Midlife Full-Bodied and Magical

CHAPTER 1

Storm Over the Vineyard—Lainie

"Mom, are you okay?"

Lainie jerked awake, a scream still hot in her throat. The nightmare clung—trolls with stone teeth chasing her through a castle corridor that stretched and stretched and never ended, their footsteps shaking the walls, the floor tilting beneath her—

Thunder cracked outside. The real kind.

Jenna stood in the doorway in her pajama shorts and an oversized T-shirt, arms crossed, one bare foot stacked on top of the other. "You were yelling."

Lainie pressed her palm flat against her chest, willing her heart to slow down. The bedroom was dark except for the blue-white strobe of lightning between the curtains. Rain hammered the windows like someone throwing gravel.

"Bad dream." She reached for the wall switch beside the headboard. Two small recessed lights clicked on, casting the room in a low amber wash. "Sorry I woke you, sweetheart."

Jenna lifted one shoulder. "I was already up. Bitsy had to go out."

On cue, the terrier trotted past Jenna's ankles, circled a spot on the woven throw rug, and dropped into a tight ball. She angled her head, peering through the wet hair plastered across her snout, and sniffed in the direction of the chair by the window.

Sawyer's voice came from that chair, dry as week-old bread. "Looks like someone forgot to check the weather forecast."

Lainie lifted her head to glare at the marmalade cat. He sat with his front paws crossed, tail curled around his body, wearing the expression of a creature who had never once been wrong about anything and wanted you to know it.

She ignored him. Grabbed the timepiece from the nightstand and turned it over in her hands, running her thumb across the fairy engravings and the tiny embedded jewels. The chain pooled in her palm, cool against her skin. She slipped it over her head and let the watch settle against her sternum.

The metal was warm. Warmer than it should be, sitting on a nightstand all night.

She pushed that thought aside.

"We have a big day today." She looked toward the chair where Sawyer sat. "Go back to sleep."

He released a grumbly noise—half purr, half complaint—and shifted positions on the cushion. "I think I will."

Lainie’s lips twitched. Sawyer had never once in his life turned down a nap.

Lightning split the sky outside. Thunder rolled through the walls, so deep she felt it in her ribs. Rain clattered against the gutters in sheets.

She tapped her phone on the nightstand. Just past six. The alarm wasn't set to go off for another thirty minutes. She swiped to the weather app. The icon showed a cartoon sun half-covered by a cloud. Partly sunny. High of seventy-four.

The little cartoon sun mocked her from the screen.

The window rattled in its frame.

Right.

Florida storms blew in fast and blew out faster.

She knew that. She'd lived here long enough to know.

But the forecast had shown clear skies for today—Valentine's Day, the grand opening of Second Bloom Vineyards, the single biggest thing she had built with her own hands since walking out of her marriage.

Too bad the timepiece couldn't control something as big as weather.

"Mom?"

"Yeah."

"Hadlee's still asleep. I checked Brennon's room—bed's untouched. And his van wasn't in the drive. Do you know where he is?"

Her stomach dropped. Lainie threw back the covers, and her bare feet hit the cold floor. Her hip flexors screamed—she'd been clenching in her sleep again—but she was already at the window, yanking the curtain aside.

Rain sheeted down the glass. The driveway below was a dark river of reflected lightning. Her gaze searched the circular drive, the edge of the garage, the long private road curving away into the dark.

No van.

Another flash of lightning—and, in that split second of white, she caught the shape of something large banking across the sky above the vineyard. Wings spread wide, a massive body cutting an arc through the rain.

Kalen. On patrol, same as every morning.

Would he know where Brennon was? He would have woken her if something was wrong. Wouldn't he?

She let the curtain fall.

"Where could he be?" The question came out quieter than she intended.

"That's what I asked you." Jenna stepped closer, her face pinched with the kind of worry a thirteen-year-old shouldn't have to carry. "Why isn't he home?"

The timepiece pulsed once against Lainie's chest. A low, deep throb of heat, like a second heartbeat pressing through the metal.

She grabbed her robe from the foot of the bed, shrugged into it, and dropped her phone in the pocket.

"I'm sure it's nothing." She draped her arm around Jenna's shoulders and steered her toward the door. "He probably stayed at a friend's house."

The watch pulsed again. Warmer this time.

A quiet objection. She knew that heat. The watch didn't tolerate half-truths.

She believed Brennon was probably fine. She did not believe it was nothing.

"Let's go downstairs," she said. "We'll figure it out."