Page 15 of Madly Deeply

Shug shifted in his seat. "What are ye suggestin’--"

"A seer's gift can only be passed on through blood." Lorraine held her hands wide as if she’d just pulled off a clever magic trick.Ta da!

The room went silent. Alexandra's mind raced, counting days, remembering symptoms she'd dismissed as grief. The morning nausea. Her sudden aversion to foods she normally loved. The bone-deep exhaustion she'd blamed on depression.

She turned her shoulders and looked up at Spreag still visible beside her. He looked uncomfortable but not surprised. "You knew?"

He sighed. "Aye, love. Since the restaurant."

"The ghost," she whispered. "When I could hear her...that's when you realized?"

He nodded.

"So I’m pregnant. And not just pregnant.” Her hands were drawn like magnets to her abdomen. “Our baby will be…”

“A Seer. Seems like it, my love.”

"The Sight runs strong in Spreag's line," Loretta said. "And now it's giving you a connection to the spirit world. Temporarily, of course."

Alexandra barely heard her. She was lost in Spreag's eyes, seeing all the love and worry there. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I feared..." He swallowed hard. "I feared you might send me away. That you wouldn't want our child to bear my curse."

CHAPTER EIGHT

Callum Fraser stood in the rain, studying the hand-painted sign of The Enchanted Tea Cup. His grandmother's directions had been specific—Cockburn Street, off the Royal Mile, just around the bend--but he still hesitated. The whole thing felt daft. Here he was, thirty-four years old, following the instructions of a woman who still bought him woolly socks every Christmas because his feet were constantly cold the entirety of his seventh year of age.

Rain dripped from the brim of his flat cap onto the worn leather of his jacket. He’d inherited the coat from his father along with the sheep farm, the ancestral home, and the tendency to let work consume him. His jeans were muddy at the cuffs despite being rolled up, and his boots had tracked Highland soil across half of Inverness already.

He scratched his jaw, wondering when he'd last bothered to shave. Time had a way of sliding past when you spent your days with sheep and your evenings with account books.

The bell announced his entrance with a delicate ring that seemed to mock his bulk. He removed his cap and sent rainwater spattering onto the worn floorboards.

"Well," said a woman's voice. "You must be Meggie Fraser's grandson."

Callum's head snapped up. A small woman with silver-and-red-streaked hair stood behind a counter laden with new teapots, boxes, and a pricing gun. "How did ye?—"

"She called to tell us you were coming." Another woman, nearly identical to the first, emerged from between heavy curtains. "Though we expected you yesterday."

"I almost didnae come at all,” he blurted, before he tasted the rudeness of the words. He ducked his head in apology. “Gran can be...persistent."

"Meggie’s never shy about what she wants." The second woman patted his arm and waved to the first. “I'm Loretta, and this is my sister Lorraine."

"Callum," he offered. "I dinnae wish to waste yer time. Gran seems to think ye can help me find..." He faltered, unsure how to explain what he didn't understand himself.

"A purpose beyond the farm?"

"Someone to share your evenings with?"

That got his back up. “I never said?—"

"Don’t mind us, dear. We’ll get you a nice cup of tea and have a chat, shall we?” Loretta gestured to the break in the curtains. “Just choose a cup while I put the kettle on."

Callum stared at the overwhelming display in the back of a large room filled with tables and meant for parties. "I don't know the first thing about teacups." The confession carried echoes of many similar admissions.

I don't know the first thing about dating. About romance. About letting someone trespass into my life.

"The cup knows you," Loretta said. "Trust in that."

---