Because of Baby

“I have no idea about a job.” One of her shoulders raised a fraction. “But finding one would probably be important, I would expect. And the experience might be fun.”

“Are you staying with family? Or friends?” He shouldn’t be poking his nose in her business, but he couldn’t help himself. Curiosity simmered in him like a pot of water on a burner.

“No. I know no one in America.” She paused. “Except you and Katy, that is.”

Something stirred inside him, spiraling and twisting to life.

Her gaze dipped. “Sounds like you’re thinkin’ I have a plan. I have to admit, I don’t have one. It’s impossible to plan an adventure, you know.”

The warmth that had curled deep in his belly was completely forgotten. No plan? She was just going to step off the plane in New York and walk out into the unknown? He was hit with what felt like a dozen questions that needed asking. Did she have hotel reservations? Did she have enough money? Did she know it wasn’t safe for a woman traveling alone? Did she have an emergency contact? How would she—

“I’ll be fine. I always am.”

The concern that rushed at him must have shown itself on his face if she felt the need to assure him. But her sweet innocence ignited in him a powerful urge to protect.

Her blue-green eyes leveled on his face. “I think it’s time you told me a little something about you.”

So that ingenuous charm was balanced with a touch of brass. He liked that.

“All you’ve said was that you were eager to see everything in Ireland the first time you visited. So…have you? Seen everythin’, I mean?”

He couldn’t get over the way her brilliant eyes sparkled, seeming to draw him in, luring him to reveal all his secrets. He shook the ridiculous idea out of his head.

He pondered her question for only a moment before all the implications of it had him wincing slightly. “The circumstances between my first visits to your beautiful country and this one were…well, quite different, to say the least.”

She remained silent, evidently waiting for him to expound further.

“I honeymooned in Ireland during my first visit,” he told her. Memories of Maire threatened, but he held them at bay. Now wasn’t the time to be swallowed up by those shadows.

“How lovely. You must have had a grand time of it.”

“We did. And our second trip was just as wonderful. Maire and I had the pleasure of announcing to her parents that we were going to have a baby. Well, we didn’t really have to announce the fact, all they had to do was take one look at her.”

Memories loomed and threatened to swamp him. He took a head-clearing breath. Leaving the past in the past, he rushed ahead to the present. “But this trip, it was just me and Katy. You see, my wife, Maire, died giving birth to our daughter. She experienced some unexpected complications that the doctors hadn’t foreseen. That they hadn’t been prepared for. None of us were prepared.” He was vaguely aware of the far-off inflection his voice had taken on. He cleared his throat. “That was two years ago.”

But the void inside stubbornly remains, the words echoed silently.

With nothing short of brute force, he pulled himself back to the conversation at hand. “Anyway, with Katy being a baby and all, it had been impossible for me to take her back to Ireland until now.” Paul wondered why he was being so free with such personal information. This was so unlike him, yet it just felt right. “Her grandparents had come to visit her, of course, but I want Katy to be familiar with the place where her mother grew up—”

His gaze latched on to Fern’s face, the sight of her mournful gaze cutting his thought clean in two. Sadness seemed to pulse from her, and her eyes glistened with unshed tears.

Warmth permeated every nook and cranny in his being. She was a person of great compassion, a woman with an empathetic heart.

“Hey, now, stop that.” He reached over and smoothed his palm along her forearm. The instant his fingertips contacted her flesh, the intention of comforting the woe she was experiencing on his behalf left his mind as if it had never been there.

Her skin was smooth, the heat of her startling.

Paul pulled his hand away, the topic of the discussion and the delight shooting through him being so at odds that it set off a twinge of guilt that filled him with confusion.

Clearly, what he’d revealed had affected Fern. Careful not to touch her the way his subconscious was willing him to do, he murmured, “That all happened a long time ago. Katy and I are doing okay. Really. We are.”

She didn’t look convinced. But then, Paul didn’t see how his pronouncement should persuade her one way or the other when it hadn’t done much to influence him over these many long and lonely months.

