Charlie eyed him with interest. “Same gal you told me about before?”
“Same gal.”
“I thought so,” said Charlie. “Something tells me that this is pretty serious.”
“I think so.”
“You think? You mean you don’t know?”
“I’m not sure how I’d know. Love isn’t an emotion with which I’ve been well acquainted,” Tate said dryly.
“The way you’ll know is when her soul comes into the very center of your soul, never to turn away,” said Charlie.
This gave Tate pause. It sounded exactly like something that Tsani had said to him during his vision, and this soul business was what Tsani had told him that he and Maggie must accomplish in order to release Tsani and Peg to the Nightland.
Tate frowned at Charlie. “Would you care to elaborate on that?” he said.
“The saying comes from the old Cherokee declaration of love. That’s how the old-timers would have set the seal on commitment. You want to know the old love charms?”
“I think we’d better stick to playing pool,” he told Charlie, thinking that he and Maggie had enough to think about without invoking ancient spells.
It was not, however, the kind of thing he felt comfortable saying to Charlie Bearkiller.
ARRIVING HOME, Maggie pulled her car up to the side of the cabin where she always parked it and went around to get the groceries out of the trunk. That was when she smelled bacon frying.
Bacon? Why would she smell bacon? Unless Peg Macintyre had lately taken up cooking, Maggie could think of no explanation.
But it was definitely the odor of bacon, and along with it, the unmistakable scent of frying onions wafted from the open kitchen window.
Perhaps she should have been afraid, but her first thought was that Bronwyn had decided to pay a surprise visit and was cooking liver and onions, which she dearly loved. Never mind that she, Maggie, hated liver. Never mind that she had told Bronwyn how certain strong odors such as onions upset her stomach. It would be just like Bronwyn to arrive unannounced and make herself at home by cooking her favorite meal, not remembering that such odors would present a problem for her hostess.
Maggie, carrying the bag of food, hurried up the path to the front door and let herself in. She always left the door unlocked these days; she’d been conditioned to it by Tate.
“Bronwyn?” she called expectantly.
“No,” said a familiar voice, and as she lowered the bag to the kitchen counter and removed her sunglasses, she discovered that her visitor was not Bronwyn after all.
“Hi, babe,” said Kip, sauntering forward casually, a self-assured smile on his face. “I heard at the general store that you’ve got a cabin for rent.”
Maggie stared at him, scarcely able to credit his presence.
“Excuse me,” she said unsteadily, “but I think I’m going to throw up.”
And did, all over his brand-new Gucci loafers.
TATE WAS LATER coming home than he’d planned. He’d tried to call Maggie from the pool hall, but no one answered at her place. He suspected that she had unplugged the phone again in preparation for a night of lovemaking, which was fine with him.
It wasn’t that either he or Charlie intended for him to be late, but one thing led to another and they kept thinking of things to talk about. Tate wasn’t sure what time it was when he headed his motorcycle up Maggie’s driveway, but it was already dark. He didn’t know whether to hope Maggie had waited dinner for him or had gone to bed; stealing into her bed and cuddling her until she woke up appealed to him tonight. And then they would…
He screeched to a stop. Whose car was that? It was an unfamiliar subcompact, and it was pulled up behind the felled oak tree that Jacob Pinter’s grandson was supposed to cut for firewood. Tate turned off the bike’s engine and listened for a moment, but all he heard was the chirring of crickets in the shrubbery.
Nothing seemed to be amiss, and the window of Maggie’s bedroom was dark. Out of habit, he looked for the robin’s nest in the living room window. It wasn’t there.
He supposed that the car could belong to Jacob’s grandson; that the kid had stopped by during the day to chop firewood and then couldn’t start the car for some reason; that he’d called somebody for a ride home and left the car until the next day. This made sense.
Tate opened the cabin’s front door and flicked on the light switch. All was in order; nothing was out of place.
