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

Her heartbeat slowed, moving in time to the slower pace he was setting.  She breathed in, feeling the rocks settling back into their eternal solidness.

It wasn’t often she could make them dance.

Her mind cast back, remembering the first time it had happened.  She’d been thirteen and walked the two miles to the cliffs, bringing along her fiddle.  Her old fiddle—the flirtatious and temperamental Samantha.  She’d flung notes out into the waters below, some long-forgotten teenage hurt streaming out of her heart and fingers.

And the rocks had risen up to meet her.  Twirled her in a slow, waltzing circle and helped her young soul feel whole again.

Cass reached out, thanking the solidness beneath her feet.  It had always been the firm ground beneath her footloose, defiant soul.

She felt the steadiness of the rocks enfold her.  And, defiance blown away into the ether, heard their new message.  A gravitational pull.  An offering, and a choice.

Her bow moved slower now, following Buddy’s lead.

And destiny settled onto her shoulders.

Her anonymous and strange Internet tracker was tugging.  Dave had pointed her in the direction of some obscure inn south of Peggy’s Cove.  And the rocks were calling her west across the waters—but not far.

No self-respecting Irish witch ignored one sign.  Three of them were tantamount to a dare.

Cass tucked Rosie more firmly under her chin.  A few more hours of fiddling with the angels, a good night’s sleep, and then she would go.

Chapter 4

An Irish traveler, following her heart.  Cass looked out the window of her sporty ride, watching the steady flow of traffic across the bridge in the other direction.  It wasn’t exactly a dusty road and a rucksack.

But still, she walked the path of generations that had gone before.  The footloose.  The restless souls.  Those with stories to tell and a need to move to do it.

It had always perplexed her parents, much as they loved her.  Only her nan had understood—the grandmother who could count on one hand the number of times she’d left the village of her birth.  It had been Nan who stood quietly at the window the day Cass turned nineteen, letter from Juilliard in her hand, and told her to go.  To walk the road she needed to walk.

Juilliard had only lasted six months—but the road had stretched out twenty-six years now.  Mile after mile, the first ones full of Ramen noodles and cheap bus tickets, the last ones well supplied with beef stew and good chocolate.

Cass grinned as a blast of icy wind pummeled the side of her car and hoped the bridge was built on good Nova Scotia rock.  Hell of a day for a walkabout, even with Dave’s care package riding on the seat beside her.

But the need to go had been clear.

The purple light had gone off on her computer right after she’d packed her bag to leave in the morning.  Maybe she’d scared it off with her fancy new firewall—but her heart couldn’t shake the conviction that it quietly approved of her travels.

A little tugboat whose work was done.

And Dave’s care package had been on the table when she’d come down for breakfast.

But it was the rocks that had spoken most firmly.  Across the waters and not much farther.

She looked out the window at the expanse of gray ocean rolling under the bridge.  Water nearly crossed.  So long as there was food and a little peace and quiet on the other side, she’d let all the little tugboats in her life guide her feet for a while.

Her cell phone rang as she reached the edges of Halifax.  Damn—she must be getting reception again.  She picked it up without looking.  “Hello, Tommy.”

“About time you picked up.  How’s life in the middle of nowhere?”

His growl sounded like second-generation Mafia—probably on purpose.  As a B-list actor, he’d played all the accented tough-guy parts.  Fortunately, that was as far as mediocre talent and a big nose had been able to take him.  However much he annoyed her, he was an excellent manager.

And a good friend.  One who understood her need to head for the hills far more than he admitted.  “It’s good.  I’m recharging.”

“That’s the point, doll.”

She snickered.  They both knew if he’d tried calling her “doll” in person, she’d have slugged him in his big nose.  “I’ll be ready to go in three weeks, as promised.”  April Fools' Day—it had somehow seemed appropriate.  “What’s up?”

“You want the big stuff first, or the annoying piddly details?”

They had a deal—he had to handle ninety percent of the piddly stuff without bugging her, and she didn’t get to hang up when he needed an answer on the rest.  “From the top.”

