Something Witchy This Way Comes: A Jolie Wilkins Novel (13 page)

I took a deep breath and tried to commit this moment to memory—I knew we would never have it again. “I’m okay, Rand,” I started, and took his hand.

“Tell me the truth,” he demanded, his countenance rigidly insistent.

I smiled. “I’m sick because I’m pregnant.”

There was no expression at all on his face for a few
seconds. He just stared at me blankly, and then his eyebrows knotted and he gulped. “This baby could threaten your life,” he said simply.

I shook my head as he stood up and ran his hands through his hair. “Rand, I’m not just a witch,” I said softly. “Mathilda believes there is fae in me.” I felt the words stick in my throat as I said them, all too aware that I might not be fae at all. “You know I’m more than a witch.”

“Then Mercedes and Mathilda do not believe your health will be threatened?” he asked, his gaze piercing.

I nodded, smiling up at him encouragingly. “Mathilda said it is nothing but a joyous occasion.” I watched him take a big breath. “Rand, you don’t have to worry.”

“Then this sickness is nothing more than morning sickness?” he asked eagerly.

I nodded. “Yes, it’s just morning sickness,” I answered, and laughed in an almost embarrassed way. I mean, here I was thinking I was dying and it was just baby sickness? Yeah, pretty embarrassing. “Everything is going to be fine.”

He was quiet for a few seconds as he took a seat beside me and propped his elbows on his knees. He clasped his hands behind his neck and stared at the floor. I didn’t say anything, but I was dying to know what was going on in his head. Was he happy? I wasn’t getting any indication through our bond.

Please be happy, Rand
, I begged.

He lifted his head and faced me with a broad smile. “I am beside myself with happiness, Jolie,” he whispered,
and leaned over, pulling me into his arms. “I never imagined that I would be lucky enough to be a father,” he said softly.

I felt tears filling my eyes, and pushed all thoughts of the Lurkers and my uncertain future from my mind. All I wanted was to live in this moment, to experience the happiness that was consuming me. The idea that Rand and I were going to be parents, that we were pregnant was the only thought to fill my mind. Rand pulled away from me and his eyes shined glassily.

“I love you, Jolie,” he whispered as he looked at my belly. He placed his hand on it and smiled. “And I love our baby.”

The next morning I awoke to find my cheek pressed against Rand’s naked chest. I blinked a few times and then stretched, sitting up. When I looked down at him, I noticed that he was staring at me with an amused smile on his sumptuous lips.

“How are you feeling?” he asked as he scanned the lines of my body, resting his hand over my belly.

As soon as I thought about them, the feelings of nausea suddenly reemerged and I just shook my head, convinced I was never going to feel good again. “Sick,” I said with a small smile, and sighed.

He nodded and brought his fingers to my face, tracing them down my cheek to my chin. “I can still feel your discomfort through our bond.” He paused for a few seconds, just smiling at me. “I’m sorry you’re so ill, Jolie.” Then he closed his eyes, cupped his palms around my stomach, and quietly recited a charm. The nausea immediately faded into nonexistence.

“It won’t last long,” I said. “But thanks anyway.”

“Then we’ll keep magicking the sickness away.”

But something else occurred to me then. “Do you
think it’s okay for the baby for us to constantly charm away my sickness?”

Rand nodded immediately. “Yes, it’s perfectly safe.”

“How do you know?” I asked, wondering how he knew anything about babies.

“Because magic is only as powerful as its purpose. If your purpose is to relieve your sickness, it does only that. There are no side effects.”

Phew. It was a relief to know I could continue treating myself. “Is there anything you don’t know?” I asked with a smile. Rand didn’t respond, but he cocked a brow and smiled back at me in return. Feeling suddenly restless, I stood up, stretching my arms above my head. Then I walked to the mirror and lifted up my nightshirt, studying my profile. “I think my stomach is getting bigger.”

