Making Magic (43 page)

“
Prestissimo
,” he said.

“I
do
love you,” she said, laughing.

“You better. And often. At various tempos.”

Thea’s kiss now was possessive and fierce. When she began to move again it was actually more of an
Adagio
, but that was plenty fast enough to light her fuse. And fast enough to keep Jake happy, based on the way his fingers gripped around hers.

“Come on! Where’s my Bombshell?” he panted. “Thea. Catch. Fire. For. Me.” He emphasized each word with a thrust of his hips.

“Oh! Jake!” she cried out as the heat of release began to sizzle through her. “Yes, Jake!
Yes!
”

Thea felt like a firework bursting into a million fiery fragments, flying into the air as Jake shouted out her name. When she finally sank down onto him, letting go of his fingers to slide her arms around his neck and rest her head on his shoulder, she could feel him shudder as her muscles continued to shiver and clench around him.

“And
coda
,” she whispered.

She felt Jake’s chest move beneath her as he laughed.

“Not the…ending. Not quite…yet.” He rolled her beneath him.

Thea grinned up at him in challenge. “
Da capo
then? From the beginning?”

“Definitely from the beginning.” He leaned in and kissed her.

Epilogue

Thea hid her face in her folded arms on the counter while Jamie expounded on what she had seen in the woods.

“They was! Really!” the girl exclaimed. “Stuck. I mean. I’ve seen the goats and chickens do it, although with chickens it looks more like fighting to me, but they was stuck together!”

“They
were
stuck,” Grace said.

Thea could tell Grace was desperately trying not to laugh.

“I know!” Jamie retorted.

Nick lost his own battle with decorum and laughed out loud. It was Jamie using her hands to demonstrate that pushed him over the edge.

Thea glared at him. He held Lily up to his shoulder. Thea wondered if Grace noticed that Nick was using their daughter as a human shield.

“No, I mean, it is ‘were’ not ‘was’,” Grace said. “You are doing so well with your grammar, don’t slip up now.”

They were sitting at the breakfast bar finishing up a lunch consisting mostly of wedding leftovers, much to Jamie’s delight.

“All right. They
were
stuck together,” Jamie corrected. “Standing there stuck. Facing in different directions. I mean… That can’t be right, can it?” She shrugged. “Didn’t seem to bother ’em, I mean
them
,
much. After about ten minutes, Montana just walked off and Bailey barked at him. I think she was telling him he got it all wrong. He
is
kind of high strung and excitable and all.”

“He’s a Jack Russell,” Grace explained. “They’re all like that. And he didn’t get it wrong. That is the way it happens with dogs. Butterflies too. They get stuck like that. Sometimes they fly around connected together.”

“That is
gross
.” Jamie made a disgusted face. “I mean it is
all
gross, but that is
really
gross.”

Thea banged her forehead on the counter—repeatedly. “I do
not
need a litter of puppies to contend with. I’m struggling to be a good dog momma for one.”

“So, Bailey’s gonna have, I mean going to have puppies?” Jamie said.

“Maybe not,” Nick said. “It doesn’t work every time.”

“But you always have to assume that it will,” Grace corrected, looking pointedly at Nick. Nick’s mouth quirked and his eyebrow went up. Thea suspected something from their past was in that look.

“Oh boy. Won’t they be something! Half Bailey, half Montana. Fuzzy, bouncing puppies. I hope there are a bunch of them.”

Thea moaned and buried her face again.

“So this means Bailey and Montana are married, right?” Jamie went on.

“Dogs don’t do that kind of thing,” Grace said.

“You haven’t checked YouTube lately,” said Nick.

Jamie looked crestfallen. “So dogs don’t stay together? I mean… Bailey’ll have to have the puppies all by herself? And Montana lives in Texas. The Murphys only come a couple of weeks a year so he may not ever see ’em at all.”

Thea looked at Grace. Thea knew it probably wasn’t Montana that Jamie was thinking about.

“There aren’t many animals that have family structures like that. Wolves are close, but not dogs. The momma has the puppies and raises them, with our help, of course,” Thea said. “I’m sure Bailey will be a good momma, if she’s pregnant. We’ll know in a few weeks.” Actually, she suspected Grace could find out right now, if she asked.

“How soon will we have puppies?”

Thea groaned. “Around two months.”

Grace gave Thea a quizzical look.

“Hey, I’ve been boning up on this whole dog thing,” Thea said. “Not fast enough to prevent this, though.”

“Seems kinda sad. They don’t get to stay together as a family,” Jamie went over to where Bailey was curled up on her new bed in the hallway to stoop down and run her fingers through the dog’s fur. “Maybe we should keep ’em all.”

Thea found herself smiling in spite of it all. “We’ll talk to your mom. She might consider letting you keep one.” She got up and went over to crouch beside Jamie. “But the rest will want to have humans of their own. They’ll make families out of their human family. The way people tend to make families where there weren’t any before.”

“Kind of how I’m sort of an honorary Woodruff?” Jamie asked.

“No honorary about that,” Grace said. “You pretty much are a Woodruff. You and your mom.”

Bailey jumped out of her bed and ran through Jamie’s legs towards the door. “And Jake and his mom,” Jamie said, “and Mel and her mom and dad, and—”

“I heard my name. What did I do this time?” Jake stuck his head through the archway from the great room. “Sorry, I knocked, but the doorbell seems to be otherwise occupied.” He stooped down to catch Bailey, who, as usual, threw herself at him, brazen hussy that she was. “There she is.”

“No problem. Come on in.”

“Bailey’s gonna have puppies!” Jamie exclaimed.

Jake’s expression turned comical as he held Bailey away from him and looked her over. “Really? When did this happen?”

