She did now. And had scans and graphs and data to prove it. “The not-of-this-world kind.”
He was a smart man-and Nell could see the moment when truth finally punched him in the gut. “Evan.” One whispered word from a man literally slammed to his knees.
Any other man she would have gathered in her arms like one of her boys. This one was far too fragile. Nell stood vigil as his soul trembled-and sent all the love she dared.
Finally, he looked up, anguish in his eyes. “Evan sent the baby?”
It killed her to do it. But she owed it to a witch she’d never met. “Yes. He sent her
And, just maybe, Evan Buchanan had sent the key that would crack the Ice Age in his twin brother’s heart.
It was a war worth fighting. Nell looked at the shattered man bowed down in front of her-and signed up.
She’d give him a couple hours of peace-and then she’d launch her assault.
Chapter 6
A quick shimmer of magic was all the warning Marcus got. A small boy materialized in the middle of his kitchen, offering smiles and a plate of cookies. “Mama sent me. She says you’re really cranky and you could use some cuddles.”
Anvils and cuddles. Nell was a very dangerous witch. And he was a weak and tired man unable to resist the invitation in big brown eyes. Or cookies. “Want some milk to go with those?”
“Yup. One for you too-these are dunkers. You can dunk them in tea if you want, but only really old people do that.”
A stray chuckle escaped Marcus’s throat. Aervyn might be the only person alive who didn’t throw him in with the old people. “Two glasses of milk, then.”
Aervyn climbed onto a stool next to the counter, helping himself to a cookie. “Where’s Morgan?”
It took Marcus a moment to connect the name with the pesky infant sleeping in his living room after countless poopy diapers, another long walk on the beach, and one of the bottles that kept mysteriously showing up on his countertop. “Taking a nap.”
“You should try to remember her name.” His pint-sized therapist handed over a cookie along with the lecture.
It probably didn’t take a psychologist to figure out why he preferred to think of her as “that girl-child.” Marcus poured two glasses of milk. “I’m not used to babies.”
“I am.” Aervyn nodded sagely. “Babies are trouble.”
Marcus blinked. That wasn’t the direction he’d expected this to head.
His visitor broke a cookie in two and dropped one half into a glass of milk. “Mama says they grow up to be more fun, but when they’re little, they just cry a lot and make everybody really grumpy and you have to be quiet all the time.”
That was quite the list of grievances, especially from a source who rarely complained about anything. Marcus tried to dig out of his sleep-deprived depression for a moment. It occurred to him that Fisher’s Cove wasn’t the only place invaded by babies this spring. “Kenna’s keeping everyone busy, is she?”
Aervyn grinned in one of the lightning changes of mood cookies often produced. “She’s trying to crawl now, but she keeps putting her bum-bum in the air and her face on the ground.” He shook his head at the obvious silliness of such an effort. “I’m trying to teach her, but she doesn’t listen very well.”
Probably all to the good-babies were problematic enough when they just flailed like turtles on their backs wherever you put them. He shuddered to imagine Fisher’s Cove when the baby herd mastered mobility. “Perhaps you should just leave her in one place, my young friend. Run while you can.”
“Can’t.” All the weight of the world sat on five-year-old shoulders. “Mama says I have to be nice to her and help her learn how to be a witch and all that stuff.”
There were advantages to being a crusty old bachelor. However, even he wasn’t dumb enough to foment rebellion in everyone’s favorite superwitch. “I’m sure there are other people to help Kenna learn those things.”
“Lots.” The answer came easily and accompanied by cookie crumbs. “But Mama says every witchling has some really special helpers, and I’m a’posed to decide whether I want to be one of Kenna’s.”
Nell really was a dangerous witch. “And what have you decided?”
Half of Aervyn’s head reappeared from behind a beer mug of milk-the cottage drinking glass collection was still a little sparse. “I don’t know yet. She’s kind of annoying, and she cries a lot and doesn’t pay very good attention when I show her magic tricks.” He grinned. “But she likes it when I port her places.”
Marcus felt his grumpy old adult neurons firing. “Is that safe?” Kenna was only a few months old-that seemed a little young for magical joyrides.
“Uncle Jamie said it’s smarter than leaving her to her own devices.” Aervyn’s forehead wrinkled. “But I don’t think Kenna has any devices yet-she chewed on Auntie Nat’s iPhone once, but Gramma Retha made her give it back.” He winced. “She yelled really loud. Kenna, I mean-not Gramma Retha.”
Marcus had reason to know Retha had excellent lungs too, but he was more interested in the tidbit that babies liked iPhones. Good to know.
“If you wanna try it…” his cookie-monster companion leaned in and whispered, “Uncle Jamie says it’s a really good idea to put a waterproofing spell on the phone first.”
Baby drool on his precious electronics. Gods-had he really fallen that far? “Morgan won’t be staying long. We need to find out where she really belongs.”
“She belongs with you.” Said with the calm conviction of a witchling used to believing his elders. “Aunt Moira says so, and she’s never wrong about babies.”
Maybe not-but she was wrong about one grown man. They all were. Even if Morgan was Evan-sent, he could hardly keep a baby.
“Sure you can.” Aervyn, blithely mindreading, offered milk-soaked cookie crumbs to the suddenly friendly cat. “Mama says you have a really hard head, but it’s not totally stupid.” He grinned. “Well, she used a different word, but her head said ‘stupid.’”
Marcus could only imagine-Nell’s opinion of him had never been very high. However, she sent him cookies and company, and both managed to squirm into his heart on far too regular a basis.
Aervyn hopped off his stool and crawled into Marcus’s lap. “So, were you really mean?”
Marcus rested his chin on a curly head. “I guess I was.”
It did strange things to his heart when the easy love that always flowed from Aervyn’s mind didn’t waver. “You can have that last cookie, then. It will help you to be sweeter when Morgan wakes up.”
For just a moment, Marcus wished he lived in a world where things could be that simple.
Sophie scooped up the last of the jars from the table. Herbs and lids back to being properly matched-and Lizzie had gotten some nice practice identifying plants in their dried, crumbly forms.
It was more fun when they were green and could be tempted to grow a pretty flower-but any Fisher’s Cove healer who couldn’t tell the difference between feverfew and lady’s mantle from just a careful whiff would likely end up locked in Moira’s kitchen until they could.
Lizzie had been smart enough to focus on herbal crumbles.
She looked up from the table, the last mysterious sample still rolling in her fingers. “Lady’s mantle? It doesn’t smell like that, really-more like moldy chamomile, but it vibrates like lady’s mantle. Maybe a little slower, though.”
It had taken Sophie ten years of hard practice to pick up plant vibrations. Lizzie and Ginia both did it with ease. Nothing like a couple of witchlings to keep you humble. “Those are good clues. It’s tricky when your fingers and your nose are telling you something different. Your job is to figure out which one to trust.”
