“Oh no,” Henry said as he shook his head, utterly serious. “Mickey’s hat is all wrong, and Dad’s staff is usually a tri—” Seeing where the conversation was heading, Mac picked up a rock and lobbed it toward the lake, where it hit the shoreline then bounced out onto the rotting ice in echoing thuds.
“Ohmigod, here!” Olivia cried in a whisper, shoving the shirt at Henry, then tossing the shopping bag through the window. She grabbed the boy and gave him another quick kiss. “Hang tight, sport. I’ll be back tomorrow.” She frantically looked toward the lake as Henry closed the curtains, then darted toward the closest tree.
Mac stepped around behind her and swept Olivia off her feet, and strode off with her in his arms toward the lake.
“Dammit, you scared ten years off my life,” she growled—though he noticed she settled against him quickly enough. “How long were you standing there?”
“Long enough to hear that for every step I take closer to Henry, you’re encouraging him to take three steps away from me.”
She rested her head in the crook of his neck, apparently not at all disgruntled at being lugged around. “I do believe that’s why you’re paying me the big bucks.”
Mac sat down next to the shoreline and leaned his back against a tree, then positioned Olivia on his lap so that her face was washed in moonlight.
And then he started unzipping his jacket.
Her hand shot up to stop him. “W-what are you doing?”
“I’m letting you return my property. Isn’t that why you’re wearing it?”
She pushed his hand away and slid the zipper back up to her chin, the moonlight showing her blush. “I’ll give it back tomorrow. I’m kind of chilled right now.”
“I will keep you warm, marita,” he whispered, urging her to relax against him. “Did you get everything you wanted in Bangor today?” he asked. “Or did you decide to let me take care of that concern?”
“I took care of it.” She picked up his hand and wove her fingers through his. “But the doctor said we shouldn’t… we can’t be together for a couple of days. Mac, are you as rich and powerful as Henry thinks you are?” she asked quietly.
But he could feel the tension humming through her. “Yes. Did you bring me back a token of your affection?”
She hesitated, clearly not liking his redirecting the conversation. “Actually, I did,” she said with a sigh. She untwined their fingers to reach in the pocket of his jacket, her hand emerging with a small black rectangular sheath. She held it up for him to see. “You’re a very hard man to buy for, you know.” She arched a delicate brow. “Though I did try to find you a manly bracelet, but they all had clasps. So I got you this instead.”
She flipped open the pouch and pulled out a metal… something. “It’s a multitool,” she explained, spreading its two halves apart. “It has a serrated and a smooth knife blade, a file, two screwdrivers, needle-nose pliers, and… well, I don’t know what some of these things do. But I do know every red-blooded male living around here wears a multitool on his belt.” She handed it to him. “So I thought that every time you used it, you’d think of me. Or at the very least you’d think of my creative use for a condom because you didn’t have anything to cut off the tops of the water bottles.”
Mac reached his arms around her in order to open and close Olivia’s gift as he studied its many tools, feeling touched in a way that was unfamiliar to him. “This is perfect, Olivia,” he said, hearing the thickness in his own voice. “I will wear it all the time, everywhere.” He leaned around to smile at her. “Except in bed, as I don’t believe my new pajamas have a belt.” He kissed her cheek, letting his lips linger on the heat of her blush. “Thank you, marita. I will cherish this for always.”
He saw her blush brighten. “It’s nothing special, just a silly tool.” She reached out and turned it in his hand. “I had it inscribed.” And then she gave him a smug smile. “Only it’s in a foreign language.” She relaxed against him again with a soft snort. “And I promise I’ll tell you what it says one day soon,” she drawled, throwing his words back at him from when she’d asked what marita meant.
Not wanting to spoil her fun by telling her there wasn’t a language or dialect he didn’t speak, Mac held her gift up to the moonlight and pretended to try to read what he realized was a French inscription—or more specifically, French-Canadian. Mac guessed that was the only language Olivia had immediate access to here in Maine, with Canada and the Atlantic Ocean being close neighbors.
Real magic has the power to rock the world, as you have rocked mine.
He ran his thumb over the inscription, wondering why she’d chosen such peculiar words, even as he hoped she still held the same sentiment a few days from now.
“You really don’t have to wear it if you don’t want,” she whispered, and Mac felt her slipping away into her shadows. She shrugged, giving a self-conscious laugh. “Especially not to your board meet—”
He draped her backward over his arm and kissed her, and didn’t stop until he felt her shiver in response. And having figured out her gift now that he’d held it awhile, Mac flicked it open to expose the tool he wanted, and then placed the pliers on the zipper pull of his jacket.
“I believe this will be handy for a variety of tasks,” he said, lowering the zipper.
That certainly brought her out of her shadows. Ignoring her squeak of protest, Mac kissed one plump breast spilling over the top of the Atlantic-blue bra.
