Spellbound Falls (37 page)

He said nothing, his expression unreadable.

She blew out a heavy sigh. “So you need to reassure Henry that you won’t marry a woman unless she also loves
him
. And that she’ll also love animals and the ocean and cookouts,” she added, trying to lighten the mood. She set her hand on his arm. “He’s been through so much in such a short time, and… well, he can handle being punished for running off into the woods, but it would devastate him if you got upset with him just for having a heart-to-heart talk with me.”

“Henry told me about your conversation,” Mac said quietly. “And that he asked you to fall in love with me.”

Olivia stared out the windshield. “Don’t worry, I turned him down gently.” She looked at Mac again, giving him a smile she wasn’t quite feeling. “But I also promised him that neither I nor Carolina would let you do anything so foolish as to marry a woman you only like well enough to satisfy your father.”

Mac dropped his head, shielding his eyes from her.

Olivia touched his arm again, but he still wouldn’t look at her. “I’ve been… I don’t…” She put both hands on the wheel to stare out the windshield and took a really, really deep breath. “I thought maybe we shouldn’t see each other anymore because of our children, but then… I don’t . . .”

“
Say it
, Olivia.”

“I don’t want to stop seeing you.” She finally worked up the courage to look at him again. “If we both can just remember
where this is going, I’d like for us to keep seeing each other—very discreetly, of course, for Henry and Sophie’s sakes.”

“So you wish to continue our affair and part ways in September, and not look back,” he softly clarified. “Discreetly, of course.”

She nodded. “And I want you to also give me your word that you won’t marry Godzilla just to shut up your father.”

His eyes turned unreadable again. “You have my word of honor,
marita
.”

She beamed him a sassy smile and started the van, because she really needed to get out of here before she invited him to come with her. “Then while I’m in Bangor I just might go shopping for an appropriate token of my affection for
you
.” She canted her head. “You into handcuffs? No wait, I better not,” she said, slapping her forehead with the palm of her hand. “Because I’d probably end up being the one wearing them.” She shrugged. “Maybe I’ll just get you an ankle bracelet that you can’t
take off
. Now what are you smiling at?”

“I much prefer it when you have the conversations with yourself out loud,” he said, softly closing her door.

He gave a slight bow then strode away, leaving Olivia frowning at his back. But when she tried to go after him to ask what in hell he was talking about, her damn seat belt wouldn’t release.

Mac stood in the shadows of the moonlit trees outside Olivia’s kitchen window, and frowned when he saw her snap a lid on the bowl she’d just filled with stew. Sweet Prometheus, between what Caro had sneaked to Henry today and what Olivia appeared to be preparing to take to him now, the boy was eating better than ever.

Olivia placed a good half-dozen cookies in a small plastic bag and set it on top of the bowl, then walked to the table. She took a book out of one of the shopping bags Mac had seen her carrying in from the van earlier, and then started pulling small, lacy clothing out of one of the others. She suddenly stopped and held up an ocean-blue bra, and Mac went back to smiling. That is, until she looked around—specifically at the door and windows—before she pulled her sweater off over her head. Next the bra she was wearing came off, and every muscle in Mac’s body responded to the sight of her naked, rose-tipped, beautifully feminine breasts.

She tore off the tag and put on the bra, then headed down the hall. She stopped to peek in her daughter’s bedroom, then continued out of sight, only to reappear wearing
his leather jacket that she was just zipping up to her chin—with no sign of a shirt beneath it.

She was also wearing a provocative smile that nearly brought Mac to his knees.

She put Henry’s dinner and the book inside the small bag she’d emptied, then took something out of one of the other bags and shoved it into the jacket pocket.

Mac stepped behind a tree when the door opened and she came out and stood on the stoop looking around, now carrying two bags. She suddenly pressed a hand to her belly with a small groan, and Mac realized not everything Olivia had gotten in Bangor had come home in a shopping bag. He quietly sighed at the realization that he wouldn’t be able to act on his urges this evening, but then stiffened at the realization that she was out for a bit of lusty revenge this evening.

Why else would the woman have dressed provocatively knowing they couldn’t make love? So, the little minx intended to pay him back for telling her to mind her own business this morning, did she? And for giving her jewelry she couldn’t take off, for picking her up and lugging her around everywhere, for his truck not liking her, and for… hell, for any one of a hundred transgressions she felt he’d committed against her.

Which told Mac two things: Olivia wasn’t the least bit afraid of him, and she would indeed make a good theurgist’s wife—whether she thought so or not.

Mac silently groaned. Sweet Prometheus, now he was having conversations with himself. He quietly followed her through the old-growth pines as she made her way from tree to tree toward cabin ten, even as he wondered if she’d found him a token of her affection on her shopping trip today.

“Pssst, Henry,” she whispered, tapping on the boy’s bedroom window. “Henry, come over here.”

Olivia set her bags on the ground and pried off the wooden screen just as the window opened, then pulled Henry
halfway out to give the surprised child a big noisy kiss on his forehead. “Hey there, sport. How you holding up?”

“Miss Olivia!” His son leaned out the window to look around. “You can’t be here. If Dad finds out he’s going to be mad at you, too.”

