Bundle of Joy (44 page)

Okay, so maybe that was hoping for too much but the fact that the Hobbs line would continue would definitely be cause for celebration. Thanks to a protective charm put into effect by my ancestor Aerynn, the sorceress who led the early settlers out of Salem and up to the Indian village that became Sugar Maple, we've been able to hide here in plain sight for over three hundred years. But now that I was pregnant we could postpone worrying about the future a little longer and enjoy the present.

So that brings me back to where I was when I started this story. Workshop week was over and the last class was literally weaving in loose ends while they waited for the legendary Sticks & Strings goodie bags. My best friend and frequent yarn shop helper Janice Meany and I were in the storeroom, stuffing swag bags for the departing guests while we exchanged observations. Janice is a tenth generation witch with a sharp tongue and a heart of gold. She owns Cut & Curl across the street but spends as much time in my shop as she does in her own. In many ways she is the sister I never had but don't tell her I said so. Janice likes to pretend she isn't big on sentiment even if everyone in town knows better.

We both, however, like to gossip.

"Can you believe Amy's about to marry husband number five," I said as I slid a Ka Cha counter into each bag. "I'm not sure if that makes her an idiot or an optimist."

"I think it makes her rich." Janice popped a handful of M&Ms in her mouth. "I'd love to see her pre-nups. Those highlights she's rocking don't come cheap."

"I don't know about her highlights but when a knitter buys cashmere by the pound, she has my attention." I added hand-crafted stitch markers to the bags. "It's good to see Liv again, isn't it?"

"Where's she been?" Janice asked. "I thought she'd gone over to the dark side and started taking on-line classes."

"I didn't ask and she didn't volunteer. I don't think she said ten words today."

"Which is five more words than usual," Janice observed. "The girl's a quiet one."

No argument there. "It was more than that today." I paused for a moment, feeling a little foolish. "Am I crazy or was she staring at me like I was the last chocolate truffle in the box?"

Janice didn't miss a beat. "Of course she was staring at you. We all were. You performed a twelve-stitch cable crossing without a cable needle. That was definitely stare-worthy."

"That was pretty cool, wasn't it?" Dreams of my fearless cabling going viral on YouTube danced through my head.

"You magicked it, didn't you?" Janice asked with a sly wink. "Come on. I won't tell anyone."

"Absolutely not!" I was deeply affronted. "I'm a great knitter, that's how I did it."

"You are a great knitter," Janice said, "but nobody's that great. You cast some kind of fiber spell, didn't you?"

"You're not funny, Meany." I aimed a scowl in her direction. "I was a great knitter before my magick came in and you know it."

"Not twelve-stitch-cable-without-a-needle-great," I heard her mutter under her breath but I generously chose to ignore it. (Did I mention knitters can be a jealous lot?) .

Back in the front of the shop, there were the usual multiple rounds of goodbyes as the workshoppers exchanged emails and cell numbers and gobbled chocolate chunk cookies and my Madelinetosh DK.

Liv had been the first one to arrive and she was the last one to leave.

"Great workshop," she said as I handed her a swag bag. "You should write a book on cabling. I'd be the first to buy it."

I thanked her for her kind words and tried very hard to ignore the chuckling from my friends who knew that magick just might have played a part in my knitting tour de force.

"We missed you around here, Liv. I'm glad you decided to join us again."

"Me too." She looked like she wanted to say more but, like I said, Liv wasn't much of a talker and she had already used up at least four workshops' worth of words.

"Safe travels," I said, walking her to the door. "I hope you'll come back again and take another class."

"Maybe after the baby comes."

I'll admit her words stopped me cold. She couldn't possibly know I was pregnant. Nobody but Luke and Elspeth knew.

Get a grip, I told myself. You're letting your imagination run away with you.

But the look in her eyes darkened and I swear I felt a chill move across my body just the same. She was still staring at me but this time it didn't make me feel all warm and fuzzy. This time it made me feel like running.

Behind me my friends had fallen silent--an unusual occurrence--and I wondered if they felt the same sense of dread I was suddenly experiencing.

"Congratulations," I said, struggling to hit the right note . "When are you due?"

"Me?" she asked with a look of surprise. "I'm not pregnant. You are."

You could feel the oxygen leave the room in one big whoosh as Liv's words swirled around us.

I guess there are some secrets that aren't meant to be kept for long. I took a deep breath and turned toward my friends.

"Liv's right," I said. "Luke and I are pregnant."

By the way, did I mention that knitters can also be incredibly noisy when the mood strikes them? Somehow three middle-aged women managed to sound like a rave.

"You're pregnant!" Janice shrieked. "When are you--"

"New Year's Day," I broke in, laughing.

"How long have you known?'

"We found out six weeks ago," I said, grinning like an idiot.

"And when were you going to tell us?" Lynette demanded.

"Next week during the fireworks." Who knew sharing good news could be so much fun.

Bettina, the Fae harpist who sometimes helped out around the shop, burst into happy tears.

"We're your best friends," Janice complained as she gave me a fierce hug. "You're supposed to keep us in the loop."

"I'll bet it was Luke's idea to keep it secret," Lynette said. "Humans always--"

"It wasn't Luke's idea at all," I said swiftly, cutting her off before she could say something that gave away a secret bigger than my pregnancy. "It was mine." Although I had to admit Luke didn't seem to be in any rush to tell his family he was going to be a father again but I was sure that in the next few weeks he would share our big news.

Poor Liv looked stricken with guilt. "I'm so sorry." Her voice trembled as she struggled to hold back tears. "I didn't realize it was a secret. I never would have said anything if I'd thought you hadn't told anyone yet."

