Call It Magic

by Janet Chapman

  “Only if you stop believing. I’m a grown-up, and I believe you see angels.”

  “Then how come you can’t see them?”

  “I see . . . other things.” Amazing how good it felt to say that to another person.

  “Like what? Spirit guides? I see them, too. One of yours is letting me see it right now. It’s a—” His eyes widened as he continued to stare past her shoulder. “It’s a snake wrapped around a stick.”

  Katy laughed. “You just described the symbol for medicine,” she explained. “Which fits, I suppose, since I’m a paramedic. But no, I don’t see angels or spirit guides. Sometimes, though, I can see inside a person, see what’s hurting them. I get pictures in my mind of what’s wrong with them so I can help fix it.”

  Dark, nagging thoughts threatened to sweep into her mind, but she pushed them away and focused on this miracle of a boy, smiling at him.

  He smiled back. “Um, can I ask you a question? About the Bottomless Sea?”

  “What do you want to know?”

  He hesitated, his eyes turning guarded. “The reason Mom wanted the job at Inglenook so bad was because she heard the Bottomless Sea was formed by . . . magic,” he whispered. “And that’s why she thought it would be a good place for us to live,” he rushed on nervously. “Mom said that up until five years ago, Bottomless was just an ordinary lake. But then a big storm and earthquake happened all at the same time, and the mountains moved, and all the fresh water rushed out, and an underground river rushed in from the ocean and filled the lake up again with saltwater.” His eyes narrowed on hers. “Is that true?”

  “It is,” Katy said with a nod. “It was big news five years ago. Oceanographers and geologists descended on Spellbound Falls the very next day. They even built a permanent facility to study the area. But because they couldn’t figure out how or why it happened, a lot of people started saying it must be magic.”

  “Do you think it was magic?” he asked, back to looking guarded.

  “I do. And you know why?”

  “Why?”

  “Because even though I can’t see angels, I can feel the energy you say they’re made of all around Bottomless. And when you get there, I bet you’ll feel it, too.”

  His brow puckered as he shook his head. “I’m not gonna tell anyone if I feel it, though. Except you and Mom,” he added, quickly. “Because I don’t want people thinking I’m weird.” He scowled. “Mrs. Akins, my first-grade teacher, made Mom and Dad come to school after I said I didn’t want to get on the bus because my angel told me there was gonna be an accident.”

  “Did Mrs. Akins make you get on the bus anyway?”

  Shiloh’s chin went up. “I cut out of line and hid in the bushes, and I didn’t come out until I saw Mom running up the sidewalk when they called and told her they couldn’t find me.” His eyes turned sad. “My dad left us a couple of weeks after that. Mom said they fell out of love with each other, but I think he left because he couldn’t handle my seeing angels.”

  Poor guy. “I’m sure that’s not true, Shiloh.” Though she wasn’t sure at all. “And was the bus in an accident?”

  Shiloh dropped his gaze to the catalog in his lap. “My friend Andrew got a bloody nose when the bus hit a garbage truck. And other kids got hurt, too.” He looked up. “You won’t tell anyone in Spellbound Falls that I see angels, will you? It’ll be our secret?”

  She nodded. “Of course.”

  “Some of the kids at my new school might tease me if they knew, and my teachers will tell me I shouldn’t make up stuff like that.”

  “I promise not to tell. But remember, Shiloh, Bottomless is a very magical place.” She canted her head. “Do you see them all the time? Everyone’s angels?” she asked, wondering if it wouldn’t drive a person crazy.

  “No. They only show themselves when mine says it’s okay, like he did to yours.” He grinned. “He can tell if someone believes, and I think he wanted to let me know there’s gonna be nice people in my new town.”

  “Oh, Shiloh, you’re going to feel right at home in Spellbound Falls,” Katy said with a laugh and finally gave in to her urge to hug him. “Because your very wise mama is taking you to a very magical town filled with some of the nicest people on the planet.”

