“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Lex said, making it clear that he wasn’t going to let her get away with telling him so little.
As if he had some control. She smirked at him and then said, “So you should probably be ready to tell me all about your relationship with Lacey. Because I’m going to find out what there is to know whether you like it or not.”
“Oh yeah? How?” He asked it as he headed towards the door and Scarlett didn’t answer until he and Gus were on the other side of the doorway.
“Kelly. Abby. Henna. Becca Lovejoy. The options number as high as the residents of this town.”
“You think I’ve been telling my secrets?” His face said he hadn’t and that made her doubt for a moment.
“I think Lacey told everything,” Scarlett told him. And then, she shut the door in both of their faces, crossed to the bathroom, took one of the fastest showers of her life, braided her head, and curled up on the bed situated in the middle of her living space.
Right before she fell asleep she talked to the door about unity and oneness, calling on the druid in her and the affinity she had for growing things. The wood flooring that had been laid might not have been technically alive anymore, but it responded to her power. In the coming days, if it accepted her request, the slats would bond and seal in a way that interlocking wood flooring never would for anyone other than a druid. It would be a shining sea of wood that would warm her daughter’s feet, protect their home, and provide a solid foundation for their lives.
Chapter 15
“Henna, tell me about Brad and Lacey,” Scarlett after she had downed her fourth cup of coffee. She’d been moving like a zombie and her whispers to her cups of coffee had upped the abilities of the bean—giving Scarlett an energy she didn’t deserve.
“What about them? You know they dated in high school. Seems like for a while now, they’ve been friendly.”
Scarlett sniffed and asked the question that had been weighing on her mind since she’d talked to Brad, “Could they have been sleeping together?”
Henna considered as she kneaded the loaf of bread she was working on. There was a big bowl of nutty wheat dough in front of her, and Henna was shaping it into individual loaves for the bread of the day. Every day they made whole wheat, herb, white, and french. Every day they made specialty loaves that had residents of Mystic Cove stopping in for their favorites.
Scarlett was making the bagels. The forming of the dough was a muscle memory she hadn’t forgotten and there as something soothing in creating one after another, not having to think about what her hands were doing while she pondered what Brad had done.
“You know…” Henna said, a little distracted as she considered what Scarlett said. “I haven't heard anything about that. If they were…well…I don’t know. But you know what I don’t buy? Brad Day putting a spell on Luna. Never been a fan of the man myself, but he loves little kids. Loves ‘em.”
Scarlett was surprised by that. Brad had been as cruel and nasty as Lacey and Kelly in high school. Scarlett had to admit she’d never seen Brad around little kids, but it was hard to imagine.
“He dotes on those kids of his. He and Kelly have three. Two boys, a little girl. Brings ‘em here pretty often. You see them playing in the park or walking along Arbor Avenue while Kelly is off waiting on Lacey.”
Scarlett hadn’t even really seen Brad’s face in the dark—only the changed shape. She hadn’t had a chance to examine him or even get a feel for him. All she’d gotten was the fact that he drank too much and that he must fight with Kelly pretty often. Truthfully, though, Scarlett wasn’t sure that any spouse wouldn’t be finding refuge from a partner such as Kelly. Maybe Brad had found his refuge in Lacey?
“I’m not sure I’m the best to investigate this one,” Scarlett said, honestly. She was sick to her stomach from exhaustion, but more so from the secrets of Mystic Cove. “I don’t like any of the people involved. If Luna weren’t a piece of the puzzle, I’d be a disgustingly happy observer. Enjoying each titillating piece of gossip and not caring who really did it.”
“Luna being involved ruins it for me too,” Henna said as she formed another loaf. She shook her head and looked around the bakery before glancing back at Scarlett. “What does that say about us?”
“That we’re harpies,” Scarlett told Henna and then laughed. “Repent!”
Henna cackled at Scarlett’s sarcasm and then said, “It’s not very druid of us.”
