A Celtic Witch (A Modern Witch Series: Book 6) (23 page)

He bent his head, embarrassed in every atom.  He should have just given her a cookie.  Or a puppy.  Or any of the normal things people did to try to cheer someone up.

Cass looked up, astonished pleasure all over her face.  “It’s wonderful.  You did this for me?”

“He’s very talented,” said Sophie quietly, throwing him farther under the bus.  She moved to look at his work.  “And I don’t think I’ve ever seen one he’s done that’s quite this lovely.”

Sophie was one of about three people in the world who knew he’d done all the artwork for his Realm high keep himself. 

Cass reached out to touch the digitally painted face of her grandmother.  “Could I get a smaller copy?”

A politeness.  Something she could tuck out of the way more easily.  Marcus reached for the portrait of the woman with Cassidy’s eyes.  “Certainly.”  Escape.  Finally. 

Her hands clenched on the frame.  “No.  You misunderstand.”  Cass cuddled the unwieldy square to her chest, eyes unnaturally bright.  “I want this one.  I’ll treasure this one.  I was hoping for another copy I could send to Nan.”

Strange things were happening to Marcus’s knees. 

And he had no earthly idea what to say.

“Fowers.”  Morgan, blithely unaware of most of what was going on, wobbled impatiently from one booted foot to the other.

“Ah, do you want to go see the gardens, lovey?”  Cass smiled down at the small girl.  “Why don’t you come with us, then?  We were headed to pick some bouquets for the inn.”  She looked back up at Marcus, her eyes still riding high with emotions he didn’t want to see.  “I can walk her home when we’re done.”

“I’ll take her.”  Marcus was amazed he could speak at all.

Cass gave him an odd look.  “I don’t mind.”

“I need some air.  We’ll get you your flowers.”  Buckets of them.  He’d take escape however it came.

“Not alone, you won’t.”  Moira smiled at him sweetly, face all elderly innocence.  “I remember the last time I left the Buchanan boys alone in my garden.”  She reached for Morgan’s other hand.  “Let’s go teach your da how to properly cut a flower stem, shall we?”

Marcus followed where he was led.  And felt amusement scattering his embarrassment to the winds.  Evan was still getting him into trouble.

And his wise old aunt was still helping him out of it.

-o0o-

A fire crackled in the parlor’s ornate fireplace, warming the inn and the two women sitting on the room’s most comfortable couch.

One stared into the fire, body language anything but serene, a beautiful piece of digital art in her lap.

The other waited for her new friend to be ready to talk.

“He holds her so tightly.”

Sophie wondered if Cass could hear the knots of confusion in her voice.  Something was building in their Irish visitor—and Morgan wasn’t the main cause.  “He has reason to.”  And clearly she’d been voted the witch to have that conversation.

Green eyes were looking her way now.  “Reasons you can talk about?”

Oh, to have a life where the lines were clearer.  Sophie fussed with the knitting in her lap, looking for a signpost in the wilderness.  “Tell me what you’ve learned of him so far.”

“He’s kind.”  Cass nested deeper into the other end of the couch, tucking a pillow under her knees.  The portrait of Nan hadn’t budged from her lap.  “He’s absolutely devoted to Morgan, and Lizzie would follow him to the ends of the earth even though he does nothing but growl most of the time.”  The words slowed.  “And he’s known some kind of very great sadness.  It’s left him bitter, I think.  And it made him gentle.”

Wow.  Marcus would have fits if he knew she read him that well.  Sophie weighed the scales a moment longer and made her peace.  Cass deserved to know what she flirted with—and perhaps Sophie could lighten his burden by being the one to tell it.  “He had a twin brother.  They did everything together, every moment of the day.  And they both had magic very young.  Marcus made storms, and Evan was a fire witch.”

Cass winced.  Even in Ireland, they knew what that meant.  “You must have been very busy.” 

“It happened before I was born.”  Sophie swallowed hard—it still hurt terribly to speak of a small boy’s loss, whether she’d known him or not.  “They were so busy putting out fires that they didn’t notice he was an astral traveler as well.   One night, his spirit flew to the stars and didn’t come back.” 

Horror hit Cass’s eyes.

“Marcus tried to save him—nearly crippled his own channels in the doing.”  She’d seen the echoes of anguish in the auras of the healers who had spent months nursing the broken boy.  They’d repaired what could be mended.

