Drake Sisters 02 - The Twilight Before Christmas

on the captain’s walk.”
    Hannah nodded, unrepentant. “The earthquake bothered me. I felt something rising beneath the earth. I can’t explain it, Kate, but it frightened me. I was sitting here listening to Joley’s Christmas music, you know how much I love Christmas, then I felt the quake. Almost on the heels of it, something else disturbed the earth. I felt it as a darkness rising upward. I knew you were out riding, so I went out to the walk to make certain you weren’t in trouble.”
    “And you felt the wind come in off the sea,” Kate said. She leaned her hip against the counter. “I felt it too.” She frowned and drummed her fingers on the tiled counter. “I smel ed something, Hannah, something old and bitter in the wind.”
    “Evil?” Hannah ventured.
    Kate shook her head slowly. “It wasn’t that exactly. Wel ,” she hedged, “maybe. I don’t know. What did you think?”
    Hannah leaned against the brightly tiled sink, her body so graceful the casual movement seemed bal etic. “I honestly don’t know, Kate, but it isn’t good. I’ve felt disturbed ever since the earthquake and when I looked at the mosaic, there was a black shadow beneath the ground. I could barely make it out because it seemed to move and not stay in one place.”
    Kate glanced at the floor in the house’s entryway. Her grandmother, along with her grandmother’s six sisters, had made the mosaic, women of power and magic, seven sisters creating a timeless floor of infinite beauty. To most people it was simply a unique floor, but the Drake sisters could read many things in the ever-changing shadows that ran within it. “How very strange that neither of us knows precisely whether the disturbance is evil.” She shrugged her shoulders and drew in a deep breath fil ed with cinnamon and pine. “I love the fragrances of Christmas.” She tapped her foot, a smal smile hovering on her face.
    “You’re holding back on me,” Hannah guessed, her voice suddenly teasing. “Something else happened, didn’t it?”
    “When the earthquake started, Matthew put his arm around me to steady me, and we just stood there, even after it was over.” She grinned at Hannah. “He is so strong. You have no idea. That man is al muscle. It’s a wonder I didn’t end up in a puddle at his feet! But I managed to look cool and serene.”
    Hannah pretended to swoon. “I wish I could have seen it. Matthew is definitely hot, even if he is a Neanderthal. I must have come up on the captain’s walk just after that, just in time to see the slimy toad of the world arrive in his little sheriff’s car.” She smirked. “Too bad the wind came up, and his precious little hat went sailing out to sea.”
    “Shame on you, Hannah,” Kate scolded halfheartedly. “Jonas means wel . He’s just so used to everyone doing everything he says, and we always seem to be in the middle of any kind of trouble in Sea Haven. You’re beginning to enjoy tormenting him.”
    “Why shouldn’t I? He’s tormented me for years.”
    There was so much pain in Hannah’s voice that Kate slipped her arm around her sister’s waist to comfort her. Jonas had known them al since they were children, and he’d never understood Hannah. She’d been an extraordinarily beautiful, very intel igent child, but she’d been so painful y shy outside of her own home, the sisters had had to work their magic just to get her to school every day. Jonas had been certain she was haughty, when in fact, she’d rarely been able to speak in public. “Wel , al in al , it was a good day. You managed to lose another hat for Jonas, and I got to be up close and personal with the hottest man in Sea Haven.” Kate hugged Hannah before pouring herself a cup of tea and walking into the living room with it.
    Hannah fol owed her. “Did you get your manuscript mailed off?”
    Kate nodded. “Murder and mayhem wil prevail in a smal coastal town. I forgot to put the tea cozy back on the pot, wil you do it?”
    Hannah glanced into the kitchen and lifted her arms.
    When Kate looked back, the cozy was safely on the teapot. “Thanks, Hannah. I do have to say, Jonas was invaluable to me with the research.”
    “I know he was, but don’t credit him with doing it to be nice or anything.” Hannah’s large blue eyes reflected her laughter. “He was trying to get on your good side so you’d persuade me to stop messing around with his precious hats.”
    They both swung around as the front door burst open.