Making Magic: Books of the Kindling, Book 3

by Donna June Cooper

  He watched them drive off. As the sound of their engines faded, Jake heard music coming from somewhere up the street. Odd. It sounded like Thea’s song—the mountain’s song she had written for her Pops.

  Jake followed the sound down the street.

  Someone must have recorded it, but that wasn’t Thea playing a flute. It sounded more like someone playing a recorder or something simpler.

  It seemed to be coming from inside the post office, but he knew the postmistress had gone to lunch. You could set your watch by her. The post office would be empty and locked up, except for the mail boxes.

  He listened for a minute as the notes of Thea’s plaintive song drifted from the barred windows under the eaves. It wasn’t the box side, which was open all the time. It was behind the counter.

  The tune cut off abruptly.

  Frowning, he entered the building. The area where the post office boxes lined the walls was empty except for a trash can. The glass door into the actual post office was locked with the little clock sign showing when the postmistress would return. He listened at the door.

  Nothing.

  For a moment he wondered if he’d been imagining things. Then a car with an amped-up sound system went by out front, shaking the street with its bass beat, followed by the howl of a newly awakened baby coming from beyond the locked door.

  Chapter Nine

  Frustration. Unrelenting frustration. The kind that made Thea want to pull out her hair and howl. She looked in her rearview mirror to make sure that Greg’s SUV was still on her tail as they headed down the farm entrance road.

  Why on earth would that self-absorbed, arrogant attorney suddenly get it into his head to come down here and check on her? She had never given him the slightest impression that he was anything but a business friend. They’d only ever had dinner together when their projects made work discussions over a meal convenient. She had always kept him at arm’s length, like everyone else at work, walking that line between maintaining a solid business relationship and not allowing anything close to a romantic one to develop.

  But here he was. Why? What did he want? And what was all that garbage about studying her father’s background and about her being important to his life?

  By now he had to have heard that she no longer worked for the company. Although her cover story of burnout and boredom with corporate law wasn’t incriminating, it wouldn’t endear her to her father. Why would Greg risk his career with Hartford to chase after her?

  She shook her head. No way. Greg was a career man. That had always been clear. He loved his position at Hartford so much that he had sought out a friendship with her, knowing full well that she was Marshall Woodruff’s daughter. And she had known exactly what he was after.

  But she was never going to be the ticket into the upper echelons of the corporation that he wanted. She felt a tiny bit guilty that Greg might have felt betrayed and, perhaps, abandoned when she left. He’d hitched his dreams to her nonexistent star.

  She had tried to discourage him in every way she could, short of being completely obnoxious and offensive, and she had come close to trying that as well. It wasn’t her fault that he had persisted.

  With the instructions she had given her father, Greg’s career at Hartford shouldn’t have been impacted by her departure. But what if her father found out Greg had chased after her? She shook her head.

  And how was she going to explain him to Grace and Nick?

  On the upside he would be a handy buffer to prevent those two from discussing her so-called gift or pressuring her to stay.

  She pulled up in front of the house and Greg pulled in behind her. As she set Bailey down outside, Greg got out of his car and gawked at the house and the grounds.

  Something was going on, because a lot of the guests from the cabins were walking toward the entrance to the public area of the sunroom—probably one of Ouida’s cooking classes.

  Grace came out on the porch with Pooka at her heels. Bailey strained at her leash to try and run to the old hound. She was always trying to get the old dog to play with her. Thea needed to get Bailey some appropriate toys—the old dog’s ears, and temperament, were not going to hold out for long.

  Grace looked, and walked, like she was trying to smuggle a watermelon out of a supermarket under her shirt.

  Thea smiled. They had passed nine months a few days back.

  “You’re going to have to let her off that leash sometime,” Grace said. “Don’t worry, she’ll come back to you.”

  Thea remembered Jake saying something similar. She shook her head. “You and Jake. You think the mountain will protect her from copperheads? Or that big painter of yours?”

  Greg met her at the bottom of the steps. “Why would you be afraid of a painter?”

  “That’s mountain speak for panther—mountain lion.” She watched as he swallowed, trying to hide his trepidation at the idea of wild animals in the woods. Yes, a born and bred city boy.

  “Actually, I do,” Grace said, smiling from the top of the steps. “And who is this?”

  “Grace, this is a colleague of mine from Hartford.” Grace’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly. “Greg Whitehead, this is my sister, Dr. Grace Woodruff McKenzie.”

  Grace smiled and patted her stomach. “And this is my rather tardy daughter Lily.”

  “We are on T minus 0 and holding, I think,” Thea said. “Or whatever happens when launch time arrives and nothing launches.”

  Nick appeared in the doorway. Obviously, the man wasn’t letting Grace out of his sight, which made Thea fall a bit in love with him herself.

  “Hey, what’s up?” Nick joined her on the porch with a couple of bowls on a tray. “You moved.”

  Grace laughed. “I know. It is so rare these days.” She headed for the swing. “And this is about the only chair that I can get out of without help. Nick, this is one of Thea’s colleagues from Hartford,” she said, gesturing to Greg.

