Karma's Shift (Magical Midlife in Mystic Hollow Book 2) - Lacey Andersen (black female authors .TXT) 📗

mercurial but in a good way. I never knew what to expect from her, and ever since she’d come back to town things had been interesting to say the least. When she’d made the water at the falls flow again, I thought I was going to faint, and the way she cared about Henry, she was clearly a dedicated woman. If Rick had done something to hurt her before they split, then I’d have a hard time not going after him myself. The fact that he’d let a woman like Emma slip through his fingers told me everything I needed to know about him. And the fact that he had a new girlfriend when I wasn’t even sure the divorce was final?

I knew exactly what kind of man he was. Wasteful, power hungry, unscrupulous, with a cold heart. After all, Emma was the mother of his child, and from my understanding they only had the one.

Part of me couldn’t help but wonder what Emma’s kid was like, even though he wasn’t really a kid anymore, since he had to be away at college at the least if Emma was here alone. Had she raised the boy more in her image or did he take after his dad. Did he call her? Did she miss him?

That last one was a dumb question, of course she missed her only child. Somehow, I don’t think I would assume the same about her ex though. Letting your wife, who seemed to be amazing to me, go, no, not just letting her go, but walking away from her? It was the move of someone who didn’t care about much of anything other than themselves.

Of course, there were instances where people fell out of love with one another, where divorce was what was best for both of them, but the way Emma talked about Rick? I didn’t get the impression that she had fallen out of love with him, not until he’d yanked her heart from her chest and stomped on it.

Why did I want to be the one to repair it? My own heart was still damaged after everything that happened with Sarah. How could I repair something that was broken for someone else when I couldn’t even fix it for myself?

Maybe we didn’t need to be fixed though. Maybe we were fine as we were and our broken pieces could fit together, bring us closer. I pushed the thought away.

Sarah had been gone a long time and I had dated since, but there was something about Emma that was different. Something about her, and the way I felt about her, scared me when it came to taking the next step, and I wasn’t a man that was easily scared.

After dinner, enough was enough. I wanted to call her; the goofy, silly woman who never failed to make me smile. God when she came running down the stairs with that underwear on her head the last time I was over, I thought I was going to lose it. She’d clearly fussed with her hair as well to get it to stand up like that. Her face when she saw me was a picture, and the blush that rose on her cheeks from being caught was more than a little enticing. There was no way she could’ve done something to hurt her ex. The woman I knew just wasn’t capable of it.

As I considered calling to ask Emma out on a date, something made my sixth sense tingle. My bear senses were heightened and going off like crazy. Something was happening outside.

With a growl, I flung open my front door. I was one of the biggest, baddest shifters on the Eastern Seaboard. It wasn’t likely to be something that could take me out. It was something that needed to learn some damn manners, and to stay off my property. A lesson it was going to learn very quickly if it wanted to stay alive.

As I stepped off my front porch, my instincts going wild, I had to prepare to shift. There was something out here that needed taking care of. I wasn’t about to let anyone roam my land unchecked.

17

Emma

When I got back from dancing naked in the woods, I found a very exhausted-looking Henry and Alice. Henry was wearing his favorite pajamas, with video game characters on them. And Alice was wearing a zip-up onesie with anime characters smiling from the pink fabric. They were both taking their vitamins in the kitchen and seemed to be ready for bed.

Henry nodded at me when I came in. “Long night?”

I sighed. “Yeah. Kind of. What about you guys?”

“We finally managed to take the castle and win the Sword of Justice.” He looked over at Alice with a smile. “I gave it to her, of course. It was her plan, after all, that allowed us to win over the reapers.”

Alice’s dark eyes gave Henry a gentle look, then she glanced at me, a slight frown pulling at the edges of her lips. “I don’t think Emma’s in the mood to talk about a video game right now. She’s had a rough night. Her nerves are fried, and she’s scared.”

I stiffened, surprised. “How do you know that?”

Henry looked at Alice. “I told you, Emma is supernatural now. We can trust her if you want to. It’s your choice.”

Alice ran a hand through her auburn locks, avoiding my gaze and chewing her bottom lip. It was the first time I’d seen her hair out of the tight bun she liked to wear it in, and I was a little surprised by the fact that she looked a little older and strikingly beautiful. “I’m an empath,” she finally managed.

“An empath?” I thought I’d heard something about that before.

She nodded. “I can sense what other people are feeling.”

“Wow, that’s an amazing gift,” I said, without thinking.

Alice winced. “It can be, but it’s mostly a curse. It gets exhausting to constantly feel what other people are feeling. I used