Laced With Magic by Barbara Bretton Page A

explosion tore through the old church. A pillar or a giant shard of window glass might have—

    I didn’t want to think about it. There were enough items on my list of worries without adding things that never happened.

    I wasn’t sure if the thought made me feel better or worse.

    A half hour later I had finally settled down at my favorite Schacht wheel when Luke pulled into the driveway. His headlights swept the living room like a beacon, spotlighting the soft merino roving I was spinning into cobweb yarn. I felt the familiar little bump-up in my heart rate, but this time it was equal parts desire and anxiety.

    Spinning was second nature to me. But love? Not so much. Just when I was finally getting the hang of it, maybe even believing this crazy connection between Luke and me might actually work out, the fates threw a curveball at me in the form of an ex-wife and the little girl they’d lost.

    I pounced the second the door closed behind him.

    “Why didn’t you tell me about your daughter?”

    “I thought you didn’t want to talk while Karen was in the house.”

    “Why?” I asked again, my voice breaking slightly. “I need to know.” I was hurt and angry and feeling more vulnerable than I’d ever felt before in my life, and I didn’t like it. If I could have bartered away my all-too-human heart, I would have done so in a cat’s breath.

    I locked eyes with him, and I didn’t even try to hide my feelings. It wasn’t easy for me to open myself up that way. I’d spent most of my life putting a good face on things, pretending to be happy and content when the loneliness threatened to swallow me whole. Who would have guessed love could hurt even more?

    He needed to see what keeping secrets from a woman did to her. Let him see the damage he’d caused.

    He pulled back.

    I pushed harder.

    Maybe too hard.

    His expression downshifted swiftly from surprise to self-defense to a level of pain I’d never seen before, and all the fight went out of me.

    “I wanted to tell you about Steffie,” he said, “but—”

    I put my fingers to his lips. “I know. You don’t have to explain.” I wished with all my heart that he would but I wasn’t going to push. Not now.

    “Karen’s in bad shape.” He told me about his call to his old friend Fran in the department. “Fran helped me track down a nurse Karen worked with at the hospital. She didn’t quit. She was fired.”

    “I’m sorry she’s having a rough time,” I said, “but I don’t understand why she came up here to see you.”

    He slipped back into cop mode and I tensed up. “She claims she saw Steffie at the park near our old house.”

    I tensed up even more. “What do you think?”

    “You’re kidding, right? I think she needs some hospital time, that’s what I think.”

    “Did she speak to Steffie?”

    The cop façade broke for a moment and frustration slipped in. “She said something about a phone call but she has no proof.” He regrouped. “I’m going to drive her back down to Boston tomorrow and see if I can get her some help.”

    “Can’t her family take care of it?” Not that I was being territorial or anything, but wasn’t that what families were supposed to do?

    “She doesn’t have any family.” A slight hesitation. “Just me.”

    “You’re not part of her family anymore.” You’re part of mine.

    “You saw her. She’s running on fumes. I can’t let her drive back like that. She’ll have another wreck.”

    “Are you sure she didn’t actually have some kind of contact with Steffie?”

    “She didn’t see Steffie.”

    “You’ve seen the Souderbush family. Did you forget they died over one hundred years ago?” It wasn’t like I hadn’t briefed him on all of our villagers, especially our noncorporeal ones. I mean, there was a reason we were ranked the most popular stop on the Spirit Trail.

    “My daughter isn’t a ghost.”

    “But you have to admit that it is possible.” I didn’t think he