Candice thought things over while she got ready for work. Her family had money—lots of money. Because of the gifts and powers that ran through the seventh son in each generation, the McClains had amassed a healthy fortune, and all the family members, whether they had powers or not, benefitted from it. Her father, Bob, didn’t have any powers, but his nephew, Peter, was a precog like Marti, and he’d been able to add to the family funds by playing the lottery.
If Candice decided to take her father up on a gift or loan for a good deposit, she would be able to get into a better apartment than the ones she’d seen that morning. She believed, though, that the family money was meant to be used for truly good things, and she didn’t feel like this counted. She’d be uncomfortable with it.
She gave her hair an extra fluff and sprayed it, then headed toward the kitchen, where she knew she’d find her mother up to her elbows in flour. “Hey, Mom. I’m heading out to work.”
Barbara McClain looked up, a smudge of flour on her nose. “Did you find anything this morning?”
“Nothing that didn’t scare me. And it’s not like this town is huge—I don’t know if I’ll be able to find what I’m looking for.”
“You can stay here as long as you need to.” Barbara lifted a powdery hand. “And I know it irritates you to hear that—I just want you to know that you have the option.”
“Thanks, Mom. It does irritate me, but I know you offer it out of love, and that helps.”
Barbara smiled, then looked at Candice contemplatively. “What if you can’t find anything in Bagley? Have you thought about looking a little farther away?”
“I’ve thought about it,” Candice said slowly, trying to gauge her mother’s reaction. “I haven’t checked the want ads or anything, though—I’ve been concentrating my search here.”
“Well, I’d love it if all seven of my girls stayed here in town, but I’m starting to realize that’s just not possible. It looks like Jessica will be heading back and forth to Nashville with Kent, and if Rebekah gets into medical school, she’ll be moving to San Antonio, and of course Heather’s in Idaho. Your father and I should sell the house, buy an RV, and spend our retirement traveling around the country to visit you all. That might be fun.”
Candice laughed. “Oh, I can just see Dad now, tooling down the road in his Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses, you sitting next to him with your knitting. You’ve gotta do it, Mom.”
“I don’t know about all that, but I’m thinking about the RV. You’d better get going or you’ll be late.”
Candice reached out, pulled off a pinch of bread dough, and popped it in her mouth. “See you later, Mom.”
The rain had mostly let up, but was still a slight drizzle as she drove the short distance to the strip mall where Downtown Chic was located. She avoided the puddles as best as she could as she crossed the parking lot, but she was still wetter than she wanted to be as she entered.
Roxie, her manager, looked up from the till. “Hey there. I’m more than ready to hand this off to you—it’s slow today, and the people who have come out are as cranky as crud. I’ve never seen it rain like this before—have you?”
Candice shook her head as she pulled off her overcoat. “Never, and I’ve lived here my whole life.”
“Well, I’m over it. I wish someone could tell us when it’s finally going to stop—I’m getting to where I’d even take snow over this.”
So would Candice. As she hung up her coat in the back room, she paused, feeling out the weather, but she could detect no sunshine at all. It was almost as if the clouds had banded together to create an impenetrable shell separating the earth from the sky. What would cause such a thing, and in Bagley, Texas, where they averaged around thirty inches of rain in an entire year? Now it felt like thirty inches a day.
She shook her head, trying to push that aside. She couldn’t worry about that right now, or her apartment. She was at work, and she had work to do. She headed back up to the front. “What do you need?”
“Dust the shelves and straighten the racks. I’m running down the street for my lunch break—you’re good on the register, so I know you’ll be fine without me, and it’s not like we’re expecting huge crowds today.” Roxie grabbed her purse from under the counter. “See you in a bit.”
She left, and Candice grabbed a rag and a bottle of spray cleaner for the shelves. She had just wiped down the first section when the door opened, making the little bell chime. She tucked away her cleaning supplies and turned to greet her customers, surprised to see Rebekah and Jeremy there, and Greg in his wheelchair.
