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She’s a modern and won’t understand the magic.”

“Ya’re a modern, too.”

“Aye. But I grew up with the magic. Hell, I have conversations with an owl. What do you think Cat’s reaction would be if she knew that?”

Michael set his hand on Robbie’s arm. “We’ve all married moderns, son. And some of us have learned the hard way that there’s no simple way to explain who we are.”

Both men looked toward the house when they heard voices and saw the women standing by the truck. Michael used the stick to lever himself to his feet.

“But if I may suggest?” Michael said quietly. “Have a very firm hold on her heart before ya try to explain anything. For as much as your mother loved me, she wasn’t quite ready to hear what I had to tell her.” He canted his head. “Mary wasn’t even aware of her own gift while she was alive, I don’t think, or she would have been able to accept who I was and where I came from.” He smiled. “But I think once she felt ya stirring inside her, she understood and tried to come back to me.”

It was all Robbie could do not to tell his father that he’d visited with Mary in the storm, as the beautiful woman she’d been when Michael MacBain had loved her.

“Has she not come to you once, Papa?”

“Nay,” Michael said, shaking his head. “Not after Libby came into my life. Mary cared enough not to intrude. Not only for my sake but for Libby’s as well.” He looked up toward TarStone. “She’s watching us, though. I can… I feel her sometimes.” He looked back at Robbie and smiled. “A whisper or a mere breath on my neck. Or I’ll catch a hint of drying herbs in the middle of the tree fields in the dead of winter.”

“Aye,” Robbie said, slapping his father’s back and leaving his hand there as they started toward the truck. “She’s always been watching.”

Michael stopped and looked him directly in the eye. “If ya’re sure Catherine Daniels is the woman ya want to grow old with, then talk to Libby and your Aunt Grace and Sadie and Charlotte. They’ve gone from moderns to believers in some very interesting ways.

Your Aunt Sadie thought she’d actually died, because she couldn’t comprehend the magic at first.”

“Maybe I should just keep my calling separate from my life with Catherine. Why complicate things?”

Michael snorted and shoved the stick at Robbie’s chest. “Aye, you do that, son. And see if ya don’t wake up some morning to an empty house. Keeping secrets from each other

—even small secrets, much less something as important as your calling—is more abusive than anything Catherine’s ex-husband could have done to her. At least physical abuse is openly hostile, but the silence of keeping things from each other is more lethal than a sword slicing through a person’s heart.”

Robbie dropped his head and sighed. “I’ll tell her.”

“After you’ve caught her,” Michael reminded him, slapping him on the shoulder and turning them both toward the truck again. “And after you’ve dealt with Daniels in a way that won’t come back and haunt ya.”

They reached the truck, and Robbie leaned over and gave first Gram Katie and then his mum a kiss on the cheek. “Are the boys invited to Sunday dinner?” he asked. “That’s quite a houseful.”

“Of course they are,” Libby said, sliding into the front seat. She looked past him at Cat.

“We eat at noon, and then everyone goes for a walk after dinner, so bring boots.”

Catherine nodded and said good-bye to Kate as Michael settled the elderly but spry woman in the backseat and handed her the seat belt.

Michael looked over the roof of the Suburban at Robbie. “Something’s troubling your uncle. Ian’s been restless the last couple of days, and Winter is worried about him. See if ya can find out what’s troubling him on your walk home.”

“Aye,” Robbie agreed, nodding. “We’ll have a talk.”

“Good,” Michael said, ducking into the truck.

Robbie leaned in, gave his mum another kiss on the cheek, and then closed her door and smiled at the red letters printed across it: “Bigelow Christmas Tree Farm, Pine Creek, Maine.”

John and Ellen Bigelow had planted their first Christmas tree fifty-six years ago. His father had never changed the name of the farm, though he’d owned it for more than thirty years now. Michael had always cited some excuse about name recognition, but Robbie suspected it was more likely his attachment to the two wonderful people, not a business decision.

Ellen Bigelow had died when Robbie was eight, and John had passed on seven years later. Both were buried on a knoll overlooking their farm, a balsam fir tree planted at the head of their graves.

“Ian’s inside eating cobbler, isn’t he?” Robbie asked Cat as they both watched their company leave.

“There must be something in the water around here. Everyone has a sweet tooth,” she said, walking back to the house.

Robbie fell into step beside her. “How do you feel about your lesson this morning?”

She looked over at him as they climbed the steps. “I’m sorry I hit you.”

“I’m not.” Robbie handed her the stick. “That’s exactly what you’re after—do the unexpected. If I get smacked, it’s my fault and your credit.”

“You didn’t just go into the woods and find any old stick,” she said, stopping at the door and holding it up between them. “You put some work into this.”

He had searched for just the right young maple sapling, stripped off its thin bark, and cut it down to Catherine’s size. It was straight as a flagpole, and he’d sanded it smooth and rubbed in a coat of wax to preserve its beauty.

“There’s nothing that says a weapon can’t look good. You remember the fine craftsmanship of my sword, don’t you? It used to belong to my namesake, my great-uncle Robert MacBain. He called itAn Cluaran, which is Gaelic forThe Thistle. My father told me Robert always boasted that it was the sting of his sword that men feared.”

Cat smiled up at him. “It’s a guy thing, isn’t it, to name your stuff? Like your truck,” she said, nodding toward his Suburban’s bug shield.

“Aye. It’s called being possessive.” He leaned down. “Which is why I’ve named my housekeeper after a mountain cat.”

Her face flushed scarlet, and she spun away and walked into the kitchen. Robbie followed and found Ian sitting at the table, a cup of coffee in one hand, a fork in the other, and more blueberry cobbler on his beard than on his plate.

“If you don’t want to be waddling home, Uncle, you’d better push away from the table,”

Robbie said, watching Cat walk over and set her stick by the grandfather clock.

“I’m coming,” Ian muttered, sliding his chair back. He went over to Catherine, started to say something, then suddenly reached out and hugged her so tightly she squeaked.

“Thank ya for… well, for everything, lass,” he said, stepping back and grinning from his own flushed face. He walked over to retrieve his coat. “I hope ya can keep up with me today, young Robbie,” he said, walking out the door. “I don’t have time to dawdle.”

Robbie looked at his shocked housekeeper, shrugged, and then followed his uncle outside, only to find the old warrior was already halfway up the driveway.

Robbie jogged to catch up, then tucked his hands behind his back and fell into step beside him. “Is this what you’ve been doing all week?” he asked. “Visiting everyone to say good-bye?”

Ian glanced over at him, then looked back at the path. “I wasn’t expecting it to be so hard,” he muttered. “How in hell am I supposed to say good-bye if they don’t even know I’m leaving?”

“You can’t, Uncle.” He stopped and turned Ian to face him. “You can still change your mind.”

“Nay,” Ian growled, squaring his shoulders. “I want to be with my Gwyneth.”

Robbie started walking again. “Then you shall. I’ll pick you up at Gu Bràth tomorrow afternoon at three. That will give us plenty of time to reach the summit before sunset.”