witches of cleopatra hill 04.5 - cleopatra hill christmas

by Christine Pope

  A CLEOPATRA HILL CHRISTMAS

  A WITCHES OF CLEOPATRA HILL NOVELLA

  CHRISTINE POPE

  CONTENTS

  Copyright

  The Witches of Cleopatra Hill

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  If You Enjoyed This Book…

  Also by Christine Pope

  About the Author

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations, or persons, whether living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A CLEOPATRA HILL CHRISTMAS

  Copyright © 2015 by Christine Pope

  Published by Dark Valentine Press

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems — except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews — without permission in writing from its publisher, Dark Valentine Press.

  Please contact the author through the form on her website at www.christinepope.com if you experience any formatting or readability issues with this book.

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  THE WITCHES OF CLEOPATRA HILL

  (LISTED IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER, NOT ORDER OF PUBLICATION)

  Darkangel

  Darknight

  Darkmoon

  Sympathetic Magic

  A Cleopatra Hill Christmas

  Protector

  Spellbound

  1

  Connor leaned up against the dresser in our bedroom and watched me, worry clear in his green eyes. “Are you really sure you want to do this?”

  I kept on folding my clothes and stacking them neatly in my suitcase. “Completely sure. Besides, I already told everyone we’d be there.”

  “But the twins aren’t even three weeks old — ”

  After setting a pair of jeans down in the suitcase, I turned back toward him. His forehead was creased with a frown, so I abandoned the packing and went to my husband, then put my arms around his waist and pressed myself close.

  “I know how old they are,” I said softly. “And both Dr. Ruiz and Eleanor say they’re fine and that taking them down to Jerome shouldn’t be a problem at all.”

  Connor brushed a kiss against the top of my head. Warmth flowed through me, welcome, telling me I was almost ready to be with him again. Actually, I’d felt ready several days ago, but my ob-gyn recommended waiting at least four weeks before attempting to have sex, despite my miraculous recovery from the C-section I’d had on December first.

  Well, it probably seemed miraculous to her. But of course I couldn’t explain to a civilian doctor that my recovery had gotten a little assist from Eleanor Garnett, the Wilcox clan’s healer. If she’d wanted to, she could have healed my incision all at once, but since I’d been getting regular checkups from the doctor in addition to seeing the clan healer, explaining how my surgery scars just went poof! might have been a little awkward. Instead, Eleanor was quietly coaxing the healing process along, making it seem as if I was recovering very quickly, but not so quickly that my ob-gyn would think it suspicious. At least, that was the plan, although I could tell from the speculative look Dr. Ruiz had given me at my last appointment that she knew something wasn’t quite on the up and up, even if she couldn’t put her finger on it.

  “Okay,” Connor said. “If you’re sure.”

  “I’m sure,” I told him, then backed away slightly so I could gaze up at his face. I would have really liked to know his secret for avoiding dark circles after being kept up by the twins’ midnight feedings. Some mornings I looked as if someone had punched me in both eyes. Thank the Goddess for concealer. “Anyway, the entire Wilcox clan has gotten to see Ian and Emily, so it’s only fair that the McAllisters should get their turn.”

  He couldn’t really argue with that. True, my Aunt Rachel and her S.O. — all right, fiancé, since she’d finally agreed to get married after seeing him for years — had come up to see the twins, and so had a few more of the more adventurous among my extended family, including my cousin Kirby, who’d been among my “babysitters” after it became clear that Damon Wilcox, the former primus of the Wilcoxes, had unhealthy designs on me. But the majority of the McAllister clan, although outwardly accepting of the changes that had taken place over the past few months, still didn’t seem too keen on venturing into Wilcox territory. And they had just as much right to see their prima’s new babies as the Wilcoxes did.

  “Anyway,” I went on, “Rachel and I went to all that trouble to put together a nursery in the house there. We need to use it. We did promise everyone that we were going to try to split our time evenly between the two places.”

  “All right, all right,” Connor said with a laugh, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “As long as we’re back in Flagstaff for the pinecone drop on New Year’s. Eleanor already promised to babysit.”

  “It’s a date.” I went on my tiptoes so I could kiss him, and he kissed me back soundly, mouth opening, the two of us tasting each other, wanting more. The connection between us, which had seemed as if it had been sleeping these past few weeks, flared into open flame once again. My whole body thrummed with need. In the face of that desire, I thought I could ignore my sore and aching breasts, the not-quite-healed scar on my abdomen…everything.

  The baby monitor on the dresser came alive in that moment, the thin wail I’d come to recognize as Emily’s, followed by Ian’s lustier cry.

  All right, so I couldn’t ignore everything.

  “Rain check?” I asked Connor.

  He gave me a rueful smile. “Sure.”

