Under the Mistletoe
Thorne
It was after four o’clock on Christmas Eve when Thorne Evans left his house to drive up to the five-bedroom colonial his parents had lived in since he was a toddler. As the oldest of five siblings, Thorne was used to loud family gatherings and hectic holiday.
For years, he thought he only wanted to live alone. No kids underfoot. No daughters with glowing blue eyes when the knowing hit. No sons with his unruly brown hair. That had all changed when he’d been shot before Halloween in a bar fight. Life suddenly felt too short and he longed to see those daughters with their bright blue eyes.
As the Evans house came into view, Thorne felt his heart clench with the desire of home. His parents’ house was away from the bustle of businesses in the downtown area. But sitting atop a hill with a glorious view of the nearby Delaware Mountains and the valley of Harper’s Mill.
Harper’s Mill was a small railroad village nestled in the Kittatinny Valley section of the Great Appalachian Valley. Bordered by the Delaware River and surrounded by mountains, it was a place out of modern day.
The town was settled by seven Scotch-Irish sisters, who were rumored to be witches. When the youngest sister married John Harper, the idea of magic became cemented in local legend. Longtime locals swore the O’Donnell witches placed a protective charm over their beloved town which turned away the casual observer but encouraged those who could call the Mill home.
For the Evans family, it was more fact than myth. They were a family of healers and empaths whose daughters could see the flashes of the future called the knowing.
But after thirty-five years of riding herd over four sisters, Thorne was dreading this holiday the most. His sister Emma was happily married to a man who adored her. The bright love that Emma and David shared almost rivaled the love of Brenda and Clayton Evans. And while Thorne was happy that his sister had found true love and also highlighted how lonely his life was.
He rubbed a shoulder where he had been shot a few months ago in a bar fight. Piper, the golden-eyed goddess/bartender had been getting crap from one of the patrons at Freddy’s Bar. When Thorne had stepped in to defend her, he found himself on the receiving end of a bullet. Not exactly an auspicious beginning for a relationship.
Thorne closed his eyes as he thought about the last time he had seen Piper.
Her bright eyes flashed with intelligence as their conversation had drifted over dinner. From politics to the arts, from books to current events, and from local news to favorite movies the conversation had never lagged. But when Piper announced that after raising her niece, she had no intention of having kids of her own, Thorne knew there was no future.
Guilt rode him hard in the days and weeks that followed. Thorne hadn’t called her or explained why they couldn’t be together. He simply didn’t have the words.
The problem was, he admired Piper – everything about her. She had assumed the huge responsibility of taking in her niece. Thorne couldn’t even blame her for not wanting her own children. He only knew that his and Piper’s future had separate threads.
His usual parking place at his parents’ driveway had another car in it. Thorne scanned the driveway surprised to see a lot of cars he didn’t recognize. Who all had his parents invited to Christmas dinner, he wondered.
“Thorne!” his sister Brooke leaned out the living-room window. “Guess who’s here?”
“No idea,” Thorne called back as he exited the truck and grabbed his overnight bag from the bed. It seemed no matter how old all the kids got, Mom and Dad still liked having them home for Christmas.
“It’s Greer and Duff and their new baby,” Brooke called before leaning back inside and closing the window.
“Cool,” Thorne said, answering the wind. He took the porch steps two at a time and entered in the bustling kitchen.
“Thorne,” Brenda Evans said, her faced wreathed in smiles as she greeted her first-born child. “It’s about time you got here. Dinner is almost ready.”
Thorne hugged his mom and nodded to is the father. “Hey, David,” he said with a wave towards his brother-in-law. Emma was in her element directing friends and family on how best to decorate a Christmas tree. Brooke and Tabby were in the middle of the commotion arguing over which one was responsible for putting a new log on the fire. Amy, his middle sister, sat in the corner and watched. Thorne frowned. He worried about Amy. Even though she worked at their family-owned diner, at twenty-two she still hadn’t discovered her passion in life.
A baby’s cry pulled him deeper into the living room. There, sitting in his grandmother’s rocker and holding an infant, was Piper. For a moment longing tightened his chest when he saw the baby in her arms. That was what he wanted. His wife holding their children while rocking them to sleep in the ancient rocking chair.
Thorne nodded to Duff. As fellow handy-men, they often ran into each other’s work and recommended the other for jobs. Thorne wondered if anyone would mind a little business talk amid the Christmas festivities, but figured his mom or Emma would have something to say.
Duff approached Thorne. “You still looking at that storefront?” he asked.
Thorne nodded, relieved. If Duff brought up business, then who was he to refuse? They were, after all, guests in his parents’ home. It was only right to entertain him. “I am. Have you been thinking about my business offer?”
Duff glanced back at his wife and newborn daughter. “I need something reliable now that I have a family.”
