Page 132 of Dream Weaver

Erin shuddered.If she is, I don’t want to know.

Yikes. I decided I agreed.

“Oh. Hello, Dom,” Mom said as if she’d only just noticed him.

“Tom,” Captain Edwards breathed.

Mom gestured in a way that said,Whatever.

“Well hello, Mike,” she purred at Erin’s father.

“Virginia,” he said gruffly. He didn’t seem ready to fall at her feet, though.

My mother frowned. Ifmojocame in a spray can, she would be shaking hers and trying again.

But no such luck. Her charm worked on most of the men there, but not Mike, Cooper, or Ingo. Nash was still circling the sky overhead, but I knew he wouldn’t fall for her either.

My mother shot Mike a sour look and glanced around, then sighed dramatically. “So, we find ourselves here again.”

Our cue to feel guilty, because we’d inconvenienced her one more time.

“Yes, we do.” Captain Edwards shot me an accusing look.

Thank goodness for Erin stepping in.

“Harlon showed up about two hours ago, kicking up a storm,” she said. “All we did was defend ourselves.”

Cooper glanced at me, and I whispered a nervous joke. “Doesn’t every family wield lightning, thunder, and hurricane-force winds?”

He shook his head, a little awed. “Here I was thinking everyone used claws and fangs.”

Well, then. We’d both broadened our perspectives.

I squeezed his hand, and he squeezed back.

“And that incident reported back in town…” Edwards consulted a notebook. “At…Heavy Metal Sedona?”

Cooper raised a hand. “That was us.”

I elbowed him in the ribs. Drat good, honest men raised never to fib.

“He means, that was us defending ourselves against Liselle Steinmeier,” I corrected quickly.

Edwards consulted his notebook again. “That’s an alias. Her legal name is Lisa Greene.”

All eyes slid over to Harlon, and Erin blurted, “They’re related?”

Edwards nodded. “She’s his daughter. Or should I say, she was?” He eyed me closely.

I gripped Cooper’s hand extra tightly in case his principles made him say something like,Yes. In fact, she died because of the way Abby spelled the brazier. We only acted in self-defense, but please feel free to lock us up for all eternity.

I cleared my throat to cover Cooper’s pained squeak and answered, “I’m not sure what happened. I was too busy taking cover from her armed accomplices.”

Or too busy deflecting bullets with magic, but Edwards didn’t need to know that. Also, I decided to withhold the nameJay Wilsonfor now. Claire didn’t need to hear that.

“Lisa… Harlon… The disturbances in the vortexes…” Erin mused out loud.

Pippa figured it out faster than I did. “Could Lisa — Liselle? — have used the vortexes to break the restraining spell on her father?”

---