The Perfect Match

“Oh, shit. Don’t tell me he’s gorgeous.”

  “Okay. I won’t.”

  Bryony swore darkly. She’d always had a far richer vocabulary than the rest of them. In fact, she could probably give Elvis the parrot a run for his money. “Terrific,” she finally said. “Just terrific. So this guy is a lost puppy dog who looks like Brad Pitt?”

  Cash like the polished, handsome star? The comparison was laughable. “Cash is nothing like that. He’s…real.”

  “Real what? Real dangerous? Real hot? Real sexy? Real hazardous to my sanity?”

  “Real as in genuine. And there’s no point in any of you getting all worried. We’ve already decided we’re not having sex.”

  “You what?” Bryony almost choked. She went into such a coughing jag that Rowena wondered if she should call in the paramedics. But then, Bryony was in the middle of a hospital ward. Surely somebody would know how to perform the Heimlich maneuver before she turned blue and keeled over. Rowena heard a gulping sound on the other end of the phone, as if her sister had taken a drink of the diet cola she always had on hand. “You what?” Bryony croaked again.

  “After Cash kissed me, we talked about having a physical relationship and decided it would be a bad idea.” So why were her breasts tingling? Why did she keep wondering just what the sex they weren’t going to have might have been like?

  “Brilliant.” Bryony cleared her throat then paused again, apparently gulping down another mouthful of soda. “Finally, something about the man I can actually approve of. Because I’d damn well bet you weren’t the one who put the brakes on. Not my sister, the natural woman, Ms. There’s-Healing-Power-In-Touch Brown.”

  “I’m watching his children, Bryony,” Rowena snapped, offended. “If things got weird after Cash and I had sex…”

  “Ms. Brown?”

  Rowena started, suddenly aware the Delaney family was standing near her counter. Her cheeks burned.

  “Listen Bryony, I have to go. I’ve got customers to horrify…I mean, wait on.”

  “Rowena—”

  “Bye.” She hung up the phone, pasted a smile on her face. “I’m sorry about that,” she told Mrs. Delaney, but the woman’s eyes were alive with curiosity and something more. No question she’d picked up at least a few words from Rowena’s end of the conversation.

  Cash…sex…

  Luckily, the woman’s little boy didn’t have eyes or ears for anything but the dog in his arms. Billy Delaney was in heaven.

  So was Sparky. The beagle had gotten the world’s best dog toy for his breed. There was nothing a beagle liked better than having his very own boy.

  “Listen, Bill,” Ms. Delaney said to her husband. “Why don’t you and Billy take Sparky across the street to the playground, see if he needs a potty break before the car ride home.”

  “Oh, Sparky’s completely housebroken,” Rowena began, but Mrs. Delaney shooed the three males in her life out the shop door.

  “Ms…Brown, isn’t it?”

  “Please call me Rowena.”

  “Rowena, then. I couldn’t help but overhear a bit of your conversation.”

  Rowena wished she’d installed a trap door in the shop floor so she could sink right through it at the moment. “I’m so sorry. I know it was inappropriate. I don’t think Billy heard.”

  “I sent him outside because I think there’s something you might need to hear.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Lisa Lawless isn’t some monster, no matter what that man tells you.”

  Rowena started in surprise at the woman’s quick defense. “Actually, it’s none of my business. I’m just helping him out—”

  “Yes, well, since Lisa left, it seems everyone in town has cast her as the wicked witch. I suppose it’s easy enough, seeing Cash pushing MacKenzie around in that wheelchair. Just don’t forget Lisa spent twenty-four hours a day with those girls for six years of their life.”

  “Mrs. Delaney, I—”

  “She had dreams, too. She was injured in that car wreck, too. Why don’t you ask Cash about that?”

  “I won’t be asking Cash about anything.”

  “Except whether or not you’re going to have sex?”

  Rowena bristled at the cutting edge to the woman’s voice. “That was a private conversation.”

