Gone With the Witch (38 page)

"Oh go for a walk," Vickie said. "Have a talk. It's a great
night. It's still light. In the air, there isn't a bite.”

“
She's rhyming
again," Storm said.

"Ach, she's worse than ever," Rory said. "She can
rhyme me into rowing to the mainland in the middle of the night for chunky doodle ice cream."

Vickie grabbed Rory by his shirt collar with both hands
and pulled him so close, they went nose to nose. "I can rhyme you into having morning sickness for me, Hopscotch."

Rory groaned. “Aye, and that's the bloody horrid truth," he admitted.

"Enough," Storm said. "You've talked me into going
just so 'I don't have to listen to you two lovebirds.”

“
Vickie, Rory, I owe you one," Aiden said.

"Wait," Vickie said. "Here's the plate of dinner 'I promised Morgan. He was too busy to stop and eat with
us."

Storm started walking ahead, while Aiden took the plate
of food, but he caught up with her.

"You need time to grieve," she said. "Why don't 'I take Morg
an
his food, and you go back to the castle. I'll take a
rain check. Maybe in the fall or winter, we can take a walk."

"I'm definitely up for some fall and winter walks with
you," Aiden said, "but I'm up for one on this fine July
night, as well. Accept it. Besides, Morgan's working on a project he wants to show you."

"Why me?"

Aiden took her hand, and though she tried to pull free, he held it tight.

"What's Ginny gonna think?" Storm whispered, imagining her watching them.

"Ginny is your cheering section," Aiden said.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"I realize that, and you don't want to know, either.”

“
Do not get snippy with me, Aiden McCloud."

"Do
get sassy with me, Storm Cartwright. I like your

sass
"

Storm huffed and freed her hand from his grip to fold
her arms across her chest.

"There's no use in trying to protect yourself, either,
from your own emotions or from my intentions:' Aiden said
. "
That horse has already left the barn, and he's run
ning at a full gallop."

Storm looked down at her crossed arms and lowered them to her sides. She realized that she hadn't told her sis
ters what happened with Aiden, but she wasn't ready to
talk about it, anyway. They knew something from Aiden, or they wouldn't have thought they'd split. Besides, Ginny would fill them in.

Storm was surprised to find a construction crew work
ing on an addition to the windmill. Morgan stood outside
at a sawhorse table going over architectural drawings.

Her favorite Paxton Isl
an
d property, the five-story tower
windmill—where she and Aiden used to come to make out—was made of stone like the castle and built on the island's highest point. She loved its sails turning in the wind and its periwinkle blue shutters and doors.

Around the windmill, wildflowers grew helter-skelter,
except on the well-worn paths to and from the island castle
and lighthouse. In the distance, a breathtaking field of
peach-colored poppies danced in the breeze rolling over
the island.

"What's Morgan up to?" Storm asked. "Is King making this into a guesthouse?"

"No," Morgan said, getting up to greet her. "King sold
it. It's being turned into a private residence."

Storm couldn't believe her ears. "King sold
an
island property to a stranger?"

"The new owner's not
terribly
strange" Morgan
grinned.

Storm turned to see Aiden watching her.
"What's going on here?" she asked.

Chapter FiFty-two

STORM'S heart pounded, and she didn't know why.

Aiden drew her toward the windmill, the ex
tr
a current tossed by the sails playing with that lock of his hair that
kept falling on his forehead. A sunbeam picked him out
like an earth god—the god of the physical.
Big surprise.

Storm cleared her throat and stepped inside the
windmill, only to come face-to-face with the memories of
all the times she and Aiden had spent playing sexual
chicken here.

Aiden blocked the doorway so she couldn't leave.
"Aiden,
you have to get past what happened with Claudette."

"No, Storm, you have to get past what happened with Claudette" He placed his hands on her arms, but Storm pulled from his touch, slid passed him, and went back outside into the moving shade made by the windmill's sails.

She went and sat on a rock not far away. "You're a widower. You have to grieve"

Aiden sat on the rock beside her, so close, it was necessary for him to put an arm around her waist, his hand

splayed
there, and a little bit on her bottom, not an unpleasant or unwelcome feeling, but perhaps inappropriate
under the circumstances. Yet she stayed exactly where she
was.

"It was the damnedest thing, Storm. I ran into that nursing home to apologize for being a jerk before she passed away, my heart racing, my mind full of all the things I
needed to say, even if she couldn't hear me. But when 'I got
to her room, she was sitting up in bed, as if she'd been expecting me, when she'd just come out of her coma a few minutes before."

Aiden took a deep, shuddering breath, while Storm's heart broke into smaller pieces. He really loved his wife.

"I knew what I had to do, Storm
. '
I owed Claudette, and I needed to keep Becky."

"I'm sorry you lost her, Aiden. She looked so happy
during the ceremony. Her love for you was written all over
her face."

