Chapter 10
Chasing after a boy on two legs versus a cub on four should’ve been only half the work, but by dinnertime, Brandy was on her last legs.
Actually, she was on tiptoes beneath the front yard oak, trying to find her missing son.
“Aster,” she called, keeping the note of panic (mostly) out of her voice. “You have to come down now.”
Rita stepped down from the porch, the rubber tips of her crutches thunking a counterpoint to her shoes. “Want me to try?”
“Unless you have a ladder…” Brandy double-checked her sister. “Have you been in the basement all day?”
Rita blinked hazily. “What day is it?” She smiled wanly. “I’m just trying to understand what happened with the talisman.”
That morning, after Mac’s late-night visit, Brandy had confessed to losing faith in the spell and destroying the talisman. But Rita had said that wasn’t possible.
Brandy didn’t care. All that mattered was she had Aster back.
Well, not right at this very moment she didn’t.
Through the oak’s gnarl of branches, the flash of his yellow and black Batman ensemble seemed too small even for his little body. How high was he?
Gin strolled out and plunked herself down on the top step. “You lost my nephew again?”
Though Brandy knew her sister was joking, the truth was a little too close to home. And too far from the ground. “This new obsession with up is getting old. Which explains my gray hairs.”
Muttering a curse—he was definitely too high to hear that—she reached for the bottom limb and hiked up her foot. When was the last time she’d climbed a tree?
A low voice rumbled behind her. “Maybe you should let me.”
Before she could glance over her shoulder, the scent of working male—earthy, salty, oh so manly—swept over her. Strong hands clamped around her hips, plucked her from the tree, and swung her around.
“Mac,” she gasped, her heart skipping a beat.
Hadn’t she told him she wouldn’t see him again?
Hadn’t her skittering heart gotten the message?
Wait, what? Her heart didn’t get a say in this. Her lady bits had gotten her in trouble, and her brain had gotten her out. She couldn’t risk her heart throwing things out of whack again.
But now her trembling knees were telling her to let him go for it. How had he managed to incite her whole body into quarreling chaos with one touch?
The first time he’d touched her, all of her had been in alignment, feeling everything…
As he hugged the tree and drew himself upward, her gaze tracked down the length of him, from his dark hair, shiny and damp, over those broad shoulders and down his powerful back to the taut butt muscles nicely filling out his Levi’s.
She pressed her knuckles to her lips, less in fear and more to stop herself from calling out advice. Or maybe to keep her tongue from lolling out.
He was a bear, after all.
Which should have scared her worse. A bear going after her boy. Hadn’t this been exactly what she didn’t want?
The branches above thrashed, and a handful of leaves shifted down around her. She closed her eyes.
“Up!” Aster’s insistent chirp held no fear at all.
“Down,” Mac responded in his deep voice.
For a moment, no more leaves fell. Then the glossy green veil parted. She’d never been so relieved to see a muddy work boot.
Three more steps—as smooth as if he were walking up the porch stairs—and Mac deposited Aster in her arms.
“Down,” Aster acknowledged sadly.
She hugged him hard. “Dinner?”
That perked him up, as she’d known it would. Growing boys were always hungry.
“That sounds great,” Mac said. “Thanks.”
She jerked her head around to stare at him. “I didn’t mean—”
“And it just so happens”—he bent over to grab the insulated tote bag he must’ve abandoned on the walk when he saw the situation with Aster—”I brought dinner with me.”
“Oh.” She racked her brain—that smart brain that had guided her through a difficult childhood and single motherhood—for some polite rejection, but her brain had apparently decided it had saved her enough.
So she looked at her sisters.
“I was working downstairs all day,” Rita said with a shrug. “I’ll set the table.”
Gin pushed to her feet, arms akimbo, when Brandy turned an imploring stare to her. “You know how much I love someone else’s cooking.” She circled Mac to pluck the bag from his hand, and Aster wriggled down from Brandy’s slack arms to trail after his aunts into the house, his nose curiously in the air.
Brandy swiveled her pursed lips from one side to the other, as if she might find the right words in some other corner of her mouth.
Mac waited patiently.
She frowned at him. “You have to wash up first. You have bark all over you.”
“But no bite,” he murmured as he shadowed her into the house.
She flushed at the oblique reproach. “Thank you for fetching Aster,” she said, knowing she didn’t sound gracious.