“But it is very Mystic Cove,” Scarlett countered. “I hated the gossip in the town when I was a teenager. Hated it. I’m not even home a week and it’s my every thought.”
Henna reached out, for a moment to touch Scarlett’s shoulder, and then said, “Your every thought is keeping your little girl safe, Scarlett Oaken. Don’t be too hard on yourself. Once you’re a mom—you’re a mom first. I know you know this. And you’re not just a mom, you’re a good one. I’ve seen you with those girls of yours. They’re lucky to have you.”
Scarlett teared up. She told herself it was because she was so tired, but the truth was—she couldn’t remember the last time that someone had told her she as a good mom. And nothing meant more to her—nothing. She hated herself for snapping at the girls. She hated the way their comfort food was macaroni and cheese because Scarlett was too tired to cook the meals she’d learned to make for them. She’d never realized when she learned to cook for her future family that none of her ideas about parenting would come to pass.
“What wouldn’t I do for my daughter?” Scarlett asked, rolling out another bagel and then glancing around the bakery. “It feels right to be back here—but without them, I wouldn’t have come back. I’d never have been willing enough to face the music with my family.”
“But are you glad to be here?”
Scarlett glanced over and then down at the bagels. It was time to boil them and then bake them. She took a moment to answer, trying to find a way to express the emotions. Henna deserved a true answer. She’d been a long-term friend and she was making Scarlett’s return to Mystic Cove so much better than it could have been.
“You know before you have kids, people would tell you—they change everything. That life is so much better with them. That it’s impossible to explain the way being a parent can effect you?”
Henna nodded, eyes fixed on Scarlett’s face.
“It’s like that. Before you’re a parent, you’re like the Grinch. Your heart is sizes smaller than it could be, and you never know that your heart is too small because that’s all you’ve ever felt.”
To keep busy, Scarlett started making her girls favorite cookies. Monster cookies, all sweets—no nuts.
“And then this little person enters your life and they’re helpless and squalling and so much work. But somehow, caring for that little person—your heart grows and grows and grows and the way you view everything changes. And suddenly—you’re a different person.”
Scarlett dumped a bag of M&Ms into the dough, followed by a bag of butterscotch chips, a bag of white chocolate chips, and a bag of milk chocolate chips. As she did, she thought about that moment, a few months after Ella was born, when she realized that her whole like was different.
Scarlett continued, “Being a parent makes you a purer, better version of yourself. Everything matters more. What you want changes entirely because your heart is totally different. Being here is like that. I wouldn’t have wanted this before my girls. And now that I have them, I couldn't want anything else. I want to see them run down Arbor Avenue and know they’re safe because this is Mystic Cove. I want to see them weave through the grove with the Circle and watch their power grow. I want to watch them do stupid things with Harper and curl up with Gram and tell my mom their stories. No ancient grove in Bangkok or Dublin could ever compete with those things.”
“I understand,” Henna said and Scarlett knew Henna did. She had five daughters, and she was retiring to spend more time with her grandchildren.
Scarlett quickly finished her cookie dough, stuck
it in the fridge, and went back to the bagels. Boiling them and laying them on the massive baking sheets to be finished off. They sold dozens and dozens of bagels every day. Today she’d made the traditional plain, wheat, cheddar, and—again because she’d been thinking of her girls—strawberry chip.
She needed to make sure the bakery continued to be successful—and to get the other apartments cleaned up and rented out. She needed to be sure that she could support her daughters and then a thought hit her.
“How much does the mayor make?”
Henna glanced over and shrugged.
“Do they make enough to support themselves by that alone?”
Henna considered and then said, “Before Lacey—every mayor of Mystic Cove had another job too. This isn’t a very big town—I can’t imagine…”
Scarlett thought back to high school. Kelly came from a wealthy family. Brad’s family had that successful car lot. But Lacey…Lacey’s dad had been…Scarlett couldn’t remember. But she remembered that Lacey drove a second hand Honda like Scarlett had. And she remembered that Lacey had lived down the street from the Lovejoys—who hadn’t been wealthy, either. Lace had only worked as the mayor and she had a big house up on the hill near Brad and Kelly’s.
