Page 53 of Enchanted
“You’re not …” Morgana cut herself off, reevaluating, and offered an easy smile. “My children definitely take some getting used to.”
She reached for plates and opened her mind to her cousin.You haven’t told her yet, you dolt?
It’s my business. She’s not ready.
Omission is kin to deceit.
Iknow what I’m doing. Serve your tea and cookies, Morgana, and let me handle this in my own way.
Stubborn mule.
Liam smiled a little, remembering she’d threatened to turn him into one during some scrap during their childhood. She might have managed it, he mused. She had a great deal of power in that particular area.
“I’m Ally. Who are you?”
“I’m Rowan.” Steadier, she smiled at the girl. A girl, she realized, she’d initially taken for a boy because of the scrappy little body and scraped knees. “I’m a friend of your cousin.”
“You wouldn’t remember me.” Liam walked over to take a seat at the table. “But I remember you, young Allysia, and your brother, and the night you were born. In a storm it was, here in this house, as your mother had been born in a storm in that same room. And in the hills of home there was starlight and singing to celebrate it.”
“Sometimes we go to Ireland to visit Granda and Grand-mama in our castle,” Donovan told him. “One day I’ll have a castle of my own on a high cliff by the sea.”
“I hope you manage to figure out how to clean up your room first.” This came from a man who stepped in with a rosy-cheeked girl tucked into each arm.
“My husband, Nash, and our daughters Eryn and Moira. This is my cousin Liam, Nash, and his friend Rowan.”
“Nice to meet you. The girls woke up from their naps smelling cookies.”
He set the girls down. One toddled to the wolf, who was sitting by the table hoping for crumbs. She fell adoringly on his neck. The other went directly to Rowan, crawled into her lap and kissed both of her cheeks, much as her mother had kissed Liam in greeting.
Charmed, Rowan hugged her and rubbed a cheek on the soft golden hair. “Oh, you have such beautiful children.”
Like, Liam thought as Moira settled cozily on Rowan’s lap, often recognizes like.
“We’ve decided to keep them.” Nash reached out to tickle the ribs of the older twins. “Until something better comes along.”
“Daddy.” Allysia sent him an adoring look, then nimbly snatched up her cookie before he could make the grab.
“You’re quick.” Nash tickled her again, and nipped the cookie out of her fingers. “But I’m smarter.”
“Greedier,” Morgana corrected. “Mind your cookies, Rowan. He’s not to be trusted around sweets.”
“What man is?” Liam stole one from Rowan’s plate and had Donovan snickering. “How are Anastasia and Sebastian, their families?”
“You can judge for yourself.” Morgana decided on the spot to invite her two cousins and their spouses and families over. “We’ll have a family cookout tonight to welcome you—and your friend.”
***
Magic could be confusing, and it could be casual, Rowan discovered. It could be stunning or as natural as rain. Surrounded by the Donovans, flooded by the scents from Morgana’s garden, she began to believe there could be little in this world that was more natural or more normal.
Morgana’s husband, Nash, her cousin Sebastian and Anastasia’s husband, Boone, bickered over the proper way to fire the grill. Ana sat comfortably in a wicker chair nursing her infant son while her three toddlers raced around the yard with the other children and the dogs, all to the clashing sympathy of laughter, shouts and wild barks.
At ease, Morgana nibbled on canapés and talked lazily with Sebastian’s wife, Mel—about children, work, men, the weather, all the usual sorts of subjects friends and family speak of on summer afternoons.
Rowan thought Liam held himself a bit aloof, and wondered why. But when Ana’s little sunshine-haired daughter held up her arms to him, she saw him smile, pluck her up and fit her with casual skill on his hip.
She watched with some surprise as he walked with her and apparently listened with great interest as she babbled on to him.
He likes children, she realized, and the inner flutter of longing nearly made her sigh.
