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expectations begin to recede.
    Realtors understood about timing.  Maybe Nat needed to hear the crystal ball’s message, or maybe not.  But she damn well didn’t need it today.  The orb might be a pawn of destiny—but Lauren Sullivan wasn’t.
    Lauren had spent one awful holiday in the Smythe home.  Nat deserved to greet the Solstice with light shining in her eyes.
    Anything trying to get in the way of that was going to have to go through a pesky real estate agent first.
    -o0o-
    Moira settled into a comfortable chair at the inn.  Her timing was good.  The young ones, full of pancakes and sausages, had just headed out to the beach, a cheerful Marcus tagging along to fish errant trousers and toys out of the water.
    Aaron had tucked back into his kitchen, muttering something about meat pies for dinner.  And Elorie had headed out to her studio, off to fulfill an insane number of holiday jewelry orders.
    Which left the inn’s gracious and welcoming parlor to the healers.  Sophie sat at the large dining table, her jars stretched out over a good deal of the weathered wooden expanse.  Inventorying.  Moira eyed the light purple jar partway down the first row.  “The hyssop’s running low.”  Good for burns and the odd rash in the summer, but it did yeoman’s work on chest colds in the winter.
    Sophie looked up and smiled.  “Ginia’s going to harvest more for us.”
    It was very handy having a healer in California’s balmy climate.  “She’ll want to be sure to take off the bottom leaves.  They lose potency at this time of year.”
    “I imagine she’ll remember that just fine.”  The woman at the table wasn’t making much of an effort to hide her amusement.  “And if she forgets the first lesson you ever taught her, we can set Lizzie to leaf pulling.”
    Moira chuckled, hearing what hadn’t been said perfectly well.  “Looking over shoulders a wee bit tightly today, am I?”
    “Perhaps.”  Amusement had shifted to curiosity.  “Any particular reason for it?”
    Sophie’s healing talents lay as much in her careful, dogged pursuit of hidden truths as they did in the magic in her fingers.  Moira tilted her head, giving the question careful consideration.  “I’ve reason to sit on my hands.  Perhaps I need to find them a job to do.”
    Sophie raised an eyebrow.  “Anything you can talk about?”
    Healers often carried secrets—it was the nature of their magic.  But keeping them wasn’t always the right answer.  Moira stared into the fire and contemplated.  She’d come to talk to the wise and quiet woman who carried more power in her fingers than Great-gran had ever known, even if that conversation might have to be a wee bit cryptic.   “Do you ever wonder why we have so many healers?”
    “Hmm?”  Sophie was easing a stopper out of a dark green bottle.
    “This generation has more than we’ve seen in hundreds of years.”  And an astonishing number of them touched more magic than Moira had ever thought possible.
    The woman at the table had a quick mind.  “Perhaps because we’re needed.”
    Moira nodded slowly.  “I think, perhaps, we’re about to be needed again.”
    Sophie’s fingers pulled another stopper from another bottle.  But her eyes sharpened.
    Moira settled back into her chair, content.  Message delivered.  Whatever came, the healers would be awake now.  Ready.

Chapter 4

    Jamie raised an eyebrow and handed the wrench to Devin.  “I think I’m being grilled.”  Mercilessly.  If he had any idea what he wanted for a Solstice gift, he totally would have given up the goods by now.
    Aervyn, resident motorcycle monkey and wrench-fetching assistant, giggled.  “Mia says the best way to figure out what somebody wants is to ask.”
    Mia had her mama’s very straightforward personality. 
    Dev wiggled out from under the dismantled front wheel.  “So, short stuff, does that mean you know what Mia’s doing for Lauren?”
    Jamie grinned—there were a lot