Chapter14
The McCandliss housewas a pretty brick ranch-style house with white trim and pale blue shutters. It was set well back from the road on a large lot, with a wide, grassy lawn and framed by spreading trees bursting with fall colors. The neighborhood was definitely zoned for horses, as Naomi noted a number of the houses had corrals or small pastures behind them.
“Wow, this is really nice,” she commented as Liam pulled into the driveway and parked, setting the brake.
Beside them, Jacinth and Talya were unbuckling the car seat straps, and Benny and Molly piled out, while Douglas went to open the front door.
“Welcome to our home,” Jacinth said with a wide smile, leading the way inside. A small hallway with a coat closet opened to the kitchen on the right, and a spacious living room on the left. Jacinth led them into the living room, and gestured to the wide, comfortable looking sofas placed around a brick fireplace. “Make yourselves comfortable, while I get coffee and tea for everyone.”
Naomi sat on one side of a long couch, and discovered it was every bit as comfortable as it looked. She leaned back into the cushions, pulling her legs up under her. Beside her, Liam sank onto the sofa. His arm stretched across the back of the sofa. Although he wasn’t touching her, she was very aware of him. Feeling her cheeks heat, she had to resist the urge to lean into him, to feel his arm come around her, and to lay her head against his shoulder, so temptingly close.
She looked around gratefully as Douglas came into the room, herding the children past.
“I’m getting the kids settled in the family room with some cartoons,” he explained. “They’re exhausted after all this fun, they’ll probably be out like a light in half an hour.”
Jacinth came in bearing a tray with two carafes and a jumble of cups, spoons, sugar, and creamer. “Coffee, tea,” she pointed. “Help yourselves.”
Fixing some coffee gave Naomi’s pulse a chance to settle down and her cheeks to cool. They all had their drinks when Douglas returned, dropping down beside Jacinth in a loveseat set at an angle to the sofa where Naomi and Liam sat.
“Another successful barbecue,” he announced, patting his stomach.
Liam groaned. “Are they all like that? I may not survive all that food on a regular basis.”
Jacinth laughed. “You learn to pace yourself, after the first couple times.”
“I needed to have paced myself this time,” Naomi said, echoing Liam’s groan. “I may not ever want to eat again.”
Douglas lifted his feet to place them on the coffee table. “Go on,” he encouraged them. “House rules allow it.”
“But only because he had the house first,” Jacinth said, giving Douglas a mock scowl. “We made a compromise. He puts the toilet seats down, but he gets to put his feet up on the coffee table.”
Liam grinned. “Sounds fair to me.”
“So how did you meet?” Naomi asked, leaning forward eagerly. “I’ve been dying of curiosity, but I haven’t had a chance to ask you before now.
Talya, coming out of the kitchen with a can of sparkling water in one hand and her phone in the other, paused, her gaze locking onto Jacinth.
“Can I hear, too?” she asked eagerly. “I know the basics, but I never heard the whole story.”
“Sure.” Jacinth scooted over to Douglas, smiling up at him as he put his arm around her, pulling her closer, and patted the sofa cushion next to her. “Come sit with us.”
The teenager settled in next to the Djinn, drawing her feet up beneath her, looking eager. Jacinth laughed, and reached over to ruffle her hair.
“I was in the city,” Douglas began, then paused to sip his drink. “I was walking back to my car to head home, yeah, well. Okay,” he amended. “I was wandering along the block, killing time so I didn’t have to go home to my empty house. Again.”
“His ex-wife, Lilian, had kidnapped the children two years before,” Jacinth explained. “He’d been looking for them ever since.”
Douglas nodded. “And getting nowhere. I had a private investigator searching, I’d connected with missing children groups, everything I could think of. For some reason, that evening, the prospect of going home, facing the quiet again, seemed overwhelming. So, I was strolling along the streets before heading home, when I came to an antiques store, Whimsies. I have no idea what made me go inside, it was like I was compelled to go in.”
“That was the magic,” Jacinth explained, and the couple exchanged smiles. She returned her attention to them. “I woke up that morning, knowing that whoever would be the nextSahib… the owner of the teapot that is my Djinn vessel… would find it that day. I was so excited! I sat all day, watching the store from inside my teapot.”
Naomi blinked at her. “Watching from inside it?”
Jacinth laughed, nodding, her eyes twinkling with mischief. “Yes. Its inside surface becomes like a TV screen, or a computer monitor. It shows what is going on outside the immediate vicinity.”
Liam’s brow furrowed. “So you hang out in a teapot until it’s found?”
“Mmhmm,” she assented. “Djinn vessels are as large or small as we want them to be, on the inside. Regardless of what size and shape they appear from the outside.”
