by Amy Boyles
“I thought you weren’t a licensed contractor.”
Truth was, I had my license, I just didn’t use it because I preferred to do other things when it came to houses and barns.
“I am licensed,” I said through gritted teeth. “It’s just that Liam has the team.”
“There’s no team here now, Clementine. If you don’t get out here and start making this renovation look like it’s supposed to, the deal’s off. I’ll find someone else to do the job.”
I headed toward my truck. “Dooley, now don’t you go being all hotheaded. What would Dottie say?”
“She’d say that I needed to stop bringing you peaches.”
“That hurts.” I opened the truck door and got inside. “Listen, I’m coming right now. I’ll be there ASAP, and I’ll make sure everything gets done.”
“You’d better,” Dooley snapped. “Or like I said, deal’s off.”
I hung up and sat a moment, staring out the windshield at Peach Street. It was all too much—Sadie’s death, the debt and now Dooley threatening to yank his business. Losing this job was the last thing that I needed to happen.
As the world crashed down on me, I pressed my head to the steering wheel, and this time I didn’t stop the tears from spilling. I let them come in great heaping waves, let them stream down my face and chin, falling onto the steering wheel.
After a few minutes they stopped. I glanced in the rearview mirror. My nose and the wells of my eyes were puffy and I knew a headache would come on, so I opened my purse and grabbed the bottle of ibuprofen that I kept inside. I’d tossed it in there when we started working with Dooley and all the headaches he’d given me.
I found an old water bottle on the floorboard. About an inch of liquid sat in the bottom. Even though it was a few days old, I didn’t care. It made the pills slide down easier.
I exhaled and cranked the engine, going through all the things that I needed to do before heading out to the barn. Lady had to be let out, and I needed to grab my tool belt from the house. But time was a commodity that I couldn’t spare much of.
A tap came from the passenger window. Rufus motioned for me to roll it down. Since my truck had been built before the invention of electric windows, I slid over and cranked it by hand.
“Hey,” I said.
“Do you need my help?” he asked, raking his fingers through his hair.
“Help renovating a barn? What are you going to wear—those leather pants?”
He shrugged. “Until I purchase another pair, yes.”
“You don’t have any money.”
“Then how about I earn my keep? At least for one day?”
I drummed my fingers on the dash. “What are my other options?”
“I’m afraid there aren’t any. I can continue to search for the memory spell. In fact, that’s what I should be doing right now. Never mind, I rescind my offer to assist you in anything manual.”
Great flaming peas! “Okay,” I shouted after him. “You win. Come on.”
I opened the door, and he slid inside, a satisfied smirk on his face. “I thought you’d never ask.”
“I wasn’t going to,” I said through gritted teeth.
His back sank onto the seat. “Ah, but you wouldn’t want me to raise a load of spells in perfect daylight—not where people such as the fine normal folks of this town can see them.”
“Exactly.”
He chuckled, clearly amused by what I’d said.
I eased the truck onto the road. “What’s so funny?”
“Other than the fact that I think you’ll find this town more surprising than you previously believed? Nothing.”
“I don’t know why you think there is anything magical about this town. Yes, you discovered some spells out in the woods. Those could have been left by anybody.”
He nodded. “Of course they could have.”
“And yes, there is some sort of wizard mafia, but that doesn’t mean Sadie realized they were wizards.”
“Of course not.”
I gave him a sidelong glance and noticed that Rufus looked entirely too comfortable in my truck. He relaxed beside me as if he owned it. I bristled in silence.
When we arrived at my house, I parked the truck and started to hop out. “I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere, and don’t look for spells.”
His brows stitched together in mock hurt. “My lady, when I give my word about something, I mean it. I said I would not search for spells at the moment, and I won’t.”
“Huh.” Without another word and ignoring the fact that Rufus called me my lady, I sprinted up the steps and into the house. Lady was waiting for me by the door. I let her out to roam the front yard and headed into my bedroom.
Like most closets in older homes, mine was small, which meant it had to be immaculately organized. Otherwise it would quickly dissolve into a mess of shoes, shoes and more shoes.
In fact, behind a pair of shoes, I discovered the exact box that I needed. I quickly opened it. A velvet sack lay in the center, looking exactly as it had when I placed it in the box ages ago. I caressed the bag. For so long I’d kept this hidden away because I feared using the power that it held.
I pulled the drawstring open and dipped my fingers in. They brushed the cool metal that practically sang when I touched it.
My fingers curled around the handle, and I pulled the golden hammer from its resting place. “I don’t like to use you, but it seems that my choices are limited.”
The hammer of course said nothing. It only gleamed in my palm. Gold from one end to the other, it looked more suited for a fanciful display case than being used in the real world.
I hadn’t called on its power in years, not since we’d hired Liam to do our contracting. Before then I would use it, but not often, and Sadie never knew a thing about it.
I grabbed my tool belt from the closet and tucked the hammer down into it. Then I headed outside.
Lady waited impatiently, her tail wagging as if to say, Hurry up, Mama, let’s go.
I tucked her under one arm and strode back to the truck and Rufus, ready to face off against Dooley Hutto.
