Page 69 of The 13th Daughter
"The mountains," he answered promptly. "Mom was freaking out about my learning about this side of my heritage and flipped out a bit. Dad bundled us all up for a week in the mountains and away from the Coven to soothe her. There was no time to send you an email or voicemail. By the time I found out where we were going, I'd already lost all bars."
"Okay, so let's say I buy that nonsense. Why didn't you call me the minute you were within the range of a cell tower?"
"Because I didn't want to ruin your birthday surprise."
Huh? Birthday surprise?
"It took me all day to get it set up. If I'd called, you'd have been after me to come see you and as much as I missed you, Cassie Jayne Bishop, it wouldn't have taken much persuading on your part to get me to do just that. So, I didn't call until everything was ready."
"My birthday's not till tomorrow." He planned a surprise? That was so sweet. And I knew for a fact you couldn't get a signal deep in the Appalachian Mountains. Kay, Jeff, Billy and I had gone backpacking in West Virginia over the summer. We hadn't been able to get cell service until we hit I-77 in Wythville, VA.
"I know. Kay has a huge party planned and besides, your birthday is in exactly four hours and twenty nine minutes," he corrected me. "Midnight."
"Well if you want to be technical, I wasn't born until thirteen minutes after..." Thirteen minutes. There it was again. Thirteenth daughter, born thirteen minutes past the hour. But so was Kay. She could be the thirteenth daughter, too, I reminded myself. Either way, I was worried. I had to save one or the other of us.
"Hey, what's wrong?"
"Absolutely nothing," I lied and did what I wanted to do. I wrapped my arms around him and was rewarded by the feel of his pulling me close.
"So am I forgiven?" he teased.
"Depends on the surprise. A week is a long time."
His lips brushed the top of my forehead. "Trust me, Cassie, it's worth it."
I tilted my head back so I could look up at him. "That has yet to be seen, Mr. Warren."
His sexy smile reappeared. "You won't be disappointed, Miss Bishop, I promise." He kissed me and I was lost. It was one of those slow, lazy kisses that turned my mind to mush and all Icould think about was fire blazing to life and running through every nerve ending in my body.
When he pulled away this time, I could see the effort it cost him. His eyes were glowing sliver and his breath came out in short, heavy gasps. He took several deep breaths before he was able to uncurl his fingers from around my arms.
"Miss me much?" I laughed. It wasn't often I saw him lose control.
"More than you know," he grinned. "Come on, let's go."
After we were buckled up and on the road, I asked him where we were going.
"The lake," he told me. "There's a small piece of land on the very western edge that has an old cabin on it."
"I didn't know you had a boat."
"I don't," he agreed. "I borrowed Billy's. What did you do to make him so pissed anyway? I almost thought he wasn't going to let me borrow it."
"It's a long story and not one I want to get into right now." Just as I suspected, Jeff was right. Billy wouldn't do anything to make Kay mad at him again. "So what kind of surprise is it?"
"That's the whole point of a surprise, Cassie," he laughed. "It's a surprise."
"Just a little hint?"
"Nope."
"Dammit."
He winked.
Ten minutes later we were on board Billy's smaller boat, Mystery, and headed out into the water. I was glad of the sweatshirt I'd pulled on over my tee. It was freezing. It had been years since it was this cold in October. The last time I could remember it getting this cold so early was when I was eight and we got a foot of snow dumped on us.
"Cold?" he asked after a while and threw me a blanket.