  Nick, ex-DEA agent that he was, didn’t even flinch. He walked over and deposited the tray, then extended his hand to Greg. “Nick McKenzie.”

  “Gregory Whitehead.”

  Greg insisted on being called Gregory. It made him sound like what he longed to be—fourth-generation, Philadelphia Main Line blue blood.

  “We just finished lunch,” Nick said. “Have you eaten?”

  “There’s some great egg salad if you want a sandwich. Or some three-bean salad and potato salad. And fresh blueberries for dessert,” Grace said, reaching for her bowl.

  “I’m fine,” Greg said.

  “I grabbed something in town,” Thea picked up Bailey to cart her up the steps. She didn’t want to leave Greg alone with Grace and Nick, although she wasn’t sure who she was protecting from whom. Sitting on one of the chairs, she put Bailey in her lap.

  “Ouida’s teaching a vegetarian cooking course out back today, so tonight is going to be ‘whatever is left over from the class’ night,” Nick said. “I think she is doing grilled portabella mushroom sandwiches and sweet potato fries today.”

  “Sounds yummy,” Thea said.

  “Are you vegetarians too?” Greg asked. “I had to work hard to find good restaurants for Thea and I because of her thing about meat.”

  Thea blew out a breath. That was bound to send the wrong message about their relationship.

  “Semi,” Nick said, glancing at Thea. “I’ve convinced Grace that meat, in moderation, isn’t so bad.”

  “Really?” Thea was surprised.

  Nick nodded. “From humane sources—farmers we know.”

  “And I’ve convinced Nick that meatless Mondays are good for the planet and his arteries,” Grace said.

  “For me the big barrier to being vegan is milkshakes,” Thea said. “And eggs and cheese. Especially Woodruff eggs and cheese.”

  “We have our own chickens and goats, who are al
l treated like queens,” Nick explained.

  “So you do eat chicken then?” Greg asked.

  Grace shook her head. “Not ours. They have names and personalities. For us it would be like—like eating Pooka or Bailey.”

  “They lay eggs for years,” Nick added. “Although their production does slow down. When they stop completely, we let them retire.”

  “There are cultures in Asia where they eat dogs,” Greg said. “Even raise them as livestock.”

  The look on Grace’s face showed that for a moment she thought Greg was joking. But Thea knew he wasn’t. And, from the tightening of his jaw, so did Nick. Thea hugged Bailey a bit tighter and glared at Greg.

  This was why she and Greg had been no more than business acquaintances. He would say strange things like that when they were out together. Cold, thoughtless, almost asocial things, and then be oblivious to how others reacted to it.

  There was a protracted moment of silence and Thea realized that Grace and Nick were both staring at her, waiting for some kind of explanation.

  “Greg came down to see where the Woodruff family got its start,” she said.

  “Not really,” he demurred. “I followed Thea down here. I wanted to see if she was okay.”

  “Thea’s great,” Thea said, smiling. She’d been ignoring all of her cell phone calls and texts. She should have answered Greg’s, if only to keep him away.

  “I can see that,” Greg said, smiling as well. “And I have to admit, I did want to see where our CEO was born.” He motioned to the farm and the house. “This wasn’t quite what I expected.”

  “He wasn’t born here,” Thea said. “Pops razed that place a few years back. This is brand new.”

  Thea didn’t care what Greg thought and as far as she was concerned, that was as good a reason as any to have flattened the old house.

  “Although the foundation of the original house is under here somewhere,” Nick said.

  Greg looked around. “It looks older than that.”

  “Pops did that on purpose. It is a green house, built with a lot of reclaimed wood and natural materials that came from right here on the mountain.” Thea explained. “He wanted the farm to be an example of sustainable building practices and self-sufficiency.”

  “What about power?”

  “Solar,” said Nick. “It’s an amazing place. You should have Thea take you on a tour.”

  “Greg probably has to catch a plane.”

  “Actually, my travel plans are open-ended,” Greg said.

  Damn.

  “Where are you staying—” Grace hesitated when she saw Thea make a throat-cutting motion, “—tonight?”

  Thea frowned at Grace then flipped to a smile when Greg turned to look at her.

  “I’m sure I’ll find something in town,” he said.

  Grace and Nick both looked at Thea again.

  She worried that Greg might hear her grinding her teeth. “Because of the festival, everything is booked for miles. And the cabins here are always booked solid. People bring campers and RVs into town on festival weekend. Some even camp out in tents.”

  Stopping short of offering him a place to stay, she hoped that he would take the hint and leave.

  “Really?” Greg looked from Thea to Nick to Grace and back again.

  Grace widened her eyes at Thea.

  “I’m…sure we can find a bed around here somewhere for you,” Thea finally said. “For tonight.”

  “Great,” Greg said, smiling. “I’d like to see more of the place.”

  Mild-mannered Greg Whitehead was not someone she would suspect of being a serial killer or stalker, but she had left Philadelphia to escape from Hartford and everything it represented. She had never expected Greg to even think of following her, especially since her father might be a bit upset about her sudden departure. But at least his presence would inhibit any conversation about gifts or caves or the Mother.

