Gone With the Witch (31 page)

Besides, Aiden would return to his job at the castle, and
he'd probably have Becky and Claudette with him, so if Ginny was living in
Salem, she'd be near them.

Who was she kidding? Ginny would be with Claudette and Aiden.

Never mind how their nearness would affect her.
Ready or not, she was moving on.

She didn't have a choice.

Chapter Forty-two

AIDEN found Ginny sitting on her porch almost like the first time he'd seen her, though Becky wasn't with her.

Ginny's radar went up the minute she saw him.

Hard to believe he'd only known her for twenty-four hours.

Aiden stooped down in front of her wheelchair.

"She's gone, isn't she?" Ginny said before he had a
chance to speak.

Aiden gave a half nod. "I married her, Ginny, and she passed peacefully in my arms not long after."

Ginny shuddered.
“Always early, that girl.
She was born
early, and she died early. It's not even noon." Ginny ran a
gnarled hand over his hair, and Aiden felt comforted. "I
lost Claudette a long time ago," she said, "but I'm sorry for
what you must be going through. You didn't come here expecting to have your world turned upside down like this, did you?"

"I pretty much did—once 'I started believing Storm—
though I only expected an unknown baby
. '
I didn't expect to
fall in love with the whole family."

"Nobody should have a marriage certificate and a death
certificate dated the same day," Ginny said.

"I don't deserve your sympathy. I was nearly too late. I should have been there for Claudette from the beginning. She'd be alive today, if—"

"Don't do that to yourself. Claudette made her own decisions. She
chose
not to tell you about the baby."

"Nah.
'I should have sensed something was up with her. 'I should be shot."

"Never.
Becky needs you. And, frankly, selfish as it sounds on this of all days, I'm glad you're my son, glad you're Becky's father."

His parents had never been glad to have him as a son. Aiden wanted to share this moment with Storm, this feeling of being wanted, but it felt wrong to ask for her right now.

"Thank you for being there with Claudette at the end," Ginny said. "It would have killed me to lose her all over
again. I said my good-byes a long time ago. Maybe it was a cop-out, not going, but I figured 'I had Becky to think about"

"Claudette hung on for you and Becky," Aiden told her.
"She was too stubborn to let go until she was sure you were
settled."

"That's my
girl."

"I sent my lawyers to Social Se
rv
ices," Aiden said,
"with Claudette's notarized statement that I'm Becky's father, a copy of our marriage license, and ... everything." A
copy of her death certificate would follow. "I'd like to take
care of you both, if that's okay with you. Think you can
live with your son-in-law and forgo that assisted-living place you've had your eye on?"

"I'll make the
sacrifice."
Ginny cupped his face and
kissed his brow. "I can see why she loved you."

This must be what it felt like to have a mother, Aiden thought, clearing his throat at the childish notion. "Since Claudette donated her body to science, we don't have a funeral to deal with. She thought that was best. She sent you her love and her thanks. She knew she had yours, and she

knew
you had Becky. She said she went looking for me
and used Storm as a conduit to bring me here"

Ginny smiled, but tears streamed silently down her cheeks. "Sounds like something Claudette would do.
Very spi
ri
tual that one, like your Storm, 'I think.
But how did
Claudette do all that?" Ginny asked. "Was she spying on us?"

"Sort of."

Ginny militantly resettled her shawl. "She might have
let me know."

"Did you ever see Claudette's name in the steam on
your bathroom mirror?"

Ginny held a hand to her chest. "She didn't
. '
I thought—"
Aiden nodded. "She did it to me, too, but 'I wiped it off.
Aren't we dense?"

Ginny shook her head. "No, I think it was a matter of self-preservation."

"I have to agree. Hey, it's too quiet. Where's Becky? Playing with Storm?"

"Becky's napping inside. Storm ... she went to the
nursing home a few hours after you, Aiden, but she didn't stay long. Didn't you see her? She told me you were with Claudette."

Aiden ran a hand over his face, all the possibilities com
ing at him like prickling sleet in an ice storm. What could she have seen? Heard?
If anything.
"No, 'I ... didn't."
But

if
Storm saw the wedding ceremony .. .

When Aiden focused on Ginny, she seemed to understand his preoccupation.

"You're not a superhero, Aiden. There are only so many women you can save in one day. I'd say three out of four is
a pretty good
record."

"Storm left, didn't she?"

Ginny firmed her lips, and Aiden placed his head in her
lap and let his tears fall.

He'd hardly had time to sort his grief when the front doorbell rang.

His knees nearly buckled when he realized that a man
and woman from Social Se
rv
ices had arrived to take Becky
away.

