Andrea poked her hand through the doorway to the hall. Nothing changed. The portal was gone.
“Are ya all right?”
Andrea blinked at the man’s voice. Kenneth walked toward her, his presence strange as it replaced the past.
“I thought I heard ya call out,” he continued.
Andrea took a step back and glanced at the protective barrier. Kenneth stopped by the doorway, following her gaze down. He did not pass.
Andrea took another step back.
“Ya have no need of this kind of protection in here,” he tried to assure her. “No one in this house means ya harm.”
“Who said I was afraid of what was in here?” she answered, noting he did not step past the line of brick dust.
“Are ya running from something?” he asked. “What did ya mean earlier when ya said ya had your own demons to deal with?”
“What do you really want from me?” Andrea refused to answer his question. Just like before, each time he spoke, she felt like they were dancing along a line and neither one of them was willing to jump across first. She didn’t trust him. She didn’t know him enough to trust him. And he clearly didn’t trust her.
Kenneth had made it clear he didn’t want her here. It was only his daughter’s trap that had resigned both of them to this situation.
“Nothing. I want nothing from ya.” He ran his hands through his hair in frustration. Why did she have the impression he was lying?
The man was attractive. There was no doubting that. At first, she’d been too shaken with fear to appreciate it fully. Now with him trapped on the other side of the door, she felt a stirring of interest in her stomach.
When they’d been in the office together with Jewel, she’d caught the scent of his cologne. The memory of it surfaced. There was something familiar about the smell, about him. She felt drawn to move closer.
“I think we can both safely assume there is something the other is not willing to say,” Andrea said.
“So ya admit that ya are hiding something.” Kenneth leaned against the hallway wall.
“I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.” It might have been a lie. Even as she said it, Andrea wasn’t sure. She found it hard to concentrate. The donut she’d managed to stuff into her mouth earlier no longer was enough to stave off the growing hunger headache. But, to find food, she’d probably need to leave the bedroom.
“If I tell ya mine, I can’t promise what the consequences will be for ya.”
“Same,” she answered.
“And if ya try to hurt my family, there will be a price to pay,” he warned.
“Same,” she said.
“I guess I lied. There is something I want from ya.” He didn’t move as he studied her.
“What’s that?”
“The truth.” Still he remained where he was. “And what do ya want from me?”
“Tell me why it is you can’t step past the brick dust. It’s clear your intentions aren’t good.”
“Who said I couldn’t step across your enchanted brick dust?” He pushed away from the wall.
Andrea glanced down to the floor and back up at him in challenge.
He gave a small laugh and easily stepped inside.
Surprised, Andrea opened her mouth but no sound came out. She hadn’t been expecting that.
Kenneth chuckled. “It’s rude to enter a lady’s chamber without permission.”
She became acutely aware of standing in a bedroom alone with the man. The location seemed intimate.
“Did ya find everything ya needed?” he asked. If she wasn’t mistaken, his words had become softer, lower.
“Yes. Thank you. Your sister’s closet looked very expensive. I didn’t want to borrow any of those clothes, so I found this.” She gestured at the shirt and sweatpants.
Kenneth gave another small laugh. “Yeah, I guarantee if those were in Malina’s drawers, they’re just as expensive.”
Andrea’s eyes widened and she looked down at herself. “I can take them off.”
When she glanced back up, Kenneth had a strange expression.
Realizing how the words could have been misconstrued, she corrected, “I mean, change out of them into something else.”
Too late. The double entendre was there and would not be ignored as ideas sprang into her thoughts. The nearby bed was in her peripheral. Only a few steps away. One sweep of his hand would close the door to give them privacy.
Andrea shook herself from her runaway thoughts.
“What is it?” He lifted his hand, concerned.
Andrea realized she was frowning at him and it took a few seconds to get her thoughts back on track. “Um, I…” She took a deep breath. “I believe there are forces in nature that we cannot see or hear, but they guide us. I think I was guided here to try to help your family, but I’m not sure how much I can help with Jewel. You say she’s not a demon, so I’m guessing possession, maybe? There are a few things we can try, but I’m not going to oversell my abilities.”
Andrea thought of her first solo encounter, Mama Cecile. She hadn’t even finished the first sentence of the banishment she’d planned. That little swamp shack was still there, waiting to draw in visitors to its misery. In many ways, Andrea had never left the swamp. Part of her soul was still there, hovering above dark waters inside a rickety shack. And now Mama Cecile had attached herself to her, haunting her.
Tick, tick, scrrich, tick. The mere thought of the sounds gave her nightmares.
But she was here now. Trapped. She had to try to help the MacGregor family, right?
Whatever magick was at play might not let her go until she did.
If she stayed, would Mama Cecile show up?
“I’ll need to call a practitioner I know to make sure I have the right measurements and ingredients. They need to be precise for this ceremony. And—”
“My daughter is not possessed,” Kenneth interrupted.
“I’m sorry. I know this is difficult to hear, but I think you know her abilities are not human,” Andrea said. Was this man under a cloud of denial? “You do see that she makes things happen, don’t you?”