“I can hear you,” Emma scolded, her nose wrinkling playfully. “No business talk on Christmas Eve.”
“I’ll remember that if someone asks you about the diner,” Thorne teased.
“That’s totally different,” Emma grumbled. “That’s my business.”
“Whatever you tell yourself to make it through the day,” Thorne said.
David joined them with cups of punch. “You don’t let her boss you around at all,” he said with a grin.
Thorne shook his head. “She might be the oldest of the girls but I’ve got five years on her.” Thorne accepted the punch and lifted in a salute to David and Duff.
“I just kiss her when she gets a little bossy,” David deadpanned causing Thorne to choke a little on his punch.
“That would be so wrong,” Duff said, one corner of his mouth tilting up in a grin.
“Not to mention gross,” Thorne said.
“You know, if you’re so much older,” his mother said from the kitchen. “Maybe you need to start working on those grandbabies for me.”
“Not again, Mom,” Thorne said, dropping his head. “Not tonight.”
How do you explain to your mother that the girl of her dreams doesn’t want to have children? He loved being from a big family and all the chaos that surrounded them. But he also understood that Piper was old enough to make her own decision. Should he have pursued her hoping to change her mind? Should he have forgotten his own dreams and let one of his cousins carry on the family legacy?
Thorne still wasn’t sure. He wasn’t a man given to indecision, but with Piper, he felt like he was walking on thin ice.
Knowing his future daughters would be born with the weight of a magical legacy made Thorne consider his decisions since childhood. All four of his sisters had struggled. People often looked at them suspiciously as though they knew all their secrets. Being the mother of a child with the knowing was a hefty responsibility. But what do you do when the woman you think could be the mother of those children doesn’t want to be?
There was hunger in Thorne’s gaze as he watched Piper rock back and forth with baby Noelle in her arms. He ached to feel his arms around his own wife and child. Hysteria bubbled up within him and he wondered what his parents would say if he told them there would not be another generation of Evans daughters in their line. If he even suggested that one of his cousins carry on the family legacy.
Piper
If an award could be handed out for making bad decisions where men were concerned, Piper knew she would be a finalist. Starting when she was fifteen and Robbie Crenshaw had sweet-talked her into staying out all night with him, Piper has fallen in love with bad boys.
In a town the size of Harper’s Mill, finding bad boys was a challenge. The Trestles was fine for drinking and the occasional howl at the moon, but sometimes Piper wanted more excitement. There was always nearby Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania or even down towards Newark, New Jersey. Those Italian boys knew how to have a good time.
The tether of her bad decisions, however, had ended the day her sister-in-law had taken off for parts unknown leaving two-year-old Grace alone with her military enlisted father.
Since Tate was in the middle of his deployment, Piper had stepped up and taken responsibility for Grace. Grace had taught her caution and control. Those men who are fun to hang around with were not the kind of role models she wanted for Grace. If she were honest, the old Piper really wasn’t the role model she should be, either. What had started as merely taking care of her niece had become a two-year journey into finding out what kind of woman she was going to become. Had become.
Cleaning up her life, however, was easier than finding a job that allowed her to take care of Grace and still pay the bills. Which was why she was working at Freddy’s as a bartender the night Thorne shot.
“Hey, you’re quiet this afternoon,” Emma said as she sat beside Piper on the couch. “Is Grace having a good time?”
“The best,” Piper said. “My brother’s almost done with his enlistment and will be coming home before she starts school. He’s going to look around the Mill for a job. He said he’s pretty well sick of being overseas.”
“That’s good news,” Emma said. “And what about you?”
Piper laughed but there was a catch in her throat. “I had no idea how much Grace was going to mean to me. Tate is going to have me around a lot more than he thinks.” Both women looked over to where Grace was playing with Noah and Elizabeth Spencer.
Emma’s shrewd blue eyes took in the way Thorne was avoiding Piper’s personal area. “Have you two talked?” she asked.
Piper didn’t need to ask who she meant. She shook her head no. “We went out for dinner after he recovered. I thought we had a great time.” Piper’s eyes looked down at her hands on her lap. Their kiss goodnight had been scorching. Demanding. Possessive. Memory burned in her memory and made her blush. “And then he never called again.”
“You should go talk to him,” Emma said. “Corner him.
“There are too many people,” Piper said. Who knew an Evans family Christmas would include so many people? A McAvoy Christmas usually involved a single gift from their mom while their father watched football.
“That’s the best time to talk,” Emma said. “No one can raise their voice and everyone else ignores the conversation.”
“Hah, I have a hard time believing anyone would ignore our conversation.”
Emma had the good graces to blush. “You’re probably right about that. Still. Go talk to him.”
