was going to do it with two ten-year-old boys listening in.
Aaron stood back, the only one who had been even slightly daunted by the Do Not Enter signs. She soaked in his steady presence and the love in his eyes.
Closing the last few steps, she reached to touch his face. “Hi.”
His grin chased the remnants of sadness away. “Hi, yourself. Welcome home.”
Home was the place where four words could make you feel right again. Visually rounding up her witchlings, she reached for his hand. “Feed me—I’m starving.”
Aaron grabbed Lizzie’s hand as well. “I have a picnic in the car. I thought we could stop along the way, let the kids play on the beach for a while.”
The children would enjoy the beach, but Elorie was pretty sure the stop was meant for her, a chance to root her soul in the ocean breezes. Her husband understood her very well.
“Can we help look for sea glass?” Lizzie asked. “I want to find a pretty pink piece.”
Elorie grinned. “Those are hard to find, sweetpea.”
“I’ll find one. And when I do, maybe you can help me put it on a chain. I want to give it to Momma for her birthday. I want to use the hole-maker whizzer.”
Elorie tried not to wince at the thought of her beloved Dremel tool in the hands of a six-year-old. “I’m sure we can come up with something spectacular. Let’s see what you find on the beach first. A good artist needs to be flexible.”
She looked over at Sean and Kevin. “You guys want to help with the sea-glass hunt, too?”
They both looked horrified. “Nah,” Sean said. “I can practice my pitching, though. Coach says throwing rocks into the ocean is great practice.”
Aaron looked fairly interested in that idea. Elorie hid her grin. He wasn’t the biggest fan of trawling the beach for glass, and goodness knows she’d made him do enough of it. He could throw rocks with Sean and try to keep him dry. She couldn’t recall a beach trip where at least one witchling hadn’t come home wet.
Kevin would have a book to keep himself busy, she didn’t even have to ask—but she might have something he would enjoy even better.
Tugging Aaron to a halt, Elorie reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out three wrapped presents. She had one for her husband as well, but he was going to have to wait for a more private moment.
Lizzie was into hers first and waved her rainbow-silk streamer in delight. When Elorie had seen them at the Art Fair, she’d pictured Lizzie dashing down the beach trailing ribbons of color behind her. It was the perfect gift for a child who loved bright beauty and never stopped running.
For Sean, she had a baseball. This one she was less sure about, but Jamie had assured her that a ball signed by last year’s World Series winning team would be an instant hit. From the look on Sean’s face, Jamie knew what he was talking about.
Kevin had opened his small, flat package more slowly. He was absolutely quiet when he realized what it contained, but his look of delight took Elorie’s breath away. He touched the Kindle with reverent fingers. She showed him how it turned on, and the list of books already loaded, thanks to some helpful hands in California.
Sean looked over in interest. “What’s that?”
“It’s to read books,” Kevin said softly. “All the books in the world.”
Sean rolled his eyes in disgust. “Books.”
Kevin, well used to his twin’s literary disdain, just hugged the Kindle to his chest.
Aaron grinned as they started walking again. “Nice going. What’d you bring me?”
Elorie winked at him and said nothing, which increased the size of her husband’s grin. She was pretty sure the handmade baby booties in her bag weren’t his first guess.
~ ~ ~
Jamie set down grilled-cheese sandwiches in front of his two trainees. “Okay, kiddos, we have a job to do.”
Aervyn ate the grape eyes off his sandwich. “Do we get to melt stuff again?”
Not on purpose, Jamie thought, but made a mental note to keep his new laptop well away from the training circle. “Nope. We have a mystery to solve.”
“I thought we already did that,” Ginia said. “We figured out how to turn on Net power.”
“You did. Now we need to figure out what we can do with it.”
His lunch guests scrunched up their faces in identical quizzical lines. “Don’t you know?” Aervyn asked.
Jamie shook his head. “I don’t. Usually when witches are learning something new,