I felt like I had lived an entire lifetime in the space of an afternoon.
I was a mother now. The baby sleeping against my chest was my daughter. I would never again draw a breath without worrying how it would affect her, without wondering if she was safe, without praying her life would be blessed with everything wonderful.
Luke drove slowly, casting frequent glances at us through the rearview mirror. He looked exhausted, elated, and everything in between and I couldn’t wait until we were back at the cottage and we could start being a family.
Elspeth was sitting on the spare tire, her small dark eyes focused on the road rolling by us. I had no idea what she was thinking or, to be honest, why she was still here. Her promise to Samuel had been fulfilled. She had watched the next generation come into this world. She had even cast a spell to keep the baby safe on the car-seat-less snowy drive home. The next descendant of Aerynn had been delivered into the world and, as I understood it, Elspeth’s job was finished.
I mean, it wasn’t like she had to check the train schedules or snag a rental car. Some deep concentration, a muttered incantation, and she would be back in Salem literally within a heartbeat.
But then my daughter shifted position and Elspeth, along with everything else, vanished from my mind. The only thing that was real, the only thing that mattered, was the beautiful baby girl cradled against my chest.
I must have dozed off because next thing I knew we were pulling into the short driveway next to our cottage. It had snowed here, too, and the thick blanket of white glittered in the rising moonlight. Home had never looked more beautiful.
“Someone shoveled the walkway for us,” Luke said as he turned off the engine. He looked surprised and pleased.
“I’ll bet Paul Griggs sent one of his boys over,” I said, deeply moved by the kind gesture.
“Pish,” said Elspeth, unfolding herself from her perch atop the tire. “Two words, no more, the blink of an eye, and the snow be gone. ’Tis child’s play for them that can.”
Trolls are not known for their sentimental hearts.
Luke and I both struggled to keep from laughing out loud as he helped me from the Jeep with his right hand while he cradled the baby in his left arm.
“Ouch!” I winced as I straightened up. “It’ll be a while before I go bike riding.” Even with the blessing of magick on my side, I felt sore and stiff and deeply awed by women who gave birth to twins and triplets without blinking an eye.
“We’ll take it slow,” he said and I leaned against him as we walked to where Brianne and Lilith were waiting for us.
The women were waiting on the porch, beaming smiles that warmed me despite the cold.
“How did you know?” I asked as we entered the cottage.
“Elspeth,” Lilith said.
I glanced down at the surly yellow-haired troll. “I thought your magick wasn’t working any better than mine.”
She ignored me and disappeared into the kitchen.
Lilith put her arm around me while Brianne, the midwife, reached for the baby. Luke took a step backward.
Luke met my eyes and I nodded. “It’s okay,” I said. “They’re going to make sure all is well and settle us in.”
He hesitated for a long moment, then reluctantly handed our daughter into Brianne’s care.
“Don’t worry, papa,” the soft-voiced midwife said with a chuckle. “Your family is in good hands.”
He didn’t look like he believed her. He looked like he wanted to spend the rest of his life protecting our daughter, protecting us, from whatever the world threw our way.
I thought I already loved him more than it was possible to love a man, but I was wrong. What I felt for him at that moment was off the chart.
“They’ll be gone soon,” I whispered as Lilith and Brianne glided down the hallway to our bedroom. “They just need to make sure we’re okay. It’s just a precaution.”
He pulled me to him in a full-body hug that was as gentle as it was fiercely protective. “I’ll see if I can get rid of the troll. Tonight should be family only.”
Family!
The word poured over my heart like hot chocolate on a cold winter’s night. Everything had changed. When we left this morning we were just Luke and Chloe, but now we were a family.
“She needs a name,” he said as I leaned my exhausted self against him, drawing his warmth deep into my soul. “We can’t keep calling her the baby.”
I nodded, but suddenly I no longer had the energy to utter a sound. I must have swayed a little on my feet because the next thing I knew Luke swept me up into his arms and carried me down the short hall to our bedroom, where Lilith and Brianne were waiting.
The two women exchanged amused glances as Luke settled me on our bed next to our naked, squirming baby girl.
“Now out with you, Luke!” Lilith made gentle shooing motions with her delicate hands. “We have women’s work to attend to.”
They shooed him out of the room, then closed the door behind him.
Brianne did a thorough examination and declared me fit on both the human and the sorceress scale.
“And my magick?” I asked.
“Don’t worry,” she said with a smile. “Rest. Sleep. It will come back better than ever in a few weeks.”
Lilith, who had been conducting an equally thorough exam of the baby, looked up at us and smiled. “And I’m happy to confirm that baby girl MacKenzie-Hobbs scored a ten on the human Apgar test. She is as perfect as she is beautiful.”
I was so proud you would have thought my newborn had qualified for Mensa membership.
“She really is beautiful, isn’t she?” I crooned as I gathered the freshly swaddled bundle into my arms. “She looks just like her daddy.”
“She looks like you,” Bri said with a chuckle.
“A wee version, to be sure, but definitely her mother’s daughter,” Lilith agreed.
What did they know? They were both clearly blind as bats.
