The Magical Christmas Cat

  ing with him, wicked teasing and all. Especially since she'd gotten pretty good at teasing him back.

  "Hey, Teach."

  "Zach!" She walked over to hug him. "What're you doing here?"

  His expression was solemn. "I need to talk to you."

  Her stomach knotted. "Oh." She stepped back, trying to appear calm.

  "Mercy was right," he said.

  Annie knew who Mercy was, having met the sentinel at the picnic. "About what?"

  "You're waiting for me to leave you."

  The world fell out from under her feet. She trembled, unable to move, as he closed the door and walked to her. "I will never leave you, Annie." Cupping her cheeks in his hands, he bent so his forehead pressed against hers. "Not unless you ask me to." He frowned. "Actually, I won't leave you then, either. Just so you know."

  "Wh-what?"

  "You're my mate," he said simply. "You're in my blood, in my heart, in my soul. To walk away from you would cut me to pieces."

  The room spun around her. "I need to sit down." He let her go, let her lean against her desk.

  "Mate?" she whispered.

  "Yes." His face grew bleak. "It's a lifetime commitment. Mercy was right about one thing, but I'm right about this—you're not too keen on that, are you?"

  She didn't answer his question, her mind spinning. "Are you sure that I'm . . . ?"

  "Baby, I was sure the first day we met. You fit me."

  It brought tears to her ears, because he fit her, too. Perfectly. "Zach, I . . ." She blinked, trying to think past the rushing thunder of emotion. "I never thought I'd marry," she admitted. "But it's not the commitment I have a problem with. It's what comes after." A confession made in a voice that threatened to break. "It's this cold terror that the promise, the love, will one day turn into a trap."

  "I know."

  "She still waits," Annie found herself saying. "For a Valentine, or a birthday present, or just a loving word. She still waits."

  "Oh, sweetheart." He tried to come closer, but she held up her hand, fighting to think, to understand.

  "I could survive you leaving me," she said, "but I couldn't survive you stopping to 'see' me." And the mating bond would leave her with no way out. It truly was forever.

  "That's something you never have to fear," Zach said, the declaration resolute. "It's not possible for mates to ignore each other."

  "But . . ."

  "No buts," he said, slashing out a hand. "I will never stop seeing you, never stop loving you. Mates can't shut each other out."

  Part of her wanted to grab that promise and never let go. But another part of her, the part that had been trapped first by injury, then a mother's fear, was hesitant. Was she ready to take this chance on the faith of a man's promise? Was she ready to give up the freedom she'd fought a lifetime to attain? "I'm so afraid, Zach."

  "Ah, Annie. Don't you know? My cat is devoted to you. If you asked me to crawl, I'd crawl."

  It shattered her, the way he'd just ripped open his heart and laid it at her feet. Trembling, she placed two fingers against his lips. "I would never ask that."

  "Neither would I." His lips moved against her touch. "Trust me."

  There it was, the crux of it. She adored him, loved him beyond reason, but trust . . . trust was a harder thing. Then she looked into that proud face, into the wild heart of the leopard within, and knew there could be only one answer. She refused to let fear cheat her out of the promise of glory.

  "I do," she said, cutting the last safety rope that had held her suspended above the fathomless depths of the abyss. "I trust you more than I've ever trusted anyone." Something tightened in her chest at that second and then snapped, leaving her breathless. She clung instinctively to Zach, and he held her tight, burying his face in the curve of her neck. When she could breathe again, she tangled her fingers gently in his hair. "Zach?"

  He shuddered. "God, I was so scared you were going to say no."

  She felt it then—his terror, his love, his devotion. It was as if she had a direct line to his soul. The beauty of it staggered. "Oh my God." There was no way this bond would ever let either of them ignore each other. "Zach, I adore you." She could finally admit that, needed to admit it, needed to tell him that he wasn't alone.

  "I know." He squeezed her even as a wave of love flavored with the primal fury of the cat came down the bond between them. "I can feel you inside me."