With wide curious eyes, Piper watched as Thorne teased his mother, joked with his father, and planned on opening a handyman business with Duff. Thorne had always seemed distant to her. Cool and unattached. But in watching him turning into a warm and engaging Thorne, she wondered if maybe the problem was her.
Maybe he just didn’t like Piper. Although that kiss had definitely been neither cool or unattached.
The thought was both sobering and annoying. Piper knew she’d been the reason he had been shot, but she had tried to make amends. And if Thorne Evans was too stubborn to forgive her, well. That was on him, not her.
“Dinner is on,” Brenda called.
“Is this your first Christmas,” Piper asked Greer as they fell into step going to the table.
Greer nodded, her blue hair pinned up with some sparkly clips scattered in her hair. “Duff told me all about it. I’ve seen some TV shows and even watched a few cartoons. Did you know there is an entire network where there is nothing but kissing Christmas movies on? It’s my favorite.” She dug in her pocket. “It’s here on my phone. I downloaded the app for that.”
Piper smiled. “That’s one of my favorites, too,” she admitted.
Duff laughed and pulled his wife and daughter into his arms. “No more apps,” he teased, kissing her lightly on the nose.
“But I know what I’m doing, now,” she protested with a giggle before kissing him back.
Piper had lived in Harper’s Mill her entire life. Growing up she knew some families were magical and some were not. It was something everyone just accepted. But finding out you were sharing Thanksgiving dinner with a former mermaid was still exciting.
Dinner conversation flowed around her, but Piper remained fixed on watching Thorne. He was gentle with his sisters and laughed at their jokes. He even cooed at newborn Noelle in her nearby carrier.
Had he heard of her wild and crazy youth? Was he so shallow that he still thought she was a party girl despite having her small boutique the Pink Icing and working part-time at the high school?
Anger stirred in her, cleansing away her insecurity.
“Would you like more potatoes?” Brenda asked, hefting up a bowl the size of Piper’s apartment.
“Oh, yes, please. They were delicious. Is there gravy?”
“Thorne has it,” Brooke announced, kicking her brother under the table. He grunted and glared at his sister, but she didn’t seem to mind.
“Just hex him,” Tabby said, her hair pulled into two messy ponytail buns.
“We aren’t that kind of witches,” Emma said with a smile.
“We should be,” Tabby said, tilting her chin out stubbornly. Her eyes and those of her sisters’ all began glowing an eerie blue. They each shared a smug look.
Brooke looked right at her and Piper felt the blood drain from her face. What kind of vision had the sisters’ seen?
“Oh, good grief,” Thorne said. “All at once?” He turned to his parents. “You couldn’t stop at one daughter, could you?”
“Oh, hush,” Emma said, tossing a pea across the table at him. It bounced to the right side of his plate. “You should be used to it by now, considering how old you are.”
“Throwing food? Aren’t you too old for that yourself?”
“No, brother dear. I am whimsical and child-like,” Emma returned with a teasing grin.
Thorne tossed the offending pea back at his sister only his aim was a trifle better. The pea hit her forehead with a resounding splat before falling into her lap. “Ouch,” Emma said, her mouth fighting a smile. “Mohhhhm! Thorne threw food at me.”
“Stop throwing food at your sister,” Brenda said tonelessly, as though she had said those same exact words dozens of times. And, judging by the chaos five kids seemed to bring in its wake, she probably had.
“Tattletale,” Thorne teased, lining up more peas on his spoon.
“Thorne,” Brenda said sternly while fighting to hold back a laugh. “Do not make me get up. You are not so big that I can’t tug you by the ear and give you a spanking.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Thorne said with a grin. He turned to Emma. “I got my eyes on you, sis. No more funny business.”
“Aunt Piper?” Grace asked, tugging on her sleeve. “Can I have more turkey?”
“Oh, sure, sweetie,” Piper said, annoyed with herself for her continuing distraction by Thorne.
“Get used to it, Thorne,” Clay said from his end of the table. “Your daughters will all inherit the gift.”
Piper’s knife stopped, mid-stroke. Of course, she had known. Somewhere, in the back of her mind that nugget of information lived. The male Evans carried the magical line. Each daughter was trained by one of her aunts.
Was that why Thorne hadn’t called her for a second date? Maybe he didn’t think she was good enough to mother his magical daughters.
<<<>>>
Thorne
The bright red LED lights of the alarm clock he’d had since high school said it was one o’clock. Duff, Greer, and baby Noelle were asleep in his father’s den. Brooke, Amy, and Tabby were bunked in one room. Thorne was in his old room. Emma and David were in her old room. Piper and Grace were in one of the girls’ rooms.
Or they were supposed to be.