“Maggie? I’m home,” he called. He pictured her lying in bed in the dark, waiting for him, preferably nude, preferably eager.
The bedroom door opened, and a man came out toweling his wet hair. He wore a bath towel and nothing else.
“Hi,” said the man. “I’m Kip.”
Tate took in the guy’s state of undress; the living room light slanted through the doorway to reveal Maggie in her nightgown in the bed beyond. She looked confused, as if she’d just awakened.
“Excuse me,” Tate said. “I think I’ve got the wrong house.”
He slammed the door as he left.
PURE, BLIND SHOCK. That was what Tate felt as he gunned his bike up the mountain to his camp. He couldn’t feel, he couldn’t think, and he sure as hell couldn’t deal with whatever was going on back at the cabin.
He’d thought Kip was out of Maggie’s life. The way she had made love to him, Tate, the way she had confided in him, the way she had so readily become a part of his lifehad she only been toying with his feelings? Had he fooled himself into thinking that his visions and dreams were real when they were only fantasy?
He loved her. He should have told her so during one of their sublime sessions of lovemaking when they’d felt so close and happy. He should have come back from town earlier. He should have found out what Maggie felt about him when he’d had the chance. On the other hand, maybe he already knew.
Maggie had needed someone, and he’d been there. She’d been alone and scared and pregnant. Had he been a chump all along to be there for her? Had he merely been a convenience, someone to get her over the hard times until Kip Baker decided to breeze back into her life?
He arrived at his camp, slamming on brakes with a vengeance, sending a tail of dirt flying as he skidded to a stop near his asi. The camp had an air of neglect even though he’d only been gone for a couple of days. He kicked at the ashes of the campfire, found that the water in the bucket was stale, went to the river and filled it. He occupied himself with these tasks that he could perform by rote, then flung himself down beside the cold ashes and tried to think.
He couldn’t think. It was impossible with that picture of Maggie that was seared into his brain, the picture of her with her sheer silk nightgown pulled tight across her breasts, her hair mussed and her cheeks rosy from sleep, the picture of her with Kip.
She had said she might still love Kip, but Tate had thought that the passion and confidences that they had shared had overcome any last vestige of affection she might feel for the guy. He’d thought she loved him, Tate. What a fool he was! He should never have taken anything for granted.
Finally he lit the fire and stared into it, wishing that he had never met Maggie Macintyre.
He heard the pesky, troublesome Tsagasi laughing at him down by the river, but he paid them no mind. They would have to find someone else to torment. Kip Baker came to mind as the perfect candidate.
MAGGIE SAT FROZEN in place as Tate slammed out the door of her cabin, and his motorcycle had already roared up the mountain by the time she reached the front door.
She turned to Kip, furious with him. “What did you say to him? What did he say?”
Kip shrugged in that nonchalant way of his. “I introduced myself, and the guy took off like a bat out of hell.”
Maggie sagged against the closed door. “He must have thought—” she began, but stopped.
Kip approached her, a quizzical smile on his face. “Must have thought what, babe?”
“Thought that you and I were in bed together,” she said heavily.<
br />
Leaning toward her, a confidently seductive smile on his lips, Kip reached over and edged a finger beneath the narrow strap of her nightgown. Slowly and deliberately, he lifted it and let it fall down her arm so that the bodice slipped to expose most of one rounded breast. “Now that’s the best idea I’ve heard all day,” he said lazily, gazing at her from under half-lowered eyelids.
Furiously Maggie adjusted the strap. “Don’t touch me. You’ll never lay a hand on me again, Kip Baker, get that through your thick head.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” he said. He wasn’t taking her seriously, but then Kip never took anything seriously except his own pleasure.
