Chapter Eleven #2
She smiled at him, and that whole thing felt like their world years ago.
Just the two of them.
Gabby pointed at her neck.
“Uh, did you get accosted by a vampire?” she asked. “Something bit you.”
She snorted.
“He’s a biter. Don’t break him of the habit. I happen to like it a little too much,” she joked. “I think he got my ass cheek, too.”
Michael stared at her.
“Really? In front of the children?” he asked, pointing at himself.
That amused her.
“Son, if he didn’t bite me, and like my ass, we wouldn’t have kids,” she joked. “Including big ones who the stork delivered via the United States military.”
Well, she had a point.
“What’s for dinner?” Gabby asked. “And why is Elizabeth cooking. Should she be? Does she know how?”
Elizabeth snorted.
“Once upon a time, Gabriella, I had to cook for myself and Doctor Leonard. He knows how to pour bowls of bran cereal or order food in. He isn’t a ‘I cook’ kind of an ME.”
Ethan laughed.
“Mmmmm. Tasty. I’ve had bran with the good doctor. I’ve also had his takeout orders.”
Gabby took a seat at the island, and the mood was vastly different now than before.
She was grateful.
Apparently, what Elizabeth needed was a good roll around with her husband.
Yeah, Gabby understood that.
“Thanks for letting us crash here. Tomorrow is going to be sloppy out there.”
No one minded.
“I’m glad you are,” Elizabeth stated. “We’re going to work after dinner.”
At that one word, Gabby got excited.
“Work?” she asked. “Say it isn’t so. Is the fabulous Elizabeth Blackhawk taking on The Mystery of Ravensmire and The Lost Heart case?” she asked.
Ethan was confused.
He knew the basics of what happened here, just from Tony and Ian, but clearly, he wasn’t completely aware because who lost their heart?
“What did I miss?” he asked, letting his wife taste his sauce like they used to do in his brownstone over a decade ago.
She licked her lips.
“So delicious. Now, pour me some wine,” she stated. “If we’re working on this curse mystery, and this heart thing, I want to be drunk. That way, I can tell everyone later I was out of my goddamn mind. Then, we’ll clue you in because this is going to be weird.”
Michael laughed.
“And that’s why we can’t have guns here.”
Finn snorted.
“We can’t have guns because some countries have no freaking control. The Revolution got you guys spicy toward the crown.”
Well, it wasn’t like he was wrong, but know what wasn’t happening on the streets of America?
Pickpockets.
Among other things.
Ethan took that hint, and grabbed three bottles from the chiller, and uncorked them to breathe. He needed some for his sauce anyway, and it had been a long time since he’d had a glass of wine with his woman.
And a long time since they’d made sauce together too.
“Anyway,” she said, as he poured her some and handed her a glass, “here’s what you missed, EJ,” she offered. “Last night, I started sleepwalking.”
He paused as he was handing out glasses of wine.
“Pardon? You don’t sleepwalk. In fact, you barely sleep, so…”
Oh, she was aware.
“I know, and while I was, apparently, I was having a whole conversation with Ceit.”
Ethan topped off her glass and stared at his wife.
“Ceit? The dead woman who lived here in the sixteen hundreds?”
Elizabeth nodded.
“Apparently.”
To help her out, Michael picked up when she stopped to sip her wine.
“The second Elizabeth arrived yesterday, shit started going crazy once more. We thought the mystery was solved, but then the lake started getting wonky again, the painting of Ceit fell off the rails it was on, and then, the sleepwalking.”
Oh, he didn’t like that.
“What happened?” he asked, fully invested now that they were smack dab in the middle of it.
She told him since everyone else had heard at breakfast, but he needed to be caught up.
“We walked around the castle, and she told me that she needed her heart found, and only she could take down the curse. So, we’re going to find her heart so we can break the curse.”
Finn went there.
“Well, it won’t be a physical heart. She’s been dead a LONG time. Her heart is dust. It has to be something. Maybe her child? Was he her heart? We don’t have kids, but I imagine that has to be a thing.”
Yes, yes, it was.
“That could be it,” she stated. “Our children are our hearts,” she stated. “Michael, Graham, Koda, Coraline, CJ, Charlie, Dolly, Willa, EJ, Christopher Anthony, Cat, Bethe, and Daniel,” she said, rattling them all off. “Then, little Oliver is our grandbaby.”
Graham stared at her.
“Jaysus, Lassie. Close your thighs.”
She snorted.
“I didn’t birth all of them. I just got lucky getting them by way of the universe. Graham by marriage, and the same with Coraline. Unfortunately, I have to share her with her father—and he’s a kid hog. He’s going to start trying to baby nap our grandson.”
They all knew who she meant.
The President of The United States.
