Spells & Stitches

by Barbara Bretton

  “Janice never mentioned any danger.”

  “I saw her face,” Luke said. “She’s scared shitless.”

  “Janice isn’t afraid of anything.”

  “She’s afraid of this,” Luke said. “You never noticed?”

  “Mostly he’s wintered in Snow Lake. I guess I was caught up in my own worries and wasn’t paying attention.” An embarrassing admission, but the truth often is. I had never once considered the possibility that Lorcan Meany wouldn’t return to his family each spring.

  Now I wouldn’t be able to get that thought out of my mind. It didn’t take much these days to send my thoughts racing down some dark and scary paths. The closer I got to my due date, the more I worried. Everything seemed like an omen of potential disaster. A storm on its way, bad news about a customer, if Luke was two minutes late from running an errand, anything about a baby gone missing—that was all it took to throw me into a tailspin that invariably ended in hysterical tears.

  And Elspeth didn’t help matters. She saw doom waiting around every corner and didn’t hesitate to share her foreboding. If only I could turn her off the way I turned off the nightly news. I’m a world-class worrier in the best of times. Now that I was pregnant, hormonal, and living with Elspeth my imagination was definitely in overdrive.

  The world was a dangerous place. That was a given. Both the world of humans and the world of magick held terrors that rose up in the middle of the night when my guard was down and made me wish I could keep our child safe inside my womb forever. I wasn’t afraid of childbirth. I didn’t worry about the pain. It was what would happen after our baby drew her first breath in this world that scared me.

  They said it was normal for a pregnant woman to be overwhelmed with fear and worry for her unborn child and I was no exception. Only when Luke was with me and I could smell his skin, feel the warmth of his body against mine, did the worry fade.

  At least for a moment or two.

  He ate his sandwiches and what was left of mine while I dozed briefly to a rerun of Miracle on 34th Street. The original version, with Maureen O’Hara, which was the only one that counted.

  “He’s real, you know,” I murmured into his shoulder during a commercial. It was time he knew the truth.

  “Who is?”

  “Kris Kringle.”

  There was a long silence. “And I suppose he lives here in Sugar Maple.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Last I heard he was still at the North Pole.”

  “Building Nintendos in his toy workshop with nonunion elves.”

  I gently head-butted him. “You sound cynical.”

  “And you sound like you’re yanking my chain.”

  “He’s one of us,” I said. “He fled the Old World around the same time Samuel’s family did. They say he charmed the frightened children with handmade toys during the journey and that’s how it started.”

  “The reindeer, the elves, Mrs. Claus—?”

  “He’s a philanthropist.”

  “A three-hundred-something-year-old philanthropist-slashwizard who happens to live near the North Pole.”

  “Actually he’s a shifter.”

  “A shifter.”

  “Like Lynette and her family.”

  “And he morphs into what—Rudolph?”

  I started to laugh. “You don’t believe me.”

  “Hey, I want to. It’s a great story.”

  “And it’s a true story. Would you have believed me yesterday if I’d told you Lorcan’s father was a grizzled old sea lion or that his brothers would escort him into the ocean for his renewal?”

  “Point made.”

  I took a deep breath and seized my moment. “That’s the thing about family. They’re always there for you whether you want them to be or not.”

  “You set me up.” This time it was his turn to laugh.

  “I seized an opportunity.” I leaned forward and grabbed a potato chip from the open bag on the coffee table. “We’re a month away from becoming parents. I think it’s time I met your family.”

  “They live too far away to invite them over for dinner,” he said, “and we sure as hell can’t put them up for a weekend.”

  The thought of Elspeth and Bunny together in one dimension made me shiver. “I see your point.”

  “We’re not driving down there again.”

  “One of my indie dyers is part owner of a fancy brunch place on the north shore of Lake Winnipesaukee. It’s kind of halfway between them and us, if you don’t get too technical about it.”

  “Neutral territory,” Luke said. “I like that idea.”

  “We meet, we eat, we talk. You’ll make your mother very happy.”

  He met my eyes. “This is what you want?”

  “Very much,” I said. “I want our daughter to have the family I always wanted.”

  “Families are a hell of a lot more complicated than you think.”

  “I’m willing to risk it.”

  “We won’t be able to keep them away once the baby arrives.”

  I kissed the side of his neck at the place where his blood beat quick and hot just beneath the skin. “I don’t want to keep them away. They’re her family.”

  “They could be yours, too.”

  “I know that.” We had become experts at the marriage proposal dance.

  “How many times does this make: nine, ten, eleven?”

  “Fourteen,” I answered. “Not that I’m counting or anything.”

  “I love you, Chloe. I want to build my life with you and our kid.”

  “We are building a life.”

  “We’re not married.”

  “Look at what happened to my father. Why rock the boat?”

  “Nothing’s going to happen to me if we get married.”

  “Hobbs women don’t have the greatest track record when it comes to happy endings.” The men we loved usually paid a steep price.

  “I don’t believe in that crap.”

  “Maybe you should. If anything happened to you because we married—” I couldn’t bring myself to finish the sentence.

  “We’re not going to end up like your parents,” he said, pulling me into his embrace.

