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she’d brought. And as she passed her window, she saw him.
    He stepped out of a sleek black Ferrari, his coat a dark swirl around him. He always did like shiny toys, she thought. He’d changed out of his jeans into a dark suit and tamed his hair, though the breeze was already playing with it. As her fingers once had.
    He carried a briefcase and strode toward the Magick Inn like a man who knew precisely where he was going and what he meant to do.
    Then he turned, lifting his gaze unerringly to where she stood in the window. His eyes locked on hers, and she felt the jolt, the punch of heat that would once have melted her knees.
    But this time she stood straight, and without a quiver. When enough time had passed for pride, she stepped away from the window and out of his sight.

    Home soothed her. It always had. Practically, the big, rambling stone house on the cliff was too much for one woman. But it was, she knew, perfect for her. Even when she’d been a child, the house had been more hers than it had been her parents’. She’d never minded the echoes, the occasional drafts, or the sheer volume of time it took to maintain a house of its size and age.
    Her ancestors had built it, and now it was hers alone.
    She’d changed little on the inside since the house had come into her care. The furnishings here and there, a few of the colors, some basic modernization of the kitchen andbaths. But the feel of the house was as it had always been for her. Embracing, warm, waiting.
    There had been a time when she’d imagined herself raising a family there. God she’d wanted children. Sam’s children. But over the years she had accepted what was, and what wasn’t, and had made a nest of contentment.
    At times she thought of the gardens as her children. She had created them, taking the time to plant, to nurture, to discipline. And they brought her joy.
    And when she needed more than the gentle pleasure they provided, she had the passion and drama of her cliffs, the secrets and shadows of her forests.
    She had, Mia told herself, all she needed.
    But tonight she didn’t wander out to fuss with her flowers or walk to face the sea from her cliffs. She didn’t stroll into her forest. Instead, she went directly upstairs, climbing until she was closed inside her tower room.
    Here had been refuge and discovery when she was a child. Here she had never felt alone unless alone was what she needed to feel. Here she had learned, and had disciplined, the beams of her own power.
    The walls were rounded, the windows tall, narrow, and arched. The late-afternoon sun streamed through them in pale gold to pool on the dark, aged wood of the floor. Shelves curved along one wall, and on them were many of the tools of her trade. Pots of herbs, jars of crystals. Spell books that had belonged to those who’d come before her, and the ones that she’d written herself.
    An old cabinet held other objects. There was a wand she’d made herself, from maple that she had harvested on Samhain when she turned sixteen. A broom, her best chalice, her oldest anthame, and a ball of pale blue crystal. Candles and oils and incense, a scrying mirror.
    All this and more, carefully organized.
    She gathered what she needed, then slipped out of her dress. She preferred, whenever possible, to work skyclad.
    And so she cast the circle, calling on her element—fire—for energy. The candles she lighted with a breath were blue, for calm, for wisdom, for protection.
    She had performed this ritual before, several times in the past decade. Whenever she felt her heart weaken or her purpose waver. She admitted that if she hadn’t done so she would have known Sam was coming back to the Sisters before he’d arrived. So the years of relative peace had their price.
    She would block him again—block her thoughts and feelings from him, and his from her.
    They would not touch each other, on any level.
    “My heart and mind are mine to keep,” she began, lighting incense, sprinkling herbs