About an hour ago, Thorne had woken to the sound of a bedroom door opening and steps tiptoeing past his room. His sisters would have known to miss the loose board, so he was able to rule them out.
Piper.
He couldn’t be sure but his intuition told him she was downstairs. He imagined her watching the twinkling Christmas lights and felt his body stir in response.
It was time.
Thorne grabbed his discarded T-shirt and slipped it over his head. His jeans lay in a discarded pile by his feet. Cursing himself for being every shade of fool, he put his pants on and went downstairs.
The latch on his mother’s China cabinet to was loose. If it weren’t Piper in the living room, he would say that he couldn’t sleep and was going to fix the door.
Bypassing the loose board on top of the stairs and the third step which had been squeaking for as long as he could remember, Thorne went downstairs. His breath caught as he rounded the bottom step and followed the hint of fairy lights to find Piper.
Sleep mussed, her legging-clad legs were tucked under her nightshirt as she curled up on the sofa in front of the dying embers of the fire. A sprig of mistletoe hung over the couch. Of course, Thorne thought. His mother and her mistletoe. The white lights, buried deep within the bristles of the Douglas Fir, gave her golden hair a halo effect.
“Hey,” Thorne greeted, keeping his voice down. He was well aware the house was full of his entire nosy family. Who could also see the future, no less.
She smiled but didn’t say anything.
“Thirsty?” he asked. “I can make us a cup of tea.”
“I don’t want to be a bother,” she said, her voice cool and distant.
“You’re a guest in my parents’ home,” Thorne pointed out, cursing himself for that idiot comment. Was he trying to push her away? Shrugging, he grabbed an open bottle of white table wine his mother hadn’t put away and two glasses. He filled the glasses and left the now empty bottle on the counter.
“Here,” he said, sitting beside her with his own glass. Oh, mother of pearl. Were those tears in her eyes?
“Thank you for staying. My mom misses having little kids around. I think she expects an announcement from Emma any day now.”
Piper smiled weakly. “Gracie is having a blast. Your sisters are hysterical.”
Thorne grinned. “They have their moments,” he agreed. He stood up to put another log on the dying embers of the fire and it flared with cheerful determination.
“Not worried about Santa?” Piper asked with a quirk of her lips.
Thorne nodded to the overflow of gifts under the tree. “Looks like he’s been and gone.” He nodded to the small box in her hands. “What’s that?”
Piper lifted it for him to see. “It’s a snow globe. Greer gave it to me. Said something inside of her told her she needed to give it to me.”
“Huh,” Thorne said. He extended his arm and she handed him the shimmering globe. Inside a swirling snowstorm was a young couple dancing across a frozen pond. Their love for each other was as palpable as Christmas Eve rush in Santa’s workshop.
As Thorne cradled the snow globe, vibrations traveled up his arm and into his soul. This was more than just a Christmas trinket. There was fae magic and the eternal love of the elven mixed in there. He smiled and gave it back to Piper.
“It spins even without shaking it,” Piper marveled.
Thorne shrugged. “It’s Harper’s Mill,” he said.
“True.”
They fell into a comfortable silence. Each full of their own thoughts on Christmas Eve.
“Couldn’t sleep?” he finally asked.
“I guess,” Piper said. “My mind was going at a million miles an hour. I was tossing for hours, and I didn’t want to disturb Gracie.” She took a small sip. “You?”
Thorne didn’t know quite how to answer her question. He had been asleep, but the lure of seeing her alone was too great to stay in bed.
“I hoped it was you that came downstairs,” Thorne finally said. “I wanted to talk to you. Without my crazy family interrupting.”
Piper smiled. “They’re awesome and you know it.”
“Oh, yes, they are. I love them all. I worry about Amy a little bit. She hasn’t really seemed to find her passion in life. She’s got to want to do more than help manage the diner.”
“Have you tried talking to her?”
One corner of Thorne’s mouth kicked up in a slight grin. “Not lately. I should, though.”
The silence between them descended once more, but Thorne felt this one wasn’t nearly as comfortable. Tension grew and Thorne sensed Piper was building up to say something.
“Do you blame me for the shooting?” Piper blurted into the still night air.
Thorne felt his neck spin with whiplash speed as he turned to look at her. “Of course not,” he said, shock making his voice a little louder than he intended. “That never in even occurred to me.” He blinked, pausing to try and make sense of what she had asked. “How could you possibly think I would blame you?”
Piper shrugged and took a sip of wine. “You barely look at me. I thought when you asked me out for dinner…” Her voice trailed off. She braved looking at him straight in the eyes and Thorne felt a sucker punch of emotion right in his gut. “What’s been going on between us? If you aren’t angry, which you shouldn’t be by the way, then what’s all this about?” Piper waved her hands between them and Thorne assumed she felt the same attraction to him as he did to her. “So, anyway, if you were mad, which you totally shouldn’t be, but if you were,” she said, her words babbling away. “I’m sorry you were shot protecting me from that pig at Freddy’s.”
