“I think I should spend the night,” Tanner announced, resting his hands at his hips and relaxing his posture. A relaxed Tanner Marechal, Provincial agent and druid, thrummed with a kind of take-charge sensuality I found completely disconcerting. “Whoever—or whatever—sent those photos is either trying to point the finger at wrongdoing or manipulate an outcome. And frankly, I’m leaning toward the latter.”
“I agree. I have a very hard time believing Cliff and Abi are deliberately undermining the health of their trees.” I snugged my shawl closer around my upper arms and mounted the stairs. My relationships with most of the farming community on the island were solid, and if any one of them was in trouble, the others were far more likely to rally around than take advantage, let alone commit murder. “What else can you share?”
Tanner followed and held the screen door open for me to pass first. “The other orchardists were close in age to the Pearmains, and both had family members waiting to take over day-to-day operations once they retired.”
Interesting. “Back in May, Cliff and Abi threw a party to celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary. They mentioned two of their grandsons were planning to move to the island come September.”
I yawned. The long, strange day was catching up with me. If Tanner was spending the night, I had sheets to change and should probably put a load of towels into the washing machine.
“I want you to be safe,” Tanner said.
The statement startled me. “I’ve never felt unsafe here or anywhere else on the island. I don’t feel unsafe now.”
He emphasized his skepticism by crossing his arms over his chest and flexing his forearms. “Let me at least place wards around your house. You’re an untrained witch and—”
“Rub it in, Tanner.” I glared at him in the dark and shared my most pressing concern. “Do you think my sons are safe?”
“No one’s ever one-hundred percent immune to the unpredictable; you know that, Calliope, but in general I’d say yes, they should be fine.”
“In general?” I asked. His nod triggered my maternal worry reflex. “Should I have made them stay home tonight?”
“Magic will seek them out once their power has been awakened. They’re still dormant.”
“Dormant? Did you see how that bat climbed Harper and would not let go?”
“All right, mostly dormant.”
“But that creature—”
“That creature saw kinship, recognized Harper’s compassion and his lack of fear.”
I shook out my arms and rolled my shoulders. Truth be told, I would rest better knowing the house was protected, even temporarily. “You can have one of the boys’ rooms upstairs. And you might want to check the closet and look under the bed before you go to sleep.”
Unable to settle, I dumped the wicker basket of clean laundry onto my bed. I had started the day stressed about the possibility of raising another child. I was ending it stressed about raising the power of my magic enough to protect the two children I had. There was nothing like pairing up socks and folding underwear to settle me in reality.
Yet, how could there be a deadline to improving this ability I was born with?
I stared at my hands, nails trimmed and unpolished, fingers free of rings. They performed so many mundane tasks without a hitch. They were also gifted with sensors that, as I learned during my visit with Rowan, came with expiration dates. I snorted. Yet another cruel joke played on my womanhood by my advancing age.
I couldn’t remember my aunt ever mentioning the necessity of regular rituals. When her dementia became unmanageable and my cousins moved her to an eldercare complex, they’d offered her house—this house—to me. And because I’d grown up under the steep roof lines of this A-framed structure, coming back to its embrace after divorcing Doug was more than a homecoming. Every tangible belonging of my mother’s had been stored, waiting for me, in the attic.
I slid my underwear into the drawer, refolded a jumble of bras, and cast a scathing look at the calendar I used to track my dating life. Outside my bedroom, Tanner’s footfalls reverberated through the floor and the solid wood door, adding to the stack of reasons why I couldn’t settle my mind. If the man was aiming for stealth while he went about warding, he wasn’t succeeding.
I pulled on a pair of drawstring pants and opened the door to the hall. “Tanner!”
No answer. I ducked into my closet, pulled my arms out of my long-sleeved T-shirt, and wrangled myself into a shelf bra.
“What?” His sudden appearance in the outer doorway startled me.
I brought one hand to my throat, knocking my elbow against the corner of the bureau. “Ow! You’re making a lot of noise.”
He backed away and gave me space to enter the hall.
“And I can’t sleep,” I added.
“I’m sorry if I kept you awake. I was just about to set wards around the perimeter.”
“Can I come with you?”
“They’re just simple words, nothing terribly interesting or complicated.”
“But I’ve never watched someone set up protections around a house.” I held his gaze—or maybe he held mine—and my house held its breath. And when was the last time I watched anyone practice magic? I mentally rifled through my years under this roof, one with my mother, so many more without. The few displays of magic I could recall were tied to mundane things, like giving dropped plates a soft landing or knowing who was on the phone in the days before answering machines had caller ID.
Even as a little girl, I knew magic existed around me and in me. I knew not everyone was gifted with magical abilities, I knew to keep quiet about mine, and I knew it was safe to play openly within the confines of the property.
Tanner pulled out one of the oak kitchen chairs and sat. The topmost buttons of his shirt were undone, and a cord of intricately knotted threads looped his neck. Whatever hung from the cord was hidden underneath