“What were you doing in my room?” she said. She had become violently sick after smelling the bacon and fried potatoes with onions that Kip had decided to cook in her absence, and she had closed her bedroom door on him, put on her nightgown, and crawled into bed to await Tate. Kip had said he needed a place to spend the night; for some reason known only to himself, he had driven to Scot’s Cove nonstop from some unspecified starting point. He had been driving for twenty-four straight hours and claimed that it was too late to head for Atlanta. When it came right down to it, Maggie didn’t care if Kip bedded down on the couch; hopes of a romantic evening had already been squelched by her reaction to the odor of bacon and onions. She had made it clear that Kip was to leave first thing in the morning.
It took a tremendous effort to make herself pay attention to Kip’s explanation of his presence in her bedroom. “There’s no shower in the half bath behind the kitchen. I didn’t think you’d mind if I used your bathroom. Hey, you wouldn’t deny me a nice warm shower after I’ve driven for hours to see you, would you?” He smiled engagingly, but in that moment, she hated him. How could she have ever loved this self-centered creep?
“I could deny you anything at this moment,” she said. “Get out.”
“Out? You mean,” and he jerked his head toward the door, “out?”
“Either you leave of your own volition or I will throw you out of here myself.”
“Aren’t I the father of your child? Don’t I have rights?”
“Out,” she said, heaving his duffel off the floor and tossing it out into the night. “Out,” she said, picking up his loafers where he had left them and throwing them after it. “Out,” she said again, placing her hands against Kip’s back and propelling him toward the door.
“Can’t we at least talk this over?” Kip said unbelievingly as he cleared the doorsill wearing only the towel, which had slipped dangerously low.
For an answer, she shut the door and shot the bolt loudly.
“Maggie?” Kip said, but she didn’t reply. “Maggie, where am I supposed to sleep?”
She still didn’t answer, and finally, after an interminable silence, she heard him cursing as he disappeared toward the dark woods.
Now that he was gone, what could she do about Tate? She had to talk to him, had to explain.
Maggie heard the same plaintive dulcimer tune that always heralded Peg Macintyre’s presence and waited to see if she would appear or speak. Nothing happened, and Maggie realized that she was on her own.
But she was tired of being on her own. She wanted to be with Tate. The only trouble was, she wouldn’t blame Tate one bit if after tonight he didn’t want to be with her.
LOVING MAGGIE. What did it mean?
Tate, feeling the need of a spiritual experience, had built a fire in his sweat lodge. He crouched naked in the rising smoke, pouring water on the hot stones to make steam.
His song was straight out of Cherokee tradition, a lament for lost love. He didn’t know if the words qualified as a love charm, but he figured they were close enough, and besides, his song came straight from his heart. The words rose with the smoke, and like the smoke, they disappeared.
Like Maggie.
MAGGIE DRESSED QUICKLY, not knowing what clothes she threw on, knowing only that she must find Tate and that he would be at his camp.
She grabbed a flashlight from the utility room and went outside.
“Maggie?”
It was Kip, who had apparently seen the beam of light from his car.
“Leave me alone,” she said.
He emerged from the car. “I can’t sleep in the car, it’s too small.”
“Stop whining, Kip. You should have thought about that before you decided to come here.” She kept walking down the driveway. Thunder mumbled in the distance.
“Where are you going?”
“None of your business.”
He followed her. At least he had dressed. If she wasn’t so angry, she might have laughed at the way he had looked when she’d thrown him out of the cabin.
“Well, wherever you’re going, I’m going, too.”
She beamed her light full in his face, and he flinched.
“Cut it out, Maggie,” he said. A few drops of rain had fallen, and now it started to drizzle.
“Stop following me. This doesn’t concern you.”
“You’re heading up the mountain into a thunderstorm to God knows where and you’re carrying my child. Of course it concerns me.”
It didn’t, but his words gave her pause. It was a long way to Tate’s camp, and she could slip or fall or get lost in the woods. Kip seem determined to follow her. She knew she couldn’t very well show up at Tate’s camp with him in tow.
Wordlessly, she switched off the light and marched back toward the cabin.
“Couldn’t you at least let me have the flashlight?” Kip asked plaintively as she reached the door.
