“I think they gather down at Pinkham’s gravel pit,” Maddy whispered, darting a worried glance at her mother before looking back down at her plate.
William silently picked up Rick’s overturned chair and then sat down.
“I’m sorry, William,” Patricia said, her face flushed with embarrassment. She gave a nervous laugh. “We’re usually more civilized when we have company.”
“Ye needn’t apologize, Patricia. A family squabble at mealtime is music to my ears. My sister could throw a tantrum that rattled the rafters. My poor sainted mother spent half her time chastising Gabby, and the other half defending her to our father.”
“You have a sister?” she asked with a hesitant smile. “Is Gabby a nickname because she likes to talk, or is it short for something?”
“It’s short for Gabriella, though the lass did like to speak her mind.” Seeing Maddy’s head lift curiously, William shot Patricia a grin, hoping to lighten the mood. “Even with her hair hiked up in a bun, Gabby didn’t reach a man’s armpit, but she had the temperament of a magpie.”
“Oh, she sounds wonderful. Will she be coming to visit you in your new home? And your parents, too? I would love to meet your sainted mother,” Patricia said gaily. “I believe we might have a lot in common,” she finished with a grimace toward Maddy.
“I’m sorry, but all of my family has . . . passed,” William told her.
The older woman’s cheeks darkened. “Oh, I’m sorry for your loss, William.”
“Don’t fret yourself, Patricia. They’ve been gone for quite some time now. Maddy,” he said. “Has Sarah told you the children are saying those things to her?”
“No, she’s too embarrassed,” Maddy admitted—even as her chin lifted much like her daughter’s had. “But I’ve been getting plenty of feedback from the adults, though they’re careful not to actually say Billy replaced me with another tight-assed, perky-boobed, man-trapping cheerleader to my face. Only they forget kids hear everything they’re saying at home, and that the little snots are far less shy about repeating it.”
“Well, hell, Peeps, why don’t you tell us how you really feel?” Trace drawled.
Patricia stood up. “I think I’ll go check on Sarah.”
“I told you, I will talk with her just as soon as she’s over her little pout.”
Patricia rolled her eyes. “If she’s anything like her mother, that’ll take days.”
“I never pout.”
The older woman smiled. “That’s right; you don’t get mad, you get even. Trace, William, thank you for coming to dinner. We’ll have to do this again . . . soon.” She headed toward the hallway. “Don’t worry, Madeline. I won’t spoil your mother-daughter talk. I’m just going to have a grandmotherly chat with Sarah about . . . boinking,” she trailed off, disappearing up the stairs.
Trace arched a brow at Maddy. “So that’s what has your panties in a twist? Your ex-husband is marrying a younger woman, and that makes you feel like a baggy-assed, saggy-boobed, man-trapping cheerleader?”
“Billy is damn near old enough to be that girl’s father.”
Trace snorted. “Apparently Billy Kimble is the one who never learned his lesson. Whereas you, Peeps, learned yours too well.”
“What in hell are you talking about?”
Trace leaned back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest. “You asked me today what happened to the fun-loving cousin you remembered, and now I’m asking you the same question.”
“She grew up!” Maddy snapped. “She had a kid with a jerk who never grew up, she spent five years in night school getting her nursing degree, buried her father and took on the responsibility of her fifteen-year-old brother, and spent the last four years trying to hold this family together.”
“And while you were doing all that,” Trace said quietly, “in-stead of growing up, you grew old.”
“Twenty-seven is not old.”
“No? So instead of being a pediatric nurse like you intended, you didn’t choose to work at a nursing home to be around people you have something in common with?” He leaned forward in his chair. “You may have spent the last four years holding your family together, but you also spent those years hiding behind them, trying to distance yourself from your own man-trapping-cheerleader past. When was the last time you went on a real date?”
Maddy stood up so forcefully her chair clattered to the floor behind her. “My love life is none of your damn business!” She turned her glare on William. “And if you ever kiss me in public or threaten to spank me again, I will sic my real boyfriend on you.” Her glare turned sinisterly smug. “He’s a big, bad-tempered, bear-eating bogeyman, and he’ll do anything I ask him to do because he loves me.”
Apparently satisfied he’d been duly threatened and sufficiently warned, Maddy kicked the fallen chair out of her way and marched to the door. “I’m going for a walk,” she said through gritted teeth. “And neither of you had better be here when I get back.”
“What time should I pick you up Saturday?” Trace asked softly.
Maddy halted with her hand on the doorknob, looking incredulous. But then her shoulders suddenly slumped. “I’ll be at the dock at nine,” she said, quietly walking out the door and closing it softly behind her.
William looked at all the empty chairs, and smiled across the table at Trace. “I’m assuming dinner is over?”
“Christ, it’s good to be home,” Trace said, returning his smile.
“Is there a reason ye just pushed her like that?”
Trace’s smile vanished. “To make sure there’s still enough fight in her to push back.” He folded his arms over his chest again. “You threatened to spank her?”
William shrugged. “I was just blustering. But since it was the first time she’d met me, she couldn’t know that I’d cut off my right arm before I’d hurt a hair on her head.”
