Page 10 of The Secret of Emerald Cottage

Chapter Five

“Well now, if you two ain’t a sweet sight for sore eyes.”

“Oh!” Molly jerked up in the chair where she’d been asleep for heaven knows how long, so happy to see Miss Lilly awake, she didn’t even mind the stiffness of her body. “You’re up,” she shouted, bounding over to Miss Lilly’s bed on the opposite side where Brec sprawled asleep in a recliner with a full-day’s growth of dark beard shadowing his jaw. “Brec—wake up! Your aunt is back in the land of the living.”

A hoarse chuckle tripped from Aunt Lilly’s lips that were dry and cracked, prompting Molly to retrieve her Burt’s Bees lip balm from her purse. Rheumy blue eyes twinkled when Molly gently dabbed it on Miss Lilly’s mouth, prompting another raspy chortle from the woman she’d grown to love in mere months. “If you can call this ‘living,’ although I beg to differ. Thank ye, missy.”

“Aunt Lilly!” Brec’s turquoise-blue eyes flared wide as he launched to his feet, grasping the old woman’s frail hand in his. “I’ve been worried sick!”

Her laughter was dry and rusty, but her eyes were wet and warm as she clutched his hand. “Well, I’ve got the cure for that, mac mo chroí, and you know it. It’s called prayer.”

“What does that mean?” Molly asked, not sure what language Miss Lilly had spoken to Brec.

“It’s Gaelic for son of my heart,” Brec whispered with a sheen in his eyes, stuttering Molly’s heart when he dropped to his knees to embrace his aunt with a low groan, head buried deep against her neck. “God help me, Aunt Lilly—I don’t deserve you. I never did.”

Affection laced her laughter, as soft as the look in her eyes. “Well, shore ‘nough the good Lord thought you did or He wouldn’t a-packaged us together”—patting his head, she gently lifted it to cradle his face—“now, ain’t that so?”

He managed a shaky nod, then rose to swipe at his eyes with the side of his arm, avoiding Molly’s gaze as he settled back in his chair. “Although some might say you got the raw end of the deal, Aunt Lilly.”

“Some might, I suppose,” she said with a fold of translucent hands on her stomach, “but they’d be wrong because you’re here now, aren’t you? When I needed you most?”

He stared at her for several moments before giving another nod, this one tinged with the barest of smiles. “Yes, ma’am, I am.”

“Good. So ...” She shimmied further under her sheets with an impish grin, her usually tightly curled white hair soft and fuzzy like a halo. “What do you think of my girl here?” she said with a nod at Molly that put a pause in Molly’s pulse.

Brec finished her off with a half-lidded look that warmed her cheeks, annoying her when it tumbled her stomach. “Well, I’ll say one thing, Aunt Lilly, she brews a mean cup of coffee.” He actually had the nerve to wink as he lowered his voice so that Miss Lilly probably couldn’t hear. “Painfully mean.”

“How do you feel?” Molly said, ignoring him while she palmed a hand to Miss Lilly’s forehead.

A familiar grunt popped from the old woman’s mouth. “Better than yesterday, but not as good as tomorrow”—she pursed her lips in a puckish smile— “when you take me home.”

Molly met Brec’s gaze briefly while she took Miss Lilly’s pulse, pausing as she studied her watch with a smile tingeing her tone. “Now you know I can’t take you home till the doctor releases you, young lady, so don’t you go trying to bully me.”

That earned a cackle from the old woman that produced a flash of white teeth from her nephew. “I do believe you’ve met your match, Aunt Lilly, so I wouldn’t argue.” He eased back in his chair with a loose fold of arms and a deadly smile. “After all, she’s armed, you know.”

“By golly, she dern well better be,” Miss Lilly said with a pert thrust of her chin, skinny arms suddenly in a fold like her nephew. Somebody’s a-lookin’ to send me home to Glory afore my time, so we got a fight on our hands, younguns.”

Brec’s gaze connected with Molly’s once again, only this time with a twitch of a smile before he reached to take the old woman’s hand. “Now, Aunt Lilly, no one’s looking to send you anywhere but home, where we can spoil and pamper you like you always used to do with me on my summer visits.”

