“Sorry,” she sighed. “I get all academic under pressure… um, no. As far as we know, the paintings are sort of an anomaly. Some of the writing is from cultures not believed to have cross the oceans or mastered travel over the sea at the time these were made.”
“Well,” Aiden said, “now that is a mystery, isn’t it. You would think there would have been more investigation into it.”
“I think most of the academics assume the cave is a hoax,” Bailey said. “Since it doesn’t fit with their historical narrative, it can’t be real. There’s been some testing, dating, things like that but… everyone who takes an interest eventually sort of loses it.”
“Almost like the caves don’t want to give up their secrets,” Aiden muttered. He was staring at the writing.
Bailey stared at him. Yes, that was precisely it. It was part of the magic of the caves, part of the will of the Genius Loci that had formed here. He seemed keenly interested, and more focused on those secrets than on the novelty and attraction of the caves themselves.
Well, that did it for her then. She had to be here, had to keep close to the caves and to Aiden. The last person that had threatened to reveal the Caves’ secrets was dead, and Avery seemed convinced that this was the start of a new series of murders—he’d dug up records from almost a century before that started with an incident very similar to Martha’s death.
“Mr. Rivers,” Bailey said, and quickly corrected herself, “I mean, Aiden—I’d very much like to work for you. For the your company, I mean. There’s nobody in town that knows the caves like I do. Believe me; it’s the reason Poppy put up with me as long as she did. I love this place, and I want to see that visitors get a good experience of the Caves, and of our town. I think I’m the best person for the job, and you won’t have to pay me much. Poppy barely paid me at all.”
Aiden took his eyes off one of the sections of ancient Greek letters and appraised her for a moment.
“I tell you what,” he said. “I’ll consider it.” He smiled at her, that slight, mysterious smile of his that she wasn’t at all sure how to interpret correctly.
“Okay,” she said. “Well, I appreciate that. Do you want to continue the tour?”
Aiden shook his head. “Not just now. I have a lot of reading to do. I appreciate your coming down here with me, though.”
“It was my pleasure,” Bailey said. She started to walk back toward the entrance to the cave, but Aiden didn’t move.
Bailey looked back at him questioningly
The man waved her on. “You go. I think I may spend a little while down here, get to know the place.”
Well, they were technically his caves now. In the legal sense, at least. She wasn’t sure why it made her so nervous—the Caves wouldn’t let him dig anything up and may even find a way to kick him out on their own. They did that sometimes. Strange things happened when you were alone in them; you remembered some errand you hadn’t run, or realized you’d forgotten to lock your car door, or were suddenly famished and in need of something to eat.
So she left him there, and walked back up the path to the tour office.
But she looked back several times, for some reason nervous about him being down there alone. It was probably nothing, of course. But Aiden Rivers just didn’t seem entirely… ordinary.
Chapter 4
Bailey spent the rest of the afternoon at the library, trying to occupy her attention with the menial task of re-shelving books rather than agonizing over whether she would be back in her old job. It was more than a matter of keeping an eye on Aiden, if she was being honest. She missed the Caves. Oh, sure, she spent plenty of time there still, but introducing new people to their mystery and entirely mundane, everyday magic was thrilling. It was like vicariously going back to her own childhood every time. Especially for the children in the groups.
Going back there now, often with the witches, the caves were still magical to her—even more so, in fact—but some of the mystery was gone for her. Long unanswered questions, now answered at least in part, somehow managed to make the Caves seem strangely less mysterious; less magical. It was odd, she thought, that she should feel that way, but there it was. There was, she supposed, always more allure in the unknown. Funny how that held up even now.
She heard the front door to the library open and close from within the non-fiction section—gardening books were hot this time of year and in the spring. Avery was at the desk, so she didn’t need to get distracted by it, but a moment later she heard Aiden’s already familiar, distinct baritone and near-British lilt. The library wasn’t enormous, and his voice carried a bit when he spoke.
“Hello there,” Aiden said.
“Hello,” Avery answered. “How can I help you?”