The MacKenzie bloodline was well represented in our six-pound, twelve-ounce baby girl.
“Any signs of magick?” I asked, even though I knew the answer already.
“Oh, honey, it’s way too soon for that,” Lilith said. “She’s three-quarters mortal. It will take a long time for the magick to overcome all that is human in her bloodline.” She paused for a moment. “Besides, you remember how it was with you. Your magick didn’t show itself until you fell in love.”
“She’ll be very vulnerable,” Brianne said. “I don’t mean to frighten you, but were I you, I would see to it that she is protected by the strongest magick you can weave around her.”
That wasn’t what I wanted to hear. A few weeks ago I had spent an afternoon deep within the Book of Spells searching for what I could expect in the way of traditions and rituals surrounding the birth of a descendant of Aerynn.
Turned out there wasn’t all that much. Most of it was pretty much the sort of thing we did whenever any of our citizens welcomed a new member of the family. On the seventh day after birth, the newborn was presented to the community on the green near the memorial lighthouse monument. This was followed by the blessing from the ancestors, performed by the choir from Sugar Maple Assisted Living, and that was followed by a great party afterward. Touch those three bases and everyone was happy.
But this was different. Our baby was more human than magick. Would the magick latent in her soul be powerful enough to protect her from those who might do her harm until the time came when she learned the ways to protect herself? We wouldn’t know the answer to that question for a long time, which meant it would be up to Luke and me and the entire population of Sugar Maple to keep her safe.
And here I thought giving birth was the hard part.
The trust was the hard part had only just begun.
16
LUKE
Elspeth was sitting on the kitchen table eating a stick of butter when I walked into the room. She looked up at me, her face streaked with cholesterol, then bit o
ff another couple tablespoons while I threw up a little in my mouth.
“Try a chair, why don’t you,” I muttered as I stormed over to the fridge to see what we had on hand. “Only the cats sit on the table.”
And, as a dog guy, I was still having trouble with that one.
The troll ignored me. She was good at that. I could’ve flopped to the ground in front of her in the throes of a massive coronary and she would have continued lapping up butter and staring into space.
I pulled out some eggs, milk, and a bowl of chilled, boiled potatoes, then hunted around for onions and a stick of butter that Elspeth hadn’t manhandled. I was reasonably sure Chloe would be providing our daughter’s dinner.
I rummaged around in search of the frying pan, crossing back and forth in front of Elspeth. I might as well have been invisible. Who the hell knew butter was a narcotic? The troll looked stoned on churned cream.
She also didn’t look like she was in any hurry to go back to Salem.
“Big day,” I said.
Nothing. Not even a grunt.
“Guess I’d better finish putting the crib together.”
You would think I was reciting Red Sox scores, the way she ignored me.
Subtlety was overrated. I laid it right out there.
“So now that the baby’s here I guess you’ll be going back home.”
Elspeth didn’t move. She didn’t blink. I’m not sure she was breathing.
A loud buzzing sounded near my left ear and I jumped. “What the hell?”
She took another hit of butter.
“Damn!” I felt a sharp sting under my lobe and I swatted at the air even though I couldn’t see anything. “Knock it off, will you?”
She licked some butter off her desiccated lips and leveled me with a glance. “’Tisn’t me what’s doing that.”
“The hell it isn’t.”
“You’ll mind your tongue if you know what’s good for you. The world’s a dangerous place, human, for all of your kind.”
I’m a cop. Tell me something I don’t know, Butter Face.
She had made her point and the buzzing stopped. Coincidence, right? I was seriously pissed.
“Samuel sent you here to see Chloe through her pregnancy. Well, the baby is here. Chloe and our daughter are both fine. We can handle things from now on. There’s nothing holding you in Sugar Maple any longer. You should—”
She was there and then she wasn’t. No fireworks. No shimmer of smoke. Not even a “see you around.” She was there and then she was gone, leaving only a crumpled-up butter wrapper behind. She didn’t even say good-bye. Not that I was complaining, you understand. Gone trumped good-bye any day.
“MacKenzie the Troll Slayer,” I said to Dinah and Blot, who strolled in to see if there happened to be an open can of Fancy Feast lying around. “At your service.”
They didn’t get the joke. I knew only one person who would and that was my kid sister, Meghan. I had to start calling the family anyway, so why not start with the one who’d skipped the brunch?
I started the onions in the frying pan, then grabbed my phone from the counter.
She answered on the first ring, sounding more than a little crazy. “The bed’s getting cold, James, and I’m—”
Better head that conversation off at the pass. “It’s not James.”
“Oh, shit! Luke?”
“Where the hell were you today?” I demanded, pushing the onions around in the buttery pan with a plastic spatula. “Even Kevin showed up.”
“Didn’t Ma tell you? I’m snowed in.”
“I checked the weather report, Meggie. It’s clear and sunny in New Jersey.”
A slight pause. “I’m not in New Jersey.” A longer pause. “I’m in Massachusetts with a friend.”
It was my turn to pause. She had too many friends and most of those friends ended up breaking her heart. Too bad it was none of my business. “James?”
