Page 5 of Dream Weaver (Spellbound in Sedona #3)

ABBY

“So, how was your day?” my sister Erin asked over dinner.

“Apart from that disturbance this morning?” I grumbled.

Erin tilted her head toward Claire, warning me not to go there. Too late, though.

“What disturbance, Mommy?”

I refilled her water glass. “The new horses were a little unsettled, that’s all.”

That wasn’t exactly what Erin and I had concluded when we’d compared notes before dinner. In fact, we’d both agreed that something had disturbed the magic laced into the red, rocky landscape. What exactly that was, we had no clue. Only that it didn’t bode well, and we had to remain alert for trouble.

Which was pretty much our modus operandi anyway.

“I meant, how was your day at work?” Erin asked.

Oh, that. Not half as bad as I’d expected, frankly.

I twirled a forkful of spaghetti, considering why that might be.

It was only us four homebodies in the main house for dinner — Claire, Erin, her partner Nash, and me. Pippa and her partner, Ingo, were visiting her father in Colorado.

I briefed Erin and Nash on the fire ax contract and the assistant I’d been stuck with.

A very tall, fairly quiet assistant whose green-and-gray flannel shirt — a variation on the red one he’d worn the day I met him — brought out the color of his soft brown eyes.

A flannel shirt I could use as a blanket, it was that big.

He was that big. Not in sheer height, maybe, but layer upon layer of muscle — a detail I couldn’t help noticing, especially once he stripped down to a T-shirt — extra-large but still snug in the chest and biceps. The back, twice the breadth of mine, was decorated with two crossed axes and the words, Pine Ridge Hotshots, Wyoming.

“All day?” Erin stared. “He just watched? How annoying.”

Only for the first half hour, actually. After that, I stopped noticing. The annoying part, at least. It was hard not to notice the rest of him.

All in all, he wasn’t terrible company. No boasting about firefighting prowess, no unsolicited advice on how to do my job better. Even when I’d tried to get rid of him, he’d remained even-tempered. It was a little like having Roscoe by my feet when I got some downtime in the evenings. There yet unobtrusive. Undemanding. Comforting, almost.

“He was nice,” Claire said. “He’s a firefighter, and he has lots of cousins.”

Clearly, she found those two facts impressive. But I found his demeanor with Claire impressive. Obviously, the guy was a doting uncle…or was he an absentee father?

I went back to resenting him, just in case.

“Why don’t I have any cousins, Mommy?” Claire asked.

I pointed my fork at Erin, then Nash. “Ask them.”

Nash choked on his spaghetti. Erin patted his back. “Well, um… Maybe you’ll get some someday.”

“Soon?” Claire persisted.

Nash gave Erin a tiny, suggestive waggle of the eyebrows.

“We’ll see,” she said, touching his arm playfully.

A year ago, I would have rolled my eyes at those lovebirds. But Nash had grown on me, and I’d never seen Erin so happy. It was easy to picture them having a gang of adorable, noisy children who would grow up to be responsible dragon shifters like their parents. Erin would be an amazing mom and a fantastic role model. Nash would make a great dad, all patient, quiet, and indulging.

Patient. Quiet. Indulging. Now, that seemed familiar.

I caught my thoughts straying in a dangerous direction.

“Seconds, anyone?” I stood quickly.

* * *

After dinner, Erin volunteered to read Claire a story, freeing me for a short walk.

“I’ll be back soon,” I murmured, holding the door long enough for Roscoe to follow. Outside, Calvin, Hobbes, and our other outdoor dogs joined us.

Stars and a half-moon lit the path to the paddock, where I paused to check our newest horses. Domino, a sway-backed pinto, nickered in greeting.

“Are you settling in okay?” I whispered, petting him.

He nudged my shoulder agreeably.

“You’re in a safe place now,” I assured him. “A safe home. Forever.”

He and a geriatric mare named Annie had been half a day away from the kill pen when I found them. I added them to my mental list of rescues, though I’d lost count of the exact number. Twenty-six? Twenty-seven?

“You have a good home now, and everything will be okay,” I murmured to myself as much as to the horse.

Domino swished his tail and let his head droop as I scratched his withers. Annie wasn’t as trusting, but that was all right. She could have her space.

All seventy-eight acres of it. My heart swelled as I looked around our dusty domain. My great-aunt had left us three sisters her ranch on the outskirts of Sedona, and we were doing the best to keep the place going.