  She felt every part of him relax and his energy grow lighter. And, she realized, the same was true for her.

  Chapter Two

  The rich, delectable scent of seafood wrapped Katy in the feeling of home when she and her parents stepped through the restaurant door. Instantly, she knew she’d be ordering the lobster, and he’d better be a big one. Of course, this was Maine, so the odds of that were great.

  She followed her mother to their booth in the back, then scooted across the bench and basked in the glow of her parents’ smiles. No matter how nervous she was about this conversation, she’d really missed having them this close. She would so hate to bring her unhappiness into this moment.

  “It’s good to see ye looking so strong and fit,” her father said.

  Her mother nodded enthusiastically. “You look wonderful, Katy.”

  Katy’s shoulders relaxed, just a bit. So far, so good. She’d passed the appearance test. No red flags so far. “Thanks. It’s really great to see you guys, too. It was hard to be away.” Her voice wobbled, but she cleared her throat and widened her smile.

  Her mother’s brow twitched slightly, but the server appeared at exactly the right moment and swept them into ordering. While she listened to her parents make their choices, she tried to line up some safe topics in her mind. But suddenly everything seemed like something she’d rather sidestep. Even talking about Jane and her baby was fraught, since her plans hadn’t exactly unfolded as expected.

  They caught up for awhile, and it did Katy’s heart good to hear about her brother and cousins, about the goings on in Pine Creek and just a bit beyond. That’s as far as Katy wanted her mind to travel.

  “I left something in your truck,” her mother said, smile as big as ever.

  “Ooh, did you bake me cookies?”

  “Ye won’t stay fit for long if ye start indulging in your mother’s sweets,” her father said with a grin of his own.

  “I’ll keep that in mind, Papa,” she said and glanced back to her mother. “Seriously, do I get cookies?”

  Libby shook her head. “Not this time. Just a copy of the Pine Lake Weekly Gazette. It’s not every day that one of our town daughters becomes a real, live queen, and I thought you’d like to see the story.”

  Katy bit her lip, then thought better of it. Her mother missed nothing. “Oh, thanks. And yes, our Jane is a queen with her very own princess to love.”

  “Is she beautiful?” Libby breathed.

  Fortunately, Katy only had time for one smiling, duplicitous nod before the server—clearly an angel with impeccable timing—appeared at the table with their food. Her stomach practically snarled in anticipation of dinner. Not sure if she was dizzy because all she’d eaten in the last twenty-four hours was airline snacks or from relief that she just might survive this reunion, Katy attacked the two-pound hard-shell lobster with ravenous gusto. Exactly as delicious as she remembered.

  She’d finished both claws before she recalled she was also supposed to be carrying on a conversation with her parents. She glanced up to find them both watching her with bemused grins.

  “I guess it’s good?” her mother said.

  “Amazing.”

  Her father cleared his throat. “On a completely different note, since ye failed to say where you’ll be living in Spellbound Falls, I took the liberty of speaking with Duncan, and he insisted ye stay with him and Peg.” His eyes lit with amusement. “MacKeage also agreed to let ye bring that delicate mare of yours. Ye can give him a call on your way through Turtleback Station, and he’ll be at the dock by the time you arrive in Spellbound tonight. And in return for his generosity,
I told him you’ll be glad to help Peg with the children and whatever farm chores need doing.”

  Katy had seen that one coming from a mile away. No, from two thousand miles away, actually, knowing that within minutes of her call from Colorado telling her parents about her new job in Spellbound Falls, this overprotective tower of granite would be on the phone with Duncan. This was her moment, her fork in the road.

  “That was sweet of him. And you,” Katy added with a bright smile, knowing he didn’t much care for being referred to as sweet. “But a nine-mile water commute, especially in the winter, isn’t very practical if my pager goes off in the middle of the night. That’s why I already booked a site at a campground twenty miles south of Spellbound. They have these great platform tents, like the cabins I used to stay in at summer camp.” She shrugged to keep from squirming when his eyes narrowed. “Once I’m settled into my job, I plan to look for a small house to rent closer to town.”

