Mafia manager. "I just need some downtime."
It worried her when he said good-bye. He didn't sound convinced.
Marcus turned the page of his book - and sighed as small hands tugged at his sleeve. "I only made it two pages, monkey girl."
Purple eyes twinkled up at him. "G-an."
Morgan's baby talk was mangled - and adorable. And apparently far more comprehensible to all the womenfolk of the village than it was to him. This one, however, he'd heard before. "Soon."
Her eyes darkened. "Soon" was not Morgan's favorite word. "G-an." She tugged again.
Reading time was clearly over. Marcus shook his head and got to his feet. "Fine, we'll go visit Gran." He'd tried explaining to a drooly Morgan once or twice that Moira was her great-aunt, not her grandmother - to no effect. Neither of them believed him.
Morgan headed for the door, grinning.
He grabbed a handful of pink off the edge of the rug and held it up. "But you have to put your socks on first."
And mittens. And a hat. And a jacket that made her look like an escapee from the prehistoric exhibit at the museum.
She contemplated his outstretched hand for a minute, a brooding scowl on her face.
And then plunked down on her bottom and held up her toes. "G-an."
He felt the grin crack his face, working muscles that hadn't had nearly enough exercise in the last four decades. "How come you couldn't just leave them on in the first place, hmm?" He dutifully dressed Morgan in socks every morning - and she just as steadfastly removed them.
Marcus slid her wiggly toes into a gaudy striped sock and grinned, oddly proud. Typical Buchanan, always doing things the hard way.
Then again, he wasn't entirely sure what typical Buchanan was anymore. His life had changed beyond all recognition - and the many hours of the day required to keep Morgan fed, happy, and appropriately clothed for the volatile climate of Fisher's Cove was only a part of it.
He missed Evan dearly - that hadn't changed. But the horror of his five-year-old twin disappearing into the mists was no longer the last memory he had of his brother. And every time he saw Morgan, he imagined Evan close by, watching over the two of them.
Their guardian witch.
Grief still hit him at strange moments, but it was the kind of sorrow that time eased - and guilt was no longer its constant companion.
He picked up his daughter and kissed her cheek. Guilt had left his heart - and so much had flooded in to replace it. The cranky old bachelor had almost gotten used to loving someone so much that she undid him simply by sticking a wet Cheerio to her nose. "Come on, sweet pea. Let's go see who's out and about this afternoon."
That, too, was an enormous change in his life. He'd lived the last twenty years in his solitary castle by the sea - a big, rambling place. He'd needed it to hold all of his sadness.
Now he and Morgan squeezed into a tiny, ramshackle cottage on the edge of a village that seemed to think the path to the beach ran through his kitchen. And somehow, he could no longer work up the energy to be the least bit grumpy about it.
Morgan started wiggling in his arms halfway down the road to the inn. He looked down at the rosy cheeks sticking out from her hood of bright blue wool. "It's still a long ways - how about I carry you a bit farther, hmm?"
She grinned up at him. "Fower."
Argh. Marcus rolled his eyes. "We left flowers all over the village yesterday." People were beginning to talk.
"Fower." This time, he was fairly convinced she even managed to bat her eyelashes.
He nuzzled into a cold cheek and growled. "Your wiles are wasted on me, silly girl." A lie if there ever was one. She got more adorable every day - and he got less immune.
"Fower."
Perhaps reason would work. "Forty-eight-year-old witches don't learn new magic tricks. Maybe Sophie will make you flowers."
"Fower."
It was damnably hard to argue with someone who only had a vocabulary of six words. And he suspected an increase in her vocabulary wasn't something to look forward to.
He plunked her down on the ground and slid off his glove. At this rate, he was going to need to bribe a fire witch for some handwarmer spells, too. With his other still-gloved hand, he pushed twigs and rotting leaves aside, working his way down to bare soil. Morgan babbled happily