If she were to take a picture, it would look like a group of friends, gathered together on a rainy day, in that chilly window between winter and spring. Quinn with her book, Cal beside her on the couch. Cybil curled like a lazy cat on the other end, and Gage sprawled in a chair drinking yet another cup of coffee.

But she had only to listen to the words for the picture to change. She had only to listen to see a young woman building another fire in a hearth, her bright hair sweeping down her back. To feel the ache in the heart that had stopped beating so long ago.

I am with child. There is such joy in me, and there is such grief.

Joy for the lives inside her, Layla thought. Grief as those lives signaled the beginning of the end of Ann’s time with Giles. She imagined Ann preparing meals, fetching water from the stream, writing in the first journal with the cover Giles had made her from the leather he’d tanned himself. She wrote of ordinary things, of ordinary days. Pages and pages of the simple and the human.

“I’m tapped,” Quinn said at length. “Somebody else can take over, but the fact is, my brain’s just plain tired. I don’t think I can take any more in right now even if someone else reads.”

Cal shifted her to rub at her shoulders, while Quinn stretched in obvious relief. “If we try to take in too much at once, we’ll probably miss something anyway.”

“Lots of daily minutiae in that section.” Cybil flexed her writing hand. “He’s tutoring her, showing her simple magicks. Herbs, candles, drawing out what she already had. She’s very open to it. It seems obvious he didn’t want to leave her without weapons, tools, defenses.”

“Pioneer days,” Fox commented. “Hard life.”

“I think life was part of the point,” Layla added. “The ordinary. We’ve all felt that, mentioned it at one time or another through this. The ordinary matters, it’s very much what we’re fighting for. I think she wrote about it, often, because she understood that. Or maybe because she needed to remind herself of it so she could face whatever was coming.”

“We’re more than halfway through the first journal.” Quinn marked the page before setting the book down. “She still hasn’t mentioned specifics on what’s coming. Either he hasn’t told her yet, specifically, or she hasn’t wanted to write of it.” She yawned hugely. “I vote we get out of here awhile or take a nap.”

“They can all get out of here.” Cal lowered his head to nip at her neck. “We’ll take a nap.”

“That’s a lame euphemism for rainy-day sex, and you guys already get enough sex.” Cybil uncurled a leg to give Cal a light kick. “Option two, another form of entertainment. That isn’t poker,” she added before Gage could speak.

“Sex and poker are the top two forms of entertainment,” he told her.

“While I have no objection to either, there must be something a group of young, attractive people can find to do around here. No offense to the Bowl-a-Rama, Cal, but there must be somewhere we can get adult beverages, noise, maybe music, bad bar food.”

“Actually- Ow!” Layla glared down at Fox when he pinched her foot. “Actually,” she began again, “Fox mentioned a place that seemed to fit that bill. A bar across the river with live music on Saturday nights.”

“We’re so going there.” Cybil pushed to her feet. “Who’s stuck being designated drivers? I nominate Quinn from our side.”

“Seconded,” Layla called out.

“Aw.”

“You’re getting sex,” Cybil reminded her. “No complaints will be registered.”

“Gage.” Fox mimed a gun with his thumb and forefinger.

“Always is,” Gage said.

Even with the agreement it took thirty minutes for such vital matters as redoing makeup, dealing with hair. Then there was the debate over who was riding with whom, complicated by the fact that Cal remained adamant over not leaving Lump unattended.

“That thing came after my dog once, it could come after him again. Where I go, so goes the Lump. Plus, I ride with my woman.”

Which left Fox squeezing into Cal’s truck with Gage behind the wheel and Lump riding shotgun.

“Why can’t he ride in the middle?” Fox demanded.

“Because he’ll slobber on me, shed on me, and I’ll smell like dog.”

“I’m going to.”

“Your problem, son.” Gage slid a glance over. “And I guess it might be as the pretty brunette may object to being slobbered on by you scented with eau de Lump.”

“She hasn’t complained yet.” Fox reached over to let the window down a few inches for Lump’s sniffing nose.

“I can’t blame you for moving in that direction. She’s got that classy waif with brains and an underlayment of valor you’d go for.”

“Is that what I go for?” Amused, Fox leaned against the bulk of Lump to study Gage’s profile.

“She’s right up your alley, with the unexpected addition of urban polish. Just don’t let it screw you up.”

“Why would it?”

When Gage didn’t answer, Fox shifted. “That was seven years ago, and Carly didn’t screw me up. What happened did, for a while. Layla’s part of this, Carly wasn’t. Or shouldn’t have been.”

“Does the fact that she’s part of this worry you at all? You two have the connection, like Cal and Quinn. Now Cal’s picking out china patterns.”

“Is he?”

“Metaphorically speaking. Now here you are moving on Layla, and getting that cocker spaniel look in your eye when she’s within sniffing distance.”

“If I have to be a dog I want a Great Dane. They have dignity. And no, it doesn’t worry me. I feel what I feel.” He caught a glimmer. He couldn’t help it; it was just there. And it made him smile as only brothers smile at each other. “But it worries you. Cal and Quinn, me and Layla. That leaves you and Cybil. You afraid fate’s going to take a hand? Destiny’s about to kick your ass? Should I order the monogrammed towels?”

“I’m not worried. I factor the odds in any game I play, make the players.”

“The third female player is extremely hot.”

“I’ve had hotter.”

Fox snorted, turned to Lump. “He’s had hotter.”

“Plus, she’s not my type.”

“I didn’t know there was any woman who wasn’t your type.”

“Complicated women aren’t my type. You tangle in the sheets with a complicated woman, you’re going to pay a price for it in the morning. I like them simple.” He grinned over at Fox. “And plenty of them.”

“A complicated woman will give you more play. And you like play.”

“Not that kind. Simple gets you through. And plenty of simple gets you through a lot. I figure going for quantity, seeing as we might not live past our next birthday.”

Reaching over, Fox gave Gage a friendly punch on the arm. “You always cheer me up with that sunny, optimistic nature of yours.”

“What are you bitching about? You’re going to eat, drink, and possibly make Layla, while I settle for club soda and bad music in a crowded West Virginia bar.”

“You could get lucky. I bet there’s at least one simple woman inside.”

Gage considered as he pulled to the curb near the bar. “There is that.”

IT WASN’T WHAT HE’D PLANNED, FOX THOUGHT. He’d had the idea of sitting with Layla at a corner table, well in the back where the music wasn’t loud enough to hamper conversation. A little get-to-know-each-other-better-as-regular-people interlude, maybe followed by a little low-key necking. Which, if done right, might have led to some fooling around in his truck, and ended with her in his bed.

He’d considered it a pretty damn good plan, with room for flexible options.

He’d ended up crammed with five other people at a table for four, drinking beer and eating nachos while the juke blasted out twangy country.

And laughing, a lot.

The live music wasn’t bad when it started. The five guys stuffed in the stage corner managed to pump it out pretty well. He knew them and, feeling generous, bought them a round on their break.

“Whose idea was this?” Quinn demanded. “This was a great idea. And I’m not even drinking.”