Who had paid for that?
“What kind of car did Lacey have?”
Henna glanced over and then said, “A pretty little white BMW.”
Scarlett scratched her chin and then said, “Isn’t that weird? Her parents weren’t rich. And they’re not dead, so it isn’t like she got some big life insurance or something. She’s single, so…”
“I always figured she set her sights on Gus because he’s not poor,” Henna said as she considered Scarlett’s question. “She was like a tiger stalking her prey with the boy, and her intention was definitely his wallet. She got him to take her to the most expensive restaurants. She…it was bad.”
“Tell. Me. All,” Scarlett ordered as she worked.
Henna’s laugh was the slightest bit evil, and then she admitted, “All I know is that they went out a few times. Then they suddenly stopped and Lacey was unhappy. The rumors were wild, but who would believe most of them of Gus? I always figured that boy came to his senses and escaped. Knowing him, he tried to break it off gently and flubbed it up.”
Scarlett considered and realized that Henna has probably pegged it. Gus was wealthy. The Frost family had been the richest family in town since forever, and he owned a gorgeous, massive victorian in downtown, and she knew he worked only because he wanted to. She'd kept up on him through Harper and Henna, so she knew he’d gotten the forensics degree or whatever it was. And she knew he’d considered an MD. He more collected degrees than worked.
“To tell you the truth,” Henna said, with a sidelong look, “I doubt he’d have dated Lacey at all if we hadn’t just heard the news of little Luna. He’s carried a flame for you since kindergarten. He seemed a little more broken after that.”
“Oh shut it,” Scarlett said, mildly.
“You’re blind to that boy,” Henna insisted.
Scarlett shook her head as she loaded the bagels into the oven. She’d know Gus forever, he was her best friend. That was all. Sure he was the pinnacle of attractiveness these days but that didn’t mean that there was anything like that between them.
“Believe the lies you tell yourself if you must. But Gus took Lacey out three days after Luna was born, and he stopped dating Lacey long before Luna’s first birthday. Which was….right around the time Harper really started looking into places for you.”
Scarlett paused and then went back to work. Harper had started looking the first time Scarlett had found lipstick on Grant’s collar. She’d still been carrying the baby weight. She had been exhausted and in near constant pain from a back injury. She’d never felt uglier than when she’d found that coral pink lipstick on his collar. She’d tucked away her feeling, gotten healthy again, and Grant had seemed to come back to her family. But—Harper had never stopped looking for something for Scarlett and she had stopped hoping for the fairytale of her and Grant.
Those had been hard days. But they’d prepared her for these days. The last shreds of her fairytale had died and she’d come home. She’d come home, right back where her path had led, and she knew it was the right choice.
“Where did Lacey’s money come from?” Scarlett asked. “How did she stay mayor? What’s the deal with her and Lex? Her and Gus? And maybe even weirder than her and Gus, her and Abby?”
Henna humphed, and they settled into silence as they finished the morning baking, each considering the answers to those questions.
* * * * *
Gus was waiting outside the back of the bakery when Scarlett left 10 minutes after closing.
“Hey,” he said.
She paused, staring at his face—it was so unfamiliar. But if she closed her eyes, her druid senses recognized everything about him. The way his energy melded into the energy of the garden, the sound of his voice, the scent of him in the air. If Scarlett were being honest with herself, her soul recognized him because he seemed to slide into the holes in her heart and fill them. That didn’t, she told herself, mean something extra. All that it meant was that he was important to her. It was, she reminded herself stringently—very similar to how she felt about Harper. And Luna and Ella. And Gram and Mom. He was family. And she was in no position to try to read anything else into that sense of knowing.
