Daughter of the Spellcaster Page 9

  * * *

  Lena opened her eyes to find herself lying in bed and staring up into the face of her prince, and for just an instant she was there again on the cliffs.

  “You came,” she whispered, lifting a hand to his cheek as if to assure herself that he was real. And he was. He was! “You made it in time. You saved me.” And then she blinked as panic bubbled up in her chest. “What about my sisters? Lilia? Indira! Where...?”

  The way he frowned, as if she were speaking gibberish, made Lena bite her lip. And then he lifted his gaze to meet someone else’s, and she got hold of herself, turning her head, scanning her surroundings. She was in her own bedroom, and her mom and Doc Cartwright were standing nearby. Doc was closer, his hand on her wrist as he counted her pulse.

  “Oh.” This was real life. That had been a dream.

  Or something.

  “What...happened?”

  “I don’t know,” Selma said. “You were in the...” She glanced up at Doc very briefly. “The meditation room, and we heard you scream. Ran in there and found you unconscious on the floor.”

  Lena knew she meant the temple room. She and her mother hadn’t advertised the fact that they were witches, and clearly her mother still didn’t trust the doc enough to share that tidbit with him. They’d only been there half a year, after all.

  Lena looked at Ryan again. “What are you doing here?” Then she gaped at her mother. “Did you call him? God, how long have I been out?”

  “Overnight.” Ryan said, his voice soft and a little unsteady. That really scared her. “I was just about to knock on the front door when you screamed.”

  “But...what...?” She swung her gaze toward Doc. Had he been here all night, as well? He looked as tired as if he had. “Is the baby okay?”

  “Fine and healthy,” he said. He had a deep, steady voice, as if a mountain could talk, and she found it reassuring. His smile was genuine, wrinkling his forehead right up to his receding hairline. “No problem at all. Can you remember what happened, Lena?”

  She blinked slowly, thinking back, and then her eyes widened. She had been sucked into the chalice. She had been transported into another dimension or existence or...something. Lilia had been there. And another woman. They were her sisters, and the three of them had been shoved off a cliff to their deaths, and there’d been something about—

  “Lena?” Doc prompted, interrupting her train of thought.

  She blinked away the memories. “No. No, I don’t remember a thing.” He frowned at her, as if he knew she was lying. “I think I must have fallen asleep and had a bad dream.”

  “About what?”

  She shook her head. “Darned if I know.”

  “Huh,” he said.

  “Should we take her to a hospital, Dr. Cartwright?” Ryan asked.

  Doc smiled at him. “No, no, I don’t see any need for that. Everything looks fine, just as it did last night. The baby’s heart sounds perfect, as always. There’s no bleeding. Do you have any pain, Lena?”

  “No, nothing.”

  “Well, good, then.” Doc nodded at the others. “If this should happen again, I’d like to know about it.” He headed into the adjoining bathroom, leaving the door open, still talking while he washed his hands. “You call me if you notice the least little thing wrong,” he instructed. “And I think we’re nearing the time when you might want to take me up on my offer to find you a live-in nurse. You’re getting close to your time, and since you intend to deliver at home—”

  “Deliver at home?” Ryan gaped at her. “Are you out of your mind?”

  Doc returned from the bathroom, chuckling down deep in his belly. “Trust me, son, back in my day, that was the norm out here. She’ll be fine. You can take my word on that. And now I need to head home. It’s poker night with Sheriff Dunbar and the wives. Mary’s gonna think I’ve run off with a hot blonde.”

  “Thanks for everything, Doc,” Selma said, laughing at the same joke he’d used for a dozen exits before. “I’ll walk you out.”

  Ryan stayed after the other two left. He stood beside the bed, nervous and awkward. Lena met his eyes and sighed.

  “What really happened?” he asked.

  She blinked, debating whether to tell him the truth. About the chalice and the vision, about her imaginary friend Lilia and his role as the prince in her lifelong fantasy that maybe wasn’t just a fantasy after all.