“You want to know a secret, Henry?” She gestured for him to lean closer. “I’m not afraid of your dad.”

Mac saw the boy’s eyes widen in surprise. “You’re not? Not even a little?”

“Not even this much,” she whispered, holding her thumb and finger slightly apart. “In fact, I’m so
not
afraid of your big strong father, look,” she said, holding out the front of Mac’s leather jacket. “See this; I stole it from him.”

Henry’s eyes widened again. “You
stole
it? But Miss Olivia, why?”

She twisted back and forth to show it off. “Because I think it looks better on me than it does on him. And you know what? I’m not so sure I’m going to give it back.”

Henry shook his head. “He’s going to be upset when he discovers you took it, and
really
upset if you don’t give it back.”

“Oh yeah? What do you think he’ll do? Punch me in the nose?”

“No!” Henry cried, only to slap his hand to his mouth and glance at his bedroom door. “Dad wouldn’t ever hit a woman.”

“Then I guess I don’t need to be afraid of him, do I?” She smoothed down the front of the jacket. “Unless… unless you think he’ll stop liking me because I was foolish for not thinking things through before I stole his jacket.”

Mac folded his arms over his chest to lean his shoulder against the tree, and smiled at his son’s look of surprise. “Dad won’t stop liking you for making one silly mistake, Miss Olivia; he likes you way too much.”

“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head as she gestured toward the darkened room behind him. “Look what he did to you. He sent you to your bedroom for three whole days. And now I’m afraid he’ll probably stop liking me,
too, even if I tell him I’m sorry for taking his jacket and give it back to him.”

“But his punishing me doesn’t mean he doesn’t love me anymore,” Henry cried in a whisper. “He’s just making sure I don’t ever run off like that again.”

“So you think I should give back his jacket and tell him I’m sorry?”

Henry set his hand on her shoulder. “I think that would be wise. And I bet if you asked him if you could have it, he would give it to you.”

Olivia took his hand in hers. “You want to know another secret?”

He nodded.

“Last night your father wasn’t nearly as upset with you as he was scared.”

“But my dad’s not afraid of
anything
.”

“Oh, yes he is. He’s scared to death something bad could happen to you. All moms and dads get scared if they feel their children are in danger, and when the danger is past all that fear turns to anger.” She waved at the room behind him again. “And the punishment usually ends up being way out of proportion to the crime. Tell me, do you love your daddy any less for punishing you?”

“No!”

She nodded. “That’s what I figured. So, you’re good about all this?” she asked, waving at the bedroom again. “You’ll survive the next two days?”

Mac nearly laughed out loud when Henry arched a brow. “I’m an Oceanus; I can survive anything.”

Olivia grabbed the boy and gave him another noisy kiss on the forehead. But instead of letting him go, she held his nose only inches from hers. “Wouldn’t you like to get just an itsy bitsy, tiny bit of revenge for this ridiculous punishment?”

Mac straightened away from the tree when Henry nodded.

“Okay then, here’s what you do. When the three days are up and you walk out of your room a free man, you run up to your dad and throw your arms around him, and tell him
he’s the very best father in the whole wide world and that you love him to pieces.”

The boy looked skeptical. “How’s that revenge?”

“It’ll drive him nuts, I promise,” she said with a snicker. “The nicer you are to someone who’s being unreasonable, the guiltier they feel. And the next time you and your dad cross swords—
figuratively
, Henry—he’ll think twice before doling out such an outrageous punishment.”

Sweet Prometheus, since he’d arrived here Olivia had been encouraging Henry to challenge his authority, and now she was telling him to get revenge.

For the love of Zeus,
why
?

Mac got his answer almost immediately.

“It might be your father’s job to keep you safe and give you the tools you’ll need as an adult,” she explained to the confused child, “but it’s
your
job to constantly be testing your own limits as well as his. If you keep doing everything you’re told without question, and always worry about not upsetting people, then you’re going to stay a little boy inside forever,” she said, touching his chest. “Pushing boundaries is the
growing
part of growing up, Henry.”

Mac held out his hand to see if that wasn’t a pearl of wisdom sprinkling down on him, for wasn’t Olivia telling the truth? Didn’t women have a need to nurture and keep their babies close, whereas men seemed only determined to mold them into the adults they needed to become?

And children, no matter what century it was, rebelled against both.

Mac stilled. Was that why
he
had constantly been at odds with his father? Titus Oceanus hadn’t seen a four- or ten- or even sixteen-year-old child; he had seen the
man
Mac needed to become. And the great and powerful king of the drùidhs had actually been scared to death to fail as a father.

Exactly as Mac was now.

Mac silently growled into his hands as he scrubbed his face. Hell, he was an ass. All these centuries he’d been battling what he’d thought was his father’s desire to turn him
into a mirror image of himself, and Titus had been fighting equally hard to make sure his son grew up strong and wise and powerful enough to handle his destiny.

And that’s why Mac had spent today with his gut in a knot for keeping Henry in his room—and had in truth become his old man. He remembered his mother watching him pack to leave home after another heated argument with his father, and how she’d said that one day he’d have a child of his own who would send him running home to apologize for being such a difficult son.