“You did nothing to be sorry for,” Thorne said. “I’m just glad you aren’t working there anymore. The place gave dives a bad name.”
Piper raised an eyebrow. “Then what were you doing there?”
Thorne’s gaze bore into her until she finally blushed and looked away. “I was there because I was interested in you.”
“And then you were shot and you weren’t interested anymore,” Piper pointed out. Her wine glass was empty but she licked her finger and traced it around the crystal rim. A gentle, haunting resonance filled the air. It combined with the pop and crackle from the fireplace and the intermittent blinking of fairy lights to cocoon them in their own snow globe type world.
“I was an idiot,” Thorne said. “I worried about things that maybe aren’t so important anymore.”
“Like what?”
Thorne closed his eyes against the pain of giving up his dream for daughters of his own. It was funny, he thought, how things you took for granted. Things you assumed you would always have, grew in importance when you decided to sacrifice them for something else.
Because as he sat on his mother’s couch, he realized that if he couldn’t have babies with Piper, he wouldn’t have them at all. Harper’s Mill magic was precise. It only worked when love was involved.
He had seen Emma’s powers grow since she married David. Had seen his extended family gain powers he would never have thought possible since finding love. And, since love was required to have babies with magical, knowing Evans family eyes, he knew he would have none without Piper by his side.
Thorne wouldn’t push. He never wanted his children to be unwanted. But if the day ever came when or if Piper changed her mind, he would roll with it. But until that day came, he would shove the desire for a family of his own so deeply in his back pocket, it would never see the light of day.
His heart and soul bled with the loss of those unborn children, and he wondered if this was how women felt after a miscarriage.
Belatedly, he realized that Piper was still looking at him for an answer.
“Some of it is our age difference,” he said. “Eleven years is a lot.”
“And the rest?” Piper demanded. Thorne looked up. Was she getting angry with him?
“The rest?”
“You said part of it was our age differences. But you knew that before our date so there had to be something else.”
Thorne shrugged, reminding himself he wouldn’t bring up children. He didn’t know why she felt so strongly about it, but she did. Had announced in no uncertain terms that she couldn’t wait for her brother to return from active duty so he could take over caring for Grace.
“It was something you said at dinner. Something I thought I wanted,” Thorne said. “But I decided it wasn’t worth it if you weren’t by my side.”
“Was it because of my reputation?” Piper asked.
Thorne’s eyebrows went up with his confusion. “Uh. No. What reputation? Like, are you a well-known hypnotist that steals men’s wallets? An international spy named Natasha?”
“No, don’t be silly. I just meant. Well. I was a bit wild before Gracie came into my life,” she admitted.
“Jeeze, Piper. I’m thirty-five. We aren’t kids. No, whatever you did in high school, which, by the way, would have been totally inappropriate for me to even know about let alone care about, didn’t register to me.” He grinned at her and swallowed the last of his wine. “What? Were you caught up at the Trestles making out with a boy?”
Piper
Shame burned on Piper’s cheeks. Well, of course, he wouldn’t care that she wasn’t a virgin. It was highly unlikely he was a virgin, she thought to herself. And then promptly banished that thought. She definitely didn’t want to feel jealous of some faceless, unknown girl that he dated in his past. Or hooked up with.
All this talk of Christmas and magic had her confused and off her axis.
Maybe he was right. Maybe she’d been too immature for him. And the more that thought spun in her mind, the angrier she got.
“You’ve been so magnanimous, deciding you wanted to have a relationship with me. Did you think for a minute that maybe I didn’t want to have a relationship with you?” Piper challenged. Who did he think he was? And didn’t she have a say in this situation?
The cad had the nerve to grin at her. There he was, sexy as a wild puma, sprawled across his mother’s couch with a plain white T-shirt and well-worn denim. His shaggy hair called for someone (her?) to run her fingers through it and his beard looked tantalizing and inviting.
“No,” he admitted. “Because I’m pretty sure everyone can see and feel the tension between us. The attraction.” His fingers lifted as through stroking an invisible thread. “Can’t you see it?”
“No,” Piper said, turning her head away from him, but there, in the ambient glow of the Christmas lights, she saw the delicate gossamer threads. “What,” she stuttered. “What is that?”
Thorne shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it.” He tilted his head. “But if I had to guess, it’s our hearts calling out to each other. Begging our two stubborn halves to stop being so obstinate and become whole. Become one.”
Piper raised her hand to try and stop the invisible band that held them together. “I don’t want a…a…a boyfriend who is ashamed of me,” she muttered. “So whatever weird magic you’re doing, knock it off.”
