"You two want to be alone to talk about this?" Elias asked, clearly reluctant to go.
"No." The word shot from Hannah's throat. She looked from him to Jonas. "Stay. Both of you."
"You sure about this, missy?" Elias asked.
She wasn't very sure about anything at the moment, but she felt this was the right thing to do. After all, she'd ruined Jonas's life. It was only fair that he witness the crumbling of hers.
"Yes," she said, her gaze locking briefly with Jonas's. "There've been enough lies and secrets."
"Oh, Hannah," Eudora said, her eyes shadowed with pain, "you have to understand, dear."
She was trying.
Oh, Lord, she was trying. But how could she understand having her identity shattered? Her world torn apart? And suddenly, she found a new and much deeper sympathy for Jonas over what she had done to his life simply by showing up and insisting he accept her truth.
Oh, Jonas, Hannah thought. I'm so sorry.
She'd been so sure of herself. So completely confident that she was doing the right thing. She truly hadn't realized how horrifying it was to lose everything familiar. To suddenly have nothing you could call your own.
Hannah groaned inwardly and turned her head toward Eudora when the older woman started speaking.
"Your parents wanted children so badly that when none came, they went in search of a child to call their own." A half smile touched the woman's lips as she used her free hand to wipe away a stray tear. "They found you, in an orphanage in New York."
"New York." And she'd been told that she was born in Boston while her parents were on a trip. A small lie, she knew, in comparison to the full glaring truth. Yet it was one more chip taken from the solid base on which she'd built her life.
This couldn't be happening.
Hepzibah strolled into the kitchen, sniffed at Eudora's feet, then took a flying leap to land in Hannah's lap. At least she still had this. This one small cat didn't know or care if she was a witch or a Lowell.
Tears filled her eyes and she dipped her head to hide them from the others. She held the little animal close, her fingers smoothing the cat‘s lush white hair. When Hepzibah purred, Hannah was grateful. At least there was one thing in life that she could still count on.
"They loved you so much, Hannah," Eudora was saying, and she really tried to concentrate. But it was so hard. So hard to think, when all she wanted to do was run away screaming.
"No one in Creekford knows the truth," her aunt said quietly.
Oh, she believed that. If anyone had known she was adopted, Hannah would have heard about it long before now. No one in Creekford could keep a secret long. And a secret this big would have been impossible to hide.
She glanced up at Jonas and wished she could read the emotions glittering in his eyes. Wished he would say something. Did he still think she'd come here to trick him somehow? Did he still think her love for him had been one of the lies cloaking them?
Eudora cleared her throat and Hannah looked at the woman who'd raised her.
"When your parents died in that carriage accident," she said, "I saw no reason to tell you the truth." A new sheen of tears filled her blue eyes. "You were already in so much pain… what purpose would it have served? You were so young, Hannah, and I loved you so much."
The truth would have prevented this hideously painful moment, she thought, absently scratching behind Hepzibah's ears.
Jonas was right. Hannah told herself. There were too many lies. One seemed piled on top of another and when they started to fall it became a rockslide, wiping out everything and everyone in its path.
And yet, a part of her wished desperately that this one particular lie had never been revealed. A lie was a comforting thing, when the truth was a devastating blow.
Eudora stared at her, sympathy and a plea for forgiveness shining in her pale blue eyes. Hannah knew she should say something. She only wondered if her voice would work.
"How…" she started, and stopped again. "Why…"
"What, dear?" her aunt prompted gently.
Hannah laughed shortly under her breath and was grateful the laughter didn't escalate into the hysteria she felt bubbling in her chest. Before, she couldn't speak at all. Now there were too many questions trying to pop out at once.
Taking a long, deep breath, she tried again. "If Jonas could look at me and tell I'm not a witch, why didn't anyone at home see the truth?"