  Mrs. Delaney flushed, but she met Rowena’s gaze with defiance. “I’m just giving you a friendly warning. Like I’d hope someone would give me if I were in your situation. Be careful where Cash Lawless is concerned. He’s a hard man, and a stubborn one. Lisa hated it in Whitewater. She begged him to leave, for all the good it did her. I’m just saying that if Lisa left her girls here, well, maybe that was the only way she could survive.”

  The woman swept up the bags of dog supplies and headed out the door.

  Rowena gaped after her, Bryony’s words of caution blending with Mrs. Delaney’s defense…of a woman who couldn’t explain her own side of the story.

  If there was any good reason why a mother would desert her children when they needed her most.

  Rowena peered over at the playroom and chewed at her bottom lip. MacKenzie, at least, was oblivious to everything but playing whatever pretend game struck her fancy at the moment—games starring none other than Clancy the Magnificent.

  But Charlie…Charlie’s too-old eyes met Rowena’s as if somehow she’d heard the whole thing.

  Impossible, Rowena knew. And yet, there were times in her own childhood when she’d wanted to plug up her ears because people were thinking too loud. Their emotions so strong they might as well have been screaming.

  Rowena forced a reassuring smile onto her face, her affection for the two children pressing hard inside her chest. Her gaze caught Charlie’s, held, and she wondered what the little girl had heard.

  If not with her ears, with her heart.

  THE SHOP WAS QUIET, the girls tired, when Mac rolled up in her wheelchair, Charlie close behind. “I want a story,” Mac insisted, part of the ritual Rowena was beginning to cherish. The child didn’t even bother bringing books for her to read aloud anymore. Not since the time she’d forgotten them at home and discovered the treasure trove of tales Rowena could spin out by heart. Stories Maeve MacKinnon had brought with her during the most magical summers of Rowena’s life.

  “Tell me a fairy godmother story,” Mac clamored, but Charlie only looked at Rowena steadily.

  “I keep telling Mac there aren’t really fairy godmothers. They’re only make believe.”

  Rowena laughed. “I wouldn’t be letting an Irish fairy godmother hear you saying that. They’re not quite the sparkly cartoon Cinderella kind.”

  “Then what kind are they?” Mac demanded, wicked delight flashing in her eyes.

  And yet, it was Charlie’s doubt that drew the tale from Rowena tonight, a story she’d never told to anyone before. “I was just seven years old the first time my fairy godmother came to town, and from that day on, nothing in my whole life was ever the same.”

  Charlie’s eyes bulged a little, as if to say ‘get real!’ Rowena only smiled.

  “Close your eyes,” she said to the girls, “and imagine. The story I’m about to tell you is absolutely true. Cross my heart.”

  Mac closed her eyes, and after a grimace, Charlie did, too. Rowena smiled and let time spin backward, remembering….

  AS FAR AS fairy godmothers went, Maeve MacKinnon was a big disappointment, Rowena thought, eyeing the strange woman on the sofa. She didn’t look like a fairy godmother. At least not the kind Rowena had been imagining for weeks. Ones with sparkly wings and magic wands that filled her Big Green Book of Fairy Stories with magic and three wishes and such.

  But that’s who Daddy said Maeve was when they’d gotten the postcard with baby sheep jumping all over it: Rowena’s very own fairy godmother, coming to visit from a far away place called Ireland.

  Rowena had to believe him, ’cause Daddy never lied, whether you wanted to know the truth or not.

  In fact, after the way he’d acted
when Rowena sneaked her tooth under a pillow one night, she’d been pretty sure doctors didn’t allow any fairies near their family at all.

  But there one sat—her hat balanced on her bushy gray hair like a giant grape pizza. Some poor, furry animal that looked as if it had been squashed by a truck draped around her neck. Paws the size of Skitters the Cat’s seemed to sink into Maeve’s gigantic bosoms so the animal wouldn’t slide into the purple bag perched, wide open, on the old woman’s lap.