  “Where should we start, the bee hives, the goat pen, the chicken house?” Thea said.

  “Bees?” he said with a hint of alarm. Watching Greg’s smile waver made her feel a little bit better.

  “Bees it is!” She jumped up. When she put Bailey down, the dog promptly turned around and growled at Greg.

  Thea kept Greg busy for quite a while. Between the apiary, the greenhouses, the gardens, the orchard, the goat pen and the chicken house, there was a lot to see and explain. He had a number of questions about Woodruff Herbs that she told him he would have to ask Grace. He seemed particularly interested in the testing that they did. But that made sense, considering so much of their work at Hartford had revolved around whether the drugs had been tested correctly and thoroughly—and legally.

  Finally, they headed for the solar barn.

  “That’s a lot of solar panels,” Greg remarked, looking at the array on the roof of the building.

  “Self-sufficiency was Pops’s mantra, as you can probably tell.” Thea led him down the gravel drive to the garage entrance.

  “That’s new,” she said, peering through a glass pane. Since the last time she had been at the farm, part of the storage and rec area in the garage had been converted over to a mini-gym with all kinds of exercise equipment. Nick’s, most likely. And there was new farm equipment in the garage area. She smiled. Evidently the former federal agent was really a farmer at heart. And the farm did look great, even better than before, if that was possible.

  “So, not to pry or anything,” Greg said. “But the rumor is that you and your father had an argument.”

  “Not really. I just finally realized that corporate law wasn’t my cup of tea. Dad was lucky I hung in with the case, and with him, as long as I did.” All true.

  Greg looked betrayed. “But I thought you enjoyed corporate law. You certainly worked long hours on that case.”

  “When I make a commitment, I see it through.” Thea smiled. “I made a promise to finish that case and I did.” Even though it had made no real difference.

  His mouth opened, then shut. She could almost see Clueless tattooed across his forehead. “But you didn’t say anything.”

  “I believe in keeping my personal life and my business life separate,” she said. “As do you, if I recall correctly.”

  He blinked. “I was kind of surprised that you came down here. I had the impression that you and your dad were not on the best terms with his side of the family.”

  Thea turned to face him, perhaps a bit more confrontationally than she’d intended. “And how exactly did you find out that I came here?”

  Greg stepped back. “I didn’t really know. No one knew where you’d gone and you wouldn’t answer your phone.” He shrugged. “It was the only address on record for you, besides your father’s and your apartment in Philly.”

  Thea raised her eyebrows. “You accessed my personnel records?”

  “I have some friends in HR.”

  “Right. All that Whitehead charm at work.” She kept herself from frowning at him. “Quite a long way to come just to see if I’m okay.”

  Greg smiled. “I actually came to collect on all those rain checks. But you didn’t answer my question. I didn’t think you were on good terms with this side of the family.”

  “And that was best for all concerned,” she said.

  “So you… Then you lied.”

  “Not really,” she said.

  “What would you call it?”

  She waved her hand. “Being pragmatic. What would you call it? I needed a job. My Dad had one, but it came with strings. One of them involved staying away from my family. I don’t have that job any longer. No more strings.”

  “And you weren’t honest with anyone about those strings.”

  Thea thought she’d left stealth mode behind in Philly only to have Philly follow her here. “That was part of that separate personal life I mentio
ned.”

  Greg’s eye did its little tic. “The other rumor is that you hit your dad up for a huge bonus if the settlement came in lower than expected, then handed in your walking papers once you got it.” Greg studied her face. “That doesn’t sound like the Althea I know.”

  Because you don’t know the real Thea at all. “A lawyer with impressive negotiating skills. Imagine that.”

  Thea had her jaw clenched so hard it hurt. The look on his face told her that he was still oblivious.

  “But your father is CEO and Hartford is your mother—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “But—”

  “We’ll take a quick tour of the house and I can show you your room for the night.” She headed for the house.

  Greg sighed. “You are an absolute puzzle to me, Althea.”

  “I know.” She unclenched her jaw enough to force a smile. “Isn’t it fun?”

  Jake’s jaw clenched as he swung into the drive in front of the Woodruff house and saw the black SUV snugged up against the little red BMW. They were practically spooning.

  That was just wrong.

  But it appeared the Philadelphia lawyer had finagled a dinner invite and, Jake would bet, a room for the night as well. He climbed out of the truck and almost slammed the door. Then he remembered the reason he had come up the mountain and reached back in for the strap.

  He should’ve been down at the shop making sure everything was set for tomorrow’s performance. Instead, here he was acting like some jealous teenager checking up on his girl.

  Bailey’s fuzzy white head popped up over the edge of the screen door and she barked a greeting.

  “Better than a doorbell,” he said as he reached the door.

  She barked in response, her tail wagging furiously.

  “Anybody home, besides my little friend here?” he yelled.

  “Come on in!” came a chorus of voices from the kitchen.

  He walked into to the house and, when he leaned down to greet her, Bailey leaped up at him. He caught her easily.