Eudora's head dipped a bit and she toyed with the handle of her coffee cup before answering. "That was my doing," she said. "I surrounded you with my magic." She paused and heaved a long, tired sigh. "When you came west, I had to hope that the Mackenzie wouldn't look at you too closely, because Wyoming was simply too far away for me to be able to continue the subterfuge."
"Almost worked," Jonas said tightly. "I didn't see it. Not until today."
"Ah, well," Eudora said. "Fate has taken a hand."
Fate.
Destiny.
Hannah gasped and her gaze flew to Eudora's. "You said it was my destiny to marry the Mackenzie. To strengthen him."
At the end of the table, Jonas stiffened slightly.
"Yes," the older woman said.
Hannah set Hepzibah down onto the floor and scooted her chair back from the table. "But how can that be if I'm not a true Lowell?"
The silver-haired woman looked at the two men watching her before turning her gaze back to Hannah. "I said it was your destiny to love the Mackenzie. And you do, don't you?"
Oh, she did. But that didn't matter anymore. "He has to marry a witch. You know that."
"He has to find love," Eudora countered firmly.
"With a witch."
"Hannah…"
Her aunt reached for her, but Hannah moved back and away. She didn't want to hear any more lies. She knew as well as anyone that the Mackenzie must marry another witch in order to strengthen his powers.
She felt Jonas's gaze on her and knew he was waiting for her to speak. To say something. But she couldn't. She no longer had the right. She wasn't a Lowell. She wasn't even a witch.
Hannah groaned inwardly, remembering all the times she'd complained about the pitiful strength of her powers and how she'd longed to be a better crafter. Now… what she wouldn't give to be able to lay claim to even the smallest of witchcraft abilities.
Oh, God, she wanted to cry for the loss of everything she'd found in these last few weeks. She wanted to wail at the knowledge that her family wasn't really her family.
And Jonas, she thought, his name echoing over and over again through her mind.
"All these years," Hannah whispered, more to herself than anyone else. "Lies. My whole life was built on lies."
"Oh, Hannah," Eudora said on a groan.
She heard the pain in the older woman's voice and instinctively spoke to ease it. She'd loved Eudora too long and too well to see her torture herself over doing what she'd thought best.
"No," she said, standing up and looking down at the silver-haired woman. "It's not your fault, Eudora. I know you only did what you thought was right for me. But don't you see? This changes everything."
The Guild. Her home. Her magic. Her aunt. None of it belonged to her by rights.
None of it.
Her gaze shot to Jonas. The Mackenzie.
A deep, soul-shaking pain took hold of her until she wanted to moan aloud. But she gritted her teeth against that need and swallowed the bitterest pill of all.
She had no right to the Mackenzie.
No right at all to love and be loved by Jonas.
Choking on the sob lodged in her throat, Hannah spun around and lurched toward the back door. Eudora's voice stopped her as she grabbed the knob.
"Don't leave, Hannah," she said, desperation coloring the words.
Bracing one hand on the wall, Hannah didn't turn around. She didn't want them all to see the tears she hadn't been able to will away.
"I'm just going for a walk," she forced herself to say. "I need a lit
tle time to think. I'll be back." She paused before adding another lie to the mountain of falsehoods towering over them all. "I promise."
Chapter Eighteen
Jonas winced as the door slammed behind Hannah. Just as he'd felt her joy at greeting Eudora, he now felt the overwhelming despair choking her. His instincts told him to run after her. To hold her in his arms until her world righted itself again.
His fault, he thought with disgust. Because he hadn't trusted her. Damn it, he should have known Hannah wouldn't knowingly betray him. Hell, it was her determination to have him face the truth of his own past that had most annoyed him over the last few weeks. A woman that dedicated to honesty wouldn't have deliberately lied to him.
Now he'd inadvertently turned the tables on her. He'd forced her aunt into telling Hannah a truth that had ripped away years of comfortable lies.
Eudora jumped to her feet and started for the door.
"Leave her alone," Jonas said, his voice a cold, steely thread.
"I have to talk to her." The older woman turned to look at him.