  So could she, she thought in mute wonder, so could she.

  A week later, Annie sat down in Zach's lap, blocking his view the football game. He reached up to kiss her. "Want to play, Teach?"

  She always wanted to play with him. But they had things to discuss. "No, this is business."

  He turned off the game. "So?"

  "So we have to have a wedding."

  "We're mated." A growl poured out of his mouth. "Why the hell do we need to have a wedding? Those things drive everyone crazy—last year, I saw a grown man cry during the buildup."

  Once, she would've wondered how on earth changeling women dared stand up to their mates when the men got all growly. Now she knew—just like her, those women knew that heaven might fall and the earth might crumble, but their mates would never hurt them. "Didn't you say we were going to have a mating ceremony?"

  "It's not really a ceremony." He scowled. "More a celebration of our being together."

  She couldn't help it. She reached out to stroke her fingers through his hair. "It's getting stronger," she said.

  "It'll keep doing that." His scowl turned into a smile that hit her right in the heart. "Even when we're a hundred and twenty, I'll still want to crawl all over you."

  "Zach, you're a menace." And she loved him for it. Was starting to truly see what she'd gotten when she accepted the mating. It was a powerful, almost vicious need, but it was also a bond of the deepest, most unflinching love. Even when he wasn't with her, she felt him loving her deep inside. "We need to have a wedding," she said, coaxing him with a slow kiss, "because my parents need to see me married, and Caro's already picked out a matron of honor dress." Then she dealt what she knew would be the deathblow to any further objections. "Their happiness is important to me."

  He blew out a breath. "Fine. When?"

  "I was thinking spring for both ceremonies."

  "That's a while away." He slid his hands under her sweater, touching skin. "We could do it at Christmas. A present for both of us."

  "No," she said, stroking his nape with her fingertips. "It has to be spring. I want everything alive and growing," As she felt she was growing, opening, becoming. "And I already have my present."

  Eyes the color of the deepest ocean gleamed with feline curiosity. "Yeah?"

  "A long time ago, during the Christmas I lay in hospital," she told him, retrieving a memory that had once been painful, but was now full of wonder, "I wished for someone who would be mine, someone I could play with and share all my secrets." Never could she have imagined the astonishing final outcome of that long-ago wish.

  He moved his hands down to close over her thighs. "Are you calling me your gift?"

  "Yes." She smiled. "How do you feel about that?"

  "Like it's my turn to be unwrapped." He nibbled at her mouth. "Do it slow."

  Her laughter mingled with his and the sound felt like starlight on her skin, like the promise of forever . . . like a lick of "majick."

  Chapter 1

  "The love of my life is not going to wear a pink shirt." Bree Murphy looked in disbelief at her little sister Abigail, who was waving what remained of the tarot deck in her hand with total confidence.

  "It's right here in the cards, Bree." Abby tapped the Empress card lying on the kitchen table.

  Bree fought the urge to roll her eyes. Teaching Abby the tarot had been her own idea, apparently a stupid one. Abby couldn't divine her way out of a paper bag if suggesting Bree would date a man in pastels was any indication. It wasn't going to happen. Ever. Besides, the Empress was an indicator of her own destiny, her ow
n strength, not about a man.

  "No men in pink. I like men in black who read poetry. You know my type."

  "Your type usually looks like they need a flea dip," Bree's older sister Charlotte commented.

  That was a total exaggeration. "Hey, no one I have ever dated is unclean. Give me some credit. But being empathic makes me sympathetic. I sense when men need my support and emotional counseling, and I can't help but respond."

  "That's actually kind of creepy," Abby said, her lip curling back. "Who wants a guy who's that needy?"

  Hey, Bree knew it was a bad pattern. She could admit that. That was why she had stayed away from men for the last two years, which suddenly seemed like an incredibly long time. A long, celibate, lonely time. But she did not need her eighteen-year-old sister passing judgment. "And you're the expert on men, how?"