Verbal affirmations were great, but how did you go about filling up the holes that were left after tragedy plundered your soul?

Since glancing into that mirror and seeing herself in real flesh-and-blood human form, Fern felt as if every sensation, every emotion, had been magnified a hundredfold.

She couldn’t say just how she’d transformed into a human. The experience was brand new to her. She was aware, however, that she was breaking a major pixie rule, and if she let herself dwell on that fact, she’d go into a panic for sure. So…Fern simply decided not to dwell on the hard truth. At least, not right now. Not when she was so focused on Paul.

She’d already admitted that Paul was as comely a creature as had ever had the fortune to live; however, when she’d walked the length of the aisle to where he sat and gazed down upon him, why, every inch of her skin had seemed to come alive with an awareness she’d never experienced before. And when he’d cast those mahogany eyes on her, she’d thought her knees would give way then and there.

What she might say to him had never entered her head until she was facing him. It was too late then to ponder in depth the follies of telling him the truth about herself. The last thing she wanted was for him to think she was some crazy pixie—insane person, in his view—who had come to vex him. It had only taken a fraction of an instant to make her mind up that acting a stranger was for the best. Besides, she hadn’t formally made his acquaintance before that moment, now, had she?

Fern had had to practically bully her way into the seat beside him, which had been quite rude, she knew, even by pixie standards. But if she hadn’t sat down she’d have risked succumbing to the faintness that had been swimming in her head.

Her heart had nearly ripped in two with tenderness when she’d held Katy for the first time. Oh, the affection she’d felt for the bairn when they had laughed together in the nursery back in Ireland had been great. But something about holding the toddler in her arms filled her with overwhelming feelings that were both unimaginable and breathtaking.

But the most jarring commotion she’d had to endure had been the impact of learning that Maire had died. Grief had walloped her from all sides. Anguish had scalded her eye sockets and burned the back of her throat.

It wasn’t as if she had never felt sadness before. Bad things happened in Sidhe, certainly. But it was the fairy way to avoid misfortune and bad dealings. A pixie spent her days frolicking and flying and having fun.

The sorrow that swept through her now, though, couldn’t be avoided by merely winging away from the moment.

Although Paul’s touch had calmed her angst, it had churned up other—very peculiar—emotions. She’d flushed with an odd heat, and a strange feeling had knotted in her belly.

Fern had no idea what was happening to her in this new human body, all she knew was that she liked the warmth and smoothness of Paul’s skin against her own. When he’d withdrawn his hand from her arm, she’d suffered something similar to acute desolation.

Human emotions, she was quickly discovering, were awesome in their power.

“Let’s talk about something a little more pleasant,” Paul suggested.

His intent was to chase away the gloom that had settled around them, she suspected. Although her smile was quivery, she nodded in emphatic agreement.

“What can I tell you about myself? Hmm…”

The rumbling resonance that rose from his chest as he pondered allowed Fern to let go of her sorrow over Maire. By me heart. The silent oath echoed in her head, but the very sound of the man’s voice was enough to make her forget the rest of the whole wide world.

“Katy and I live just outside New York City in the house I was raised in. My father ran a horse farm.”

“I love horses. Where I come from they’re considered one of the noblest of beasts.”

“Well, the horses are gone now.” He absently ran his fingertips along the armrest. “Once Dad died, Mom couldn’t run the business by herself. Running the farm hadn’t ever interested me. I had no talent with horseflesh, anyway. Working and communicating with animals is a gift…a gift that I wasn’t blessed with. So the horses were sold to other breeders.”

Fern knew that work—or an occupation, as she’d heard it called—was very important to humans. She’d witnessed people in Ireland going out to toil in the fields or going off to factories or working in the shops. Labor seemed to be a defining aspect in their existence. Hadn’t that been one of Paul’s first questions to her? So she asked him about his job.

“I’m a writer,” he supplied. “A novelist.”

