Face the Fire by Nora Roberts (4)

"Right. Right. Did I mention I was a moron?"

"Yes, I think you did. Lulu, this is Caroline Trump."

"Glad to have you." Lulu bagged up a sale, stuck out her hand. "I've been ringing up your books like they were going out of style. I read the new one last week. It had a good punch."

"Thanks. I love the store." She turned in a circle. "I want to live here. Oh! Look at those candles. Sam, I need ten minutes."

When she dashed off, he leaned back, watching fondly as she whipped through the aisles. It took fifteen minutes, but he managed to head her upstairs.

"Well, you made Lulu like you," he commented.

"That was just a side benefit. Her stock is so smart—not just the selection of books, which is impressive, but the sidelines too. Class all the way. And look at this."

She stopped at the top of the stairs, dazzled. The crowd was already thick. The café tables were packed, as were the rows of chairs. Over the hum of conversation, she heard Mia's smooth voice announce her name and the time of the event.

"It's a wonder she didn't kick me out," Caroline murmured. "There must be a hundred people up here."

"Since you're determined to feel lousy about it, I'll tell you she worked her butt off. Look, just pass on what you think to your publicist. Getting other authors to Café Book will go a long way toward prying your foot out of your mouth."

"Consider it done. Okay, here she comes." Caroline boosted up her smile and walked in Mia's direction.

"You have the most incredible store. And I want to know if there's anything I can do to make up for being a jerk."

"Don't give it another thought. Can I get you something to drink, a bite to eat?

We're very proud of our café."

"Got any hemlock?"

Mia put a hand on her shoulder. "Oh, it could be arranged."

"Why don't I settle for a diet Coke, and you can put me to work."

"I have a number of pre-sells, if you'd like to take care of them before the event. It will give you more beach time. I'll show you into the stockroom, set you up. Pam," Mia called to the woman waiting tables. "Would you bring Ms. Trump a diet Coke? We'll be in the stockroom. Sam, if you're staying, you might want to find a seat. Just this way, Ms. Trump."

"Caroline, please. I've done enough of these to know how much time and effort go into hosting a signing. I want to thank you."

"We're thrilled to have you."

Caroline followed Mia into the stockroom. She'd also seen enough behind-the-scenes action in bookstores to recognize ruthless organization. "I've flapped the copies at title page," Mia began. "If that's not your preference, I'll change them."

Caroline moistened her lips. "These are all pre-sold?"

"Yes. Fifty-three at last count. Those that require personalizing—I was told you'd personalize?"

"Sure. No problem."

"They're labeled with Post-its. Your publicist indicated this is the brand of pen—"

"Just stop a second." Caroline dumped her briefcase, sat down at a stool at the counter. "I've never sold over a hundred new titles at a signing."

"You're about to break your record."

"I see that. Just as I see you have the pen I like, and that there were pink roses, my favorite, on the signing table."

"Wait till you see the cake."

"Cake?" Caroline seemed flabbergasted. "You have cake? You sent me bubble bath and candles, and were at the ferry to meet me."

"As I said, we're thrilled to have you."

"Not finished yet. Your store, which is amazing, by the way, is full of people, and an unbelievable number of them are holding my books. And you hate me because I said something careless, rude, and stupid."

"No. I was annoyed with you because you said something careless, rude, and stupid. But I don't hate you for it." Mia moved to the door to take the soft drink from Pam. "And because I was once involved, romantically, with Sam."

"Yes." Her tone pleasant, Mia offered the drink. "Naturally I hate you for that."

"And that's fair." Caroline sipped her soft drink. "But since Sam and I haven't been anything but friends for more than four years, and I'm happily married. .

" She wiggled the fingers of her left hand. "And, since he's hung up on you, who happen to be beautiful, smart, younger than I am, and who has those really fabulous shoes, I get to hate you more."

Mia considered her for a moment. "That seems entirely reasonable." She handed Caroline a pen. "I'll open these for you."

Four hours later, Mia was in her office tallying figures. When the publisher called on Monday for a follow-up on the event, she was going to knock their socks off. Nell came in, dropped into a chair, and patted the belly she was sure had started to round. "That was great. That was outstanding. That was exhausting."

"I noticed that even with free refreshments, the café did a brisk business."

"Tell me about it." Nell yawned hugely. "Did you want to do totals?"

"We'll wait until closing for those. However, I do have the totals for the Trump books that sold during her appearance."

"And they are?"

"New title, including pre-solds? Two hundred and twelve. Paper backlist, also including pre-solds? Three hundred and three."

"No wonder she walked out of here looking shell-shocked. Congratulations, Mia. She was terrific, wasn't she? Funny and warm during the book discussion. I really liked her."

"Yes." Mia tapped a pen on the edge of her desk. "So did I. She used to be involved with Sam."

"Oh." Nell straightened in the chair. "Oh."

"After meeting her, it's easy to see why he was attracted. She's very clever, urban, energetic. I'm not jealous."

"I didn't say a word."

"I'm not jealous," Mia repeated. "I just wish I hadn't liked her quite so much."

"Why don't you come home with me? We'll sit around, talk about men, and eat hot fudge sundaes."

"I've already gone way over my sugar intake for the day, which is probably why

I'm still edgy. You go on. I've got to finish here. Then I'm going home to sleep for twelve hours."

"If you change your mind, I have homemade fudge sauce." Nell pushed herself to her feet. "You did an amazing job, Mia."

"We did. We did a stupendous job."

She turned back to her keyboard and worked until six. Sticking to practical tasks gave her mind the chance to circle and circle and consider. And it gave her the opportunity to admit that the buzz still vibrating through her wasn't going to quiet on its own. Given the alternatives to select from, she saw no reason not to choose the one that appealed most.

Sam stripped down to cutoffs and considered the cartons of leftover takeout Chinese in his refrigerator. He was, as he had been all day, famished. He thought he might order in a pizza, or a side of beef to top off the egg rolls and pork fried rice. He was relieved that Caroline had turned down his invitation to dinner. As fond as he was of her, his brain just couldn't handle an evening of struggling to concentrate on conversation. Not after the day he'd put in. Or the night before it.

He'd swum for an hour, hard, after he helped Zack haul all the equipment back to the house on the bluff. Then he'd swung by the hotel on the way home and let himself into the health club. He'd worked out another hour, doing what he could to burn off the edge. He'd done fifty laps in the hotel pool, taken a frigid shower. And hadn't slept all night.

After the signing, he'd taken Caroline back to the hotel, where she'd claimed she was going to take a long bubble bath. He'd used the health club again, worked up a heavy sweat. Showered. Spent an hour swimming. And his system was still careening. He disliked sleep inducements, even of his own making, but he thought, after he ate, that that was the only solution left. The only practical solution, he corrected. The more satisfying one would be to find Mia, drag her off somewhere, rip off her clothes, and pump out the energy in wild, crazy sex. Which would take him right back to square one of his plan to cement a bond with her outside of wild, crazy sex.

He wasn't sure his overworked system could take either. He'd settle for pizza. He closed the refrigerator and turned toward the phone. And when he saw her at the back door, his entire body clenched like a fist. Served him right, he thought grimly, for trying to tame his raging hormones by tuning her out for a few hours. But his expression was as easy and pleasant as hers as he crossed to the door.

"Didn't expect to see you. I thought you'd be somewhere with your feet up and a drink in your hand."

"I hope you don't mind me dropping by."

"Not at all." He opened the screen door and willed himself to behave.

"I brought you a present." She held out a box, prettily wrapped in dark blue foil and topped with an elaborate white bow. "From the owner of Café Book to the owner of the Magick Inn." She came in, making sure her body brushed his lightly as she passed. And she felt the quick tremor.

"A gift."

"To thank you for your part in making today happen. It was an enormous success for all involved."

"Caroline was nearly staggering by the time she got to her room. It takes a lot to wear her out."

"I'm sure you'd know," Mia countered.

"She's married. We're friends. That's it."

"Touchy." She clucked her tongue. "Why don't you offer me a drink, and have one yourself?"

"Fine." He got out a bottle of wine, yanked out the stopper. "I had a damn life the last decade, Mia. I assume you did, too."

"Naturally. Would you like me to parade some of my lovers for you?" Helpfully, she took glasses out of the cupboard. The searing look he shot her pleased her enormously.

He'd be easier, and more fun to seduce, if his temper was up. "I don't want to hear about them. And I didn't parade Caroline."

"No, but you didn't tell me beforehand, either. It made it awkward and irritating. But I've decided to forgive you."

"Well, golly. Thanks."

"Now you're annoyed. Why don't I pour that, and you can open your present? We'll see if it puts you in a better mood."

"Rapping your head against the wall might put me in a better mood."

"But you're much too civilized for that."

"Don't go to the bank on it." But he pulled off the top of the box. And pulled out a wind chime made of foolish brass frogs.

"I found it whimsical, which suits the cottage. And apt, as I had a lovely fantasy going about how I turned you into one of these for a few days." She tapped a frog, sent it dancing and singing against its brothers. Then picked up her wine.

"It's very… unique. Whenever I see it, I'll think of you."

"There's a hook just outside the kitchen. Why don't you hang it, see how it looks there?" Obliging her, he stepped outside, looped it over the empty hook. "You smell of the sea," she told him, trailing a fingertip down the center of his bare back.

"I've been swimming."

"Did it help?"

"No."

"I could." She leaned against him, nibbled at his shoulder. "Why don't we help each other?"

"Because then it's all about sex."

"What's wrong with sex?"

She was clouding his senses. Woman's magic. He turned, gripped her arms. "We used to have more. I want more again."

"We're both old enough to know we don't get everything we want. So we take what there is." She spread her hands over his chest, felt surprise when he stepped back. "You want me, I want you. Why complicate it?"

"It's always been complicated, Mia."

"So we simplify. I need a release from what happened last night. So do you."

"We need to talk about what happened last night."

"You're a real fan of talking lately." She tossed back her hair. "Nell has this notion that you're courting me."

A muscle jumped in his cheek. "That's not a word I'd use. I'd say 'dating.'

I've been dating you."

"In that case—" She crossed her arms, slid the straps of her dress from her shoulders. And let it slither to the floor. "We've dated long enough."

 

 

Chapter Seventeen

He'd have sworn the world stopped. For one rushing moment there was no sound, no movement. There was nothing but Mia, tall and curved and beautiful. All alabaster and fire, she wore only a slim silver chain that nestled a moonstone between her breasts and an anklet made up of tiny Celtic knots above shoes that were no more than a trio of narrow straps and stiletto heels. His mouth watered.

"You want me." Her voice was a low feline purr. "Your body aches as mine does. Your blood's as hot."

"Wanting you has always been the easy part."

She stepped to him. "Then this should be a snap." She ran her hands up his torso, over his chest. "You're trembling." Easing closer, she rubbed her lips over his shoulder, over muscles that were tensed rock-hard. "So am I."

His hands flexed, fisted. "This is your answer?"

"I don't need an answer when I don't have a question." She lifted her head until their eyes met. "I have needs, just as you do. Desires, hot and restless inside me. As you do. We can both take what we need, and harm no one."

She leaned in, nipped sharply at his bottom lip. "Let's take a walk in the woods."

When he jerked her hard against him, her face lit with triumph. A quick, laughing moan escaped when he swung her into his arms. The moment of victory was hot and sweet. "Here," he said. "In this house. In my bed."

Needs bubbling inside her clouded her mind, only for an instant. But an instant was enough to have him striding through the kitchen before she struggled. "No, not here."

"It can't be all your way."

"I won't be with you here." The minute she hit the bed, she rolled, but he pinned her.

"Yes, you will."

She fought him. Pure instinct had her bucking under him, straining against his hold. She could smell the lavender she'd planted outside the window, and the sweetness of it tore at her heart. She hadn't come for sweetness, nor for intimacy. She had come for sex. She gathered herself, reached for composure and derision. "All you've proved is that you have superior strength."

"Yeah. That's the breaks," he said. Her voice might have been cold, but the heat was pumping off her skin. "I'm not letting you go this time, Mia. Considering the mood we're both in, you fighting me is only going to make this better.

So, fight me." He yanked her arms over her head. "I don't want it easy. And I don't want it fast."

He handcuffed her wrists and used his mouth on her. She continued to struggle, because he was right. She could damn him for it, but he was right. The underlying threat of violence added a slippery thrill that fed the reckless need inside her. She could hate herself for wanting that, for the part of her that reveled in being overpowered, undone, taken. But she couldn't deny it.

He ravished, his mouth assaulting her body. The little war had her skin springing with sweat and her senses tangling into one mass of molten pleasure. Her body twisted, arched, but he simply found new spots to torture and entice. The energy that burned inside her whipped to flash point, ripped a cry from her throat as he drove her to the first brutal climax with his mouth alone. And that quick and glorious release only fueled a hunger for more. He felt her body quake, heard her breath catch. Beneath his lips her pulse beat like fury. Her flesh was damp and fragrant, erotically hot and slick. Knowing that she fought them both only added to the vicious passion surging through his blood.

He rode it, recklessly, until they were both quivering. When his mouth conquered hers, the kiss was a kind of madness. There was no thought, no room for reason. In a war of lips and tongues and teeth, they fed on each other. When he felt her fly a second time, he released her hands to take more. They branded each other, rolling restlessly over the bed in a search for dominance and more pleasure. The air went thick, and the sun streaming through the windows turned to gilt.

She rose over him. Craving her, he reared up, clamping his mouth over her breast. Drawing her in like breath. She lost herself in the frenzy of sensation. Gave herself to that feral need to take and be taken. Here there was only desperation, and the one man who could make her feel it. The glory of those animal urges, the mindless wonder of being alive raced inside her.

Time quickened, then sprinted past her, as the storm inside her broke yet again. Breathless, still spinning, she wrapped herself around him, holding on as if for her life. Her heart quaked, and threatened to break open. She heard his harsh murmurs as his body slid over hers, as his lips skittered over her face, her throat. She shook her head, quick denial, as the Gaelic stroked her aching heart. Light, warm and blue, pulsed from him.

