“Yes, you are, Roxanna. You are one of the greatest necromancers ever born. Just as Bryce is the greatest witch, even stronger than I was ever born, you are her equivalent in what you were born to do.” Roxanna asked about Connor. “Yes, he’s been upgraded, I guess you might call it, from just someone that fiddles around with the ghosts to someone that can do just as much as you. Not all of it, but nearly so. With him by your side, lending you what he has, there’s no telling what you’ll be able to do.”
“I don’t think I like you right now.” Grandma just laughed and patted her on the hand. “You said that you spoke to Connor. What did he have to say about all this? I’m sure that he thinks you’re off your noddle as well.”
“No, I don’t think either of you are.” She looked at Connor when he sat across from her. “I didn’t think that anyone could beat you in being mean, but I think I might have met your match in your grandma. Who taught who how to get and keep a man’s attention when they have something to say?”
“Why are you here?” Connor nodded, then got down on his knees begging her forgiveness. “Get up, you idiot. You don’t have to grovel. It’s nice, but wasted on me.”
“I love you. I was rattled, not you. It was too much for me to take in.” She asked him what he was rattled about. “You. Me. Us. I knew somewhere deep in my heart and head that you had just conceived my child. For all I knew, it couldn’t happen. Not ever. Then, not only do I figure out that you are going to have our child, but that Devon was born the same way. Through magic. I’m so sorry.” Roxanna didn’t want to cry, but she felt like her heart was breaking again. “Don’t cry, love. Please. I was stupid and a fool. I should have thought before I spoke. Then I would have understood that what we both had thought was true. You’re carrying a child that should not have been conceived. You and I are going to have a baby.”
“You could have said that earlier instead of telling me that I was crazy.” He opened his mouth and she snapped at him. “Do not tell me that’s not what you meant. You did. You said that sex had made me rattled. What else would you take from that had I said that to you?”
“The same thing you did. I cannot tell you how sorry I am. I’m going to make it up to you. I promise you.” He put his hand on her belly and then kissed it. “It’s a girl—did you know that? Annabella told me that she’d be the only child the two of us would create, but she’d not be the last child that we loved.”
“I’m not even sure that I love you right now.” He laughed and told her that she loved him. “Don’t be so sure of yourself, jackass. I’m still pissed off at you. You hurt me.”
“I know that. And you have no idea how much I hate myself for treating you that way.” He laid his head on her lap. “Do you think we can have a piece of pie? All of a sudden, all I can think about is having a piece of pie. Cherry? Pumpkin? I don’t care so long as there is whipped cream to go with it.”
“You’re nuts. And if you think that all it’s going to take to earn my forgiveness is for you to get me some pie, you’re as off your rocker as you thought that I was.” He ordered them all the pie when Grandma, looking like Ruth again, came out of the back room. “I want some tea too. With honey.”
Roxanna knew that she could come here now and see her grandma so long as she didn’t do it often. Also, while she was still slightly confused about all this, she was sure that in the end, when their little Annabella was born, they’d have better answers, as well as a great many more questions.
~*~
Connor soared through the night sky loving the cold breeze that he created with his wings. He knew that Roxanna was having a good time; he could hear her laughter as she rode on his back. The faeries had fashioned her a chair that she could be strapped into when he wanted to take her on a ride. He wondered briefly if they’d be willing to make one for the baby when she came.
“No.” He asked Roxanna what she was talking about. “You’re not taking our child up in the air like this until she’s able to fly herself. I forbid you doing that. What if she fell?”
First of all, she’ll be able to fly about the same time she’ll be able to hold her head up. Just like Devon. That’s even before she can walk. He laughed. And I don’t know if you’re aware of this or not, but the more you say no to a child, the more they need to do it.
“Not our child—she’ll be perfect in every way.” He laughed as he rolled in the air, making Roxanna squeal with delight and terror. “I can see it now. The two of you will be up here flying around, and one of you will be hurt. You’d better hope that it’s you, Connor, or so help me, you’ll wish it had been.”
Have I told you today that I love you very much? He laughed when she started to tell him something, then screamed again when he rolled. One would think that you’re not enjoying this, Roxanna. You are, aren’t you?
“Wait until you fall asleep, you bastard. I’m going to make you regret this.” Connor could hear it in her voice how much fun she was having. When it was cold enough that he could see his breath, he asked her if they were done for the night. “Yes. I’m warm, thanks to your body heat, but I’m tired too. It’s been a long day.”
It had been for both of them. Yesterday, when they’d made their way home, they’d come upon an accident. There had been five dead, all of them teenagers, driving while texting, while the driver had been intoxicated. A deadly combination for anyone, but a bunch of teenagers thinking that they’d live forever was double that.
The driver had been dead on impact with the large tree. The two people in the front seat, too many in the first place, had been ejected and killed. Another in the back seat had died when he’d been thrown from the car just before hitting the tree, and he’d been crushed. The little girl in the back with him, his little sister, had died from suffocation when the two others had fallen on her, unconscious, and she’d been unable to move them off her. That, to him, had been the most tragic.