“The Kennedy Center wants you.  Celtic gala, huge promo budget.”

Even for Cassidy Farrell, that was pretty big.  And Tommy’s voice was suspiciously neutral.  “Okay.  What’s the catch?”

“They want you for a Thanksgiving deal.  Late November.  Kickoff to the holidays, all that.  Let you dust off those carols you like playing so much.”

Ah.  “That’s way past three months.”  She had an ironclad rule—no booking gigs more than three months out.  Her Irish soul couldn’t handle that much commitment.

“It’s the Kennedy Center, babe.”  Sinatra voice this time.

He was trying to make her laugh—that meant it was a
really
big deal.  “Did they promise you Batman’s car or something?”

“Would it close the deal?”

Damn.  That was serious.  “Why this one?”

“Lots of money, lots of fame.  Why else do we do this?”

It was easy to take Tommy at face value—she’d spent the first two years of their rocky professional relationship doing just that.  “Something else is going on here, dude.  Spill.”

Vague embarrassment filtered through her phone.  “Nonna wants to hear you play again.”

Tommy’s very Italian grandmother had landed on the banks of New Jersey as a young girl and never left again.  Claimed to have an allergy to trains, planes, and automobiles.  And she loved every inch of her grandson’s big-nosed soul.

She also made a mean lasagna and mailed one out to Tommy every month, regular as clockwork.  With instructions to share it.

Cass grimaced—and knew the deal was already done.  “You should have led with that, you know.”  She was good at resisting money and fame.  Mafia grandmothers were a whole ’nother kettle of fish.

“You’ll do it?”  The airwaves were back to gruff.

“Yeah.”  She sighed.  “Just this once.”  Even ironclad had to bend sometimes.

Her phone was silent for a long moment.  “Thanks.”

“I get a double helping of lasagna in April.”  The Irish knew how to negotiate.

“Done.”

“Hit me with the rest.”

She made her way through Halifax and its quaint, oddly polite traffic circles, listening to a litany of tour minutia.  Jonny’s new baby had arrived four weeks early.  Missing snare drum.  Bar in Portland promising the owner’s firstborn if she’d come back.

For Jonny, she listened as Tommy trotted out to the tour bus and found the blue-and-gold baby blanket squirreled away at the bottom of her knitting bag.  Hopefully the baby would be a Notre Dame fan like his daddy.  The drum could be replaced.  And the guy in Portland had some of the best microbrew this side of Ireland.  No promises, but he’d get a call the next time they headed west.

She spied her turn and angled left, straight for Cole Harbour and Jamieson’s.  Best food on the mainland—and they always let her play for her supper.  Or lunch, in this case.  “Gotta go, Tommy.”

He chuckled.  “Belly’s empty, huh?”

By rights it should still be full of three days of beef stew.  “Yup.  No idea if they have Internet where I’m headed next, so you’re on your own.”

He snorted.  Tommy didn’t believe in a world without Internet.  He’d never been to rural Ireland.  “I’ll send a carrier pigeon if I need you.”  The smile in his voice widened.  “Take care of yourself, okay?  I want the bouncy Cassidy Farrell back.”

Damn.  She’d even worried her Mafia manager.  “I just need some downtime.”

It worried her when he said good-bye.  He didn’t sound convinced.

-o0o-

Marcus turned the page of his book—and sighed as small hands tugged at his sleeve.  “I only made it two pages, monkey girl.”

Purple eyes twinkled up at him.  “G-an.” 

Morgan’s baby talk was mangled—and adorable.  And apparently far more comprehensible to all the womenfolk of the village than it was to him.  This one, however, he’d heard before.  “Soon.”

Her eyes darkened.  “Soon” was not Morgan’s favorite word.  “G-an.”  She tugged again.

Reading time was clearly over.  Marcus shook his head and got to his feet.  “Fine, we’ll go visit Gran.”  He’d tried explaining to a drooly Morgan once or twice that Moira was her great-aunt, not her grandmother—to no effect.  Neither of them believed him.

Morgan headed for the door, grinning. 