“Jamie saw Bailey and the Murphys’ dog…uh…” Thea said.

“On a date?” Jake supplied with a smile.

“If that was a date, I ain’t ever going on a date!” Jamie declared. “I mean,
not ever
going on a date.”

Everyone laughed but Jamie still looked dismayed.

“Well, Bailey, I am devastated to have been replaced by a…” He smiled at Thea.

“Jack Russell,” she supplied.

“Really?” He set Bailey down and stood. “That little white fellow with the spots? The one that jumped into the goat pen like he was running the steeplechase?”

“That’s him,” Thea said.

“Well, it’s going to get even more interesting around here.” Jake smiled at Thea. “By the way, Jamie, that curly maple you found is going to produce some beautiful instruments,” Jake said. “Keep finding wood like that for me and I’ll have to give you a cut of the profits.”

Jamie quickly forgot her angst over dating. “Really?”

“A finder’s fee. Absolutely.”

“All right, young lady. Back to work,” Grace said. “You told me you had some new puzzle posting about now.”

Jamie looked at the time. “Oh gosh, yes!” She was off and running for the stairs.

“So, what did Beth decide?” Jake asked in a softer voice.

“She’s still thinking about it,” Nick replied. “She’s worried that Jamie keeps hearing how special she is way too much. She’s already a math whiz. This would add yet another layer of complexity to raising a genius, as far as she’s concerned.”

“Well, forewarned is forearmed. At least she’ll be prepared if Jamie manifests any unusual talents,” Thea said. “Beyond the ones she already has.”

“Or maybe that is it?” Nick mused. “The way my gift is intuition.” He didn’t sound convinced, however.

“But it makes it even more important that we find another place to meet.” Jake looked around. “Between your guests and Jamie and everyone else coming in and out of here, this is not the most secure place.”

Grace agreed. “Daniel and Mel have offered up their home. It is practically at the heart of what Jamie calls the ‘Woodruff Triangle’.”

Jake nodded. “Jamie told me about it a while back. I’ve seen it in action. Spent a lot of time rescuing folks because of it. You think it will help shield us from eavesdropping?”

“If it weren’t for the fiber optic line going in there, they would have a hard time receiving any communication signals at all,” said Grace. “Wireless and satellite transmissions don’t work. They had to hardwire the house for their computer network.”

“From past experience, I can tell you that it affects satellite photos of the area, like Google Earth and…others.” Nick smiled. “That’s a relief considering the resolution those things can get.”

“This I’ve got to see,” Jake said.

“Add the physical barriers—the Pisgah, the mountain, the limited-access road, the fence and gate we put in. It’s pretty ideal,” Grace added.

“We should get Emmy to test it,” Jake said. “See if she can hear us. Because if there is an Emmy on our side, there could be some rogue out there with that same talent—like our Italian friend with Daniel’s gift.”

“Rogue?” Thea said, frowning. “That’s not really a fair label, is it? Is anyone who has one of these gifts and has no idea where it came from a rogue?”

Jake lifted his hands, smiling. “Sorry. I guess we need a better word for folks like that Italian guy.”

“Oh no, that guy was totally a rogue.” Nick said, shaking his head.

“Then there was Old Annie.” Grace looked thoughtful. “I can’t help but wonder what she might have done with her gift if she had chosen a different path.”

“What kind of gift did she have?” Thea asked.

“We’re not sure. Some form of telepathy, I think.” Nick said.

“I wonder why the Mother, or whatever is behind all this, allows people to suffer with these gifts—like Marilyn and Emmy and Emmy’s mother.” Thea frowned, then felt a warm hand grip her shoulder.

“And you,” Jake said.

Thea covered his hand with hers. “And you. All of us. We stumble around in the dark and get hurt…and hurt other people.” Her voice broke a bit and Jake wrapped her in a warm hug. She turned to kiss his cheek.

“You’re assuming whatever is behind this is aware of us the way we are of each other,” said Grace. “Some biologists would argue there is no such thing as a honey bee as a single organism. The colony is the organism.”

“Great, now we’re bees?”

“Well, I meant that the force behind this might not be able to see us as individuals, only a group. But now that you mention it, maybe we are bees in its eyes.”

“Comforting,” Thea said sarcastically. “And what if one of those rogue bees of yours tries to get into the cave? What then?”

Nick seemed uncomfortable. “Grace?”

“Tell them about Old Annie. Jake needs to know. I won’t have secrets between us.” Grace held out her arms. “Give me my girl.” Nick passed Lily over.

“Sit down, Jake.” Nick looked grim as he settled back into his chair.

“Shit,” Jake said. “Am I going to be sorry I accepted that reserve deputy spot?” He pulled one of the chairs close to Thea and sat.

“No. I don’t think you could charge anyone for what happened.”

“So…you
do
know what happened to Annie.”

“Yes,” Nick said. “But we didn’t do anything to her.”

“
She
did,” Thea said. “Didn’t she? The old magic.”

“Annie tried to get to the cave,” Grace said.

Nick cleared his throat. “The old magic won’t intervene directly in
most
situations, but when Old Annie got close enough to be a threat, someone that looked like Granny Lily stopped her.”

“Stopped her?” Jake repeated.

“That’s about the only word that fits. To be honest, it took a while before I quit having dreams about it.” Nick said.

“Then Old Annie is—”

“She just disappeared in the dark,” Nick went on. “She was…uh…above a bottomless pit at the time, but we didn’t hear her fall.”

“After what she did to Pops and after she tried to kill you? I say good riddance,” Thea said.

Jake squeezed her hand. “Agreed.”

“But it still makes me wonder,” Thea said. “Why is She—whoever or whatever—equal parts of awesome and total incompetence?”