Dreams Do Come True (Cadenbury Town #9)

Chapter 1

Igroan as I read an email from my assistant Daniel, informing me I'm needed for an in-person meeting tomorrow at ten. That means I’ll have to travel up to my flat after dinner.

I would leave now, but then I’d be starving when I reached my flat, and I wouldn’t fancy eating anything when I got there.

Not that I really care about that, but going away means I have to spend the night alone.

Saying that, I could always leave early tomorrow and be home later tomorrow evening.

It will mean a very long day, but I can cope with that.

Happier now, I shoot a reply back to Daniel, saying I’ll be there and asking him to send me any meeting information I might need.

I can always read it before going to bed, or I can read it now, as a reply from Daniel has just come through, with the attachments.

I click on it and have a read. I groan again.

The meeting is about policy changes. These meetings are just dragging on and on.

I tried to move them to online meetings, but when someone gets stroppy, they just disconnect from the meeting.

It’s frustrating and annoying. There is a PS at the end of the email.

Monica Chaney, the head witch, wants to see me when I have a moment tomorrow.

She probably wants to check I’ve not gone off the rails and taken the other true witches with me.

I shake my head. All my life, I had been a normal witch, a strong witch, but a normal one.

Then, on my last birthday, a true witch named Emilia Porter gifted me her original line true light magic.

She was the last of her line, and not wanting her magic to die out and upset the magical balance, she cast her final spell, basically pulling out her magic, putting it in a warded box and gifting it to me.

And wasn’t that a shock? I opened the box, got hit in the chest with her magic and fell into a magical sleep for twelve hours, so her magic could fuse with mine, and seep into my DNA, and then when I woke up, I was a true witch.

I have complete respect for Emilia. I have no idea how long she went without her magic before she died, but the pain of losing her magic must have been immense. We held a circle for her, offering her a safe passing, and I thanked her for her gift and promised to treasure her magic.

Before I became a true witch, I was the council liaison for the other original line of true light witches.

At the time, these were Ernest Turnball, my brother, Tempest Tanner and Nix Washington.

Later, Saladin Edenwood, Dr Justice Jackson-Stone and more recently Ebenezer Anderson-Sherwood and Sylvester Anderson-Sherwood.

When I informed Monica what had happened to me, that I was now a true witch from one of the original lines, I’ve never seen someone so shocked.

I laugh as I remember the same look of shock on her face when I told her about Ebby and his husband, Sly, and how Ebby was a true light witch and Sly a true dark witch.

I probably should have told her that Sly stripped his family of their magic, but I didn’t.

I also didn’t tell her the Bannisters had theirs stripped away either.

She found out Ernest stripped the Cartwrights of their magic, and warned me that wasn’t to become a habit.

So, keeping that from her was a necessity.

I was kept on as their council liaison, but now Monica is mine. It’s probably just a meeting to check up on us and to see how things are. Thankfully, after Halloween and what happened with Sly, things are calm again on the dark witch front.

I must admit, though, that since the dark witches have banded together to try and kill us and take our magic, life has gotten much more interesting. So much so, Temp created a website where we can rate each encounter.

I’m pulled from my thoughts when Kean comes striding into my home office, walks around my desk and spins my chair around, so I’m now facing him.

“Hey, honey, how was your day?” he asks, grinning, leaning down to kiss me.

Not being stupid, I happily kiss him back. I love you so much, handsome.

I feel Kean's smile against my lips. Just as I love you, honey.

We both pull back, and I touch his cheek. “Hey,” I say, it’s all I can manage at the moment as that kiss addled my brain.

Kean laughs and kisses my nose. “Time to pack up for the day.”

“Pack up, yes,” I reply stupidly, before grabbing the front of Kean’s shirt and pulling him close so we could kiss again. Not that it actually takes much pulling.

I feel Kean drop to his knees, and he wraps his arms around me, kissing me back.

Finally when we both need oxygen, we pull apart, breathing heavily.

“Well, I should drop by more often if that’s my welcome,” Kean states, happiness shining in his eyes.

“Yes, you really should,” I agree.

Kean laughs. “Are you done for the day?”

I sigh. “I have to go into the office for a meeting at ten tomorrow. I’ve some papers to read before said meeting.”

“Are you travelling up tonight?”

“I wasn’t going to. I was going to leave early tomorrow morning, but if I leave tonight, I can read these papers in the morning.”

“Will you have dinner first?”

“Yeah, but if I travel up in the morning, I can still spend the night in our bed and be home again tomorrow night.”

“But you’ll have to get up at stupid o'clock,” Kean points out.

“About four,” I admit.

“As much as I want to sleep in your arms or you in mine every night, you should probably drive up after dinner, unless you’re too tired,” Kean says, looking concerned.

I smile and lean forward, rubbing my nose against his. “Thank you for caring, handsome, but I’ll be fine with either. But if I travel up tonight, I’ll not accidentally wake you in the morning.”

“Oh, honey, there is no way I’d not wake up to see you off, no matter what time you had to get up.”

“I know.”

“We had an email from the adoption agency earlier. Did you see it?” Kean asks, his eyes going from sparkling to sad.

I shake my head. “No. I’m guessing by the look in your eyes, it wasn’t good news.”

I internally sigh. Kean and I are going through the adoption process as we both want children.

We have been turned down by a couple of agencies for being a same sex couple, but we found some that had no problem with us being a couple and happily accepted us.

A few times, we have been close to adopting a child, but they fell through at the last minute.

We’ve not told the family what we’re going through, we will at some point. Each time something goes wrong, my heart breaks. We were warned that the unexpected could happen and that it might even take years before we could adopt a child. As it is, it's only been about six months.

“The mother changed her mind, she’s decided to keep her baby,” he tells me softly.

I see the same sadness in his eyes that is probably in mine.

“Maybe the universe is trying to tell us something. Maybe it doesn’t think I’ll make a good parent,” I all but whisper. “I mean, I didn’t have the best upbringing, maybe the universe thinks we shouldn’t have a child.”

Kean pulls me into his arms, and I wrap mine around him, both of us taking and offering comfort.

“I don’t believe that for a second, honey,” I feel him kiss the side of my head.

“You will make an amazing father, and the right child is out there; we just need to be patient for a little longer. We should probably tell everyone, though, I think the family are starting to wonder why we’re having sad times. ”

“I guess. I keep brushing my brothers off by saying it’s just stuff. I just don’t want any looks of pity.”

Kean snorts out a laugh, pulling back. “It won’t be looks of pity, honey, it will be looks of outrage.”

I smile. “Yeah, it probably will be.”

“So, there’s about half an hour until dinner. Do you want to make a start reading your report?”

I nod. “Yeah, I’m going to leave early tomorrow morning, so I’ll read all this tonight, then I can leave a bit later in the morning.”

“Good plan.”