Bundle of Joy (43 page)

She smiled, wishing she'd taken time to exchange her short lacy white dress for the pair of jeans and a sweater. She looked like exactly what she was: a runaway bride. "I'm on my way," she said, carefully not specifying her destination. She was too fond of Eb to lie to him.

Eb checked his pocket watch. "Thought the clambake began at two o'clock," he said. There was a sharp note of curiosity in his voice as his faded blue eyes took in her outfit. "It's near to half-past. You can't be late for your own goodbye party."

Eb knew that she was due to leave for Philadelphia the next morning to begin her first year of veterinary school at the University, the goal she'd been striving for since she was barely old enough to walk.

"I know," she said, "but I'm running on fumes and . . . " She shrugged. "You know how it is. There was so much to do." He was a native New Englander, same as she. Didn't he know New Englanders were famous for minding their own business?

Eb checked her oil and cleaned her windshield while the tank guzzled down the gallons. If he wondered why Sam the Cat was grooming herself on the passenger's seat, he never said. Gracie peered nervously over her shoulder every time she heard a car approach. A clean getaway, that was all she wanted. When the dust cleared and the hurt feelings mended, maybe then they could talk. She'd left a note for Noah on the kitchen table. She told him that she was sorry, that she hadn't planned on any of this, but wasn't it better to put an end to it now before it was too late?

Besides, how did you explain to the boy you'd loved since kindergarten that leaving him was the best thing you could ever do for him.

Eb screwed the gas cap back on good and tight.

"What do I owe you?" she asked as she reached for her purse through the open car window.

Eb plunged his gnarled hands deep into the pockets of his overalls. "Just get yourself a good education, girlie, then come back home to us where you belong. I've waited a long time to dance at your wedding. I want to see you all set up with a job and a husband and a few babies."

He didn't have any idea what he was saying.

You don't understand, Eb. There was supposed to be a wedding today but I backed out. We were going to throw aside all of our plans and run away to Paris together. Can you imagine, Eb? I love him and he loves me but we don't have a chance in the world of being happy together. His father has seen to that. That's why I'm going to get behind the wheel of my car and get away from here before I start believing in fairy tales.

Noah had been part of her life for as long as she could remember and he had owned her heart almost as long. Even during those years when he was away at boarding school, he was never far from her mind. Not that he'd known she existed until he came back to Idle Point after his father's first heart attack and everything fell into place. Loving him seemed as right and natural as breathing; marrying him was simply the next step.

Noah and Gracie had been together since senior year of high school and they had stayed together despite the best efforts of their families to break them up. You wouldn't think their fathers' paths would have crossed very often, not even in a small town like Idle Point, but the hatred between the two men was legendary and the poison spilled over onto their children. They had learned through experience to keep their love hidden away from their families. When they went off to college – Noah to B.U., Gracie to the University of Pennsylvania – everyone was sure distance would put an end to their teenage love affair. Nobody but Noah and Gracie knew of the weekends spent sharing pretzels on the steps of the museum in Philadelphia or strolling near Independence Hall, talking about the home they would build together, the family they would raise. Gracie would join Doctor Jim's veterinary practice while Noah wrote the Great American Novel.

She'd heard the whispers from some of her so-called friends, the ones who wondered how a plain girl like Gracie who lived over by the docks managed to land someone like Noah. Gracie was serious and ambitious and poor. Noah was a rich man's son who thought life was his for the taking. He'd flunked out of B.U. and if he had some game plan for his life, he wasn't sharing it. He wasn't serious about anything, didn't Gracie know that? One day he'd call her up and say, "You know there'll never be anyone else like you, Gracie, but I've met someone else and . . . "

Everyone but Gracie knew that was going to happen one day. Why couldn't she get it through her head that she was fooling herself? Their poison-tipped words hurt but a long time ago Gramma Del had taught herself how to deflect the sting and hold her head high. They never knew how good their aim was. Noah loved her for who she was inside, not for how she looked, not for what she owned. He didn't care that she was tall and skinny and blessed with brains, not beauty; with a heart, but not a bank account. They loved each other and up until last night she had believed that was all they needed.

Whoever thought it would be Gracie who broke Noah's heart?

She had Simon Chase to thank for ruining their lives. He'd shown up at her father's house an hour ago. Sixty minutes was all it took to shatter her dreams. Her future father-in-law was an imposing man, tall and white-haired and blessed with the natural arrogance of the born Yankee aristocrat. His bad heart had slowed him down but the fierceness of his gaze when he looked at Gracie hadn't softened a bit. She had always suspected that Simon didn't like her but she'd never imagined the depth of it until that afternoon.

Simon had connections up and down the coast of Maine and right across into lake country. Noah and Gracie had slipped down to Portland last week to apply for their wedding license, figuring nobody in the city office would pay any attention to them. They were wrong. A clerk recognized the Chase name and mentioned it to his superior who happened to mention it over lunch to a friend and an hour later Simon's office phone was ringing with the news.

"You'll do the right thing," Simon had said as he rose to leave. "If you love my son the way you say you do, I know you'll do what's best for him. There's really no other way, is there, Graciela?"

It wasn't until Simon and his late model Lincoln disappeared down the road that she found the envelope propped up on the kitchen table between the sugar bowl and the salt and pepper shakers. Ten thousand dollars to leave his son alone. Ten thousand dollars to keep her from ruining Noah's life. Apparently that was the going rate for betrayal in Idle Point.

"I mean it, girlie," Eb was saying. "Save your gas money for when you're filling your tank in New Jersey. Nobody gives anything away in New Jersey."

