And whose fault is that? she reminded herself. She was the one who’d gotten it all twisted up. She was the one who’d left herself open for the clip on the jaw. She was the stupid one, the one who’d gone all mushy with love and stopped thinking clearly. She would just have to fix that. Not the love. She was a Todd and accepted that she loved him and always would. But she certainly could get her head on straight again and start thinking.

He was the one meant for her, so he was going to have to deal with it. Dr. MacAllister Booke wasn’t just going to study witches. He was damn well going to marry one. As soon as she figured out how to make him.

“Sorry.” He skirted the equipment more carefully this time. “It wasn’t where I thought I put it. Nothing ever is.” His expression changed with the glittering look she sent him. “Ah . . . Something wrong?”

“No, not a thing.” Playfully, she patted the cushion beside her. “I was just thinking it’s a waste to sit alone in front of the fire.” When he sat, she slid her leg intimately over his. “Much better.”

“Well.” His blood pressure began a steady rise as she leaned in and rubbed her lips over his jaw. “I thought you’d want to read this.”

“Mmm. Why don’t you read it to me?” She nibbled lightly on his earlobe. “You have such a sexy voice.”

She took the glasses out of his pocket. “And you know how turned on I get when you wear these.”

He made some sound, then fumbled the glasses on. “These are, ah, photocopied pages. I have the original journal in a vault, because it’s old and fragile. It was written by my great . . . well a number of greats, grandmother. On my mother’s side. The first entry was made September12 ,1758 , and written on Three Sisters Island.”

Ripley jerked back. “What did you say?”

“I think you should just listen. ‘Today,’ ” he read, “ ‘my youngest child had a child. They have named him Sebastian, and he is hale and healthy. I am grateful Hester and her fine young man are content to remain on the island, to make their home and family here. My other children are so far away now, and though from time to time I look into the glass to see them, my heart aches that I am unable to touch their faces, or the faces of my grandchildren.

“ ‘I will never leave the island again.

“ ‘This, also, I have seen in the glass. I have time yet on this earth, and I know death is not an end. But when I see this beauty of life in this babe of my babe, I am saddened that I will not be here to see him grown.’ ”

He risked a quick glance at Ripley, saw she was staring at him as if she’d never seen him before. Best to finish it all, he told himself. Just get it all out at one time.

“ ‘I am saddened that my own mother did not choose life,’ ” he continued, “ ‘that she denied herself the joy I have felt this day on seeing a child come from one of my own.

“ ‘Time moves swiftly. What comes from this boy will one day balance the scales, if our children remember and choose wisely.’ ”

Though she’d forgotten she held it, Ripley’s knuckles were white on the stem of her glass. “Where did you get this?”

“Last summer I was going through some boxes in the attic of my parents’ house. I found the journal. I’d been through those boxes before. I used to drive my mother crazy because I was always pawing through the old stuff. I don’t know how I missed it, unless you subscribe to the theory that it wasn’t there for me until last June.”

“June.” When a shudder worked through her, Ripley got to her feet. Nell had come to the island in June—and the three had linked. She sensed that Mac started to speak, and she held up a hand. She needed to focus.

“You’re assuming this was written by an ancestor.”

“Not assuming. I’ve done the genealogy, Ripley. Her name was Constance, and her youngest daughter, Hester, married James MacAllister on May15 ,1757 . Their first child, a son, Sebastian Edward MacAllister, was born on Three Sisters Island. He fought in the Revolutionary War. Married, had children, settled in New York. The line runs down through my mother, and into me.”

“You’re telling me you’re a descendant of . . .”

“I have all the documentation. Marriage records, birth records. You could say we’re really distant cousins.”

She stared at him, then turned to stare into the fire. “Why didn’t you tell us when you first came here?”

“Okay, that’s a little sticky.” He wished she would sit back down, cuddle up against him again. But he didn’t think that was going to happen until they got through this. “I thought I might have to use it as an incentive, a kind of bargaining chip.”

“Your ace in the hole,” she remarked.

“Yeah. If Mia put up roadblocks, I figured this information would be a good way to knock some of them down. But she didn’t, and I started to feel uncomfortable about withholding it. I was going to tell her tonight. But I needed to tell you first.”

“Why?”

“Because you matter. I realize you’re ticked off, but—”

She shook her head. “Not really.” Unsettled, she thought, but not angry. “I’d’ve done the same thing to get what I wanted.”

“I didn’t know you’d be here. You know what I mean. You. I didn’t know we’d be involved like this. I’m in what most people consider an illogical field. It’s only more essential to approach it logically. But under it, on a personal level, I’ve been pulled to this place all my life without knowing where it was that I was being pulled. Last summer I finally knew.”

“But you didn’t come.”

“I had to gather data, research, analyze, fact-check.”

“Always the geek.”

She sat on the arm of the couch. It was, he thought, a step. “I guess. I dreamed of the island. Before I knew where it was—or if it was—I dreamed of it. I dreamed of you. All of that was so strong, so much a part of my life, that I needed to approach it the way I’d been trained. As an observer, a recorder.”

“And what do your observations tell you, Dr. Booke?”

“I’ve got reams of data, but I don’t think you’d be interested in reading it.” She shook her head at his questioning look. “Right. But I’ve also got one simple feeling. That I’m where I’m supposed to be. I have a part in this. I just don’t know, yet, exactly what it is.”