Draoi spent the morning helping with preparations. The wedding was to be held at their church at two o’clock that afternoon and everyone was late. The cake had yet to arrive, the bridesmaids were still at the hairdresser’s, and the groom’s tuxedo didn’t fit. If it could go wrong, it had. But it was still going to be a gorgeous wedding; she could feel it in her old bones.
During yesterday’s wedding rehearsal, both Maddie and Chase had had the same thought at the same time. They’d stopped in the middle of the aisle and stared at each other while the music had slowly died around them.
“Protectors can only have sons.” Chase’s eyes had been wide as baseballs.
Maddie had laughed. “And eochairs can only have daughters.”
After a breathless moment, Chase had joined in. “Oh, man, this is going to be fun!”
Rising from the last flower arrangement, Draoi drew in a deep breath. Once Maddie had a child, whatever it turned out to be, it would be in immediate danger. No more gryphons had been spotted since that ill-fated day, but Draoi knew better than to take anything for granted. It seemed impossible to believe that all of the black gryphons had flown back into the tower, that none of them had snuck away and remained at large. She thinned her lips. She hadn’t protected her daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter to let her guard down now.
The wedding hour approached. Chase stood at the altar with the minister. He looked handsome in his rented tuxedo. His father walked a blushing Maddie down the aisle, then stood with his son as best man. As Maddie and Chase said their vows, a feeling came over Draoi. She looked at the back of the church but saw nothing. But someone was there, watching; she could feel it.
When she returned her gaze to the couple, they were being introduced as husband and wife. And then she knew. From somewhere unseen, Cian and Arin smiled upon them, together again. Light filtered through the stained glass windows and Draoi felt the power of darkness lift from her family. Dougal had found redemption and Maddie and Chase had found love. What more could a grandma ask for?
“He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.”—Colossians 1:13-14
The End
About the Author
Felicia Rogers, born and raised in the southern part of the United States, is a Christian wife and mother. She is just your average, ordinary woman, with a side interest — writing.
For eleven years, every waking moment of her life was consumed with changing diapers, wiping noses, and kissing scrapes. But now that her children are growing up and she enjoys a modicum of freedom, in addition to taking care of hearth and home, she writes! She enjoys adding a flavor of realism and humor to her all-too-real romance stories. For what is love without a little laughter!
Also by Felicia Rogers
Contemporary single titles:
The Painted Lady
The Holiday Truce
The Perfect Rose
Love Octagon
All I Have
A Month in Cologne
Wounded Soldiers:
Diamond Mine
Pearl Valley
Emerald Street
Historical romance:
The Ruse
The Rescue
The Renaissance Heart:
There Your Heart Will Be Also
By God’s Grace
Labor of Love
Beyond a Doubt
Letters in the Grove
Southern Hearts:
Millicent
Amelia
Cora
writing as F.A. Rogers
The Board:
Maralie
Reuben
Vanessa
Simon
Darla
Daniel
Irving
Levi
Francesca
Benjamin
James
Also from Dingbat Publishing
Christmas Eve, noon
“No, I don’t want off the team.”
The Christmas tree lights reflected from Captain Kenneth Rutland’s USMA class ring, the matte gold flaring red, then green, then back to red in boring, predictable monotony. The least the decorator could have done was plug a random flasher in line with the light set and stir some lovely chaos into the mix. Unless, of course, the decorator had wanted to lull everyone to sleep. Maybe, but unlikely, since the lights were turned on in the middle of the day. Non-engineers just had no imagination.
And the living room around them looked like the same decorator had sprayed out holly and ivy and mistletoe and pine branches with a firehose. Little red berries; little red balls. Tradition was good; tradition held the culture together. Tradition could be overdone. Big time.
Didn’t help that the decorator in question was his boss’ sister.
“Not only no, but shoot, no. You can’t get rid of me that easily.” Kennie drummed on the coffee table, in time to the lights’ flashing rhythm but throwing in a few flourishes of his own. Somebody needed to liven the place up. “I’m just asking. I went to school to learn how to build things, not destroy them.” Not that there was anything wrong with that, as the conservative snark went.
Colonel Robert “Sherlock” Holmes, in civvies topped with a sweater, peered down at the laptop balanced on his knees, his eyes scrunched into slits. The scar on his forehead stretched where it disappeared into his hairline. Gingerly, he tapped a couple keys, pausing between taps. Then he stopped and refocused on the screen. Kennie wanted to scream, just from watching that pitiful performance. How could anybody move so slowly with a keyboard at his fingertips? He could do better with a pair of pencils. Or spatulas.