"No. Don't."

He couldn't stop. What they'd brought to each other sapped his control. The need to complete the intimacy was raw and open in him.

"A ghra. A amhain." My love. My only. The words tumbled out of him without design. His power shimmered, seeking its mate even as his body craved. But when he brushed his lips over her cheek, tasted tears, he squeezed his eyes shut.

"I'm sorry." His breath ragged, he buried his face in her hair. "Just a minute. Give me a minute."

He fought for control, to pull the magic back inside him. Whatever they were or had been to each other, he had no right to force her to share that part of herself. She felt him quiver as he struggled to pull it in. It would hurt him, she knew. A deep and physical aching that came from denying the blood and starving the soul. Still, he held her while he locked himself away. Held her while she listened to his breath tear out against the pain of it.

She couldn't bear it, for either of them. She lifted his head, looked into his eyes. And gave him her magic. "Share with me," she said, drawing him down into the kiss. "Share all." Her light was gilded red against his deepening blue. The brilliant thrill flooded her, swamped her as their powers entwined and merged. And merged, streamed inside them both. She let herself fly on it, rose to him as he filled her.

There was a rush like the wind, a stream of sound like a hundred harpstrings plucked at once. The air swelled. All she was, and all he was, laid open. The air shimmered, light against light building to a radiant glow. Even as he moved in her, long, slow thrusts that savored the gift, he took her hands. Linked fingers curled tight and sparks swirled from them to dance in the air. As they climbed, the light brightened, building, building toward a flash that burst like lightning. And on that burst, he met her mouth with his, and flew with her.

He nuzzled at the curve of her shoulder, rubbed his cheek to hers, whispering soft and foolish endearments. His power continued to whisper inside her as well. Her body felt unbearably soft. And though her heart continued to pound, she knew its beat was no longer for her alone. What had she done?

She'd stripped aside, by her own will, the last of her defenses. She had given him all she was, taken all he was. She had let herself love him again. Stupid, she thought. Stupid, careless, and dangerous. Even knowing it, she could lie here with his weight pressing against her and want to gather him close and cling to the dreamy echoes of what they'd shared. She had to get away, clear her head of him. And consider what to do next. She lifted a hand to his shoulder, intending to nudge him away. But her fingers slid into his hair.

"Mia." His voice was thick and sleepy. "Allaina. So soft, so lovely. Stay with me tonight. Wake with me tomorrow."

Her heart trembled, but when she spoke her voice was brisk and even. "You're speaking Gaelic."

"Hmm?"

"You're speaking in Gaelic." Now she did give his shoulder a little nudge.

"Which means you're about to fall asleep on top of me."

"No, I'm not." He braced himself on his elbows so he could gaze down at her.

"You make my head spin." He dropped a kiss on her forehead, then the tip of her nose. "I'm glad you dropped by."

It was hard to resist the easy affection. "So am I. But I have to go now."

"Uh-uh." Idly toying with her hair, he studied her face. "I'm afraid I can't allow that. And if you try, I'm going to have to get rough with you again. You know you liked it."

"Please." She pushed at him, tried to slither free.

"You really liked it." Leaning down, he lightly bit her shoulder.

"Maybe, under this limited set of circumstances, I found it… arousing. I needed an outlet for the excess energy that last night's spell worked up in me."

"Tell me about it." He caught her chin in his hand. "I mean that. I want you to tell me about it. But right now, I'm starving. Aren't you starving? I've got leftover Chinese takeout."

"Yummy. But—"

"Mia, we need to talk."

"Talk isn't the usual activity when we're lying naked in bed and you're still inside me."

"There is that." He slid his hands under her hips, lifted them. Slid deeper into her. "Tell me you'll stay."

Her breath caught. "I'm not—"

"I want to watch you climb again." He kneaded her hips, his thrusts slow and steady. "Just let me watch you."

He left her no choice. He exploited her weakness, drained her will with a ruthless tenderness. He watched her surrender, to him, to herself, to the rise of sensation. And when she crested—one long wave—it rippled through him. And he lifted her, wrapped her close. "Stay."

With a sigh, she rested her head on his shoulder. "I could eat."

They made quick work of the Chinese, then scavenged for more. By the time they were digging into a box of dry cereal, the edge was off. Sam took a last handful of puffed rice.

"Strong magic and good sex. Nothing like it to sharpen the appetite."

"I had two muffins, a sandwich, cake, and a bowl of rotini. And that was before the sex. Give me that." She took the box from him and dug in.

"It was a potent spell."

"Now that we've very efficiently cleaned out my kitchen of all edible products, let's take that walk in the woods."

"It's getting late, Sam."

"Yeah, it is." He took her hand. "And we both know it." He glanced down at her bare feet. "Since I don't see how you can walk anywhere in those shoes you had on, maybe we should head to the beach instead of the woods. Easier on your feet."

"I'm used to walking barefoot in the woods." It was best, she thought, to deal with it. As long as they were talking, or eating, or seducing each other, she wouldn't have to think about loving him. Or what she would do about it. "You want me to explain the spell, and I'm not sure I can."

"I don't want the nuts and bolts." He drew her across the lawn toward the shadows and the path. "But I'd like to know, first, how long you've known you had that kind of power."

"I'm not sure I did—not exactly. Felt," she continued. "As if there was a switch inside waiting for me to flip it."

"It's not that simple."

"No, it's not." She could smell the trees and the sea. And on such a night, she thought, you could smell the stars. A cool brush along the senses. "I've worked on it, studied, practiced. I've gathered myself. You understand that."

"I also understand that to pull that out the way you did the other night, without any real preparation, is beyond anything I've experienced."

"I've been preparing all my life." And in the last decade, she thought, it's been my one and only love. "Still I couldn't finish it. It wasn't quite enough."

Determination toughened her voice. "But I will finish it."

"That's where you and I have a problem. What you did was dangerous, for you. It didn't have to be."

"The risk was minimal."

"If you'd told me what you could do, what you'd obviously planned to do, given the opportunity, I could have been prepared. I could have helped. But you don't want my help."

She said nothing as they passed the little stream where foxglove nodded on the banks. "It's been a long time since I considered having your help."

"I've been back for over two months, Mia."

"And were gone over ten years. I learned to do a great deal without you in that length of time. Without anyone," she added, "as Ripley cut herself off from me and what we shared during the same period. I've taken what I was given and honed it, built it."

"That's right, you have. I wonder if you would have if I'd stayed."

She rounded on him, her temper quicker than it might have been, as the same thought had come to her. "Is that a new rationalization? A new reason for what you did?"

"No." He met her fury with utter calm. "My reasons for leaving were completely selfish. It doesn't seem to change the results. You're stronger than you would have been."

"Should I thank you for it?" She angled her head. "Maybe I should. Maybe it's time for me to acknowledge that your leaving was the best thing for both of us. I saw you as the beginning and end of my life, and everything in between. But you weren't. I lived without you. And whether you stay or go, I'll continue to live, to work. To be. I can enjoy you now without illusions. It's a nice bonus to share myself with someone who understands power and who expects nothing in return but pleasure for pleasure."

It rubbed at his temper, as he supposed she'd intended it to. "Don't thank me too soon. You wondered why I'd maneuvered you into dating. I needed to show you, and maybe to prove to myself, that there's more than sex between us."

"Of course there is." Calm again, she began to walk. "There's magic, a shared history. And though I didn't initially believe it, a shared love of the island. We have mutual friends."

"We were friends once."

"We're friendly now." She breathed in deeply. "How do people live without the sea close? How do they breathe?"

"Mia." He touched the tips of her hair. "When we made love, I didn't intend to ask you to share magic with me. It wasn't calculated."

"I know that." Though she stopped walking, she kept her back to him.

"Why did you let me?"

"Because you would've stopped. It meant something to me that you would've stopped when I asked. And, I suppose, because I've missed it. Sharing power excites and fulfills."

"Was there no one else in all these years?"

"You've no right to ask me that."

"No, I don't. So instead I'll tell you what you don't ask me. There was no one but you. Never anyone but you in that way."

"It doesn't matter."

"If it doesn't," he said, taking her arm before she could move away, "then you should be able to listen. I never got over you, and if I was with another woman, it was never the way it was between us. Every one of them deserved better than I could give. I couldn't give them better, because none of them were you."

"There's no need for this," she began.

"I need it. I've loved you all my life. No spell, no incantation, no act of will has ever been able to change that for me."

Her heart stumbled in her chest. It took all of her strength to balance it again. "But you tried."

"I tried. With women, with work, with travel. Not loving you is beyond my power."

"Do you think, Sam, that even if it were only my own heart at risk, I could pour it into your hands again?"

"Then just take mine. I'm not doing anything else with it."

"I can't. I don't know how much of what I feel is an echo of what was. How much mixed with that is anger. More," she said, turning back to him, "I don't know how much of what you believe you feel is real. Everything's at stake now, and clouded emotions are dangerous."

"My emotions aren't clouded. They were, for a long time."

"Now mine are. And I've learned to step back from them. I care about you. The link's too strong for that to be otherwise. But I don't want to be in love with you again, Sam. And that's my choice. If you can't accept that, then we need to stay away from each other."

"I can accept that it's your choice, for now. But I'm going to do everything I can to change your mind."

She threw up her hands in frustration. "By sending me flowers, going on picnics? Those are frills, trappings." "Those are romance."

"I don't want romance."

"Deal with it. I was too young and stupid to give it to you once. I'm older and smarter now. There was a time when it was hard for me to tell you I loved you. Didn't come naturally off my tongue. And it sure as hell wasn't a phrase that was bandied about in my house."

"I don't want you to tell me."

"You always said it first." He saw the surprise on her face. "You never realized that, did you? I was never able to say it to you, unless you'd said it. Times change. People change. Some people take longer than others. I realize I've been waiting, Mia, maneuvering again, so you'd say it first. Easier for me that way. You used to make things too damn easy for me."

"Fortunately, that's changed. Now I have to go. It's late."

"Yeah, it's late. I love you, Mia. I love you. I don't mind saying it a few hundred times until you believe it."

It hurt to hear it. A quick, pinching pain. She used that pain to keep her heart cool and her voice even. "You gave me words before, Sam. We gave each other words. They weren't enough. I can't give you what you want."

She ran down the path, away from him. "Won't give me," he replied. "Yet."

She didn't stop until she got to her car. Didn't go into the house for her shoes, or think about them. She thought only of driving away, driving fast until her mind settled again. She had let herself love him again. Or rather, her heart had turned on her when she'd been vulnerable. But that was her problem, and one she would deal with. Rationally, reasonably, if loving him were the right choice, it wouldn't make her so unhappy. If hearing him say he loved her was the solution, how could it have been like a blow to the heart? She would not become a victim of her own emotions, not a second time. She wouldn't throw herself mindlessly into love, putting herself and everything that mattered to her at risk. Balance, she told herself, and clear thinking. They were essential when one was contemplating a life-and-death decision. Maybe it was time to take a few days off, regroup. She'd been spreading herself too thin, she decided. She needed to be with herself. Alone.

"What the hell do you mean she's gone?" Annoyed at being roused out of sleep before eight-thirty, on a Sunday, on the only day that week she could sleep in, Ripley scowled at the phone.

"She's off the island." A pulse was pounding in Sam's throat, making speech almost painful. "Where did she go?"

"I don't know. Christ." She sat up in bed, scrubbed her hand over her face.

"I'm not even awake. How do you know she went off-island? Maybe she's just out for a walk or a drive."

He knew, Sam thought, because he'd tuned in to her. And the snapping of the connection had awakened him. Next time, he thought grimly, he wouldn't limit the link to the island.

"I just know. I was with her last night. She didn't say anything about plans on the mainland."

"Well, she doesn't keep me as her social secretary. Did you have a fight or something?"

"No, we didn't have a fight." What they'd had could never be boiled down to such an elemental word. "If you have any idea where she's gone—"

"I don't." But the worry in his voice got through. "Listen, ask Lulu. Mia wouldn't go anywhere without letting her know. She probably just went over to do some shopping or something and—" Scowling, Ripley held the phone out and listened to the dial tone. "Well, goodbye to you, too."

He didn't bother with the phone this time, but jumped in his car and drove to Lulu's. He barely noticed that she'd changed the paint from the pumpkin orange he remembered from his boyhood to a wild purple. He knocked on the front door. "You got two seconds to tell me why you woke me up out of a dream where I was dancing with Charles Bronson and we were both naked. Otherwise, I'm kicking your—"

"Where's Mia?" he snapped.

He slapped a hand on the door before she could slam it in his face. "Just tell me she's okay."

"Why shouldn't she be?"

"Did she tell you where she was going?"

"If she did, I'm not telling you." She could sense his anger and his fear. "You try any hocus-pocus on me, and I'll not only kick your ass, I'll mop the floor with it. Now back off."

Disgusted with himself, he stepped back. When the door slammed he just sat on the porch steps and rested his head in his hands. Had he driven her away? Was it some kind of ugly joke fate continued to play on them that one of them would love so much that the other was compelled to flee? It didn't matter, he told himself. Not now. All that mattered now was that she was safe. When he heard the door open again, he stayed where he was. "You don't have to tell me where she is, what she's doing, or why she left. I just need to know that she's all right."

"Any reason you know of she shouldn't be?"

"I upset her last night."

With a sniff, Lulu marched over and gave him a quick boot with her bare foot. "I should've figured it. What did you do?"

"I told her I loved her."

Behind his back, Lulu pursed her lips. "What did she have to say to that?"

"That she didn't want to hear it, basically."

"She's a sensible woman," Lulu said, then immediately felt nasty. More nasty than she was comfortable with. "She's taking a few days off, that's all. On the mainland—shopping, getting pampered. Do her good to decompress, if you ask me. She's been working 'round the clock."