“What do you suppose the families are doing tonight?” Connor knew; he’d been told that they were fighting it out with the courts to see who could be sued. Their children hadn’t been gone for twenty-four hours yet, and they were looking for someone else to blame. Connor told her what he’d heard from Noah. “I guess instead of coming together in this time of need, they decided that getting the most out of someone else that was hurt as much as the rest of them is better in their minds. The living suck.”
The two of them were lying on the couch reading books when Louis, one of their house guests, came to speak to them. Louis didn’t say much, but when he did, Connor tended to pay attention to him more than he did the rest.
“There is a man out on the back porch that would like to talk to you, Lord Connor.” Connor asked him what was going on. “I don’t rightly know, but he’s as dead as the rest of us. He’s also covered in blood. A lot of it.”
“You don’t think he should be invited in, Louis?” He shook his head at Roxanna. “All right. We’ll see him now. Louis, go find the rest of the household and tell them to stay out of the dining room. That way he can’t see you. Also, tell the faeries to stand by. Just in the event this man is as stupid as he sounds.”
“Why do you think that he’s stupid?” She told him. “Okay, I can see where that might sound like a stupid act on his part. Coming here this late in the evening. But he might have a real problem.”
“Oh, he will if he doesn’t already.” Connor tried to stifle his laughter, but she heard him. “You won’t think this is so fucking funny if he wants to come in here and kill us all in our sleep.”
“I’m a dragon, love.”
She stopped long enough to glare at him before she moved to the dining room deck door. There the man stood, just as Louis had said.
Connor spoke before Roxanna could blast the man. “I’m Connor. What are you doing here?”
“I’ve lost her.” Roxanna asked him who he’d lost. “My wife. She and I were camping when I fell over
the ravine that we were walking by. I was there with her, then nothing. I woke up all broken up, and she’s gone.”
“All right. Tell me where you fell. And if this is a joke, buster, you’re going to be sorely in trouble.” He just looked at Conner. “I’m the one talking to you. Where were you?”
“Just up there on the hillside.” He pointed to the mountain that was a part of their land. Roxanna asked him why they were up there. “Jenny thought it would be nice to have a little walk in the snow. I don’t know why she’d like that. She hates the cold weather.”
Alarms went off in his head at what the man said. “Were you and your wife having marital issues? The reason I ask is because we need as many details as we can have when the dead come to see us.”
“I understand. She and me, we just got our lives together. We bought us a house and got some insurance stuff taken care of. All our kids left the nest just last month, and we were planning a bunch of vacations together. We couldn’t do that much when they were at home. Too expensive.” Roxanna asked the man what his name was. “Oh, sorry. Where are my manners? I’m Logan Marshall, and my wife is Jenny.”
“Logan, whose name is the insurance policy in?”
As Logan answered the questions that Roxanna put to him, Connor sent a few faeries to the man’s home. He had a feeling that they were going to find the missus right there, enjoying her newfound freedom.
“I think you’re trying to tell me something by all these strange questions, but I just don’t know what it could be. Jenny and I have been married for nearly thirty years. We were as happy as could be.” Logan looked at him. “Are you going to help me find her? I’m thinking that she might have fallen with me and she’s hurt someplace.”
Randal came back and confirmed what Connor already thought was going on. Jenny was at home, and was celebrating with the young man that lived next door. He had to be at least twenty years younger than the missus, Randal told him.
Calling the police was easier now since Devon had told them what he and Roxanna could do. They were getting more crimes solved involving murder, or just deaths, than the whole rest of the area. After telling the man what he knew to be happening and what he speculated, Connor hung up and told Logan what was going on.
“She couldn’t have pushed me off the side. She was telling me to be careful all along.” Logan was told about her having an affair with the teenager that mowed their lawn in the summer months. “No, that can’t be true either. She was teaching him how to play the piano.”
“She was teaching him more than that. Let me ask you something, Logan—can your wife even play the piano? Or do you even have one?” He nodded, then shook his head. “What the hell kind of answer is that?”
“We don’t have a piano, no, but he was only learning the notes.” Roxanna asked him how long that took. “Now that you mention it, it has been a few months this summer. And no matter how many times I offered to buy her a piano, she said they were doing all right without one.”
“Of course they were. How stupid do you have to be not to have figured that out?” Logan started crying. “Shut that off right now. Damn it, you knew they were fucking around, didn’t you? You didn’t have a nice walk with your wife. You were hoping to be hurt enough so that you could have her arrested and taken away. You were going to blame her, just as you thought you still could, so that way you could have affairs too. Do it without hiding around about it. You’re a fool if you thought that was ever going to happen.”
Connor watched as the man broke down. He told them that had been the plan, but he’d slipped in the snow and had fallen further than he had wanted to. Now he had nothing.
“You have less than nothing, you fucking idiot. You lost your wife, your home, as well as the insurance money. Not to mention, you aren’t alive anymore.” Logan said that wasn’t his plan. “Well, I guess it fucking sucks to be you right now. Get away from here before I send you onward. You go to your home right now and stay there for a period of ten years. I want you to see how much fun your wife is having without a conniving ass like you hanging around. You’re not to interfere with her life. Not to haunt her. Nor are you allowed interaction with anyone that comes from or belongs to that house. Go.”