  "I have a boyfriend," Abby said, tossing back her dark hair.

  Now Bree did let loose with an eye roll. "Whatever." Bree didn't think Abby's boyfriend was any sort of model of male attentiveness, but there was no point in arguing. "But seriously, no men in pink shirts."

  "He does something corporate," Abby added, as if she hadn't heard a word of protest. "I see him in an office."

  That got Bree's attention. Not because she would ever date someone corporate, because she so wouldn't, but because Bree was speaking with such total confidence, and there was nothing in the tarot spread in front of her that should be giving her a clear visual of any man, let alone a candidate for the corner office. "Abby, where are you seeing this?"

  Despite Charlotte's lifelong protests, Bree knew that all three of them were witches. It was a trait of Murphy women, going back as far as Bree could trace. And she knew that she was empathic, meaning she could see and feel people's emotions almost as clearly as if they were her own. She also knew that Charlotte could move objects when she really focused, and that Abby could insert herself into her sisters' dreams. She'd been doing it since she was a toddler. But until now, Bree had never thought Abby could be psychic.

  "I don't know." Abby shrugged. "It's just like there. In my brain. I thought that's what happens with tarot."

  "No, not really. The tarot is an interpretation based on the spread of the cards." Bree lifted her cat Akasha off the floor as she walked by and settled the feline's warm bulk in her lap. "What else do you see?" She was curious to know if Abby was in truth seeing anything, or if she was just projecting her own thoughts and imagination out onto the cards.

  If Abby were psychic after all, she clearly had Bree mixed up with someone else because she was not, repeat not, going to be falling for a man who thought money was the ultimate goddess and treated his overpriced car like a high-class hooker to stroke.

  "Um. I see him walking up to the house and ringing the doorbell."

  Because the love of her life was actually just going to stroll up to her very own house and ring the bell. Like that ever happened to anyone, let alone Bree. No one came to her front door but the mailman, and he was fifty and happily married.

  Then Abby cocked her head to the side, staring off into space. "He wants to have sex with you."

  "Okay, that's enough. This is ridiculous." Abby was either making fun of her for not dating in twenty—count them—twenty months or she was fishing to know about her sister's sex life. Either way, Bree wasn't biting.

  Charlotte didn't look thrilled with the conversation either. "You know, we should probably get started if you want your Christmas tree up by the end of the day."

  Bree wasn't really dying for a Christmas tree at all since she usually burned a Yule log, but it made Charlotte happy to provide her with one, and Bree could always put a witch's spin on it. "Sounds good." She moved to put Akasha down and paused. "What's in her mouth?" She tried to reach for the cat, but Akasha twisted her head in protest.

  "Oh, my God," Charlotte said, reaching out and snatching something from the cat's mouth. "It's the mistletoe. From last Christmas. The one we put the spell on."

  As her sister waved it in the air, staring at the greenery like it was possessed, Bree winced. "Whoops. I meant to destroy that." It was nothing more than a sprig of mistletoe, but she and Charlotte had loaded it with symbols of lust so Charlotte could lure her friend Will to make a move on her.

  It had worked, forcing the longtime friends to confront their intense feelings for each other, resulting in Charlotte with a wedding ring and a new house to live in, but Bree knew she never should have left that mistletoe just lying around. Last she remembered, she had tossed it on her dresser a solid twelve months earlier, which meant Akasha had probably dragged it off and under the bed or something. No wonder Bree had been plagued with sex dreams for months. She had a powerfully charged-hexensymbol hanging out under her bed.

  And no man to satisfy her.

  Ugh. She hated feeling discontent. And in a constant state of arousal.

  "It's probably not a big deal," Charlotte said, carefully laying the loaded mistletoe on the kitchen table. "Will said it didn't work. He already was lusting for me way before we made this thing."

  Bree had known that, which was why she had encouraged Charlotte to go for it with Will. "Yeah, but you can't just leave magick lying around."

  Especially anywhere around her bed.

