“Swoon? What an archaic choice of word.” Lindsay teased as she moved curiously forward to inspect his find. “I love it!”
There was a rattle, the sound of delicate little cups rocking in their perch on matching saucers, as Sam lifted the coffee service he'd picked up at Seville's from a shelf beneath the bar.
“This,” he said, giving the coffee server a quick tap. “This once belonged to a queen.”
Lindsay laughed. “A queen? Well, anything I could offer you now would certainly pale in comparison,” she said, but her hands were already reaching for the lace edged napkins, her eyes busily searching the interior for a place to put everything he'd brought out.
He kept his eyes on Emma, but to Lindsay, Sam said, “You remember Jordan, right? He is restoring a chiffonier for me that will serve as the perfect display case for this and we already know we are going to put it right over here at the end of the bar. But now that you are here, we can talk about what to do with the rest of the room...”
Chapter Four
Lindsay had explained to Emma on the drive over how she'd been introduced to Sam a couple years ago so their easy banter was no surprise but with the two of them now fully absorbed in their conversation about changes to be made to the coffee shop and her with nothing productive or even related to add, Emma felt a little out of place.
The barista, Gem, sat two mugs of steaming coffee in front of her and after a quick, sidelong glance at Lindsay to see if she was paying enough attention that she would notice her absence if she moved away, Emma sidled quietly toward the alluring, aromatic call of coffee.
Perched on a stool, she sipped at the frothy brew, her attention drawn to the antique coffee service now seemingly forgotten by coffee shop owner and interior designer alike. Had it really once belonged to a royal family? If so, she wondered, how had it managed to fall into the hands of the Seville sisters? Were the royals long dead?
Those questions only managed to rouse more, awakening the researcher in Emma until her inborn curiosity and a newly birthed wonder over the antique coffee service was fully engaged. Lifting a cup, she peered at the bottom, searching for an inscription. Finding only a small group of numbers and what might be a potter's mark—antlers or possibly crossed swords?—she committed them to memory and carefully replaced it on the tray.
A glance over her shoulder revealed that Lindsay and Sam—whom she now knew was the guy from Seville's—were still in deep, though animated, conversation so she rummaged in her purse for her notebook and pencil and started a quick sketch of the service that she could refer to later.
Time and again while her pencil rapidly skimmed the page her gaze were drawn back to Sam and each time it was, she felt her face heat even more. Stop it, Emma, she grouched to herself. There's no reason for your silly blushes. He doesn't know he's had a starring role in your dreams for the past three nights!
Glancing down at her notebook during one of her not so rare “argue with myself again” moments, she gasped. To the side of her sketch of the antique coffee service was a nicely rendered drawing of Sam Huntingdon—only she hadn't captured his likeness the way he looked today but the way she had seen him so many times in her dreams. Snapping the notebook shut, she shoved it and her pencil into her purse and forced herself to look away, out the curved bank of windows on the other side of the shop to distract herself.
It didn't help.
Sam's face was reflected in each pane of the glass and despite her fervid self-lectures to the contrary, the knowing look in his eyes said he was well aware of the nature of her thoughts if not the nature of her dreams these past few nights but that he was happy to let her stew in embarrassment over fear of being caught out.
Ridiculous.
Forcing her eyes to study the liquid in her cup, Emma admitted she'd found it a little odd that he remembered the puzzle she'd bought but hadn't said a word about the quilt she'd practically snatched out of his hands. If memory served—and judging by the level of dream detail her recall had been serving up to her since she followed Lindsay into the coffee shop, she was certain it did—he had seriously wanted that quilt. So why hadn't he mentioned it?
Puzzled, she turned on the stool to peer questioningly over her shoulder at him—and found him blatantly staring back. She froze. He knew. He knew his attention was disturbing her and she suspected he kept returning it to her on purpose—was it some kind of game with him?Her eyes narrowed and when the corners of his lips kicked up in a responsive little grin, she was sure of it. But—how could he possibly know what she had dreamed?
