deeply sorry for that. I had plenty of people trying to tell me I had it wrong."
There had been lots of those people in Beth's life - and very few of them ever made it to this place. "Please don't blame yourself."
"Who else?" Nell lifted a helpless shoulder. "This is my world, and I couldn't figure out how to welcome you into it."
"I'm not easy to welcome. It takes a special kind of person to..." Beth trailed off, not wanting to insult. "Liri was the first, really." And through Liri, others had come. "Your daughter Shay..." She halted again, stumbling now on the rocky ground of holding one small hand instead of the others.
"My three girls are very different. Not everyone knows how to see them as more than one of three." Nell paused, three crayons in her fingers. "And when they do, it's not usually Shay they see first. I'd like to thank you for that."
"She's..." A tiny miracle with small warm hands and safe eyes. "She's very special to me."
Nell exhaled softly. "She loves you very much."
And finally, Beth had the right words. "You shared her with me. That was a very fine welcome." One that deserved a thank you. She reached for the canister of flour. "If training needs to wait a while, perhaps you can teach me to bake a decent batch of cookies instead. Snickerdoodles are Liri's favorite."
The astonishment on Nell's face was worth a hundred moments of awkwardness. "You want to make cookies?"
"Yes." Beth delighted in her idea. Aspies were hardly ever spontaneous. "Recipes have a beginning and an end. I think we'll do fine."
"But you don't eat cookies."
And in this place, perhaps that deserved an explanation too. "My brain chemistry is fragile. It doesn't handle the swings of sugar very well. I do better on a diet of seeds and nuts and other boring squirrel food."
Making Nell laugh was almost as much fun as surprising her. Beth smiled. "Spellcasting isn't your only magic. You're the center of this place - the gravitational force holding everyone in."
"I'm a bossy witch, you mean."
"Yes." Beth realized, a sentence too late, that this was one of those times when most people weren't honest. "Sorry. Sometimes I don't filter very well."
"It's okay." Nell looked over, eyes warm. "You're not wrong about the bossy part. But what does that have to do with cookies?"
"You're the glue around here. And I don't know exactly how you do that, but I'm hoping the cookies are part of it." Beth felt one of her rare jokes coming on. "I figure it will get me further than trying to feed everyone nuts."
Reading eyes wasn't her strength. But she was pretty sure that what shone from Nell's was the beginning of friendship.
"Tell you what." Nell reached up into the cupboard and brought down a tin with a familiar label. "How about we start with good old-fashioned chocolate chip cookies? We'll use white chocolate chips and throw in some macadamia nuts for the squirrels."
Something fierce and warm glowed in Beth's chest.
At last. Common ground.
-o0o-
Lauren curled up next to her husband on the couch, enjoying the endless ocean view and one of his rare lazy moods. "Think it will storm?" Gray clouds teased the western sky, offering at least the possibility of something other than winter sunshine.
"If it's a storm you want - " Devin's grin suggested that lazy could be finished any time she wanted.
Hmm. That had definite possibilities too. She snuggled in closer, working a hand under the hem of his t-shirt.
Lazy vanished from his eyes. He shifted, laying them both out on the couch. Less good for ocean viewing, far better for hands heading under shirts.
Lauren explored, reveling in the warm, solid feel of him.
And then one of his pockets started howling at the moon.
Cripes. That wasn't his usual ring tone. She snickered and shook her head, suspecting shenanigans. "Sure you don't want to move to outer Mongolia?"
He growled and dug out his phone. And then squinted, mystified, at the message on his screen. "It's for you. Apparently Daniel requires your immediate attention."
Whatever - her brother-in-law could wait. She snuggled into her