My Unfair Godmother(91)

“Don’t worry about it,” Hudson said.

I wanted to tell him I had every right to be worried, but I didn’t.

He couldn’t change Bartimaeus’s mind, and the barn was the safest place to be right now.

We took the horses inside with us. I started to help Hudson un-pack the provisions, but he handed me the blankets. “You take care of the baby. I’ll take care of the horses.” I spread some straw on the floor and arranged the blankets on top of it. After I’d settled the baby onto our straw bed, I checked the book to see if there was any new information. An illustration of me riding the white horse and cradling the baby had appeared. I smiled at it, this time liking the fact that I’d been painted beautiful and glowing. The baby’s angelic face was just barely visible in my arms, but he looked up at me adoringly.

I wrote the things I had learned, and was still writing them when Hudson made his own bed. I was almost glad that the things I’d written about him hadn’t stuck, since he looked over my shoulder to read what I’d written. “ ‘There’s no place like home,’ ” he repeated.

“It worked for Dorothy.” The words vanished and I penned another sentence.

Hudson read, “ ‘Lean on people when you’re not strong. They’ll be your friends, they’ll help you carry on.’ Hmm. Are you writing morals or song lyrics?”

“Both,” I said.

He didn’t comment on the futility of my writing. Instead he reached into his pouch, took out a handful of red sand, and walked around me, sprinkling it onto the blanket. It was only then that I 274/356

remembered he’d taken the anti-fairy ring that King John’s wizard had put around me the second night.

Even if Rumpelstiltskin was able to find the barn, he wouldn’t be able to cross the line to take my son. That’s what Hudson had meant when he told me not to worry.

“Thank you,” I said.

He smiled, then tossed his helmet on the ground near his blankets. “You’re welcome.”

I turned off the flashlight and put the book down next to me. I was safe and my baby was safe. At least for tonight.



Chapter 20

When I woke up, pale sunlight poked through cracks in the barn window. I reached for the baby and found only empty blankets. He was gone. I sat up in panic, my heart beating so fast the gold heart sent ticks of pain through my torso.

Then I saw Hudson sitting on the haystack feeding him a bottle. I exhaled slowly to calm myself and walked over to them. The baby had his hand wrapped around one of Hudson’s fingers and was looking happily at him while he drank. They were a perfect picture of content-ment, oblivious to my still-racing pulse.

“You scared me to death, you know. I thought my son was gone.” Hudson smiled at the baby. “I bet real mothers wake up when their children cry.”

“I slept through his crying?” I’d only been a mother for one night, and I’d already done something wrong. So much for my intentions to be the perfect parent. I sat down on the straw with a dejected huff.

Hudson’s voice softened. “He was mostly just fussing. I’m a light sleeper.”

I shifted in the straw to get more comfortable. I wanted to take the baby from Hudson’s arms and feed him myself, but at the same time, I was afraid to. He was so small, and I didn’t know how. What had Chrissy been thinking to entrust me with a miniature, breakable person?

“What are you going to name him?” Hudson asked.

“In the future? I have no idea.”

“I meant now. We have to call him something.” 276/356

I stroked the baby’s tuft of wavy brown hair. He looked over at me, two large brown eyes taking me in. Then he stopped drinking and smiled. The sight of his grin sent my heart skittering. I felt like I’d won a prize.

He made a happy-sounding umm, umm noise and went back to drinking.

“How old do you think he is?” I asked.

“Old enough that he eats baby food, because Chrissy packed some of that too.” Hudson tilted his head and regarded the baby. “I think he looks like a … Remington. Maybe a Colt.”

“Aren’t those gun names?”

“He’s a manly baby. He needs a manly name. How about Stetson?”

“Are you picking names or describing how the West was won?” Hudson laughed and looked all the more gorgeous for it. His smile lightened his features, made him look approachable, touchable.

“You don’t have to keep the name in the future, but people will think it’s strange if your son doesn’t have a name now.” I ran a finger over the baby’s hand where tiny dimples puckered his knuckles. “If I call him Stetson now, then I’ll start thinking of him as Stetson and when I have him in the future I won’t be able to call him anything else.”