“Oh.”  The sound whooshed straight out of Cass’s heart.  “How old were they?”

“Five.”  Younger than Lizzie—a bright sprite whose biggest worry was a good hiding place for her light saber.  Sophie gave up on her knitting and stared at the fire, still trying to make her own peace with unfathomable unfairness.

Cass sat quietly on the other end of the couch, tears tracking slowly down from green eyes.  Sorrow for a boy she’d never met.  And for the man who had lost him.

Sophie finally choked back her own sadness and looked back over at the witch who had been fetched to be part of this.  “He lost half his soul that day.  And grew up into a sad, cranky, lonely man.”

Cass managed a smile.  “He’s more than that now.  What happened?”

The very best part of the story.  One that leavened all their sorrows with giggles and delight.  “Evan sent Morgan.”

Eyes widened—but not in doubt. 

Good.  Sophie picked up her knitting again.  Breathing deeply, she settled in and began the tale of a small girl with lavender eyes and the two brave men who had fought the universe to keep her safe.

And wondered, even as she wove the tale, how the newest chapter would end.

-o0o-

Moira made her way slowly through the dormant beds and old creeping vines of her garden, happy to keep pace with Morgan’s steps and her nephew’s glacial thinking.

She felt oddly disinclined to push him.  “There are some lovely flowers in bloom over by the pool.  Some for the inn, and perhaps for a few of the villagers as well.”

“Aaron can pick his own damn flowers.”

Well.  She might not be planning to interfere just yet, but tolerating that kind of manners was quite different.  “Don’t growl at me just because you’re cross with yourself.”   Her nephew had been visibly, nakedly kind—and that wasn’t going to rest easy in his heart.

The man still fancied himself a curmudgeon.

The glare wasn’t any friendlier than the growl had been.  Moira shook her head, feeling a mite cranky herself. 

And then a hand reached for her shoulder.  “I’m sorry.  I’m feeling protective of Morgan today, probably overly so.  I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

A faerie could have knocked her over with a wee sprig of Irish moss.  Moira stared, garden mission forgotten.  He was entirely wrong about what was making him grumpy, but that didn’t change her astonishment any.

“What, a man can’t apologize?”  Marcus raised an eyebrow.  “Lizzie says it’s good for me and I need to practice.”

She tried not to laugh, truly she did.  And succeeded not a whit—it was far too easy to imagine their youngest healer saying exactly that.

Marcus shook his head, moderately amused.

Since when did he find Lizzie’s antics openly funny?  Moira considered him.  Really looked.  And what she saw pleased her greatly.  “There are far too many women in this village trying to mold you, aren’t there?  And we’re not looking at the man you’ve become.”

A man well capable of holding his fate in his own hands.

She turned away from his startled gaze.  It wouldn’t do for him to see the depth of her pleasure.  “Very well, then.  Let’s find some flowers, shall we?”

“That’s all you’ve got to say?”  He sounded skeptical—and a little dazed.

“Were you hoping for more?”

He stomped down the path after her.  “Perhaps.”

She grinned at her sleeping garden.  “I’d be happy to offer an opinion, if you’ve a question to ask me.”

It pained him, she could tell.  He kicked and scuffed through her dry leaves like the small boy who’d squashed her prize petunias.  But when she reached the patch of flowers by the pool and turned, he had a question in his eyes.

A serious one.

Marcus grabbed for a flower at random.  “Do you think I hold Morgan too close?”

Ah.  He would put her first—for the last year, he’d done little else.  “At this age, I’m not sure there’s such a thing as holding them too tightly.  And she spends plenty of time playing with Lizzie and visiting with the rest of us.”

His exhale was harsh.  “It’s hard to let her do even that much some times.  I’m afraid I’ll turn around one day and discover she’s gone.”

Such love lived in him.  And such fear still.  Moira picked a pretty tiger lily.  “You’ve had a life where many who love you have left.”  His brother.  His parents, unable to deal with either the child who had gone or the one who remained.

His baby daughter, not tethered tightly enough to this plane.  Her, they’d been able to bring back.

“I have to let her grow up unafraid.”  He stared at Moira, eyes fierce.  “I want you to tell me if I’m holding her too tightly.  Please.”

Her heart broke a little for him.  And rejoiced.  “You’re a very good father, Marcus Buchanan.”  She looked at his brave face and decided to answer a question he hadn’t asked.  Just one.  “It’s not Morgan you hold too tightly.”