“Any time. I like saving you.” When she cranked her head around to glower at him some more, his dark eyes shone with sincerity. “Gotta make up for not being there before.”
Oh, her stupid, stupid heart…
“You didn’t need to be there,” she said, if not quite so rude as her initial mental protest: I don’t want you here!
Her tongue wouldn’t let her say it.
Without being reminded, he kicked off his boots at the door. She led him to the main floor bathroom and handed him a guest towel. Except for the flecks of oak bark, his T-shirt and those nicely snug jeans were too clean, the material worn soft but not stained from a day’s work, so he must’ve changed before coming over.
He emerged from the bathroom—drying his hands with the same exaggerated care Aster used when he wanted to show her he was being good.
Stupid, stupid, stupid heart…
“You still have twigs in your hair,” she fussed. Leaning forward to pluck off a leaf, she sifted her fingers through the dark, damp strands. The shaggy locks smelled of manly cedar shampoo, and her lady bits and even her brain were suddenly all in agreement again.
She’d come to Angels Rest to exorcise the bear spirit from her son.
Maybe she needed to do the same for herself.
***
Mac swore to himself that he’d buy Ben an entire season’s worth of farmers market blueberries after stealing the salmon cakes. But it would be worth it. Rita exclaimed over the golden patties. Gin saluted him with her fork. Aster was tucking into his second one—totally ignoring the bowl of some strange orange-colored goop sprinkled with peas. And Brandy…
Well, three out of four wasn’t bad.
She spent most of the meal pestering Aster who, though he didn’t speak much, seemed perfectly content to focus on eating and used his spoon to shovel down impressive amounts of salmon. Between bites, he grinned at Mac. “Up!”
“Yeah. You’re a good climber,” Mac acknowledged and got a grunt of agreement in return.
Seeing the kid so high in the tree had given him a touch of vertigo, but the gleeful smile when Aster reached out had steadied him. And that little body tucked under his arm… Oaks were great climbing trees—plus, their acorns were a tasty staple of the autumn feast—but the one in the Victorian’s front yard needed some care.
He cleared his throat and glanced at Brandy. “While I was up in the tree, I found some crotch rot.”
Three pairs of feminine eyes settled on him in dismay.
“In the tree!” he said hastily. “Where a branch meets the trunk at a bad angle, water can pool and weaken the limb. You don’t want any of those bigger branches coming down.”
“Up!” Aster agreed.
Mac nodded. “Exactly.” He shuttled his gaze between the sisters. “I can ask my cousin—he’s the arborist at Domingo Landscaping—to take a look, see what he recommends.”
Brandy finally looked directly at him, her cinnamon-brown eyes troubled. “Oh, you don’t have to—”
“That would be lovely,” Rita said. “Since we’re watching the house, I want to make sure there’s something for Aunt Tilda to come back to.”
“And you could bring dinner again,” Gin said. When her sisters sent her repressive looks, she shrugged. “Rita, you’re good with a, uh, crockpot, but woman cannot live on soup alone. And Aster is a growing boy.” She arched her brows at Brandy.
“I stole dinner from my cousin,” Mac confessed. “But the pizza at Grampa’s in town in pretty good.”
Brandy lifted her chin at a pugnacious slant. “Hard to beat a New York pizza.”
That shut down the conversation for a long minute.
Until Gin said, “Soooo, what else does your cousin cook?”
When he showed them the salted caramel pecan bars, even Brandy cheered.
They took dessert into the parlor along with coffee for the adults and milk for Aster. Brandy started to reach for him, but Gin whisked him to the bin of oversized Legos and plunked down on the floor with him.
Brandy watched them for a disgruntled second then turned to sit. Rita had taken the solitary wingback, which left the smallish couch next to Mac as the only option.
Again, he sensed undertones among the sisters he wasn’t quite following, but he thought just maybe he wasn’t the only one feeling discombobulated this time.
With a nearly soundless huff, Brandy settled at the other end of the loveseat. His greater weight dented the cushions, and she tipped slightly toward him despite the stiffness in her spine.
“So you were telling us about the solstice jubilee this weekend,” Rita said as she delicately nibbled her pecan bar. “I’ve always been interested in pagan-themed rituals.”
During dinner, he’d mentioned all the preparations at the park because the whole county—shifter and common folk alike—came to celebrate, but he still wasn’t sure how much the sisters knew about the stranger side of Angels Rest. So he gave her the Wikipedia highlights, not the weirdopedia version.
