Divine by Choice (24 page)

I couldn't help but smile. Same Dad—same teacher logic.

“Dad, I have to go back, and not just because they need me.” My eyes pleaded with him to understand. “I love ClanFintan.”

“Huh,” Dad scoffed. “You said Clint here is his mirror image. Right?”

I nodded. Dad looked at Clint.

“Well, a blind fool could tell that he loves you. Isn't that the case, son?” he asked Clint.

“That's the case, sir.” Clint didn't hesitate.

“And the way you were locking lips in the kitchen not too long ago tells me that you have feelings for him, too. Don't you?” Dad's square gaze met mine.

“That's beside the point, Dad.” I blushed.

“Doesn't seem like it to me.” He motioned to Clint. “Or to him. Seems like we need to kill that damn Nuada creature once and for all, send Rhiannon and whatever evil is hanging around back to Partholon, and you need to stay your butt here.”

“I'm pregnant, Dad.”

“Huh?”

“What?”

Both men spoke together. I sighed.

“I'm pregnant with ClanFintan's baby. I have to go back.”

“D
amnit, Shannon!” Clint yelled as he pushed up from his chair. I noticed he grimaced as if he'd stood too fast, and I wondered again what was going on with his back. He stalked a couple of steps away, looking like he wanted to hit something.

“You're sure you're pregnant, Bugs?” Dad's voice was rough.

“Absolutely, Dad.”

“With the centaur's baby?” He sounded as if the concept confused him.

“With the centaur's baby,” I acknowledged.

Dad glanced at my stomach. “Are you going to have room for all that in there?”

“ClanFintan assures me I will give birth to a human child. But,” I added with a teasing smile, “he says the baby will be one hell of an equestrian.”

Dad's full-bellied laugh lightened the mood of the kitchen. “Is that what he said?”

“That and he was born to love me.”

“You have to go back, Bugs. A child needs its father.” His voice sounded sure, but his eyes were filled with sadness.

“Her father,” I corrected him.

“Her?”

“Epona's Chosen is always gifted with a daughter as her firstborn,” I explained to him.

“Your Goddess and I agree on one thing.”

I raised my brows at him. “What's that?”

His work-roughened hand covered mine. “That daughters are a gift from the gods.” We both blinked tears from our eyes. Then he squeezed my hand and stood, nodding his head in Clint's direction. “I have chores to do. I'll leave you two alone for a little while, but I could use some help carrying feed—so don't be too long about it.” He turned and met Clint's troubled eyes. “This changes things, son.”

“I know, sir,” Clint said.

Dad nodded, and then walked briskly to the kitchen door, which led to the utility room and garage. Then he stopped abruptly and turned around to face Clint.

“Now I know why your face seems so damn familiar.” He shook his head like he couldn't believe it'd taken him so long to figure out two plus two. “You're that colonel from the Air Guard fighter unit in Tulsa, the one whose F-16 went bad right over the city and you stayed with it long enough to get the damn thing to crash right in the middle of the Arkansas River. The story was plastered all over the media.” Dad glanced at me. “You remember, Shannon? Happened about five years back.”

All I could do was nod and blink like an idiot. I did remember, but I hadn't recognized him from the media blitz.

Dad lifted his brows at Clint. “They said you stayed with it too long so that you could be sure it wouldn't crash downtown. Ejected too low.” Here he paused, looking up at the ceiling as if the newspaper article was plastered there. “Broke your back, if I remember correctly.”

“You remember correctly,” Clint said quietly.

“They said you were a hero.”

“Just doing my job.”

Dad nodded in respectful acknowledgment.

“There's knee boots and coats in the closet out here, see that you're properly covered before you come to the barn. Don't want my granddaughter to catch cold.” He closed the door securely, leaving me alone with Clint.

I looked at Clint and finally saw him with real clarity. He was a self-sacrificing F-16 pilot, a hero and a warrior. He could talk to the spirits of the trees and he had an aura that glowed like sapphires with a halo of gold dust, which made him a Shaman. A chill rippled through me. He was truly ClanFintan's equal.