Jonas glanced at Elias, then shifted his gaze back to Eudora. She was fairly shaking with the need to find Hannah. To apologize again. To try and repair the damage done by a hastily told truth.
But from personal experience, he knew the one thing Hannah needed right now was time to herself. To think about her changed world and how she fit into it.
It wasn't so long ago, after all, that he'd been the one forced to face a long-buried truth. He knew all too well what she was feeling. The destruction of everything she'd ever known. The tearing away of the floorboards she'd spent her life standing on.
Looking at the two people opposite him, Jonas tried to find that flash of anger he'd felt when he'd believed Hannah had betrayed him—and then the simmering temper he'd felt on her behalf as Eudora had started talking.
But he couldn't.
These two, Elias and Eudora, in the name of love, had woven such a net of lies around him and Hannah, it was a wonder that either of them could breathe. And though they'd meant it all for the best, that didn't take the sting out of the truth when it was finally shoved in front of them.
"Jonas'll go after her," Elias said, turning in his chair to look at the woman behind him.
Her expression worried, her eyes frantic, she nodded. "All right," she said. "But tell her, Mackenzie, that I meant no harm to her."
"No harm," he repeated thoughtfully.
"I only wanted to protect her."
"From the truth," he pointed out.
"Yes." She lifted her chin and focused her pale blue gaze on him defiantly.
Jonas shook his head and looked at Elias. "Just about what you did to me, isn't it?"
"Reckon so," he admitted.
Jonas had kept quiet through that whole earlier conversation, though at times he'd had to bite his tongue to do it. He'd watched Hannah's eyes and seen the desolation shining from her soul.
He shouldn't have said anything about her not being a witch. Should have waited. Thought about it more before blurting it out. But it was too late now for "should haves."
Standing up, he looked at Hannah's aunt. "You sent her to me. Why?"
"You know why, Mackenzie," she said. "Hannah's told you about Wolcott."
Not only did he know about him, he'd fought and lost to the warlock almost nightly in his dreams.
But there was something he had to understand here. "Hannah told me that Wolcott wanted to marry her to strengthen his own powers."
"Yes." Eudora threw a look out the window, then returned her gaze to Jonas. "He knows that by joining his line with the Lowells', his power will be nearly untouchable."
"But she's not a witch," he said, straining to keep his anger reined in tightly. "You could have told him that and kept her safe yourself."
In the dim light of a cloudy morning, Eudora seemed to pale and then, just as quickly, two bright spots of color filled her cheeks. Straightening up, she glanced at Elias before looking Jonas dead in the eye. "I couldn't tell him. You don't know this warlock. He's… demented."
His dreams roared through his mind and still he needed to know more. "Tell me."
She sucked in a gulp of air and, twisting her hands together, she said, "If he'd known Hannah wasn't a witch, he would have gotten rid of her."
A deep, heavy cold settled in his chest. "Killed her?"
"Nothing so straightforward," Eudora muttered, shaking her head. "He has no respect for any ordinary creature—human or otherwise. Whenever a non-witch stumbled across Creekford, Blake 'removed' them."
"How?"
She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. Elias stood up, went to her, and pulled her tight against him. From the safety of love's harbor, she looked at Jonas. "They simply… disappeared. Ceased to exist."
"Jesus," Jonas whispered, shooting a quick look at the door through which Hannah had escaped.
"You were my only chance, Mackenzie."
Her voice brought his attention back to her.
"Once Hannah was married to you, she would have been safe from Blake. Your strength is enough to protect her."
"Then all this other stuff about my powers growing through marriage is just so much crap."
"No." She shook her head again firmly. "When witches marry, their combined strength always grows."
"But she's not a witch."
"It's not the witchcraft that strengthens their bond," Eudora said simply. "It's the love they share. Love is the one thread that cannot be broken. The one strength that builds on itself, growing stronger with each passing day."
Love. He felt it. He knew Hannah felt it. But would it really be enough to protect them all from the warlock he knew was coming?
