Jan Delima - Celtic Moon

Stifling a yawn, she followed the sound of cupboards opening and closing from the kitchen. By the time she arrived, Joshua had most of the ingredients for mac and cheese lined up on the counter next to the gas stove.

“You can’t still be hungry.” She shook her head. Enid had rectified her dinner after the first course. “You must’ve had two loaves of bread with the roast.”

“You promised,” he reminded her.

“I know, sweetheart. But it’s been a long day and I’m exhausted. I’ll make it up to you in the morning.”

His shoulders slumped, disappointed. “With what?”

“Homemade cinnamon rolls.”

He turned his head, his interest piqued. “Blueberry pancakes and homemade cinnamon rolls?”

She tried not to smile but it was a pointless attempt. “You drive me crazy.”

“I make your life interesting,” he teased, using humor to lighten her mood, as he’d always done. “What would you do without me?”

She reached out and squeezed his hand, marveling with some sadness that she could no longer enclose his within hers. He was a young man now, not her little boy, and it was time to prepare him for adulthood, and for his other life.

“As long as I know you’re happy, Joshua, wherever you are, I’ll be okay. This is your time. Don’t concern yourself with me. I can take care of myself.”

“Jeez, Mom, I was just messing with you.” He shuffled out of her grasp. “I didn’t mean for you to turn all serious on me.”

She pressed her point. “I need you to watch your surroundings. And don’t trust anyone . . . except me and your father.”

“I understand.” He squared his shoulders and leveled her with a dark look, resembling Dylan so much it jarred her. “I understand more than you think. I know the woman who opened the gate, the one with the weird yellow eyes, wasn’t happy to see me.”

“Good,” she said with approval. “She is the sister of the woman I told you about. Neither can be trusted.” She turned him around and gently pushed him toward the stairs. “Now go to bed and get some sleep . . . unless you want to talk more about your father and what we learned today.”

He shook his head immediately. “Nah, I’m good.”

“You sure?”

“Positive.”

She didn’t force the issue. He would come to her in his own time, when he was ready. “Good night then.”

“Night, Mom,” he mumbled between heavy footfalls up the stairs.

Sophie returned the mac and cheese items to the fridge and cupboard and took her first good look around. Not much had changed, and unlike Rhuddin Hall, this place carried too many good memories. She had flirted with danger and lost her innocence in this house.

And gained her greatest joy.

She ran her hands over her face, feeling the weight of her choices as she walked the main floor. She loved being a mother, so much so that she’d shut off everything else, everything that threatened her place in Joshua’s life.

A custom pine bed filled the master bedroom, a foot longer and wider than a king, leaving just enough space for an overstuffed chair and a long bureau. She walked to the bed and ran her hand over the quilted comforter.

She remembered Dylan in this bed, his weight on hers, the heat of his skin, his breath across her neck, his thickness pushing into her . . .

A shudder of pure desire pooled in her stomach, eliciting a physical response she hadn’t felt in years. He had teased her body into pleasures she hadn’t known possible. They had been happy once.

They had loved . . . once .

Don’t go there, she whispered to herself. You lost that right sixteen years ago.

Leaving Dylan had been the most difficult choice of her life. In the end, fear over Joshua’s safety had been the only thing that strengthened her resolve. Returning served to remind her of what she had lost, and how weak she was in Dylan’s presence.

For reassurance, because she sensed her hard-earned resolve begin to crumble, she removed her gun and turned it in her hands. It was a .45-caliber Glock, a slimline model that held six rounds. She kept two spare magazine cartridges in holsters on both calves, and yes, the magazines held silver bullets, alternating with hollow-points. She hadn’t been sure about the myths concerning silver bullets and magical creatures that shouldn’t exist but do, however hollow-points had the capacity to shred a target upon impact, and so alternating bullets inside the magazines seemed the most logical choice.

She remembered the first time she’d held a gun, and the instructor who had taught her how to use it. She had lived in Texas at the time, and Joshua had just turned a year old. It seemed a lifetime ago, but in actuality was only fourteen years, when she had forsaken her very nature to become the person she needed to be to protect her baby . . .

THE INSTRUCTOR’S NAME WAS JULIE, A RETIRED COP WITH hooded eyes that constantly observed her surroundings. With her hard body, and challenge-me-if-you-dare attitude, men tended to watch but few approached. Sophie envied her confidence, her strength, and knew in order to protect Joshua she needed to become more like her instructor.

Julie taught self-defense lessons and a firearms safety course for battered women, and had kicked Sophie’s ass every Wednesday night for six months. Joshua usually slept in his car seat close by, never far from his mother’s sight, while she learned to kick back. Julie taught her how to use momentum and balance as a weapon, and how to use a perpetrator’s strength against them.

Their lessons advanced to Sunday afternoons at a local outdoor firing range. Joshua stayed home with his grandmother during those sessions. Empty brass casings littered the ground, an eerie combination of gilded metal, packed earth and spent power. She fumbled through learning how to load bullets, jumping when one slipped from her fingers and landed on the ground, half expecting the tiny projectile to explode. She gave a nervous laugh to hide her mounting anger.

She hated Dylan in that moment, for forcing her to become this person who learned how to kill. This was not the person she was meant to be.

Julie remained calm, ever watchful, patiently waiting while Sophie mastered each new skill. “This is a .45-caliber Glock,” she explained. “They make a slimline model that I recommend for women because it’s light and easy to handle.”

“Is it powerful?” Sophie gave the black pistol a doubting glance. More important, “Can it kill a wild animal?”

“Most people prefer shotguns for critters, but try reacting quickly with a shotgun.” Julie snorted softly. “The .45 will do the job, especially if you use hollow-point bullets. It’s gun etiquette to pull the slide open. Like this . . .” She demonstrated the proper handoff, revealing the empty chamber. “It shows the gun isn’t loaded.”

Sophie accepted the weapon.

It felt like death in her hands.

Throughout the tutorial, Julie adjusted Sophie’s grip, leveled her arms and changed her stance. “I have earmuffs in my truck if you want to use them.”

“No. But thanks.” Sophie couldn’t afford the luxury of muffling her senses. A paper target was stapled to a wooden stand less than twenty yards away. Her hands shook when she fired. The sound jarred her more than the kick of the gun, loud and vile, followed by a much softer sound of rustling leaves in the nearby woods. The softer sound, she realized, had been her bullet missing its very large target.

Unacceptable. She finished the round and loaded another. The acrid scent of gunpowder and lead filled the air and clung to her skin, and only one bullet out of twelve had hit the paper target.