"Okay." He rubbed his hands on the thighs of his jeans, then turned to face her. "Okay. Thanks."

"Did you tell her you loved her to mess with her head?"

"I told her I loved her because I do. Messing with her head was just a side benefit."

"I don't know why the hell I always liked you."

Sam was shocked. "You did?"

"If I hadn't, I'd have peeled the skin off your face for putting hands on my baby. Well, I'm up," she said and buried both hands in her disordered mop of hair to scratch her head. "You might as well come in and have some coffee."

Too intrigued to refuse, he followed her into the kitchen. "I always wondered why you didn't live at the cliff house."

"First off, because I couldn't stand those pompous, self-absorbed Devlins."

She dug coffee out of a canister shaped like a piglet. "Didn't mind spending a few days there when they were off on one of their trips, but when they were at home, I needed a place of my own. Otherwise, I might have smothered them both in their sleep."

"When did they leave—for good?"

"Few months after you did."

"After… but she was nineteen."

"Just shy of her twentieth birthday. They headed off to—who the hell cares. Came back once or twice during that year, for form, if you ask me. Mia hit twenty-one, and that was over. Guess they figured their job was done."

"They never did their job," Sam stated. "You did."

"That's right. She's been mine since her grandmother put her in my arms. She's still mine." She shot him a challenging look over her shoulder.

"I know it. I'm glad of it."

"Maybe you've got some sense in that pea brain of yours after all." She poured water from a cherry-red kettle into the coffeemaker. "Anyway, after they moved off-island, Mia asked if I didn't want to come up and live with her. Plenty of room. But I like my place, and she likes being up there on her own."

She studied him while the coffeemaker burped and grumbled. "You thinking of trying to convince her to let you move up there with her?"

"Ah… I hadn't thought quite that far ahead."

"Don't change much, do you? Always dance back from the sticking point."

"And what would the sticking point be?"

"That girl," she said and drilled a finger into his chest. "My girl. She wants marriage, and she wants babies. She wants a man she can share her whole life with, thick and thin, and not one who gets pale when the word marriage comes up in conversation. Like you're doing now."

"Marriage isn't the only serious commitment—"

"You think you can bullshit her with that, or are you just bullshitting yourself?"

"A number of people make and keep a bond without a legal ceremony. Mia and I are hardly traditionalists."

Lulu's skewering stare made him feel like a teenager again, bringing Mia home after curfew. "But in any case, I haven't given the matter a great deal of thought. At this point she's not even comfortable with me telling her I'm in love with her."

"That's a real fine speech. Full of hot air, but it sounded almost pretty."

"What's so important about marriage?" he demanded. "You're divorced."

"Got me there." Amused, she got out two cheerful yellow mugs. "Funny thing about life. You just can't get a guarantee with it. You pays your money, you takes your choice."

"Yeah." Depressed all over again, Sam took the mug. "I've certainly heard that one before."

 

 

Chapter Eighteen

She'd intended to relax, shop, indulge in a day at a spa or salon. She'd intended to do as little thinking as possible for three days and three nights. To focus on her own emotional and physical well-being. She had not intended to take the time and effort to gain admittance into the federal facility where Evan Remington was being held. But since she had done so, she could rationalize the decision. Time was growing short. If fate was leading her to Remington, she would follow the path. She was in no real danger, and there was the possibility, however slight, that something good could come out of the visit.

She didn't question the fact that she was able to set up a meeting with him with relatively little trouble. There were powers at work that scoffed at the tangled red tape of bureaucracy. And she was part of them. She faced him across a wide counter split down the center by a barricade of thick, reinforced glass. Mia picked up the phone that would link them, as he did.

"Mr. Remington. Do you remember me?"

"Whore," he hissed.

"Yes, I see you do. And that the months you've spent in here haven't improved your disposition."

"I'll be out soon."

"Is that what he tells you?" She leaned a little closer. "He lies."

A muscle began to twitch in his cheek. "I'll be out soon," he repeated. "And you'll be dead."

"We've beaten him twice. And only a few nights ago he ran from me with his tail between his legs. Has he told you that?"

"I know what's going to happen. I've seen it. I know you'll all die screaming. Can you see it?"

For a moment she could, reflected on the glass between them. The dark, boiling storm, the rips of lightning, the swirl of roaring wind as the sea opened like a hungry mouth and swallowed the island whole.

"He shows you his desire, but not reality."

"I'll have Helen." His voice went dreamy, like a child repeating a rhyme.

"She'll crawl back to me. She'll pay for her deception, her betrayal."

"Nell's beyond you. Look at me. At me," she demanded. She wouldn't allow even his thoughts to touch Nell now. "There's only me to deal with. He's using you, Evan. As he would a puppet, or a vicious little dog. He uses your illness, your anger. He'll destroy you with it. I can help you."

"He'll fuck you before he kills you. Want a preview?"

It happened fast. Pain ripped through her breasts as if claws had dug into her flesh. A spear of ice jabbed with one hard thrust between her legs. She didn't cry out, though a scream of rage and horror spewed into her throat. Instead she drew her power down like armor. Punched it out like a fist. Remington's head snapped back, and his eyes went wide with shock.

"He uses," she said calmly. "You pay. Did you think threats and ploys would make me tremble? I am of the Three. What works in me is beyond your scope. I can help you. I can save you from the horror he will bring you. If you'll trust me and help yourself, I can close you off from him. I can shield you so that he can't use or harm you."

"Why?"

"To save myself and what I love, I would save you."

He inched closer to the glass. She could hear his raspy breathing over the receiver. For a moment true pity stirred in her.

"Mia Devlin." He licked his lips, then they spread into a wide, mad smile.

"You'll burn! Burn the witch!" He cackled even as the guard rushed over to restrain him. "I'll watch while you die screaming."

Though Remington dropped the phone when the guard dragged him away, she heard his wild laughter long after the door slammed and locked behind him. The laughter, she thought, of the damned. Sam had a meeting with his accountant. Revenue was up, but so were expenses and overhead. The Magick Inn was operating in the red for the first time in thirty years, but as Sam saw it that would change. He'd booked two conventions for the fall, and with the winter holiday package he was putting together, he expected to recoup some of the loss over that historically slow reservation period.

Until that time he could, and would, continue to plow his own money into the hotel. If the hotel, and the island, went down in a matter of weeks, it wouldn't be because of lack of faith on his part. Where the hell was she? Couldn't she have waited to go off on some shopping spree until after their lives, their fates, their futures were more secure? How many pairs of shoes did the woman need, for God's sake?

It was just an excuse to get away from him, he thought. He'd told her he loved her, and she'd run like a rabbit. Things got a little bit sticky, and instead of staying put and dealing with it, she'd bolted to the mainland and…He stopped, scowled down at his own half-finished signature on the correspondence in front of him.

"Moron," he muttered.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Nothing." He shook his head at his assistant and completed his signature.

"Check on the winter brochures, Mrs. Farley," he told her as he signed the next

letter. "I want to be certain that the corrections are made before the end of the month. I want to meet with the head of sales tomorrow. Find me the time."

She flipped through his calendar. "You're free at eleven, and at two."

"Eleven."

"And send a memo to Housekeeping re… How long have you been married?"

"You want to know how long the housekeeping staff has been married?"

"No, Mrs. Farley. How long have you been married?"

"Thirty-nine years last February."

"Thirty-nine years. How do you do it?"

Mrs. Farley laid her pad down, took off her glasses. "I could say it's a bit like alcoholism. One day at a time."

"I never thought of it like that. Marriage as an addiction."

"Certainly as a condition. It's also a job that requires attention and work, cooperation and creativity."

"That doesn't sound particularly romantic."

"There's nothing more romantic than going through life, with all of its spins, with someone you love. Someone who loves and understands you. Someone who'll be there for the big bouquets. Children, grandchildren, a new house, a well-earned promotion. And for the weeds. Illness, a burned dinner, a bad day at work."

"There are people who get used to taking care of the bouquets and the weeds alone."

"I admire independence. The world would be a stronger place if we were all capable of handling life on our own. But being capable of it doesn't mean being unable to share and depend on someone else. It shouldn't mean being unwilling to. That's the romance."

"I never saw my parents share much more than an affection for Italian designers and a box at the opera."

"That's a shame for them, isn't it? Some people don't know how to give love, or how to ask for it."

"Sometimes the answer's no."

"And sometimes it isn't." The faint edge of irritation worked into her voice.

"Some people expect things to fall into their lap. Oh, they might work a bit for it. I'll just shake this tree, and if I shake it long enough that pretty red apple will plop right into my hand. Never occurs to them that they might have to climb the damn tree, fall out a couple of times, get some scrapes and bruises before they get to that apple. Because if the apple's worth wanting, it's worth risking a broken neck."

On a huff, she got to her feet. "I need to type up this memo." He was so surprised when she strode out of his office and shut the door smartly, he didn't call her back to tell her he'd never dictated the memo.

"Look what happens when I have a conversation about marriage," he thought aloud.

"My assistant bites my head off. And I know how to climb a damn tree. I've climbed plenty of trees."

And right now, he felt as if he were hanging by his fingertips from a very unstable branch. And the prettiest apple was still just out of his reach. He picked up a file, intending to bury his frustrations in work. And a light went on inside him.

Mia was back on the Sisters. She'd called Lulu from the ferry and had gotten an update on bookstore business, and on island news. As she'd asked Lulu to come up to the house that evening to fill in the gaps, there was no need to drop by work. Tomorrow was soon enough to face the pile of phone messages and the backlog generated over her three-day absence. 

She'd called Ripley as well, and Nell. Since she thought the best way to pass on the details of her meeting with Remington was during a civilized meal at her own house the following evening, she needed to drop by Island Market for some supplies. She'd yet to call Sam. She would call him. She wheeled her cart over to the produce section and stared at the arugula. As soon as she figured out how to handle him, and what had been said between them, she'd call him. Life ran more smoothly with a clear-cut, but flexible, plan.

"Still shopping?"

And sometimes, Mia realized as she turned and looked at Sam, fate wasn't content to hang back until the plan was formulated and refined. "I consider shopping a work in progress." She selected lettuce, contemplated the Roma tomatoes. "It's an odd time of day to see a businessman in the market."

"I'm out of milk."

"I'm quite sure you won't find it in produce."

"I'm thinking about getting an apple. A pretty red apple."

She continued to select items for a salad. "The plums look good today."

"Sometimes only one thing will do." He let his fingers tangle in her hair.

"Did you enjoy your time away?"

"It was… productive." Because he made her feel uneasy, she wheeled into dairy. "I found a nice little Wicca shop. They had a wonderful selection of bell jars."

"You can never have too many."

"My sentiments," she agreed, and picked up a quart of milk.

"Thanks." He took it from her, tucked it under his arm. "Why don't you have dinner with me tonight? You can tell me about your trip."

He wasn't behaving the way she'd anticipated. There was no flare of temper over her abrupt departure, no demands to know where she'd been, what she'd been doing. As a result, she felt guilty and small. Damn clever of him.

"Actually, Lulu's coming up tonight so that we can deal with some store business. But I'm having a little dinner party tomorrow. I was going to call you." She put a small wheel of Brie in her cart. "I've some things to discuss with everyone. Will seven o'clock work for you?"

"Sure."

He leaned in, cupping her cheek with his free hand, laying his lips on hers. Softly, warmly, lingering over the kiss until it shifted from the casual to something more suited to the dark.

"I love you, Mia." His fingers skimmed over her cheek before he stepped back.

"See you tomorrow."

She stood where she was, her hands vised on the handle of the cart, as he strolled away with a quart of milk under his arm. For years, so many years of her life, she'd have given everything to have him look at her in the way he'd just done, to tell her he loved her, in just that way. Now that he had, why should it be so hard? Why should it make her want to weep? Lulu got behind the wheel of her battered and beloved orange VW bug. Since the night she'd taken the unexpected swim, she'd felt safe, solid, secure.

She didn't know what charms Ripley and Nell had conjured up, but they were working like—well, charms. Whatever you wanted to call the thing that was hovering over the island, her girls were going to screw it to the wall. Still, she felt better knowing Mia was back on-island, tucked into the cliff house, getting back to her routine. And though it had been a pill to swallow, she felt more at ease about Mia since she had Sam fretting over her.

The boy'd been an idiot, she decided as she drove through the village with the classic sounds of Pink Floyd blasting through the speakers. But he'd been young. She'd done plenty of stupid things when she was young. Every one of them had led her here. She supposed, if she was going to be fair, everything Sam had done had led him right back to the Sisters, and Mia. Not that she was finished giving him grief, but she would dispense it in smaller doses now.

Only one thing mattered, and that was Mia's happiness. If Sam Logan was the answer to that, then he was going to damn well come up to the mark. If she had to kick him up to it. The idea made her grin wickedly as she started up the cliff road. And was oblivious to the mist that rose and rolled behind her. When the music turned to a hiss of static, she glanced down at the radio, slapped irritably at the little tape player installed under it.

"Damn it, you better not eat The Wall, you cheap bastard."

The response, a long, deep howl through the speaker, had her hands jerking on the wheel. The car shuddered around her as the fog poured, cold as death, through her open windows. Yelping, she hit the brakes first, an automatic response as her vision was obscured. Instead of stopping, the little car speeded up, its cheerful rubber band pinging now a machine gun's rat-a-tat. Under her hands the wheel vibrated, iced, and began to spin on its own. Though it felt like a slick and frozen snake, she gripped it, hard, and yanked. The scream of the tires echoed her own as she caught a glimpse of the edge of the cliff.

In front of her the windshield became a starburst. Ice crackling over ice. Then the stars went black. The spoon Mia was using to stir sauce for the pasta she'd made for Lulu clattered out of her numb hand. As it bounced to the floor, the vision shrieked through her head, all sound and fury. Her throat tightened as if a hand had squeezed it as she whirled away from the stove and ran. She flew out of the house, blind with panic, racing to the road on foot. From her hilltop view, she saw the filthy mist spewing behind the  little orange car on the road below, and was running, running when she saw the car spin out of control and toward the cliff.