Keeping a firm grip on it, determined that Kip wasn’t going to get anything else from her, ever, she went inside the cabin and locked the door, leaving him looking after her with a hurt expression.
Maggie threw herself down on the couch and buried her face in her hands. Her life was a wreck, and it was all her own fault.
TATE PAUSED in his chanting, his throat dry and cracked. He felt a sudden whoosh of wings, and his eyes flew open to see the great white crane.
“How about the baby? Does it mean as much to you as she does?” asked the white crane without preamble. Behind the crane’s mask, Tsani’s eyes were anxious.
“It’s not my baby,” Tate said.
“You were no one’s baby. Wouldn’t you have liked it if some man had agreed to be a father to you?”
“Of course,” Tate said. “I needed a father. Hell, I needed a mother, but I didn’t have one who counted for much.”
“Ah,” said Tsani. “Here is your chance to right another wrong. This child needs you. Make yourself count for something.”
“It will hardly do any good if Maggie doesn’t want me.”
“You don’t know what she wants,” Tsani reminded him.
“She apparently wants Kip.”
“Kip!” said the Tsani in a disparaging tone of voice. “He’s worthless.”
“You think so and I think so. I’m not sure Maggie thinks so.”
“It’s up to you to find out. And if the child is to have a real father, that’s also up to you.”
“Why does it matter to you?” Tate said boldly. He wasn’t sure he wanted Tsani directing his life any more.
Tsani moved closer. “I never knew my child,” he said. “I lost him through my own folly. I have repented for being late on the day that I was to meet Peg and run away with her, but it isn’t enough. I want to make sure that at least one baby who has no father will get a good one.”
“Why me?”
“Because you are me. Don’t you get it?”
“I’m beginning to wish I didn’t,” Tate said.
“I am ready to journey to the Nightland. We are close, my woman and I, to being together for all eternity. But before we continue, I must know if you will care for Maggie’s baby.”
Tate swallowed. He knew that this was an important question. Now that he had met Kip, it was brought home to him even more clearly that Maggie’s child did not belong to him. And yet he had so often wis
hed that the child had resulted from the acts of love that had made him feel so close to Maggie. Hadn’t he marveled at the act itself and how extraordinarily focused he felt both during and after? Hadn’t he touched the small protuberance that was the baby even as his body entered Maggie’s, even as he poured himself into her, became part of her? And hadn’t he known that the true miracle was the baby itself? Hadn’t he wanted to feel that the baby was part of him, just as Maggie was?
Yes, as Maggie’s love had grown to encompass the baby that she hadn’t planned, so had his. Because he loved Maggie, therefore he loved her child. He felt, so help him, like the baby’s father. And if he wasn’t, it wasn’t because of a lack of loving. He would give anything, anything in the world, if the baby was his. It was his, by virtue of love.
All these emotions ran through his mind, washed over him, and it was an entirely new experience to be able to connect with so many feelings at once. He didn’t have to speak of this; he didn’t have the words. But Tsani knew. “The child will have a good father in you.” Tsani said softly.
Tate spoke through dry lips. “How—how can you judge?”
“I know that you have the love.”
“But I don’t have Maggie.” In that moment, Tate thought he knew the true meaning of despair. To feel as he had always wanted to feel, to know the meaning of real love only to have it snatched away from him—this was agony, and it reached deep into his soul.
Suddenly Peg appeared, a faint apparition, and glided into Tsani’s arms. In spite of his own anguish, seeing them there like that, knowing that they were together, warmed Tate’s heart.
“Leave it to us,” Peg said, and a dulcimer chord sounded as the two of them faded away.
Tate slept, exhausted. When he awoke, his eyes red, his mouth parched, it was dawn.
He glanced at his wristwatch, his eyes falling on the day and date feature.
Oh great, he thought wearily. It’s Monday, the day I’m supposed to report back to work at Conso.
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