"I can't believe you told her and not us," Bettina said, gesturing toward Liv.

"I didn't tell anyone," I protested.

Janice fixed Liv with the kind of look that used to send her kids running to their rooms. "So how exactly did you know?"

Liv gave a nervous shrug of her bony shoulders and remained silent.

Janice and I exchanged glances.

"A lucky guess?" I asked as another chill ran up my spine.

"I didn't guess," she said. "I knew."

"Trust me, honey," Janice said. "If we didn't know, you didn't know."

"Janice is right," Lynette chimed in. "You couldn't possibly--"

"I'd better go," Liv said and turned to leave at the same moment I moved closer to her. She stumbled and I reached out to steady her. I could feel the sizzle the second I made contact. Every neuron in my body registered the connection.

And I knew I wasn't going to like what came next.

"This baby brings danger," Liv Jensssen said and then she dropped to the floor like a rock.

~~end of excerpt~~

A Skillet, a Spatula, and a Dream – a writer's life . . . with recipes

USA Today bestselling author Barbara Bretton shares forty easy-to-prepare recipes that range from Almost Perfect Pad Thai to Atlantic City Zuppa, from Lake Tung Ting Shrimp to Cape May Clam Chowder with humorous and heartwarming takes on the writer's life peppered throughout.

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Introduction

If you don't count lunches or the year my husband was overseas or the times we picked up a bite at the diner or called out for pizza or the weekends I cooked for a multitude instead of just for two or the dozens of eggplant parmigiana dinners I made for us before we got married, then it's safe to say I've cooked somewhere in the vicinity of 25,128 meals in my forty-plus years of wedded bliss.

Think about that for a minute. Twenty-five thousand times I stared blankly into the glare of the refrigerator's bulb and wondered what on earth I was going to do with an egg and a piece of broccoli that could reasonably be called a meal. Twenty-five thousand times I stepped up to the stove with nothing but a skillet, a spatula, and a dream.

In a way it's a lot like the way I feel when I sit down at the computer to start a new book. Trust me, an empty plate can inspire the same fear in a writer's soul as an empty page.

I'm a work-at-home writer who loves to cook but I can do without the fuss that surrounds it. I don't want to clean the stove or scrub out the sink or slice those little Xs in the bottoms of a bucket of Brussels sprouts. I don't want to plunge my writer's hands into a writhing mass of ground beef when I'm making meatballs. And don't ask me to reach inside a dead turkey because I'll just have to draw a line in the stuffing. I love big bold flavors, one-pot meals, delicious salads, chill-chasing soups, and home-baked goodies. My favorite recipes are the ones that come with stories attached.

I'm Barbara Bretton and I'm glad you found me. Let's cook.

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STAYING HOME TONIGHT BROCCOLI SALAD

We love broccoli around here. We love it almost any way you can eat it. Danielle introduced us to the wonders of Broccoli Salad back in the early 1970s and we never looked back. IT was Memorial Day, the year before she got married, and we were having a picnic in our backyard. We barbecued chicken. My sister-in-law brought the desserts. Danielle brought Broccoli Salad and a tradition was born

The thing about this salad is -- well, it's the garlic. We use lots of it. An unholy amount. And once you use it and eat it, you'd better plan on staying home because you will be radiating eau de garlique from every pore.

But it's worth it. This tastes great warm, room temperature, or chilled. It's even not so bad the second day, although why you would have leftovers is a mystery to me.

Ingredients

Broccoli, as much as you like, washed and sliced in 1" sections on the diagonal

Splash of very plain salad oil

Lemons

Fresh garlic, as many cloves as you like, sliced paper thin

Dash of salt

Method

Steam the broccoli until it's a half-step from the way you like it. One caveat: don't let it turn into mush, please. You want it to have a little backbone.

Place steamed broccoli in a large shallow bowl. Lightly - and I mean lightly -- drizzle broccoli with an innocuous salad oil like Wesson. Barely enough to make a difference. So little that you wonder why you even bothered with it. Sprinkle the thinly sliced garlic all over the broccoli. Be daring! Now squeeze fresh lemon juice all over everything. (Feel free to use the frozen Minute Maid pure lemon juice in the yellow plastic bottle if necessary. Don't let the lack of fresh lemons keep you away from this salad.)Toss. You can eat it now. You can wait until it reaches room temperature. Or you can refrigerate it for a while and eat it chilled.

If you love garlic, you will think you're in heaven.

~~end of excerpt~~

Midnight Lover – historical romance

Jesse Reardon was the king of Silver Spur, a rough Nevada boomtown where he called all the shots.

Then one hot and dusty afternoon, beautiful Boston socialite Caroline Bennett stepped off the stagecoach determined to avenge her father's death and claim what's rightfully hers: the Crazy Arrow saloon and maybe even Jesse Reardon's untamed heart.

"Her books pull you in and don't let you leave until the last word is read." ~Booklist

~~end of excerpt~~

Fire's Lady – historical romance

Beautiful, young Alexandra Glenn has been sent across the ocean to East Hampton to help restore the early paintings of renowned American Impressionist Andrew Lowell. Her excitement at the prospect of working with the aging master is quickly dimmed when she is confronted by Matthew McKenna, Lowell's mysterious houseguest and protector, who seems determined to drive her away.

Danger lurks everywhere in the cottage by the sea, fueled by dark secrets and a need for revenge that reaches from beyond the grave and threatens Alexandra's very life. Is Matthew McKenna her sworn enemy or the only person she can trust?