Authors: Barbara Bretton
Spells & Stitches (15 page)
“Actually it makes me feel guilty.”
“Guilty!” Her laughter rang out in the small room. “He earned every second of it. You can’t disappear the way he did. Families don’t work that way.”
“A bit of a sweeping statement, don’t you think?”
I heard the sound of the john flushing normally, then Kim joined me at the sink.
“We know he went through a terrible time after—” She stopped abruptly and looked down at her soapy hands and regrouped. “After Steffie died, he wasn’t himself. Then he and Karen divorced and there was a lot of pressure from my parents to get back together. I guess he reached his limit. God knows, I would have reached it a lot sooner. But at least when he was on the force in Boston we knew where to find him. Once he left, he seemed to cut all ties.”
I watched as she grabbed a length of dry towel that was draped over the sink. “Like you said, he had his reasons.”
“If Fran Kelly hadn’t bumped into the two of you in Salem last spring, we probably still wouldn’t know about the baby.”
Kim was his sister but she didn’t have a clue what made him tick. Another one of my notions about family shot down. Blood mattered, but it wasn’t everything. It seemed his friends in Sugar Maple understood him better than his sister did.
“You’re right,” I said. “He didn’t plan to tell you until after our daughter was born. You might not agree with his decision, but you should respect it.”
She blinked as if my words had startled her. They definitely startled me. But they were the right words and I was glad I’d spoken them. Luke and our baby came first. Everybody else would have to fall in line behind them.
The baby kicked hard—noticeably harder than usual—and I winced.
“Are you okay?” Kim’s image wavered in front of my eyes and I closed them against a surge of dizziness.
“I’m fine.” At least I thought I was. “I guess she’s tired of waiting for breakfast.”
But, as it turned out, breakfast wasn’t exactly what my daughter had in mind.
12
I was a half second away from barging into the ladies’ room to see what was going on, when Chloe and Kim strolled back into the dining room.
“Better watch out, Luke,” my sister Jen called out. “Now Chloe knows all your secrets.”
Kim gave an exaggerated wink and some of the tension in the room vanished. “You’re in trouble now,” she said to me. “I gave the woman all the ammunition she’ll ever need.”
Chloe laughed along with the rest of us, but her mouth was tight and the twinkle in her eyes had gone missing. You didn’t have to be a cop to know something was wrong.
“You feel okay?” I brushed her left ear with my lips.
“I think I’m just hungry.” She took my hand and placed it on her belly. “She’s kicking up a storm. It feels like she’s wearing cleats.”
I studied her face. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” she said quietly, leaning into me for a second. “I just don’t feel right.”
“Better get yourself some pancakes, Cleo,” my dad said, “before I eat them all.”
“It’s Chloe,” my mother said, “not Cleo.”
Chloe flashed him a tired smile. “I kind of like Cleo.”
“You know what?” He pushed back his chair. “I’m gonna fix you a plate.”
“The last time he fixed anyone a plate, Nixon was in office,” Ronnie said, to raucous laughter, but my dad was on his feet and on his way to do a little hunting and gathering.
“My mom’s a nurse,” I reminded Chloe. “You want her to take a look?”
“There’s nothing to see. There was a little excitement in the ladies’ room, but everything is fine now. I guess I just tire more easily than I realized.”
I’d lived with her long enough to know that “a little excitement” was a euphemism for “disturbance in the magickal force field.” I also knew that magick had a way of knocking you on your ass. No wonder she was wiped.
My dad presented her with a plate piled high with pancakes and bacon and scrambled eggs and a side of hash browns that looked like half of Idaho contributed to it. Chloe gulped hard but thanked him and made a show of digging in even though her appetite was clearly nonexistent.
Okay, now I was worried. The woman I loved was slender, but she could outeat a lumberjack. She was picking at her pancakes like food was an alien notion.
Conversation ebbed and flowed around us. I did my best to keep up with it, but I was mostly focused on Chloe, who was clearly drooping fast.
Finally I made a show of checking my watch. “I think we’d better shove off,” I said. “We have a long drive and I’d like to get home before the roads ice over.”
The look of naked gratitude in Chloe’s eyes told me I’d read the situation right. There were the usual protests, but one look at Chloe’s face kept those protests to a minimum.
My mother pulled me aside while Chloe said her good-byes to my dad and the others.
“Why don’t you see if you can get a room here for the night?” she suggested. “I don’t like the way she looks.”
“She says she’s fine, Ma, just tired. She can sleep on the drive back.”
“She’s in her ninth month, Luke. Do you really think she’ll be comfortable sleeping in the truck?”
I didn’t, but that was where the magick came in. Between Elspeth and Chloe, they’d figure out something.
“I’m concerned,” my mother persisted. “I wish I could put my finger on what’s different about her.”
“This is only the second time you’ve met,” I reminded her. “You don’t exactly have a baseline to judge against.”
“Talk to Chloe,” she urged. “This is a beautiful inn. Tell her you’d like to spend a relaxing day here with her.”
Actually the idea had merit. Driving through snow got old pretty fast. Driving through snow with a backseat troll got old even faster. But I knew Chloe wouldn’t rest until we were home in Sugar Maple and, to my surprise, neither would I.
You get used to things like protective charms and magick on command. I wanted Chloe and the baby surrounded by every measure of comfort and security possible and I had come to realize Sugar Maple was the place.
Chloe was surrounded by MacKenzies, all patting her bump and trying to get their two cents into the conversation. I could see she was running on empty.
