Chapter 1
Roslyn’s last patient of the day was a Wilcox warlock she’d met during her last year at Northern Pines University, when she was just finishing up her Doctor of Nursing program there.
Liam had just started his freshman year, so it wasn’t as if their coursework had overlapped at all, but witches and warlocks always made sure they were known to each other even when they had nothing else in common.
In Liam’s case, he’d graduated last May and had fallen for a McAllister witch and relocated to the Verde Valley.
This sort of thing happened all the time now, so under most circumstances, Roslyn wouldn’t have given the situation a second thought.
Sure, it probably hadn’t been the smartest thing in the world for Liam to take his dirtbike on some of Mingus Mountain’s more challenging trails, but with a clan healer as a built-in insurance policy, he’d probably thought it would be no big deal if he ended up injured.
Which he had, taking a nasty spill that dislocated one shoulder and fractured his collarbone. Those injuries would have usually landed him in the emergency room, but his fiancée, Roslyn’s cousin Lainey, had brought him straight to Roslyn’s clinic in Cottonwood.
Their timing was impeccable, since she’d just wrapped up a consultation with her last client of the day about ten minutes earlier and was in the process of closing up shop when they appeared.
Of course, Lainey had apologized for showing up so late, but Roslyn had only brushed her off, saying this was what being the clan’s healer was all about.
And it was. There was no such thing as being “off duty” when you were a healer, no matter what the hours on the clinic’s door might say.
She thought she’d gotten used to it. After all, it had been more than fifteen years since her gifts had surfaced a little before her twelfth birthday.
On that day, a little white-crowned sparrow had smashed into the big picture window that overlooked the backyard of the house where she’d grown up, and she’d reached out almost without thinking and touched a finger to the bird’s broken wing.
At once, it had let out a surprised little cheep, given an experimental flutter of its wings, and then flown off into one of the big Mexican honeysuckle bushes that grew along the back wall.
Roslyn had stood there for a moment, startled, and then it dawned on her what had happened and she’d run off to tell her mother.
Her father had still been editor of the Verde Valley News back then, so he was at work, but her mom had been home, and the news had spread quickly around the clan.
After more than a generation of having to rely on civilian healthcare practitioners or the healers of other clans when a particular issue couldn’t be solved by ordinary methods, the McAllisters finally had a healer of their own.
At first, Roslyn had been thrilled. Her twelve-year-old self had been more than happy to take on a role that had been empty for so long.
Back then, there had been boundaries — no one expected an underage girl to deliver a baby or get up at three in the morning to quell a fever that could wait until a more reasonable hour — but as she grew older and decided that she wanted actual medical training to back up her considerable magical gifts, those boundaries seemed to get less and less solid.
And now it seemed as if, between the clinic and the demands of her clan, she didn’t have a life at all, just an endless stream of medical emergencies.
Like Liam’s fractured collarbone and dislocated shoulder.
Both injuries were simple enough to fix, though, and she had him and Lainey out the door in less than half an hour.
No question of billing…healers didn’t charge their clan patients…
and yet Roslyn knew she’d be compensated anyway.
Everyone in the McAllister clan earned a stipend that kept them from having to work unless they really wanted to, but because of the extra hours she put in, her stipend was considerably larger than most others.
In fact, she really didn’t need to have the clinic at all, except that it provided a handy place to see her witch clients. Besides, Cottonwood’s civilian residents really needed a place where they could see a primary care provider at an affordable cost.
Roslyn saw Lainey and Liam to the door and said goodbye with a smile, although she admonished Liam to stay on easier trails for at least the next week or so until the magical healing she’d begun had fully taken root.
He’d nodded, and Lainey had said, “That’s for damn sure,” and they’d both gotten into Lainey’s little electric truck and headed back up the hill into Jerome.
The smile Roslyn had been wearing faded as soon as they were gone. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate being there for members of the clan when they needed her, but seeing Liam had struck a nerve, had pulled up memories she thought she’d safely buried.
