“For hitting you?”

“Nay, for deciding I wouldn’t retaliate. I saw it,” he whispered. “In your eyes, right when you hit me. I saw your horror, and then I saw the moment you realized you had nothing to fear from me.”

“All that while planting your face in the dirt?” she asked. She reached over and tapped the end of his nose. “Amazing, considering you couldn’t see my swing coming.”

Robbie touched his nose and hid his smile by standing up and taking the time to rub his knee.

“Now I’m understanding how ya’ve been able to keep this one longer than the others,”

his papa said as he brushed past Robbie and over to Cat. “She’s the one terrorizingyou.”

He held out his hand. “I’m Michael. We met on the phone yesterday.”

“It—it’s nice to meet you, Mr. MacBain.”

“And I’m his mum,” Libby said, taking Cat’s hand from his father to hold in hers.

“Please, call me Libby. I’ve been hearing some wonderful things about you. Not from Robbie,” she added, turning to frown at him before looking back at Cat. “Rick and Peter stopped by two days ago for a short visit.”

“And this is Gram Katie,” Robbie added, putting his arm around Libby’s mother and bringing her over. “And you’ve already met Ian.”

His poor housekeeper tried to tuck her hair into place, and then she brushed down the front of her grass-stained sweatshirt. “It’s very nice to meet you,” she told them, giving each a nod as she slowly inched her way toward the house. “I’ll just go put on the kettle for tea. I have a pan of blueberry cobbler cooling on the counter.”

“We can’t stay, I’m afraid,” Michael said. “We’re on our way to Bangor to shop. We’re just dropping off Ian.”

Robbie looked at his uncle.

Ian lifted his chin. “I hate to shop. And I feel like a walk in the woods, with you along to protect me from the bears.”

“He’ll walk with you, Ian,” Libby said, staring at Robbie. “Just as soon as I get a hug.

You live two miles away, and I haven’t seen you in nearly two weeks.”

“You’ve been at Maggie’s when I’ve tried to visit,” Robbie said in his defense, reaching out and giving her a hug.

He suspended his breath and waited, but Libby only patted his back, gave him a squeeze, and stepped away with a nod.

“There. I feel better now.” She turned to Cat, who had managed to inch her way a good ten feet closer to the front porch. “You’ll have Robbie bring you to dinner this Sunday,”

she told his housekeeper. “And please, bring your children. I’m anxious to meet your family.”

Cat looked from Robbie to Libby and nodded. “Thank you. I’d like that. I’ll bring dessert.”

“I believe you have my lasagna pan,” Kate said, taking Cat by the arm and heading toward the house, Libby falling into step on the other side of her mother. Ian muttered something about this taking a while—and something about blueberry cobbler—and tagged along behind them.

Robbie turned to his father, who was eyeing the stick lying on the ground. Michael picked it up, hefted its weight, and looked at Robbie with one eyebrow raised.

“It’s a long story,” Robbie said, leaning over to rub his knee again.

“I imagine I have time to hear it, considering the women are in the kitchen. They’ll likely be there an hour talking about recipes.”

Robbie sighed, sat down on the ground, and wrapped his arms around his bent knees.

He stared at Pine Lake, waiting until his father was settled beside him.

“She and her children were camping out in that old cabin up on TarStone, on the land I bought from Greylen two years ago.” He looked at his father. “She’s running from an abusive ex-husband who just got paroled from prison three months ago.”

“Aye. I guessed it was something like that from what Peter and Rick said.” Michael rolled the heavy maple stick in his hand. “And so you’ve taken in another stray—three, actually—and you’re teaching Catherine how to deal with her ex-husband?”

Robbie shook his head. “Nay. I will take care of Daniels personally, if I’m lucky enough for him to show up here.” He gestured toward the stick. “My lessons are only to help Cat feel less like a victim and more like the brave woman she really is.”

Michael raised his brow again. “You sound as if you have a vested interest in the woman.”

Robbie gazed out over Pine Lake. “I do. If I have any say about it, Cat won’t ever be leaving here.” He looked back at his father. “She’s the one, Papa. I felt it the moment we finally came face-to-face.” He turned more fully to Michael. “I want her. But I’m not sure how to handle both my need for Catherine and my calling. You and I have talked about my gift since I was a child, but we never discussed how I would balance it with a wife.

She’s a modern and won’t understand the magic.”

“Ya’re a modern, too.”

“Aye. But I grew up with the magic. Hell, I have conversations with an owl. What do you think Cat’s reaction would be if she knew that?”

Michael set his hand on Robbie’s arm. “We’ve all married moderns, son. And some of us have learned the hard way that there’s no simple way to explain who we are.”

Both men looked toward the house when they heard voices and saw the women standing by the truck. Michael used the stick to lever himself to his feet.

“But if I may suggest?” Michael said quietly. “Have a very firm hold on her heart before ya try to explain anything. For as much as your mother loved me, she wasn’t quite ready to hear what I had to tell her.” He canted his head. “Mary wasn’t even aware of her own gift while she was alive, I don’t think, or she would have been able to accept who I was and where I came from.” He smiled. “But I think once she felt ya stirring inside her, she understood and tried to come back to me.”

It was all Robbie could do not to tell his father that he’d visited with Mary in the storm, as the beautiful woman she’d been when Michael MacBain had loved her.

“Has she not come to you once, Papa?”

“Nay,” Michael said, shaking his head. “Not after Libby came into my life. Mary cared enough not to intrude. Not only for my sake but for Libby’s as well.” He looked up toward TarStone. “She’s watching us, though. I can… I feel her sometimes.” He looked back at Robbie and smiled. “A whisper or a mere breath on my neck. Or I’ll catch a hint of drying herbs in the middle of the tree fields in the dead of winter.”

“Aye,” Robbie said, slapping his father’s back and leaving his hand there as they started toward the truck. “She’s always been watching.”

Michael stopped and looked him directly in the eye. “If ya’re sure Catherine Daniels is the woman ya want to grow old with, then talk to Libby and your Aunt Grace and Sadie and Charlotte. They’ve gone from moderns to believers in some very interesting ways.

Your Aunt Sadie thought she’d actually died, because she couldn’t comprehend the magic at first.”

“Maybe I should just keep my calling separate from my life with Catherine. Why complicate things?”

Michael snorted and shoved the stick at Robbie’s chest. “Aye, you do that, son. And see if ya don’t wake up some morning to an empty house. Keeping secrets from each other

—even small secrets, much less something as important as your calling—is more abusive than anything Catherine’s ex-husband could have done to her. At least physical abuse is openly hostile, but the silence of keeping things from each other is more lethal than a sword slicing through a person’s heart.”

Robbie dropped his head and sighed. “I’ll tell her.”

“After you’ve caught her,” Michael reminded him, slapping him on the shoulder and turning them both toward the truck again. “And after you’ve dealt with Daniels in a way that won’t come back and haunt ya.”

They reached the truck, and Robbie leaned over and gave first Gram Katie and then his mum a kiss on the cheek. “Are the boys invited to Sunday dinner?” he asked. “That’s quite a houseful.”