  "The doorbell's ringing," Charlotte said. "Want me to get it?"

  "No, I can get it." Bree stood up, noting that Akasha had already leaped up onto the fourth empty chair and snagged the mistletoe again. Bree was going to have to grab that thing and stuff it into a drawer until she could destroy it bit by bit.

  Abby was two steps behind her.

  "Why are you following me?" Bree asked her sister, darting a glance at her over her shoulder. "I can answer the door by myself."

  "It's him," Abby said in an awed whisper. "The guy I saw."

  "Sure. Or it's my mailman letting me know I have a package." Bree went down the hallway of the big Victorian house she had inherited from her grandmother. It was a lot of house for her now that Charlotte had moved out, but maybe Abby would want to move in after high school. Living with their parents was sometimes nausea-inducing since they were engaged in a perpetual lovefest. It was sweet and warming to see from a distance, but on a daily basis all the groping got old. Abby would probably appreciate some space.

  Bree pulled open the front door and almost had a heart attack.

  Have mercy, it was a man, about thirty years old, and very clearly wearing a pink dress shirt under his winter coat, the collar peeking out above the zipper. He was just standing there. On her front step. With snow on his shiny black shoes.

  She knew this man. He was Amanda Delmar Tucker's lawyer, from Chicago.

  Bree had only met him once, for a brief minute in the coffeeshop with Abby, the previous December, and he had clearly thought she had been sniffing her black nail polish given the look of disdain on his face at the time.

  Now he was standing on her doorstep, with nary a smile in sight.

  Abby was whispering loudly in her ear, "It's him. Told you so. Right on up the sidewalk to the front door. Ringing the bell. I'm so right."

  Caught between wanting to muzzle her sister and slam the front door shut, Bree just stared at him. He stared back, his compelling chocolate brown eyes boring into her.

  And suddenly she knew that her sister was right, as her empathic ability picked up on the feelings he was projecting, unaware that she could sense them. This man, this lawyer, wanted to have sex with her.

  Yikes.

  Ian Carrington was seriously annoyed with himself. He had told himself that seeing Bree Murphy again was the perfect opportunity to eradicate her from all of his thoughts. That the woman in the flesh, who he had only met once for such a short span of time, couldn't possibly live up to the sensual fantasies his sick mind had conjured over the past year. He had been wrong.

  The minute she opened the door and stared out at him, her dark hair falling past her shoulders, her pale, smooth skin a sharp contrast to the crimson of her
bright lipstick, he had felt a gigantic kick of lust. He had an instant erection and wanted nothing more on earth than to have her naked in his bed, eyes glazed with passion, lips swollen from his kisses, voice begging him for more.

  It was illogical. She was completely not his type in any way, shape, or form. He went for corporate women, not the kooky kind like Bree, who wore a witch pendant around her neck and did tarot readings for a living. He had never bought in to any of that sixth-sense crap, and he lived his life logically, with a plan. It was what he attributed his success to, despite his unusual and impoverished childhood. Living by logic and hard work had brought him to where he was.

  But there was no denying that he was attracted to Bree in the most basic way, whether it made sense or not, and had been dreaming about her virtually nonstop from the second they had met. Both while awake and asleep.

  Now she was staring at him like he was a bug she'd like to squish.

  So even though this trip technically hadn't been necessary for the business he had to conduct, he had taken it with the intention of getting over his little lust crush on Bree Murphy and restoring his life to its former equilibrium. Only now that he had seen her again, in all her delicious flesh, he knew he wasn't over his crush, not by a mile. And he was going to stay in Cuttersville, Ohio, until he either had sex with Bree or regained his sanity, because he could not return to Chicago and face another twelve months of X-rated dreams that featured him and Bree Murphy rocking the house. He would spontaneously combust if he had to endure any more of the graphic dreams that were soaking him in sweat every other night.

  "Hi, I'm Ian Carrington," he said, holding out his hand.