“Hi,” she said. She leaned over to tap a flower and say hello to the garden. And then she headed to the back gate. He fell in beside her.
“What are we doing?” He asked as he had nearly every day after school.
She couldn’t help but smile up at him as flashes of memory darted through her mind.
“I…I feel out of place still. I thought I’d walk around for a while. Harper took the girls horseback riding, so I can’t go see them right now.” Her mouth twisted trying to hide her disappointment.
“You miss them that much? I can smell how sad you are.”
She nodded.
“Even though they’re only across town?”
“They belong here. With me. Maybe it would be different if Mom and Harper were giving me a break. But…”
“But they’re not. You didn’t get to choose this.”
Scarlett reached up to a passing oak tree letting her fingers tickle the leaves and say hello. She’d always liked that tree.
“And I wouldn’t have. Not now. Not right after we got here. Not with Luna and Ella struggling about their dad.”
“Are you ok about that?” Gus sounded so…concerned that she punched him in the shoulder.
And then she told him the truth. “No. Not at all. Not even a little bit. And yes.”
“All at once?” His voice was so gentle and concerned.
“I wanted something different for us,” she said, with all the hurt welling. “But I didn’t get to choose. I feel like it’s my fault. And that it’s not. And it’s probably both. But in the end, rather than trying to fix us—Grant choose to start again. And that makes me feel like discarded trash. Because if he’d let me pick, I’d have tried.”
She pressed her lips together to keep back all the feelings that were welling. All of the rejection and the hurt and the wishing for what she and Grant once had.
And then she added, “I did try. Over and over again. But once it broke, it was broken. The rest was a long slow death and then pretending it wasn’t over.”
“I wish I could make it better for you,” Gus said simply.
He let his fingers brush hers and if they had been seven again, she’d have taken hold. But they weren’t seven and that touch made her hair stand on end and her interest perk, and she wondered if maybe the problem was that it had been so long since she and Grant had been together that she was needy.
But maybe it was because he wanted to make her life better, and she loved him for it.
“I’ll be ok,” she told Gus, hooking her arm through his. “I promise.”
She looked over at him and he avoided her gaze. He knew her so well, he must have realized that her thoughts had turned to him and Lacey.
“She asked me to bite her,” Gus admitted, his voice low. And he’d looked around before he said. “I couldn’t…perform.”
Scarlett’s brain stuttered for a second and then she said, “Lacey wanted you to bite her—vampire style?”
Gus nodded once, sharply.
“And your fangs didn’t emerge?”
He nodded again. He cleared his throat but said nothing else.
“She must have felt pretty rejected,” Scarlett said softly.
He cleared his throat.
“And pretty angry at you.”
He nodded again. “She was…vindictive every time I saw her after.”
“You dated her about four years ago?”
Gus nodded, still not meeting Scarlett’s gaze. But he hadn’t pulled his arm from hers, and she hoped he knew she loved him for it.
“You might be a real consideration if she’d been killed four years ago. But now…now it’s gossip. Why are you ashamed? I wouldn’t want to bite Lacey either.”
“I’ve never tried to bite anyone since then.”
Oh. Goodness. Scarlett tried to think of something to say. This wasn’t a Dracula movie. Vampires existed on food like everyone else, but their magic was associated with blood.
“You don’t seem weak,” Scarlett told him.
“I drink it out of blood bags. Like when I was a kid,” he said. “Biting…most…most vampires…it’s a private thing.”
Scarlett paused and then took his hand. “It’s ok, Gus, buddy.”
He stiffened, and she wondered if she’d said the wrong thing. Had she somehow treated his worries too lightly? She knew he’d felt second-best their whole childhood because his fangs had come in so late. But he wasn’t second-best at all. Fangs came in before you reached a quarter century. For some vampires, it was in their teens. For Gus, it had been his early-twenties. It wasn’t a big deal, but for Gus…it had always bothered him. And, of course, vampire children tended to be pretty weak until they got their fangs.
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