He chuckled and sat up in my bed, his exquisite chest bidding me good morning. This was definitely the best way to wake up—next to the man I loved with all my heart. And of course, it didn’t hurt that he was drop-dead gorgeous. “There is no way you would be able to see a difference so soon,” he said softly, that amused smile still on his lips. “You look just as thin as you always have.”

I glanced at myself again and frowned. It was pretty ridiculous, but I didn’t like him referring to me as “thin.” I ran my hands down my front to see if my palm could detect a roundness in my stomach that Rand’s eyes had missed. Yep, there was definitely something there—it was slight, but definite. I glanced back at him and set my lips in a defiant smirk. “No, I really think it looks rounder and a little more protruding.”

Rand laughed again and shook his head, but once his laugh died down, he was quiet as he studied me. He didn’t say anything, but there was a heaviness behind his eyes, and I could distinctly feel that something was troubling him through our bond. Yep, something was definitely on his mind—he looked pensive too.

“Jolie?” he said.

I smoothed my nightshirt back in place and turned to face him, anxious to hear whatever was worrying him. “What?”

He cleared his throat and dropped his eyes for a few seconds before bringing them back to meet mine again. “I have been thinking over the past few days …”

I wasn’t sure why, but my heart sped up—probably because whenever someone says he’s been doing some thinking, it’s usually not good. “And?” I asked.

He nodded and cleared his throat again, as if the words had somehow gotten stuck on their way out, and then ran his hands through his hair as he always did when he was nervous. “Even though you and I are bonded and therefore married in the eyes of the Underworld, I would prefer it if … that is to say, hmmm …” His voice trailed off and he took a deep breath before delving in again. “I would quite like us to be … married in the eyes of the human world as well.” He caught his breath again before quickly adding. “That is, of course, if you consent to be my wife.”

I couldn’t help the smile that curled my lips—did he just ask me to marry him? In some strange, roundabout, and completely unromantic way, I believed he
had. “Rand,” I laughed as I shook my head. “You just completely botched that whole thing.”

“Botched it?” he repeated, looking even more flustered than he had a few minutes ago.

“Yes, botched it as in you didn’t ask me the right way.”

He smiled and shook his head, apparently disappointed with himself. “I have never been good at these things.”

He stood up then and nearly took my breath away. I had to wonder if I would ever get used to his masculine beauty, and my answer to that was no. He moved to my side, towering over me as he smiled. He took both of my hands and we just gazed at each other for a few long seconds. And then he spoke.

“Jolie, I have always loved you and I will always love you. My heart has only ever belonged to you, and I cannot tell you how happy you make me. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of you, and in thinking of you, love you. I want you to be my wife.” And then he cleared his throat again, his voice now coming out much deeper and whisper-soft. “Will you, Jolie Wilkins, marry me?”

I felt tears well up in my eyes as I thought about how long I had waited for this moment. From the moment Rand walked through the door of my store in L.A., he had owned my heart. And though it was true that we were bonded—which was, in itself, so much stronger than mere human marriage—my daydreams had only ever been about this moment. I was about to say yes, to scream it so loudly that everyone in the world could hear me, but then something suddenly occurred to me. “Rand,” I started, swallowing
hard. “Are you sure this proposal has nothing to do with the baby? I mean, I don’t want you to think that I have to be married to you just because we’re pregnant. Our bond is enough for me.”

He shook his head emphatically. “No, this has nothing to do with the baby. I’ve actually been contemplating marriage for the last few weeks—well, truly, ever since we bonded. Perhaps it seems silly, but there are some human traditions that I still believe in.” He shook his head. “Bloody hell, you are right—I have botched this entire thing.”

Not sure what he was talking about, I watched as he walked over to my boudoir chair where he’d draped his pants the night before. He fished inside a pocket, and finding whatever he was looking for, walked back to me and reached for my hand.

“I meant to give you this … again,” he said as he slipped a ring on my finger. When I glanced down, I instantly recognized the antique sapphire. It had been his mother’s wedding ring.