Leaving the horses with a last pat, I continued toward the mesa. Over the years, we’d worn a faint trail to the top, but I branched off to my own special spot five minutes later, stepping on flat-topped rocks to avoid leaving footprints. Once I’d turned a corner, following the contours of the mesa, I slowed at the sight of a rocky outcrop.

One of the foster families I’d lived with as a kid had been regular churchgoers, attending mass every Sunday for the three weeks I’d lasted with them. Their steps would always change as they approached the church doors, and their mood became somber, even spiritual.

The same way I approached that particular outcrop.

I ran a hand over the flat-topped rock that was my pew and gazed out over the box canyon that guarded the northeast side of the ranch. Slowly, I took a seat, resting my chin on my knees, thinking.

First, I thought about someone patient, quiet, and indulging. Had I been too harsh? Was he trustworthy? How soon could I get rid of him? Did I really want to?

Then I wrestled my thoughts around to what really mattered: the axes.

Years ago, I’d come to this very spot to mourn a firefighter’s passing, fret over my loved ones, and mull over my own mortality. I’d barely slept that night and spent the following day in a fit of out-of-nowhere energy that had me banging away at steel for hours. By nightfall, I had forged the most perfectly shaped, perfectly balanced ax of my life.

Rich had wept when I’d brought the ax to the firehouse, and even Alice, the most no-nonsense member of the crew, had commented on the energy that seemed to radiate from it. I’d pooh-poohed that at the time as just another example of Sedona’s overexaggerated magic.

But now, I wasn’t so sure. Was their three-year lucky streak just luck, or was it magic?

Magic I’d never been able to wield…until recently.

I reached out, touching the rock beside me.

Painted Rock Ranch took its name from the art scratched into stones in a long bygone era. This outcrop only boasted a handful of pictographs, but they were enough. Especially one — the spiral symbol.

I inched my hand toward it, holding my breath. Then I exhaled and gently traced the lines, much like I’d patted Domino. Vortexes were highly unpredictable and likely to lash out if you caught them at a bad time.

A little like me.

Sometimes the vortex was dull, even sleepy. Other times, it crackled with energy — mostly angry, but on rare occasions, welcoming.

Now was one of the latter. Whew.

I closed my eyes, thinking about twenty lucky axes. Twenty trusting firefighters. Twenty lives depending on me.

Warmth trickled from the rock to my fingers, telling me I could do it.

All well and good, but how, exactly?

That was the catch — vortexes were rarely specific. So far, I’d only ever experienced two exceptions: the day our ranch had been attacked by Harlon Greene, a lightning-wielding warlock, and the night Pippa had screamed for help while battling ruthless vampires.

Both times, I’d run to the vortex, and both times, I’d been able to harness and direct its explosive energy.

Not that I ever intended to use it again. Doing so had chipped away at the inner dungeon I kept my own inborn magic locked away in. Magic I was afraid to use or even acknowledge.

But when it came to the vortex… I could trust that. I bobbed my head, thanking it silently for its assistance in those life-and-death moments.

Most of the time, the vortex simply provided silent encouragement, like now. But like the ideal parent I’d never had yet strove to be, that was it. Encouragement, but no direct guidance. More like a You can do it, honey! kind of cheerleading that left me to forge my own way. All I could do was sleep on it…and hope my dreams might help me.

My heart revved a little at the prospect. But getting helpful information from dreams was even more rare than help from a vortex.

Slowly, I stood and stepped away.

“Good night,” I whispered to the vortex. To the night. Heck, to the whole universe and everything in it. The horses, my family…even that quiet someone who had drifted in and out of my thoughts all evening.

Then I headed back to the house and into my nightly ritual.

“One more story,” Claire, now tucked into bed, begged at the end of the second one of the evening. “The one about dream weaving.”

I stroked her cheek gently, regretting the day I’d told her that story passed down from my father’s side of the family — the one about special people with special powers whose dreams bridged all the way over from night to day, ensuring happy endings to big problems.

Probably just a story, but sometimes, I had to wonder.

“Not tonight, sweetie.” Kissing her forehead, I lay down beside her.

The ceiling wasn’t scribbled with answers, but it was a comfortingly blank canvas, so I kept my gaze there for a while. Claire’s breaths slowed as she fell asleep, and I sighed, relishing the simple peace of that moment.

At some point, Roscoe stirred, and I slipped away to my own bed.

It was late, and I had to get some rest. And as for the problem of the lucky axes…

I would sleep on it. Maybe even dream on it, if I was very, very lucky.