  But no. He thought witchcraft was cute. It wasn’t like he would take her seriously.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “Been here all night. Even though Doc said you were only exhausted and in need of sleep, I was...worried.” He sighed and pulled a rocking chair up closer to her bedside, then sank into it.

  “I mean, why are you here? At Havenwood?”

  “I don’t really know. Bahru was moving into the cottage, and those books were about to be shipped, and I just got the crazy notion to deliver both of them personally.”

  “Why?” And why was that stupid hope flooding into her heart again? He wasn’t her prince. He never would be.

  But Ryan held her eyes. “Look, it’s my kid, too. I just...I don’t know, I feel like I ought to be here for this. And like I should have been here for this from the beginning. But you didn’t give me the chance.”

  “I did.”

  “Bull. You told me some bogus story about a friend of yours getting pregnant.”

  “You said no one gets pregnant by accident in this day and age.”

  “Well, clearly I was wrong about that.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Are you sure? I wound up controlling a big chunk of your father’s money after all. If that was my plan, I sure pulled it off in spades.”

  Ryan was scowling at her. “Don’t put words in my mouth, Lena. I know you’re not one of those schemers. I never would have thought you were. And even if I had, you sure as hell proved me wrong by running off without a word.”

  “Maybe that was part of my plan.” She looked away as she said it.

  “You couldn’t have known my father would die, much less that he’d leave so much to the baby.”

  “I didn’t think he even knew I was pregnant.”

  “Bahru told him,” Ryan said.

  “But how did Bahru know?”

  “You didn’t tell him?” Ryan asked.

  “No.” She sighed. “So he came with you?”

  “Yeah, headed straight for the guesthouse.” Ryan got up and wandered to the window, parting the curtain to look out while she stared at his back and wished it was shirtless, and that she was running her hands over it. “That’s odd,” he said, breaking into her fantasy.

  “What?”

  “Doc’s pickup is parked in front of the guesthouse. He and Bahru know each other?”

  “Not that I’m aware of,” Lena said, frowning.

  Ryan dropped the curtain. “Must’ve met on one of my dad’s trips out here, I suppose.”

  “So...what do you want, Ryan?” She was restless, simultaneously itching to fling back the covers and get up, wanting him to leave so she could tell her mother what had happened in the temple room, and longing for him to crawl into bed with her and hold her close.

  “I want to stay. I can bunk with Bahru. But I want to be here for the final weeks of this pregnancy, and for the birth of my child.”

  “Our child,” she corrected. “And that’s all?”

  He frowned, meeting her eyes. “I don’t know. Hell, Lena, I’ve only known about the baby for a day, and it’s been a day when a lot of other things have happened. My whole freaking world just had a hurricane whip it to the ground, you know?”

  “Like mine hasn’t?” she snapped.

  “Hey, you’ve had months to adjust. I’m on Day One here. Cut me some slack, okay?”
>
  She huffed, turned to, stared at the wall. A rippling shadow caught her attention, as it so often had since they’d moved here. It was always in a dark corner, always in her peripheral vision, and always vanished when she looked at it straight on. Like a floater in the eye. Her mom had glimpsed it, too, and they’d decided it was some kind of ghost or trapped energy from times gone by. They’d saged the hell out of the place, cleansed it with holy water and sea salt, bells and rattles, but nothing had worked. Selma had been threatening to use “Devil’s Dung,” but Lena had vetoed the suggestion. Asafetida was a last resort, because its smell lived up to its folk name, and besides, the presence didn’t seem at all menacing. Not to her, anyway.

  “So can I? Stay?” Ryan asked.

  Lena looked into his eyes, went soft inside, sighed heavily and nodded. She really had no right to keep him out of their child’s life. “But you can’t stay with Bahru. That guesthouse is barely bigger than a closet, and it’s his. Your father left it to him, it wouldn’t be fair for me to stash my guest out there.”

  “Okay, you’re right. I’ll check into the nearest motel and—”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You can stay in the guest room—for now. But if this doesn’t work out, Ryan...”