When I’d traveled back in time to 1878 and met Rand, he’d fallen in love with me and asked me to marry him. He’d given me his mother’s ring, this very one. After my return to the present, however, he and I had gone through many ups and down, and I’d returned it.

“Jolie, I love you with all my heart and my soul. Nothing will ever keep me from you. I promise to love you, protect you, and cherish you forever. You are my second half, my everything.”

I smiled and felt tears leaking through my eyelashes as they fell on my cheeks. Rand caught them with the
pad of his index finger and smiled at me, his eyes shining. “God, please tell me you will be my wife?” he whispered.

I nodded, feeling like there was a frog in my throat. But realizing that the frog needed to vacate ASAP, I cleared it, forcefully finding my voice. “Of course I will,” I said, throwing my arms around his neck. I loved the feel of him as he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me into the cocoon of his body.

I could honestly say I had never known such happiness before—the knowledge that the man I had loved for the past two years loved me in return and that we had our whole lives to enjoy together. Rand cupped his hands over my belly, and I laid mine atop his. We were a family now—Rand, me, and our unborn baby.

Three days later I found myself in the drawing room of Kinloch Kirk with my counsel of representatives in attendance. I had asked Mercedes to orchestrate the meeting because there were a couple of major issues I needed to address. Specifically, we needed to figure out what to do about Bella, and we needed a plan of action for the Lurker threat. And yes, I did plan to reveal my dream, although I was going to omit the part about the Lurker elder implying that I might be one of them. I still hadn’t decided what course of action to take as far as that was concerned, so I figured it was better left unsaid. At least for now.

Regarding my engagement with Rand, we hadn’t set a wedding date, but as soon as I shared my news with Christa, she insisted that we have a double wedding.
What did I think about that? I still wasn’t sure, but Rand told me he would be happy with anything that would make me happy. So, with our wedding details anything but organized, we decided to move in together at Kinloch Kirk. Rand said he didn’t like the idea of being apart, especially because my pregnancy could prove to be a tricky one. We decided to make Pelham Manor our getaway home when we both needed a break from the trials and tribulations of running the Underworld.

I sat on the sofa, enjoying the blazing fire in the fireplace. With the rain beating against the window and the howling wind, it seemed the perfect backdrop for a ghost story. But it wasn’t a night for festive activities. No, tonight was strictly business. After the meeting, Rand and I had decided that we’d return to Pelham Manor for the weekend. ’Course, the rain was coming down so hard, our trip would probably have to be postponed until the morning. That was depressing because I wanted nothing more than to get away.

“Are you comfortable, Jolie?” Rand asked, giving me a concerned look. He had ensured that my spot on the sofa was directly in front of the fire. And, as if that weren’t enough to warm me, he’d also draped a blanket around my shoulders. I’m sure I resembled an old, sickly woman—I was just missing the cat. Although I was still sick as a dog, I found comfort in the fact that I was suffering from morning sickness and not a Lurker attack. I continued to magick the nausea away, which gave me about an hour of respite each time.

Rand hadn’t left my side for the last three days, and
even now I caught him watching me like a hawk, looking for any possible sign of my discomfort. If he was easily worried before, now he was a nervous wreck. A simple sneeze was enough to put him in a panic.

“Are you feeling well?” he asked, leaning over the back of the sofa to whisper in my ear. “If you are ill, Jolie, Mercedes can chair this meeting without us.”

I shook my head. “I’m fine and you need to stop worrying so much.” I laughed. “You’re going to drive me crazy.”

He chuckled. “I apologize. I am just … concerned.”

I smiled at him and enclosed his hand in my own. “I know and I appreciate your concern.”

Mercedes smiled at us before turning to face everyone else in the room. The usual suspects were all present—Trent, Varick, Odran, and Mathilda. But tonight, Klaasje was also in attendance, having replaced Sinjin as my chief protector. Of course, with Rand acting the part of my shadow, she didn’t have much work to do.