He doesn't, you little idiot, the voice inside her head screamed. But if you don't stop gasping and blushing like a teen-ager every time he looks your way, he is bound to figure out something's going on for sure!
Juvenile, she decided.
Her behavior was bordering on juvenile and there was far too much remembered pain buried in memories of her youth for her to want to revisit them now. She never wanted—or intended—to be that girl, ever again.
Straightening on the stool, she pointedly turned her back to him and sipped at her coffee, keeping her eyes focused on her cup and her attention purposely off of Sam while he and Lindsay finished their conversation.
“Put in that call to Rowena,” Lindsay said as she and Sam rejoined Emma at the bar. Reaching for her cup, she added, “There's not a lot of foot traffic—or any traffic, for that matter—by her place right now. Her sales are strictly word of mouth. I'm sure she would be delighted by the chance to relocate to a busier location.”
“Hmm, not to mention the second floor of a Victorian mansion would fit right in with her image. Nightshades—Hawthorne Grove's only after-hours florist.” Sam shook his head. “I still haven't figured out why anyone would want to go flower shopping after dark, but hey, if she's interested, I'm willing to give it a shot.”
Emma hadn't a clue who Rowena was but she had heard of the florist. “Nightshades? They grow the most amazing flowers there—the blooms are gorgeous and last practically forever.”
Sam's brows rose. “The flowers are undying?”
“I believe the word you were looking for is 'undead,' and that, too, fits right in with Rowena's image,” Lindsay added. “Although your choice of word does speak highly of you as a man, Huntingdon. When you mentioned undying, were you by any chance thinking of devotion?”
His gaze flicked toward Emma and she could swear she had actually felt it but she only returned his look with an empty stare.
“No, but now that you've brought it up, I think I will take Jordan with me when I go talk to Rowena. He can pick up something for Kaylee while we're there—as a token of his undying devotion to her, of course.”
Lindsay and Sam's easy back and forth banter continued for a few minutes while Lindsay nursed her coffee. Finally, she pushed the cup aside and got to her feet. “Time to head out to my next appointment.”
Sam stepped around her to collect her coat and held it out for her. “I'll call after I've seen Rowena. In the meantime, go ahead and put together a few sketches. I'm sure I can find someone who would be interested in renting out the second floor, even if it's just for office space.”
“I really don't know why you didn't think of it before,” Lindsay chided. “All that profitable floor space lying empty when you could have been collecting revenue from it every year since you first set up shop.”
Emma saw him reach for her coat, presumably to help her into it as he had done with Lindsay, and she snatched it out of his reach. Hurriedly shoving her arms inside, she preceded Lindsay to the door.
“It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Emma. Do stop in again soon for coffee,” he called after her but she didn't stop, merely lifted her chin in the barest hint of a nod before pushing the door open and marching through.
Sam chuckled.
“Stiff little bit of a thing,” he mused to Lindsay, who he noticed was also watching Emma walk away with a glimmer of curiosity in her eyes.
She grinned. “
Yet another interesting choice of word and I'm just crazy enough to take a chance with mine and Emma's friendship to tell you why.”
Sam held up a hand, stopping her. “Too much information. Too much information. I am sure whatever you are about to say will contain far too many details about at least one thing I definitely don't want to know.”
Glancing to make sure Emma was far enough out of earshot to not hear what she was about to reveal, her delicately arched brow rose as Lindsay made her parting shot. “I'm willing to bet you would be a little stiff too, Sam Huntingdon, if you knew the kind of dreams Emma's been having since the two of you ran into each other at Seville's.”
A single, perfect, blood-red bloom stood out against a web of greenery whose stems had been artfully tied with a matching red ribbon around a miniature bow hand-carved from the wood of a Hawthorne tree; it was the only warning the Seville sisters would receive.
Serephina knew it.
Mortianna knew it.
Esmerelda didn't understand how they knew, but the way her sisters were behaving after the departure of Rowena Bellaire, the owner of Nightshades—Hawthorne Grove's only after-hours florist, hand-delivered the blossom she was convinced it was true: the Cupid Heart Guard was coming—possibly for her—and it was all her fault.