“We came up here for a long weekend and got snowed in.”
“If you’re snowed in, why isn’t he there with you?”
“Back off, Detective MacKenzie,” she said with a definite edge to her voice. “I don’t have to answer to you.”
“So where is he?” I persisted. “Splittin’ firewood out back?”
“He went out to get some supplies before they close the roads.”
“And how long have you known this Boy Scout?”
“We met last week.”
“Last week and you’re already holed up in a cozy cabin in the middle of nowhere?” This was how trusting women ended up on a slab with a toe tag fucking up their pedicure. “What the hell do you know about this guy anyway? Tell me he’s at least the friend of a friend.”
I heard the sound of a long, calming breath being sucked into her lungs. And then another. And another one after that.
“Okay,” I said as I cracked some eggs into one of Chloe’s spatterware bowls and whisked them with a fork, “I get it. You’re thirty years old. You’re not my baby sister any longer. You don’t need me to vet your boyfriends for you.”
Silence.
“C’mon, Meggie,” I said in a conciliatory tone. “Don’t you at least want to know why I’m calling?”
“I already know why. To bust my chops because I didn’t show up at the family shindig. Ma probably put you up to it.”
“Wrong,” I said, enjoying the moment. “I’m calling to tell you that you’re an aunt again.”
. . . four . . . three . . . two . . .
I was pretty sure you could hear her shriek in the Maritime Provinces.
“Oh, my God, Luke, it’s true! Ma told me she saw you with some pregnant shepherdess or something, but I half thought she was yanking my chain to rope me into showing up for some family thing where they could all—oh, God . . . a baby . . .”
There was no mistaking the sound of her crying. Hell, I felt more than a little misty myself as I relayed the baby’s vital statistics.
“Meggie,” I said, grinning like an idiot as I buttered some toast, “quit bawling. This is good news.”
“But when—how did it—I mean, did she—”
“Chloe.”
“Did Chloe give birth at brunch?”
“Pretty close.” I gave her the condensed version of the story.
“You didn’t go to a hospital afterward?”
“Why?” I countered, aware I was moving into dicey territory. “Chloe was fine; the baby was healthy. We were practically in a blizzard, Meggie. The safest thing was to drive on home.”
“But you’ve seen a doctor.”
“Two midwives were waiting for us on the front porch.”
“But you have to see a doctor,” she persisted. “Babies need all kinds of shots and stuff, don’t they?”
“And we’ll take care of everything,” I said, sidestepping her questions with what I thought was a damn fine Fred Astaire kind of move.
“Is she beautiful?” My sister sounded wistful. I wasn’t sure I had ever heard her sound wistful before.
“Silky blond hair. Can’t really tell about her eyes yet. Long skinny arms and legs. Chloe says she has my mouth, but I don’t see—” The words were trapped behind the lump that had formed suddenly in the middle of my throat.
“She sounds just like Steffie,” Meghan whispered.
“So when are you driving up to meet your niece?” I asked when I found my voice again.
“Soon,” she promised. “Send me a picture of the baby tonight, okay?”
17
MEGHAN
A baby.
She couldn’t wrap her brain around the news.
Luke was a father again. That whole circle of life thing she’d cried over during The Lion King had fresh new meaning.
A baby.
She poured herself another glass of Shiraz and crawled back under the eiderdown quilt to watch the flames dance in the hearth. Steffie had been a wonderful kid. Why hadn’t she spent more time with her niece? Why hadn’t she understood that life
could change forever in a heartbeat?
She started to laugh into her wine. Why hadn’t she thought to ask Luke the name of his newborn daughter?
Aunts were supposed to know things like names and birthdays and Christmas lists. She had missed Steffie’s last birthday. Greg—or was it Mark? Well, whoever it was, he had shown up one day at work with a pair of tickets to Jamaica and Meghan had run home to pack, completely forgetting the birthday party that weekend at Luke’s place.
“I’ll make it up to her next year,” she had told her angry brother. “I’ll fill her room with Barbies.”
But there hadn’t been a next year.
She polished off the glass of Shiraz, aware of the pleasant buzz moving its way through her body.
When she opened her eyes later, he was curved against her, his breath hot against the back of her neck, his body hard and ready.
“You were gone so long,” she whispered as he moved against her. “I was worried.”
“You were asleep.” She wasn’t sure if he sounded angry or amused. He could shift moods like a magician.
She had been worried, although maybe not about him. She remembered a dark feeling of unease that had swept over her as she sank into sleep. Guilt, that’s what it was. Punishment for being a lousy aunt, for blowing off the family get-together and opting to spend another day in bed with a man she barely knew. For being who she was.
He whispered something in her ear and instantly she was on fire.
“No,” she said. “Not that.”
He said it again, but this time he didn’t whisper and a thrill of fear tore through her like a virus.
She tried to pull away, but his arms were like iron bands around her middle.
“I can’t,” she said.
“You will.”
He rolled her over, pinning her to the bed. “My game,” he said. “My rules.”
She didn’t like rules, his or anyone else’s. She tried again to pull away, but he overpowered her.
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