Chapter 13
We rumbled to a stop beside Dooley’s truck. As soon as I got out, Dooley raged right on over.
“It’s about time you got here,” he said, huffing. “Now I’m sorry about Sadie, I really am, but I’ve got to be out of my house on schedule so that my son and his family can move in. Dottie and I have been planning this.”
I nodded, irritated. I swear, that man would do whatever he could to get out of paying or to sneak away from a situation that caused him even a modest amount of discomfort.
I pulled my hair into a ponytail and tied it back with a band that rested on my wrist. “Dooley, I understand, and believe it or not, I need to work. I’ve got bills to pay.”
And if Sadie wasn’t already dead, I might have murdered her myself since she was draining my bank account dry.
Dooley’s expression softened. “Look, I’m sorry, Clem. I really am. But I’ve got to get out of my house.”
“And I’ve got to finish this barn.”
Rufus left the truck, and Dooley gave him a once-over of historic proportions. The farmer’s gaze swept Rufus from head to toe and back up again. Oh no, I could just hear the fireworks exploding in Dooley’s brain.
“And who’re you?” he said to Rufus.
Rufus, for what it was worth, didn’t miss a beat. He smoothly extended his hand. “Name’s John. I’m here to help Clementine. It looks like we have a lot of work to do, sir, and we’d hate to keep you.”
Dooley eyed Rufus’s leather pants skeptically. “Son, you sure you worked on a house before?”
Rufus smiled. “Let me tell you, construction is my life. I’ve raised barns and torn them down, put in Sheetrock and demolished it. Anything you’ve got, I can handle.”
Dooley’s expression remained neutral. I wasn’t sure if he was convinced that Rufus could do the job, and to be honest, it didn’t m
atter.
I cleared my throat. “Dooley, we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us, so if you don’t mind, we need to get to it.”
Dooley nodded. “I’ll see you soon, Clem.” He stared at the building. “This needs to get done soon or else I’ll find another company to finish it.”
As he drove away, I murmured, “The sooner we finish, the sooner I get paid.”
Rufus strode up to me. “I see you brought your magic hammer.”
My face flushed. “We may need it. After all, you don’t have any tools, and you don’t remember how to use magic in order to get them.”
Rufus glanced around. “I’m sure there are tools around here somewhere.”
I pointed to the barn. “Liam has a box inside that should help us, but the first thing we have to do is fix the foundation, and for that, we’ll need this.” I lifted the hammer from my belt.
Lady scampered by, chasing a butterfly. Oh, how I wished to be chasing butterflies instead of living in the nightmare I’d woken up to.
As I strode toward the barn, Rufus followed. “And why is it that you own a magical hammer that I’m sure you don’t use?”
I cocked a brow. “What makes you think I don’t use it?”
“Everything about you makes me think that.”
I bristled. “Since when did you learn everything about me?” I stopped walking to glare at him. “Listen, you know absolutely nothing about me.”
Because if you did, you would try to hurt me.
“I know that you’re wounded,” he replied, sorrow filling his eyes.
I stalked off, anger wafting from me. “I’m not talking to you about any of that.”
“I didn’t ask you to. All I’m saying is that a witch who denies the magic around her is suffering from wounds.”
I whirled and pointed the hammer at him. “You can stop right there talking about my suffering. If you’re going to yammer on, you can just start walking down that road and disappear—forever.”
He stiffened. “I promised to help, and I’ll keep my word.”
I had no comment for that because the last time Rufus promised to help me, he forever changed me.
We walked to the place where Sadie’s body had been discovered. A wave of anguish rocked me before I got ahold of myself. Tears dripped from my eyes, and I wiped them on my sleeve.
I bent and hovered the hammer over the spot. “I don’t use the hammer because it’s persnickety, if you must know. I’m sure you can guess what it does.”
“Turns everything it touches to gold?” Rufus asked with a glint of humor in his eyes.
I tried not to smile and mostly succeeded. “No, it doesn’t turn things into gold. It was gifted to me years ago by a witch who trained me. It had been given to her and so on.” I lifted the golden hammer so that Rufus could get an eyeful of it. “This fixes things, which is great. So all I have to do is tap this foundation and you’ll never know that Sadie was found here.”
Rufus tutted. “But it can’t be that simple or else you would use the hammer every day of the week. Knowing you, you’d use it on your heart to fix whatever happened to you there.”
I bristled. “It doesn’t work on people. You’re right—it’s not as simple as that.”
Rufus stared at the hammer as if he would slice through it. The intensity of his gaze made a shiver work all the way to my core, igniting my center and sending a wave of want straight to my girlie parts.
Butter on a biscuit! With Sadie dead, my bank account a desert and my business on the line, I was now looking at Rufus Mayes and feeling things that I never should have been feeling. Hate as hot as lava should be firing through my veins, but no, I was feeling—dare I say it—lust.
I had gone and lost my darned mind.
Rufus’s dark eyes softened. “You’re right. I don’t know you. So please, instruct me.”
I hovered the hammer over the foundation. “It will fix things, but sooner or later, when it fixes something, something else breaks. That’s just how the magic in the hammer works and why I don’t use it very often, but today is an exception. We have no crew, and Dooley is threatening to fire us because he’s an evil old man.”