  “A house ye intend to live in alone?”

  Katy kept her eyes locked on his. “Considering the crazy shifts I’ll be working, I’d rather not deal with a roommate.” Dammit, she was twenty-eight, not eighteen. “And these last couple of months, I discovered I like living alone.”

  Michael MacBain set down his fork, leaned back in his chair, and folded his arms over his chest. “You’ve changed.”

  “One of us had to,” Katy returned just as softly. “And since it’s my life we’re talking about, I decided it would be me.”

  The din of the restaurant receded into a silence that stretched one heartbeat . . . two . . . only to be broken by a feminine sigh. “Welcome to adulthood, Katy,” Libby said with a smile.

  Okay, she must still be asleep on the plane and this was some weird, impossible dream. Katy darted glances between them before finally settling on her now beaming mother. “Contrary to popular opinion, I’ve been an adult for quite awhile now.”

  A soft male snort drew her attention. Her father shook his head, amusement lighting his—no, not amusement this time. Good Lord, could that possibly be moisture making his eyes shine? “Ye have our blessing to live in Spellbound Falls,” he added, thickly. “Alone in your own home, if ye prefer.”

  Oh yeah, definitely dreaming. “Let me get this straight,” she said. “I take a job in a town a hundred miles away without telling you, then run off to Colorado without telling you, and you all of a sudden decide you don’t have a problem with any of that?”

  “Nay, you finally decided that what I think no longer matters.”

  “That’s the real test for any child,” her mother said. “It doesn’t work unless you figure it out for yourself, Katy. Like when it came to you riding that horse, though it was ultimately your father who convinced me.”

  “Really?”

  Libby gave a small laugh. “If he hadn’t, you’d still be writing to Santa asking for that Olympic-caliber horse.”

  Katy reared back in her chair. “You . . . you were against my getting Quantum?”

  Her mother instantly sobered. “Do you have any idea how many riding accident victims I patched back together when I was a full-time surgeon in California? Or how many people I had to tell that their child or loved one probably wouldn’t ever walk again?”

  Katy slid her gaze to her father, then back to her mother, at a complete loss as to what to say. Or think. Or feel. She propped her elbows on the table and dropped her head into her hands. “What about Brody getting his motorcycle?”

  “I managed to postpone that until his senior year in high school, when Michael finally asked if I wanted our son learning to handle a bike in Boston traffic instead of on our open roads, since we both knew he intended to buy one the moment he got to college.”

  Katy felt her mother’s touch on her arm and lifted her head. “Robbie was almost nine when I realized I was only hurting myself by insisting Michael make the boy wear a helmet when he rode his pony.” She gestured at her husband. “To which he not-so-eloquently informed me that he had no intention of raising ‘a weak modern who was too afraid of dying to truly live.’”

  Katy had grown up knowing “modern” referred to anyone born in this or the last century and that all the original time-traveling MacKeages and MacBains and Gregors thought most modern men were soft—which was why the displaced Highlanders insisted on raising their sons to be warriors and their daughters to be . . . well, eventually rebellious, apparently.

  Michael slid an arm around his wife and drew her to him with an affectionate squeeze. “Your mother may be stronger than me in many ways,” he said, smiling down into Libby’s big brown eyes. “But she just couldn’t see the value of buying a twelve-year-old lass a young, spirited horse.” He turned his smile on Katy. “Looking at you now, I do believe I made the right call on that one.”

  Katy dropped her head back into her hands. Okay, he might have killed her dream of being in the Olympics, but she couldn’t deny the many pleasurable years he’d given her racing the wind on Quantum. She lifted her gaze and shook her head at her parents. “You two are something else.”