But a peaceful smile relaxed Thorne’s entire demeanor. “First, I think this is stronger than mere boyfriend and girlfriend shit. Secondly, this isn’t my doing, Piper. I swear.” He paused as her words sunk in. “And what the hell do you mean who isn’t ashamed of you? You’re at my parents’ house. I am here, heart in hand talking to you in the house I was raised in. If that doesn’t show full well how much I care, I’m not sure anything can.
“Good grief, woman, there is a bond tying our hearts together. You are beautiful and kind. Generous. You took your niece into your home.”
“What was I supposed to do? Let her go into foster care? Of course, I took her in.”
“Exactly,” Thorne said. “You think I care because you took a job at a dive like Freddy’s? Hell, no. I think you’re amazing.”
“Then why didn’t you ask me for a second date?”
Thorne
There. That was the crux of it, wasn’t it?
He stood, restlessness making him unable to sit still.
“Is it because of your legacy?” Piper asked.
He nodded. “Some,” he admitted, throat tight with emotion.
“Is it because I’m not one of the magical Old Families? You don’t think I can raise the daughters who will carry on your family’s gift?”
Wait. What?
“No,” he said, striding back to the couch to sit at her feet. “No, Piper. You told me you didn’t want to have kids of your own.” He lifted his hands in a gesture of male helplessness. “It threw me off guard.”
“I said I didn’t want kids?”
“Yes, you said that after raising Gracie, you were looking forward to your brother coming home and not having any more small kids underfoot.”
“That’s not the same thing as not wanting kids ever,” Piper pointed out.
Thorne sat back on his feet. “It doesn’t?”
“No! It just. That isn’t. Ugh,” she groaned, closing her eyes. She opened them and for the first time, Thorne saw tears trembling on her lashes. “That isn’t even what I meant. When I first took Gracie in, I was busy having fun, drinking with my friends. I was twenty-two, you know? But in the last two years, I really grew up.
“I fell in love with Gracie. It’s going to break my heart when Tate comes home. Not that I don’t want him home. Gracie and I miss him dreadfully.” The tears that only moments before merely trembled began falling in earnest. “But he’s going to take her back. Of course, he is. He’s her dad. They deserve to make a family together.” Piper gasped for a breath. “But it will leave me all alone again.”
Thorne rose and pulled her into his arms until they lay comfortably on the leather couch. Her tears dampened his shirt and his hands burrowed into her hair, soothing her. Comforting her. Sharing the pain of a future separation.
“Does he plan on staying here in the Mill?” Thorne asked, breathing the question against the sensitive whorl of her ear.
She sniffled and nodded. “Yes, I think so. He wants to open a cybersecurity office. Do everything online.”
Thorne kissed her forehead. “They’ll both still need you,” he whispered.
Piper nodded. “I know. It just feels like everything is changing. And I didn’t want it to change. I wanted it to stay the same.”
“You were trying to protect yourself by pretending you didn’t want kids of your own?” Thorne guessed.
“Yes,” she said, her voice thick with tears. “I didn’t want to admit even to myself how much I had grown to love her.” Piper sobbed again, and Thorne stroked the slim line of her back. “But not to replace her. Nothing can replace her.”
“Shh, everything changes, Piper. That’s life. Gracie will grow up, but you’ll always be her Aunt Piper if you want to be. Just like no one else can be your Grace.” He kissed her forehead. “No one replaces anyone in our hearts. Our hearts learn to expand and love more people.”
“I know,” Piper said, her voice barely above a whisper. She touched the glowing web that attached their two hearts. “You were willing to give up having daughters for me?”
“Love is the fuel for our magic,” Thorne said, feeling his own voice grow thick with emotion. “If I married only for children, they wouldn’t have the Evans gift because I wouldn’t love their mother.”
“Because you love me,” Piper said.
“Because I love you,” Thorne whispered. And there, on his mother’s couch, beneath a sprig of white-flowered mistletoe, he kissed her.
Their lips met. Gently at first. Delicate friction of silken lips against each other. Thorne groaned deep in his chest. His hand, which had been resting on Piper’s hip began moving. He explored the gentle rise of her hip, squeezed the firm curve of her ass and whetted his appetite for more. Eager fingers pulled at her nightshirt flowing over her leggings.
“My hands,” Thorne muttered.
“Are perfect,” Piper assured him.
Thorne shook his head no. “Too rough,” he said his voice guttural with desire. But despite arguing with himself, he couldn’t stop stroking her skin. Finding her secrets. Telling her his own. Thrusting his hips, grinding his erection against her body, he shuddered with longing.
“I need you,” he said, the words breathing across her skin like a gentle breeze.
With deft fingers, Thorne reached for her bra and unsnapped it before tossing it to one side. “You’re perfect,” he murmured.