“Um… I don’t think… maybe you better not… ohhhh,” she moaned when he closed his mouth over her beaded nipple straining against the lace and gently suckled. “You really can’t do that,” she said in a strangled growl, grabbing his head and pushing him away. She immediately covered her breast, her other hand going to her belly. “Oh God, I think there’s a string that runs straight from my boobs to my womb.”
“I’m sorry for hurting you,” he said, instantly contrite.
She pressed her hands to his jaw, rubbing her thumb over his lip. “No, it’s okay. It’s just that my insides get all… when you… and I get…” She covered her face with her hands. “Ohmigod, this is embarrassing.”
“Then why did you wear only my jacket over your bra tonight?” he asked, zipping it up as far as he could, considering her hands were still hiding her face.
She snorted. “Because once again I didn’t think things through first.”
He shifted her facing forward to lean back against him, and stared out at the lake, content just to hold her.
“But I’ll bet you’re going to think twice before you dish out your next punishment to Henry,” she said, apparently unable to handle the silence.
At least she was including him in her conversation this time.
“Because,” she continued, “now you know that you have to serve the sentence right along with him. How did your gut do today, Mac?”
“I imagine it felt similar to how yours felt coming out of the doctor’s office.” He sighed. “By the gods, I don’t want to go through this again for a good thousand years.” He gave her a gentle squeeze. “So stop encouraging Henry to question my authority, or I swear I will—”
“Don’t even think of threatening me,” she sputtered on a laugh. “Because I’ve got more tricks up my sleeve I could show that boy than you’ve got up yours, Mr. Abracadabra.” She grabbed his hands and slid them into the pockets of his jacket, then held them splayed over her belly. “Mmmm, the heat feels good. Trust me, Mac,” she continued, “your biggest fear should be if Henry doesn’t push your buttons occasionally. Do you want him to grow up to be a mouse or a lion?”
“Who’s asking this question: Olivia the tigress or Olivia the mouse who runs and hides from what she doesn’t want to deal with?” He kissed her cheek when she canted her head to frown up at him. “Or are you making sure he doesn’t repeat your childhood mistakes?”
“Hey, I pushed my share of buttons when I was a kid.” She turned back to face the lake. “I’ll have you know that when I was onl
y ten years old, I ran off to Ezra and Doris’s house after my foster parents announced to me and Tommy, another kid they’d taken in, that they were having a baby of their own. I got grounded for four consecutive weekends for scaring the bejeezus out of everyone, because Ezra and Doris lived sixteen miles away and it took me two days to get there on foot.”
Mac nudged her to the side to see her face. “Ezra the store owner? You knew him before you moved here?”
She beamed him a smile and nodded. “He and Doris moved to Spellbound Falls about a month after I did. When they came up for my wedding, they instantly fell in love with the lake and the people here. Within two weeks they’d bought the trading post and a house on Bent Mountain, and two weeks after that they were all moved in and running the store.” She suddenly turned sad. “Only a year ago this Memorial Day weekend Doris’s heart just quit and she died in her sleep.”
“I’m sorry,” Mac said, nudging her back around as he frowned over her head. “So you knew Ezra and his wife from when you were a child? And they kept in touch with you all through the years?”
“The Dodds used to own the duplex where I lived with my mom, only they sold it about a month or so after she died. But in a funny coincidence, they ended up buying a house just two streets away from the foster home I went to live at. And after seeing me riding my bike one day, Doris came over with a bunch of fresh baked whoopie pies for me and the other girl living there. She told my foster mother she knew me quite well, and that she’d love to watch me and Susan if she ever needed a babysitter.”
Olivia turned and smiled up at him. “It’s strange how it kept working out, because I swear I ended up living less than twenty miles away from Ezra and Doris all the time I was growing up except for the two years I was in college. And then I always stayed with them during school breaks.” She turned back around with a snort. “They were more like my grandparents than my mom’s parents were. The Naglemeyers didn’t want anything to do with me. Hell, Doris made every birthday cake I ever had, and my real grandparents never even sent me a card. And Doris was my matron of honor at my wedding, and Ezra walked me down the aisle.”
And that, Mac realized, was exactly how Sam knew the color of the frosting on Olivia’s cakes. “I’m surprised the Dodds simply didn’t adopt you.”
“Actually, when Mom died they tried to be foster parents for me, but I think the state felt they were too old. And the social worker told me they prefer to place kids with families, and Ezra and Doris didn’t have any children. Well, they’d had a son, but he died in his early twenties. They rarely talked about him and didn’t even keep pictures of him around the house, so I didn’t bring up the subject because I didn’t want to open old wounds.”
Mac rested his cheek against Olivia’s hair, soaking in her wonderful scent as he marveled at the lengths Sam had gone to in order to keep watch over his daughter. Hell, the man had even gone so far as to move an aging couple from home to home to be near her.
Mac stilled. No, not just any couple; his parents.
Ezra and Doris were Olivia’s paternal grandparents.
Sweet Prometheus, Sam Waters—which sure as hell wasn’t his real name anymore than Dodd was Ezra’s—had orchestrated a massive deception that had spanned thirty-three years. Because he couldn’t hold Olivia in his arms for fear of her safety, or kiss her scraped knee, or walk her down the aisle at her wedding, Sam had given that privilege to his parents instead.