“Have you met Maddy’s bogeyman boyfriend?”
“I’m afraid I’m the bogeyman,” William said with a chuckle. “It’s a long story best saved for another time, preferably when we’re on our fourth or fifth drink. What’s happening Saturday morning?”
“I’m taking Maddy out on my boat to show her my mermaid.”
“Your mermaid? So you started the rumor going around town?”
“Not intentionally.” Trace uncrossed his arms, pulled something out of his pants pocket, and flipped it across the table to William. “Have you ever seen anything like that before, Killkenny?”
William studied the front of the coin then turned it to look at the other side. “It appears quite old,” he said, looking over at Trace. “I’m not sure about the writing on the back, but I have seen the symbol on the front before.”
In the first unguarded gesture William had seen the man make since meeting him, Trace’s jaw went slack in surprise. “You recognize the symbol?” he whispered. He stood up, his stance somewhat aggressive. “Where is it from? What does it mean?”
William also stood up, and flipped the coin through the air to him. “It’s the mark of a strong arm,” he said, heading across the kitchen and out onto the porch.
“A strong arm?” Trace repeated, following him outside.
William walked down the stairs to the driveway and turned with a frown. “I don’t know the modern word for it. A strong arm,” he repeated, searching for a better term, “as in a protector or a champion.” He suddenly had a thought. “Like one of those knights of that table. Sir Galahad, I think his name was. And King Arthur. My friend Mabel told me these iron-clad warriors would receive some sort of token from a woman, and vow to be her champion.”
“Mabel Anderson, the teacher? Eve’s mother? She told you the story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table?”
“Eve is married to my friend Kenzie Gregor, and I’m staying with them while my house is being built. And Mabel has been . . . entertaining me with such stories.”
Trace looked down at the coin in his hand. “And this is the symbol for a knight?”
“Nay, it dates back much further than King Arthur’s reign.”
Trace narrowed his eyes at him. “How come you know what this ancient symbol is, but you don’t seem to know much about knights?”
William shrugged. “I’m better versed in what went on before the ninth century.”
“You’re a historian, then?”
William glanced toward the path leading into the woods that he assumed Maddy had taken in an attempt to walk off her anger. He looked back at Trace, pointing at the coin in his hand. “If ye wish to find out more about it, ye need to look at the black magic being practiced several thousand years ago.” He shrugged. “If I had to guess, I would say the coin is a request for a strong arm, and the writing on the back is either the name of who is in need of a champion, or a warning as to where the threat is coming from. Where did ye say you got the coin?”
“There is no such thing as magic, black or otherwise.”
“No?” William darted another glance toward the woods then smiled at Trace. “Then why are ye taking Maddy out to show her your mermaid on Saturday?”
Trace shoved the coin in his pocket, took a deep breath, and returned to the guarded warrior William had first met. “Maddy’s a big girl,” he said, gesturing toward the woods. “She can take care of herself.”
“I noticed some strange markings on several of the trees back there,” William said, “and I can’t decide what sort of animal made them. So I’d rather the lass not have to take care of herself when I can do a better job of it.”
“Good luck with that, my friend,” Trace said with a chuckle. He headed toward his truck, opened the door, and looked back. “You go save your girlfriend, and I’ll go find out what in hell possessed Rick to slap his sister.”
Chapter Six
William untied the horse he’d left behind the old barn next to the Lane’s house, and started leading his only source of transportation down the forest path dappled with lengthening shadows from the setting sun.
He’d purchased a four-door pickup truck last week, but he hadn’t been able to use it to come here this evening. Modern society had so many blasted rules governing everything a person did, William wasn’t sure he’d ever grow accustomed to living in this century. He couldn’t drive his new truck on the roads without a license, and even with the learner’s permit Mabel had helped him get, he still couldn’t drive it unless there was somebody in the seat beside him. And after the little incident a few days ago . . . well, Mabel had suggested that maybe he should ask Eve or Kenzie to help him practice.
Eve had kindly volunteered, but they hadn’t made it halfway into town when she’d asked him to stop the truck, gotten out, and walked the two miles back home. And Kenzie had said hell would freeze over before he’d ride in a vehicle with the power of three hundred horses that was being driven by a hardheaded Irishman.
Maybe tomorrow he’d ask Elbridge to go for a ride with him, William decided, or Samuel or Hiram. He’d learned he preferred a man in the seat beside him, as women had an annoying tendency to scream whenever they thought he came too close to something. He’d tried calmly explaining to Eve that he hadn’t really hit the mailbox, because if it hadn’t been leaning into the road like that, it wouldn’t have pushed in the truck’s large mirror on her side. That’s when she’d gotten out, bent over and braced her hands on her knees for several minutes, and then silently started for home.
Maybe Trace would consider riding with him, since the man appeared in control of his nerves. And they seemed to get along quite well—although that would likely change when he found out William had withheld some important facts about the coin.
But somebody had to help him practice for his driver’s license; he couldn’t keep riding Kenzie’s mares around town whenever he wanted to go someplace. Christ, he wished he could still fly. Considering all the vile unpleasantries he’d been forced to endure as a dragon, having the ability to soar through the air with the speed and skill of an eagle certainly had been a major advantage.