Rufus leaned against the barn and crossed his arms. “So you plan on using it until your luck runs out?”
I nodded. “We need to fix the foundation and get the poles inside reinforced. After that, it’s replacing broken boards on the face of the barn. If we can get a lot of that done today, Dooley will calm down and then maybe I can convince the unionized wizard mafia, or whatever, that I’ll have their money to them soon enough.”
He rubbed his hands together. “Well, what are we waiting for then? Let’s get started.”
I took a deep breath and tapped the hammer over the foundation. In a blink, the broken concrete was smooth and dry. I exhaled and rose.
“One thing down and several more to go.”
Lady scampered about the inside of the barn while we worked. She chased crickets and snapped at butterflies, finally settling down to rest after a few minutes.
I pointed to a pile of thick columns. “Those have to be put in place to reinforce the original poles.”
Rufus winked at me. “I’ve got this. Don’t worry.”
“But it would take three men to hold those up.”
Without a word, he crossed to the pile and tucked his arms under one of the columns. With a great heave, he hoisted it from the stack.
My jaw plummeted to the ground. “What in the…?”
He winked, obviously proud of himself. “I don’t remember the fundamentals of magic, but in the past few minutes I’ve worked a few things out.”
“Like how to have superhuman strength?” What if he decided to use his strength on someone else, like me?
“It’s not strength,” he said. “It’s levitation.” He winked again, this time full of mischief. “Had you fooled, didn’t I?”
A wave of worry dissolved, and I found myself laughing despite myself. “You did. Come on. Let’s get them up.”
We reinforced the poles with the help of the hammer, and then set about repairing the wood planks on the outside. We did as many of those by hand as we could, without the use of the hammer, as I didn’t want our luck to run out.
Rufus surprised me. He whistled while he worked, asking for my lead in things, but generally he listened to a little bit of direction and took off. He worked on his own, which I liked.
We repaired a lot of the facade. One last thing that I wanted to accomplish was transforming the front sliding doors into glass French doors. Feeling confident, I figured Rufus and I could frame them out—with the help of my hammer, that was.
“Are you sure about that?” Rufus asked. “Your luck’s been good.”
I scoffed. “I have the feeling we can get one more good fix out of this.”
“If you say so,” he murmured.
His tone suggested that he doubted it, but I ignored him. “The framing on these needs to be completed. If we can show Dooley that we’re ready for the French doors to come in, he’ll be super impressed.”
Rufus studied the area. “I’m sure he will be.”
He said it without confidence. Well, I’d show him. It was my turn to have the upper hand between us. I took a two-by-four and placed it to the barn, nail in hand.
“Okay, we just need to finish framing this.” I lifted the hammer and gave the nail one good whack.
Next thing I knew, the frame was finished. I brushed my hands and stared at Rufus, proud. “Looks like we did it.”
He nodded. “Looks like.”
“Let’s get out of here.” I called Lady, who was scratching her back against the floor. At the sound of her name, she jumped up and padded over.
I tossed the tools into the back of the pickup and slid behind the wheel. “All right. Let’s get you back to the bed and breakfast.”
“I could use a shower,” he said. “And a change of clothes.”
“Well, you never know. Maybe Malene dropped
something off while you were out.”
“That would be nice. Leather is great, but what I wouldn’t give for cotton—now that would be fantastic.”
Understanding the feeling, I smiled. Hey, I loved soft fabric as much as the next gal. “Let’s get out of here, then.”
I plugged the key into the ignition and turned, but nothing happened. Hoping this was no more than a coincidence, I turned the key again, but still nothing. The engine didn’t turn over; it didn’t even sputter.
My truck was dead.
Thank you, golden hammer.
“It’s broken,” Rufus said.
Irritation raced through me. This day had been absolute crap. Growling, I pushed out of the truck and slammed the door. Now I would need a tow.
One glance at my phone told me that it was dead, too. Super awesome. The golden hammer had delivered a double whammy. See? This was why I only used it in extreme circumstances.
Rufus exited the truck. “Any way of calling anyone?”
I shook my head. “We’ll have to walk back into town.”
He picked up Lady and put her on his shoulders. I wanted to argue, to tell him to put my dog down, but I let it go. This day had wrung me out to dry.
We’d only walked a few steps when I felt the first raindrop on the top of my head.
Rufus glanced over at me. “Looks like we’d better hurry before we get drenched.”
I grabbed my tool belt from the back of the pickup and quietly cursed the hammer. “That’s the last time I use you.”
Chapter 14
The first store we came to, Rufus and I ducked inside. Honestly it could have been a museum of the weird and fantastical and I wouldn’t have cared. All that mattered was getting out of the rain.
We stepped into Willard’s Pharmacy, a place straight from the past. On one side of the business stood the practical end, the actual pharmacy part, and on the other sat an old-fashioned soda shop with a dining counter where you could buy not only mixed fountain drinks but also order a cheeseburger and fries. Yep, Willard’s was a unique place.
He spotted us when we entered, looking like drenched rats, I’m sure.
“Clementine,” Willard called from behind the pharmacist counter, “what happened to you?”