  Don’t get too close, Weenie, Rowena’s younger sister warned as they’d trooped into the room an hour before. A kid could get swallowed up by that bag and never come out again.

  Rowena shivered, the grownup voices around her sounding like the teacher in Charlie Brown cartoons, blah, blah, blah, with no words poking out.

  Rowena’s bottom slid a little and she jammed her fingers between her skritchy skirt and the blue satin seat so she wouldn’t slide off the couch in the living room where nobody lived except the naked plaster angel who always looked cold.

  Daddy wouldn’t let me get gobbled by the fairy’s bag, Rowena reassured herself. And yet, the picture in Hansel and Gretel kept popping into her head. The one with the witch biting the head off a kid she’d turned smack into gingerbread. Rowena shivered. From where she sat, Maeve definitely looked like the head-biting kind.

  “And won’t you look at the eyes on that one,” Maeve said, gazing at Rowena so hard it felt like fingers were pressing on her. “I’d give a wish to anyone who’d tell me what’s racing around inside her little head.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “She’s full of questions,” Daddy said, smiling. “Trouble is she usually doesn’t like the answers I give her.”

  “Then maybe she’d like to try asking me something instead,” Maeve suggested.

  Rowena slid off the couch and crossed the room. She sucked in a deep breath. “I was wondering what kind you are.”

  “What kind of what, child?”

  “Daddy says you’re a fairy godmother,” Rowena puzzled earnestly. “But you don’t look like the kind that grants wishes. You look more like a witch who’d shove Hansel in an oven.”

  Bryony gasped, Daddy stammering in horror. Arry choked on a laugh and Mom started protesting. “I’m so sorry, Aunt Maeve. Rowena’s been spouting this nonsense ever since the letter came. Rowena Maeve Brown, you apologize this instant.”

  “Not a word I’ll hear, not from any of you,” Maeve insisted, shooting the rest of the Browns a quelling glance. “This is between the child and me.” She cocked her head to one side, staring at Rowena as if she could peel the skin right off her. Rowena’s heart played hopscotch in her chest.

  “What would you say if I told you that you three girls are the last souls alive with my family’s blood streaming through your veins? And I’ve crossed the wide ocean to pass treasures into your keeping?”

  “Treasures?” Bryony echoed, her eyes lighting up. “Like the necklace Mom wore for her wedding? I get those because I’m the oldest.”

  Ariel bounded up from her seat. “I’m the littlest so I get the silver cup we got to drink from when we were babies.”

  “I see. And what will you get, Rowena?”

  “I don’t know yet. But maybe it will be wonderful. Maybe the fairies will leave something in the garden, or—”

  “Rowena, we’ve had this conversation before,” Mom warned, her face getting all pink and embarrassed. But she kept her voice patient. “She’s a fanciful child, Maeve. Always dreaming. We’ve told her a dozen times there are no such things as fairies.”

  Rowena should have sat down, all ashamed. Scooted back up on the satin cushion and stapled her mouth shut for good. But something in that strange big bag kept calling her. She dug up all the brave inside her and looked into the old woman’s eyes. “Are you a fairy?”

  “No. But I’ve a fine lot of them back in Ireland for my friends.” Maeve confided, her eyes dancing. “In fact, I was just waiting for them to give me a sign as to which of the three of you should choose their treasure first.”

  “I’ll go first!” Ariel burst out. “The littlest always goes first!”

  “Ah, patience. That’s what you need.”

  “I’m oldest,” Bryony began, tossing her hair as if no one, not even fairies, could fail to pick someone so perfect.

  “No, it will be Rowena who will take her pick of treasure,” Maeve said. “We’ll see if she chooses wisely.”

  Into the bag Maeve reached. She drew out a bundle wrapped in raggedy velvet.

  Slowly, she folded back the cloth, the girls jostling to see the treasures she showed.