"I can't let you do that," she said. "You already gave me that beautiful silver mirror that belonged to Sarah when I started college."

His eyes glistened with tears. "Sarah loved you like one of her own grandbabies. You know she always prayed you and Noah would end up together one day."

Oh, God, can this get any worse? Let me get out of here before what's left of my heart breaks in two.

She knew when she'd been bested and kissed Eb on a weathered cheek. "Thank you," she said. "You're very dear to me."

Eb turned red beneath his grey whiskers. "You make us proud, Gracie. Understand?"

"I'm doing the right thing," she said as she climbed behind the wheel. "This is the best thing for both of us." Simon Chase had proved that beyond a doubt less than an hour ago.

"What did you say?" Eb asked but she only smiled at him. She'd said too much as it was.

She gunned the engine and reached into the glove box and withdrew an envelope thick with bills. "Here," she said, handing it to Eb through the open window. "Now you can take yourself that vacation you and Sarah always talked about."

Her wheels spun on the gravel as she roared out of the gas station.

"Hold your horses!" Eb's voice floated after her. "There's money in this envelope! What do you –"

The last thing Gracie saw in her rear-view mirror was old Eb standing in the middle of the road with Simon Chase's blood money dangling from his fingers like a flag of surrender.

She didn't slow down again until she reached Boston.

~~end of excerpt~

CHARMED - a Sugar Maple short story

Can you keep a secret?

Growing up in Sugar Maple, Vermont, knit shop owner and sorceress-in-training Chloe Hobbs learned to keep a secret before she learned to tie her shoes. When your town is home to werewolves, vampires, trolls, sprites, and everything else the real world is told doesn't exist, you learn quickly how to hide in plain sight.

And now she's keeping the happiest secret of her life: she and 100% human chief of police Luke MacKenzie are going to have a baby.

But when a quiet young knitter at an afternoon workshop blurts out a warning about Chloe's unborn baby girl, Chloe and her magickal friends quickly discover just how hard it is to keep the biggest secret of them all.

Charmed
introduces new readers to the magical town of Sugar Maple and provides a little something extra for loyal fans.

The Sugar Maple Chronicles in order:

Casting Spells

Laced with Magic

Spun by Sorcery

Charmed – a Sugar Maple short story

Spells & Stitches

Praise for USA Today best-selling author Barbara Bretton

"Bretton seamlessly blends a playful world of eccentric and meddling supernatural creatures." Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Bretton spins an imaginative and charming tale." Booklist (starred review)

"Bretton has created a paranormal series that is both engaging and timely; for those who like their fantasy with a down-home flair." Library Journal

#

Chapter One

What is it about plans anyway? It seems like the second you get your life all figured out, fate steps in and turns your world upside down.

We were finishing up the last workshop in a week-long series of master knitting classes and I was on top of the world. If the comment cards were any indication, we had hit the knitting equivalent of a grand slam home run. Steeks. Bohus. Dressmaker-quality finishing techniques. Every variation on grafting you could think of and some you couldn't. I had worked long and hard to put together a powerful five days of classes and been rewarded with a full cash register and depleted stock.

Even better, we had a great group, especially our workshop veterans who had returned for another series of sessions. Amy was a dark-haired lawyer whose hobby was marrying (and quickly divorcing) men young enough to be her son. Claire the physical therapist and part-time stock car race racer. Allen the former pro-NFL player and his husband Jake, a playwright with a dry sense of humor and major fiber chops. And, to my delight, Liv Jenssen was back again. Liv had taken at least a dozen workshops with me over the last few years and we considered her one of our favorites. And then just like that she stopped signing up for classes and commenting on our Ravelry forum and placing orders for way too much Malabrigo.

Over the years favorite customers have moved away, moved on, even left this world for whatever awaits humans in the next. That's just the way this business is. But every now and then a customer comes along who touches your heart in a way you can't explain. Not that we'd ever had a heart-to-heart or anything even close. Liv just wasn't a talker. But the connection--at least for me--was there just the same even though the only thing I really knew about her was the fact that she lived in New Hampshire and was one wicked Bohus knitter.

I love knitters but the truth is we're an eccentric lot. I'm not sure if it's the yarn fumes or too much time spent debating the relative merits of cashmere versus qiviut, but when you bring a group of us together anything can happen.

By the way, I'm Chloe Hobbs, the half-human, half-sorceress owner of Sticks & Strings, a wildly popular yarn shop here in Sugar Maple, Vermont where your yarn never tangles, your sleeves match, and you always, always get gauge. Some people say it's magick but I'm not telling. After all, we know how to keep secrets around here.

Trust me, if you grew up in a picture-postcard New England village inhabited by witches, vampires, trolls, selkies, house sprites, Fae innkeepers, traveling spirits, and just about everything else your parents told you didn't really exist, you'd understand why we learn to keep secrets before we take our first step.

And here is the biggest secret of them all: I'm pregnant. I'm not that far along so I'm not showing yet which means it's been easy (relatively speaking) to keep the news to ourselves. Luke, the 100% human love of my life, was every bit as surprised as I was when Elspeth broke the news to us but now we're both over the moon with excitement. Given a choice, I wouldn't recommend getting the news from a cranky yellow-haired troll with a grudge against homo sapiens but it will make a great story to tell our daughter one day.

Our plan (and yes, I can hear fate laughing out loud) was to break the big news to our friends and the other villagers at the Fourth of July Extravaganza next week when I wouldn't be able to hide my bump any longer. Everyone would be there. Everyone would be in a celebratory mood even before we announced that we were pregnant. They might even be able to forget the fact that the new arrival would be more human than magick.