  “I hope we end up like your parents.” Married over forty years and still together, watching their children and grandchildren grow. I couldn’t imagine anything more wonderful.

  “Tell me that after you’ve met my old man.”

  “I’d like to have that chance.”

  He gave me a rueful smile. “Got any magick for the prodigal son?”

  “You don’t need magick,” I said. “Just hit speed dial.”

  “You have a lot to learn about humans and their families.”

  “I know,” I said, handing him the phone. “And it’s time I got started.”

  6

  MEGHAN—PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY

  “Sorry to do this to you, Meg, but I need someone to close for me tonight.”

  Meghan MacKenzie paused her game of Angry Birds and smiled at the older woman leaning against the reception desk.

  “No problem, Amy. Another one of those migraines?”

  “The worst yet,” Amy said, looking appropriately green around the gills. “That last session almost killed me. I’m going to go lie in traffic somewhere and pray a truck drives over my head.”

  “A little drastic, don’t you think?” she said with a small laugh. “I hear there’s medication that can help.”

  “Been there, tried everything,” Amy said. “Everyone’s gone home except the two women with the trial memberships and some guy in blue sweats. Far as I know they’re in the locker rooms.”

  “You mean that hunk with the icy blue eyes?”

  Amy stared at her blankly. “I don’t know what color eyes the guy in blue sweats has.”

  “Believe me, you’d remember this guy,” Meghan said. “Six feet, four inches of pure fantasy.” He had an aura about him that would make him stand out anywhere. Well, in Meghan’s fantasies, at least. It wasn’
t often your private go-to dream guy stepped into your life. Even if it was only a walk-on part.

  “If you say so,” Amy said with a sigh and pushed a heavy set of keys toward Meghan. “He just looked like a guy to me. Anyway, you know the code for the alarm, right?”

  Meghan nodded. “No problem. It’s not like I’m in a rush to get home.”

  “The first six weeks are the hardest,” Amy said.

  “It’s been seven since Mark and I split.”

  “Okay, so maybe the first seven weeks are the hardest. What do I know? I’ve been married since I was in the cradle.” She leaned over and gave Meghan a quick hug. “You’re young. You’re cute. You’ll find someone new.”

  Amy was the nicest of all the instructors at Hot Yoga off Route 1 in Princeton. When Meghan first hooked up with Mark the plan had been to drive down to Florida and set up shop as personal trainers, yoga a specialty. She wasn’t exactly sure how they landed in New Jersey, but first the car broke down, then Mark broke his toe, and next thing Meghan knew she was working part-time at Hot Yoga while he screwed the girl in the apartment across the courtyard.

  So there she was, working the front desk and teaching six classes a week while she wondered what to do next.

  Maybe she should just pack up her crap, toss it in the back of her Toyota, and head down to Florida on her own. Half the people she’d trained with under Yogini Sirubhi were down in the Miami area. It wouldn’t be hard to find a place to stay and pick up some part-time work while she came up with a plan.

  And if she didn’t come up with a plan in Miami, she’d hop over to Nassau in the Bahamas and get a gig dealing blackjack on Paradise Island until she did.

  She would land on her feet. She always had. If she didn’t teach yoga or deal blackjack, she could always parlay her pre-law studies into some temp work until something better came along.

  Maybe she would start calling some of her Miami friends tonight and get the lay of the land, so to speak. She’d pour herself some red, fire up the laptop, and start making lists. Miami friends. Job skills. Short-term goals. Long-term goals. What she wanted for Christmas, even though nobody had asked lately.

  Christmas. Just the thought of it made her feel like she had a migraine, too.

  Her mother had been all over her the last few days, spamming her in-box with crazy messages about Luke and some knitting chick he’d supposedly knocked up, but she hadn’t gotten around to answering any of them yet. She and Luke were close. He would have told her if he’d found someone.

  Bunny tended to go off the deep end anytime one of her kids went off the reservation and start imagining all sorts of nutty stuff. Despite making detective with the Boston PD, Luke had been the black sheep of the family for most of their lives, but Meghan liked to think she was in the running for the title.

  Then again, if he had secretly started a new family up there in snow country, maybe she had her work cut out for her.

  She added Luke to the list of phone calls she planned to make, then walked back to the ladies’ locker room to light a fire under the stragglers.

  “We close in ten,” she said to the two women who were blow-drying their hair in the bathroom, “but if you need a few more just let me know.”

  “No problem,” said the younger of the two, “but thanks.”

  She paused in front of the door to the men’s lockers and rapped twice. “Ten minutes to closing,” she called out.

  She waited for a response and when there wasn’t any, she rapped again, harder.

  “Ten-minute warning!”

  It had to be him. Only one guy had taken class today and he was romance-novel-cover hot, all chiseled and sweaty and borderline dangerous. Everything she loved in a man over and over again.

  She pushed the door open a crack and listened. It was as quiet as a church in there. Not that she had been to church lately, but she had a good memory. No sounds of water running. No blow-dryer. No radio blaring sports or, God forbid, talk radio.

  Maybe he was gone. He probably left while she was in the ladies’ locker room, slipped right out when she wasn’t looking.

