Now, Allie sat on the nearer of the two sofas, wiping her hand with a paper towel, an empty plate in front of her on the coffee table, tendrils of power extended far enough to lift the hair off the back of Charlie’s neck and trail a heated touch up her spine. The only other time Allie’d ever been so overt, she’d been . . .

“Holy crap, you’re pregnant again.”

Katie, sitting on Allie’s right, moved her plate and half-eaten piece of pie out of reach. Graham, on Allie’s left, wasn’t quite fast enough. Fortunately, he’d nearly finished.

Charlie swiped this second splattered bit of pie off her cheek and sucked the sticky pastry off her fingers. Apple. Auntie Mary’s if she wasn’t mistaken. Allie’s mother made amazing apple pie—not too juicy, not too sweet, and barely charmed. Get enough sleep. Eat properly. Use the potty.

She frowned. Use the potty? “Aren’t the twins a little young for pie?”

“You’ve been gone for three weeks,” Allie reminded her.

“I know, but . . .”

“Mom’s just trying to help.”

“I get that.” Allie anchored second circle and couldn’t leave Calgary, and Auntie Mary was still disentangling herself from Darsden East where she’d anchored second circle before crossing to first. It was weird thinking of her as an auntie, but it happened to all Gale girls in time. Technically, first circle, like third, could go where they wanted, but with Allie’s brother David in antlers in Calgary, the older aunties had decided Auntie Mary needed to be more connected to Uncle Arthur in Ontario before she risked it. And they’d all ignored Auntie Ruby muttering about the insipid morality of the masses and how they should have shot the balloon out of the sky the moment the damned thing appeared. When the twins were a little older, Charlie’d promised to run them back east to meet their grandmother and the rest of the family, but for now, all Auntie Mary could do was bake. “Does she know about the . . .” The expression on Allie’s face cut off potential teasing before it reached Charlie’s mouth. “. . . new pregnancy.”

“No. I wanted to tell you first.”

That wasn’t it. Or that wasn’t all of it, at least. Allie’s pique drowned out the rest of the reason. It was, Charlie acknowledged, impressively loud pique.

“But you hung up on me.”

The lights flickered.

“Is that the twins?” Katie jumped to her feet, head cocked toward the smaller bedroom and the sound of silence from two peacefully sleeping babies. “I should check on them.”

Graham shot her a look as he stood, suggesting that, as they were his peacefully sleeping babies, he should have dibs on using them as an excuse to flee. “I think I . . . I left my laptop in the store. I’ll just go down and check.”