Essentially, when she'd sold that darn quilt to the wrong woman, Esmerelda had broken some important codicil of the long-standing Cupid Pact—a mysterious contract of sorts which existed between her sisters and her and … and she didn't even know who the other parties were!
Apparently, neither did her sisters.
“Why can't either of you tell me? Who are the members of this mysterious CHG organization and why must we cower or sit in judgment beneath them? What do they do? Are they some kind of ancient, all-mighty, supernatural witchy police force? Am I to be taken into custody?”
“Taken?” Serephina paled, hastily dropping down onto the sofa while Mortianna clucked and soothed, trying to calm her.
“I'm sure it won't come to that, Merry,” she soothed over her shoulder. “It was just a quilt, after all.”
“Just a quilt?” Serephina's head came up. “That quilt was imbued with all the sensual emotion I could summon, and after years of rigidly enforced celibacy, I can assure you it was no small endowment! Not that it matters. Rather, Esmerelda, our problem comes from introducing our magic into the life of a woman for whom it was not intended.”
Esmerelda shrugged. “So we made a mistake. Someone else falls in love after a few sensual dreams. Where is the harm in that?”
“It's not the dreams, dear,” Mortianna explained, still using her soothing, unusually patient, mother hen tone of voice—mostly for Serephina's benefit, Esmerelda was sure. “It's the emotion behind those dreams. It needs to be channeled. To be directed. Properly directed—to its intended recipient.”
“We know who purchased the darn thing. What is to stop us from giving a nudge here and there to make sure whatever emotion her dreams conjure is headed in the right direction?”
“That's just not the way it works. Not the way it works at all,” Serephina moaned. “Why do you think I'm constantly nagging Morty to keep her fingers out of things once the magic has been cast? There are consequences to meddling—consequences neither of us are prepared to handle.”
“What consequences?” Esmerelda demanded, and when no answer was immediately forthcoming, she accused, “I don't believe you know. I don't believe either of you even remember. A pact, you say, that we all signed years ago—but you do not remember with whom the pact was made or even why? I'm calling hokey.”
“Hokey?” Mortianna made a face at her juvenile name-calling of the sacred treatise she and her sisters had pledged their lives to. “Nothing about the Cupid Pact is hokey, Merry. It's … It's …”
“Yes? It's what?” When neither of her sisters rushed to inform her, Esmerelda adopted her best “I-did-what-neither-of-you-had-the-courage-to-do” stance and admitted, “I went to the archivists. Since neither of us can seem to recall the contents of precisely what we've signed or why, I decided it was time to find out. That is where I went while the two of you were in New York. I paid the Keeper a visit.”
Mortianna's eyes went wide. “No! Esmerelda, you—you saw a Keeper of the Lore?”
Irritated now, Esmerelda narrowed her eyes and glared petulantly at her sister. “Yes, and so what? He isn't some untouchable, sacred deity, you know. Neither of them are.”
“Neither of them? You mean you saw them both? No, that's not possible. So which did you see? Airrik or Alastair?”
“Does it matter?” Esmerelda snapped, quickly coming to the end of her rope with all this forbidden acts and horrible consequences chatter. “No, it doesn't. What matters here is that finally I will know what all the hoopla is about. I've requested a copy of the Pact. When I receive it, I intend to lock myself in my room until I've read every word—even the small print! I cannot stand this anymore. I have to know why it is so important for us to serve the whim and whimsy of this unknown Cupid Heart Guard.”
“Why go to the Keepers, Merry?” Serephina asked, her voice both soft and weary. “Why didn't you simply ask us?”
“I have! All I get from the two of you is Do as you're told, Merry. Don't upset the balance, Merry,” she said, screwing up her face to add impact to her mimicry. “Well, now the balance is tipped and from what you two have told me there will be some dire and terrible consequence—only we don't know what or why or even when! But very well. If either of you know, tell me. Please. Tell me the terms of the Cupid Pact.”