  “I’ll make it work out.”

  She kept probing his eyes, looking for the playboy she’d fallen in love with, or the prince her stupid subconscious insisted on believing him to be, and she saw neither. She saw a wounded man, adrift at sea, looking for something to hold on to in the middle of a storm. And that she could not resist.

  * * *

  Ryan left Lena to spend the day in bed, as the doctor had instructed her to, and, after an amazing breakfast courtesy of Selma, headed out to the truck, backed it up as close to the front door as he could. Then he started carrying in the boxes of books. There were twenty-four of them, each one seeming to weigh more than the one before. Since he didn’t know where the women wanted them, and didn’t want to track dirt and snow through the house, he just piled them between the front door and the fireplace. One of the lids worked itself open, and he glanced down at the book right on top. The Chalice and the Blade: Sexual Symbolism in Pagan Rites.

  “Huh.” He tried to ignore the memory it elicited, struck by the coincidence that out of all the books his father had left to Lena, this one was on top, featuring that ritual. The one Lena had told him about the first night they’d had sex. Just out of curiosity, he flipped open the cover. The illustration on the very first page showed a double-edged dagger, not a whole lot different from the one he’d inherited from his father, which, he was pretty sure, had some kind of...powers. The one on the book cover had a silver blade and a wooden hilt, also engraved with symbols. It was standing point-down inside an ornate silver goblet. He frowned but didn’t look further. Maybe later he would check out what the book had to say. Yes, he knew the basic symbolism of the Great Rite, as Lena had called it. But he would like to see if there was anything more—any mention of fire-starting daggers, for example.

  He was still planning to ask Lena what she thought about the golden knife, despite his father’s request that he keep it to himself, but frankly, the timing felt wrong. She had an awful lot on her mind at the moment. Or maybe he was just being a big chicken, because he was afraid she would think he was nuts. Yes, she called herself a witch, but he was pretty sure she wasn’t insane. Just...whimsical. And she pretty much seemed to consider her “craft” more a spiritual thing than a magical one. For the most part, anyway. At least, as far as he knew.

  Not that she’d told him all that much about it. She’d pretty much clammed up after he’d called it cute.

  That memory made him wince. Man, he’d really blown it with her.

  An hour later, with the books all neatly stacked, Selma still upstairs with Lena and the doc’s truck still in front of Bahru’s cottage, Ryan decided to wander out to the guesthouse and find out how those two knew each other. He bundled up in his lined denim coat, pulled on a blue knit hat, stepped into his all-weather hiking shoes and trudged out the door and down the long driveway. Everyone kept saying how mild this winter was. Well, it didn’t feel mild to him. Thirty degrees, with a biting wind, was not what he’d call pleasant.

  He pulled the cap lower over his ears and tried to enjoy the scenery. Havenwood’s long dirt driveway rolled out between a pair of open fields that had once been vineyards. The one on the left turned into woods after about fifty yards. Directly across the way stood the guest cottage, a little white clapboard building with red shutters and a red door.

  The former vineyard on the right side of the drive, behind the cottage, was narrower, with another patch of woods backing it and Cayuga Lake beyond that, far below. He could see it through the leafless trees but figured it would be almost invisible in summer. If it were him, he would clear away just enough of the woods to provide a nice year-round view of the lake. The vineyard was on high ground overlooking the water, and that was too perfect a vista not to embrace.

  He’d made it to within ten yards of the cottage when the aging medic came limping down the three front steps, adjusting his fur-lined hat. He walked strongly, but slowly, deliberately. He didn’t shuffle like so many guys his age, and Ryan got the feeling it was because he was determined not to. The doctor had dignity, a lot like his father. He didn’t like to show weakness.

  He climbed into his ’80s model Ford F150 pickup, which looked as pristine as if it had just rolled off the showroom floor. Ryan was willing to bet the doctor had owned it since it was new and babied it ever since. He liked a man who took care of his things. Said a lot about his character.