  But she’d wait a few just to be sure.

  She went back to the desk, gathered up her stuff, and tossed it all into the big leather tote she’d been carrying since college. The two women waved good-bye on their way out the door, but there was no sign of Fabio.

  The easiest way to lose her job at Hot Yoga would be to lock a paying customer in the studio, so she slung her bag over her shoulder and marched into the locker room to make sure there were no bodies slumped over a bench or circling the shower drain.

  Better safe than unemployed.

  THREE HOURS LATER

  His kisses were slow and wet and deep and if they went on any longer Meghan was reasonably sure they’d kill her.

  Pleasure could kill a woman if she wasn’t careful, and she was anything but careful when it came to love.

  Which this wasn’t, of course. Not love. Not now. You didn’t fall in love with a total stranger in three hours even if the total stranger walked straight out of fantasies you’d never told another living soul.

  Everything about him was perfect. She could get drunk just looking at him, touching him, breathing in the smell of his golden skin.

  “I have to close the studio,” she whispered, coming up for air. “I can’t afford to lose my job.”

  “You won’t lose your job.” He did something with his tongue that made her forget her own name.

  “We shouldn’t.”

  His hands dipped lower.

  “What if someone walks in while we’re—”

  His fingers began their magic. “They won’t.”

  “The door is wide open. Anybody could—”

  “I know,” he said. “That makes it even more fun.”

  Oh, God, he was right ... so right....

  She moved against his hand, straining for the ultimate pleasure that he kept just out of reach. A cry was building up in her throat and she sank her teeth into his muscular shoulder to keep from making a sound.

  “Bitch,” he murmured into her hair, spreading her legs wide with his knee. “You know what I like.”

  She bit him again, harder this time, hungry for something she hadn’t known existed until that moment, with that man. He filled her to the breaking point, taking her to the outer edges of madness, until there was nowhere left to go.

  She stopped caring if someone walked in and saw them. She stopped caring if she lost her job or what was left of her sanity. If he had asked, she would have walked across fiery coals to be with him.

  Suddenly all that mattered was his hands on her body, his mouth on hers.

  He took the keys and threw them across the room. The sound as they hit the floor made her jump. Her heart slammed her rib cage hard and she felt sweat break out on the back of her neck.

  “Scared?” He stood over her, filling her line of vision.

  “Should I be?”

  “Depends on what you’re afraid of.”

  Spiders. Snakes. Spending another long dark night alone.

  She knew the answer he wanted to hear.

  “You,” she said and suddenly she wasn’t lying. “I’m afraid of you.”

  “Good,” he said. “That’s a start.”

  7

  CHLOE

  “Maybe this wasn’t such a bright idea after all,” I muttered a few mornings later as I sat at the kitchen table with my laptop and an enormous glass of orange juice.

  Bettina Weaver Leonides was watching the shop so I had until two o’clock to sit around in my maternity sweatpants and Luke’s old shirt. I had a basket of yarn samples to swatch, designs to format and convert to pdf’s, and enough paperwork to keep me busy until the baby arrived, but the phone wouldn’t stop ringing. Indie dyers, a shepherdess from Brunswick, Luke’s mother.

  “Hope I’m not calling too early, honey,” Bunny MacKenzie said briskly, “but I wanted to get you before you started work.”

  “Not t
oo early at all,” I said, glancing at the clock and wincing at the hour. “Actually I’m not going into the shop until this afternoon.”

  “No problems, I hope.”

  “Only if you consider paperwork a problem,” I said with a laugh. “Sometimes I get so busy with knitters at the store I can’t get anything else done.”

  “You work too hard,” she said with maternal certainty. “I saw you bustling around that shop.”

  “More like waddling around the shop.”

  “You’re carrying beautifully, honey. I wish I’d carried like you, but I blew up like a hot-air balloon every time.”

  We chitchatted pregnancy for a few minutes, then she got down to the reason for her call.

  “I lost the name of the restaurant we’re meeting at on Sunday.”

  “Carole’s Lakeside Inn.” I spelled out the name of the town. “North shore of Lake Winnipesaukee.”

  We chatted a few seconds more, then I hung up, feeling very smug. That wasn’t hard at all.

  Ten minutes later she phoned again. This time it was to find out if children under twelve were welcome at the buffet.

  Five minutes after that it was to tell me Luke wasn’t answering his cell phone and would I please tell him to phone home immediately.

  After the third “tell Luke” call I turned off the ringer and let Bunny roll into voice mail. It had to be done.

  “And what have I been telling you, missy.” Elspeth, our unwanted houseguest, suddenly appeared by my side, a three-foot doughnut of a woman with hair the color of a yellow cab. “Nothing good comes from truck with humans. All those foolish contraptions ringing and buzzing day and night just so they can keep an eye on each other’s business. Best to keep them at a distance, I say.”

  “I’m half human,” I reminded her, studiously ignoring the fact that Elspeth lived to spy on everyone’s business. “My baby will be three-quarters human. I want to meet her family.” I wanted her to know her family.

  “There will be a time for that.” She had a way of making a simple statement sound darkly threatening. “This weren’t it.”