“There were no inhabitants on this spot when Angel Villalobos came through the Four Corners region looking for gold. No gold, either, turns out. But there was a year-round stream, rich bottomland, lots of sun, good hunting on the plains and in the forest. He didn’t understand why no one stayed.”
Rita shivered a little as she sat back. “That ominous old mountain out there would be one reason.”
Mac nodded. “Mesa Diablo. Lots of ancient stories walked and died in the shadow of the mesa, left their mark in petroglyphs on the black basalt. The tribes and trappers warned Angel away, but he was ready to stop chasing the gold.” Only to have the shifter spirits that haunted the mesa start chasing him. But that was a different story. “The first tree he chopped down on the mesa, he made a throne for his wife-to-be. Just had to find her first, a helpmeet and soulmate, someone tough enough to survive the high desert, but gentle enough to make Angel’s resting place a home.” Except the wolf spirit found Angel… “One of his descendants—Kane Villalobos—is interested in the history and the future of the town, and he wanted to revive the tradition while maybe bringing in some visitors from farther away. So that’s why the solstice jubilee celebrating the highlight of the year has a foodie feast and trending musical acts. Plus the partner obstacle course to win Angel’s throne.”
“Sounds way too much like socializing and exercise, ugh,” Gin drawled. “You should do it, Brandy.”
Beside him, her sister stiffened even more, if possible. “Me?” The question squeaked between her equally stiff lips.
“Well, you’ve been complaining about the baby weight,” Gin said.
Despite his very best effort (which admittedly wasn’t very good) Mac looked at Brandy.
When she very deliberately returned the uneaten portion of her pecan cookie to the plate, her cheeks were red enough to clash with the soft color of her hair; he hoped Gin had a good hair-pulling insurance policy. “I don’t need to lose weight for anyone,” she said tightly.
“Well,” he drawled. When she snapped her lethal glare to him, he continued, “You sure don’t, but if you wanted to gain a throne, it could be fun.”
She wrinkled her nose. “You said it was a partner race. But I don’t have—”
“Okay, I’ll do it with you,” he said. “I need a partner for the race too.”
Jerking back, she stared at him, wrath replaced with uncertainty. “I didn’t mean—”
“How fun.” Rita clasped her hands together. “A thank you for rescuing Aster. And bringing dinner. And carrying Brandy back from the park.” She glanced at her sister who glared back.
More sisterly undertones. But he thought he got these.
He gulped at his coffee, as if the hot caffeine would wash down his unaccountable nervousness. “It’d be, uh, kind of a big deal if we could win it. Especially since this is the first year of Kane reviving the tradition.” His grip on the mug was tight enough to crack ceramic, and he forced himself to lighten up even as he took a breath and admitted, “Before you came here—the first time”—he raised his gaze to Brandy—“there was some trouble with my family and the town.” He took another breath. “I’m trying to show them that my cousins and I are, uh, good guys.”
Into the careful silence, Gin hummed thoughtfully. “Why, Macmahon Montero, are you saying you were a bad boy? You interest me more.”
The back of his neck heated. “No.”
She laughed. “No you’re not a bad boy, or no you don’t want me interested?”
He set his coffee mug carefully next to Brandy’s abandoned cookie. “Both. Neither. I just want—”
“Brandy,” Rita said. When he jerked his head up, she was looking at her sister. “You should do it. It’s good to join in community activities.”
Brandy’s jaw shifted. “I’ll be back in New York soon.”
“But until you are…” Rita smiled at him. “What else can we do for the jubilee?”
After he directed her to the chamber ladies’ to-do list—although he wondered if the tittering civic leaders would be prepared for the low-key managerial might of this Wick sister—he rose to leave.
Aster scrambled over to him and tugged at the knee of his jeans. “Up!”
Brandy yanked him up into her arms before Mac could lift him. “He has to go, Aster.”
Mac squelched the urge to touch the boy’s back. “No more climbing until we make sure the tree is happy, okay?”
Aster shoved the last of his cookie into his mouth, dark eyes solemn, but he nodded.
As before, Mac found himself hustled out the front door like he was a used vacuum salesman in a hardwood house. At least he had the tote bag and baking dish in hand; Ben would be annoyed that he raided the fridge, but at least he hadn’t lost any hardware.
And maybe he’d gain that prize he needed.
The prize meaning the throne, of course. Seemed pretty obvious he’d never win over Brandy.