Beauty and the Beastmaster - Linda Winstead Jones Page 0,53
standing just around the corner, apparently. She stepped into the room. “Your ex Jenna?” She asked, eyes on Clint. “Brigadoon, again. I swear, what is it with you people? It was a movie, a musical no less, not a blueprint for some kind of magic spell.” She pursed her lips then said, “Though Gene Kelly is kind of awesome, in an old-timey kind of way.”
Clint stood, kissed his wife briefly, and then asked her to make coffee. She started to argue, but didn’t. It was unlikely either of them would drink coffee this late, but it would be best if Marnie wasn’t a part of this conversation.
When his wife was out of the room Clint asked, in a low, gravelly voice, “How long has she been back?”
“A couple of weeks, maybe longer.”
“And I’m just now hearing about it?”
“It isn’t exactly happy news I was thrilled to share,” Silas snapped, and then he explained that he’d called once and Marnie had told him there was a tight deadline. That wasn’t much of an excuse. He should’ve tried again.
Clint narrowed his eyes, probably having the same thought. “We need to get the Benedicts in on this. Susan, too. Maybe Tag Keen. What about Harry?”
“The Milhouses are with Jenna,” Silas said. If one of them was in on the plan, the others would be, too. That clan stuck together, always. “And Tag is out. He made sure the Non-Springer activities director at The Egg found a better job elsewhere.”
Clint growled low in his throat before continuing. “Did Jenna find Alice’s spell? How the hell did she manage that? People in town have been searching for months without success. Besides, Jenna hasn’t been around for years. How did she even know about it?”
“Apparently she came up with this spell on her own.” Silas leaned forward, lowering his voice. He wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out Marnie was listening. “It’s to take place at the equinox. I don’t know why, but then spells aren’t my thing.” He hesitated, glanced once toward the hallway half expecting to see Clint’s wife there. “There’s more.”
“Of course there is.”
“Gabi’s little girl, Mia. I…” He hesitated. He had nothing but a suspicion, a random, isolated incident that could probably be explained away, somehow. “I think she has Springer blood.”
“She’s too young…”
“I’ve gone over all the arguments,” Silas snapped. “I heard her thoughts, a word, an emotion. It just happened once, and wasn’t my imagination. I’ve tried to convince myself that it was, but I can’t. She’s too young, I get that, but things change. Look at how powerful Felicity and Bria are.”
Clint’s response was a grunt.
“Maybe it’s all connected, somehow,” Silas said. “The tide of power among the young, the fact that Jenna’s so sure she can cast this spell now, people leaving…”
“Anything unusual going on in your world?”
Silas looked back, he searched his memory for some kind of clue among the animals of the region, but there was nothing. “No. Everything is as it’s always been.” Except for Mia, and Judge’s obsession with the kid. “Gabi’s shown no indication that she has magic of any kind,” he continued, “so it has to be the father. A father who might be in town hunting for his ex-wife. If he is, I can guarantee you his intentions are not good.”
“Does Gabi know?” Clint asked.
He didn’t have to be more specific than that. Did Gabi know he could talk to animals, that there was magic all around her, that she’d stumbled into a place where she did not belong? “No.” Not yet.
Marnie walked into the room with a tray bearing two steaming coffee cups, cream and sugar, and a small plate of cookies. “I thought about making decaf, but I didn’t. Sounds to me like you two have some work to do. A little caffeine won’t hurt, and neither will the sugar in the cookies.”
She didn’t even pretend that she hadn’t been eavesdropping. After placing the tray on a rustic coffee table, she sat in a chair near Clint’s. “We should meet here. Not knowing who’s involved, meeting in town will be too risky. Tonight or tomorrow? Should be tonight, I guess, because this sounds pretty serious. The Jenna part, not the thing with the baby. I wonder what Mia will be able to do when she’s older?”
Marnie looked squarely at Silas. “Brigadoon, or whatever the hell you call it, scares the stew out of me. That’s first priority. But having Clint’s ex-wife back in town is almost as scary.