Charmed (2 page)

Janice fixed Liv with the kind of look that used to send her kids running to their rooms. "So how exactly
did
you know?"

Liv gave a nervous shrug of her bony shoulders and remained silent.

Janice and I exchanged glances.

"A lucky guess?" I asked as another chill ran up my spine.

"I didn't guess," she said. "I knew."

"Trust me, honey," Janice said. "If we didn't know, you didn't know."

"Janice is right," Lynette chimed in. "You couldn't possibly--"

"I'd better go," Liv said and turned to leave at the same moment I moved closer to her. She stumbled and I reached out to steady her.

I could feel the sizzle the second I made contact. Every neuron in my body registered the connection.

And I knew I wasn't going to like what came next.

"This baby brings danger," Liv Jensssen said and then she dropped to the floor like a rock.

Chapter Two

It was the longest ten seconds of my life but Liv's big blue eyes finally fluttered open and she looked around the room with a puzzled expression. "What happened?"

"You dropped another bomb on Chloe and then you passed out again," Janice snapped. "Now tell us what the hell is going on."

Liv looked from Janice to me and I saw nothing but bewilderment in her eyes. "I--I don't know what she's talking about, Chloe. I swear. You've got to believe me."

Janice wasn't buying it. "Enough with the Miss Innocent act. I want answers."

Liv didn't take her eyes from me. "Please tell me what I said. I'd never do anything to hurt you. I wouldn't hurt anyone."

I shook my head. I refused to repeat her dire prediction about the baby. Words had meaning that went far beyond the obvious and I wasn't about to put unseen forces into motion.

Janice, however, had no problem with putting it out there again. "You said, 'This baby brings danger.'"

"Oh my god..."

"I think you owe Chloe an explanation," Lynette spoke up in her best stage voice.

"I don't have an explanation," Liv said. "I don't know anything about her baby. I only know that she's having one."

"Well, that's more than anyone else in town knew." Lynette refused to back down.

Silently uttering a charm to keep my unborn child safe from harm I reached for Liv's hands. "It happened when you touched my belly," I said. "Do it again."

She pulled away. "I don't think so."

"I need to know what's going on," I said, sounding much calmer than I actually felt. "Let's see if it happens again."

It did. I wasn't surprised. The air practically crackled with some weird energies.

"Your daughter brings danger with her," Liv said, speaking as if from deep within a trance. "Beware the stranger in your midst." And, as before, the effort sent her into a faint.

"Beware the stranger?" Janice rolled her eyes. "Hello. She
is
the stranger."

"She knows you're having a girl," Bettina whispered. "How can she possibly know that?"

Down through the centuries, descendants of Aerynn gave birth only once and the child was always a girl but it's not like Hobbs lore was common knowledge beyond the Sugar Maple town limits. We're not exactly the Kardashians.

"There's no way she
can
know it," I said, my mind going in a thousand directions at once. "Unless--" I glanced over at Janice.

"No," Janice said, shaking her head. "She isn't one of us. Absolutely not."

"Maybe she is but doesn't realize it," Lynette said, ignoring Janice's snort of derision. "She could be a late bloomer like Chloe."

"How could she not know she's magick?" Janice shot back. "What about family history?"

I stared down at the silky red hand-knit scarf looped around Liv's neck. Every autumn we took time to knit red scarves for orphans aging out of the foster care system, an endeavor close to my heart. "Maybe she doesn't have any family to tell her," I said quietly. If Sorcha the Healer hadn't taken me under her wing after the tragic death of my parents, I wouldn't have known I was magick until the day it suddenly exploded all around me.

"Shouldn't she be coming around?" Bettina asked. "She's just lying there..."

Janice blew out an oversized sigh then began briskly rubbing the girl's wrists. "Get some coffee," she ordered Lynette. "And maybe one or two of those chocolate chunk cookies." She shot me a look. "The cookies are for you. You look like you're going to fall over next."

I shook my head. "I'm fine."

"You look like hell."

"Morning sickness will do that to a girl," I said.

"I can't believe I didn't recognize the symptoms. You've taken more cat naps the last few weeks than Penelope has." Penny is our shop cat and a Hobbs familiar who has been with us since Aerynn. She is also a world class sleeper but these days I could give her lessons.

"What can I say, Jan? This is Sugar Maple. We know how to keep secrets around here."

"How much do you want to bet your secret has spread all the way into the other dimensions by now?"

"That's one of the reasons I wanted to keep it quiet until I started to show. We're finally getting on good terms with the Fae. I didn't want to remind them that as long as the Hobbs line continues, Sugar Maple will be part of the human dimension." Even though things were finally peaceful between us, another Fae insurrection was always a possibility and we had to remain alert.

"Here's the coffee," Bettina said, racing back into the main part of the shop, "though I don't know how you're going to get her to drink it."

"She's coming around," Janice said. "She'll manage fine."

Poor Liv looked so shaken that my heart went out to her. She gulped down the coffee and ate the cookies meant for me then stood up on wobbly fawn legs. "I'd better go," she said, searching around for her things. "It's getting late."

"You're not going anywhere," Janice said firmly. "You're in no condition to get behind the wheel."

"Jan's right," I said, aware that my own motives were more than a little self-serving. "You passed out cold twice within five minutes. We can't possibly let you go." And definitely not before we got some answers.

"I didn't mean to--" She stopped and regrouped. "What I'm trying to say is this kind of thing happens all the time. I just . . . know things. I'm so sorry I told them about your baby but it's out of my control."