“Well, for one you can tell me where you got that shirt,” Aiden said. “It’s refreshing to see someone else with a sense of style in this little town.”
She couldn’t see it, but Bailey imagined Avery blushing. He didn’t respond right away. She also reassessed Aiden yet again. Or maybe he was just like that with everyone?
“Geeze,” Avery said after a moment. “You are a charmer. I deduce therefore that you must be Aiden Rivers.”
“Well dressed and clever,” Aiden said, a smile in his voice. Probably Avery was losing his mind. Bailey grinned at the thought before she remembered that she was suspicious of the shameless flirt. “You’re correct. Pleased to meet you…?”
“Avery Lee. Pleased to meet you. Are you looking for a book or… just out about town?”
“In fact, Avery,” Aiden said glibly, “I’m looking for Bailey Robinson, and word on the street is that she is often to be found here. Is that so?”
“She’s here,” Avery said. The front desk bell rang, a silvery note of summoning, though Avery knew Bailey could probably hear them.
She set a small stack of books back on the cart and found herself brushing her hair into some kind of presentable shape with her fingers as she made her way to the front. When she poked her head out from the shelves she made an effort to look pleasantly surprised. “Oh, hello,” she chimed at Aiden. “Fancy meeting you here.” That was silly; she resolved not to try being clever in the future. That was Avery’s racket.
Aiden smiled brightly when he saw her, and cocked his head a little to one side as she approached, appraising. “So, you’re a librarian on the side. That explains it.”
“Explains what?” She asked.
He tapped his temple. “All this.” The way he said it, she had a sudden thrill of panic that he meant her ability. But, no, he couldn’t. “Only a librarian could be so smartly thorough on a subject.”
“Which subject is that?” Avery asked for her. He was already shifting back and forth on his feet with excitement. Bailey wasn’t quite ready to jump to any conclusions.
“The Caves,” Aiden said. He leaned on the front desk a little, it was about rib-high on him, and settled onto one elbow, the other hand in his pants pocket. He was still in that sharp, tailored suit. “I took some time to think it over and run the numbers. I’d like Bailey to come run the tours for me. I tried to digest enough information to run a convincing tour myself, but… I just don’t quite have the hard drive for it. What do you say?”
Though she’d been excited at the prospect of running the tours again, and suspicious enough of Aiden Rivers to want to keep an eye on him, now that he was actually making the offer Bailey couldn’t help feeling somehow manipulated—like this had been his plan all along; to get her onto the tours for some nefarious reason. Like, perhaps, to keep an eye on her. The irony was not lost on her, but she couldn’t help feeling that way. Not after the odd questions he’d asked.
So she hesitated.
Avery’s eyes bulged at her for a moment, from outside Aiden’s peripheral vision as he mouthed, “Oh my word, take it!” and then quickly went back to being calmly, pleasantly engaged but disinterested. Except for his eyes, which bored into her as he willed her to accept.
It didn’t help t
hat Aiden very quickly sweetened the pot. “So we’re clear,” he said, “I won’t pay you the way Poppy did. I looked over her old books. That kind of money was ridiculous for this job. I can easily triple it, especially if we keep up this kind of business during the summers alone, much less the rest of the year. And, of course, I’ll pay you a good wholesale ticket price on your souvenirs.”
Somehow, it still felt like manipulation. More so, now. What exactly did he want from her? Why was he really here?
“She’ll take it,” Avery said brightly, when she didn’t answer fast enough for him.
Aiden glanced at Avery, and then smiled back at Bailey. “Is that right?”
Triple Poppy’s rate. That was very nearly a full time income, and difficult to overlook. Lately, Ryan hadn’t been writing; at least not anything paid. He maintained a blog but it was all new to him and monetizing it was still a long way away. Not so long ago, he’d written the piece about Martha Tells’ murder that had resulted in the story going wide—but there had been some spat between him and the new owners that he preferred not to talk about. Whatever it had been about, it seemed he’d been fired, or blacklisted, or whatever the equivalent for a freelance journalist was.