“They’re tender,” Piper cautioned before crying out in response when his large warm hand surrounded her sensitive, supple breast. Tightening them. Making them throb with need.
Piper
Desire filled Piper. Each sweep of his tongue in hers, each stroke of his large, capable hands filled her with sinful, delicious thoughts. His heavy body over her. Surrounding her. Thrusting into her and finding the release they both craved like sugar addicts.
“My breasts,” she begged.
“Here?”
“Yes. They need. I need.” She couldn’t quite get the words out but he seemed to just know. The sultry aroma of love filled the air, combining with the wood-smoke and pine-tree scents of Christmas. Each image was indelibly marked in her brain. She would never lay before a Christmas fire and not think of this night. Of Thorne. And bliss.
Struggling, they pushed her shirt out of his way until her breasts were exposed to the fire-warmed air. “I think I died and went to heaven,” he said, touching her shapely breasts first with a finger. Then his tongue. Then his mouth. He worshipped her. Each curve of her body. The texture of her skin.
She cried out as her back arched into him. The rasp of his beard stroked her skin and tightened it with arousal. In desire. In a thick, violent temptation of voluptuous need.
“More,” she said. “Oh God, Thorne, I think I’m going to…” her voice trailed off as her body tightened wantonly in his arms. Her scream began which she promptly muffled against the broad expanse of his chest.
“Do it,” he said, lifting his mouth long enough to say the words. And while they still hung in the air like fairy’s dancing, he turned Piper around so her back was to him and her front exposed to his roving, roaming, generous hands.
Cock pressed firmly against her ass, he slid his hands down the front of her pants, stroking newly exposed skin. Using his fingers to part the soft curls protecting her core.
“This is wrong,” she hissed but her passion-drugged body was already receiving him. Welcoming his finger within her dewy folds.
“If you don’t tell, I won’t,” he said against her ear. He parted her, tested the depths of her need, and then quenched her thirst with seductive ease.
They lay panting as the echo of her orgasm still filled their ears. For long heartbeats, they curled next to each other. Allowing a languid calm to surround them. Replete in each other. Eventually, though, reality cooled their flesh and reeled in desire.
“Did you?” she asked, rubbing her bottom against his jean-clad front.
“Not yet,” he said. He tickled her neck with kisses and the scrape of his whiskers until she giggled. “When I make love to you, Piper McAvoy, it will be in a bed. With all the privacy and time in the world.”
“When?” Piper teased, touching his hands, feeling his hardened body still pressing against her own. “Kind of sure of yourself there, aren’t you, cowboy?”
Thorne chuckled. “You’re not going to let me get away with much, are you?”
“Oh, I strongly disagree,” Piper said with a laugh as she sat up and reached for her top. “I think I’ve already let you get away with an awful lot.”
Thorne clutched at his shoulder. “I took a bullet for you, woman,” he said, kissing her. Distracting her. Loving her.
Piper paused and grew serious. “I thought you were going to die,” she whispered.
“Me, too,” he said. “And I was going to die without seeing your golden eyes full of love. Your hair spread out across my pillow. My body buried in you.”
She blushed. “I don’t want to go to our separate beds,” she admitted as Thorne banked the fire and turned off the Christmas lights. “But I don’t want to have sex in your mother’s house, either.” She laughed ruefully. “That probably sounds hypocritical, doesn’t it?”
“No, I understand. Come to my room,” he invited. “We’ll keep the door open. No more sexy stuff. I promise.” He touched his forehead to hers. “I don’t want to sleep alone, either.”
“But what about me? What if I attack your sleeping body in the night?”
“I’ll take my chances,” Thorne said, leading her by the hand towards the stairs. “Watch the third step. It squeaks.”
Neither were tired as they slid between the crisp white cotton sheets on Thorne’s bed. They cuddled quietly spooned together. Breathing in the other’s scent. Content to allow the bond between them grow. Strengthen. Deepen.
“Does this mean we’re actually dating?” Piper said.
“We’d better be,” Thorne said. “Because if we’re not, we’re going to have a lot of explaining to do when everyone gets up in a few hours.”
“Mmm,” Piper said, feeling warm and content. Loved. “Think this is the vision your sisters had?”
“Possibly,” Thorne said. “Hard to say with those four.” She felt the twitch of his mouth as he grinned. “Sleep, baby. Tomorrow is Christmas and all the kids will be here. Gracie and Noelle. Spence and Honor are coming over with Noah and Elizabeth. There will be no time to rest.”
Piper nodded and drifted to sleep in her beloved’s arms.
<<<>>>
Thorne
“Mohhhm, Thorne and Piper are still in bed!”
