"Actually, she keeps them in thick albums, waiting for the grandchildren she hopes for."

"Donovan." He tucked his thumbs in his pockets. "Bryna Donovan. That's your mother."

"Yes, and she'd be delighted to know you approve of her work." She lifted her glass. "From one storyteller to another. My parents lived in this house off and on for several years. Actually, she wrote her first published work upstairs while she was pregnant with me. She always says I insisted she write the story down."

"Does your mother believe you're a witch?"

"It would be better to ask her that yourself, if you get the opportunity."

"You're being evasive again." He walked over to sprawl comfortably on the couch beside her. It was impossible not to be comfortable with a woman who surrounded herself with things he himself loved. "Let's put it this way. Does your family have any problem with your interests?"

She appreciated the way he relaxed, legs stretched, body at ease, as if he'd been making himself at home on her couch for years. "My family has always understood the need to focus energies in an individual direction. Do your parents have a problem with your interests?"

"I never knew them. My parents."

"I'm sorry." The mocking light in her eyes turned instantly to sympathy. Her family had always been her center. She could hardly imagine living without them.

"It wasn't a big deal." But he rose again, uneasy with the way she'd laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. He'd come too far from the bad old days to want any sympathy. "I'm interested in your family's reactions. I mean, how would most parents feel, what would they do if they found their kid casting spells. Did you decide to start dabbling as a child?''

Sympathy vanished like a puff of smoke. "Dabbling?" she repeated, eyes slitted.

"I may want to have a prologue, you know, showing how the main character got involved."

He was paying less attention to her than to the room itself, the atmosphere. As he worked out his thoughts, he paced. Not nervously, not even restlessly, but in a way that made it obvious that he was taking stock of everything he could see.

"Maybe she gets pushed around by the kid next door and turns him into a frog," he continued, oblivious to the fact that Morgana's jaw had tensed. "Or she runs into some mysterious woman who passes on the power. I kind of like that." As he roamed, he played with ideas, slender threads that could be woven into whole cloth for a story. "I'm just not sure of the angle I want to use, so I figured we'd start by playing it straight. You tell me what started you off—books you read, whatever. Then I can twist it to work as fiction."

She was going to have to watch her temper, and watch it carefully. When she spoke, her voice was soft, and carried a ring that made him stop in the center of the rug. "I was born with elvish blood. I am a hereditary witch, and my heritage traces back to Finn of the Celts. My power is a gift passed on from generation to generation. When I find a man of strength, we'll make children between us, and they will carry it beyond me."

He nodded, impressed. "That's great." So she didn't want to play it straight, he thought. He'd humor her. The stuff about elvish blood had terrific possibilities. "So, when did you first realize you were a witch?"

The tone of his voice had her temper slipping a notch. The room shook as she fought it back. Nash snatched her off the couch so quickly that she didn't have time to protest. He'd pulled her toward the doorway when the shaking stopped.

"Just a tremor," he said, but he kept his arms around her. "I was in San Francisco during the last big one." Because he felt like an idiot, he gave her a lopsided grin. "I haven't been able to be casual about a shake since."

So, he thought it was an earth tremor. Just as well, Morgana decided. There was absolutely no reason for her to lose her temper, or to expect him to accept her for what she was. In any case, it was sweet, the way he'd jumped to protect her.

"You could move to the Midwest."

"Tornados." Since he was here, and so was she, he saw no reason to resist running his hands up her back. He enjoyed the way she leaned into the stroke, like a cat.

Morgana tilted her head back. Staying angry seemed a waste of time when her heart gave such an eager leap. It was perhaps unwise of them to test each other this way. But wisdom was often bland. "The East Coast," she said, letting her own hands skim up his chest.

"Blizzards." He nudged her closer, wondering for just an instant why she seemed to meld with him so perfectly, body to body.

"The South." She twined her arms around his neck, watching him steadily through a fringe of dark lashes.

"Hurricanes." He tipped the hat off her head so that her hair tumbled down to fill his hands like warm silk. "Disasters are everywhere," he murmured. "Might as well stay put and deal with the one mat's yours."

"You won't deal with me, Nash." She brushed her lips teasingly over his. "But you're welcome to try."

He took her mouth confidently. He didn't consider women a disaster.

Perhaps he should have.

It was more turbulent than any earthquake, more devastating than any storm. He didn't feel the ground tremble or hear the wind roar, but he knew the moment her lips parted beneath his that he was being pulled in by some irresistible force that man had yet to put a name to.

She was molded against him, soft and warm as melted wax. If he'd believed in such things, he might have said her body had been fashioned for just this purpose—to mate perfectly with his. His hands streaked under her loose shirt to race over the smooth skin of her back, to press her even closer, to make sure she was real and not some daydream, some fantasy.

He could taste the reality, but even that had some kind of dreamy midnight flavor. Her mouth yielded silkily under his, even as her arms locked like velvet cords around his neck.

A sound floated on the air, something she murmured, something he couldn't understand. Yet he thought he sensed surprise in the whisper, and perhaps a little fear, before it ended with a sigh.

She was a woman who enjoyed the tastes and textures of a man. She had never been taught to be ashamed of taking pleasure, with the right man, at the right time. She hadn't ever learned to fear her own sexuality, but to celebrate it, cherish it, and respect it.