Excerpt of Dances With Demons by Lori Handeland

I cried when they took away my children. Who
wouldn't?

"Mom." Anna, my oldest, might be only nine, but she
can roll her eyes like any sixteen-year-old. "We go to Mam
and Pop's every summer for two weeks, and every summer you
act like it's forever."

"It always feels like forever." I rubbed the sting
of tears from my eyes. I couldn't help it. Anna and her
brothers were all I had left of Max. But, to be fair, they
were all Max's parents had left of him either. So, for the
final two weeks of each summer, I allowed my in-laws to
drive away from Milwaukee with my babies.

Anna rolled her eyes again, but she allowed me to hug
her, even kiss her forehead before squirming away and out
the door in the wake of her grandfather.

The boys, Aaron and Benjamin—who’d recently decided
he liked to be called Benji—were six and five, and they
still allowed me to smooch on them for longer than Anna
did. They always had. I ruffled their dark heads, so like
Max's, and sent them on their way, then turned to face my
mother-in-law, a woman who did not look in any way like
she answered to the sweet granny name of Mam. If I hadn't
wanted to keep on her good side, I would have been tempted
to address her as Cruella. Not that she'd skinned any
puppies lately, though I wouldn't put it past her.

Susan Murphy was tall, slim, and always perfectly put
together, in control of herself and of anyone else she
could manage. I doubted the woman ever left her house in
anything less than full makeup and hair that she'd sprayed
into an immovable coif. In comparison, I always appeared
shorter, dumpier, and less put together than I actually
was. I think she liked it that way. She'd certainly never
liked me.

I'd hoped that once Max and I had children, Susan and
I would bond. Hadn't happened. With my own parents living
in Phoenix now, Max's were the closest relatives I had.
You'd think we'd spend more time together.

But now that Max was dead, and I had opened a tavern/
restaurant then had the bad taste to call it Murphy's—
thus tarnishing their name—I doubted we'd ever be BFFs. I
didn't mind so much. I had a BFF; I didn't need another.
However, it would be nice if Susan would at least pretend
not to loathe me.

"Megan." She lowered her head, a dismissal, a
goodbye.

"If you have any problems,” I said, following her to
the door, then onto the porch and down the walk toward the
waiting Lincoln Navigator, "just give me a call and I'll
drive down."

"I doubt anything will come up that I can't manage."

The only thing Susan Murphy had ever been unable to
manage was her only son. She hadn't wanted him to become
a cop. If he just had to help people, why not become a
lawyer? Because they were so helpful.

She'd gotten past Max's choice of profession, only to
have him turn around and marry me.

In her defense, she'd been right about the occupation.
Max had died in the line of duty. But the only thing he'd
ever wanted more than that badge was me.

My eyes pricked again. God, I missed him. Some days
were harder than others, and today was one of them.

"Who is that?" My mother-in-law's already chilly
voice went ice age.

Quinn Fitzpatrick leaned against the side of my house.
Tall, lean and dark, with eerily light green eyes that
seemed to shine yellow in a certain light, he resembled a
panther on the prowl. Until he moved. Then he usually
tripped over his puppy feet, dropped a glass, knocked over
a tray or worse. I'd never seen a more beautiful man with
less grace in my life.

"New bartender."

I lifted my hand in hello. Quinn lifted his in return
and smacked the gutter so hard it came apart. He caught
the loose piece, cracked it against the house, then frowned
at the dent. I sighed. He'd fix the thing so it would be
better than before. Sometimes I thought he broke things on
purpose just so he could improve them.

"He's very . . ." Susan's lips pursed. She glanced at
me in suspicion. "Tell me you aren't sleeping with him."

I blinked. "Sleep . . . I . . . No!"

She rolled her eyes, and I saw where Anna had gotten
it from. "The man is sex on parade."

"If he were in a parade he'd trip, fall into the tuba
section, cause them to knock over the drums, and the entire
band would end up in the lake."

"You expect me to believe that a man who looks like
that does nothing more than pour drinks?"

"He makes sandwiches too."

"Hi, Quinn!" Benji shouted.

Quinn waved and dropped the gutter on his foot.

"Bye, Quinn!" Aaron hung out the window.

"We'll see you in two weeks." Anna's smile was
genuine. Even she had a soft spot for Quinn.

"It's right here I'll be when you come back." The
slight Irish lilt that sometimes crept into his voice
always made me want to close my eyes and beg him to keep
talking. And not touch anything.

"He's Irish!" Susan accused.

"Quinn. Fitzpatrick." I spread my hands.

"You're Megan Murphy and you don't have an accent."

"But I do like potatoes."

"The children obviously know him well."

"He works everyday. He helps fix things around here."

Usually after he broke them, but I kept that to myself.
"They know him. They like him. He's . . . likeable."

"Do you like him?"

I glanced at Quinn as he laid the gutter on the ground
and strode toward the garage where he kept his tools. He
caught the toe of his large athletic shoes on a blade of
grass and nearly kissed dirt. "I guess."

I'd never really thought of Quinn as anything other
than a slightly klutzy first-shift bartender. Certainly,
he was lovely to look at, even lovelier to listen to.
But since Max had died I'd first been focused on getting
through each day without dissolving into a puddle of agony.
Once that was accomplished, my next job had been raising
the children, then paying the bills.

I'd met Max while I was a waitress in a cop bar on
the south side. We'd married, had children, lived, loved,
laughed. Then he'd died. All I knew was being a wife, a
mother, and running a bar. So I'd opened Murphy's.

It hadn't been easy. The hours were long and, to
begin with, most of them were mine. I received a lot of
law enforcement business since Max's former co-workers made
Murphy's their new hangout, and his former partner, Liz
Phoenix, had left the force—Max's death had been as hard
on her as it had been on me—and taken a job as my dayshift
bartender.

Liz blamed herself for Max's death though I never had.
We'd become best friends; we always would be, even though
she was now the leader of a group of demon killers pledged
to save mankind from the Apocalypse. As I'd attended
Catholic school, the approach of doomsday was less of a
surprise to me than it had been to her.

My mother-in-law's sigh brought me back to my front
yard. "I suppose it's time."

"Yes." I started walking toward the SUV. "I know you
want to get on the road." I paused when I realized she
hadn't moved and glanced back.

"I meant that it's time you moved on." Though the
words were gentle, her face was . . . devastated.

"I don't—"

"Max is gone. He isn't coming back. You're alive, so
are the children."

"Okay." I had no idea what she was trying to tell me
beyond the obvious. Life went on.

Even when you didn't want it to.