Thorne grinned as he woke to Brooke’s shout. He tightened his arms as the events of last night cascaded in on him. Thorne had his woman held tightly next to him and his family around him. Life didn’t get much better than this, he thought smugly.
“Ready to get up and face the family?” he asked, nuzzling her neck.
“Do I have time to shower first?”
“No,” Brooke said, coming into the room and bouncing on one corner of Thorne’s bed. “There are kids downstairs who want to open gifts and Mom is making breakfast.” Brooke’s eyes flashed with mischief. “And you left this downstairs.” She held up Piper’s bra for their perusal.
“Oh, Lord, they all know we made out on the couch,” Piper muttered, grabbing her bra.
“I think they would have figured that out anyway,” Thorne said. “You woke up in my bed.” He kissed her forehead and rubbed his nose tenderly across the bridge of hers. “Bathroom is across the hall. Be quick. We have a house full of kids all wanting their gifts.”
“And you got your gift last night,” Brooke called.
Thorne groaned and reached for his pillow to smack his sister with it.
“Don’t you dare,” Brook said. “I’m a delicate flower,” she reminded him.
“Hah, if you’re a delicate flower, I’m the King of England,” Thorne replied, hitting his sister just hard enough to nudge her. “Go, let me get dressed. I’ll be down in a minute.”
After Thorne and Piper were both done, they walked down the steps and into the fray of Christmas activity.
Emma hugged Piper. “I knew all you two needed was to talk it out.”
“They did more than talk,” Tabby reminded them.
“Hush,” Thorne said.
Brenda embraced Piper when Emma was done. “Thorne couldn’t have chosen anyone better.”
“Thank you,” Piper said, her eyes filling with tears. She glanced over to where Thorne sat with his father. “I mean, we’re only dating, you know. He didn’t. I mean. We didn’t.”
Brenda only smiled. “It’s okay, dear. But Thorne is an Evans. He doesn’t share his heart lightly.” Her embraced tightened. “And you definitely have his heart.”
Across the room, Clay pulled Thorne aside. “You feel it, don’t you? The love bond? Everyone’s emotions?”
Thorne nodded. “I started feeling them last night,” he admitted. “And I had no idea I’d be able to see the bond between us.”
“The secret is, Thorne, it’s not just the girls who have power. The sons have power, too.”
“We’re empathic,” Thorne guessed as he struggled to keep everyone’s emotions at a distance.
“Yep,” his father replied. “But you have to be in love for it to all snap into place.”
Thorne’s gaze met Piper’s across the crowded, hectic living room. He strode to her, over the wild noise of happy children and the oohing and ahhing of parents. He pointed up to one of his mother’s ever-present clusters of mistletoe.
He pulled her into his arms and officially kissed her under the mistletoe. “Piper McAvoy,” he whispered into her ear.
“Yes?”
“I don’t have a ring. Wasn’t even planning on doing this, but it’s Christmas. And I saw you over here with your hair loose and flowing.”
Cautious hope filled Piper’s eyes. “What are you saying, Thorne?”
Thorne dropped to one knee and Piper squealed with recognition. “Will you marry me?”
The crowd around them went wild as they all got a front row seat to their declaration.
Piper’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh, God, yes,” she said, leaping into his arms.
“What did I tell you?” Brenda asked, wiping at her own tears. “Welcome to the family, sweetie.”
“What’s this? What did I miss?’ the deep baritone barreled through the excitement of the announcement.
“Daddy!” Gracie cried, standing up and racing towards her father’s embrace.
“Tate, you’re home!” Piper said. She cried in earnest now. “Did you know?” she asked Thorne.
“Not me,” Thorne said, winking at Emma as she trailed behind Tate. “But I think my sisters might have.”
“Thank you,” Piper said, hugging her brother, her fiancée, her future mother-in-law. Anyone who would hold still long enough for an embrace. “This is the best Christmas ever.”
Author’s note: I hope you enjoyed this dip into the Witches of Warren County universe. This is a full, multi-generational series of books of family, romance, and (of course) love. With just a bit of magic sprinkled in to make it interesting.
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Witches of Warren County books
(in suggested reading order, but each book is a standalone in the series)
(part of the Creek Corner sub-series)
(part of the Creek Corner sub-series)
Coming soon:
Under the Mistletoe
Dear Kitty Collection – Harper’s Mill Historical
Harper’s Mill YA universe
(in suggested reading order, but each book is a standalone in the series)
Creek Corner Road stories
(Related stories set in the Harper’s Mill Universe)
Apple Blossom, NC books
Standalone Anthologies
The Klondike Bride Series (with Mildred B. Lewis)
New Series Thistle Grove Tales
(coming September 29, 2017)
Snow (Coming Soon!)
Standalone books
Adela of Stone Keep (coming soon!)