His face froze—and his fingers mashed one of her favorite violets.

She rescued the bloom and steered him toward the less-tender daisies.  “Evan was once the reason you closed yourself off from possibility.  Don’t let Morgan be that reason now.  It’s not necessary.  She’s well-loved and resilient—whatever makes you happy will make her happy.”

It was obvious that the idea that he deserved to be happy still fit like a coat three sizes too small.  It was also obvious that he was at least considering what she obliquely suggested.  The emotions running across his face were a lovely and breathtaking story of a man contemplating a leap off a cliff.

Moira turned to her petunias and snipped.  A canny old Irish witch knew when to leave budding miracles well enough alone.

-o0o-

So many things were clearer now.  And some important ones far more muddy.

Cass sat in the window seat of the inn’s second floor reading nook, nested in a pile of pillows.  And looked at the portrait of Nan, full of life and luminance and comfort, leaning against the wall.

The man who had made it saw so much.

Sophie’s story was still causing fracture lines in Cass’s heart.  Simple, painful words, told by a woman who felt every one of them deeply.

And like the best music, it had come with many layers.

Morgan, and her father’s need to keep her close and safe.

The abject bravery of a man who had faced his deepest fear and his oldest sorrow to protect the small girl with the lavender eyes. 

A baby he’d dared to love.

A miracle and a tale for the ages.  And it had all happened in a sleepy, out-of-the-way fishing village.

It had been the story of a hero.  Of a heart crusted with sadness that had still opened to the light.  And the astonishing community that had loved the man.  The kindness—decades of it—that had saved him.  She had watched Nan heal enough patients, and fail to heal enough others, to have some idea of what the journey must have been.

Her musician’s ear had taken in all the layers, all the notes.  The woman had no idea what to do with what she’d heard.

Because the man who wore teal sweaters and bloomed flowers for his daughter in the dead of winter wasn’t broken.  Scarred, yes. 

But not broken.

And there had been one thing Sophie hadn’t said—but it wove through every word.

Marcus Buchanan deserved a life that never shattered him again.

He didn’t need an itinerant Irish musician treating his life lightly.  Especially one who had apparently tumbled into a bit of a crisis herself.  Cassidy Farrell had always known who she was, what she wanted to be.  That was suddenly about as clear as the dim shadows out the window.

Evening dark approached.  The gloaming.

Cass looked again at the picture of Nan, sitting in the Irish hills of impossible green and light.  And knew that no one would have less patience for a confused witch feeling sorry for herself.

Or for one who tread heavily on a kind heart.

It was time to find the part of this song that knew where it was going.  Or an ending and an exit Cassidy Farrell knew how to play.

-o0o-

So peaceful when she slept.  Marcus reached a hand down to Morgan’s curls, smiling when she cuddled into his hand.

She hadn’t been nearly so happy when he’d tossed her into their cold and clanky tub to rinse the split-pea soup out of her hair.  It was green—he should have known better.  Punk girlchild.

He had no idea how he’d ever breathed without her.

Aunt Moira had that much wrong.  He was already happy.

Not sparks-and-pipe-dreams happy, but the kind of everyday contentment that still astonished him when he thought of it.  Even when the bathroom was drafty, his daughter was cranky, and the kitchen still had cold soup congealing on the floor.

He’d lived with pristine floors and faultless plumbing.  It hadn’t held a candle to this.

One last look and Marcus backed out of Morgan’s bedroom, doing the automatic dance that would keep him off the two floorboards that squeaked.  And shook his head ruefully.  Fear was a damn stupid reason to be avoiding a sorely needed bathroom renovation.  It wasn’t the ramshackle cottage that held the secret to his happiness.

She was sleeping in her bed.

He slipped into the kitchen, wanting the cup of tea that heralded his precious solitary hours in the dark.  Come summer, he would sit out on his porch and watch the colors light up the sky.  This time of year, that was still courting frostbite.

He reached for the light and then paused, attention caught by the shadows moving outside the window.  Well-lit shadows tonight—the moon must be full.

It was strangely beautiful, the row of practical, commonsense cottages down each side of the road, punctuated by the occasional weathered tree and a whimsical trellis or two.  It still amused him that the fanciest of those belonged to Uncle Billy, the village’s best fisherman.  Said he used it to repair his nets.