The Billionaire's Shaman: A page-turning BWWM Romantic Suspense Thriller by Mia Caldwell

Author:Mia Caldwell [Caldwell, Mia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-11-03T02:00:00+00:00

Chapter 22

After a long day of worrying about her sister, Jeannette’s nerves were on edge. And it wasn’t helping that the boys were trying to drive her nuts. They wouldn’t let up. They wanted her to play that stupid Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles movie in their grandfather’s VCR. She’d wanted to stretch out on the long couch in the living room and watch the news, her eyes glued to any information that might give her updates about the worrisome forest fires burning near Sabrina on Vancouver Island.

Deciding that she couldn’t stand to see the same shots, interviews, and soundbites repeatedly with nothing new having been reported for the last hour, Jeannette gave in and helped the boys start the movie.

Ellis had been taking a nap, so she went into the kitchen and started opening cabinets looking for where he hid his rum.

“Looking for this, daughter?” he said from behind her. She’d climbed up onto the counter and almost fell off. With her hand on her heart, she smiled. And let herself back onto the floor.

He’d come into the kitchen without her noticing, not even his ragged breath. In his hand he held his bottle of Momento Amber.

“Come sit with me, daughter,” he said, “but get us a couple of glasses first.”

Jeannette found two glasses and brought them to the table, and Ellis was already pouring before she sat down. “I’m really worried, Daddy,” Jeannette said after she finished her first glass.

“Worrying won’t help her, but praying might,” he said.

Jeannette looked at her father. He was never the kind of man to go to church.

For the first time, she noticed that he was holding something else in his hand.

Jeannette breathed in the rum, inhaling the discreet anise and orange peel scents. “What is that?” she asked as she took her first sip. It was warm and soothed her, calming her almost instantly as it went down.

“It’s a Sangoma doll,” Ellis said, holding it up to eye level. Jeanette took it and turned it around so she could see it from all sides. It was very unremarkable: stuffed burlap in simple a shape, two pudgy legs and arms, and a head and a torso. Jeannette noticed the doll had no eyes or facial features. It reminded her a lot of the voodoo dolls that people stuck pins into. “It used to belong to Ziviki,” Ellis said as he took it back.

“Ziviki? Sabrina’s mother? I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I, to tell you the truth. Ziviki was a shaman from our tribe, and I remember seeing the old medicine men and woman rubbing these dolls when they were hoping for some outcome. I thought I’d try it later, you know, if I start to really worry about her.”

“You’re not too worried now?” Jeannette asked.

“Well, I’m a little worried, but not so much that I need to pretend to do magic,” he said with a laugh.

Jeanette turned down the second drink. She didn’t want to be incapacitated in case Sabrina needed to get picked up or something.

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