Page 178 of The Defiant Curse

Ethan took that hint, and grabbed three bottles from the chiller, and uncorked them to breathe. He needed some for his sauce anyway, and it had been a long time since he’d had a glass of wine with his woman.

And a long time since they’d made sauce together too.

“Anyway,” she said, as he poured her some and handed her a glass, “here’s what you missed, EJ,” she offered. “Last night, I started sleepwalking.”

He paused as he was handing out glasses of wine.

“Pardon? You don’t sleepwalk. In fact, you barely sleep, so…”

Oh, she was aware.

“I know, and while I was, apparently, I was having a whole conversation with Ceit.”

Ethan topped off her glass and stared at his wife.

“Ceit? The dead woman who lived here in the sixteen hundreds?”

Elizabeth nodded.

“Apparently.”

To help her out, Michael picked up when she stopped to sip her wine.

“The second Elizabeth arrived yesterday, shit started going crazy once more. We thought the mystery was solved, but then the lake started getting wonky again, the painting of Ceit fell off the rails it was on, and then, the sleepwalking.”

Oh, he didn’t like that.

“What happened?” he asked, fully invested now that they were smack dab in the middle of it.

She told him since everyone else had heard at breakfast, but he needed to be caught up.

“We walked around the castle, and she told me that she needed her heart found, and only she could take down the curse. So, we’re going to find her heart so we can break the curse.”

Finn went there.

“Well, it won’t be a physical heart. She’s been dead a LONG time. Her heart is dust. It has to be something. Maybe her child? Was he her heart? We don’t have kids, but I imagine that has to be a thing.”

Yes, yes, it was.

“That could be it,” she stated. “Our children are our hearts,” she stated. “Michael, Graham, Koda, Coraline, CJ, Charlie, Dolly, Willa, EJ, Christopher Anthony, Cat, Bethe, and Daniel,” she said, rattling them all off. “Then, little Oliver is our grandbaby.”

Graham stared at her.

“Jaysus, Lassie. Close your thighs.”

She snorted.

“I didn’t birth all of them. I just got lucky getting them by way of the universe. Graham by marriage, and the same with Coraline. Unfortunately, I have to share her with her father—and he’s a kid hog. He’s going to start trying to baby nap our grandson.”

They all knew who she meant.

The President of The United States.

“So now, the heart hunt is on,” she stated. “You’re pretty much caught up. I just got here last night.”

Yeah, this was wild to Ethan.

Only, he was curious.