  * * *

  I had to give the twins credit for one thing; when they went off, they went off in tandem. At first I’d been worried that they would take turns crying, would trade off who needed to be fed or changed or even simply cuddled and kissed. For whatever reason, though, they seemed to sleep at the same time, get hungry at the same time. It had made life a little easier than I’d expected, although I couldn’t help wondering if this was a twin thing, or just an Ian and Emily thing. Either way, I’d take it.

  So the packing was interrupted while I breastfed Ian and Connor bottle-fed Emily. We tried to alternate, although Emily did seem to prefer the bottle. I’d given Connor the evil eye when he made a crack about Ian obviously being a boob man, but that did appear to be the case.

  Eventually, though, the twins were both sated and put back in their cribs, and we could finish getting all our stuff together for the trip down to Jerome. And since we were traveling with a pair of newborns, that meant we were packing a lot of stuff. More than an hour had gone past by the time we had everything loaded into the Cherokee, but that was all right. We’d told everyone we’d be down on the twenty-second, but we hadn’t given an exact time, since it all depended on how cooperative the twins decided to be.

  My birthday was the twenty-first. Connor and I had spent it quietly at home, since we knew we were going to be gone for the next few days anyway. I’d said I didn’t want anything — didn’t I already have everything I needed? — but Connor would have none of that. Instead, he’d hidden presents for me all over the house — a new pair of cowboy boots, some garnet earrings I’d admired in one of the local shops, a new iPad — and waited for me to find them. And then Connor’s cousin Lucas, bless his heart, sent over a chef
friend of his to cook me a birthday dinner. The twins didn’t even wake up until we were almost done with dessert, which felt like their own special present to me.

  And now we were headed back down to Jerome. I hadn’t been there since I intervened to make sure my cousin Margot Emory, one of the McAllister clan elders, was released from her service as elder so she could marry Lucas Wilcox. That day was here finally — or rather, it would be on the twenty-third. The wedding was the main reason why I had made plans to go to Jerome, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to spend Christmas with my extended family. Not that all of them even observed the actual holiday, but basically the whole time from the solstice to New Year’s was a celebration among the witches of Cleopatra Hill, and I wanted to be there to share it with them.

  The twins, still satiated from their last feeding, were so conked out that they didn’t stir even as we strapped them into their child seats and backed out of the garage. It was my car, but Connor drove; the farthest we’d taken Ian and Emily prior to this was to the pediatrician’s, and I knew I needed to be able to dive into the back seat to take action if either one of them woke up and needed something. Then again, driving in the car tended to make them even sleepier, so they’d probably stay conked for the whole trip to Jerome.

  We took the road down through the canyon. It was more direct, and besides, since we’d had fresh snow two days before, the scenery was absolutely beautiful, a perfect wonderland. Rachel had reported that they’d had snow in Jerome, too, although I guessed it would be melted by the time we got there. In Flagstaff, the snow stuck. In Jerome, it might hang around for a day if you were really lucky. Just as well, since negotiating those cramped, steep streets could be a challenge when things got icy.

  Connor had put on a soft New Age-y station on the satellite radio; he knew better than to play anything loud while Ian and Emily were asleep. I watched the trees flash by and thought about how much had changed over the past year. A year ago, I’d been kidnapped by Connor’s crazy brother Damon and brought to Flagstaff, and I’d thought I’d never see my home again. Now Flagstaff was home, or at least my part-time home. Now I needed to reestablish my connection with my hometown and the clan that had once been the only things I’d known.

  “What are you thinking about?” Connor asked, keeping his voice low so he wouldn’t wake the twins.

  “Going home,” I replied, almost without thinking. He winced, and I quickly added, “The place I grew up. Home is…well, home is where you are. You know that.”

  A smile touched his lips, but I noticed how he didn’t look away from the road. A good idea, since patches of ice still lurked in some of the shady spots on the blacktop, even though the weather had been dry since the last storm passed through. “It’ll be good for you to see everyone.”

  I nodded. I’d found myself missing all of them, even the cantankerous Bryce McAllister, one of the clan’s elders. They were a part of the fabric of my life, and I knew I’d feel better if I could figure out a way to stitch the two pieces of that fabric into a harmonious whole. I thought then of my best friend, who I hadn’t seen for a couple of weeks, but who would be at the wedding the next day. “Sydney says thank you for the invitation to the wedding, by the way. I know she doesn’t really know either Margot or Lucas, but…”

  “…but there was never a wedding Syd could resist.” Connor’s tone was dry, that hint of a smile I loved so much playing around the corners of his mouth.

  “Well, she’s just saying it’s research, but yeah.” Sydney’s wedding wasn’t until March, but she was already furiously plotting, taking notes, buying bridal magazines I hadn’t even heard of. I was glad that by March I should be more or less back down to fighting trim, since of course she’d decided on sheath dresses for the bridesmaids.

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  When Connor was being that noncommittal, I knew he really didn’t believe a word of it but didn’t feel like arguing the point. Not that there was that much to argue about. I knew Sydney was being kind of obsessive about the fancy wedding she was planning, but why not? Her parents could afford it, and she wasn’t going crazy. Much.