She jerked her hand free with plenty of sass in her voice and a squint in her eyes. “Now, you lookie here, sonny boy, someone tried to snuff my fuse by tossin’ me in the drink, and I aim to find out who, so don’t you go a-sidin’ with Miss Pie-in-the-Sky here, saying I’m dreaming when I know right well what I heard and saw.”

“Saw?” Molly glanced over from the monitor she was studying. “What exactly did you see, Miss Lilly?” she asked in as serious a tone as she could, given the cheeky grin on Striker Boy’s face.

“I saw some hooded upstart a-riflin’ through my drawers right afore he gagged me with a cloth that smelled sweet. Next thing I know, I’m a-floppin’ around like a mullet fish in a sea of breadcrumbs till I wake up to people a-pokin’ and a-tubin’ me in the lumpiest bed I ever did feel.”

Pulling her chair up next to the side of Miss Lilly’s bed, Molly sat down, schooling her features into the soft and serious mode she’d used as a nurse in the Navy. “Miss Lilly, as you know, I’ve done plenty of research on the subject of sleepwalking since I’ve come to live with you, so I know that sometimes sleepwalkers hallucinate or have night terrors, which is what I believe this is.” I hope.

Determined to placate Miss Lilly’s fears—and her own—Molly shored up her concern with a pat of Miss Lilly’s hand, managing what she hoped was a calming smile. “Nothing more than a nightmare that triggered sleepwalking out of the house and into the lake.”

Thin white brows bunched as the sweet woman peered at Molly through dubious eyes. “You truly believe that?” she said with a press of lips so tight, they seemed to disappear altogether. A grunt rumbled from her throat. “’Cause if you do, girly-girl, then you’re as soft as those namby-pamby Nancy Drew stories you’re always a-readin.’”

“Agatha Christie,” Molly calmly replied before she laid a hand on Miss Lilly’s delicate arm. She ducked to meet her charge eye-to-eye, resolute in her quest to allay her fears. “Yes, ma’am, I truly am inclined to believe it was a nightmare that triggered your sleepwalking. Because you see, I always leave my door ajar so I can hear everything, and I wake up at the drop of a pin, I promise, so I’m pretty sure I would have heard any intruder.”

“Humph.” Miss Lilly folded her arms again. “Not with all that nighttime cold medicine you been a-chuggin’ lately.”

Brec cleared his throat, and against her will, Molly’s gaze flicked to his smirk and back. Ignoring him—and the sting of heat in her cheeks—she returned her attention to Miss Lilly with a gentle pat of her arm. “And Doc Andrews concurs, Miss Lilly, and even cited examples he’s seen of the very same thing, so you see? You have nothing to worry about.”

Miss Lilly’s mouth gummed tight as if giving it further thought. “I suppose you think the noises I heard when I fell down the steps and that car parked down the road in the dark were nothing more than sleepwalkin’ too?”

“I don’t know,” Molly answered carefully. “It could have been part of your sleepwalking dreams or noises that actually awakened you. Or it might have been an animal in the woods as well, since you are surrounded by forest, Miss Lilly.”

“Mebbe. But animals don’t drive cars.”

Molly gave a nod of agreement. “No, ma’am, they don’t, but a car parking in the dark at the end of a deserted street sure sounds like a perfect make-out spot to me, don’t you think, Brec?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am,” he said with an easy smile, punctuating it with a wink. “I think I may have even used it once or twice myself when I was sixteen.”

“See?” Molly waved a hand toward Brec, “straight from the player’s mouth.”

Miss Lilly feigned a scowl at her nephew that defied the glimmer of affection in her eyes. “If that’s true, doesn’t appear I took care of you like I thought.”

Grabbing his aunt’s hand, Brec bent to kiss it with a sudden sheen in his eyes while his smile ebbed. “You took care of me better than anyone else ever did, Aunt Lilly, something for which I will be forever grateful.” He squeezed her hand with a rise of that formidable chin, the smile peeking through once again. “Which means I plan to do the same.”

His aunt peered from Brec to Molly and back, blue eyes suddenly paper thin despite a hint of a sparkle. “Why do I have the feeling you two are going to be in cahoots when I go home?”

“Because we are,” Brec said with a kiss to his aunt’s withered cheek, arching a teasing brow. “So get used to it, máthair mo chroí”—he glanced at Molly— “which is Gaelic for mother of my heart.” Turning back to Miss Lilly, he squeezed her hand again. “Because now it’s my turn to take care of you.”