"You
were
there. God, I'm sorry." Aiden touched his head to hers, and it was all
Storm
could do not to pull him close and press her lips to his.

He pulled away first, and she chided herself for her weakness in clinging.

"While the nursing home chaplain pulled in some
judicial type debts of the big-brass variety, Claudette said she'd always loved me, but she knew I didn't love her, and that's why she left. It wasn't because I wouldn't put down roots. She knew I was marrying her to become Becky's
stepfather. She knew you'd brought me to Becky, and I told
her that you and 'I were seeing each other."

Seeing.
Not exactly a commitment, but she hadn't expected him to tell Claudette about her at all.

Aiden took her hands, a touch Storm should reject, but in light of what he'd just said, she didn't pull away.

"She told me the most amazing story about what happened while she was in her coma, how she came looking for me and used you to help me find Becky."

"It sounds like Claudette was a great lady."

"And a good mother:' Aiden said
. "
She refused to cross
over until Becky was with me, but she was more than ready
once everything was settled. At the end, before she passed,
she said when 'I found you at the carnival to thank you for her. That's why I stopped at the carnival. Fate, with a helping hand"

Storm melted into Aiden's embrace, their need for consolation was mutual and desperate, neither of them quite steady. Aiden's g
ri
ef became hers, one occasion where sensing the present nearly broke her. He'd cared deeply about his wife. It would take him a long time to heal.

"If Claudette could astral project," Storm said, taking
them away from emotion, "Becky might have some psy
chic power of her own"

"I wonder if that's why she thinks you're her mother.
Maybe she can sense the future. If she is psychic, I'll really
need your help raising her."

"That's it?" Storm asked. "She's yours, no question?”

“I have Claudette's signed, notarized statement that I'm Becky's biological father."

A jolt, Storm felt.
Shock.
Awareness.
Claudette was
Becky's biological mother. You couldn't argue with
biology. Becky wasn't hers. Claudette and Aiden's love
had created Becky.

She'd been deluding herself about her and Aiden. Lust was not love. Sex for pleasure was not commitment. Self-conscious to find
herself
in his arms, Storm made the first
move to pull away, but she shivered when Aiden let her go.

He placed his jacket over her shoulders. “After Claudette
passed, I went back to Ginny's, and I needed you, Storm, but 'I understood why you left."

"I went to the nursing home to be there for you, but
what I found was a happily ever after
. '
I saw love in
Claudette's gaze when she looked at you, so I left. I had to
move on and, now, so do you" Storm stood. "When do you
have to go back for the funeral?"

"Claudette donated her body to science. It's done,
Storm."

"Not by a long shot, Aiden. You have a lot of healing
to
do "

"I know what I want," Aiden snapped, angrier than
when she'd cuffed him to his bed.

Storm shook her head, telling herself not to go there. "You can't know what you want after everything you've been through. It's too soon. You have to make peace with Claudette's coma, your guilt, her return to your life, and your marriage ... then you have to deal with her death all over again."

Storm rubbed her arms against a sudden chill. "Call me
when you come out the other side, whole, and you can
think straight again. No decision you make now will stand on solid ground ... which probably doesn't matter to you, because you'd rather have wheels beneath you anyway." Storm turned to make her way back to the castle.

"Effin' A," she heard him say. "Now who's running?
Not me. Wait, I'll give you the code to the keyless entry
system on my shell, since you're the one acting like a tur
tle, now."

Yes, he was angry, but he didn't try to follow her.

He didn't run her way like he'd run toward Claudette.
Granted, she hadn't risen from the dead, though in walking
away from him, she felt a lot like she was dying inside.

At the castle, Storm kissed Ginny good-bye, and damned
near broke down when she kissed Becky, and she gathered
her household together to go back to the mainland. Vickie would take good care of Aiden and his family.

BACK in
Salem, Destiny and Reggie offered to take Pepper out for a late movie as a final birthday gift.

Storm offered to stay with Jake. After he fell asleep, she did a lot of pacing, until she went into her bedroom for her
herbal dream pillow and her dream catcher. She lit ritual
candles for peace and love and took out Nana's aquamarine
necklace. She gazed at it, concentrating on her emotions over Aiden and Becky.

She drank in the gems' pale aqua color and let herself relax into the energy of the crystals.

When she got sleepy, she snuffed the ritual candles and
placed the aquamarines around her neck. She hung the
dream catcher over a bedpost and hugged the dream pillow
as she closed her eyes. In the fertile solitude of her mind
she allowed herself to acknowledge each emotion claiming her, each secret desire, while she fingered the aquamarines.

Spells were considered a form of prayer, so Storm
poured her dreams into prayer:

I amend my behest;

A love bond
is
my quest.

This former wild child

Begs to nurture and guide

Aiden's babe who was lost

To fortune's gruff toss.