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CHAPTER NINE Solstice Magic

“You outdid yourself this time,” Evie said as she slipped her arm around my waist and squeezed.

My arms encircled her upper body and pulled her closer.

I couldn’t stop smiling. The Hallows holiday window would put Bergdorf Goodman or Macy’s to shame.

My holiday horse, Thunder, neck arched, one hoof proudly raised, was to-die-for gorgeous, having been surrounded by greenery with red berries and tiny white lights, and smothered in a Kentucky-Derby-style wreath of red and white roses around his neck.

“I’m trying to be humble, but I can’t get there. You’re right. It’s even better than I imagined. Credit where due, though. Thanks for the heavy lifting.”

“It was nothing. And I really mean that.”

“It wasn’t nothing. You came when I called.

That’s everything!” We turned to stroll toward Molly’s where we were meeting husbands.

She’d just called Diarmuid to join us. “Don’t forget.

Diarmuid doesn’t need to know who moved the horse into the window.

Now let’s talk about the important stuff.

What are you wearing to John David’s party? ”

“Ugh! You had to bring it up. It doesn’t matter what I wear. No one will see anything but the giant bulge purporting to be a baby.”

“Evie. Esme is a weaving wizard. She could make a frog look good.” The horrified look on my daughter’s face let me know immediately I’d said the wrong thing.

The really, really, really wrong thing. “No. No. No. You know perfectly well that I didn’t mean you look like a frog.

You’ve never been more beautiful, and you have to know that.

So, come on. Really. What are you wearing? ”

“I don’t know.” Evie sounded like the idea of finding something suitable was hopeless.

“Red. I think red.”

“Why?”

“Well, first, you are traffic-stopping stunning in red.”

“Say that three times fast.”

I shook my head. “No. Second, it’s such a bold and festive statement that it’ll distract from the obvious. People will be captivated by your smile and never notice anything else.”

“Is this your idea of subtle training on how to be a good mom to a daughter?”

With a little squeeze, I said, “It’s supposed to be me telling you the absolute truth. But have I told you how glad I am that we’re getting a girl? I’m going to love playing dress up with Rhiannon.”

Evie chuckled. “I hope she’s going to love that, too, Mom. But what if she’s a, you know, mud-pies-and-cutoffs sort.”

I sighed. “I guess I’ll learn how to make gourmet mud pies.”

“And that’s…” Evie stopped mid-sentence. “Did you see that?”

“What?”

“The horse. It moved its head.”

I laughed. “Ha. Ha. It’s not April Fools. Thunder was given a clean bill of mundane health by Dolan. And I have it on the best authority that he’s never wrong.”

“Never? I told you to avoid using the word ‘always’. But you’ve always been big on saying, ‘Never say never.’ You said ‘never’ is overused and that it’s almost always hyperbole. And never is an even bigger longshot considering the length of a brounie’s life.”

“So. Skewered on my own petard. Again. My words come back to haunt me.”

“Hate when that happens.”

“Well. Obviously, I don’t know every detail of Dolan’s life, but he’s certainly been reliable so far. We have to be able to trust his assessments. There’s a lot riding on keeping the magical artifacts out of the hands of the oblivious.”

“And, by ‘oblivious’, you mean human.”

“I do.”

“Okay, seriously. I saw it move.”

“You’re really not kidding?”

“Really not.”

“Alright. Tomorrow morning I’ll ask Dolan to have another look. Right now though, let’s go see if we can grab one of the tables by the fire and warm up with some of that medieval thick red ale.”

Though we didn’t talk about Thunder again, I couldn’t shake the worry that something worrisome might be ahoof at The Hallows.

I knew that humans could see him because I’d observed a couple stopping to admire the window, pointedly remarking about how striking the horse was.

That was a checkmark in support of Dolan being right.

Of course, the test of humans seeing an artifact wasn’t foolproof.

Now and then, the shop receives an artifact that is magical and visible to humans.

It doesn’t happen often, and when it does, Maggie grabs up the item and whisks it out of sight and tells the interested party that it was sold and had been left out in the shop by mistake.

I know this because I once happened to be in the store and witnessed such an occurrence.

That’s when I learned that Maggie can be a most believable liar when she chooses.

“I don’t know, Keir. Is this color right for me?” I held the Winter Solstice party dress close to my face. “Is it a little too light? Esme’s usually mistress of hue, but maybe she’s distracted with Kagan drama.”