  She took it for about a microsecond before she dropped it. "I've met you before. You're Amanda's lawyer."

  Bree said "lawyer" with the disgust generally reserved for con artists who bilked seniors of their life savings. But he ignored that. At least she remembered meeting him. A blank look from her would have been a serious blow to his ego. "Exactly. It's great to see you again, Bree. Do you have a minute? I have a business proposition I'd like to discuss with you."

  "Uh . . . sure. Okay." Bree looked confused, but she did step back to let him in, bumping into a girl in the process who Ian recognized as her younger sister. "Abby, give me some breathing room," she said in annoyance. Then to him, "Come on in."

  As Ian stepped into the entryway of the house, Abby was grinning from ear to ear, which was a little distracting. Ian offered her his hand as well. "Ian Carrington."

  "Abigail Murphy," she said, still smiling. "I'm psychic."

  One of Ian's eyebrows shot up before he could stop it. "That's nice," he said, for lack of anything better to say. Kookiness obviously ran in the family.

  "Abby," Bree said, her voice laced with warning.

  "I just told Bree not fifteen minutes ago that a guy with a pink shirt was going to ring her doorbell and that you—"

  Bree's hand clapped over her sister's mouth, cutting off Abby's words. Bree gave him a sheepish look, her cheeks tinting with embarrassment. "Sorry. She's sweet but delusional."

  Ian glanced down involuntarily at his pink shirt. Why did he get the feeling he'd just been insulted? What the hell was wrong with pink anyway? It wasn't like it was hot pink, it was a very faint, light, barely there pink. It was a very now color in corporate circles. It was GQ, damn it.

  But something about Bree Murphy and her Goth clothes suddenly made him feel . . . unmanly. Not a good feeling, given the dreams he'd been having, which all involved her running her fairskinned fingers with those black nails over his chest, down his na-

  vel, and landing on his . . .

  Ian dragged himself back to reality. "I won't take up a lot of your time, I just wanted to discuss this house with you. You're the owner, correct?"

  Bree frowned at him. "Yes. Why?"

  A blonde came down the hall and gave the women a pointed look. "Maybe he would like to sit down and have a cup of tea."

  "Oh, that's not necessary," he protested, when Bree gave the woman a look of horror. "I just need a minute."

  "No, no," Bree said, looking flustered and embarrassed and damn adorable. "We should at least sit down. This is my other sister, Charlotte, by the way."

  "Charlotte Murphy-Thornton," the blonde said, sticking her hand out and giving his a firm shake.

  "Ian Carrington."

  Charlotte's type he understood. She was the kind of woman he normally interacted with. She was dressed in a twin sweater set in a shade of green that flattered her complexion, and she wore tasteful gold jewelry, enough for a flash, but not so much that it was gaudy. If he was going to lust after a Murphy sister, Charlotte should be the one. They were a logical fit. Of course, his client Amanda had told him Charlotte was newly married, and there was nothing logical about what he was feeling anyway because he wanted Bree in all her black. And then out of all of her black. Naked. Dark hair tumbling over her bare flesh.

  He was insane, absolutely completely out of his normally practical mind. And horny. With no explana-tion for either.

  Charlotte and Bree led him down the hallway to the kitchen, and Ian fought the urge to look at Bree's sexy backside. He lost. It was a good view, and he didn't want to miss it. She was wearing a long, stretchy black skirt that hugged her curves in a way that made him sweat.

  Abby patted him on the arm as she walked next to him. "It's okay, you can't help it. It's destiny."

  "What?" The youngest Murphy sister definitely freaked him out. He had no idea what to make of her.

  "It will all make sense soon," she told him.

  He could only hope. Because so far his preoccupat-ion with Bree made no sense whatsoever, nor could he figure out why all his sexual dreams involving her took place in a Christmas setting. It was weird as hell, and said questionable things about his psyche.

  "What about the house?" Bree said, after they were all seated at a vintage table.

  It was painted in a soft shade of pink that