Belladonna

saying, but right now he wasn't going to make a definite statement about anything.
    "And you're saying that my mother isn't an adequate chaperone, and that I'm not an adequate chaperone, since we'll both be coming here to give Caitlin lessons. And Caitlin will also need to come to Aurora for lessons."
    Too close to the Den! Michael thought, hearing Lee's singsong, Could be worse, could be Teaser. "Ah ..." Nadia as chaperone?
    That would be sufficiently intimidating. But Glorianna was too young to be strict enough when it came to a little sister's ...
    flirtations. Which was something he couldn't say without digging a hole for himself that he'd need a ladder to climb out of.
    So he focused on the house to buy himself a little time — and stopped in his tracks. It was stone and, for the most part, one story. A house built to weather the moods of the sea. A house built to be a home that would hear the sounds of children playing, hear the laughter and tears of a life well lived. He could hear its music — and its music was good.
    "Oh," Caitlin said. "What a darling!"
    Wondering what Kayne had done to earn that tone of voice — and why Lee, the ripe bastard, hadn't stopped the man from doing it — Michael hurried forward to put a stop to whatever it was.
    Except Caitlin wasn't paying any attention to Kayne. She was crouched down with a hand extended toward a small brown-and-white dog that probably would be a darling once he'd had a bath and a good brushing. The dog came forward, wary and ready to run, clearly wanting Caitlin and just as clearly not wanting the rest of them.
    "First spotted him near the Sentinel Stones about a month ago," Kayne said as the dog finally got close enough to sniff Caitlin's fingers and then did his best to make friends. "A young animal. Spaniel of some kind, judging by the look of him, but no one here could name the breed. Anyways, we figured he'd come over from somewhere else, but short of catching him, chucking him back through the Stones, and hoping he would end up where he'd come from, there wasn't much to be done about him. It was Moira who pointed out that he seemed to think he belonged here at the house. He would come down to the village once a day to beg for scraps — and with those eyes staring at you, he didn't need to beg hard to get a good feeding — but most of the time he's been up here.
    There was a radiance to his little sister that Michael had never seen before. She's home, he thought, feeling his heart break just a little because, in a way he couldn't quite explain but was beginning to understand, he knew he wasn't home, would never feel truly at home in this village, despite the music of the house. Because of that, and because he realized Glorianna was right and he could undermine Caitlin's confidence enough to have her turning away from the very thing her heart needed, he had to find a way to be an idiot she could defy.
    "Up here all by yourself?" Caitlin crooned to the dog as she stroked the long, once-silky ears and was rewarded with lavish lick-kisses. "Poor baby. But you're not by yourself anymore, are you, Andrew?"
    "Andrew?" Michael said, putting his hands on his hips. "What kind of name is that for a dog?"
    Kayne frowned at him. Lee gave him an odd look and said, "What do you care? They both seem fine with it, and you don't have to answer to it."
    "But... Andrew? He doesn't look like an Andrew. He looks like a Timothy."
    Now everyone turned to stare at him. Including the dog. "His name," Caitlin said, dropping each word like a stone, "is Andrew."
    Michael raised his hands in surrender and took a step back when Andrew growled at him. "Fine. His name is Andrew. And you shouldn't be thinking of bringing him into the house until he's had a bath, Caitlin Marie."
    "I know that," Caitlin snapped. "I'm not six, Michael."
    Kayne, Michael noticed with satisfaction, winced. Good. Let the man realize the girl wasn't always sweet and cooey.
    "Maybe we could start the mud-slinging tradition here" Lee said to no one in particular."
    "Don't encourage them," Glorianna replied, looking back toward the village. "Here come Peg Moira, and Brighid.
    Discussion of Andrew's bath can wait. For now, let's take a look at the house — and the garden."
    The house was spare on furnishings, Michael thought as he walked through it, but the people weren't filling it with their cast-off furniture, so he understood the sense of not beggaring the village to furnish a house no one lived in.