Arrogant ass. “I haven’t slept eight hours straight in a month.” Hell, she hadn’t slept two hours in a row, but no point scaring him silly. “One baby is plenty for me and Mike, and it seems you’ve shown yourself to be quite competent this morning.”
“I’m hardly the appropriate person to care for an infant.” Marcus glowered. “And if neither of you can make time in your busy, couch-sitting schedules, I’ll find one of the village women to care for her until we can straighten this mess out.”
Not if Moira had done her job and gotten to them first. Marcus was about to discover that the legendary helpfulness of Fisher’s Cove had gone on vacation.
And if the steam coming out of Elorie’s ears was any indication, he royally deserved it.
Jamie was going to owe her for this. Fixing every stupid man in the world was not in her job description. Nell donned mental armor-if she was heading into the bear’s cave, it paid to be prepared.
A growl was all the warning she had that the bear had come out to meet her. Marcus stepped out onto his porch, beer in one hand, imaginary shotgun in the other. “What, now they’ve called in reinforcements?”
Nell threw up a training circle. It seemed like a smart precaution-and it would send a message to the man acting like a snotty child.
Scratch that-her children had far better manners.
Marcus scowled and swatted the circle down. “If you came here to blow magical bubbles at me, you can just jump on your shiny steed and head back home. I have the girl, and the ever-meddling witches have made darned sure I have to keep her until I can get someone sane to drive out here and pick her up.”
Oh, shit. “Pick her up?”
“I called child services. They seem to be the appropriate authorities to take responsibility in this matter. The woman I spoke to seemed quite competent.”
They’d just finished rescuing Sierra from child services. Be damned if they were shipping someone off in trade. “She was sent for you, Marcus-not some nameless bureaucrat.”
“Well then, someone made a rather sizable mistake, don’t you think?” His eyes were cold, ocean-washed granite. “I’m simply fixing it.”
Time to lay down her hand. “I went to see Adele this morning. She’s the medium who brought the message from Evan.”
The granite went flying at his brother’s name, replaced by volcanic spew. “Evan’s dead. And the next person who brings him into this will deserve what she gets.” Marcus turned to look over the sea, repressed violence in every line of his body. Dismissed. Get out.
Sometimes, you just couldn’t leave the wounded bear alone. Nell threw up another training circle-a lot stronger this time. “You can duck your head and play ostrich, but you don’t get to take your temper out on every living thing.”
Marcus whirled. “I’ve had no sleep and the last of my patience ran screaming several hours ago. I can’t control what obscenities the rest of you choose to believe, but I’m not going to sit here and pretend my brain leaked out of my head.”
“What’s not to believe?” Nell was ready to crack Moira’s cauldron over his thick skull. “Let’s talk about facts. Fact-Adele got into Realm, and she didn’t do it with code or spell. Fact-she brought a message and something in it knocked you out cold. I can only presume it was truth.”
She paused, reining in her temper. A little. “Fact-the message spoke of a baby coming. She came. And she arrived coated in the kind of magic you can’t possibly explain away as a paperwork mix-up.”
His head snapped up. “We have no idea what kind of magic it was.”
She did now. And had scans and graphs and data to prove it. “The not-of-this-world kind.”
He was a smart man-and Nell could see the moment when truth finally punched him in the gut. “Evan.” One whispered word from a man literally slammed to his knees.
Any other man she would have gathered in her arms like one of her boys. This one was far too fragile. Nell stood vigil as his soul trembled-and sent all the love she dared.
Finally, he looked up, anguish in his eyes. “Evan sent the baby?”
It killed her to do it. But she owed it to a witch she’d never met. “Yes. He sent her to you.”
And, just maybe, Evan Buchanan had sent the key that would crack the Ice Age in his twin brother’s heart.
It was a war worth fighting. Nell looked at the shattered man bowed down in front of her-and signed up.
She’d give him a couple hours of peace-and then she’d launch her assault.
Chapter 6
A quick shimmer of magic was all the warning Marcus got. A small boy materialized in the middle of his kitchen, offering smiles and a plate of cookies. “Mama sent me. She says you’re really cranky and you could use some cuddles.”
Anvils and cuddles. Nell was a very dangerous witch. And he was a weak and tired man unable to resist the invitation in big brown eyes. Or cookies. “Want some milk to go with those?”
“Yup. One for you too-these are dunkers. You can dunk them in tea if you want, but only really old people do that.”
A stray chuckle escaped Marcus’s throat. Aervyn might be the only person alive who didn’t throw him in with the old people. “Two glasses of milk, then.”
Aervyn climbed onto a stool next to the counter, helping himself to a cookie. “Where’s Morgan?”
It took Marcus a moment to connect the name with the pesky infant sleeping in his living room after countless poopy diapers, another long walk on the beach, and one of the bottles that kept mysteriously showing up on his countertop. “Taking a nap.”
“You should try to remember her name.” His pint-sized therapist handed over a cookie along with the lecture.
It probably didn’t take a psychologist to figure out why he preferred to think of her as “that girl-child.” Marcus poured two glasses of milk. “I’m not used to babies.”
“I am.” Aervyn nodded sagely. “Babies are trouble.”
Marcus blinked. That wasn’t the direction he’d expected this to head.
His visitor broke a cookie in two and dropped one half into a glass of milk. “Mama says they grow up to be more fun, but when they’re little, they just cry a lot and make everybody really grumpy and you have to be quiet all the time.”
That was quite the list of grievances, especially from a source who rarely complained about anything. Marcus tried to dig out of his sleep-deprived depression for a moment. It occurred to him that Fisher’s Cove wasn’t the only place invaded by babies this spring. “Kenna’s keeping everyone busy, is she?”
Aervyn grinned in one of the lightning changes of mood cookies often produced. “She’s trying to crawl now, but she keeps putting her bum-bum in the air and her face on the ground.” He shook his head at the obvious silliness of such an effort. “I’m trying to teach her, but she doesn’t listen very well.”
Probably all to the good-babies were problematic enough when they just flailed like turtles on their backs wherever you put them. He shuddered to imagine Fisher’s Cove when the baby herd mastered mobility. “Perhaps you should just leave her in one place, my young friend. Run while you can.”
“Can’t.” All the weight of the world sat on five-year-old shoulders. “Mama says I have to be nice to her and help her learn how to be a witch and all that stuff.”
There were advantages to being a crusty old bachelor. However, even he wasn’t dumb enough to foment rebellion in everyone’s favorite superwitch. “I’m sure there are other people to help Kenna learn those things.”
“Lots.” The answer came easily and accompanied by cookie crumbs. “But Mama says every witchling has some really special helpers, and I’m a’posed to decide whether I want to be one of Kenna’s.”