  “Oh, and Rachel said she’d watch Ian and Emily so we can go pick up a tree tonight.”

  “Don’t we already have one back at the house?”

  “Yes, but we don’t have one in Jerome, and that’s where we’re going to be for Christmas.”

  Connor didn’t quite let out a sigh. “Okay.”

  I shifted in my seat and poked him in the arm. “Whose fault was it that I didn’t get to enjoy the tree in my house last Christmas?”

  This time his gaze did slide toward me, a flicker of deep green which made that same bit of welcome warmth flare somewhere low in my belly. “Fine, but I was under the impression you were okay with how all that worked out.”

  “I am okay,” I said, then leaned over in my seat so I could lay a kiss on his arm. That was as far as I could reach, considering the way the seatbelt held me in. “More than okay, and you know that very well, Connor Wilcox.”

  He chuckled. “Okay, fine, a tree. I suppose you have ornaments for it?”

  “Yes. Rachel boxed them all up for me and put them in the attic last year when — well, when it was obvious I wouldn’t be here for Christmas.” That mental image sent a pang through me, the thought of my aunt fighting back tears as she took down the ornaments I’d so carefully chosen and hung on my tree. Back then, she’d feared she would never see me again, that the Wilcoxes would never let me go.

  Well, they hadn’t. Not really, but that was because Connor and I had bonded with one another heart and soul by then, despite our clan differences.

  He reached over and placed his hand on top of mine in response to my comment. No words, only a gentle squeeze of my fingers before he put his hand back on the steering wheel. That was all right; he didn’t need to say anything. He knew what his brother had put my family through, until it became clear to everyone that Connor was my soul mate, the one person the Goddess — the universe — had decided should be with me. Not to say they were exactly thrilled about that, either, at least not in the beginning, but even when my family still feared and distrusted all the Wilcoxes, they’d realized that Connor was definitely the lesser of two evils when compared to his brother Damon.

  Our drive took us through Sedona, which seemed fairly quiet, considering the time of year. Maybe it would get busier after Christmas. I was glad of the mostly open streets, though, because the farther away I got from Flagstaff, the more I itched to be back in Jerome. I couldn’t even say why, exactly, since I’d been there about a month and a half earlier — it wasn’t exactly what you could call a major separation. Still, something seemed to be pulling me home, as if my soul thirsted for something it could only find back in the hilly streets of the town where I’d grown up.

  And then we were past Cottonwood, climbing up the winding two-lane highway that led to Jerome. As I’d guessed, the snow looked as if it had mostly melted, although I could see a few patches gleaming here and there in the shadow of a tree or a boulder or a wall.

  It was late afternoon by that time, a steady stream of cars going in the opposite direction telling me that the tourists had packed it in for the day. No big surprise there; the streets in Jerome tended to roll up between five and six, except on Friday and Saturday nights. But this was Tuesday, and visitors didn’t have much reason to hang around.

  Because the garage was detached from the house and we had luggage and babies to wrangle, Connor parked in front rather than in the garage. I hadn’t been expecting the welcome wagon to roll out, but I was surprised to see, as we came to a stop in front of the big Victorian home that was now mine, that someone had put a pine wreath with a big red bow on the front door, and white icicle lights hung from all the eaves.

  “Wow,” Connor said. “Did you hire someone to come in and decorate or something?”

  “No,” I replied, puzzled. “I don’t know who did this. I mean, Rachel has a key, just in case of eme
rgency and to let the cleaning crew in once a month, but….”

  Well, the mystery would have to wait to be answered. In the meantime, we had to get Ian and Emily into the house without being outside in the cold for too long, and then schlep all the luggage inside. Actually, Connor had to do most of the schlepping, since as soon as they were taken out of their car seats and into the icy evening air, the twins woke up and voiced their unhappiness. Loudly. Their cries seemed to echo all over the neighborhood as we hurried them inside. Even if people hadn’t noticed us drive up, I was pretty sure they knew by that point that Connor and I had arrived.

  So I juggled bottles and babies while Connor brought the luggage and diaper bags and everything else inside. While I stood in the entry, hanging onto the fretting twins and really wishing I had a third arm, I noticed that fresh green pine garlands had been wound around the banisters, and more rested on the mantel in the living room. Also, someone had to have come in and turned up the heat, getting the house ready for the prima and her family.

  The thought that one of my family members had taken that kind of care made me a little teary. All right, the tears were probably the post-baby hormones talking, but still. I didn’t know if it was Rachel or someone else — or maybe a couple of different people. Whoever it was had obviously wanted to send the message that we were welcome here in Jerome, no matter what might have happened in the past.

  Things were a little chaotic until we got the twins settled in their nursery on the second floor. They were still fussy, but not crying, and they didn’t need to be changed, so I figured it was safe to call Rachel and let her know we were here.