He grabbed a handful of pink off the edge of the rug and held it up.  “But you have to put your socks on first.”

And mittens.  And a hat.  And a jacket that made her look like an escapee from the prehistoric exhibit at the museum.

She contemplated his outstretched hand for a minute, a brooding scowl on her face.

And then plunked down on her bottom and held up her toes.  “G-an.”

He felt the grin crack his face, working muscles that hadn’t had nearly enough exercise in the last four decades.  “How come you couldn’t just leave them on in the first place, hmm?”  He dutifully dressed Morgan in socks every morning—and she just as steadfastly removed them.

Marcus slid her wiggly toes into a gaudy striped sock and grinned, oddly proud.  Typical Buchanan, always doing things the hard way.

Then again, he wasn’t entirely sure what typical Buchanan was anymore.  His life had changed beyond all recognition—and the many hours of the day required to keep Morgan fed, happy, and appropriately clothed for the volatile climate of Fisher’s Cove was only a part of it.

He missed Evan dearly—that hadn’t changed.  But the horror of his five-year-old twin disappearing into the mists was no longer the last memory he had of his brother.  And every time he saw Morgan, he imagined Evan close by, watching over the two of them.

Their guardian witch.

Grief still hit him at strange moments, but it was the kind of sorrow that time eased—and guilt was no longer its constant companion.

He picked up his daughter and kissed her cheek.  Guilt had left his heart—and so much had flooded in to replace it.  The cranky old bachelor had almost gotten used to loving someone so much that she undid him simply by sticking a wet Cheerio to her nose.  “Come on, sweet pea.  Let’s go see who’s out and about this afternoon.”

That, too, was an enormous change in his life.  He’d lived the last twenty years in his solitary castle by the sea—a big, rambling place.  He’d needed it to hold all of his sadness.

Now he and Morgan squeezed into a tiny, ramshackle cottage on the edge of a village that seemed to think the path to the beach ran through his kitchen.  And somehow, he could no longer work up the energy to be the least bit grumpy about it.

Morgan started wiggling in his arms halfway down the road to the inn.  He looked down at the rosy cheeks sticking out from her hood of bright blue wool.  “It’s still a long ways—how about I carry you a bit farther, hmm?”

She grinned up at him.  “Fower.”

Argh.  Marcus rolled his eyes.  “We left flowers all over the village yesterday.”  People were beginning to talk.

“Fower.”  This time, he was fairly convinced she even managed to bat her eyelashes.

He nuzzled into a cold cheek and growled.  “Your wiles are wasted on me, silly girl.”  A lie if there ever was one.  She got more adorable every day—and he got less immune.

“Fower.”

Perhaps reason would work.  “Forty-eight-year-old witches don’t learn new magic tricks.  Maybe Sophie will make you flowers.”

“Fower.”

It was damnably hard to argue with someone who only had a vocabulary of six words.  And he suspected an increase in her vocabulary wasn’t something to look forward to.

He plunked her down on the ground and slid off his glove.  At this rate, he was going to need to bribe a fire witch for some handwarmer spells, too.  With his other still-gloved hand, he pushed twigs and rotting leaves aside, working his way down to bare soil.  Morgan babbled happily at his side, anticipating her favorite part.

The power that came when he called to it was disturbingly strong.  Annoyed, he shoved a line of it into the soil.  And tried not to laugh as a whole clump of something lavender popped up.  Definitely not daffodils—and they matched Morgan’s eyes.  “Opinionated flowers, are you?”

His daughter leaned over and buried her face in the flowers.  He watched carefully—she was still fairly confused about the difference between sniffing a blossom and eating it, and his knowledge of edible plants was far too sparse to let her go about eating the greenery.

She pushed herself to her feet, a fair accomplishment for a child in snow pants, boots, and three layers of woolens.  And signed for “more.”

His knees weren’t as limber as hers.  Marcus cleared a patch a foot away from the clump of purple and sent another pulse of power into the earth.  And then frowned at the flower that rose up under his fingers.  Orange this time.