I thought it best that I make myself oh-so-busy cleaning up the dishes.

“So that's why your back hurts,” I said as I systematically cleared the dishes.

“Yes.”

“And living in the middle of the forest helps?” I asked as I filled up the sink with soapy water. (My parents have always refused to get a dishwasher. They say it's against the laws of nature. Whatever the hell that means.)

“It's the only way I can really be mobile,” he said hesitatingly, like he hated talking about it. “The longer I'm away from the heart of the forest, the worse it gets. That's why I couldn't stay in Tulsa with Rhiannon when she came here. And that's also why I didn't realize what she was doing until much later.”

“Are you okay right now, or do you need to go back today?” I couldn't keep the wistful sound out of my voice.

“I can tolerate it for a few days, and your dad's land is still forested enough that it gives me some relief. It's in the city that I get most quickly drained.”

“Well, let me know, I…I don't,” I stuttered, “I don't want to, well, to be the cause of—”

He cut me off, sounding more sad than angry. “You could have told me about the baby.”

I shrugged my shoulders, soaping up a dish. “It really doesn't make any difference. I would still want to go back, even if I wasn't pregnant. It just makes it easier for Dad to understand.”

“It makes it easier for me to understand, too.” Clint spoke slowly. “But I want you to realize something.”

I wiped my hands on the dish towel and looked up at him.

“I still want you to stay.” He held up his hand as I started to speak. “No, let me finish. If you can't get back, or if for some reason you decide not to, for whatever reason, you need to know that I would love you and want you.” He didn't move closer to me, but his eyes warmed and he reached out and took my hand in his. “You and your daughter.”

“Thank you, Clint. I will remember.”

He lifted my hand and turned it palm up before he kissed it on the pulse point of my wrist. Reluctantly, I pulled it from his warm grasp.

“Let's get these dishes in the sink so we can go help Dad.”

“I'm yours to command, ma'am.” His liquid voice said he wanted me to read volumes into those words, which I struggled not to do, as we stood hip to hip cleaning up the breakfast mess. His hands touched mine more often than necessary. His arm was warm and near.

He was making me crazy, but I was having a hard time summoning up the desire to tell him to stop. It felt too good to have him close.

“Done!” Finally. I wiped my hands on the dish towel and offered it to him.

“We make a good team…” He paused for effect. “In the kitchen.”

“Yeah, I'm sure we'll go down in the Dishwashers Hall of
Fame.” I said sarcastically. “Let's go help Dad.” Without waiting for him to find an excuse to kiss any other part of my anatomy, I led the way through the kitchen door to the utility room.

The utility room was built as a go-between from the house to the garage, and it was usually a controlled mess. Shelves filled with homemade canned goods lined two walls, the washer and dryer and an enormous coat closet lined the others. Clint and I struggled our way into old work coats, hats, gloves, scarves, and then pulled on knee-high rubber boots with thick-soled treads.

The zipper of my coat was catching and I cursed at it under my breath.

“Here…” There was a smile in Clint's voice. “I'll get that.”

His fingers took over from mine, and he ran the zipper down a few inches then tugged it quickly up, securing it snuggly under my chin. Then he tapped the top of my oversize work hat that looked vaguely Russian (but covered my ears and had enough room for all of my wild hair).

“You look like a little girl.” And before I could say anything he bent and kissed me softly, first on the tip of my nose, then on my lips. Then he took me by the shoulders and turned me to the door that led to the garage. Opening it, he gave me a little push through.

“I know the way!” I grumped at him.

“Then lead on, my Lady,” he said in a voice that sounded so much like ClanFintan that I felt a responding flutter in my stomach that had nothing to do with the baby growing there.

“I'm leading, I'm leading,” I snapped, trying to ignore the feelings this man was evoking more and more frequently within me.

We shuffled our way through the mess in the garage that was definitely uncontrolled, opened the side door and stepped out into a world gone white.

The snow was still falling. This morning it was a soft-looking, crystallized snow, which slanted its way to join the glistening mounds that already covered everything.