And as he’d done for the last hour, Sherlock ignored him. So much for sitting down for a serious conversation. The downside of visiting his commanding officer over the holidays: putting up with his typing. His sister’s decorating. His teenagers’ boisterous noise. And his supercilious I-don’t-want-to-deal-with-it attitude. The upside—
Well. He’d have to think about that one.
“Why don’t we ever go to another country and put something together for them? Why are we always ripping their stuff apart?”
With a frown, Sherlock slid reading glasses from his pocket, deliberately unfolded them, and arranged them on his face. He shifted focus long enough to glare over the frames at Kennie’s drumming — okay, okay — then turned back to his work. “You mean, besides the irreparable damage it would cause Theresa and her pyromania? We sometimes do build stuff, ya know. Maybe you’re forgetting our drilling project—”
“Nope.” That slow Texas drawl took forever to reach a point, even when there was a chance one might be in the offing; Kennie had quit waiting for Sherlock to finish his sentences long ago. “Water wells are good. Everybody needs to drill a well once in his life. Still not what I went to school for.”
Tap a key. Flash red, flash green, flash red. Tap another. Seriously, the trip to Houston was starting to look like a massive mistake, even worse than Washington’s latest regulatory boondoggle. All he’d wanted to do was spend some private time, away from the generals and the rest of the team, convincing Sherlock to expand their job description; NATO, their overseers, gladly provided civil support to its member nations, as well as military intelligence and combat operations.
“Our average, median, generic job is to sneak into a third-world nation, steal an uninsured truck from some poor schmuck who can’t afford the loss, drive halfway across nowhere on roads the average highway department would declare a total loss, pass communities that need far more than a few organizers, ignore a couple hundred vital building projects where a little help would go a long way — so’s we can release a few political prisoners from jail. And blow up the place behind them.”
Another glare at his hands; somewhere during that tirade, he’d started drumming again. Kennie leaned back and grabbed the recliner’s arms, digging his fingers into the smokey blu
e leather. If he held on hard enough, maybe he wouldn’t start drumming on the laptop’s keyboard. Or his boss’ head.
“And you know, and I know, and everybody else knows, after we leave the bad guys are just going to send their secret state polizei out on another midnight sweep. In a few months, they’ll have just as many political prisoners as before, only now they’ll be in somebody’s drafty old warehouse or stinking cold basement. One of our team will be sporting a new ache, we’ll have more blood on our hands — in the long run, what difference does any of it make? Buildings last. Dams. Roads. Even sprinkler systems. But reform-minded individuals in banana republics have a limited catch-and-release shelf life.”
Tap. Flash green. Now the lights reflected from Sherlock’s glasses, the shiny lenses and metallic frames, and from the subdued red scar encircling his wrist as he poised one finger over the keyboard. Kennie waited until the finger began its descent.
“A guy should have more to celebrate on Christmas Eve. That’s all I’m saying.”
Sherlock muttered something ugly under his breath and reached for the backspace key. “Why don’t you go out and get some exercise, ’stead of staying cooped up in here, peering over my shoulder while I’m trying to get some work done?”
Like he wasn’t fighting fit or something. “…exercise?”
“Always a good place to start.” Sherlock’s voice trailed off as he tilted his head back and stared at the screen. Sharp brown eyes sharpened further, peering through the bottoms of the lenses.
Oh, lovely. His commanding officer, the man who led them in the field, needed bifocals to see his computer screen. That wasn’t anything to celebrate, either. “Right. Well, clearly I could be spending my time in worse ways.” Kennie eyed Sherlock; for example, talking with you.
Sherlock eyed him right back; you sure could.
Kennie sighed. “Don’t y’all have some big sort of park nearby?”
“Sorta, yeah.” One eyebrow canted. “Why, you looking for a lift?”
Like hell. Kennie stalked to the door, grabbing his iPhone and punching up the map app. The comical plastic case mocked him; it looked like an engineering nerd’s pocket protector, yellow mechanical pencils and red and blue fountain pens perfectly aligned above its built-in amp and speakers. Cute and bright and not where his career seemed to be headed. “No, I’m not looking for a lift.” He’d rented a car at the airport. Under his breath, he added, “Not from a blind man.”
“Think I didn’t hear that?”
If his commanding officer’s ear quality matched his eye quality— “Whatever.”
“Heard that, too. You are carrying, aren’t you?”
Kennie paused, one hand on the polished brass doorknob, frustration reaching for a seismographic spike. He didn’t need a mother hen, and the SIG Sauer P225, in a crossdraw above-the-belt strut holster, hidden beneath his untucked polo shirt, symbolized his dilemma and never let him forget it. “Of course. Aren’t we always?”
No answer. Again.
Kennie refused to slam the door behind him.
***
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Dingbat Publishing
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