Roxanna was still bitching about the dead being stupid as she stomped her way back to the couch. Connor looked at Louis as he watched her walking away. When Louis turned to look at him, Connor was almost afraid to hear what he had to say about Roxanna.
“She’s smart as a tack, I think. Did you know that was what he’d done?” Connor said that he’d not. “Me either. She’s a good woman, sir. I do hope you know that. And please don’t be pissing her off. I don’t think that any of us will survive if she’s mad at you like she was at that dead man. Why, I’m thinking that if he wasn’t dead already, she’d have killed him right there on your porch.”
Connor thought that Louis was correct in that. She’d not only pegged the man correctly, but had also known what his plan had been all along. Whistling all the way back to the living room, Connor realized just how lucky he’d been when she was pissed off at him the other day. Yes, he thought, he was going to take things nice and slow with his wife from now on.
Chapter 12
Matthew thought that he could get used to living like this. The lap of luxury, as it was. Devon had always had more money than all of them put together. Not that he was jealous of his friend, never that.
He knew that Devon, or any of them, would give you whatever you needed when you were down and out. Matthew had been that way a few times since he’d become acquainted with Devon and his crowd. Then as they became friends, then best friends, it was evident that not only did Devon not care how much those around him had, he didn’t rub it in their faces when they had a great deal less than him.
And right now, Matthew was about as down and out as he’d ever been. Just coming here to celebrate the holidays with his buddies had cost him more than he should have spent. Matthew had some money stashed away, but that, as usual, was earmarked for other things. Like bailing his halfwit brother out of his messes.
Rolland had been a pain in everyone’s ass since the day he’d been born. He wasn’t stupid, nor was he very smart. Rolland could and would be in and out of shit more than most people could in several lifetimes.
Being his stepbrother somehow made him Matthew’s responsibility. He had no idea who the first person was that had called him to come and get Rolland. But it had been that way since he and Rolland had been put together in the same family.
His father had married Rolland’s mother. They were all right. The two of them seemed to be in love. After his mom had died, Matthew had been worried for his father. Mom hadn’t been a dragon, which was what had gotten her killed. The humans thought for sure they’d hit the big one when they’d murdered her. Then they tore her body up when they figured out that she wasn’t much more than they were.
Julia—now, she could make his dad about as happy as he’d been with his mom. Julia was younger than he was, of course. She also made his dad seem younger. His dad was getting fit, having fun, and taking on adventures that he’d never done before. Like, right now they were surfing. Something that Dad had thought was for fools.
Rolland, he was glad to know, had no idea where he was, or even how to get in touch with him. And if he could, Matthew was going to keep it that way. The longer he had to stand on his own two feet, the more he could learn from his mistakes. Or so he hoped. Rolland was pretty dense when he thought that he was correct in the way he did things.
“Matt, there’s a phone call for you.” He hadn’t given this number to anyone, not even his parents. When Kelly asked if he’d heard her, he stood up and went to the hall. “There you are. You have a phone call. It’s the bank from your town.”
“How did he know I was here?” Kelly looked at the phone, then back at him. “I’m hiding out. I guess you heard about my brother.”
>
“Devon told me this morning. I don’t know how he did it, but I’ll find out. Hang on a minute.” She pressed a couple of buttons on the phone and started talking. “I’m sorry; I didn’t catch your name. Oh, Mr. Brown. No, I’m sorry, my husband has a friend here visiting, and since I’d heard so much about Matthew, I thought it was him. But it’s only Cole. How did you know to call here?” He must not have answered her correctly, so Kelly said it again, this time with a great deal of compulsion.
When she put the phone down and turned to him, Matt wasn’t sure if he was supposed to run or drop to his knees to beg her not to eradicate him. When she told him what was going on, he wanted to kiss her right then. But he wouldn’t. Devon would kill him if he touched his mate without asking permission.
“Apparently, you left that you were going on vacation on your calendar. By the way, you no longer have an apartment in good shape. Which is fine—we would like to convince you to stay here anyway. But, back to how he knew you were out of town for a while—Rolland broke into your apartment. He’s been having Mr. Brown, a friend of his, calling around to all the people that you know and asking if you’re there. Your brother is in jail.” He asked her if Mr. Brown believed her when she told him that he wasn’t here. “It doesn’t matter. The moment that he hung up the phone from talking to me, he didn’t remember a single thing about our conversation other than that he’d called and you were not here.”
“You did that over the phone?” Kelly smiled at him, and asked him if he was going to join them for dinner. “Yes. You’re very calm right now. I don’t know if you’re pissed or not. Are you?”
“Yes, but lucky for you, it’s not at you. I had a sister just like your brother, I think. Thinking that just because you have money, he does as well?” Matt nodded. “Yes, I thought so. Well, let me tell you what I did. I sent her home with the help of Devon, and had her arrested for burning my apartment out in the States while I was here falling in love. You should do the same, Matt. You’ll feel so much better when you do.”
Connor: House of Wilkshire ― Paranormal Dragon Shifter Romance Page 14