He looked at the two older people and realized that most of his anger was gone. "You two have done a helluva lot of damage in the name of love."
"I know it seems that way now," Eudora said quietly. "But everything happens for a reason, Jonas. And fate cannot be avoided." She looked up at Elias and he smiled down at her. "What is meant to be, will be. No matter what. And I saw that you and Hannah were meant for each other."
His gaze narrowed. "You saw it."
"Yes." She smiled now, as she would at a particularly slow-witted child. "I knew your parents, Jonas. Very well."
He shifted uncomfortably.
"I knew that if you were half the man your father was, you and Hannah would make a fine life together." She drew a long, deep breath. "I looked into the crystal and saw the two of you, linked, joined. But there are challenges yet to be met. And Blake Wolcott will be furious at having his plans thwarted." A flicker of warning darted across her eyes. "He's a dangerous man. Your strength will defeat him."
"If you'd seen me trying to practice some magic," he said, "you wouldn't be so sure of that."
"He has a point," Elias told her. "I seen him."
"Thanks," Jonas said.
Eudora shook her head at both of them. "Neither one of you has realized the most important thing in this. Magic can't be 'practiced.' It simply is." Staring up at Jonas, she went on. "It's as much a part of you as breathing."
He didn't think so. Memories of his dream battles with the warlock came rushing back, filling him with a dread he'd never known before. Wolcott had defeated him every time. If he did so in real life, then Hannah would be unprotected from a man ready to wreak a little vengeance.
Jonas pulled his hands from his pockets, reached up, and shoved them both through his hair. A month ago, he would have laughed himself sick over talk of witchcraft and warlocks. Now it was all too real. And his main concern was finding a way to survive the coming battle so Hannah wouldn't be left unprotected.
Years of lies had brought them all to this point. If he'd been raised knowing who and what he was, he'd be more prepared. He'd know what to do and how to do it. And Hannah would never have been put into danger.
Letting his hands fall to his sides again, he said, "You had no right to meddle in our lives." H
e paused and spared a glance for Elias, as well. "Either of you."
The older man's arm tightened around Eudora's shoulders and the two of them faced him down.
"We had the right of those who love," she told him. "We meant only to protect you."
"She's got the right of it," Elias put in. "And we're not goin' anywhere, either. We'll both be right here, ready to help any way we can."
Jonas shoved both hands through his hair again. "Love is sure being used to explain a lot around here."
Eudora chuckled, despite the situation. "Love explains everything, Mackenzie."
From where he stood, it only seemed to complicate matters, but he didn't bother to say so. What would be the point in arguing her position now? What was done was done.
Jonas turned his head and glanced out the window. The thunder and lightning had faded away, but a light rain still fell. He scowled to himself as he thought of Hannah running blindly into that rain, and a new swell of anxiousness rose up inside him.
The hell with giving her time to think. He couldn't rest knowing she was out there, in the darkness. Alone. He wanted—needed—to be with her.
"I'm going after her," he said, then shot a look at Elias. "Throw some food together, will you?"
The older man jerked him a nod, gave Eudora a quick kiss on the cheek, then turned, already bustling about the kitchen, apparently grateful for something constructive to do.
"When you find her," Eudora said, reaching out to squeeze Jonas's arm gently, "tell her I love her."
He looked down into those soft blue eyes and nodded. "I will," he promised.
But first, he was going to tell Hannah that he loved her. As he should have done first thing this morning. He'd realized the depth of his feelings days ago. Hell, he'd probably known for weeks now. But he'd been so busy trying to ignore her and what she made him feel, he hadn't seen that he was being offered a gift. Well, he was tired of pretending that living alone was enough. He was tired of running from the past.
He wanted a future, damn it.
With Hannah.
Old fears and haunting memories still crowded his mind and he knew he'd never be completely free of them. But if he had a choice between living without Hannah and living with her, there was really no choice at all. Going through the next forty years without her wouldn't really be living, anyway.
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