She knew of books, and was even known to fly through the small village library on a dare. Her friends would laugh in delight when she’d use her magic dust to knock a book to the floor and startle someone, or she’d flutter her wings ferociously in order to turn the pages of this book or that to the vexation of the librarian. The harmless pranks were all in fun, of course. A good pixie made it a habit to be helpful and kind, but even respectable pixies suffered with boredom every so often.

“So you’re a teller of tall tales?”

He grinned, and Fern’s insides twisted up.

He said, “Horror stories are my forte.”

“Ah—” she offered him a knowing nod “—you like to frighten small children.”

Paul laughed. “Actually, my work is geared to adults.”

Her eyes widened. “Your stuff must be good and gory, then.”

The sigh issuing from him conveyed a weariness that made her head cock to the side. He evidently sensed her curiosity.

“I haven’t written anything for quite some time.”

Ever since Maire’s passing. He didn’t have to say the words. Fern just somehow knew it as fact. Empathy rose like floodwaters. Had she not been holding the sleeping Katy in her arms, she’d have reached out to him. The urge to comfort him was intense. Again she realized that the magnitude of these human emotions pulsing through her was like nothing she’d ever endured.

“But that’s got to change,” he told her. “My publisher’s been after me. They want a book, and they want it soon.”

“They’ve got confidence in you, then.”

“What do you mean?” His question was asked in a feathery whisper.

“If this publisher—” she wasn’t certain what a publisher was, but she wasn’t so daft that she couldn’t figure out it had something to do with the book-making business “—thought you weren’t capable of the job, he’d have called someone else.”

Paul studied her face for a moment, and then Fern saw his deportment change right before her very eyes; his spine straightened, his shoulders leveled and his gaze brightened.

“Thank you, Fern. I guess I needed to have that pointed out.”

Again he sighed. But this time the sound of it was easier, less tense.

Pleasure caused her toes to curl inside her silk booties. The fact that she’d lifted his spirits filled her with a delight that was absolute. Total. Oh, she wouldn’t mind basking in this warmth for a good long time.

“Of course,” he murmured, “there are some problems that need to be worked out. Like Katy.”

It was almost as if his discussion turned inward, as if the chat had turned serious and he was the only one participating.

“I guess I could write while she’s sleeping. But I can’t always count on the muse to come when I call. There’s day care, of course. I’m sure I could find a reputable—”

His sentence stopped short. Then his gaze swung to her face. It was evident that he’d been struck with some amazing thought or other.

“Fern, you said you need to look for a job. You said you don’t have a place to stay. We could help each other, you and I.”

If she could continue to be of some service to him, that would make her very happy.

“After seeing you with Katy, this is probably a silly question,” he said. “But I have to ask. Do you have experience with children?”

“I love children! I spend most of me time entertaining the little tykes, I do.”

He smiled. “I could tell pretty quickly that you have a way with kids. Katy fell for your charms from the get-go.”

“She’s a sweet thing, Katy is.”

“So would you consider it?” he asked. “Would you come stay with me and Katy? Take care of her for a fair wage and a place to stay? I’d have to check your references, but—”

Dread forced Fern’s eyes closed. Please don’t check me references. There are no references to check. I’m good and kind, and I love sweet Katy.

“But I really don’t need to do that,” Paul said, his voice suddenly soft and fuzzy. “I can tell you’re good and kind, and it’s clear that Katy trusts you. I should, too.”

Fern’s eyes went wide. It was as if her very thoughts had the power of pixie magic. She didn’t know how it had happened, or if it would ever happen again. But she was grateful for the enchantment.

“Like I said, I live close to the city,” Paul said, his tone miraculously back to normal again. “I promise to show you the sights. When you return to Ireland, you can tell all your friends about the places you’ve seen.”

His dark eyes sparkled with excitement. Exhilaration gathered in Fern’s chest and made it hard for her to draw breath.

“Well, now, isn’t this turn of events far from what I was expecting?” she said, astonished by the winded feeling that had overtaken her. “You make the arrangement sound like an adventure. And, well, a good adventure is just what I’m after.”

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