“Hi!” Candice greeted them. “What a great surprise. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”
She directed this question at Greg, who shrugged and smiled. “I didn’t know until this morning.”
Greg and his parents lived in San Antonio, an hour away. That wasn’t very far if you compared it to, like, New York, but it was still far enough that she hadn’t expected to see him. “I’m glad you’re here. Marti’s been driving me nuts, and I need someone else to hang out with for a while.”
Rebekah laughed. “You can’t hang out with your other sisters? You’ve got lots to choose from, you know.”
“You’re all busy falling in love and getting married and stuff. Your schedules are pretty booked.”
“Well, I don’t deny that, but we’re still here for you.” Rebekah slung her arm around Candice’s shoulders. “This looks like a nice store. Trendy. Do you like it?”
“I haven’t been here long enough to say, but it’s fun so far.” She’d leave out the bit about the customers and their weirdness. “I get an employee discount, and I’ll always know what’s in style because this place keeps right on top of things.”
“Like you care about stuff like that,” Rebekah said, fingering a bangle bracelet on a rack next to the cash register.
“I admit, it’s not a perfect fit for me, but neither was banking,” Candice replied, referring to her previous job. “Is it dumb to say that I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up?”
“You’re twenty-two. Do you have to know all the answers right now?” Rebekah glanced over at the two brothers, who were checking out some belts on the other side of the store. “Have you asked Marti for her opinion?” She lowered her voice so she wouldn’t be overheard. Jeremy knew about the family’s powers, but Greg didn’t.
“Marti says I’m going to drive myself nuts if I don’t stop stressing out, and she’s right. I didn’t need her gifts to tell me that.” Candice paused. “She also said something about me dating Greg.”
“She did?” Rebekah’s eyes flew wide. “That’s awesome! But wait. You don’t seem too thrilled by the idea.”
“I don’t know what to think. I mean, we’ve talked on the phone several times, but we’ve only seen each other in person once in a while, and it’s weird to think about dating someone I don’t really know. You know?”
“He’s going to be here for a couple of weeks,” Rebekah said. “This might be a great opportunity for you to get to know him better and decide what you want.”
“He’s going to be here for a couple of weeks? Why?” Candice realized that she sounded a little waspish. “I mean, that’s awesome, but what brings him here?”
“Jeremy just woke up this morning with the thought that he should go get his brother for a visit. He called me, asked if I wanted to go on a road trip, and we went and picked Greg up. Very impromptu, but Greg said he needed a change of pace, so he was more than glad to come. He’ll stay at Jeremy’s place, and I’m going to talk to my hospital people and arrange for him to do physical therapy while he’s here.”
Candice chuckled. “So, Jeremy’s having strange feelings? Is he starting to develop special gifts too?”
“I teased him about that this morning. He said it’s not a special gift, but more like, knowing his brother. We know what that’s like—it’s a sibling thing.”
“Yup, we sure do.” Candice glanced over at Greg. He was holding a b
elt and making a comment, looking up at Jeremy and laughing. It was the weirdest thing—one minute, he looked like her friend, the guy she’d known for a few months now, but then the next minute, she was seeing him like it was for the first time. She was noticing what he looked like, what his laugh sounded like—and it was all Marti’s fault for saying what she did about them dating.
“We’ll go for now and let you get back to work, but Greg really wanted to stop by and say hi as soon as we got to town. Can you come out to dinner with us tonight?” Rebekah asked.
“Yes, of course. I get off at six.”
“Perfect. Why don’t we meet at Comida at six thirty? We’ll head down a little early and make sure there’s a table.”
“Sounds great.” Greg had wanted to come find her as soon as they got to town? That was so sweet, and yet she’d hardly spoken to him at all since they’d gotten there. She had to fix that. She crossed the store and joined him at the belt display. “You know, it’s not bad, but I don’t think it’s quite you. You’d probably be into something a little more masculine.”