“Of course I do.” Kenneth’s tone became hard. She noticed that happened whenever he acted like he needed to defend his daughter. He was very protective of the child. “Jewel is special. She’s not…” He ran his hands through his hair and paced toward the fireplace.
“I know you don’t trust me, but I think you have to.”
His eyes met hers, and she saw all the stress and worry he must have been carrying inside for a long time. He looked down, tapping the line of brick dust with his toe before glancing up to where the chimney would release its smoke.
“This house is protected,” he said. “Ya don’t have to worry about sprinkling brick dust and hanging charms. Nothing will happen to ya here.”
“You keep saying that, but this is a big house. Even if you have the knowledge to protect it, there is a lot of ground to cover, which means a lot of tiny holes for things to slip past.” Andrea noticed he’d changed the subject away from his daughter. Again.
“Twenty thousand square feet,” Kenneth stated.
“I’m sorry?” She tilted her head, not following his train of thought.
“This house has twenty thousand square feet, give or take. Sixty-plus rooms. Then there are eighty-some acres of woods, a stream, a barn, walking paths, six acres of back gardens directly behind the house. I assure ya, we are aware of the size, and all but some of the back acres have adequately been covered. My brother Euann’s one responsibility to this family is to see to the security.”
“I’m not talking about security cameras and electric fences,” Andrea dismissed.
“Neither am I, though he does like to play with his little techno-toys.” Kenneth turned his back to the fireplace and leaned against the mantel. “I’m talking about magick. Real magick. Old magick. And if any of those were to fail, which is rare, then the extended family living here would be able to defend agains
t a breach. We’d even protect the town if necessary. It’s a little more difficult with the population not knowing they’re being protected. My family started selling wind chimes and window charms made of ancient symbols. The locals think they’re novelties, but they’re hanging them around town for us.”
“I see.” Andrea nodded, believing to understand. “It’s rare to find families who practice these days.”
“There are probably more than ya think. Ya just need to know how to look.”
“Don’t you mean where to look?”
“No, I mean how.” His eyes focused on her. “But if it makes ya feel better to dirty the floors with brick dust, feel free. No one will stop ya. A little extra never hurt.”
Considering she was almost out, if what he said was true then that was one less thing she needed to worry about.
But then, what was with the portal to the past that opened up in the hallway, inside the so-called protected house?
There were so many unanswered questions.
“So what exactly does your family believe? Animism? Folk magick from Scotland?” Andrea didn’t know much about the beliefs in that part of the world.
“Animism, sure that’s part of it,” he said.
“So—”
“We’re warlocks,” he stated.
“Oh, so—”
He lifted his hand, cutting off her words as a sphere of blue formed in his palm. “Warlocks.”
“Warlocks,” she repeated, leaning over to see the bottom of his hand. Surely this was some kind of fake magic trick from a novelty store. A trigger hidden in a ring, perhaps?
He balled his hand into a fist and extinguished the light. Then, lifting his hand so she could study it, he turned it around to show it had been no trick. With his fingers pointed upward, he wiggled them, causing streaks of blue to surround each digit. Then, pointing at his other palm, he transferred the light to his other hand. He formed a light ball and tossed it back and forth between his palms before saying, “Catch.”
Andrea stumbled back but automatically lifted her hands as the ball flew toward her chest. The light landed in her palms, tingling her skin and moving as if alive. The sensation was amazing, as it shot an electric current through her entire body, giving her a boost of energy. But that wasn’t all it did. It heated her in pleasurable—albeit ill-timed—ways. She lifted the light closer to look inside the depths but it dissipated into a thin trail of smoke that slithered across her face like a lover’s caress.
Her palms were hot and red from where she held it, and she shook her hands to cool them.
“That’s…” She couldn’t find suitable words to express how she felt. “Wow.”
“Your turn,” he said.
“I can’t do tricks like that.” She felt a little lightheaded. “My family isn’t that kind of magick. Our powers come from all around us. We know how to mix the right ingredients, arrange the right talismans, and call upon the past for help. Folk magick.”
“There are several forms of folk magick. Which is yours?”
“My family is from Louisiana, Creole country.” Andrea sat down on the edge of the bed, looking at her hands. They still tingled. Her heart was beating a little faster than usual, thumping in her ears.
“Voodoo?”
“That’s a religion, similar in some ways I guess, but not the same thing,” Andrea answered. Everyone always assumed that first. She thanked Hollywood movies for that. “We’re closer to hoodoo, like you said, folk magick.”
“Ya don’t sound like ya are from Louisiana,” he observed.
“I’m not. I was raised in Illinois. My grandparents had moved there when my mom was born. My parents died in a house fire when I was seven. My mom saved my sisters and me before going back in for my dad. After that, Grandmama Ruth took me in. She’d returned to New Orleans to be close to her family after my grandpapa had died. Grandmama and her first cousin, who we called Aunt Florence, raised us.”
“We? Ya and your sisters?”
“Two younger sisters—Angela and Annie. They still live there. The female gene is strong in my family. Not many boys. Even though males technically carry the deciding chromosome, but… never mind. It is what it is.” Realizing she was doing most of the revealing, she said, “What about you? Your mom was telling me about some of the people, but there seems to be a large extended family living in this mansion with you that she neglected to mention. Do all your cousins, aunts, and uncles live here as well?”