"No, no, no!" Fear blanked her mind, rolled sick in her stomach. "Help me. Help me." She chanted it over and over as she struggled to find her power through the sheer wall of terror.

All she had, everything she was, she gathered. And heaved the magic inside her toward the car as it crashed into the guardrail and flipped like a toy tossed by a child's angry hand.

"Hold, hold." Oh, God, she couldn't think. "Blow air, come wind, a bridge to form. Hold her safe, keep her from harm. Please, please," she chanted. "A net, a bridge, a steady wall, keep her from that terrible fall."

Panting, her vision blurred with tears, she ran the last yards to where the car teetered on the broken guardrail, over the drop to the rocks below. "It will not have what's dear to me. As I will, so mote it be."

Her voice broke as she reached the rail. "Lulu!"

The car balanced precariously on its roof, seesawing on the crushed rail. The wind she'd conjured blew the hair back from her face as she climbed over the rail.

"Don't touch it!"

Small rocks and clumps of earth spilled off the unstable edge when she spun around at the shout. Sam leaped out of his car.

"I don't know how long it can hold. I feel it slipping, inside me."

"You can hold it." He pushed his way through the wind, climbed the rail until he, too, stood on the narrow edge. "Focus. You have to focus. I'll get her out."

"No. She's mine."

"That's the point." He spent a desperate moment to take Mia's arms, shake her. The car could go at any minute, he knew. And so could the edge where they stood.

"Exactly. Hold it. You're the only one strong enough to do it. Step over the rail."

"I won't lose her!" Mia shouted. "Or you."

Her legs trembled as she climbed over the rail. Her hands shook as she lifted them. And she saw the fog begin to rise again. Saw the dark shape of the wolf forming from it. Her body stilled. Fury spiked inside her and stabbed away the fear.

"You won't have her." The hand she flung out was rock-steady now. She faced the wolf, bore the weight of the magic she called on her shoulders. "You may have me, that's up to fate. But by all I am, all I have, you won't take her."

It snarled and started toward her. It could take her life now, she thought, and so be it. Her magic would hold. She risked a glance at Sam and saw, with inner horror, that he was easing a bleeding and unconscious Lulu out of the car. And the car tipped and swayed. With a last push, she left herself open and defenseless, shoving everything toward the cliffs. And the wolf bunched to leap. As he charged, energy shot into her, out from her. It struck him like a lightning bolt. With a furious howl, he vanished into the fog.

"Didn't count on my sisters, did you? You bastard."

The wind sucked away the mist, and she saw both Ripley and Nell spring out of their cars before she turned to run toward Sam. He had Lulu in his arms. The edge of the ground crumbled under his feet and sent him stumbling forward as a chunk of the ledge rained down to the sea. Mia reached out, grabbed him as the car overbalanced and tumbled over the cliffs. He was struggling back over the rail when the gas tank exploded.

"She's alive," he managed.

"I know." She kissed Lulu's white cheek, laid a hand on her heart. "We'll take her to the clinic."

Outside the emergency clinic, where the air was quiet and the breeze balmy, Nell tended the cuts on Mia's feet.

"Got six million pair of shoes," Ripley stated while she paced, restless as a cat. "And you run barefoot over broken glass."

"Yes. Silly, isn't it?" She hadn't felt the glass slice into her feet when she'd run to the wrecked car. Under Nell's gentle healing, she felt no pain now.

"You can fall apart." Ripley's tone gentled, and she laid a hand on Mia's shoulder. "You're entitled."

"I don't need to, but thanks. She's going to be all right." Mia did close her eyes for a moment, waited until she felt steadier. "I looked at her injuries. She'll be unhappy and very pissed off about her car, but she'll be all right. I never considered, never thought she could be harmed this way. Used this way."

"Harm her, harm you," Ripley said. "That's what Mac…" She trailed off. Winced.

"Mac? What do you mean?" Despite Nell's protest, Mia got to her feet. She caught a glimmer, turned white as a sheet. "Something happened before. The beach."

Furious, she grabbed Ripley's arms. "What happened?"

"Don't blame her. Blame all of us." Nell rose, ranged herself with Ripley.

"She didn't want you to know, and we agreed."

"Know what?" Sam asked as he walked up with a tray of takeout coffee.

"How dare you keep anything to do with Lulu from me." She swung around to him, ready to bite.

"He didn't know," Nell interrupted. "We didn't tell him either."

Ripley told them now, said it all fast. And watched Mia's pale cheeks bloom with ripe temper. "She might've been killed. I left her! I left her and went to the mainland. Do you think I'd have done that if I'd known she was a target? You had no right, no right to exclude me from this."

"I'm sorry." Nell lifted her hands, let them fall. "We did what we thought was best. We were wrong."

"Not so wrong. You're going to have to deal with it, Mia," Sam added when she turned to him. "You nearly lost on the cliff road tonight because you divided your energy. Divided hell. You dumped it out and all but left yourself empty."

"Do you think I'd give less than my life to protect her, or anyone I loved?"

"No, I don't." He touched her cheek, and when she jerked away he simply moved in and took her face firmly in his hands. "And neither does she. Isn't she entitled to think of you?"

"I can't talk about this now. I need to be with her." She stepped away, walked to the door. But stopped when she opened it. "Thank you for what you did," she said to Sam. "I'll never forget it."

Later, while Mia sat beside Lulu's hospital bed, Ripley and Nell slipped into the room. For a time, there was nothing but silence.

"They want to keep her until tomorrow," Mia said at length. "Because of the concussion. She wasn't happy about it, but she's weak enough that she couldn't put up much of a fight. The arm…" She had to take a moment to steady her voice. "It's a clean break. She'll be in a cast a few weeks, but it'll be fine."

"Mia," Nell began. "We're so sorry."

"No." Mia shook her head, kept her eyes on Lulu's bruised face. "I'm calmer now, and I've thought it through. I understand what you did, and why. I don't agree. We're a circle, and we must value and respect that—and each other. But I also know how stubborn and persuasive she is."

Lulu's eyelids fluttered, and her voice was thin and raspy. "Don't talk about me like I'm not here."

"Just be quiet," Mia ordered. "I'm not speaking to you." But she took the hand Lulu held out. "Thank God you'll have to buy a new car. That mini monstrosity is finally dead."

"I'm gonna find me another one just like it."

"There couldn't be another one like it." But if there was, Mia thought, she would find it for her. "Don't give these girls or their guys a hard time," Lulu mumbled. She opened one of her blackened eyes, closed it again because her vision was blurry. "Did what I told them to do. Respected their elders."

"I'm not angry with them. Just you." Mia pressed her lips to the back of Lulu's hand. "Go on home," she said to her sisters. "Tell your husbands I won't be turning them into toads anytime in the near future."

"We'll come back in the morning." Nell moved to the bed, laid a kiss on Lulu's forehead. "I love you."

"Don't get sloppy. Just a few bumps."

"Too bad." Her voice a bit thick, Ripley leaned over the bedrail and kissed Lulu's cheek. "Because I love you, too, even though you're really short and ugly."

With a weak cackle, Lulu freed her good hand from Nell's grasp and waved them off. "Go away. Buncha chattering females."

When they'd gone, Lulu shifted in her bed.

"Pain?" Mia asked.

"Can't get comfortable."

"Here." Rising, Mia trailed her fingers over Lulu's face, down her casted arm. She murmured softly as she stroked, until Lulu sighed.

"Better'n drugs. Feel floaty now. Brings back memories."

Relieved, Mia sat again. "Go to sleep now, Lu."

"Will. You go home. No point you sitting here watching me snore."

"Yes, as soon as you sleep."

But she sat while Lulu slept, kept watch in the dim light. And she was there, keeping watch, when Lulu woke in the morning.

"You didn't have to come early."

"Zack needs to bring the patrol car." Nell helped Mia set the table and admired the lovely old china. "This time of year, there's no telling if he'll get called in for something. And I wanted to see Lulu."

"It took guilt, temper, and threats to get her to agree to spend a couple of days in one of the guest rooms. You'd think I was putting her in prison."

"She likes her own space," Nell said.

"She can have it back when she's steadier."

Nell brushed a hand over Mia's hair. "How are you?"

"I'm fine." The long night's vigil had given her plenty of time to think. To plan.

"I'd hoped I'd get here early enough to give you a hand. Not that you need it."

She studied the dining room, with its flowers and candles already in place. The window were open wide to summer.

"You can check my fricassee," Mia said as she draped an arm over Nell's shoulders. The gesture, the easy warmth of it, erased any remnants of tension between them.

"From the smell, it's perfect." When they were in the kitchen, Nell removed the lid while Mia poured two tall glasses of iced tea. "Everything's perfect."

"Well, the weather's not cooperating." Restless, Mia moved to the door, pushed open the screen and breathed in the wind. "We'll have rain after sunset. A pity. We won't be able to have coffee in the garden. Still, my morning glories have grown a foot in the last three days. Maybe the rain will tease out the blooms."

She turned back to find Nell staring at her. "What?"

"Oh, Mia, I wish you'd tell me what else is troubling you. I hate seeing you look sad."

"Do I? I'm not." She stepped outside, looked up at the sky. "I'd rather a storm than rain. We haven't had enough storms this summer. It's as if they're building up and waiting for one big blow. I want to stand on my cliffs and meet the lightning."

She reached back, covered Nell's hand. "I'm not sad, just unsettled. What happened to Lulu shook me, on the most primal of levels. And now something inside me is waiting, building, like those storms. I know what I have to do. What I will do, but I can't see what's coming. It's frustrating for me to know, and not to see."

"Maybe you're looking in the wrong place. Mia, I know what's between you and Sam. I can feel it when I'm within ten feet of you. When I fell in love with Zack and was pulled in all those directions, you were there for me. Why won't you let me do the same for you?"

"I depend on you."

"To a point. Then you step back over this line, and it's only you who can cross it. And you step over it more often since Sam came back to the Sisters."

"Then I'd have to say he has upset the balance."

"Upset your balance," Nell corrected, and waited for Mia to turn. "Are you in love with him?"

"A part of me was born loving him. I closed that part off. I had no choice."

"And that's the problem, isn't it? The not knowing if you should open it up again or keep it closed."

"I made a mistake once, and he left. I can't afford to make a mistake again, whether he stays or goes."

"You don't believe he'll stay."

"It's not a matter of believing. It's a matter of considering every possibility. If I open myself to him again, completely, what happens if he does go? I can't risk that. Not just for myself, but for all of us. Love isn't a simple thing, you know that. It's not a flower to be picked on a whim."

"No, it's not a simple thing. But believing you can control it, mold its shape, plot its direction? That you have to do that? That's a mistake."

"I don't want to love him again." Her voice, always so smooth, so sure, trembled. "I don't want it. I put those dreams aside. I don't need them now. I'm afraid to take them out again."

Saying nothing, Nell slipped her arms around Mia, drew her close. "I'm not who I was when I loved him."

"Neither of you is. What you feel now matters most."

"My feelings aren't any clearer than my vision. Before it ends, I'll do whatever needs to be done." She sighed. "I'm not used to having a shoulder to cry on."

"The shoulders are there. You're just not used to leaning."

"Maybe you're right." She closed her eyes, let herself focus on Nell and the life glowing inside her. "I can see you, little sister," she murmured. "I can see you sitting in an old wooden rocker, in a room soft with candleglow. There's a baby at your breast, and its hair is soft as down and bright as sunlight. When I see you like that, I have such hope. Such courage."

She drew back, pressed a kiss to Nell's forehead. "Your child will be safe. That I know." She heard the sound of her front door slamming. "That would be Ripley," Mia said dryly. "Not only doesn't she bother to knock, but she can't resist slamming a door. I'm going to take a tray up to Lulu. Then I think we'll have drinks and appetizers in the garden, while the weather holds."

As Mia moved inside to greet her guests, Nell thought how typical it had been. She'd begun by offering comfort, and Mia had ended by giving comfort to her. "So then this joker says, 'But, Officer, I wasn't stealing the cooler full of beer. I was just moving it.' " Ripley forked up more fricassee. "When I pointed out that that didn't explain how come he had Budweiser on his breath and three empty beer cans lying beside him in the sand, he said maybe somebody drank the beer while he was sleeping. I guess somebody poured beer into him, too, because he was half trashed and it was only three in the afternoon."

"How'd you handle it?" Zack asked her.

"Fined him for drinking in a restricted area, and littering. Cut him a break on lifting the cooler since the guys he'd lifted it from didn't want any hassles. Seeing as they'd had a cooler of beer in a restricted area to begin with."

"Imagine that." Sam shook his head. "Drinking beer on the beach."

"Rules is rules," Ripley stated adamantly.

"Absolutely. None of us ever snuck a six-pack onto the beach."

"I recall somebody copping a bottle of his father's best scotch." Zack grinned.

"And how he generously shared it with his pals. Who proceeded to get toasted."

"Speak for yourself." Ripley wagged her fork. "One pull of that stuff was enough for me. Talk about foul."

"Such a girl," her brother said.

"That may be, but I'm not the one who got creamed when we got home."

"True enough. I was eighteen," Zack recalled, "and Mom still skinned my butt."

"Then she skinned mine." The memory made Sam wince. "Jesus, that woman could terrorize me. No matter what you did, she knew about it before you'd finished doing it. And if she didn't, she'd get it out of you. She'd just stare at your face and pick away until you'd beg to confess."

"That's how it's going to be with my kids. They won't have a prayer." Ripley slanted Mac a smug look as he laid his hand over hers.

It flashed into Mia, fast and bright. "You're pregnant."

"Hey." Ripley lifted her water glass. "Nell's not the only one who can get knocked up."

"A baby!" Nell leaped out of her chair, danced around the table to throw her arms around Ripley's neck. "This is wonderful! What a way to announce it."

"I've been working on that story and segue since this afternoon."