Greg laughed, holding the pink rhinestone belt up under his chin. “It’s not my color?”
“It’s not your gender.”
He laughed again. “Fair enough. I’m guessing I’m not going to find anything for me here?”
“It’s a ladies’ clothing store, so unless you’d like to try something completely different from your usual wardrobe, nope. I can’t help you.”
“I’m an adventurous guy, but I know how hard you ladies work to look as good as you do, and I’m not up to that sort of challenge.” He nodded toward Jeremy. “Should we let her get back to work?”
“Yes, because it’s so busy here today,” Candice said. There were still no customers in the store, and she wondered if that’s how the whole day was going to go.
“We’ll see you at dinner,” Rebekah replied, and the three of them left to scamper across the parking lot as quickly as they could so they wouldn’t get drenched in the rain, the wheels of Greg’s chair kicking up a spray of water as Jeremy pushed it.
Candice leaned against the counter for a moment before collecting her dust rag from its hiding spot. First, she hadn’t expected Greg to come waltzing . . . er, rolling . . . into the store. Second, the fact that he wanted to see her right off the bat made her wonder if he was expecting more out of their relationship than she was willing to give. She was a little panicked at the idea that he might be depending on her too much—she wasn’t cut out to be someone’s anchor. That was a Rebekah thing.
And third . . . third. Wow. He was actually pretty good-looking, which was something she’d known, but didn’t actually know. She hadn’t been looking at him in that way because she thought of him as a friend. But now that Marti had brought up the possibility, she was noticing a nice chiseled jaw, a twinkle in the eye, maybe just a little bit of a dimple in his left cheek, and dang, if his arms weren’t buff from rolling himself around in his wheelchair. She’d actually found herself attracted to him, and that had been such a surprise, she hadn’t known how to respond to it.
She grabbed the rag and dusted while she thought. How long had it been since her last boyfriend? She hadn’t been serious about anyone for a while, and she’d chased away the last one by commenting that she thought it might rain, and then it started fifteen minutes later. That might not have been so weird if it had been cloudy, but she had sensed the rain while it was bright and sunshiny, and almost as soon as she spoke, a huge cloudbank rolled in. It was pretty creepy, now that she thought about it, and she didn’t blame old what’s-his-name for taking off the way he did. Maybe that’s what her gift was for—scaring off potentially bad boyfriends. Heather could identify them, and she could scare them. They should be working as a team.
She moved on to straightening the clothes on the racks, her brain bouncing around from one thing to another. She wished she could just make it slow down and concentrate on one thing at a time, but that didn’t seem possible.
A group of high school girls came in an hour later and kept her busy as they tried on one outfit after another, leaving the unwanted clothes on the dressing room floor. She rang up the one T-shirt each they ended up buying, then spent fifteen minutes cleaning up the mess they left behind. She didn’t think she was cut out for being a sales clerk—not if this was how the majority of customers behaved.
By the time she pulled into the restaurant, she was more than ready to stuff herself silly with cheese. Mexican food cured every problem there was, and she definitely had some things on her mind.
When she walked in, she wasn’t expecting to see Greg standing by the entrance to the dining room, waiting for her.
“I didn’t realize you were so tall,” she said, grinning up at him.
“I’d kind of forgotten it myself.” He held out his arm. “We have a table already. May I escort you?”
“Of course.” She took his arm, only a little petrified that he’d lose his balance and she wouldn’t be strong enough to catch him as he tumbled headfirst into someone’s plate of enchiladas. He’d only been walking for a short time—she had no idea what to expect.
Jeremy stood up to greet her when she approached the table—what a gentleman—and she sat down next to Greg and across from Rebekah.
“Isn’t this cozy—boy girl, girl boy?” Rebekah asked, then paused when no one responded. “Oh, come on. Movie quote!”
“White Christmas,” Jeremy replied, and she beamed at him.