Not being able to make love to a woman for several long centuries, however, had been a major drawback.
William stopped walking to cant his head and listen, as he tried to decide where the sound of an occasional hollow thump was coming from. He started off again at a more urgent pace, pulling the horse into a trot when he decided it was coming from the general area where he’d seen the strange markings on the trees.
When he drew close enough that he could hear growled breathing as well as occasional sobs, he tied the mare to a branch, veered off the path, and snuck through the forest as quiet as a field mouse. He stopped at the edge of a small clearing just as he saw Maddy draw back and swing a large stick, striking a tree so violently that pieces of dead bark flew some twenty paces away.
But it wasn’t until he noticed the tears streaming down her cheeks that he finally understood what was going on. Trace might have pushed Maddy to see if she still had some fight in her, but what the man couldn’t have guessed was that the only target the woman dared push back at was some old dead tree.
It was then William realized that while holding her family together for the last four years, Maddy had quietly been coming apart inside. She was alone in a sea of people, having no broad shoulder to lean on when the journey got difficult, no one to discuss things with in the wee hours of the night when problems appeared far worse than they were, no partner to confide in who could hold her in his arms and whisper that everything would be all right, then make love to her until she couldn’t remember what had been bothering her in the first place.
No, the only witness to her tears was an old dead tree.
With the growl of a wounded animal backed into a corner, Maddy took another mighty swing at the well-battered trunk, hitting it so forcefully this time that the stick flew from her hands, and she fell to the ground—her cry of surprise turning to heart-wrenching sobs as she lay there weeping in utter defeat.
Feeling as if he’d taken the blow to his chest, William dropped to his knees. Not since burying his family had he felt such despair, as he knew from personal experience that Maddy wasn’t angry at the world near as much as she was angry at herself.
It was obvious to him from what she’d said at the table tonight, that she felt like a dowdy old spinster going through the motions while her ex-husband had retained his youthful vitality. She may have tried to defend her life to Trace, but in actuality, the people she cared for at the nursing home were emotionally younger than she was.
And she knew it, and it hurt.
William understood far too well the hopelessness of feeling that sort of isolation. Hadn’t he himself repeatedly lashed out when he’d been a dragon, only instead of an old tree that couldn’t fight back, he’d gone after a mangy old bear, or any other entity—animal or demon—he could find, in an attempt to ease the gnawing in his gut?
William silently watched Maddy cry herself out for several minutes, the pain squeezing his own chest nearly unbearable, until she finally straightened to a sitting position and wiped her eyes and face with the palms of her hands.
And that’s when he decided that if he accomplished only one thing with this second chance at life he’d been given, he would see that Maddy never had to take out her frustrations on a tree again. If she had the urge to lash out at something, he would stand as her target; if she required a shoulder to lean on, he would give her his; and if she needed to whisper her fears in the wee dark hours of the night, he would be the one to hear her. Kneeling there in the bushes, William vowed on the souls of his dead mother and sister that whenever Maddy felt old and saggy and heavy of heart, he would do everything in his power to show her how young and alive and vital she was.
She finally stood up, finished drying her face on the hem of her blouse, and then ran her fingers through her hair in an attempt to tame it. With a deep breath that ended with a lingering sob, she squared her shoulders and started walking toward home.
William quietly got to his feet and silently ran
back through the woods. He untied the mare and led her trotting several hundred paces back toward the house before he turned around and began casually strolling toward Maddy.
She stopped when she rounded a corner and spotted him, her eyes widening at the sight of the large horse before narrowing on him. “I told you to be gone when I got back,” she said, her voice raspy from crying.
He kept walking until he reached her and pulled the mare up beside him to pat its cheek. “I remembered that ye had a sore knee, and Rose here suggested that we give ye a ride home before we head back to An Tèarmann.”
“Rose suggested you give me a ride?” she asked, the barest hint of a sad smile twitching one corner of her mouth.
“Aye, she’s quite thoughtful that way, despite being Scots,” William said, running his hand over the mare’s large nose. He suddenly stilled when he noticed Maddy staring at his arm. “Are ye upset that I let Janice use her money card to order my watch?” he asked, pulling his cuff back even more as he held his wrist out to show her the watch. “The others assured me it would be okay.”
“Huh?” It took her a moment, but she finally lifted her gaze from his arm to his face. “Oh, no, it’s okay,” she said, her eyes straying to his wrist again.
“Then come.” He stepped to the mare’s side. “I’ll help ye up.”
“She’s not wearing a saddle. I can walk. It’s not that far.”
“A saddle’s more trouble than it’s worth; don’t worry, Rose is as gentle as a spring lamb. And the less ye use that knee, the quicker it will heal. Come on,” he urged, pulling her in front of him so she was facing the horse.
She clutched his hands when he set them on her waist. “The both of us will be too heavy for her.”
He chuckled. “Six of us wouldn’t be too heavy for her, but I intend to walk.” She tried to step away, but he didn’t let her go. “You’re not afraid of horses, are ye, Maddy?”
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