Eve zeroed in on another lightning bug and caught it between her cupped palms. “I got him! I got him!” She ran to Judah, who opened the jar’s lid a fraction, just enough so that Eve could drop her hostage into the glass prison.
When Eve sensed Mercy’s presence, she looked at her and smiled. “Daddy’s never caught lightning bugs before, not even when he was a little boy. I had to explain that I wouldn’t hurt them, and that after I see how many I can catch, I’ll let them all go free.”
“Well, I believe it’s emancipation time,” Mercy said. “It’s after eight. You need to take a bath before you go to bed, my little princess.”
“No, not yet. Please, just another hour.” Whining, Eve put her hands together in a prayer-like gesture. “Daddy and I are having so much fun.” She turned to Judah. “Aren’t we, Daddy? Tell her. Tell her that I don’t have to go to bed right now.”
Judah handed Eve the jar filled with fireflies. “Let them go.”
Eve tilted her head to one side and stared up at him. “I guess this means I have to do what Mother told me to do.”
He playfully ruffled her hair. “I guess it does.”
Once again, Judah’s actions showed him to be like any other father. How was it possible that an Ansara could be so similar to a Raintree? Perhaps Sidonia was right. Judah could be playing her for a fool, showing her what she wanted to see in him. A false impression.
Reluctantly, Eve unscrewed the lid and shook the jar gently, encouraging the lightning bugs to fly free. When the last one escaped, she walked up on the porch, handed the jar to Mercy and put on her sad face, the one she used to evoke pity.
Heaving a deep sigh, Eve said dramatically, “I’m ready to go-if I have to.”
Mercy barely managed not to smile. “Go inside and let Sidonia help you with your bath. I’ll be up later to kiss you good-night.”
“Daddy, too?”
“Yes,” Judah and Mercy replied simultaneously.
As soon as Eve went into the house, letting the screen door slam loudly behind her, Mercy set the empty Mason jar on the porch and stepped down into the yard. Judah looked up at the sky and the towering hills surrounding them, then settled his gaze on her.
“Nice evening,” he said. “It’s certainly peaceful here in these mountains. Don’t you ever get bored?”
“I stay busy,” she told him.
“Healing the bodies and hearts and minds of your fellow Raintree?”
“Yes, if and when I can. It’s my job as the Keeper of the Sanctuary to use my gifts as an empathic healer to help those who come to me.” Her gaze met his and held. “But then, you already knew that, didn’t you? You knew the day we met that I was the appointed one.”
“The moment I saw your eyes, I knew you were Raintree. I managed to see into your thoughts enough to learn you were a princess and that you were slated to become some sort of guardian,” Judah admitted. “I picked up only fragments of thought before I realized that, for the most part, your thoughts were shielded.”
“You used a shield, too. A powerful shield. I just didn’t realize it at the time,” she said. “I thought it strange that I couldn’t read you at all, that when I touched you, I sensed only that I could trust you. You blocked me completely and then sent me a deceptive message.”
“I did what was necessary in order to get what I wanted.”
“And you wanted me.”
“Very much.”
Why did he make his reply sound as if he were talking about the present and not the past? Even if he did want her now, he wanted only the use of her body, just as he had that night seven years ago.
No, that wasn’t the complete truth. He had wanted more than her body that night. He had wanted to take a Raintree princess’s innocence and make her fall in love with him. He had done both.
“Why didn’t you use protection that night?” Mercy asked.
His mouth curved upward in a sarcastic smirk. “Why didn’t you?”
“I could say that it was because I was young and stupid and got carried away with feelings I’d never experienced. But the truth is that when I knew I was going to spend the night with you, give myself to you…I tried to conjure up a temporary protection spell. Apparently it didn’t work.”
“Apparently.”
“So what’s your excuse?”
“I thought I was protected,” he admitted.
Her eyes widened. “You used a sexual protection spell, too?”
He nodded. “Sort of. A long-term gift that my cousin Claude and I have been exchanging since we were teenagers. It worked perfectly with Ansara and human women.”
“If we were both protected, then how-oh, my God! Sexual protection spells and gifts must not work when a Raintree mates with an Ansara.”
“At least not in our case,” Judah agreed.
“I don’t understand. They should have worked. We should have been protected.”
“The only explanation I can think of is that Eve was meant to be.”
“Are you saying you believe that a higher power ordained Eve’s conception?”
“It’s possible. Perhaps she was born for a specific reason.”
Judah sounded so certain, as if he knew something she didn’t. But that wasn’t possible, was it? He might be a talented Ansara, with many abilities, but he was not a seer who could look into the future.
“Did someone tell you that Eve was destined to-”
“No one knew about Eve’s existence, except for you and Sidonia, until three days ago. How could anyone have told me anything about her?”
“Yes, of course.”
“She’s an amazing child, our little Eve.”
When he stared at Mercy, visually stripping her bare as he so often did, she glanced away. “If by chance you encounter any other Raintree while you’re here, tell them your name is Judah Blackstone, and that you’re an old friend of mine from college. We’ve allowed visitors to come to the sanctuary before, friends of my family who needed the peace and solitude the home place offers. No one will question you further.”
“And if Eve tells someone that I’m her father, how will we handle that?”
“I’ll speak to her and explain that, for the present, we need to keep that fact our little secret.”
“Judah Blackstone, huh?”
“It’s as good a name as any.” She turned and headed toward the front porch steps. “I’m going up to say good-night to Eve. Are you coming with me?”
“Yes, I’m coming with you.” He followed her onto the porch and into the house. Once inside the foyer, he asked, “Did you have an old boyfriend named Blackstone? Do I need to be jealous?”
Taken off guard by his question, she snapped around and scowled at him.
Judah chuckled. “Don’t Raintree have a sense of humor?”
“I don’t see anything humorous in our relationship. You and I are enemies who find ourselves temporarily bound together in a common cause-to save our daughter. But once she is no longer in danger…” Mercy walked away from him, heading for the stairs.
He came up behind her and clutched her elbow. She stopped dead still but didn’t look back at him. Now, as in the past, his touch heated her blood, warming her as if a fire had been lit deep inside her. She tilted her head and glanced over her shoulder. He was too close, his chest brushing against her back.
He leaned his head low and whispered, “When Eve is no longer in danger, you know that you and I can’t share her. She will become either Ansara or Raintree, the outcome decided by which of us kills the other. That’s what you were thinking, wasn’t it?”
“If you would swear to go away and leave us alone, to never contact Eve again, it wouldn’t have to end that way. Eve wouldn’t have to grow up knowing her mother killed her father.”