Which was why for the last five weeks, Winter had spent her time getting her gallery ready for the fast-approaching Christmas shopping season, and Matt had been putting in twelve-hour days getting a road cut through the forest and having a small cottage built down on the lake below the meadow. Once their permanent home was finished up on the mountain—in about two years, Matt had estimated—the lakeshore cottage could then become their summer retreat. But even while waiting to get a temporary home built, Matt had been adamant about not having his pregnant wife living in a cave. So he had been pushing himself and his construction crew to get their cabin done by Thanksgiving, and trying to help Robbie and her papa hunt down the strange energy still lurking about.
There had been yet another puzzling incident since the pine had been cut, this time involving their precious cave. When Winter and Matt had gone out to see what could be salvaged from her accidental fires—and maybe find some privacy for some noisylovemaking—the cave was gone.
The soaring granite cliff was still towering over the meadow, but the entrance to the cave had disappeared. No matter how hard Matt repeatedly tried using whatever powers or spells he could conjure up, he couldn’t make the entrance reopen.
So for the last five weeks Winter had been dividing her time between the gallery, visiting Daar for her lessons on wizardry, and helping her mama collect furnishings for their nearly completed cottage.
The gallery was getting busy, her lessons with Daar were proving more frustrating than helpful, and Winter didn’t much care if her curtains matched her table linens or not. She just wanted to get moved out of Gù Brath so she could make love to her husband without worrying about her papa breaking down her bedroom door.
Gesader was still lurking about, although he’d been spending more time with Megan than with either Winter or Matt. And though her papa kept putting the panther out every night when they all went to bed, Megan had confided to Winter that Gesader would be up on the garage roof within minutes, and she would let him in her window so he could curl up on the bottom of her bed and keep her feet warm.
Winter still couldn’t bring herself to tell Megan that Gesader was really an ancient highland warrior. At first, once she’d realized the implications, Winter had been appalled to think she’d been so cozy and cuddly with her husband’s brother for over two years. She had remembered swimming—
naked!—in the high mountain pond with her pet, confiding her deepest secrets to him, and even telling him about her terrible dates with men who had thought they were God’s gift to women.
Matt had laughed at Winter’s outrage and asked if she thought he would have sent the panther here if it truly was his brothersharing her bed. When Kenzie was an animal, Matt had explained, he was nothing more than the creature he embodied, albeit an exceptionally intuitive creature. Megan was safe, Matt had assured Winter, at least until the upcoming solstice. Then all bets were off, he’d said with a very male grin. Once Kenzie was back to his old self, he would certainly find his way back into Megan’s bed.
As for Megan, her belly had popped out almost overnight, and she’d begun wearing maternity pants and baggy tops. She seemed to have come to terms with her pregnancy and hardly ever cried anymore. In fact, she was finally so mad at Wayne Ferris, Winter feared Megan was thinking of hunting him down and dispatching his black heart to hell herself.
Winter carried the huge bowl of potatoes from the kitchen and put it down on the large dining room table that was set to serve seven for Thanksgiving. Father Daar was already seated—toward the head of the table right beside her papa’s place, probably just to aggravate him—and the old priest had his napkin tucked in his collar and was already holding his fork.
“Who’s the seventh place for?” he asked, frowning down the empty table.
“Tom,” Winter told him, straightening one of the napkins. “He’s been here for the last two Thanksgivings, remember?”
“I remember he ate more than he talked.”
“Just like someone else I know,” she said, rolling her eyes and heading toward the living room, but having to stop when Daar spoke again.
“He’s late,” the priest said. “It’s impolite to make us wait. The food’s getting cold.”
“We’re starting, Father,” Winter assured him. “If we wait any longer, Tom will be embarrassed to have held us up.”
Daar harrumphed and Winter stepped into the living room to find her papa and husband deep in conversation, sitting facing each other in front of the brightly burning hearth. She smiled with quiet joy.
Who would have thought the two men she most loved in the world would end up getting along so well considering their precarious beginning? But whenever Matt wasn’t away on company business, he and her papa had been scouring both Bear and TarStone Mountain with Robbie, looking for whoever—or whatever—was interfering in their business of saving mankind.
“Dinner’s ready,” she said softly.
Both men looked over, smiled, and stood up. “What parts did you cook?” Matt asked, walking up and kissing the tip of her nose. “So I know what to avoid.”
“I cooked the turkey and the potatoes and the squash,” she said, giving him a smug smile when he groaned. “I waved my pencil over the turkey just before I put it in the oven.”
It was her papa who groaned this time, as he stopped on his way to the dining room and glared at Matt. “I thought ye took that damned thing away from her.”
Matt grinned. “She’s learned enough to keep it hidden from me,” he said in his own defense.
He looped his arm over Winter’s shoulder and guided her back into the dining room just as Megan and Grace showed up carrying more bowls of food.
“The turkey’s on the counter,” Grace said, sitting down on the left side of her husband’s place, opposite Daar. “Would you get it, Grey?”
“Tom’s not coming?” Matt asked, holding first Winter’s chair and then Megan’s as they sat down. But instead of sitting beside Winter, he then walked around the table and sat next to a scowling Father Daar.
“If Tom shows up, we’ll feed him,” Grace said, placing her napkin on her lap. “But everything was getting overcooked, so we’re starting without him. Father,” she said when Grey set the enormous turkey on the table and sat down, “would you say grace, please?”
“I blessed the food while it was cooking,” Daar said, reaching for the bowl of potatoes. “We can begin eating.”
Winter quickly slid the potatoes out of his reach. “Then maybe you could bless us,”she suggested.
“All of us?” he asked, darting an uncharitable glance at Matt before glaring back at Winter.
“I hope I don’t drop the pumpkin pie when I bring it out,” she said, keeping her hand on the bowl of potatoes.
Daar snapped his gaze down to his empty plate, folded his hands together, and said, “We ask ye God, to bless all the goodpeople here today, that we might finally get to enjoy yer bounty. Amen. Let
’s eat.”
Apparently eating was more important than worrying about sitting down to dinner with the enemy, and Daar took the casserole, spooned himself a huge helping, and bypassed Grey by handing it directly to Grace, obviously not wanting to interrupt the carving. “I’ll take that leg and thigh, Laird, if ye’
re wanting to get it out of yer way,” Daar said, holding his plate toward Grey. “And some of that stuffing.”
“So, Matt,” Grace said as she passed Winter the casserole, “have you found a way into your cave yet? Or do you think it even still exists?”
“I can feel an energy coming from inside the cliff,” Matt told her as he took the cranberry sauce from Megan. “But only sometimes, and usually at night.”
“You’ve been going to the cliff at night?” Winter asked in surprise. “When?”