"How about that?" With a grin a mile wide and a voice that wasn't quite steady,

Zack moved over to tug Ripley's long ponytail. "I'm going to be an uncle."

"You've got a couple of months to practice being a daddy first."

Amid the jokes and congratulations, Mia rose. She walked to Ripley, running her hands up and down Ripley's arms as she, too, got to her feet. Then Mia simply drew her in. Drew her close. Held her tight.

Emotion flooded Ripley's throat, and she turned her face into Mia's hair.

"There are two," Mia whispered.

"Two?" Ripley's jaw dropped. "Two?" It was all she could say as she pulled back.

"You mean…" Staggered, she stared down at her flat belly. "Man."

"Two what?" In the process of drinking the wine Sam had poured into his glass for a toast, Mac smiled over at his wife. Gradually the shock on her face trickled through. "Two? Twins? We've got two in there? I need to sit down."

"You need to sit down?"

"Right. We need to sit down." Mac sat, pulled her onto his lap. "Two for one. That's so cool."

"They'll be safe. I can see it." Mia leaned over, kissed Mac's cheeks. "Go on in the living room, be comfortable. I'll bring coffee. Tea for the mothers. Ripley, you'll want to cut back on the caffeine."

"Something's wrong," Sam commented when Mia walked into the kitchen.

"Something more than Lulu's weighing on her."

"She gets worked up about babies." With her hand on her stomach, Ripley tried to imagine two.

"It's more than that. I'll give her a hand with the coffee."

When he stepped into the kitchen she was standing in the open back door, watching the soft summer rain fall on her gardens. "I want to help you."

"It's no trouble."

He moved to her. "I'm not talking about the coffee. I want to help you."

"You have." She took his hand, gripped it hard for a moment. "You risked your life yesterday for someone I love. You trusted me to hold you, and her, safe so you could help her."

"I did the only thing that could be done."

"The only thing you could do, Sam. Being you."

"Let's leave that. I want to help with what's bothering you now."

"You can't. Not now, in any case. This is my battle, and now there's more at stake than ever. Everything that matters to me is inside this house tonight. And it's there, out there, wanting. Can you feel it?" she whispered. "Just beyond my circle. Pressing, shifting. Waiting."

"Yes. I don't want you staying here alone."

When she started to move away, he took her firmly by the shoulders, turned her. "Mia, whatever you think or feel or want from me, you're too smart to push aside the power I can add to yours. Are you certain that either of us could have saved Lulu alone?"

"No." She let out a breath. "No, I'm not."

"If you don't want me with you, I'll sleep in one of the guest rooms, or the goddamn sofa. You've got your dragon to guard you—and a broken arm wouldn't stop her. This isn't about me trying to get into your bed."

"I know. Let me think about it. We have other things to discuss tonight."

She could think all she liked, he decided as she walked away to finish the coffee. He was staying with her, even if he had to sleep outside in his car. She served coffee and slices of cream cake. Then she did something Nell hadn't seen her do in the time they'd known each other. Mia drew the drapes and closed out the night.

"It watches." Mia's voice was calm as she walked the room, lighting more candles. "Or tries to. My gesture was meant to be rude and dismissive. A petty slap. Petty," she continued as she sat and picked up her own coffee, "but satisfying. I owe it more than a petty slap for harming Lulu." And she would give it more. Much more.

"I have to say, the timing of this is poor. We should be celebrating Ripley and Mac's news. And we will."

She was like a queen, Sam thought. A warrior queen addressing her troops. He wasn't sure how he felt about the image. But as he focused on her, narrowed his vision on her, his belly did a queasy roll.

"Where did you go, Mia? When you left the island, where did you go?"

He saw from the quick race of surprise over her face that he'd caught her off guard. And because he had, he reached through that narrow chink and pulled out more. Pulled out enough to have him pushing to his feet.

"Remington? You went to see Remington?"

"Yes." She sipped her coffee, gathered her thoughts while the emotions in the room bulleted and careened around her.

"Oh, that's fine. That's just fine!" At the explosion from Ripley, Mia looked over at her coolly. "You're the one who's always haranguing me about being cautious, controlled. About being prepared."

"That's right. And I was. I wasn't careless or foolish."

"And I am?"

Mia lifted her shoulders in an elegant little shrug. "I'd use the word reckless, which you tend to be. Going to see him was a calculated risk, one that needed to be taken."

"You had the nerve to ream us last night for not coming clean about Lulu, then you keep this to yourself."

"Hardly," Mia said smoothly. "I'm telling you what I did, and what happened. Freely."

"You shouldn't have gone alone." Nell's voice was quiet, and all the more effective for it. "You had no right to go alone."

"I disagree. Remington's feelings toward you would have prevented any possible discussion. Ripley's temper would have very likely forced a confrontation then and there. Of the three of us, I'm most able to deal with him, and I have more need at this point to do so."

"There are four of us," Sam reminded everyone.

"There are fucking six of us." He'd said nothing to this point, but now Zack got to his feet. "You're going to start remembering there are six of us," Zack ordered Mia. "I don't care if you can shoot lightning out of your goddamn fingertips. There are six of us in this."

"Zack."

"Be quiet," he snapped at Nell and had her gaping at him.

"You think because there're two of us in this room who can't whistle up the wind or pull down the moon or whatever the hell you call it, we're just going to sit on our hands. I've got as much at stake as you do, Mia. And I'm still the sheriff on Three Sisters."

"I come from them, the same as you do." Mac drew Mia's considering gaze to him.

"I don't have what you have, but I've spent most of my life studying it. Cutting us out this way is not only insulting, it's arrogant."

"Just one more way to prove you don't need anyone else."

She made herself look directly at Sam. "That wasn't my intention. I'm sorry if that was the result. I'm sorry," she repeated, lifting her hands to encompass everyone in the room. "I wouldn't have gone to see him if I hadn't been certain I could deal with him. At that time and under those circumstances."

"Never wrong, are you?" Sam shot out.

"Oh, I've been wrong." Because the coffee lay bitter on her tongue, she set the cup aside. "But I wasn't wrong about this. He couldn't harm me." She shut off the memory of claws and cold. "Remington is being used, and his hate, his madness, is a powerful tool. There was a chance I could reach him, that with his cooperation I could close him off, shut down that source of energy. He's a conduit," she said, looking to Mac for verification. "Shut off the valve, so to speak, and the power weakens."

"It's a valid theory."

"Screw theories. What happened?" Ripley demanded.

"He's too far gone. He believes the lies, the promises. And he's damned himself. But that's a weakness, that hunger to bring pain and misery. The singularity of that purpose is innately flawed. In the end it'll destroy itself. But I think we can, and should, move that process along. After what happened yesterday, we must move it along. I won't take any chances with Lulu, and as long as it can't get to me, it will try for her."

"I think you're right about that," Mac put in. "Your feelings for her would be seen as a weakness. An Achilles' heel."

"Then we act sooner—because it's not a weakness. It's another weapon."

"A preemptive strike?" Sam suggested.

"In a manner of speaking," Mia nodded. "An offensive move rather than defensive. I've been thinking about it for some time. I know, without doubt now, that his power builds over time. There was more when I faced off with it yesterday. Why should we wait until September, give him that much more time to gather strength against us? With you and Ripley and Nell, we have the four elements represented. We have new life, a new circle inside the old—three children who carry the old blood—waiting to be born. That's powerful magic. A banishing spell with full ritual."

"The legend calls for something else," he reminded her. "It calls for you to make a choice."

"I'm aware of that. I'm aware of all the interpretations, all the nuances. All the risks and sacrifices. Our circle isn't broken, as theirs was. Our power isn't diminished, as theirs was." Her voice went steely. "By hurting Lulu it has only given me more reason to finish it, by whatever means necessary. My part comes when it comes. And a banishing ritual would be a hell of a distraction—and very possibly put an end to things. Mac?"

"You'll need the full moon," Mac added, his brow furrowing as he calculated.

"That doesn't give you much time."

Mia only smiled, but it was fierce and it was cold. "We've had three hundred years."

 

 

Chapter Nineteen

"What didn't you tell the others?"

"There's nothing more to tell." Mia sat at her dressing table, brushing her hair. She knew Sam wouldn't go, and there was no point arguing. Fruitless battles wasted energy. She intended to conserve hers for when it mattered most.

"If you thought a banishing spell would turn the tide, you'd have tried one before."

"You weren't here before."

"I've been here since May. And will there ever come a time when you don't throw that in my face?"

"You're right." She set her brush aside, rose to open the balcony doors to the sound of rain. "It's annoying and repetitive of me. And it was more effective before I forgave you."

"Have you, Mia?"

The rain was warm, wonderfully soft. And still, she longed for the storm. "I've spent some time looking back, trying to see those two young people objectively. The girl was so wrapped up in the boy, and in her visions of what she wanted their life to be, she couldn't see he wasn't ready. It wasn't that she ignored it, or overlooked it." Mia had searched her heart on that one point.

"But that she really couldn't see it. She assumed he loved as she loved, wanted what she wanted, and she never looked beyond that. What happened to them was as much her fault as his."

"No, it wasn't."

"All right. Maybe not quite as much hers, because she was as honest as she knew how to be and he wasn't. But she wasn't blameless. She held too tight. Maybe, maybe because she wasn't any more ready than he was. She just wanted to be. She was so lonely in her house on the cliff, so desperately hungry for love."

"Mia."

"You shouldn't interrupt when I'm forgiving you. I don't intend to make a habit of it. It's so weak, and so typical, to blame one's parents for the flaws and the failures of a life. And a woman of thirty should certainly have come around to making her own flaws and failures—and triumphs."

She had thought about that, too, very long and very hard in her time away. "But for the sake of that young girl, we'll point the finger. She was young enough to deserve to assign the blame somewhere else."

She walked back to the dressing table, absently opened a little cobalt pot, dipped her fingers in and rubbed the cream over her hands. "They never loved me. That's sad and that's painful, but more, they never cared that I loved them. So what was I to do with all that love just burning inside me? There was Lulu, thank the goddess. But I had so much more to give. And there you were. Poor sad-looking Sam. I heaped my love on you until you must have felt buried in it."

"I wanted you to love me. I needed it. And you."

"But not so I had us settled in a little cottage with three children and the faithful family dog." She said it lightly, though it cost her to dismiss that sweet and pretty image. "I can't blame you for that. I can still blame you for the way you ended it—so abrupt, so harsh. But even that… You were very young."

"I'll regret for the rest of my life the way I ended it. Regret that the only way I thought I could save myself was to hurt you."

"Youth is often cruel."

"I was. I told you I was done with you and this place. That I wouldn't be trapped anymore. That I wasn't coming back. I wasn't ever coming back. You just looked at me, with tears running down your face. You so rarely cry. It panicked me, so I was only more cruel. I'm sorry for it."

"I believe you are. I'd like to think that eventually we could put that part of our life where it belongs. In the past."

"I need to tell you why I waited so long to come back."

She retreated without moving a step. "That's the past, too."

"No, I want you to know that when I said I wasn't coming back, I meant it. That need to be away, to breathe some other air, pushed me through those first years. Every time I thought of you, waking or sleeping, I slammed the door shut. Then one day I found myself standing in that cave on the west coast of Ireland."

He wandered to her dressing table, picked up her brush. Just turned it over and over in his hand. "Everything I felt for you, the joy of it, the fear of it, came rushing back into me. But I wasn't a boy anymore, and those feelings weren't a boy's."

He set her brush down, looked at her. "And I knew I was coming back. That was five years ago, Mia."

It left her shaken, caused her to carefully control her thoughts, her voice. "You took your time."

"I wasn't coming back, to you, to this island, the way I'd left. Thaddeus Logan's son. That Logan boy. I'd carried that around like a goddamn chain around my neck, and I was going to break it. I needed to make something of myself. For me. And for you. No, let me finish," he said when she started to speak. "You had all the dreams before, all the goals, all the answers. Now I had my own. The hotel isn't just a piece of real estate to me."

"I know that."

"Maybe you do." He nodded. "Maybe you would. It was mine, always, part symbol, part passion. I needed to prove I was coming back here with more than a name and a birthright. I started to come back countless times in the last five years, and every time I did, something stopped me. I don't know if it was my own doing or a shove from fate. But I do know that before this, it wasn't my time."

"You always had more than a name and a birthright. But maybe you could never see it before."

"That brings us to now."

"Now, I need time to consider if the step I take is my own, or a shove from fate. You're welcome to sleep here. I need to check on Lulu. Then I want to spend some time up in the tower before I go to bed."

Frustration pushed through him again, had him balling his fists in his pockets. "I'm asking for a chance to prove to you that you can trust me again, that you can love me again. I want you to live with me, be with me knowing that whatever else I might do or not do, I'll never deliberately hurt you again. You're not giving me a lot of room."

"I can promise you this. After the full moon, after the ritual, that will change. I don't want to be at odds with you. We can't afford to be."

"There's something else." He took her arm as she started past him. "There's more."

"I can't give it to you now." Her fingers itched to push his hand off her arm before he pushed too hard, saw too much. Timing, she thought, would be an essential element. She resisted, and met his gaze levelly. "You want me to trust and believe in you. Then you have to trust and believe in me."

"I will, if you'll promise me you won't do anything that could put you in jeopardy, without your circle, without me."

"When it comes to the sticking point, I'll need my circle. That includes you."

"All right." If that was all, he would settle for it. For now. "Can I use your library?"

"Help yourself."

When she was sure Lulu was sleeping comfortably, Mia went up to the widow's walk to stand outside in the soft rain. She could see, from that height, everything that was hers. And the dark that pressed against her borders, breathing cold against her warmth so the steam rose up in fitful spurts. Almost absently, she lifted a hand skyward, let the power tremble up her arm. She plucked a lightning bolt out of the night, hurled it like a lance through a puff of steam. Then she spun away and slipped inside, into her tower.