  A pair of earrings with pearls like teardrops. A dagger with a crooked blade. A slim silver straw with holes poked through.

  “Touch them,” Maeve urged gently. “See what speaks to you.”

  Bryony gasped, touching one earring with the tip of her finger. “You don’t want these, Rowena. You’d just lose them.”

  “And the dagger—you’d cut yourself.” Ariel stroked the battered sheath.

  “She chooses first,” Maeve warned. “And I’ll sweep the lot back in my bag and sink it in the sea if I feel you’ve swayed her.”

  Rowena’s sisters snatched their fingers back, looking dismayed.

  Rowena edged nearer, astonished. “I always go last,” she said softly.

  “Not this time.” Maeve smiled, and Rowena thought maybe she was just a bit sparkly after all. “Now tell me. What would you take for your own, little bird?”

  “I know what the knife does. And those…” She pointed at the earrings and she could feel Bryony go still, scared that Rowena would choose them.

  Rowena ran her fingertips along the hollow silver stick. “But this…what is this?”

  “’Tis not a very valuable thing, like the jewelry, is it? Nor a very bold thing like the dagger. ’Tis just a pipe that makes fairy music. If you believe in that sort of thing.”

  Rowena glanced nervously at her father, her mother, her sisters. Then she turned back to Maeve.

  The woman’s wrinkly face glowed bright as Christmas bulbs. “This pipe has a secret,” she confided. “My grandda and his grandda before him told a wondrous tale. Of finding this in a fairy ring. ’Tis Cuchullain’s magic pipe, they say.”

  “Cu—who?”

  “Cuchullain was the greatest warrior Ireland ever knew.”

  “But what would a warrior want a pipe for?”

  “Let me tell you of his story and you’ll understand. When Cuchullain was a lad, legend says, he came late to a warrior’s home. The watchdog set upon him, trying to tear him to bits, and the boy had to kill the beast or die.”

  “Poor, poor dog!” Rowena’s eyes sparkled with tears.

  “That’s what Cuchullain thought, too. Wasn’t the dog’s fault, you understand. It was just doing the job God gave it, guarding its master’s door. Cuchullain grieved in his heart until a fairy took pity on him. A beautiful lady appeared, and gave him this magic pipe that sings so sweet it can charm the heart of any wounded creature all the world over.”

  “Don’t encourage Rowena in that.” Mom sighed. “She’s already dragging home every stray she comes across!”

  “Mom, let her have it,” Bryony said, still worried about the earrings. “Maeve said we couldn’t sway her.”

  “Would you try it, Rowena?” Maeve asked.

  Rowena lifted the pipe to her lips and blew. A squawk came out.

  Ariel smashed her hands to her ears. Daddy groaned. Bryony giggled. Rowena’s cheeks burned.

  “The music won’t come out all magic at first,” Maeve said. “Even fairy music takes practice. And I’ll come back to visit you every summer so you can learn.”

  Rowena looked down at the whistle in her hand. It seemed so small, so plain. She knew that neither of her sisters wanted it. She rolled the small length of metal over in her hand. It felt smooth. As if it belonged there. And yet…

  “Daddy doesn’t believe in fairies,” she said. ?
??Bryony and Ariel and Mom don’t either.”

  “Hmm.” Maeve nodded her head, looking old and wise and mysterious, just like the kind of person a wandering princess might find in the woods. “Then I suppose there’s only one question left, Rowena-my-heart.”

  “What’s that?” Rowena asked, peering into Maeve’s eyes.

  “What do you believe?”

  HER LIFE HAD CHANGED that day, in ways no one else understood. In ways that still permeated her every waking moment. She’d even come to Whitewater, believing in Maeve MacKinnon’s special gifts. You go off to Whitewater, the old woman had urged, patting Rowena’s hand. He is waiting. Your soul mate. The one who’s been looking for you since before you were born…