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down without a crane.”
    “More rest,” Ana prescribed, “and very gentle exercise. Which does not include hauling around shipping boxes or being on your feet all day waiting on customers.”
    “Yes, ma am.”
    “Now, let’s have a look.” Gently she laid her hands on her cousin’s belly, spreading her fingers slowly, opening herself to the miracle of what lay within.
    Instantly Morgana felt her fatigue drain away and physical and emotional well-being take its place. Through her half-closed eyes she saw Ana’s darken to the color of pewter and fix on a vision only Ana could see.
    As she moved her hands over her cousin’s heavy belly and linked with her, Ana felt the weight within her and, for one incredibly vivid moment, the lives that pulsed inside the womb. The draining fatigue, yes, and the nagging discomfort, but she also felt the quiet satisfaction, the burgeoning excitement and the simple wonder of carrying those lives. Her body ached, her heart swelled. Her lips curved.
    Then she
was
those lives—first one, then the other. Swimming dreamlessly in that warm, dark womb, nourished by the mother, held safe and fast until the moment when the outside would be faced. Two healthy hearts beating steady and close, beneath a mother’s heart. Tiny fingers flexing, a lazy kick. The rippling of life.
    Ana came back to herself, came back alone. “You’re well. All of you.”
    “I know.” Morgana twined her fingers with Ana’s. “But I feel better when you tell me. Just as I feel safe knowing you’ll be there when it’s time.”
    “You know I wouldn’t be anywhere else.” She brought their joined hands to her cheek. “But is Nash content with me as midwife?”
    “He trusts you—as much as I do.”
    Ana’s gaze softened. “You’re lucky, Morgana, to have found a man who accepts, understands, even appreciates, what you are.”
    “I know. To have found love was precious enough. But to have found love with him …” Then her smile faded. “Ana, darling, Robert was a long time ago.”
    “I don’t think of him. At least not really of him, but of a wrong turn on a particularly slippery road.”
    Indignation sharpened Morgana’s eyes. “He was a fool, and not in the least worthy of you.”
    Rather than sadness Ana felt a chuckle bubble out of her. “You never liked him. Not from the first.”
    “No, I didn’t.” Frowning, Morgana gestured with her glass. “And neither did Sebastian, if you recall.”
    “I do. As I recall Sebastian was quite suspicious of Nash, too.”
    “That was entirely different. It
was
,” she insisted as Ana grinned. “With Nash, he was just being protective of me. As for Robert, Sebastian tolerated him with the most insulting sort of politeness.”
    “I remember.” Ana shrugged. “Which, of course, put my back up. Well, I was young,” she said with a careless gesture. “And naive enough to believe that if I was in love I must be loved back equally. Foolish enough to be honest. And foolish enough to be devastated when that honesty was rewarded with disbelief, then outright rejection.”
    “I know you were hurt, but there’s little doubt you could do better.”
    “None at all,” Ana agreed, for she wasn’t without pride. “But there are some of us that aren’t meant to mix with outsiders.”
    Now there was frustration as well as indignation. “There have been plenty of men, with elfin blood and without, who’ve been interested in you, cousin.”
    “A pity I haven’t been interested in them.” Ana laughed. “I’m miserably choosy, Morgana. And I like my life just as it is.”
    “If I didn’t know that to be true, I’d be tempted to work up a nice little love spell. Nothing binding, mind,” she said with a glint in her eye. “Just something to give you some entertainment.”
    “I can find my own entertainment, thanks.”
    “I know that, too. Just as I know you’d be furious if I dared to interfere.” She pushed away from the table and rose, regretting