Gone With the Witch (39 page)

Love as the price,

I send my plea twice.

With the man of my heart,

 
May our goals never
part.

On wheels or roots

Wherever love suits.

Though one babe I keep

And one child I reap,

I'll open my mind

To additional cries

And follow cry's guide

Till each child
I
_.
find.

This I will

My fate to fulfill

With harm to none

So mote it
be
done.

Storm stood at the bottom of a tall, curving Victo
rian stairway in a huge, wondrous place—a palace or
cathedral—its ceiling too high to be seen, its nebulous walls bathed in pale blue light filtering in from every di
rection.

Claudette stood at the top
of
that curving stairway
looking down at her. She had given birth to a baby girl, the baby Storm held, but Claudette held a baby, as well, one wrapped in blue.

Claudette was too sick to care for the baby girl, so
Storm had come to take it into her own care. As she dressed
the girl in her tiny clothes for the long journey to her home, Storm couldn't stop crying, because her house seemed so far away from this place where Claudette would live.

Storm's heart was breaking just thinking about how sad
Claudette must feel to be losing her daughter to the care
of
another.

Guilt filled her over taking Claudette's little girl away
from her, even though it was her only choice. A man stood beside Storm, waiting for her, but his image was vague, a strong, supporting presence, but not the point
of
this emotional exchange between her and Claudette.

Storm took the baby girl in her arms, ready to leave but
unable to move, hating to take that last monumental step
of
walking out the door and separating Claudette from her little girl forever.

"I'm sorry." Tears streamed down Storm's face.
"Claudette, I'm so sorry that I have to take her away from you, but it's the only way that I can care for her."

"Storm, stop!"
Claudette said with patient authority.
"This is the way it was always meant to be." She spoke with surety and serenity. She looked peaceful, accepting, young,
vibrant, and healthy in a long white gown, the baby
wrapped in blue held close to her heart.

She no longer looked like the dying woman in the nurs
ing home, yet she accepted her fate, while Storm could not.

"This is the way it was always meant to be," Claudette repeated.

"No guilt.

"Only love.
"The way it was meant to be.

 
"Always."

"I don't understand!" Storm shouted and opened her
eyes.

Disoriented to find herself in bed, she sat up, lowered her legs to the floor, and sat on the edge of her bed, hands
shaking,
heart pounding, expecting Claudette to be there.

She'd just been talking to her. It had all seemed so
real ... as if Claudette had ... visited her ... to take away
her guilt for loving Becky, her guilt for the joy, hugs,
kisses, and smiles Becky gave her. For the way Becky filled
her heart with laughter and love.

Storm now understood that her turbulent emotions
rested on one issue: her guilty love for Claudette's child.

Her love for Aiden wasn't the problem. Her love for Becky was.

The way it was always meant to be.

Storm felt guilty for the joy she experienced in loving Becky, especially when Becky called her Mama and returned her love.

Had Claudette just given her permission to be Becky's mother, and whose baby had Claudette been holding?

Storm sat straighter, an impossible thought filling her mind. Could Claudette have been holding the baby she miscarried?

The way it was always meant to be.

It was time to relinquish her guilt over losing her own child, Storm understood, as well as her guilt over loving Becky. Claudette and Becky had been as important a part of her psychic destiny as Aiden.

Aiden, the strong, supporting presence.
Aiden, waiting patiently for her to go with him.
Standing by her.
Waiting for her to walk beside him.

In the dream, yes.

But what about in real life?

How long would his denied grief take to heal?

If she'd learned anything on her psychic journey, it was

to
trust her instincts, to accept herself and be true to her
self, because in doing so, she was free to love and trust another ... Aiden.

The way it was always meant to be.

He did need time to grieve, but now that she had accepted Claudette's blessing, her permission, Storm wondered how long she would be able to stay away from the man and child ... both meant to be hers.

chapter
fifty-three

WHILE Aiden had given every indication of wanting her
in his life, Storm decided to stay away from the island for a
week to give him time to grieve and to realize—likely for the first time—that he was dealing with a long-term decision that would affect the rest of his life.

For a nomad, that was pretty serious business.

She was also trying not to distract him, pleased to remember that she had quite the distracting effect on him.

Still, he'd been through an emotional wringer, and his life
had taken a U-turn in a dark tunnel with no
headlights ..
.
an
d
no wheels. Not that his coach was gone—she checked the
Salem dock daily to make sure. But he had so much adjusting to do,
an
d
she had no right to further complicate issues.

