t have that kind of power right now, Mac. And you won’t have it for the next hundred years unless you prove you’re a fit father to Henry.”
He arched a brow. “Do you honestly believe I didn’t have the foresight to tuck away some of the energy, considering we both know Father’s the one with the control issue?”
“You still have some of the magic?” she asked on an indrawn breath. Her eyes suddenly narrowed. “How much?”
“Enough for two, possibly three… epic events.”
Carolina stilled. “But are you willing to use it to help them?” she whispered, nodding toward the silent birds. “Because it would take a powerful amount of energy to change nearly every culture’s way of doing something they’ve been doing for centuries. People want progress, only they fight tooth and nail against change. So short of tangling all their nets and lines into useless knots, how can you possibly get them to stop filling our oceans with trash?”
Mac stood up with a grin, holding out his hand to help her up. “Start watching the news right along with the rest of the world, and see just how creative your big brother can be.” He turned to address the birds. “And rest up, my valiant emissaries,” he said, “because you are about to experience the flight of your lifetimes.”
“Henry’s going to be so excited to see his daddy in action,” Carolina said as he led her back around the narrow ledge.
“I’m afraid he can’t come on this trip, as I need to travel light and fast.”
Carolina pulled him to a stop, then tried to shrug free of his grip to back away. “You can’t think to leave him with me!” she cried when he wouldn’t let go. “I don’t know any more about being an aunt than you do about being a father.”
Mac started toward Inglenook again with a laugh. “Don’t worry, princess, I’m sure Olivia will share some of her wonderful pearls of wisdom with you.”
Olivia made it back just in time to put on her pajamas and crawl into bed, where she rolled and thrashed around to make it appear as if she’d spent the night at home instead of rolling and thrashing around on a feather bed with her lover all night. Having an affair was a lot of work, she decided, just as she heard the kitchen door open and slam shut.
“Mom, I’m home!” Sophie hollered as her shoes hit the wall and her backpack thumped to the floor. Her daughter raced down the hall, ran into the room, and jumped on the bed. “Did you miss me?” the girl asked, her grin reaching ear to ear. “Did you bring me back a doggie bag from the restaurant? What did you eat? Did you and Mr. Mac go dancing?” she continued, her eyes dreamy. “I bet he’s a great dancer.”
“Sorry, but I ate everything on my plate,” Olivia said, fluffing her pillow to lean against the headboard. She rubbed her eyes, then stretched her arms over her head with a yawn, remembering that she was supposed to just be waking up. “How about you?” she asked, diverting Sophie’s other questions by firing off some of her own. “What movie did you watch? Did you guys make a big mess in the kitchen?” She swept the girl into a giant hug and gave her a noisy kiss on her cheek. “And how did you sleep, baby,” she whispered, “away from your mom all night?”
Sophie sat up with a groan. “I’m not a baby anymore, and we didn’t get to sleep until after midnight. After we watched The Little Mermaid, we went back to Henry’s cabin and Miss Carolina read us stories about all the different mythological gods. Did you know the horse Mr. Sam let me ride on Friday is named Pegasus, and that Pegasus is a winged horse who’s actually Poseidon’s daughter?” She nodded when Olivia just gaped at her. “Pegasus rose out of the sea when Med… Med-somebody’s head got lopped off and dripped blood on her. Isn’t that cool? I think I’m going to ask Mr. Sam if Pegasus can be my horse for the summer.”
Wonderful; now Mac’s sister was teaching Sophie all about the bed-hopping and apparently head-lopping, blood-dripping gods. “Um, what happened to Henry’s book of names?” Olivia asked. “I haven’t heard any talk of him changing his first name lately.”
Sophie’s eyes widened. “Oh, wow! You should have seen Miss Carolina last night when Henry showed her that book and told her he was thinking of changing his name to Dorian, because he thought Dorian Oceanus sounded very noble. When she asked what was wrong with the name his mother had given him, and he explained that his dad didn’t think it was noble enough, I thought Miss Carolina was going to explode.” She covered her mouth. “She told Henry that hell would freeze over before she’d let anyone, especially her dumb lug of a brother, change his first name to anything. But she quickly apologized for saying hell,” Sophie rushed to assure her. Her eyes widened again. “And then she tossed the book of baby names in the fire before I could tell her it was from the bookmobile.”
Olivia threw back the blankets and got out of bed with a laugh. “Then I guess Carolina can go with Henry next week and explain to the librarian what happened.”
“Are we going on a picnic today?” Sophie asked, following her down the hall to the kitchen. “I told Miss Carolina about our Sunday picnics, and she said it’s been at least a thousand years since she’s been on one,” she said with a giggle. “Can she and Henry and Mr. Mac come with us again today?”
Olivia smiled out the window as she took a drink of water, not at all surprised that their just you-and-me time had turned into you-and-me-and-the-Oceanuses.
Her guests did seem to have a thing for fraternizing with the help.
“I hadn’t planned a picnic today, sweetie, because Gram and Grampy’s being away means we need to stay here and feed everyone, including Sam now.”
“Then let’s have a cookout on the patio again like we did Friday night. That was so much fun.” She tugged on Olivia’s sleeve. “We hardly ever do stuff like that when Gram’s here, so… maybe we should…” She shrugged, looking guilty. “I just thought we could have a cookout every day until she comes back,�
� she whispered.
Olivia pulled Sophie into a hug to hide her own guilt. Oh God, what had she been doing to her little girl by staying here under the shadow of Eileen? “I think that’s a wonderful idea. Why don’t you go down to the barn and find Sam, and tell him lunch will be served out on the—” She stopped when she heard the bell at the fence gate clang.
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