Kissingate Magic #3
Now she was back, tying him in knots, though she hadn’t been back a day. Only one other person annoyed him as much – Nick Daventry, the father of her child.
Five years, and Gabe still wanted to beat Nick senseless.
“No more passion,” he growled. It ruled him once and damned near finished him. He wouldn’t let it rule him again.
Jacey would have to go.
Eight
Jacey opened her bedroom door, and her dear old nanny enveloped her in strong, welcoming arms.
“Mackenzie, he called you,” Jacey said. “But I should have known. You, keeping house for the parson? You must want to beat his broody self ten times a day.”
Nanny Mac chuckled and wiped her eyes. “Your mother sent me to your sister and I stayed to help with the bairn. Two years later, we came home, and Clara married himself. I promised on her deathbed, I’d stay and care for Bridget.”
“How is Bridget, Mac? Will it be all right, do you think, to tell her who I am?”
Mac reared back, eyes wide.
“Too soon to mention I’m her mother’s sister? I’ll say I’m a friend, then.”
Mac captured her hands. “Tell Bridget you’re her aunt. Don’t know what I was thinking. She needs you. Me, I play Granny, but Cricket doesn’t know how to climb trees or run between raindrops. Those are your specialties.”
Jacey grinned. “Gabriel won’t like—”
“Himself likes nothing these days. But if anybody can snap him out of his sulks, it’s you, if only to try his patience.” Mac grinned. “Come sit with me while I make breakfast.”
After a terse good-morning, Gabriel said nothing more.
Jace liked catching up with Mac, who raised her and her sister, though she hesitated to mention Clara around Gabriel.
Less than two years married to Clara, and he’s a widower.
He must have loved her terribly, if his mood was any indication.
Last night, she’d probably reminded him of Clara, and that’s why he’d been so tender.
They made eye contact at the sound of small feet on the kitchen stairs. Jacey’s heart nearly stopped at first sight of her niece.
Suttie dropped her fork.
The poppet on the stairs, watching her step, missed their surprise. Bridget’s thick, black wavy hair paled her skin to milk. Not beautiful but striking, though she needed colour in her cheeks, bows in her hair. Sunshine. Laughter.
She needed her aunt. They needed each other.
Eyes glistening, Mac grasped Bridget’s shoulders from behind and walked her over. “Look lovey, here is my Jacey, your mama’s sister come to stay.” Mac nodded above the child’s head, as if to say she’d made the connection; no wonder her tears.
When Bridget looked up and their eyes met for the first time, Jacey’s heart clenched, her soul mourned, and memory stirred.
Shaken, but trying not to show it, she cupped Bridget’s chin.
She looked like Clara, Jace supposed, though darker than both her parents, more like their father, actually, hers and Clara’s.
Bridget assessed her. “You look sad like me.”
Gabriel caught the teapot he’d nearly upended. “Good morning Cricket.” The soft smile he gave his step-daughter made him look younger.
Bridget turned her face into Mac’s apron.
Gabriel’s smile faded. Jacey reached out to him, but he turned a hostile look her way. He did not want to be consoled … by her.
Bridget tugged on her sleeve, reclaiming her attention.
“What is it, sweetheart?” Jacey asked.
“Your dress is old.”
Despite her embarrassment, Jacey felt a rush of love so intense and unexpected, she ached. “I know.”
Bridget stepped closer. She liked Myjacey. She talked soft and smelled of the flowers that grew in the water meadow, like Mama used to. Bridget liked that scent better than the petals in Mama’s trunk, locked in the fusty old attic. They made her sad, and cross.
She leaned against Myjacey’s soft body and shut her eyes to inhale the scent that almost made it seem as if …
“Mama,” Bridget said.
Mac released a strangled sob, Gabriel paled, and pinpricks attacked Jacey’s limbs.
Suttie brought the child over to kiss her head and raise her teacup. “To expected, and unexpected, ghosts.”
Jacey took Bridget on her lap, and the child settled against her.
Jacey finger combed the hair from her appraising eyes, stifling a rush of emotion. “Are you hungry, sweetie?”
“Cricket,” Bridget corrected.
“Cricket, then. What would you like for breakfast?”
“Boxty, please, with butter and sugar.”
“Mmm. Your Mama and I used to …” Jacey hesitated, but Gabriel, Mac, and Bridget, waited. “We liked boxty best with strawberry jam.”
Cricket looked towards Mac.
Hands on her hips, Mac harumphed. “I suppose you’ll be wanting strawberry jam, now?”
Bridget nodded, eyes wide. “Aye, please.”
To Jacey’s pleasure, Bridget refused to leave her lap to eat, so Jace pulled the plate over, despite Gabriel’s disapproval. She’d ached to hold a child since hers passed, and she wouldn’t relinquish her niece for anyone.
Ignoring Gabriel’s steely regard, Jacey kissed the top of her wee dark head.