She cast the circle, lighted candles and incense. She would seek a vision, but wanted no whisper of it to leak outside that ring. What was in her heart and mind could be used against her, and against those she loved. She ate the herbs, drank from the chalice, and kneeling in the circle, at the center of a pentagram, she cleared her mind. She opened her third eye.

The storm that she had sensed burst over the island, and despite the gales of wind, the land was blanketed in a thin gray fog. The sea lashed at the base of her cliffs as she flew over them, through the driving rain, the strikes of lightning, and over the fog that spread and thickened. In the clearing at the heart of the Sisters was her circle. Their hands were linked, and hers with them. The greedy fog licked and lapped at the edges of the ring, but crept no further.

Safe, she thought as she knelt in her tower. Safe and strong. She could feel the rumble of the earth below, the rumble of the sky above. And her own heartbeat where she knelt, and where she saw herself. They called, in turn. Earth, air, water, fire. Power was rich. Rising up, streaking out. Though it tore at the fog, those mists reknit themselves. Out of them stalked the wolf that bore her mark. When it leaped, she was alone on her cliffs. She saw the red eyes burning.

She heard her own voice cry out—despair and triumph—as she wrapped her arms around it. And took it with her off the cliffs. As she fell she saw the moon, full and white, break through the storm and, with the fire of stars, shine over the island. In her tower, she knelt on the floor, her eyes blurred with visions, her heart pounding.

"You give me this only to take it away? Is there a price for the gift, after all? You would have let the innocent be harmed, the mother of my heart? Does it all come down to blood?"

She slid to the floor, curled in the circle. For the first and last time in her life, she cursed the gift.

"She's holding something back." Sam paced the kitchen in the house where he'd grown up. "I know it."

"Maybe she is." Mac pushed through the documents spread over the kitchen table.

They'd been his breakfast companion until Sam had shown up. "Something started bugging me last night, but I can't put my finger on it. I've been going through everything I have on Three Sisters: the island, the women, the descendants. I've read over my own ancestor's journal. I feel like I'm missing something. Some angle. Some, what was the word Mia used? Interpretation."

Sam pushed the bag he'd brought with him over the table. "You can add these to your research pile, at least until she realizes I pulled them out of her library."

"I've been meaning to get to these anyway." Carefully, reverently, Mac took an old and scarred leather book out of the bag. "Mia gave me the go-ahead to scour her books."

"Then we'll use that when she gets pissy about me hauling them over here. I'm going to talk to Zack." Sam jingled change in his pockets and paced again.

"The Todds have been on the island as long as anyone can remember, and he's had his finger on the pulse of things all along. Maybe if I can think of the right questions, he'll have the right answers."

"We've got just over a week until the full moon."

"Start cramming, Professor." Sam checked his watch. "I've got to get to work. You come up with anything, let me know."

Mac grunted his assent, already absorbed in the first book. Instead of going to his car, Sam followed the urge and walked down to the beach, heading toward the cave. There had always been something pulling him there, even before Mia. As a little boy he'd slipped away from his mother or his nanny and wandered there. Even if it had been only to curl up and sleep. He could still remember the time—he had been only three—when the police had been called to search for him. Zack's father had rooted him out, scooping him out of a dream where he'd slept in the arms of a beautiful woman with red hair and gray eyes.

She'd sung to him in Gaelic, a story-song about a handsome silkie who had loved a witch, then had left her for the sea. He'd understood her words, and the language of her song had become his own. When he was older, he and his friends had played inside the cave, used it as a fort, a submarine, a den of thieves. Still, he'd often gone in alone, sneaking out of the house after bedtime to stretch out on the floor, make a fire with a thought, and watch the flames play on the walls.

As he'd grown from child to boy, the woman had come to his dreams less often, and less clearly. But he'd seen her in Mia. The two images had blurred in his mind until there had been only Mia. He stepped into the cave and could smell her. No, he corrected, fascinated. He could smell them both. The soft, herbal scent of the woman who had sung to him, and the deeper, richer scent of the woman he loved.

Mother, Mia had called her the night they'd seen her carry the pelt from this place. With the warmth of affection, the formality of respect, she had addressed the vision as though they had met many times before.

He supposed, though she'd never told him—even when she had seemed to tell him everything—that they had. He crouched, studying the smooth cave floor where he had seen the man curled in sleep.

"You had my face," he said aloud. "Just as she had Mia's. Once I let myself believe that meant we weren't supposed to be together. It was one of my many excuses. You left. I left. But I came back."

He shifted, reading the words he had carved into the stone so long ago. As he read, he reached under his shirt to pull out the chain he wore. His foot tapped against something and sent it clinking against the stone. With one hand closed around the ring he wore on the chain, he picked up its mate. The smaller ring was badly tarnished, but he could feel the carving that circled it. The same Celtic knot pattern that circled the one he'd found in the cave on the west coast of Ireland. The same pattern as the design Mia had etched under the promise he'd carved in stone.

Gently, he closed his fingers over the ring and brought out a dimly remembered spell suited to housewives. When he opened his hand again, the little ring gleamed silver. He studied it for a long time, then slid it onto the chain with its mate.

In her office, Mia printed out e-mail orders, set them aside to fill, then efficiently began on the paperwork generated during her brief absence. She'd used the backlog as a legitimate excuse to leave the house early. Though, she recalled, Sam hadn't seemed eager to keep her around. By nine, she'd made considerable progress, and stopped to make her first phone call. She needed to see her lawyer at the first opportunity and make a few adjustments to her will. She told herself she wasn't being fatalistic, just practical. From her satchel she took some of the personal papers she'd brought from home. Her partnership agreement with Nell in Three Sisters Catering was in order. But she intended to leave Ripley her share, should anything happen. She thought Nell would appreciate that.

As the will stood now, the bookstore went outright to Lulu, but she'd decided to change that and designate a percentage to Nell. Lulu, she had no doubt, would approve. And she intended to start a small trust fund for her sisters' children, including the deed for the yellow cottage. It was something she would do in any case.

She would leave her library to Mac, as he would make the best use of it. For Zack there was her star collection, and her great-grandfather's watch. It was the sort of thing one left to a brother. She would leave the house to Sam. She could trust him to preserve it, to see that her garden was tended. And to guard the heart of the island. She put the papers in her bottom drawer, locked it. She didn't intend for any of these arrangements to be necessary anytime soon. But she strongly believed in being prepared.

She gathered up the printouts, took them downstairs to fill the orders. And she got on with the day, and her life.

"Something is just not right."

"Yeah," Ripley agreed. "There are too many people on the beach, and half of them are idiots."

"Seriously, Ripley. I'm really worried about Mia. We only have a couple of days before the full moon."

"I know what day of the month it is. Look at that guy there, on the Mickey Mouse towel. Frying like a fish in a pan. Bet he's from Indiana or someplace and hasn't seen a beach before. Give me a minute here."

She marched across the sand, nudged the brilliantly pink man with her toe. Nell waited, shifting from foot to foot while Ripley launched into her lecture, pointed skyward, leaned down and poked a finger in the man's shoulder, as if testing doneness. As she marched back, the man dug out sunscreen and began slathering it on.

"My public service for the week. Now, about Mia—"

"She's too calm. She's breezing along like it's business as usual. She came to the book club meeting last night. She's in there right now checking inventory.

We're doing the biggest spell I've ever done in a matter of days, and she just pats me on the head and tells me it'll be fine."

"She's always had ice water for blood. What's new?"

"Ripley."

"All right, all right." With a huff of breath, Ripley marched along the seawall to finish her beach patrol. "I'm worried, too. Satisfied? And if I wasn't, Mac's twitchy enough for both of us. He's buried himself in research, spends hours making notes. He thinks Mia has something going on that she's not telling us."

"So do I."

"That makes three of us. I don't know what the hell we're supposed to do about it."

"Zack and I have talked about it. We could confront her. All of us, at one time."

"What, like an intervention? Come on. You couldn't crack that woman with a sledgehammer. I wish I didn't like that about her."

"I had another idea. I thought that between the two of us, we could…well, if we were linked, we could get through this shield she's thrown up and see what she's thinking."

"You're talking about prying into her private thoughts, against her express wishes?"

"Yes. Forget I said it. It's rude and intrusive and sneaky."

"Yeah, that's why I like it. Great idea. I can take an hour…" She checked her watch. "Right now. Your place is closer."

Twenty minutes later, Ripley lay back on the floor of Nell's living room, panting and sweating. "God! She is such a bitch. You've got to admire that."

"It's like trying to cut through concrete with a toothpick." Nell swiped her forearm over her brow. "It shouldn't be this hard."

"She figured we might try it. She was ready for us. Man, she is good. And she's got something to hide." Ripley wiped her damp palms on her slacks. "Now I'm seriously worried. Let's tap Sam."

"We can't. Whatever she's protecting probably has to do with him. It wouldn't be right. Ripley, she loves him."

Staring at the ceiling, Ripley tapped her fingers over her stomach. "If that's her choice—"

"She hasn't made her choice. At least that she's letting on. She loves him, but as far as I can tell, it isn't making her happy."

"She never could be simple. You know what I think? I think she's going to go for it during the banishment spell. A double whammy. She's already made her decision, Nell. She doesn't do anything spur of the moment."

"Ripley, she said our babies would be safe."

"That's right."

"She never said she would be."

Sam loosened his tie as he watched Mac circle the outside of the cottage with one of his handheld gadgets. Every so often, Mac would detour, crouch, mutter. "He puts on a real show, doesn't he?" At Sam's side, Ripley rocked back on her heels. "Since Mac's big production, he's been doing this check at our place, and at Lulu's, twice a day."

"What's all this about, Rip?" Sam had come straight from one meeting into what appeared to be another. Zack and Nell were due any minute. "Why are we doing whatever it is we're going to be doing without Mia?"

"This is Mac's deal. I've only got pieces of it." She cocked her head as Mac started back toward them. "Okay, Dr. Booke, what's the story?"

"You keep this place tight," he said to Sam. "Good job."

"Thanks, Doc. Now what the hell is this about?"

"Let's wait for the others. I've got to get some stuff out of the car. Is Mia expecting you anytime soon?"

"I don't punch a time clock." Noting the easy humor that passed between his friends at the statement, Sam set his teeth. "Look, she'll be on her way home shortly. Lulu, who must've passed stubbornness on to Mia through osmosis, has moved back to her own place. I don't like Mia being alone for long."

"We'll get you off to play house," Ripley began, then saw the icy temper on Sam's face. "Hey, hey. Easy, Sam. We're on the same team, remember?"

"It's hot out here." With that, Sam turned and strode into the house.

"Edgy," Ripley said as he passed.

"Who isn't? Here come Nell and Zack. Let's get started."

Within ten minutes, Sam found his little cottage taken over. Nell, obviously anticipating the state of his supplies, had brought cookies and a cooler of iced tea. She managed to set it all up like a party even as Mac spread his notes and books over the table.

"Nell, would you sit down?" Zack tugged her toward a chair. "Get the kid off his feet for five minutes."

"Hey, I've got double." Ripley boosted herself onto the kitchen counter, snagged a cookie. "So, I'll start. Nell and I decided to do a little spying yesterday—"

"It wasn't spying."

"It would've been," Ripley said, "if we'd pulled it off. But we couldn't. Mia's totally blocked. She's got herself locked up like a vault."

"And you think this is news?" Sam asked.

"She's got something going on in that prissy brain of hers that she doesn't want anyone to know," Ripley continued. "It's irritating, but more, it's got us worried."

"She's worked out what she's going to do."

"I think you're right about that," Mac said to Sam. "The other night when we were together, she said something about knowing all the aspects, the interpretations. It got me thinking. On the surface, it's pretty cut and dried. Her task, let's call it, deals with love. Love without boundaries. We can take that to mean she's meant to love that way, or to let go, freely, of an attachment that restricted her. Sorry," he added.

"We've been through this before."

"Yeah, but what seems cut and dried rarely is. The first sister, her counterpart, trapped the man she loved. You take a silkie's pelt, you bind him to the land and to you. They had a life together, a family. But his feelings for her were a result of magic, not free will. When he found his pelt, he reverted, left her."

"He couldn't stay," Sam put in.

"No argument. Now, a possible interpretation is that Mia is required to find a love without boundaries. One that comes to her without qualification or magic. That just is what it is."

"I'm in love with her. I've told her."

"She has to believe you." Zack laid a hand on Sam's shoulder. "And either accept or let you go."

"But that's not the only interpretation. You need to follow along here." Mac picked up one of the old books, opened it to a section he had marked.

"This is a history of the island, written in the early seventeen hundreds, that used documents I've never seen. If Mia has those documents, you didn't get them from the library."

"She wouldn't keep them there." Worry clouded Sam's gaze. "She'd probably have them in her tower."

"I'd like to see them, but for our purposes, this is enough. It goes into the legend in some detail," Mac continued. "I'm going to hit the highlights."

He adjusted his glasses, skimmed down the yellowed page. " 'By magic it was formed, by magic it will thrive or perish. So the choices of the circle deem life or death, one times three. Blood of their blood, hand of their hand. The three who live must face the dark, each to her own.

" 'And Air must find her courage. To turn from what would destroy her or to stand against it.' You did both," Mac said to Nell. " 'When she will see herself, give herself for what she loves, the circle is unbroken. So Earth will seek her justice, without blade or lance. To shed no blood but her own in defense of what she is, and all she loves.' "

Ripley turned her hand palm up and studied the thin scar that slashed across it. "I guess we pulled that one off."

"You had a choice." Mac turned to her. "More of a choice than we'd realized. 'And when her justice is meted with compassion, the circle is unbroken. Thus Fire must look into her heart, open it and leave it bare. To see love with no boundaries and offer for what she holds dear, life. When her heart is free, the circle is unbroken. The power of the Three will join, will hold. Four elements rise and end the Dark.' "

"Sacrifice? Her life?" Sam surged forward. "She can sacrifice her life?"

"Hang on." Zack clamped his hands on Sam's shoulders. "Is that how you're reading this, Mac?"