Almost all Wilcox warlocks were tall and dark and good-looking, and Liam’s quick flash of a smile had reminded her a bit too uncomfortably of Cooper Wilcox, whom she’d dated her senior year of college before starting the nurse practitioner program.
She’d been very clear with him about both her career and her educational goals, and that although she’d be in Flagstaff for the duration of her academic career, she’d have to return to Jerome and the Verde Valley as soon as she was fully certified.
Cooper had acknowledged all this, but he must have been listening with half an ear.
Or maybe he’d just thought that she’d change her mind once she was confronted with the reality of losing what they had together.
She still wasn’t entirely sure what had been going on in his head, but either way, when she’d suggested that he could always come with her to Jerome, he’d looked at her like she’d lost her mind.
“Leave Flagstaff?” he’d said blankly, and she’d planted her hands on her hips and given him a very direct look.
“Why not?” she’d returned. “It’s not as if there aren’t Wilcox witches and warlocks who’ve moved to McAllister territory.”
“And there are lots of McAllister witches and warlocks who’ve relocated to Wilcox territory,” he’d said calmly.
Well, that was true enough. Roslyn hadn’t been keeping anything close to a running count, so she didn’t know if it worked out evenly or not, but these days, it wasn’t so strange for witches and warlocks to move into a different clan’s territory…if that was where their heart led them.
But she’d always known she couldn’t be so blithe about her own situation.
Her clan needed her in Jerome…or Cottonwood, or Clarkdale…
and that meant she could never pull up roots and live somewhere else permanently.
Her time at Northern Pines had been a necessary evil, since there weren’t any four-year universities in McAllister territory where she could have earned her NP degree.
Cooper should have known that.
Actually, he knew that very well. Roslyn’s father was a journalist, and her mother was a witch with an unusual gift that allowed her to see the thoughts of everyone in about a mile radius when it decided to activate.
That didn’t happen very often, thank the Goddess, because it was like having ten migraines descend at once, but the combination of her mother’s talent and her father’s journalistic integrity was such that both she and her younger brother Owen had been taught their entire lives that honesty wasn’t an option.
It didn’t seem like Cooper had gotten that particular memo, or at least, he was only honest when honesty served him.
The breakup had been messy, not the least because Roslyn had three more years at Northern Pines to get through to finish her NP degree.
Luckily, Cooper had been content to get his B.S.
in mechanical engineering and immediately landed a cushy job at one of the many Wilcox-owned businesses in Flagstaff, and except for the odd encounter at a coffee shop or a restaurant, she didn’t have to see him after that.
The sting of it should have been gone by now.
Seeing Liam Wilcox and her cousin Lainey together shouldn’t have been a big deal.
And maybe if Roslyn had been happy in a relationship of her own, she wouldn’t have experienced that unwelcome little spike of something that she knew wasn’t jealousy but was probably a first cousin to it.
Rather than dwell on her own uncomfortable emotions, she concentrated on putting away the last few supplies, then wiping everything down for a second time with some rubbing alcohol.
More than once, her parents had encouraged her to hire an LVN or at least an office manager to help her with the more mundane tasks around the clinic, but Roslyn hadn’t seen the point.
For one thing, she’d have to hire someone from her clan, because a lot of the healing techniques she used wouldn’t pass muster if a civilian nurse was observing her too closely.
And also, what difference did it make if she got home a half hour later than planned because she stayed to get a little extra work done?
It wasn’t as if anyone was waiting for her. She didn’t even have a pet, mostly because her hours were so erratic that she would never make an animal put up with her crappy schedule.
Everything was in order. Still, she sat down at the computer in the reception area to check tomorrow’s schedule so she could get her mental space in order well in advance.
Not too busy, just five patients — two in the morning and three in the afternoon.
Of course, as Liam Wilcox’s visit had just proven, people’s lives often didn’t run exactly to plan, and there was always the possibility that she’d get a few drop-ins.