Lack of appetite had naught to do with Bridget’s size, and the wee thing had perfected the art of ignoring her stepfather. She reminded Jacey of herself as a girl, trying to work Gabriel like Suttie did her puppets. Did Gabriel realize Bridget manipulated him?
“I take it you like boxty with jam?” Jacey asked.
The lamb butted Bridget’s leg, and she slid to the floor to pet the lamb. Ah, that’s what she’d wanted to hear, Bridget’s laugh.
Gabriel shot to his feet, and everyone looked up. He placed a kiss on his daughter’s head. “Have a nice day, Cricket. Jace, walk me outside, will you?”
Jacey stood though Bridget caught her hand. “I’ll be right back.”
Gabriel’s disapproval, more than anything, disturbed Jacey, as she walked him through the house and out the door. “Gabriel, I assure you, I did nothing. We just met.”
“I’m aware of that,” he said. “I saw your face.”
“And I saw yours.”
Gabriel shrugged. “She’s fragile, our Bridget.
I think, Jace, that she needs you.” He took a deep, shuddering breath.
“I don’t know your plans, but—” He cleared his throat.
“I’d appreciate it if you stayed for a while.
Bridget’s better already and, frankly, I’d do anything, anything, to see her happy again. ”
“Even keep me around?” She turned towards the house.
He caught her arm. “I wanted to be the one to breathe life back into her, damn it.”
Nine
Gabe’s words haunted Jacey as she took Bridget upstairs to look through Clara’s things.
“I don’t like the attic.” Bridget pulled Jacey up short. “It smells fusty.”
Jacey got her moving again. “You mean musty?”
“That too.” Bridget sat in the middle of the stairs. “My legs hurt.”
Jacey tugged her up. “You make me think of two wee girls I once knew, me and your mother.”
“Did you whine, too?”
“Only when we didn’t want to do something we didn’t like.”
“I don’t like the attic. I don’t want to go there.”
Jacey grinned. “I figured that out.”
Bridget gave a long-suffering sigh. “Why do we gotta go there?”
“Why do we have to go there?”
“That’s what I want to know!”
“To sort through your mother’s things.” You need to ken that she and I are two different people.
“I have her special book.” Bridget pulled Jacey in the opposite direction. “C’mon, it’s in my room. You can have it.”
“Not so fast, my wee beguiler. Attic now. I’ll read your mama’s book to you later. How’s that?”
“It’s not that kind of book.” Bridget dragged her feet, catching the toes of her shoes on every step to slow them down.
Jacey bit her lip. She hadn’t had such fun in years. “Your papa and I used to play here when we were young.”
“I never saw my Papa. What did he look like?”
Jacey stopped. “I mean, your stepfather. What do you call him?”
Bridget shrugged. “Nothing.”
No wonder the letter. Bridget barely talked to him.
The attic, a jaunty jumble of junk spoke of secrets and bygone days.
Jacey stood Bridget on an old trunk at a round window.
“See those turrets. That’s Lockhart Towers, where your mama and I grew up.
Oh, and there’s your stepfather’s carriage rattling down Parson’s Hill.
” Jace turned to Bridget. “Why don’t you call him Papa-Gabe.
He wouldn’t mind. He loves you, you know. ”
“I know.” Bridget undid several of Jacey’s buttons. “He calls me Cricket.”
“That’s how you know he loves you?”
Bridget nodded and touched Jacey’s hair.
“Not by his hugs and kisses or the way he keeps your blankets tucked to your chin at night?”
Bridget finger-combed Jacey’s hair, until her bun came out and hair fell over half her face. Bridget’s eyes twinkled with mischief.
Jace caught her breath at the child’s beauty. She hugged her, kissed her cheeks, lifted and twirled her. “I love you, I love you, I love you!” Jacey shouted.
Bridget sobbed, her arms around Jace’s neck, her face pressed there.
Jace sat them on the trunk and sang:
“Oh dear, what can this sadness mean?
Jacey too fast with the flair?
I promise to find you a basket of puppies,
A garland of lilies, a kitten and candy,
A dozen bright ribbons, all colours and dandy,
To tie up thy bonnie silk hair.’’
Bridget sat back and watched, transfixed. “Mama used to sing.”
Jace guessed singing fixed everything, because Bridget scrambled off her lap and over to a trunk in a sunbeam, its dust motes like dancing fairies. “Do you want to see how tiny I was?” Bridget asked.
The first item, a soft, yellow bonnet, made Jace catch her breath.
She’d made a yellow embroidered nightgown and bonnet for her baby, which her mother buried the babe in. Jace knelt beside Bridget.
“I used to be this small!” Bridget tried it on, but it sat like a cone, and the ribbons didn’t meet beneath her chin. She tossed it in Jacey’s lap. “Wait till you see my favourite dress. It has pink roses and—”
Jacey crushed the bonnet made of the same yellow fabric. She remembered her mother saying she split the bolt and sent half to Clara in Wales. Clara was expecting Bridget at the time, a baby for her married daughter to show off. Not one to hide, like her unmarried daughter’s.