"You could interpret this that any one of them could have given her life, for the others. For us. For courage, for justice, for love. This book came out of Mia's library, so it's an option she's aware of. The question is, is it one she would consider?"

"Yes." Pale now, Nell looked at Ripley. "We all would have."

Ripley nodded. "If she thinks it's the only way. But she wouldn't." Uneasy, she pushed herself off the counter. "She would pit her power against anyone or anything."

"It's not enough." Sam fisted his hands as if he could clamp the fury and fear inside them. "Not close to enough. I'm not standing back while she considers dying to save a few square miles of dirt. We're going to put a stop to this."

"You know better." As her nerves built, Ripley yanked off her cap. "You can't stop what's been in motion for centuries. I tried, and it ran right over me."

"Your life's not on the line, is it?"

If she'd seen only anger, she might have snapped back at him. But she saw fear as well. "What do you say we both take it out on Mia after this is done?"

"Deal." He gave her shoulders a squeeze, then dropped his hands. "There's no point in confronting her about this: We won't budge her. Dragging her bodily off the island won't change anything. The last step has to be taken, and it's best that it be taken here. It's meant to be taken here. With all of us."

"Center of power," Mac agreed. "Her center, her circle. Her power's the most refined, and it's the strongest. But that leads me to conclude that what's going to come against her will build its power to match."

"There are more of us now," Nell pointed out. She reached out a hand for her husband's, laid the other on her belly. "Linked, our energy is formidable."

"There are other sources of power." Sam nodded as the idea formed. "We use them. All of them."

His mind was clear, his thoughts controlled when he walked into the house on the cliff. Mia wasn't the only one who could block. He found her in the garden, calmly sipping a glass of wine while a butterfly fluttered in the palm of her outstretched hand.

"Now that's a picture," he said as he kissed the top of her head, then sat across from her. "How was your day?"

She said nothing for a moment, studied his face, sipped her wine. What was inside her yearned under the steel of her will. "Busy, productive. Yours?"

"The same. Some kid stuck his head through the iron pickets on one of the balconies. He took it pretty well, but his mother screamed the roof off and wanted us to cut through. As there was no way I was damaging a centuries-old rail, I was about to flick him free with a quick spell. The housekeeper beat me to it. Slathered his head with baby oil and popped him out like a cork."

She smiled, and was obliging enough to hand him her wine for a sip. But her eyes were watchful, wary. "I imagine he enjoyed the entire thing. Sam, I noticed some of my books are missing from the library."

"Mmm?" He held out a finger so the butterfly on her palm flew gracefully to him, perched. "You said I could use the library."

"Where are the books?"

He passed the wine and the butterfly back to her. "I spent some time looking through some of them, thinking I might find some fresh angle on this whole business."

"Oh." A chill shivered around her heart. "And?"

"Never claimed to be a scholar," he said with a shrug. "I mentioned it to Mac in passing, and he asked if he could borrow them. I didn't think you'd mind."

"I'd prefer that the books stay in the house."

"Oh. Well, I'll get them back. You know, sitting out here with you like this feels… perfect. And every time I look at you, my heart rolls over in my chest. That feels perfect, too. I love you, Mia."

Her lashes lowered. "I should do something about dinner."

When she rose, he took her hand. "I'll help you." He kept his fingers linked with hers as he got to his feet. "There's no need for you to do all the work."

Don't touch me, she thought. Not yet. Not now. "I'm better… in the kitchen, by myself."

"Make room," he suggested. "I'm not going anywhere."

 

 

Chapter Twenty

He had something on his mind, Mia was sure of it. He was too damn pleasant, attentive, considerate. If she hadn't known better, she might have wondered if someone had put a good-nature spell on him. As ridiculous as it was, even to herself, she preferred him with his edge on. At least then she knew what to expect. Still she didn't have the time to dig below the surface, couldn't risk him digging below hers. And had she the time, she couldn't spare the energy. She was stockpiling power like blue-chip stocks. She was resolved, she was prepared, and she was as confident as she could manage. When nerves trickled in, she used them. When doubts crept close, she swept them aside.

On the day of the full moon, she rose at dawn. She'd wanted, almost painfully wanted, to roll over into Sam, and his warmth. Just to have his arms come around her as they sometimes did in sleep. They'd done nothing but sleep together, in the most innocent sense, since the night in the cottage. He hadn't questioned her on this, nor had he tried to seduce her. The fact that she found his cooperation mildly insulting only caused her to become annoyed with herself.

It had been she who, more than once, had nearly turned to him in the night, when her mind was soft with dreams and her body aching with needs. But on this most vital of mornings, she left him sleeping and stood on her cliffs. Here she gathered fire from the rising sun, and strength from the crashing sea. Arms spread, she drank power, and gave thanks for the gift. When she turned, she saw him on the bedroom balcony, watching her. Their gazes locked, and held. Light sparked between them. With her hair blowing in the wind, she walked back to the house, and ignored the black-edged fog crawling along the edges of her world.

She went to the bookstore for her own peace of mind. It was something she'd built through sweat and dreams. Despite her broken arm, Lulu was back to manning the counter. Since there'd been no stopping her, Mia hadn't bother to argue. And she had to admit, the work—and the visits from neighbors and friends—seemed to keep Lulu in good spirits. Still, Mia had hoped she would ease back to work rather than leaping. Because business was unusually brisk, she didn't have the opportunity she'd wanted to spend time with Lulu—to fuss over her without seeming to fuss. But it seemed that every second person who lived on the island found a reason to stop in and spend time with her.

By noon the café was jammed, and she couldn't pass by without someone calling her over for a word. To escape long enough to catch her breath, Mia slipped into the kitchen, snagged a bottle of water from the refrigerator.

"Hester Birmingham just told me Ben and Jerry's ice cream is on special this week."

"Two of my favorite men," Nell responded as she built a grilled chicken and Brie sandwich to go with the soup special.

"She was pretty damn intense about it. I thought she'd burst into tears any minute."

"Some of us take our ice cream seriously. Why don't I get some? We can make sundaes tonight… after."

"Fine. I'm glad you're not worried about tonight." Mia walked over to give Nell's back a quick rub. "You have everything you need. Tomorrow, it'll be over. No shadows."

"I believe that. But you have to let me worry about you a little."

"Little sister." Mia rested her cheek on Nell's hair, just for a moment. "I love you. Now I'm going to get out of here. I still have things I need to do, and all I'm getting accomplished here today is socializing. I'll see you tonight."

As she hurried out, Nell closed her eyes. And prayed. It wasn't, Mia discovered, a simple matter to leave. By the time she managed to get to her office, retrieve the papers she'd locked there, and make her way downstairs, an hour had been eaten up.

"Lulu. Two minutes," she said, gesturing to the back room.

"I'm busy here."

"Two minutes," Mia repeated and went inside.

"I don't have time to lollygag, and I don't need another break." With her face scrunched in disapproval, Lulu clomped into the room. Her cast was covered with colorful signatures, and a few lewd illustrations. "I've got customers."

"So I see. I'm sorry, I need to go home."

"It's the middle of the damn day. Might remind you, I'm down to one arm instead of my usual six."

"I'm sorry." A well of emotion rose in her throat, thickened her voice before she could swallow it again. This was the woman who'd been mother, father, friend. The only constant in her life other than her own gift. And more precious than magic.

"You sick or something?" Lulu demanded.

"No. No, I'm fine. We can close the store for the rest of the day. I don't want you to overdo."

"I'll be damned if we're closing. If you want to play hooky, go ahead. I'm not a damned invalid, and I know how to run the shop."

"I know. I'll make it up to you."

"Damn right you will. I'll take an afternoon off next week, and you can stay in the trenches."

"That's a deal. Thanks." Careful of the broken arm, Mia hugged her, then unable to help herself, pressed her face into Lulu's hair. "Thank you."

"If I'd known you'd get so worked up about it, I'd have taken two afternoons off. Go on if you're going."

"I love you, Lu. I'm going."

She hitched her satchel on her shoulder and, rushing out, didn't see the tears swim into Lulu's eyes or hear her sniff them back. And when she was sure Mia wouldn't hear, she whispered, "Blessed be, baby girl."

"Everything in order, Mrs. Farley?"

"It is."

Sam nodded. "I appreciate your help. I'm going to have to leave matters in your capable hands."

"Sir… Sam," she amended. "You were an interesting boy, and a good one, all in all. You're a better man."

"I—" Words failed him. "Thank you. I have to get home."

"Have a good evening."

"It's going to be one for the books," he predicted as he walked out of his office.

There were things he needed at the cottage. Tools of his own that he hadn't taken to Mia's. He packed them—his oldest athame and ritual sword, the old jar where he kept his sea salt. He changed into a dark shirt and jeans, deciding to take the black robe with him rather than driving in it. He wrapped a favored wand in silk. All of this he placed in a carved wooden box that had been in his family for generations. Rather than an amulet or pendant, he wore the two silver rings on a chain. Before he walked to his car, he stopped to look back at the house, and the woods that ran beside it. His protection would hold. He refused to believe otherwise.

He could feel the simmer of his own power as he crossed the edge of his charm and stepped clear of it into the street. The force struck him, a full body blow that lifted him off his feet, sent him flying back. His body slammed into the ground, and a thousand black stars spun inside his head.

"It'll take you an hour to set up all this equipment," Ripley complained as Mac loaded the last of it into the back of his Land Rover.

"No, it won't."

"You always say that."

"I probably won't need it all, but I'm not taking any chances. This promises to be one of the biggest paranormal events in recorded history. There." He slammed the cargo door. "Ready?"

"I've been ready. Let's get—"

He watched, stupefied, as her eyes rolled back in her head and her hands clawed at her own throat while she choked for breath. Nell waited while Zack put the bag holding her tools in the car. "This is going to work," she told him. "Mia's been working toward this all her life."

"Doesn't hurt to have backup."

"No, and Sam's idea wasn't just brilliant, it speaks to the purpose of the island as well."

He hefted the cooler holding the ice cream and the makings for sundaes. "I believe that. But it gives me some trouble knowing Remington's gone catatonic. My contact said it was like pulling a switch. He just went blank."

"He's being used. I can feel sorry for him, opening himself to what will, without question, destroy him."

"What's in him wants you, Nell."

"No." She touched Zack's arm. The man who'd once been her husband, and her terror, held no more fear for her. "What's in him now wants everything, and Mia most of all."

She started to turn to the car door, then with a shocked cry, doubled over. "What is it? Nell?"

"Cramps. God, the baby!"

"Hold on. Just hold on." He swept her into his arms, fighting against panic as he saw the pain on her face. "I'll get you to the doctor. It's going to be okay."

"No, no, no." Pressing her face into his shoulder, she struggled against both pain and terror. "Wait. Just wait."

"Not for a second." He yanked open the door, would have set her inside, but she clung like a burr.

"It's not real. It's not real. Mia said the baby would be safe. She was sure of it. This is not real." She dug down, found the power beneath the fear. "It's an illusion, to keep us away. To keep us from making the circle." She let out a long, shaky breath, and when she looked at Zack again, her skin glowed.

"It's a lie," she said. "We have to get to Mia."

She went to her cliffs first, stood with her robe, white as the moon that had yet to rise, billowing. She could feel the dark pressing, its edge ice-cold, blade-sharp. She watched, calm, as the fog rolled in over the sea and began, foot by foot, to spread over the island. However fiercely she'd guarded her thoughts, it understood one point. Tonight was the battle for all.

"So mote it be," she murmured, and turning away, walked into the long shadows and dying light of the forest. The fog closed around her. Cold and full of whispers. It made her want to run. She could feel it, horrid little fingers tickling along her skin. A kind of tease. She heard the long, low howl of a wolf, and the sound was almost a laugh. Panic leaked through her shield of will as the fog crept hideously beneath the skirt of her robe.

On a sound of disgust, she slapped at it, driving it back from the path, though she knew she scattered some of her carefully hoarded energy in doing so. Her pulse raging, she walked to the clearing. To the heart, to wait for her circle. It would not be so easy, she thought, and pulled her emotions back. She imagined them, bright and dark, coalescing into one narrow beam buried in her heart. Not so easy to harm what she loved, to use that love to destroy. She would protect. And she would win.

Nell came first, running through the woods with Zack to throw her arms around Mia. "You're all right!"

"Yes." Gently Mia drew Nell back. "What happened?"

"It tried to stop us. Mia, it's very close."

"I know." She took both of Nell's hands. Gripped tight. "You and yours won't be harmed. We need to start. The sun's nearly set."

She released Nell, opened her arms, and the candles she had set around the clearing burst into light. "It wants the dark," she said, then turned as Ripley stepped into the clearing.

"The son of a bitch thought he could scare me away." She laid down her bag of tools as Mac hauled in the first load of his equipment. "It's time we showed the bastard who he's dealing with."

"I could use a hand with some of my stuff," Mac said.

"You don't have much time," Mia told him.

"Time enough." Sam walked in, hefting one of Mac's monitors and his own carved box.

Mia crossed to him, touched a fingertip to the corner of his mouth. "You're bleeding."

"Sucker punched me." He wiped at the blood with the back of his hand. "I owe him one."

"Then let's fight." Ripley reached into her bag and drew out her ritual sword.

For the first time in days, Mia laughed and meant it. "You never change. This place is sacred. It is the heart. Circle within circle within circle protects all from cold and dark. Here where stood the sisters three I will meet my destiny." As she spoke, she walked the edges of the clearing, her bare feet inches from the bubbling fog.

"Once this circle has been cast, the bond we form will ever last."

"That's not the opening for the banishing ritual," Sam said, but she ignored him and continued.

"The setting sun gives me its fire, and the moon will rise higher and higher."

She picked up a jar and spread a ring of sea salt around the husbands of her sisters. "One is three and three is one, through our blood the web was spun. What is dark and wears my mark will bear it for eternity. As I will, so mote it be."