Except the one thing the man hadn’t been able to do was protect his daughter from herself. He couldn’t stop Olivia from believing she’d been abandoned, or stop her from hiding in the shadows, or keep her from marrying the wrong man. And now he couldn’t stop the Baldwins’ or Mac’s impending storms, either.
“If I ask you a sincere question,” Mac whispered against her cheek, “will you give me a sincere answer?”
“I… I guess that would depend on the question.”
“I would ask what it is you’re wanting from our affair.” He brushed his mouth over her heated skin. “What is it that you want from me, Olivia?”
She hesitated long enough that Mac didn’t think she was going to answer. But then he felt her draw in a deep breath and press his hands into her belly.
“The short answer is that I crave the feel of a man’s strength.”
“And the long answer?”
She hesitated again, then took another fortifying breath. “The moment I met you, your confidence and sheer… solidness knocked me completely off center,” she softly admitted. “And I thought if you focused just a tiny bit of that wonderful power on me, that maybe some of it would rub off and I would become confident and solid, too.” She dropped her head away from his and stared down at their hands inside his jacket. “I want to stop always being on the outside looking in.” She pressed back against him on another deep breath. “So I guess that means I want to be five years old again, when I thought that love alone could move mountains. Because if I could just believe in that kind of power again, then I’d know there was a chance love would find me, even in… the shadows.”
Mac touched his lips to her hair. “And if the day ever comes that the mountains actually move, what will you do? Will you run out to greet them, or run in the opposite direction to hide in the safety of the shadows?”
She pulled his hands out of the pockets to fold his arms around her, and Mac tightened his embrace when she shuddered. “If they ever move, then I will believe in magic again,” she whispered, “and run out to greet them.” She gave a soft snort. “If only to ask what in hell took them so long.”
Immensely pleased with both her long and short answers, Mac tucked her head under his chin with a sigh of contentment. “Then let’s sit here in silence,” he said, “and feel one another’s strengths. No conversations inside our heads or out loud; let’s simply feel the earth breathing, and move our hearts to beat with it as one.”
“You really are a romantic, aren’t you?”
He gave her a squeeze. “No talking. And no thinking,” he reminded her. “Just feel, Olivia. And for this moment in time, simply be here with me.”
She tucked her hands back in the jacket pockets, going boneless against him with a sigh. Mac closed his eyes to focus completely on Olivia: slowly bringing his heartbeat into step with hers, then gently urging both their hearts to beat in rhythm with the universe.
He smiled at her soft gasp of surprise, and tightened his embrace when she tensed. “I’ve got you,” he whispered. “You will always be completely safe with me. Do you feel the earth breathing in and out as it slowly awakens from its winter sleep? It’s responding to your dreams, Olivia, asking you to believe in the magic again.”
Sensing her relaxed state after several minutes of silence, Mac brought Olivia with him as his mind retraced the path his finger had made on the map of Maine in the lodge last night. Only instead of starting at the ocean he began their journey at Bottomless Lake, stopping at several other lakes along the way to carefully examine their depths and suitability before continuing on.
They eventually reached the Gulf of Maine, and Mac felt Olivia’s heart lurch at the sight of a massive breaching whale. “That’s my old friend, Leviathan,” he told her. “He’s trying to get a good look at you so he can race home and tell the others. He says you’re beautiful, marita, and that he can’t wait to meet you in person.”
Though he could have stayed basking in the power of the ocean all night, Mac feared overwhelming Olivia, and pulled just enough energy for his journey with the albatrosses. He then turned his mind toward land and followed the same semistraight route back to Spellbound Falls, only this time taking note of the towns and highways and the rising terrain leading to the mountains guarding Bottomless Lake.
Mac settled back on the shoreline and smiled at the slow, rhythmic breathing of the woman sleeping in his arms. He hadn’t intended to take Olivia on his exploratory journey, but her sincerely given answer had made him wonder if a glimpse of the magic might not help her weather t
he coming storms. And maybe selfishly, he’d wanted to point out that there was a man inside the beast about to literally rock her world.
Mac sensed Sophie stirring in her bed and decided he should probably get Olivia in her own bed as well. “Wake up, cinnamon eyes,” he whispered, kissing her cheek. He chuckled when she muttered something and tried to brush him away. “Are you thinking me a bothersome pest? Come on, wake up so I can take you home.”
It seemed her lids were too heavy to open, and she wiggled around to cuddle against him. “Just carry me, Mac.”
“No, I need you awake to hear what I have to tell you.” He sat up just enough for him to stand, then lifted her to her feet.
Her eyes finally blinked open. “H-how long were we sitting here?”
“Long enough for a frost to set in; a couple of hours, maybe.”
She rubbed her eyes with her fists, then looked around. “Wow, you’re like a blast furnace,” she said, looking at him with a sleepy smile. “I’m not even cold.”
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