This kind of money would be helpful just now.
Avery and Aiden both stared at her, waiting. Bailey realized she’d been holding her breath, and let it out with a sigh. “Well,” she said, “I suppose, I can’t really turn it down. Not if it means you’d be running the tours.”
“Perfectly reasonable logic,” Aiden said. “Wonderful! Well, since you went to all the trouble of filling the books for the next two days, you can start tomorrow, first thing. We’ll sort out the paperwork after the last tour. How does that sound?”
“That would be fine with me,” Bailey said.
“Good,” Aiden told her. “So, now that that’s out of the way, I do have another question, since I’m here with you two brilliant locals.”
“Shoot,” Avery said.
“I’m afraid I haven’t gotten around to stocking my kitchen just yet,” Aiden said, “so I find myself in need of a local haunt to get a good supper from. Either of you have any recommendations?” He watched Bailey, though he was, technically, asking both of them.
Bailey sensed that the question had a bit more nuance than it sounded like, but she went the literal route anyway, just in case. “Well, there’s Gray’s Diner on third,” she said, “they don’t make anything that isn’t great. Then there’s Sandbar, on tenth by the beach—it’s a seafood place. This time of year, they have really great oysters. Brick-a-Brac is a pizza and pasta place, but their pizza is the best; they’ve got this giant brick oven at the end of the dining room where you can see them make it.”
Aiden was watchfully silent just for a moment before he nodded appreciatively. “Well done. I think a little seafood is in order. You have saved me once again, Bailey. It’s getting to be a habit.”
Entirely too slick, entirely too charming. Bailey wasn’t going to fall for it. Oh, no, mister. Not this girl. “Be sure and tell them I sent you,” she said. “They love to know people are talking about them.”
“I’ll do that,” Aiden said. Then he straighted and shook Avery’s hand again, as well as Bailey’s. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Avery; and I look forward to seeing you tomorrow morning, Bailey. I’ll be there early.” He winked at her, and then turned to leave.
When he was gone, Avery’s jaw dropped, and he took his thick-rimmed glasses off to polish them with the bottom of his shirt. “Holy. Crap.” He put them back on, and leaned on the counter with both elbows. “Who is this mysterious handsome man?”
“Aiden Rivers,” Bailey said flatly. “You’re welcome to him.”
“Don’t think I wouldn’t,” Avery said archly, “but I think it’s pretty clear that he is way into you.”
“What?” Bailey balked. “He’s just… that’s just him. He flirts. I feel like he would talk to his grandmother like that. No, no, no. If anything, he was laying it on you pretty hard.”
Avery shrugged a shoulder. “That’d be nice,” he said, “but I think that’s just his affect. He didn’t ask me to dinner.”
“He didn’t ask me to dinner either,” Bailey said.
“For someone as literate as you are,” Avery muttered, rolling his eyes, “you are so dyslexic when it comes to reading between the lines. Him asking all about ‘oh, woe is me, I have no groceries, where should I eat supper’? That was a line. He wanted you to throw it back to him, and end up going with him.” He held up a finger. “Which you couldn’t have, because we have dinner with Piper tonight and you promised you wouldn’t forget—again—which of course makes it my job to ensure it all happens.”
It was lucky, too; Bailey had forgotten. The last few times, she’d stood them up, busy working on magic with one of the witches to the point that she was entirely unaware of the passage of several hours, sometimes.
“I remembered,” she lied, plaintively.
“I had complete faith in you,” Avery said. “So in other news—can we celebrate you getting your old job back with a much better boss?”
When Bailey sighed, and agreed to it, Avery came around the front desk and did a ceremonial happy-dance with her; it involved jumping up and down, squealing and squawking and being generally excited for a moment. Bailey went ahead and indulged. It was exciting. More so than it had been the first time around, when she’d gotten the job from Poppy at seventeen. Then, it had been grudging and she’d begged the woman to hire her until she caved. This time, she was asked for by name; even if she had slightly shouldered her way into it a little bit.