"But my lawyers were supposed to take care of that!" Aiden shouted, more at the man than the woman. "I married her mother today. Besides being her biological father, I'm now her stepfather. Your office has the paperwork"

"Nobody told us not to come. We're sorry," the man
said. "We have a job to do. Is the baby ready?"

"Of course not," Ginny snapped, her fury greater than her sorrow. "We didn't think she was going. Call your office to be sure. Please."

The male social worker instructed the woman to call. They exchanged speaking glances. She rolled her eyes, flipped open her cell, and called, but their orders hadn't changed.

Aiden called the foundation's lawyers again to tell them what was happening, and then he held Becky, who cried as
if she knew something was terribly wrong, while Ginny packed her things. He felt as if he'd been stabbed, and his heart was bleeding.

The couple from Social Se
rv
ices waited patiently to complete their assignment.

Aiden refused to let either of them car
ry
Becky to their car. He about broke as he strapped his daughter into a car seat in which she would be taken away from him.

"Da," she said, touching his lips. He held that tiny hand against his mouth and closed his eyes.

"We have to go," the male social worker said.

It was all Aiden could do not to deck the bastard. "Rip out my heart, why don't you?"

"If everything you said is true, you could have her back in a few days."

"Days!
She doesn't belong in the system for a
minute."

The male social worker tried to get him to step away
from the car, but Aiden stuck his head inside again and
gave Becky one last kiss on her cheek. "Bye, baby girl. Daddy loves you. You'll be back soon."

Becky cried and called "Da Da" as the man shut her
door, and Aiden was forced to step aside.

He stood in the road watching the car disappear down the street, the echo of Becky's c
ry
,
the lump in his throat, and the ache in his chest about bringing him to his knees.

He'd lost a year of her life before he realized she ex
isted, and now he'd lost her, again, within a day of finding her.

Chapter Forty-three

STORM began getting pictures in her mind's eye of
Claudette's jewelry as she left
Cape May's Victorian shops
and seaside cottages behind, but the jewelry images dimmed
to sepia tones until they turned gray and disappeared altogether.

In their place came a whisper in the voice of the woman
who'd spoken her vows with Aiden: "Thank you. I'm
ready."

Storm touched her sea horse necklace, an oddly treasured reminder of the handsome and beloved knight she'd lost to a
damsel in true distress ... the damsel who'd crafted the sea horse.

"Merry part," Storm said, wishing Claudette a safe
journey—not to the afterlife or the Summerland as a Celtic
sea horse totem would suggest—but in her marriage to Aiden.

Since Aiden's wife—heart-stopping words—
since ..
. Claudette had made so many Celtic totem symbols of the
sea,
Storm figured she understood the significance of the sea
horse.

Storm wondered how Claudette felt about dragons. She
didn't remember seeing a single one in her jewelry collec
tion, but that was heartless. She didn't want them unhappy.
She simply coveted a family, like Claudette's, for herself.

Except ... there would never be another Aiden.

Pepper.
She had to think about Pepper. Storm filled Ginny's gas t
an
k then pulled into a drive-through for a burger, remembering what Aiden liked on his, and how they'd squished it when their dragons got naughty on the picnic table.

She took a bite of her sawdust burger and wondered
what kind of junk food Pepper liked. Taking the

"Pay attention to the signs," she said as she turned on
the radio to `Big Girls Don't Cry."

Signs on top of signs.

She took the Atlantic City Expressway. Dragon's blood,
she missed Aiden. "Oh!" She hiccupped—a half sob and
half laugh.
No more dragon anything for you, girl. You re
ally do need to get yourself a new expletive, and you need
to find a new focus.

She
needed
to stop feeling sorry for herself.

She did allow herself to feel cheated, though, by fate. Difficult to be gracious about something you did for love—even if you didn't understand why you were doing it—when the recipient of your love married someone else, good reason or not.

She missed Aiden something fierce.
Tears-in-her-eyes fierce.
Never-wanting-another-man's-touch fierce.
Pullingover-for-a-rip-roaring-pity-party fierce.
Storm let it all out
until there was nothing left in her but a sniffle and a scratchy
throat. She blew her nose, repaired her smudged makeup,
an
d
started the car.

She missed Becky. Hard to believe how fast she'd fallen for that little girl. But she had Pepper.
Maybe.
Her instincts
were more than a little skewed today. She believed Pepper
needed her, but she couldn't hear Pepper crying. Maybe, like her, Pepper never—well, rarely—cried.

Maybe Pepper just got sarcastic or silent.

Storm drove around
Atlantic City several times looking
for Pepper's school, wishing she remembered the roads Aiden had taken to get there. Hard to believe that so much neon glitz and high-stakes flash could live beside such abject poverty. This city had it all.