"You also said my daughter would bring danger."

Her already pale skin grew paler still. She opened her hands in a gesture of surrender. "I don't remember saying that."

"Please, Liv," I begged. "You can imagine how I'm feeling right now. Please tell me what kind of danger my daughter brings." I angled my body between her and the exit. "I'm not angry. I just need to know."

"I told you everything I know and now I want to go home."

Bettina stepped forward. "Go an hour without falling on your face and we'll give back your car keys." I stared in astonishment as she dangled them from her forefinger.

"You took her car keys?" Lynette's eyes were wide.

Bettina shrugged. "Somebody had to."

"Wow," Janice said.

Who knew the gentle harpist had it in her?

"What do you people want from me?" Liv demanded, her voice shrill and teetering on the edge of panic. "You can't keep me here against my will."

"We're looking out for your safety, Liv," I said. "If anything happened to you, I'd never forgive myself."

"I'm not sick," she said stubbornly. "Maybe I'm crazy but I'm not sick." With that she burst into noisy tears that tugged at my heartstrings.

Suddenly the air was thick with thought probes. They gleamed silver and gold as they encircled Liv's slender body, forming a glittering corona around her head. Lynette, Janice, and Bettina had silently teamed up and were performing Sugar Maple's version of a Google search. Was Liv pretending not to see them or were they truly invisible to her? And, more important, how were we going to find out without revealing the truth about Sugar Maple?

"She's like a blank slate," Janice said. "I'm not picking up any history at all."

"There must be something." I tried to ignore the latest round of chills racing up my spine.

But Lynette and Bettina came up empty too.

I would have launched my own set of thought probes but I didn't want to do anything that could even remotely harm my baby. Thoughts probes sometimes turned out to be a two-way street.

"She must be magick then," I reasoned. "All humans have histories."

"And so do magicks," Janice parried.

"Keep an eye on things," I said. "I'm going to see what's on her registration form."

Not much, as it turned out, beyond the usual name, address, payment info, and list of workshops requested.

LIV JENSSEN

BOX 411

GRANITE NOTCH NH

A zip code, a New Hampshire phone number, marked paid by money order.

I don't know what I expected to find. We don't ask for references or numbers to call in case of emergency. All we need to know is that you're a knitter or want to become one.

"She passed out again," Lynette said as I re-entered the front of the shop.

I was treated to the now familiar sight of the curvy blond lying splat in the middle of the floor. 'What happened this time?"

"Penelope leaped onto her lap and the second she placed her hand on the cat's fur, she was gone," Lynette offered.

"She picked up Penny's vibes big time," Janice said. "I mean, there were sparks flying everywhere."

"What are we going to do with her?" I asked as we carried her over to the sofa near the hearth. "We can't hold her hostage."

"Well, we can't let her go tonight either," Janice, mother of five, said in full maternal mode. "Not in this condition."

"Maybe we should call someone," Bettina suggested, "and let them know she's here and we're taking care of her."

"Call who?" I asked. "There was nothing on her registration form."

"Family," Bettina said. "Friends. Co-workers. Someone must be waiting for her to come home."

"We can check her cell phone," I said. "See who's number one on her speed dial."

"Don't bother." We all jumped at the sound of Liv's voice. "There's nobody to call."

Chapter Three

Even though I'm magick I don't have extra-sensory perception and yet somehow Liv’s confession didn't surprise me at all. Her loneliness was palpable to me. I felt it deep inside my bones, familiar as the sound of my own voice.

"I didn't come here to make trouble," she said. "You know how much I love Sticks & Strings. I just wanted to take a few more design classes but this time--" She stopped dead and fell silent again.

"But something happened when you saw me, didn't it?"

She nodded. "I told myself I was going to stay away but it was like I was hearing voices telling me I had to see you and as soon as I did I just knew you were pregnant and--" She stopped abruptly, face flaming redder than her scarf. "I sound crazy. I swear I'm not. I normally don't go around feeling pregnant women's bellies."

"You said something about danger and the baby," I prodded gently.

"I don't know any more about the future than you do. I only see the past."

"You did say it, honey," Janice chimed in. "I heard it with my own ears."

"No," she said, shaking her head vigorously. "The baby's not in danger. Don't say that."

They were the words I wanted to hear but for some reason I still wasn't feeling the love.

"Do you have a blood sugar problem?" Lynette asked. "That would explain the passing out."

Sometimes there was simply no explaining Lynette.

"This room is so noisy." Liv looked past Lynette and into the middle distance. "Why is it so noisy in here?"

Noisy? We didn't even have the music system up and running. The only sound was Penny's rumbling snore from her favorite spot deep in the basket of self-replenishing roving.

"Too many people talking," Liv went on. "I can't understand anything they're saying."

Behind her Lynette circled her index finger next to her temple in the universal "this chick is crazy" sign.

My good friend was wrong. Liv Jenssen wasn't crazy. She was here for a reason and I needed to find out what that reason was before it was too late.

**

What was the point of living with the chief of police if you couldn't take advantage of his position every now and then?

Luke MacKenzie is the 100% human love of my life and the father of my unborn baby. Six months ago he showed up in Sugar Maple to investigate the murder of a politician's mistress and sparks flew when we met. Literally. Dazzling white and silver sparks sizzled in the air between us when our hands touched and in that moment our mutual fate was sealed.