  The doc reached up to adjust his mirror, glimpsed Ryan in the rearview mirror and, turning, lifted a hand to wave through the rear window.

  Ryan returned his friendly wave but froze at the flash of red from the old man’s eyes. What the hell?

  But Doc had already faced front again and his truck was rolling away. Ryan turned to glimpse the moon over his shoulder, gleaming from beyond the house. It was sinking fast and glowing a strange shade of orange behind the cloud cover. That must have been it, then. He must have seen a reflection in the glass. That was all.

  He continued up the steps to the cottage door, shaking off the odd feeling that had crept through him, and knocked hard.

  The cottage was small, maybe twenty-four by twenty-four, with a peaked roof and a smaller peaked dormer over the entry. Bahru opened the door and offered his typical bow in greeting, then stepped aside to let him in.

  “What brings you by, Ryan? Would you like tea?”

  “Just wanted to see how you were settling in.” He shrugged off his coat and pulled off his hat as he stepped inside, pulling the door closed behind him.

  “Nice and warm in here, that’s for sure.”

  “There is a woodpile right behind the cottage. And while I’m proficient at starting a fire, I’ve no idea how to regulate the temperature of one. It’s actually too warm.”

  “Huh.” Ryan walked to the little woodstove, saw a knob on the bottom that slid a draft open and closed, and closed it tight. “This little doohickey controls how much air the fire can suck in. Fire gets too low, you slide it open to give it a boost. But when it’s burning well, close it up tight.” He rose, noting the damper in the chimney pipe, its handle straight up and down. He twisted it until it was just a bit short of horizontal. “This works the same way. Any time you’re gonna open the stove door to put wood in, you want to turn it upright to let the smoke out. Then turn it this way again to slow down the burn and prevent chimney fires.”

  Bahru was watching intently, nodding. “I see. Thank you, Ryan, that’s very helpful.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “I did not expect you to know the inner workings of a woodburning stove.”

  “A friend of mine has one.” Paul, in his fishing cabin, where he liked
to go and hang for a weekend every now and then, pretending he was a normal guy and not the heir to his father’s kingdom.

  Ryan accepted the mug Bahru offered, though he hadn’t said yes to the offer of tea, and sat down in a corner chair. “How do you know the doc?” he asked, looking the place over. On the right-hand wall there were a kitchen sink, an apartment-sized range and a freestanding white metal cabinet, with about three feet of Formica countertop in between. The back wall of the cottage, facing the door, sported a bedroom and a bathroom, side by side. The place was tiny, but functional. Apparently Lena and her mother had cleaned it up and furnished it before knowing it was going to Bahru. They’d even hung frilly white curtains in the small windows. Ryan wondered who they’d expected to come for a visit.

  Bahru sat on the mini-sofa—Ryan supposed it was technically a love seat—kitty corner to the chair. “I met Patrick and his wife, Mary, when your father and I journeyed out here to put the place on the market last year. Why do you ask?”

  “So you don’t know him well, then.”

  Bahru shrugged. “Does anyone truly ever know anyone? How can we claim to know another, when in truth—”

  “Cut the philosophical discourse, Bahru. I just want to know how such a brief acquaintance warranted such a long reunion visit.”

  Bahru shrugged again. “We’d all had dinner together on our last visit. Your father, the Cartwrights, the real estate agent and I. We spent several lovely hours immersed in conversation. I suppose you would say we...hit it off.” He face gave away no more, to one side, his brown eyes were opaque.

  “You must have.” Ryan frowned.

  “Naturally he was saddened to hear of your father’s passing. No one had told him.”

  “I see.”

  Bahru nodded. “Do you have...concerns about Dr. Cartwright, Ryan? He is planning to bring your child into the world, after all.”

  “I don’t know.” Ryan debated whether to say anything, then decided he had nothing to lose. He certainly wasn’t going to sound weird to this guy, right? “Did you notice anything...odd about him?”