It didn’t make Aiden any less mysterious, or Bailey less suspicious. But at the very least, it did make life seem momentarily a little bit like it was inching it’s way back toward normal. So, she’d take it.
Chapter 5
Bailey and Avery met Piper at Brick-a-Brac a few hours later, after the day’s load of books had been re-shelved, and the library locked up for the night. It was a short walk, no need to drive, and gave Bailey time to reflect on just how long it had been since she had more than a short phone call with her friend.
Avery it was easy to stay in touch with; working at the library with him meant that she saw him at least once a day most days. The witches didn’t call for Bailey to work with them on Wednesdays, so she did have some free time but she rarely took it. There was so much to learn, and the more she delved into the magic, the more she forgot about the world outside it. That would have to change if she wanted to keep her friends, she realized.
But there was another side of it as well. Every time she was around Avery, she felt a burning desire to tell him everything. It was bad enough with him; having both her best friends around her made it almost painful. She hated having secrets from them—she hated lying or keeping secrets about anything from almost anyone. She could never quite shake the feeling that they were aware of it in some unconscious way, even if they never openly pressed her about what it was she was keeping from them.
Piper, though, at least had other things to worry about than what secrets Bailey might be keeping from her; even if she didn’t typically bring them up. Bailey and Avery both knew that motherhood, marriage, and especially her awful mother-in-law were all heavy weights on her shoulders.
So, when the three of them got together, the two of them let Piper off the hook rather than push her to talk about her life; at least at first.
“Bailey has news!” Avery announced, once they were all seated and the initial pleasantries and hugs and ‘how have you beens’ were out of the way.
“Do tell,” Piper said, glancing up from the menu she knew by heart and didn’t need to look at in the first place. She was the only one using it.
Bailey cleared her throat. It seemed almost rude to jump right into all the good things happening in her life—assuming they did actually turn out to be good things—when Piper appeared more tired than usual. There were dark circles under Piper’s eyes
, and she looked a bit paler than normal. She was ready to pop any day now, it looked like; she was almost eight months along with her second child.
“Well, you know the tour office opened back up? There’s a new owner—”
“He’s to-die-for gorgeous,” Avery chimed.
“—named Aiden,” Bailey went on, rolling her eyes, “and he’s hired me back on. Three times what Poppy was paying, too.”
“That’s great, Bails,” Piper said. There was very little of it in her voice, though. She sounded distracted. She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I know you love the Caves.”
“Yeah,” Bailey said, but couldn’t find anything useful to follow up with.
“Did you two hear about Trevor and Gloria?” Avery asked, excited over a juicy bit of gossip. Avery loved nothing more, at times; especially times like this.
“I didn’t,” Bailey said. Hadn’t she seen them around recently? No, not recently… it must have been weeks ago.
“Well, it seems they’re seen together almost everywhere they go. People talk, you know, what with Trevor owning the paper now, and—”
“Wait,” Bailey said. “Trevor owns the paper? When did that happen?”
“Seriously?” Avery asked critically. “I’d have thought Ryan would have told you. He bought it up about a week after Poppy was convicted.”
Another sign Bailey was out of touch. Why hadn’t Ryan told her?
“Well, anyway,” Avery went on, “they look a lot like a couple. Can you believe that? I mean, I guess it makes sense, tragedy and all that; they say you recognize your own mortality or whatever. Still, Gloria’s kind of an ice queen; you’d think a guy with a personality like Trevor’s would be, I don’t know, into someone a little more…” he glanced at Bailey and then shrugged, “…positive, or something.”
For a moment, it looked like Piper tried to be interested. She nodded a few times, raised an eyebrow, shrugged a shoulder, and even made a derisive snorting sound at the mention of Gloria, who had already managed to shout at several of the locals over everything from a too-hot or too-cold coffee to double parking. She was in a constant state of irritation that no one seemed to care for. It was a small town, too—you couldn’t just act any way you wanted to and not be remembered for it.
A Witching Well of Magic: A Cozy Mystery (Witchy Women of Coven Grove Book 2) Page 3
