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I rolled my eyes and laughed. “If by ‘just’ you mean weeks ago, then yes. But I’m fine, and it is such a beautiful day. I just had to run.”
Jay grinned as well, pulling me to his side and bending to kiss my cheek. “I seem to remember someone getting her ass striped for insisting she just needed to run.”
I felt my body respond, remembering the night I’d climbed out the window, yet pretended ignorance. “Hmmm, I don’t seem to remember that.”
“Then, perhaps a visit to the woodshed is called for,” Jay teased.
“Definitely,” I agreed, reaching up to kiss his cheek. Ever since I’d given birth, they’d tended to treat me as something fragile. It was time to remind them I wasn’t… that I needed my men a bit rough. My daughter’s little coo reminded me of why we’d come, and I turned to look at the others. “Shall we?”
They nodded, and the four of us walked the remaining short distance to our destination. Jay laid the bouquet of lilacs and pink roses at the foot of the headstone as Banks helped me to kneel, the others kneeling as well. Reaching out, I laid a hand on the marble.
“Hi, Kit,” I said softly. “It’s your family.”
Rye had knelt on the opposite side of the grave from me, and I watched his expression. We’d come often to his sister’s grave to pay our respects or to simply sit with her, allowing the peace of the setting to fill us. But today, his face didn’t only show pain. For the first time, Rye appeared at peace. He looked up and caught my eye and I smiled and nodded.
He looked around the circle and then at our daughter and finally at the headstone where Kit’s name was engraved.
“We brought someone to meet you,” Rye said. “We’ve told her all about her aunt, how very much she was loved, how very special you are to all of us.”
He paused, reaching down to draw back the afghan a bit. It was the afghan Kit had been working on but hadn’t had a chance to finish. I’d spent many an hour, crochet hook in hand, not caring that I often had to rip out my stitches and redo them. Every moment I spent in the parlor, with the afghan in my lap, I’d felt close to Kit. It was as if she’d known there would be a baby born one day, a little girl who’d be wrapped in the soft yarn in various shades of pink.
The baby cooed again, and I imagined she was thanking her aunt for the gift. Rye smiled and held his daughter in one arm and reached out to lay his other hand on the stone. “Kit, we wanted you to meet your niece, your namesake. Our daughter, Kit Guinevere Barrett.”
I wasn’t a witch; I had no powers other than the power of love. And that was the most powerful thing of all. Love for their little sister had brought these men back to Barrett’s Mountain to build a new life. Love for me had allowed them to begin to heal, to accept they were not the bad men they’d seen themselves as for so many years. Love for their daughter had taught them that though we’d always miss those we lost, life went on. And, my love for them had changed me in so many ways, had filled my heart. But that love had filled my soul the moment I’d decided to be locked on their mountain forever.
The End
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CAPTIVE BRIDE
You will take this bride.
To have and to hold from this day forward.
Till death do you part.
This will be your solemn vow.
You have no choice.
Trapped in a twisted and dark courtship with a secret woman who needs my strength to survive, I will be wed.
Walking the thin line between lunacy and reality, I am now the protector of my future captive bride.
So, I have no choice but to recite the vows.
I take thee.
In this arranged matrimony.
Until we are parted by death.
SNEAK PEEK - CAPTIVE BRIDE