“So now, the heart hunt is on,” she stated. “You’re pretty much caught up. I just got here last night.”
Yeah, this was wild to Ethan.
Only, he was curious.
“Was she in danger while sleepwalking?” he asked, knowing Michael would be well aware of who he was referring to—the ghost who took her on the tour.
He shook his head.
“No. The worst part was she tried to take a nap on the crypt lid. We carried her to bed and slept on the floor in front of the door to make sure she stayed put.”
Oh, thank God.
The last thing he wanted was his wife wandering away and off a cliff while she was sleepwalking.
As Elizabeth began frying chicken cutlets, Ethan sipped his wine.
“Okay, so then let’s solve a mystery. I’m in,” he offered. “I can’t wait to help.”
At that, she lifted a brow.
“Really?”
He nodded.
“Of course. If my wife is working on a mystery, and I’m here, how can I not want to be involved? I’ll go ghost busting with her any day. Like I said, I’m sorry that I didn’t get involved with this venture with Chris and Callen. The least I can do is help you figure this out.”
That was sweet.
Honestly, she appreciated that too.
To get it started, she considered what she’d consider her heart.
Her children were her heart.
Oh, and one other thing…
“And my husbands are also my heart. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for one of my true loves.”
Ethan knew that was accurate.
For.
Sure.
Elizabeth continued.
“What do we know about that aspect of her life?” she asked. “Get us up to speed on her past and how she ended up here.”
Apparently, his wife was all in on this, proving that even on a getaway, the investigator went with her.
She saw him smiling.
“What?” she asked, before they could share what they knew.
He tucked some hair behind her ear.
“I miss seeing you investigate something that wasn’t life or death. That’s all. You get this look on your face. It’s like when you and Gene play Clue against each other. It’s that goal of finding the ending, but not being stressed to do it.”
She laughed.
It had been a long time since she’d just used her brain to figure something out where her life, or the life of someone she knew wasn’t on the line.
“Uh, playing Clue against Gene is anything but stress-free. If he wins, he never lets you forget it. Plus, I hate losing, and we all know who the most competitive Blackhawk is. ME.”
He snorted.
She wasn’t wrong, but Gene was just about as competitive. It was a tie between them more times than not.
“Oh, I’ve lost many, many times against him. Trust me, I know. When you beat him, he’s hellbent on winning the next round. I’m afraid there will be a rousing game of Battleship with real guns with you two.”
Gabby was curious.
“You guys play Clue in your downtime after solving shit day in and day out?”
Ethan laughed.
“We used to. Gene is pretty much insufferable when he wins or loses. Plus, when we try to play a game, kids are all over us, and you kinda have to let them win.”
Elizabeth laughed.
The hell she did.
“Fuck them kids. You don’t have to let them win,” she joked. “Let them take my crown when they earn it. I’m not losing a game to a teenager. I’m especially not losing a game based on some ridiculous murder with a household item to one of my offspring. I have a reputation to uphold.”
Ethan roared in laughter.
“See? INSUFFERABLE. Spoken like Gene.”
Yes, yes, it was, but her daddy didn’t raise no game loser. That was for damn sure. He’d been the same way, kicking her ass in Candy Land as a child.
“Anyway,” Gabby said, amused by what Ethan had said.
“What we know is that Duncan married her just to keep up an appearance that he wasn’t gay.
His father, Adhamh Granndach ‘bought’ his son a stable boy as a teen, and that boy grew up to be Ciarán Begbie.
They fell in love in their teens and had a love affair that lasted for YEARS. ”
Ethan stirred his sauce.
“And then?” he asked, not familiar with any of this. He’d been so busy…
And now he regretted it.
This was one of their homes, and he should have had a vested interest in it. Plus, if it interested his wife, he should care about that too.
She loved solving things.
Gabby continued.
“He married Ceit. Only, she didn’t love him. She fought him tooth and nail, but her father, Oison, sold her off to him via dowry. She had no choice but to leave Ireland and come here. His father needed the money, and she was a girl.”
He didn’t like that.
He couldn’t imagine ‘selling’ off Charlie, or Willa. That horrified him to no end.
“How old was she?” he asked.
They all said it.
“Seventeen.”
Well, at least she wasn’t ten. Gross things happened back then. That was for damn sure. Charlie was a teen, and Dolly and Willa were children yet.
Gabby continued, sipping her wine.
“Duncan and Ciarán were away at war. She was pregnant, and at one point, she changed her tune regarding him. It was like the light switch went on. There are a barrage of letters between them, her saying she loved him, and him…not so much.”
Ethan was curious.
“Who were his letters to?”
Graham shared.
“They were to Ciarán, the once-stable-boy, then turned lover.”
Okay, he was mentally making notes, like he did with a profile.
“This is one hell of a cold case.”
She agreed there.