Janice started to laugh. “You mean the welcome party.”
“You stink,” Midge Stallworth said, holding her snub nose with two pudgy fingers.
“Good grief!” Lilith delicately fanned the air around her. “You might want to consider a new aftershave, Luke.”
Rosie and Verna buried their noses in a mountain of bright green yarn.
“Thanks for the heads-up, Janice,” I said as Chloe laughingly dodged my kiss. “Your old man trashed my truck with his halibut happy meal. You could’ve told me what to expect.”
“It was trout and if I had, would you have volunteered?” Janice retorted.
I shot her my best dead-eyed cop look. “Now I know why every cat in town has tried to break into your minivan.”
Her expression softened. “Did he get off to a good start?”
I told her about the group of gigantic sea lions who’d encircled Lorcan and escorted him into the cold waters of the Atlantic.
“Was there one big guy with a gray muzzle and enormous dark eyes?”
“That’s the one who tried to kick my ass,” I said.
“He’s Lorcan’s father and he wasn’t trying to kick your ass. He was thanking you.”
Okay, I’ll admit the thought of Lorcan Meany being the son of a sea lion threw me for a second, but I reminded myself I was in Sugar Maple, where things like that made perfect sense.
“I have his stuff in the truck,” I said to Janice as she jammed her knitting into a bright red tote bag. “I was going to drop it off at the house, but since you’re here . . .”
She nodded and I saw beneath the wisecracks and the laughter to the wife who would worry all winter long until her husband came back to her. Chloe squeezed my hand and I knew she had seen it, too. Not even magick could guarantee your life would turn out exactly the way you hoped it would. In a hell of a lot of ways, we were all flying blind.
“We were taking bets on how long you’d hide out there,” Verna Griggs said as she fiddled around with the big yellow and orange blanket on her lap.
“According to my calculations, the odds were twenty-to-one you’d sleep in the truck tonight rather than face your mother,” Bettina Weaver Leonides said, needles flashing as she knitted something lacy and pink that I’d bet the shop was for my baby.
“And it was hard to get any takers,” Rosie from Sugar Maple Assisted Living informed me. “Who’d want to bet against a sure thing?”
“Thanks a lot for the vote of confidence, ladies.” I was starting to get pissed off. “I can handle my mother.”
“Honey, I’ve met your mother,” Renate said to more laughter, “and there’s no contest.”
“You might have been some muckety-muck down in Boston,” Rosie elaborated just in case I didn’t get the point, “but that doesn’t butter any parsnips with your mother.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, struggling to maintain a straight face.
Chloe reached for my hand and I helped leverage her up from the sofa. “No offense, Luke,” she said, “but Midge is right: you
do
stink.”
CHLOE
An hour later Luke and I were home, curled up by the fire eating huge leftover turkey sandwiches with all the trimmings. Elspeth, to our mutual delight, was nowhere to be found.
“Now you smell like cranberry sauce,” I said as he leaned over to swipe one of my pickles. “Definitely an improvement.”
He smiled, but I could see his mind was somewhere else.
“Tell me,” I said.
“Tell you what?”
“Whatever it is that’s keeping you so far away.”
He was quiet for a moment. “Have you ever seen what happens when a selkie returns to the ocean?”
“I saw Lorcan dive into Snow Lake a few years ago, but there wasn’t a whole lot of drama involved.” I took a bite of my sandwich and chewed thoughtfully. “If you forget about the big seal suit, that is.”
“Gotta tell you, I wish I’d had a heads-up about that seal suit.”
“You’ve heard the selkie legends. It shouldn’t have been that big a surprise.”
“Cut the human a little slack, Hobbs. Lorcan didn’t get that at Men’s Warehouse.”
“You’re right,” I said, putting my plate down and curling up closer to his warmth. “He probably didn’t.”
We were quiet for a while, then Luke spoke again.
“How much danger is he in out there?”
“Lorcan?” I shrugged. “I never really thought about it.”
“He’s out there in the Atlantic Ocean with fishing boats and tankers and who knows what the hell else.”
“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.”
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.”