  Michael stood and pulled back his wife’s chair, then shot Katy a wink. “Why don’t you ladies head to the parking lot so your mother can see for herself that ye didn’t spend the last two months falling off mountains in Colorado.”

  Katy’s body went cold. Wonderful. Just when it looked like she might actually pull this off, her father offers her up for examination. Well, at least the explosion would be in a deserted parking lot instead of the middle of the airport.

  “A hint wouldn’t have killed you,” Katy said as she slipped her arm through her mother’s, deciding to go on the offensive the moment they exited the restaurant. “It would have been nice to know that disagreeing with you two was even an option.”

  Libby pulled her to a stop. “And just how would telling you that have made you an adult?” She reached up and took Katy’s face in her delicate surgeon’s hands. “When I was your age, I was still being a dutiful daughter to a father who had been dead for two years.” She twined their arms together again and proceeded across the parking lot. “I hid my passion for making jewelry from my parents all through medical school and climbing the ladder at one of the most prestigious hospitals in the country, always doing what everyone expected of me until I finally imploded at the age of thirty-one.” Her smile turned crooked. “And I ran clear across the country and straight into your father’s arms.”

  “After he fished you out of his farm pond,” Katy added, recalling the story of Libby Hart’s rental car murdering several prize Christmas trees on its flight into the pond, as well as the ensuing discussion between Michael and then nine-year-old Robbie as to whether or not they should throw their new tenant back in hopes she might finish growing.

  “The point I’m trying to make,” Libby said, “is that everyone matures on their own schedule.” She stopped and squeezed the arm she was holding. “You didn’t only grow up these last two months,” she said, turning to face Katy and grasping her other bicep. “You also grew out. Those are some pretty impressive guns.”

  Katy stepped away with a laugh. “Compliments of Colorado.” She pulled out her key fob and unlocked her truck.

  “So as one adult to another, you’re saying there’s no need for me to give you a quick little mental examination?” Her mother’s eyes searched hers, and Katy did all she could to return a calm, steady gaze.

  “I’ve never felt stronger or healthier, Mum.” Katy tossed her backpack across the console, relieved to break contact, even for just a few seconds, then turned back to Libby. She clenched her fists, telling herself the lie was for her mother’s sake as much as her own. “Or happier,” she whispered before stepping back when she spotted her father coming toward them. “Especially now that I have Papa’s blessing to get my own place,” she added loud enough for him to hear.

  “So long as you’re living there alone,” he said gruffly,
pulling her into a fierce embrace. “Ye be mindful of yourself around those firemen, daughter. And if any of the cocky bastards give you any grief, you’re to tell Niall or Duncan or Alec.”

  “What?” Katy gasped in mock surprise as she leaned as far back as his embrace would allow. “Are you saying you didn’t ask the three of them to go to the fire station and flex their collective muscles at the cocky bastards before I arrived?”

  He answered with a grunt and pulled her back against him, Katy presumed to hide his guilt. “Ye may be a grown woman, but you will always be my baby girl.”

  “Well, it’s time your baby hit the road,” her mother said dryly, playfully tugging Katy away from him. “Or she’s going to end up sleeping through her first day on the job.”

  “That wouldn’t be a problem if she hadn’t cut it so close,” her father grumbled as Katy gave her mom a quick hug and climbed in the truck. “Ye keep a sharp watch for moose,” he added as she fastened her seat belt. “And if ye feel your eyelids getting heavy, find a well-lit public place to park and sleep in the truck. They won’t give your precious job away if ye’re not there at seven sharp in the morning.”

  Katy took pity on him, knowing his brogue only deepened the closer his emotions got to the surface. “I’ll drive careful, Papa.” She arched a brow—partly to lighten the mood but mostly to keep her own emotions in check. Lord, she loved him, as maddeningly overprotective as he was. “Just remember to bring sleeping bags when you and Mum pop by for a visit in”—she cocked her head—“less than two weeks, I figure.”