“The idiot with the car keys does. His twin brother Cory lives in town with their younger sister Maura. They just moved here and are looking at taking over the motel.”
“The Hotel motel?” Andrea asked.
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“Fletch at the front desk will be excited about that,” Andrea joked.
“Don’t think I’ve met him.” Kenneth went toward the window she’d been at earlier and looked down over the yard. “Others come and go on business, but Aunt Cait and Uncle Murdoch spend most of their time here. Raibeart—”
“Right, naked guy,” Andrea said.
“We’ve tried to enchant his clothes to stay on him, but it never works,” Kenneth admitted. “And if he does end up proposing, just say no. Trust me.”
“Noted.”
“Uncle Fergus and Aunt Donna will be coming back from Europe soon with their English bulldog, Traitor. That dog is like a child to Fergus. Margareta and Angus, my parents who you’ve met. Me, Jewel, my brother Euann, his wife Cora—”
“I’ll stop you there. I’m not going to remember all of those names without having met them,” Andrea admitted. “I don’t know if I could live with my entire family like that. I can barely stay a week in the same house with my sisters before a screaming match starts.”
“Ya know that saying, takes a village. I think someone in the MacGregor line took that a little too seriously. We’ve been moving around like this since the 1300s. We’re nothing if not codependent.”
“I think it’s nice that you all are close. That’s how families should be.” Andrea stood up from the bed. “Though, saying that, I again admit that my sisters and I cannot live in the same house for too long. At best, we could maybe live on the same city block. If that block was busy and we didn’t run into each other every day. I love them deeply, but they’re trying. Then again, our houses were never the size of an actual city block. Growing up, we weren’t even given our own bedrooms.”
“Trust me. Space does not make sibling rivalry go away. We have a ledger book of old grievances waiting to be avenged. Which reminds me, I’m due to replace all of Raibeart’s scotch with tea and saltwater.”
Andrea grimaced. “That sounds awful.”
“He laced all the marshmallows in my cereal with a swearing potion,” Kenneth said. “Try holding a board meeting compelled to say the word fuck every other sentence. Luckily most of the cursing was in Gaelic so they couldn’t understand what I was saying.”
Andrea laughed. She leaned against the bed to keep from swaying on her feet, trying to ignore her hunger. “I’ve never heard of a swearing potion, but my first question is, why is a grown man eating cereal with marshmallows in it?”
“It’s delicious,” he defended. “And it’s endorsed by tiny sailor elves.”
“Wouldn’t putting swearing potion in his scotch be more tit-for-tat?”
“No.” Kenneth waved his hand in dismissal. “He swears in meetings all the time.”
Her stomach chose that moment to growl. The loud noise was unmistakable in the quiet bedroom.
Kenneth reached into his back pocket and pulled out his cellphone to check the time. “It’s late. Have ya not been offered something to eat?”
Andrea shook her head in denial.
“I apologize. I assumed my ma had seen to it.”
Andrea averted her gaze.
“Tell me she gave ya lunch.” He frowned, as if silently answering his own question. His eyes narrowed in on her. “Please don’t take offense to thi
s, but ya look a wee bit sickly, as if you’re about to fall over. When is the last time ya ate something?”
Andrea rubbed the bridge of her nose. Her fingers were still warm from the light ball. “I had intended on eating donuts all day, but your ma interrupted my plan.”
“And ya tease me about marshmallows in my cereal.”
“They were free from the motel.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I live on a budget.” That was a gross understatement. “And I don’t say no to free food.”
He kept staring at her. She didn’t like the expression on his face. It appeared to be a cross between confusion and pity.
“Come with me.” Kenneth motioned for her to go toward the hallway.
Andrea paused before forcing herself across the barrier into the upstairs hall. He strode before her, outpacing her hesitance.
“With our schedules of late, we all fend for ourselves when it comes to breakfast and lunch, and sometimes dinner. You’re welcome to anything ya find, and if ya have a preference, just give me a list and I’ll make sure the groceries ya want are delivered.”
When she neared a cracked bedroom door, she heard Raibeart’s voice joined by Jewel’s laughter. His words, which she guessed to be Gaelic, were impossible for her to understand.
Andrea ran past the open door, not wanting the child to see her. She held her breath as she rushed, glancing back to make sure Jewel did not come after her.
As she turned to watch where she was going, she crashed into Kenneth’s chest. He stumbled as he caught her against him. He held her, even when it was no longer necessary for him to do so.
“Ya are terrified of her.” The words sounded sad.
Hell, yes, she was terrified of the powerful, kidnapping, warlock child.
Andrea didn’t answer.
“A nanny frightened of her charge.” Kenneth’s words were soft, as if he had not intended her to hear them, even though he had her head pressed against his chest. The beat of his heart thumped against her cheek.
A nanny sexually attracted to her boss, she thought in dismay. That scenario rarely ended well, even when magick wasn’t involved.
Magick and Mischief (Warlocks MacGregor Book 7) Page 6