In truth, he had to admit he’d miss knowing he’d come in after the early chores to a hot breakfast—and having someone who knew their way around tending crops.

She wouldn’t go near the cornfield, and he didn’t ask why.

By day four, they’d fallen into a routine, one comfortable enough it worried him. Routines led to depending on each other.

Best thing all around? Nudge her into moving to the settlement, nesting there until she had her kid.

He started to ease her in that direction over a dinner of fried chicken and potato salad—his request.

“I’m going to take a load of produce into the settlement tomorrow.”

“If you’re bartering, you could use more flour.”

“You’ve got a better sense by now what we’re low on in the pantry. You ought to come in with me. It’d give you a sense of things.”

Her gaze shifted up—deep, sad blue—met his. “I can make you a list.”

“You could. There’re probably things you need. Personal things.”

“I don’t need anything. If you’re ready for me to move on—”

“I didn’t say that.” Thought it maybe, but that was different. “Look, there are women in there who’ve been through what you’re going through. Who’ve, you know, had babies. Plus, people pass through. Some stay. Maybe somebody’s come in who has medical experience.”

Her fingers moved restlessly over the ring she wore around her neck. “I’ve still got time. I can do more until—”

“Christ, Lana.” He rarely used her name, and did so now in pure frustration. “Give me a small break. I’m saying you’d be better off with people who know what they’re doing when the kid decides she wants to come out. If you’re not nervous about that, you’re made of fucking steel.”

“I’m scared to death. Terrified. Even knowing, absolutely knowing, she’s meant to be born, meant to live and shine and do amazing things, I’m terrified.”

Studying her face, he sat back. “You don’t look scared.”

She kept her gaze steady, laid a hand on the baby mound. “Before I looked down, saw the farm, whenever I was tired and hungry, I couldn’t let myself be scared. If it snuck through, I had to shove it away again or I’d have stopped. Just stopped and given up. I told myself I’d find a place, a safe place to bring her into the world. Then I looked down, and saw the farm. The house, the fields, the animals—like a painting of before the world stopped.”

Now her hand made slow circles over the baby.

“Still, I didn’t let myself hope. It was just the immediate. Tomatoes on the vine, bees humming, chickens clucking. I thought, Food, because I needed it. I didn’t let myself think shelter or rest. Until you spoke to me. You told me to come inside and eat, and then I began to hope.

“It’s not fair to put my hopes on you, but I am. Because she needs me to.”

No, she didn’t look afraid, he thought. Neither her voice nor her face held a plea. He’d never have resisted a plea. Instead they held a quiet, steady strength.

That, to him, was even more irresistible.

“How about we compromise on it? I’ll bring one of the women back with me—her name’s Anne. Grandmotherly type, and she’d probably kick my ass for saying that. You could meet her, see how you feel then. I know she’s had kids. When the time comes I could go get her, have her help you out.”

“She comes into your hands first.”

“Huh?”

Her eyes changed, seemed to stare straight into him, now dark as midnight.

“Into yours on the windswept night. And lightning heralds the birth of The One. Will you teach her to ride, and think she was born knowing? I teach her the old ways, what I can, but she has so much more. Safe, time out of time, while the dark rages. Until in the Book of Spells, in the Well of Light she takes her sword and shield. And with the rise of magicks she takes her place. She will risk all to fulfill her destiny, this precious child of the Tuatha de Danann. For this she grows in me, for this she comes into your hands.”

She’d gone very pale, and now reached an unsteady hand for her water glass.

“What was that?”

“It’s her.” Lana sipped slowly until the dizziness passed. “I don’t know how to explain it. Sometimes I see her, as clearly as I see you. She’s so beautiful.” As she sipped again, Lana’s eyes filled, but the tears didn’t spill. “So strong and fierce and lovely. Sometimes I hear her, a voice in my head. I think I might have given up a dozen times without that voice telling me to keep going. And sometimes, like now, she speaks through me. Or lets me know enough to speak for her.”

In that moment, Simon believed her. Absolutely. “What is she?”

“The answer. When I’m afraid, I’m afraid for her, for what’s going to be asked of her. I know what I’m asking of you,” she began, and the dogs scrambled up from their evening naps.

“Yeah, I hear it.” With his eyes still on hers, Simon rose. “Somebody’s coming. You should go down into the root cellar until I see who it is. Take the shotgun with you,” he added as he retrieved the 9mm he’d set on top of the fridge for the meal.

Walking to the front of the house, he grabbed the rifle propped by the door. Stepped out on the porch to watch the unfamiliar truck spit gravel on its way down the farm lane.

He ordered the dogs to sit, to hold, waiting until two men, both armed, got out of either side of the truck.

“Evening,” he said easily, watching their gaits, their hands, their expressions.

He recognized trouble, prepared to deal with it.

One had a viciously scarred face, as if claws had raked across it, right to left, just under the right eye to the jawline under his left ear.

It twisted his mouth into a curled sneer.

“Nice place you got here.” The one with a scraggly, graying beard spoke first.

“Yeah. I like it.”

“A lot of stock, a lot of crops for one man to handle.”

“Keeps me busy. Something I can do for you?”

“We’re looking for a woman.”

Simon flashed a grin. “Who isn’t?”

The bearded one laughed, took a paper out of his front pocket, unfolded it. “This one in particular.”

Simon looked at the paper, at the excellent sketch of Lana. “She’s a looker. I wouldn’t mind finding her myself.”

“She’s pregnant, ’bout seven or eight months. We got word she might be wandering around this way.”

“I think I’d remember seeing that face, and a pregnant woman, wandering around here. How’d you lose her?”

“Ain’t none of your business,” the scarred man snapped.

“Just making conversation. I don’t get many visitors.”

The bearded one pulled his nose. “It must get lonely, out here on your own.”

“Like I said, I keep busy.”

“Still. You’re pretty out of the way, kind of … cut off. Looks like you’ve got enough food going here to feed an army. It happens we’ve got one. We’ll take that trailer of yours, along with two of those cows.”

“I’m not looking to trade, thanks all the same.”

“Nobody said nothing about trading.” The scarred man pulled his gun. “We’re taking. Now you go on and hitch that trailer up to the truck.”

“You know, that’s not very friendly of you.”

Simon moved fast. The scarred one held his gun like some B-movie cowboy, all show, no sense. Simon slapped his forearm out, jabbed his other elbow into the bearded face, and had the scarred man’s gun in his own hand in three smooth moves.

“I’d shoot you both where you stand,” he said, his tone pleasant and skimmed with ice. “But I’m not in the mood to dig the graves. You’re going to want to think before you reach for that gun,” he warned the bearded man. “Now take it out slow—two fingers—and set it down on the porch. Otherwise I’ll just gut shoot your friend and let you haul him away to bleed out in your truck.”