While she could stay away from Aiden, she could not re-
sponsibly stay away from Becky, so she asked Destiny to bring Becky and Ginny to
Salem. Storm was certain, after
Claudette's visitation—and it was a visitation, not a dream—
that she couldn't disappear from Becky's life for even a day.
After that, since she'd practically kidnapped Aiden's

daughter
, part of her hoped he'd come—for Becky, at least.
She was that starved for the sight of him. He'd gone to Claudette, after all, but he'd been running toward what he perceived to be an ending, not a beginning, and that was a very different cauldron of emotions. He'd also said that Claudette knew he didn't love her, but he never once said that Claudette was wrong. The realization strengthened Storm's resolve to do this right.

After three days of playing with Becky and hoping to find Aiden on her doorstep, Storm suddenly sensed that it was time to go to him. She dressed in the full-length royal blue jersey halter dress she chose with Aiden in mind and matching flats for an island walk. Her sea horse necklace looked great with the matching earrings she'd bought from Claudette's stock.

With Ginny, Becky, and Pepper, Storm returned to the island.

She left Ginny and the little ones with Vickie and went to find Aiden at the windmill. But he didn't exactly come
running when he saw her. If anything, he took a step
back ... as if he'd been gut-punched.

Aiden stood ... rooted—an unusual description for him—with a hammer in one hand, the other going to his
tool belt. Their gazes locked, and she wondered if he'd
been as tortured by what might have been a mutually self-imposed separation.

The work crew exchanged looks with each other before their gazes wandered from Aiden to her and back.

"Morgan," Storm said, afraid to make a fool of herself by running into Aiden's arms. "You never told me who bought the place."

"I bought it," Aiden said, slipping the hammer in the
tool belt with an attention to his actions that called her to take note ... of the tool belt she'd worn to seduce him.

Hammer in place, he came toward her, and again she held herself steady, so as not to run into his arms.
"You
bought the windmill?
As an investment?"

"I bought it to live in.""
For
who
to live in?"

Aiden frowned. "Me, for one ..."

"But ... you're a nomad"

"I liked being a nomad better when I was with you. Go figure. I've been thinking—"

"
About damned
time."

His lips quirked.
"I'm beginning to believe that I have been searching for home." His eye crinkles about buckled her knees. Not a smile, but the hope of one. He didn't look
the least resentful for having his wheels severed when there
was a time she was certain he would have considered the notion nothing short of castration.

"I guess you've had time to think in the past few days," she said.

"I have, because somebody kidnapped my daughter."

"Like father, like daughter?" Storm quipped, biting her
lip at the light in his eyes. "Show me what your new house
is going to look like."

"I guess you've been thinking, too," he said, stroking the
sea horse necklace
an
d
setting an earring to swinging.
"Nice dress.
Great
color."
He cleared his throat and showed her Morgan's gorgeous windmill design.

The focal point and entry to Windmill Cottage—
according to the name on the plan—would be the tower itself, but the living quarters would take up several graduated levels behind the tall structure.

Morgan had echoed its structural design by capping the upper levels with a topmost tower, containing the master suite with a circular stairway to the sitting room above, a
widow's walk around it, the fence mimicking the wind
mill's sail design.

"It's absolutely gorgeous," Storm said.
“A view of the sea from the master suite.
It's so romantic."

"You watched the sea from the hotel penthouse," he
said. "And yes, it was romantic."

"You were paying attention."

His look about singed her eyelashes.
"Like I've never paid attention in my life."

In the spa, during the fireworks, she'd felt as if they were
making love. Now she wondered if he'd felt it, too. The heat
in his gaze spoke simmering volumes. Storm swallowed a rush of hope as she tried to stay practical. She'd be no fool rushing in only to be turned away with a broken heart.

"I recognize your construction crew," she said. "I
thought they were on vacation"

"Vacation with pay and, now, double time pay on top of
that, until the job is done.
They're happy."

Storm walked the perimeter of the cottage, shocked at how far cons
tr
uction had progressed. "You got this much work done in a few days?"

"Almost a week, actually
. '
I made King an offer for the
windmill when I called him from the penthouse in
Atlantic
City
while you were sleeping. Then 'I called Morgan at his place in
Boston to tell him to fish out our old idea for the design and get started. Between us, we added the new changes to the master
suite."