“Just a sec. Let me get this bet in.”

I scanned the grid of screens displaying all manner of sports. “What are you betting on?”

“Hold on.” I waited. In another second or two, Keir pumped his fist in the air, which I took as a celebration of one of his day’s little victories.

“It was the next shot in a ping pong match being played in the Czech Republic.” Jeez .

“Okay. Where were we? Oh, yes. Esme and Kagan. Drama. Here’s the thing, my love.

People who do dress drama can’t complain about Kagan drama. ”

“Oh yeah? Well, people who place a bet on a single shot of a ping pong game in the Czech Republic have lost all sense of perspective.”

“Perspective? That is rich. Rita, I know women like to dress up, but the dress you’re wearing is not a life-or-death matter.”

I gaped. “What are you saying? Have you gone completely insane? Of course, it’s a life-or-death matter. Not that the phrase means anything to someone who can’t die.”

“For the record, I could die.”

That brought me up short and made me temporarily forget all about my dress.

“You could?” This was news and not news I wanted to hear. As if I didn’t have enough to worry about. “I don’t want to hear that in the middle of an argument.” I pressed fingers against both ears and started singing, “La. La. La,” loudly. Yes. I really am forty-four.

He pushed his big leather executive chair back, stood, walked over to where I stood, being notably defiant in my childishness, and pulled my fingers away from my ears.

“If you’ll stop,” he said, “I’ll promise I won’t die today.”

I stopped and picked the argument up where we’d left it.

“I know you don’t understand glamour. Why would you?

You’re stuck wearing the same thing as the other gents.

But if you captured an alien woman who’d never been exposed to glamour in her life and showed her what it looks like, she’d get it. And want it.”

“You’re talking about red-carpet extravaganzas.”

“We’d look marvelous on the red carpet.” The image made me smile.

He shook his head. “Not worth flying across the ocean.”

I blinked. “You can fly across the ocean? That’s…”

Horrifying images jumped into my head. I saw Keir in a hurricane being tossed around like a lotto ball in a hopper, wings tiring, struggling desperately to make it to land.

Oh my gods! The love of my life was barely hanging on!

I couldn’t stand to watch! That was when I noticed that he was looking at me like I was the crazy one.

“Yes, Rita. In a first-class pod in a nice, fat dreamliner jet paid for with the winnings of my perspective-destroying hobby.”

“Oh.” I felt a little dumb. “I’m going to try on this dress.”

“Okay.”

“By myself.”

“Okay.”

I sniffed and made a show of half-stomping from the room. Egads. I’m still fifteen on the inside.

The dress almost slid on by itself and fit like it was made for me.

That goes without saying because it was made for me.

And, once I had it on, I could see that Esme was right as usual.

I’d asked her for a midnight blue in keeping with John David’s dancing-in-the-dark theme, but she overrode the request and gave me a shade slightly lighter.

When I saw how the color made my eyes pop, I was glad she knew when to take the initiative and keep her own counsel.

The velvet bustier featured rows of dark rhinestones over the staves, and the layers of tulle in the skirt made me feel far more glamorous than a person my age expects to feel.

Gods bless Esme! I wanted to never take it off.

I wanted to be buried in that dress. At least that’s what I would want if I decided to be buried.

Keir was waiting next to Romeo, looking head to toe like an ad for driving a Bond-style Aston Martin to the entrance of the Casino de Monte-Carlo. Gods, he was gorgeous!

When he looked up and whistled, I’m pretty sure I blushed in response. I wish I could freeze that moment in time and go back there again and again.

Nobody talks about the two sides of becoming a grandmother.

One side is the transcendent experience of holding your baby’s baby and claiming them as another level of your own.

The other side is that, well, you’re a grandmother!

The only cure for spending too much time thinking about the latter is to look and feel like a million bucks.

I could tell by Keir’s look of appreciation that my effort hit the mark. My response was a triumphant grin.

See? Life or death.

He helped me into my faux fur jacket that was such a good fake it could pass for real.

When he opened the passenger door for me, I was thinking he was as smooth as a player.

I could’ve just enjoyed that, but instead it reminded that we hadn’t finished our discussion about the history of his love life pre-Rita.

Even I knew it wasn’t the best time to reprise that talk.

“I hope Hollywood never finds out about you. You’d make the best James Bond ever!”