“Time to go,” I said, elbowing my way through the gaggle of kin. I rested my arm lightly across her shoulders. “I want to get us home before dark.”
Ronnie clapped me on the back. “Next time we see you, the baby will be here.”
“Your mouth to God’s ear.” My mother quickly crossed herself. “The last few weeks are the longest.”
“Especially with the first,” Jen chimed in.
“You’ll probably go at least a week past your due date,” my sister-in-law Tiffany said, “so don’t be surprised.”
“I just can’t believe Meghan would miss this occasion,” my mother fretted. “She could have tried harder, in my opinion.”
Meghan’s “car trouble” phone call had been followed twenty minutes later by an apologetic text message that fooled no one.
Chloe smiled and nodded and clung to me like we were on the
Titanic
.
Titanic
.
Another round of good-byes and we were finally out of there.
“It’s still coming down pretty steady,” Chloe said as we retrieved our coats and shrugged into them at the door. “I was hoping it would stop before we left.”
“We’ll be okay,” I reassured her. “All-wheel drive, snow tires, chains and sand in the back, and Elspeth for ballast. What can go wrong?”
She shivered slightly and pulled her coat tighter. “Don’t ever ask that around a pregnant woman.”
“Stay here,” I said. “I’ll pull the car right up to the edge of the walkway.”
“I’m not sick, Luke,” she snapped. “I’m just the size of a whale. I can walk to the car.”
Since when? I had seen her push through a snowdrift to avoid slipping on a shoveled but still icy walkway.
“It’s slick out there.”
“I grew up in northern Vermont. I think I know how to walk in snow.”
And wasn’t she the same woman who spent more time on her butt each winter than a toddler learning to walk?
She was smart, funny, beautiful, talented, magical, and stubborn as hell. Nothing short of a wizard or a medium-sized nuclear blast would be able to change her mind.
“Okay,” I said. “It’s not getting any earlier. Let’s go.”
We were halfway to the truck when she stopped abruptly.
“I told you it was slick,” I said, holding her steady. “Stay put. I’ll get the truck.”
“It’s not the snow. It’s me.” She winced, then inhaled sharply. “I wish she’d stop kicking so hard.”
“You’re in pain.”
“Not exactly pain . . .”
“Severe discomfort?”
Her smile came and went in a heartbeat. “Not quite.”
“You don’t think—”
“Of course not! There is no way I’m in labor.”
“Have you been timing the pains?”
“Trust me, Luke, these aren’t contractions.”
“How would you know if you’ve never had them before?”
“I’m a woman. I’d know. These aren’t contractions. They don’t come at timed intervals.” She thought for a moment. “It’s like I overstretched my muscles and now they’re making me pay for it.”
That didn’t sound like anything I remembered Karen experiencing, but what the hell did I know.
“I’ve got a great idea,” I began. “How about we get a room here and stay the night? We’ll catch up on sleep, watch some TV, order room service, and head out early tomorrow morning after the county crew plows and sands the roads.”
“I’m going home now.”
“Think about it,” I urged. “We can get a room with a fireplace and a view of the lake.”
She wasn’t having any of it. Her jaw was set and that little blue vein in her right temple tapped out a warning.
“I’m going home,” she said, her voice climbing into the dogs-only zone. “You can stay here if you want, but I’m going back to Sugar Maple.”
We made it another four steps before she stopped again.
“The baby shifted. Let me catch my breath.”
“Shifted? Do you mean dropped?” Dropped was a big deal.
“I don’t know what I mean,” she said, dodging the question. “All I know is that I feel like crap.”
I had been down that road before. When it came to babies, anything could happen. I had visions of pulling over to the side of a snowy, slippery road and watching while a yellow-haired troll delivered our baby in the backseat of my secondhand Jeep.
And don’t think it couldn’t happen. I worked a beat before I became a homicide detective, and believe me, when it came to being born, babies frequently managed to find the worst places and the least convenient times.
I wasn’t going to let that happen on my watch.
CHLOEI was sweating under my down coat by the time we reached Luke’s truck, but I would rather choke than admit he was right and I should have let him bring the truck to me.
“I’m not going to break,” I snapped at Luke as he helped me settle into the passenger seat. “I’m not made of china!”
“The attitude’s getting old,” he said with a good-natured grin. “Now shut up and let’s put the seat belt on. You can bitch me out later.”
“We can’t leave without Elspeth.”
He leaned close and planted a quick, warm kiss on my lips. “I say we can.”
What was the matter with him? He knew we couldn’t do that. Even here, far from Sugar Maple, she was still under Samuel’s protection and came and went as she chose.
“I sent her a blueflame. She’ll be here any minute.”
“I thought she refused to use blueflame.”
“She’s old-school,” I admitted, “but I convinced her to make an exception today.” Actually it hadn’t taken much convincing at all. Usually Elspeth was hardheaded and as intractable as steel, but she didn’t put up any argument at all.
“How long is it going to take the old—”
We both jumped at what sounded like gunfire from the backseat.
“Jeez, Elspeth!” My heart nearly jumped out of my chest. “A little warning might be nice.”
She mumbled something, but it was lost as her molecules finished rearranging themselves into recognizable form.
Luke glanced into the rearview mirror, winced, then looked away.
“’Tis the same Elspeth as before,” she said tartly, “no more, no less. Best be on our way before it’s too late.”
I guess I was feeling a tad edgy because I pounced on her words. “Too late for what?”
“Home is always best,” she said, not answering the question.
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