A Little Magic(82)

Love answered all questions.

What could she give him? Gifts? She had nothing. What little she still possessed was in the car she’d left abandoned in the wood. There was so little there, really, of the woman she’d become, and was still becoming.

She wanted to do something for him. Something that would make him smile.

Food. Delighted with the idea, she hurried back toward the kitchen. She’d never known anyone to appreciate a single bite of apple as much as Flynn.

Of course, since there wasn’t any stove, she hadn’t a clue what she could prepare, but…She swung into the kitchen, stopped short in astonishment.

There certainly was one beauty of a stove now. White and gleaming. All she’d done was mutter about having to boil water for tea over a fire and—poof!—he’d made a stove.

Well, she thought, and pushed up her sleeves, she would see just what she could do with it.



IN his workroom, Flynn gazed through one of his windows on the world. He’d intended to focus on Kayleen’s home so that he could replicate some of her things for her. He knew what it was to be without what you had, what had mattered to you.

For a time he lost himself there, moving his mind through the rooms where she had once lived, studying the way she’d placed her furniture, what books were on her shelves, what colors she’d favored.

How tidy it all was, he thought with a great surge in his heart. Everything so neatly in place, and so tastefully done. Did it upset her sense of order to be in the midst of his hodgepodge?

He would ask her. They could make some adjustments. But why the hell hadn’t the woman had more color around her? And look at the clothes in the closet. All of them more suited to a spinster—no, that wasn’t the word used well these days. Plain attire without the richness of fabric and the brilliance of color that so suited his Kayleen.

She would damn well leave them behind if he had any say in it.

But she would want her photographs, and that lovely pier glass there, and that lamp. He began to set them in his mind, the shape and dimensions, the tone and texture. So deep was his concentration that he didn’t realize the image had changed until the woman crossed his vision.

She walked through the rooms, her hands clasped tightly together. A lovely woman, he noted. Smaller than Kayleen, fuller at the breasts and hips, but with the same coloring. She wore her dark hair short, and it swung at her cheeks as she moved.

Compelled, he opened the window wider and heard her speak.

“Oh, baby, where are you? Why haven’t you called? It’s almost a week. Why can’t we find you? Oh, Kayleen.” She picked up a photograph from a table, pressed it to her. “Please be all right. Please be okay.”

With the picture hugged to her heart, she dropped into a chair and began to weep.

Flynn slammed the window shut and turned away.

He would not be moved. He would not.

Time was almost up. In little more than twenty-four hours, the choice would be behind him. Behind them all.

He closed his mind to a mother’s grief. But he wasn’t fully able to close his heart.

His mood was edgy when he left the workroom. He meant to go outside, to walk it off. Perhaps to whistle up Dilis and ride it off. But he heard her singing.

He’d never heard her sing before. A pretty voice, he thought, but it was the happiness in it that drew him back to the kitchen.

She was stirring something on the stove, something in the big copper kettle that smelled beyond belief.

It had been a very long time since he’d come into a kitchen where cooking was being done. But he was nearly certain that was what had just happened. Since it was almost too marvelous to believe, he decided to make sure of it.

“Kayleen, what are you about there?”

“Oh!” Her spoon clattered, fell out of her hand and plopped into the pot. “Damn it, Flynn! You startled me. Now look at that, I’ve drowned the spoon in the sauce.”

“Sauce?”

“I thought I’d make spaghetti. You have a very unusual collection of ingredients in your kitchen. Peanut butter, pickled herring, enough chocolate to make an entire elementary school hyper for a month. However, I managed to find plenty of herbs, and some lovely ripe tomatoes, so this seemed the safest bet. Plus you have ten pounds of spaghetti pasta.”

“Kayleen, are you cooking for me?”

“I know it must seem silly, as you can snap up a five-star meal for yourself without breaking a sweat. But there’s something to be said for home cooking. I’m a very good cook. I took lessons. Though I’ve never attempted to make sauce in quite such a pot, it should be fine.”

“The pot’s wrong?”

“Oh, well, I’d do better with my own cookware, but I think I’ve made do. You had plenty of fresh vegetables in your garden, so I—”