“Hold on. Hold on!” Mortianna demanded, pointed toward the scrying dish they'd hastily pulled back out after Ms. Bellaire's delivery from Nightshades. They were hoping for a heads up regarding the imminent arrival of the CHG but Mortianna could scarcely contain her excitement when she noticed Emma Riley heading into Sam's instead.
“Look! She's gone to the coffee shop. Guess last night delivered one more dream than she could handle, huh, Serephina?”
“What do you mean?” Rising from the sofa, she pushed her sisters aside to peer into the dish and immediately turned away to wail. “Oh, no! I'm afraid we've made not just one mistake, sisters, but two.”
Turning back to the scrying dish, she pointed one slim finger at the other woman in the scene. “Look there, at her wrist. How did we lose the charm bracelet, too?”
Esmerelda cast a quick glance but she wasn't worried about the bracelet. “Well at least we got our 214 to the right person this time—and we didn't even have to try!”
Chapter Five
“We close in five,” Sam called out from behind the bar when he heard the front door open. He'd sent Gem home early and was just finishing putting away the last of today's mugs, cups, and assorted drinkware. “If you need it strong and black, we've got it, but other than that—”
Catching a glimpse from the corner of his eye of Emma standing uncertainly in the doorway caught him completely unaware and stole the words he'd been about to say. Surprise tinged his belated greeting. “Emma. Wow. Excuse me for saying so, but you're the last person I expected to see standing there when I turned around.”
It was the truth. He'd figured Jordan had stopped in to give him a last minute update on his progress with the chiffonier before he picked up Kaylee headed into town for dinner and a movie. Seeing Emma instead had made him do a sort of double-take but she was definitely a welcome sight. A knit burgundy beret covered her hair and mauve colored gloves warmed her hands, one of which held her purse while the other clutched at a brown leather satchel and Sam's curiosity already on high alert, he wondered what secrets it hid about the lady who carried it at her side.
She had yet to move away from the door. In fact, she was standing with her hand still flattened on the frame like she wasn't sure whether or not she actually wanted to be there and was actually on the verge of leaving. Then, in what must have been a hard-won moment of decision for her, she took a few steps closer to the bar. “I—
I couldn't sleep. I thought coffee might help.”
She couldn't sleep? Confused, Sam cocked his head to the side and blinked a time or two. “Come again? Usually people come in here to wake up, not fall asleep.”
“That was a joke.” Emma lifted an eyebrow then she turned away, her chin dipping downward as her cheeks flushed to a still delicate but slightly brighter shade of peach and pink. Sam thought she might even have winced.
“Apparently a very bad one,” she continued. “Sorry.”
“No! No, don't apologize. I'm glad people feel comfortable enough with me to crack a joke now and then,” he said, hoping a quick spate of chatter from him would give her time to recover from the temporary unease and embarrassment she obviously felt. Her chin rose a bit at that, and he smiled. “Lord knows I do enough of it myself. I just—I guess I wasn't really expecting humor from you. Threw me off my game.”
Immediately, her eyes narrowed in speculation and he mentally closed his. Smacked his forehead a time or two, as well, but only in his imagination. Oh, I'm an idiot. Having pretty much declared he didn't find her humorous—at least as far as she seemed to be concerned—he realized he'd probably just dug for himself the beginnings of a huge, gaping hole he had a feeling would end up being very difficult to get out of once he fell in. “I—ah, I didn't actually mean that the way it came out.”
“Of course not.” Sam noticed she'd gone rigid. Her backbone was so stiff, if she sneezed it might snap, and her chin had gone up so high he wondered absently if she could even see him now.
“You would never actually say you find me less than amusing. Or anyone else for that matter,” she added, and figuring it would be best to just keep his mouth shut for now, Sam waited, watching in silence as her expression slowly changed from one of offended hauteur to something a bit more polite and a tad bit apologetic and he wondered if she, too, had just realized she'd more or less admitted to thinking he didn't think much of her.
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