“It looks like someone has opened an enormous box of white glitter, then set up a huge fan to blow it all over,” I said.

Clint shook his head. “It sure looks like something's been opened up—something not right.”

I shivered and pulled the collar of my coat up around my neck.

The Oklahoma wind howled, which was the only thing that was familiar about the weather.

“Perhaps the wind wails so in winter for the summer's dead; and all sad sounds are nature's funeral cries for what has been and is not.”
I whispered the obscure quote, struggling to remember which dead Englishman had written it.

“What?” Clint asked.

“Nothing.” I forced my thoughts into line. I was just creeping myself out, and there was no point to that. I gestured to the left of us, where Dad's tracks led from the house to the snow-obscured barn. “That way.”

“Hold on. Your dad would stake me out to freeze if I let you fall and hurt yourself.” He offered me his arm, which I latched onto gratefully.

“He wouldn't stake you out,” I panted as we forced our way through the hard top layer of snow that was almost thigh deep. “He'd just shoot you.”

“Well, that's a comfort.”

The barn door was pulled back, and as we got within hearing range of it a multitude of slender, wire-haired bodies burst out of the warm interior. The hounds leaped toward us, splayfooted, trying to stay upright atop the icy surface of the snow. Every few steps one paw would break through the brittle crust and the dog would have to struggle its way out of snow that threatened to envelop it.

“Watch their tails,” I said to Clint before the group reached us. “They're like friggin whips, especially if they're a little wet.”

Clint laughed at me.

“You think I'm kidding? Try being out here in shorts and having this horde race around you wagging and whining. Those tails leave welts.” Then I yelled to the interior of the barn, “Jeesh, Dad, didn't you just have three dogs six months ago?” I reached out and patted the nearest pointy muzzle, which set off an explosion of doggy happiness as they all tried to wriggle and whine their way into some personal attention. “I count five dogs out here—I think.”

“Yep.” Dad appeared in the doorway with a white grain bucket in his hand. “Mama Parker fell in love with that little brown pup a couple months ago while we were in Kansas. Said the pupper begged to come home with her, so here she is. We call her Fawnie Anne.”

“That makes four. I'm still counting five.”

“Couldn't get just one,” he said like they were furred potato chips. “That silver pup came with her. Mama Parker named him Murphy, after the war hero.”

Clint and I broke through the snow and the dogs and entered the barn. The wonderful alfalfa smell enveloped me and I breathed deeply of the sweet scent of hay mingled with horse. The barn was large and well built. Along one side were eight stalls, filled with a mixture of mares, yearlings and a couple of slick-looking horses that could only be Dad's current racing stock. The other side of the barn was piled to the ceiling with hay. Next to the hay a tack room beckoned with the smell of grain and well-used leather.

“Where are the rest of the horses?” I asked, peering into the first stall and rubbing the velvet muzzle that was thrust toward me.

“Back pasture. They'll be fine if they stay together under the shelter. Have enough hay to last for a couple days.” He gestured to the levered faucet that jutted up from the barn floor. “Bugs, you can top off their water buckets. Clint, fill up those hay nets hanging in the stalls while I get this grain measured out.” He stopped and looked at Clint. “If your back can stand it.”

“My back's always willing to work in country air,” Clint assured him.

“Good. And dogs, get!” He gave the pups within reach several resounding thumps with the bucket in his hand. “Go on out there and stretch your legs! You're too damn much in the way in here.”

All of us did as we were told.

The barn was filled with the companionable sounds of people doing chores, talking to horses, and the mewing of a stray cat here and there that jumped in, ready for attention now that the dogs had been temporarily banished from what was usually the cat domain. The mares were good-looking quarter horses, all well built and good-natured. The two yearlings were gangly and big-headed, reminding me of fifteen-year-old boys (minus the zits and goofy smiles). I pushed through the door to one of the colt's stalls, checking on the half-filled water bucket. This colt had a neatly wrapped bandage that covered most of his right foreleg.

“Whoa,” I said, feeling down the length of the limb. “Leg feels good, Dad,” I called. “Not warm at all.”