Daughter of the Spellcaster by Maggie Shayne

Author:Maggie Shayne
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Romance, Paranormal, Fiction
ISBN: 9781410456823
Publisher: Mira
Published: 2012-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

10

Aside from a big blank spot in her memory and a persistent headache, her mother seemed fine. Still, Lena spent the entire day sticking close to her side. She finished her stenciling project in the kitchen and decided to declare the rest of the afternoon a baking day. It was something she and her mom did every so often, especially on really cold days, so the oven would do double duty by heating up the house. Today wasn’t particularly cold, but it was damp and miserable.

Her mom fell right into the rhythm. They spent hours mixing and kneading and rolling and measuring. And laughing. Lots of laughing. They had music blasting from the iPod, nestled in an impossibly small speaker dock that had concert sound quality. They sang along at the top of their lungs, puffed flour into each other’s faces and tasted their efforts way too often, and they laughed until their sides ached.

They enjoyed each other. Always had.

It was a good way to distract herself from giving in to her curiosity about the nursery. Ryan had been upstairs all afternoon, and he’d made several trips out through the rain to the truck and back, carrying stuff upstairs each time. Big stuff. Lena smelled paint. She’d seen the cans he’d carried up the stairs, but it had been impossible to tell the colors. She’d already had paint picked out, and she hoped he wasn’t replacing her colors entirely. She was just about dying to peek by dinnertime.

He came downstairs, not even a speck of paint to be seen anywhere on his person, the cheat. He’d showered, changed clothes. He took one look at the kitchen counter and his eyes went round. “Is this what I’ve been smelling every time I poked my head out of the nursery?”

“Uh-huh,” Selma said, waving a hand like a TV spokesmodel. “Apple pie, carrot cake, chocolate chip cookies, cinnamon-swirl bread, whole wheat rolls and, since we had extra pie-crust, homemade chicken and veggie pot pies for dinner.”

“This, after the night you had?” he asked.

“Pssh. Lena did most of the work.”

But Lena saw the color rushing into her mom’s cheeks. She was eating up the flattery.

And he was eating up the chocolate chip cookies.

“Dinner is only five minutes out,” Lena told him. “Save some room.”

“Oh, trust me, I’ll manage to stuff it in.” He popped another cookie into his mouth. “If I stay here very long I’ll have to take up jogging again.”

“Yeah, well, if you stay here very long,” Lena said, “you can tag along behind me. ’Cause I’m gonna need to jog off a ton of baby weight pretty soon.”

He stopped with a cookie halfway to his lips, and his eyes took her in, head to toe and up again, slowly. “You’ve never looked more beautiful, Lena. And that’s the truth.”

Not only did the blood rush into her face, but hot moisture flooded her eyes, as well. She had to turn away to hide it from him, because it was so inexplicably sappy of her.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.