Boundary Born (Boundary Magic Book 3) - Melissa F. Olson Page 0,17

thanks for getting back to me. I’ll keep an eye on the herd when they’re outside, just in case.”

“Good idea. Meanwhile, the Department of Natural Resources is looking into it.”

We spent a few more minutes catching up on family news. Dani was thinking about trying out for the volleyball team in the fall, which would be her first team sport. She had also been exchanging e-mails with Grace Brighton, who was the daughter of my friend Sashi, the healing witch in Las Vegas. Grace was a couple of years older than Dani, but apparently they spent hours playing some online game together on the weekends. Jake and his wife Cara were even talking about going down to Vegas for Dani’s thirteenth birthday in a couple of months.

When I eventually hung up the phone, it was with some trepidation. I was a little nervous about the two sides of my life—boundary witch and family member—intersecting in any way. Then again, Grace didn’t know anything about the Old World, and Sashi was doing her damnedest to keep it that way.

At the same time, I couldn’t believe Dani was nearly a teenager. I could swear I’d been changing her diapers a week ago. I felt a stab of nostalgia. Soon she’d be too busy to come over here and play with the herd, and too grown-up for our Pixar movie nights with the other kids.

Feeling old and tired, I considered just staying in bed. But I could never fall back asleep after one of those dreams, not without Quinn, anyway. So I let the animals out and took a quick shower, put salve on my burn, and dressed in jeans and an old purple shirt that used to be my sister’s. Sam had given it to me while she was pregnant with Charlie, complaining that it was too tight around the middle and it would never look good on her flabby mom belly again. Smiling a little at the memory, I padded into the kitchen to check my calendar. I was pretty sure I had to work at the Depot at one, but since becoming semi-nocturnal, I’d gotten the days mixed up before.

The doorbell rang before I made it to the living room. I jumped a little, and all around me dogs began barking hysterically, working extra hard to make up for the fact that they hadn’t heard anyone approach. Generally the only person who could surprise the dogs was Quinn, because he was vampire-sneaky. “Dropped the ball, guys,” I muttered.

The animals swarmed the front door, and I had to wedge myself between them to get to the little glass window. When I peeked through, I saw an unassuming Caucasian man with his hands stuffed in his pockets. When he saw me, he held up his hands slightly in an unconscious nonthreatening gesture. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I automatically thought salesman.

He said something, but I couldn’t make it out over the barking. I cracked the door, jamming my body in it to keep the dogs inside, and opened my mouth to get rid of him. He overrode me.

“I’m sorry to just drop in on you like this,” he called over the noise, “but I didn’t have a number for you. My name is Emil Jasper, and I . . . well. I’m your biological father.”

Chapter 7

“You’re . . . what do . . .” I sputtered. I was having a hard time rearranging my entire worldview in a few seconds.

Sam and I had never celebrated an adoption day the way some families did, and most of the time I barely remembered that we weren’t biologically Luthers. But I knew the story. My birth mother had walked into a Denver hospital in the middle of a terrible rainstorm, dripping wet and well into labor. She wouldn’t give her name or any background information, but she spoke with an accent, and the hospital’s assumption was that she was likely an undocumented immigrant.

The doctors would have questioned her further after we were born, but then I went into distress—something about fluid in my lungs choking me. While they were busy saving me, our mother was suddenly bleeding out. And then it was over. I’d wondered who my birth father was, of course, but I’d never actually expected to find out.

Unable to form any actual sentences, I snapped my mouth shut and looked him over more carefully, tuning out the barking. Jasper was just over six feet tall, with dark blond hair silvering to