“See? This is why I’m marrying you.” She slid the queso and chips closer to Candice. “All right, little sister, what’s up? You look done in. Hard day at work?”
“No, not really. It just seemed like it.” Candice dunked a chip and then chewed. “That’s just the thing—nothing bad is actually happening to me, but I feel overwhelmed, and I don’t know why. I think I need a long vacation on a beach somewhere.”
“Yeah, you seem pretty burned out.” Rebekah reached out and laid her hand on Candice’s arm. To anyone walking past, it would look like she was showing compassion, but Candice knew she was checking her for illnesses or disease. “You might think about having your thyroid and your adrenal glands checked when you get a minute.”
Candice nodded. “Thanks—I’ll look into that.” Meaning, I’ll make the appointment tomorrow. If Rebekah was making a recommendation based on her powers, she should follow up.
Then she turned to Greg, and the nervousness she’d felt earlier returned. She could pretend everything was the same, right? “What kinds of things do you want to do while you’re here?”
“I’d like to head out and see the boys’ ranch, if that’s okay—from the way I’ve heard you all talk about it, it sounds like an impressive place.”
“It really is, and I’d love to take you out there. Our uncle has put his heart and soul into it, and it shows in the way the boys have been able to find hope in their lives. You remember our older sister Jessica, right? She’s been helping out there over the last few months, and she says she’s amazed every day by the difference a kind word and an opportunity can make.”
Greg nodded. “Hope is vital for survival, but there seems to be so little of it in the world. I can’t tell you how much good Rebekah did for me by giving me hope that I’d walk again—I think that might have done me almost as much good as the surgery itself.”
Rebekah waved a hand. “Oh, you’re making me blush. I was just doing my job.”
Jeremy put his arm around her shoulders. “In the kindest, most generous way possible.”
Candice looked at Greg and rolled her eyes. “Can you believe these two? The way they goober all over each other is ridiculous.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I think it’s cute.” Greg flashed his brother an over-exaggerated grin.
Their meal arrived, and Candice nearly dove headfirst into her cheesy enchiladas. Conversation dwindled to nothing as they ate, and then as soon as Rebekah and Jeremy were done, they stood up. “We just remembered that we’ve got t
o go,” Jeremy said. “Candice, would you mind giving Greg a ride back to my place when you’re done?”
“Um, sure,” she replied, and they skedaddled out the door.
“That was . . . not at all subtle,” Greg said, watching them go.
“Yeah, you’d think they wanted us to spend some time together or something,” Candice replied. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that—she’d either be thanking Rebekah or strangling her the next time she saw her.
Chapter Three
Greg couldn’t help but feel like he’d made a mistake in coming to Bagley. When Jeremy had called that morning and invited him to come, it sounded fantastic—a nice change of pace, a chance to get out of the house for a while. He’d be with his brother and his brother’s fiancée the whole time, and who could ask for better supervisors than a paramedic and a nurse? And then, of course, there was the chance to hang out with Candice.
He knew she’d be surprised to see him, and rightfully so, but he hadn’t expected her to be so . . . uncomfortable. She looked like she felt absolutely awkward, and that wasn’t what he’d intended. And now with the way Jeremy and Rebekah had all but run out the door, leaving the two of them alone, it made things even more uncomfortable, and he didn’t know how to fix this.
Well, there was one way, and it would require the absolute truth, but he could do that.
“Candice, I feel like I owe you an apology,” he said, turning to face her. “I didn’t mean to pressure you by showing up like this, and I don’t expect you to spend all your free time playing tour guide for me, let alone taking care of me. You don’t have to take me out to the boys’ ranch—I’m great just to hang out at Jeremy’s. He just got a ham radio of his own, and he’s asked me to set it up and show him the basics. So really, I’m fine.”
She sucked in a deep breath, and for a moment, he worried that he’d only made matters worse. “It’s not that,” she said at last. “It’s not that at all.”
“Then what is it?”
Candice (Seven Sisters Book 6) Page 2