She lifted her arms and called the thunder. "Cast the next circle," she said, and looked at Sam. "I know what I'm doing."

"So do I."

Mac studied his gauges as the circle was cast. "As far as I can follow this, by casting this outer circle, around the clearing, by herself, she's focusing the negative force on her. Even when she's linked with the others, she's the target."

"Sam called that one," Zack replied.

"That's right. She circled us with the sea salt as a second defense. Her plan is for us to stay inside the protective ring, whatever happens."

"In a pig's eye," Zack stated.

"You got that right, too. Power's building." He could feel it.

Around the circle, light shimmered, deep gold. With the tips of blades, each scribed their symbols in the ground. The first chant rose with the moon. "Air and earth and fire and water, mother to son, and son to daughter. Through our blood we claim the right to call the power from the night. Under the light of the Moon of Mead, we ask to be given what we need. We seek the light, we seek the sight."

Nell lifted her arms. "From Air I come, of Air I call. I bring the wind to rise and fall. To sweep away what seeks to harm, I bring to bear all magic, all charm. I am Air and she is me. As I will, so mote it be."

And while the wind rose up to roar, Ripley lifted her arms. "From Earth I come, of Earth I entreat. Quake and quiver below my feet. The dark what's mine will swallow, and none his fall will follow. I am Earth and she is me. As I will, so mote it be."

The earth trembled.

"From Water I come." Sam spread his arms high. "Of Water I cry. Pour from the sea, flood from the sky. To wash clean this isle of light and protect it from the hound of night. I am Water, and he is me. As I will, so mote it be."

As the rain lashed them, Mia threw back her head. "From Fire I come, of Fire I yearn. Spark and flame and cleanly burn. To purge this beast who hunts for blood, and from him shield what I have loved. I am Fire, and she is me. As I will, so mote it be."

Lightning flamed across the sky, spewed up from the ground. It roared in the air and sparked like diamonds on the rain. The storm broke like a fury, spinning a whirlwind out from the clearing and through the forest.

"My equipment can't measure it," Mac called out over the explosions of thunder. "I can't get a clear reading."

Beside him, Zack drew his weapon. "You don't need one. It's howling. The wolf. And it's getting closer."

Within the circle, the four linked hands. With the moon beaming like a beacon through the storm, Mia drew Nell's hand over to Sam's. And made them three.

"Twice the Three have stopped your breath. I alone am left to test. Tonight I stand and challenge you. Come from the dark and do what you will do. My fate within my own hands rests. Which one of us will meet our death? You have come to your last hour. Come and face this witch's power."

She stepped through the fire of her own making, and out of the circle. The black wolf formed out of the fog and snarled at the edge of the clearing. Even as she moved forward, Sam lifted his ritual sword. A wild blue light speared from the tip as he spun out, using his body to shield hers.

"No." A trickle of panic cut through her fierce control, and the light around the clearing wavered. "This isn't yours."

"You're mine. I'll go to hell with him before he hurts you. Get back in the circle."

She stared at him, and even as the wolf took the first testing step into the clearing, her panic receded. Her power built from the heart, and spread through her.

"I won't lose," she said quietly. "I can't." With her destiny bright in her mind, she ran from the clearing with the wolf leaping after her.

It would end where she chose to end it. Of that she was certain. She flew through the woods, the heat of her body cutting through the icy fog that covered ground and path and stung the swirling air. What pursued her screamed with greed. She knew every twist of the path, every rise of the earth, and ran through the storm-wracked night, an arrow with the target already in sight. She broke out of the woods and raced unerringly for the cliffs rising slick and black from the stinking mist. Gathering, she hurled power behind her to gain the time she needed, and heard the cry of pain and outrage. And felt, beneath it, the sly pleasure.

She was beyond her circle. Separated and alone. And standing now on the cliffs where the one who was Fire had made her last choice. Behind her was the roaring sea, below her the unforgiving rocks. Trapped. She heard the whisper in her head. Stand, and be ripped to pieces. Step back, step off, and escape. Breathless from the run and what was building inside her, she inched back. Wind snatched at the wet hem of her robe, and the slippery rocks beneath her trembled and shook.

The island was coated with fog, smothered with its weight. But that she'd anticipated. She saw one clear circle at the edge of the village where the light beamed like a thousand candles. That she hadn't anticipated, nor the rush of energy that streamed from it, and into her like love. She wrapped it close, shielded it with her own power, and watched the wolf climb slowly up the cliffs. Stalk me, she thought. Yes, come closer. I've waited for this all my life.

It bared its teeth and rose, like a man, on its hind legs. Fear me. For I am your death. I bring you pain. A black bolt spilled out of the sky and scorched the rock at her feet. She inched back and saw the triumph gleam in those red eyes.

"I'm not done," she said coolly, and hurled a stream of fire at him.

It was what Sam saw when he tore out of the trees. Mia standing on the edge of the cliff, her white robe shining like silver, her hair flying in the wind, while the monstrous black form rose over her. Fire burst around them, and smoke spewed thick. Out of the turbulent sky, spears of light fell like flaming rain. His cry was more of fury than fear as, with his sword sizzling like lightning, he charged the cliffs.

Now! she thought, and whirled on the rocks as if she stood in a ballroom. "On this night I rejoice and make my choice. He chooses me, and I choose him."

She flung out her arms, baring her heart. "This light no force has power to dim. My heart is his, and his for me. And this is our joined destiny. My death I'd give for theirs to spare," she shouted, her voice like thunder as the others spilled out of the woods. "For those I love all would I dare. Three hundred years to end this strife, by these words: I choose love." She clamped her hand over Sam's as he leaped up beside her. "I choose life."

The wolf form shuddered into a man. The faces of him, legion, shifted and melted into each other. Her mark scored them all. "You save this place, but not yourself." His breath spewed out, rotted and foul. "You'll go with me."

It leaped, and Sam's sword, bright as water, swung out. "Her mark. And my mark." As it cleaved, the form spilled into a mist that slithered over the rocks like snakes.

"Bullies never play fair," Mia said as the mist hissed and spit and crawled toward her feet. Power, a steady stream of white, burned in her. "It's for me to finish."

"Then finish it," Sam told her.

She tossed aside all shields, opened all locks. The power that had pulsed inside her burst free so that she stood aflame under the ravaged sky. "By all I am, by all I'll be, I hurl the darkness back at thee. With courage, justice, hand, and heart I finish what my blood did start. Now you taste the fear most dire, as you face my righteous fire."

She stretched out her arm, and in her cupped fingers a ball of flame formed. "Your fate is wrought by the sisters three. As we will, so mote it be."

For Lulu, she thought. And for all the other innocents. She hurled the ball into the mists. They burned, writhing. Burned as they spilled over the edge of the cliffs and fell howling into the sea.

"Drown in hell." Sam's voice echoed. "Die in the dark. Burn eternally with my woman's mark. Your force is crushed by this vast sea."

"As we will," Mia said, turning to him.

"So mote it be." He stepped back, drew her with him. "Come away from the edge, Mia."

"But it's a lovely view." She laughed, a full-throated, joyous sound and lifted her face to the sky, where stars burst out of the clouds. The moon sailed, a white ship on a calm sea. "God, what a feeling. You'll have questions," she said. "I need a minute first, with Nell and Ripley."

"Go ahead."

She walked down the cliffs and into the arms of her sisters. Later, she left the others in her kitchen and went out into the garden with Sam.

"It may be hard for you to understand why I didn't share everything I intended with you, with all of you. It wasn't arrogance, it was—"

The words clogged in her throat when he spun her into his arms, held her crushed against him.

"Necessary," she managed.

"Just don't talk for a minute. Just—Mia." He buried his face in her hair, rocking, chanting soft words, wild words in Gaelic. Then just as abruptly, he yanked her away, gave her one hard shake. "Necessary, my ass. Necessary to rip the heart out of my chest? Do you know what it was like to see you standing on the edge of that cliff, with that thing coming at you?"

"Yes." She framed his face in her hands. "Yes. It was the only way, Sam. The only way I knew to be sure. To end it without harm to anyone."

"Answer me one question. Look straight at me when you answer it. Would you have sacrificed yourself?"

"No." When his eyes narrowed, she kept hers level. "Risking one's life is different from sacrificing it. Did I risk it, yes, I did. Clearheadedly, because I'm a practical woman with a healthy appreciation for life. I risked it for the only real mother I've ever known. For this place and the people on it. For them," she said, gesturing toward the house. "For the children to come from them. For you. For us. But I intended to live, and as you can see, I did."

"You planned to leave the circle that way. You planned to take it to the cliffs. Alone."

"It was meant to end there. I'd prepared in every way I knew how, considered every possibility. And still I missed one that you didn't. When I looked down from the cliffs and saw that circle of light… . Sam." Swamped with love, she leaned into him. "When I felt that strength, that love and faith sweeping up and into me, it was the greatest gift. Who knows what would have happened without it? You did that. By asking for help when I didn't think of it."

"Islanders stick together. Spread the word to a few people—"

"And word spreads to a few more," she finished. "And they gathered around the cottage and in the woods tonight. All those hearts and minds turned toward me."

She pressed her hands between her breasts where that song still sang. "Strong magic. You have to understand," she continued, easing back, "I couldn't tell you, any of you. I couldn't allow myself to open even that much, take the chance that what was in my own mind and heart would be read by what we were going to fight. I had to wait until everything was in place."

"I'm working on that, Mia, but this wasn't your fight. It was ours."

"I wasn't sure of that. I wanted to be, but I wasn't sure until you stepped out of the circle in front of me. And what you felt for me… telling me you love me paled with feeling it burst out of you in that one moment. I knew you'd come after me. I knew then, without question, that we had to finish it together. I need to tell you…"

She shook her head, stepped away from him until she was sure the words would be there. "I loved you once, so much. But my love was twined around my own needs and wants and wishes. A girl's love, that has borders. When you were gone, I made myself lock that love away. I couldn't survive with it alive inside me. Then you came back."

She turned to him. "It hurt to look at you. As I said, I'm a practical woman, and I dislike pain. I dealt with that. I wanted you, but I didn't have to unlock that love to have you. So I thought." She brushed his hair from his forehead. "So I wished. But the lock wouldn't hold, and that love spilled out. It was different than it had been, but I didn't see, didn't want to see. Because looking hurt again. Every time you told me you loved me, it was a knife in my heart."

"Mia—"

"No. I'll finish. The night we sat out here in the garden, with the butterfly? Before you came I'd been trying to settle my mind, once and for all. To reason it all out, to prepare myself. You sat, and you smiled at me, and everything inside me shifted. As if it had only been waiting for that one moment, that one look. When you told me you loved me, it didn't hurt. It didn't hurt at all. Do you know how it made me feel?"

"No." He skimmed his knuckles over her cheek. "Tell me."

"Happy. Down-in-the-gut happy. Sam." She ran her hands down his arms, couldn't stop touching him. "What I felt for you then, and now, and always will isn't a girl's love. It bloomed out of that, but it's new. It doesn't need fantasies or wishes. If you go—"

"I'm not—"

"If you go again, what I feel for you won't change or be locked away. I had to know that, without a shadow of doubt. I'll cherish it, and what we made together. I know you love me, and that's enough."

"Do you think I'd leave you now?"

"That's not the point." Flying on her own heart, she stepped back, turned in a circle. "The point is, I love you enough to let you go. That I won't wonder or worry, or look at you with that shadow on my heart. I love you enough to be with you. To live with you. With no regrets, no conditions."

"Come here, will you? Right here," he said pointing in front of him.

She nodded and walked to him. "Close enough?"

"Do you see these?" He lifted the chain so that the rings were in her line of vision.

"What are they? They're beautiful." She reached out to touch, and her breath caught at the warmth and the light that pulsed from them. "Their rings," she whispered. "Hers and his."

"I found his in that cave I told you about, in Ireland. And hers just a matter of days ago, here. In our cave. Can you see what's carved on them, and inside them?"

She traced her finger over the Celtic symbols and read, as her heart began to thud, the Gaelic inside the circles.

He slid the chain over his head, took the smaller ring off. "This is yours."

All the power that still surged inside her seemed to pause. As if a million breaths were held. "Why are you giving it to me?"

"Because he couldn't keep the promise. But I will. I want to make it to you. I want you to make it to me. Now, and again when you marry me. And every day after that. I want to say it to you every time one of our children is born."

Her gaze flew up to his. "Children."

"I had a vision," he began, and brushed the first tear away with his fingertip as it spilled down her cheek. "You were working in the garden in the very early spring. The leaves were just a green haze, and the sun was soft and yellow. When I came out to you, you stood up. You were so beautiful, Mia. More beautiful than I've ever seen you. You were full with our child. I put my hand on you, over it, and felt it move. Felt that life we'd made just… surge. So impatient to be born. I had no idea."

He took her face in his hands. "No idea what that would mean. No idea that I could want, so much, everything I saw and felt in that one slice of time. Make a life with me, Mia. Our life, and what comes from it."

"I thought the magic was done for the night. Yes." She pressed her lips to his cheek. "Yes." And to the other. "To everything," she said, laughing now as her lips found his.

He circled her once, then took her right hand. "That's the wrong finger," she told him. "You can't wear it on the left until we're married. Let's be a little traditional. And since we are, though I think people who've been in love all their lives should have a very short engagement…"

He opened his hand, and where her tear had lain was a slice of light. Grinning at her, he tossed it high, and stars fountained from it, raining down like little sparks of flame.

"A symbol," he said, plucking one of the lights from the air. "A promise. I'll give you the stars, Mia." Turning his hand over, he offered her a circle ringed with diamonds clear as water, bright as fire.

"I'll take them. And you. Oh, and you, Sam." She held out her hand, absorbing the thrill as he slipped the pledge onto her finger. And there it glittered.

"What magic we'll make!"

"Let's start now."

Laughing with her, he lifted her off her feet and danced her around a garden bursting with flowers. And their stars shimmered brilliant against the dark.