A Celtic Witch - By Debora Geary Page 0,21

heart. Men with babies weren't casual stops on the road. And anything more wasn't possible.

Cass leaned over to the plate beside Lizzie and picked up a scone. She was here for rest and relaxation, nothing more. Three weeks of doing exactly what she wanted. A little music, simple pleasures, and wandering where she willed.

A refueling before she gave her life back to the music.

She bit into the flaky goodness in her hand and closed her eyes in worshipful silence.

A very good start.
Chapter 6
"Well, now, and isn't that interesting."

Sophie shut her herbals logbook - clearly she wasn't supposed to be getting any work done this day. Not that she was surprised. Cassidy had just left with Aaron to choose herself a room, and Marcus had taken Lizzie and Morgan over to the church to pick new library books.

She'd never seen a man quite so happy to be going to the library.

Sophie hid a smile and glanced casually at their beloved and very nosy elder witch. "What's up?"

Moira picked up her knitting, a very satisfied smile on her face. "Perhaps you might drop a wee note to Nell on that laptop of yours. Save an old lady needing to trundle out into the cold to do it."

They'd given Moira a laptop for Christmas - and she steadfastly refused to carry it anywhere. "And what is it that Nell needs to know so urgently?"

Green eyes twinkled enough to blanket the night sky. "That we've fetched our witch, of course."

Sophie stared. "Witch? You scanned her?"

"Of course not." Moira raised an eyebrow. "You think I need such a thing to tell when one of my own has power running in her veins?"

It would be a waste of air to point out that not all the Irish were related. Moira adopted people with relish and little regard for pesky things like genetics. "You're sure?"

"Can't you feel it? The rightness of it?" Moira's knitting needles clacked meditatively, her voice the soft, lilting one of her girlhood. "And didn't you see her eyes when she saw our Marcus?"

Ooooh, boy. Getting left in the dust by an old witch again. Either that, or Irish mysticism was running amok this afternoon. That had been known to happen too.

Sophie squinted at the happily knitting witch on the couch and tried to catch up. She'd mostly been watching Marcus, and that had been plenty fascinating. "Wait. You think we've fetched an Irish witch, and you already have her snuggled up with the grumpiest bachelor on the planet?" Which wasn't an entirely fair description of Marcus these days, but still - the mind boggled.

And wasn't entirely impossible, given his reaction to the lovely Cassidy.

"Aye." Moira's smile was positively dreamy.

Sophie teetered between dismay and laughter.

Green eyes sharpened her direction. "What, an old woman can't enjoy thoughts of romance now and again?"

It wasn't the thoughts that worried Sophie. Certain old women were known to be inveterate meddlers. "I don't know about Cassidy Farrell, but Marcus will spit nails if you try to interfere."

"There's no need." Moira was back to gazing mistily at her knitting. "The fates are working now, and I don't think they've any need of help at the moment."

Sophie wasn't as convinced of the fates as their resident mystic - but she didn't entirely discount them, either. "For now, she's only a guest at the inn." Her witchy status and future love life were entirely hypothetical.

And yet oddly appealing.

"Ah, now you're seeing it, aren't you?"

In her romantic teenager heart, yes. The adult healer still thought this was insane. "He practically ignored her." In between occasional growls.

"Indeed." Moira's needles were speeding up now. "But his eyes drifted her way often."

It chagrined Sophie to realize she'd missed that - after giving Marcus a graceful way to hide in the corner, her attention had largely been for their intriguing guest. She traced the rich old letters on the front of her herbals log. "Really."

"Aye. She's a woman used to having an audience, that one is." The words were pensive, thoughtful. "Used to being looked at." A tiny smile lit Moira's face. "But I think perhaps she's not used to being seen."

The mystic was in full dudgeon today. But that didn't mean she was wrong. Sophie considered the words carefully. If Moira was right, the next few days could get rather interesting.

Fisher's Cove was very good at seeing people exactly as they were.

The inn might be in the middle of nowhere, but Cass knew a world-class innkeeper when she met one.

Aaron qualified. Outgoing, easy welcome, and laidback