“Bet he had a bunch of junk in here, eh?”
“Nah, place was pretty clean, surprisingly.” She headed back to the kitchen. “There’s a heap of stuff in the side yard, but that’s about it. Old wood and probably a hotbed of scorpions. Hauling it away is on the list.”
The side yard. He thought about moving that task to the top of his list, but decided against it. Little vials of infused oil or whatever the secret ingredient was wouldn’t be in the junk pile outside.
For now he’d start downstairs and work his way through the building. If his search downstairs didn’t uncover anything, he’d have to figure out how to get upstairs into Storie’s loft.
His brain grew hazy at the very idea of getting that close to her again, and the doubts about what he was doing crowded back to the front of his mind. He didn’t like deceiving Storie, but he didn’t know how else to get what his dad needed, and right or wrong, Jiggs needed his help. He picked up his tools, looked at the list of things to do, and headed off to the tearoom. It was as good a place as any to start, and since he was here searching, he might as well help. A little, anyway.
Chapter 6
The afternoon was hotter than a two-dollar pistol, but the blistering heat was instantly forgotten as Storie stepped into the shop. The air conditioner wasn’t blasting cold air through the café. The damn thing went on the fritz and was now on the list of things to fix. She was beyond tempted to wave her hand, utter a spell, and fix the thing herself. Instead, she scrawled with an invisible pencil, adding to the lengthy list they already had going.
Rumblings around town were one thing, but out-and-out blatant witchcraft, that was something else.
If it came right down to it, though, she’d already decided she’d send Harper away for an afternoon and fix everything herself, saying she’d found the most amazing contractor to take over for Buddy.
The door opened behind her. She turned, ready to greet a potential new customer. Instead she was met with a trembling mail woman. She hurried in and dropped the stack of catalogs and letters on the first table she came to.
“Thanks.” Storie held her hand out and stepped forward, but her smile froze on her lips when the woman didn’t answer. The woman threw up her hand in a quick wave and darted back out the door, leaving Storie staring at her empty shop.
So Storie’s reputation hadn’t faded. In an instant, all the anxiety she’d felt as a child as her magic had gone haywire pooled in her gut. Her hope started to ebb as she realized that she might be destined to never fit in anywhere.
She tried to let the incident go as she heard the sweet sound of a hammer pounding against wood. Maybe she wouldn’t have to go so far as to cast spells around Harper and the girls, because Buddy was back.
She passed the kitchen, glancing in to see Harper as she worked in the pantry organizing supplies. Two thin cords hung down from her ears and her shoulders moved to the music playing from her iPod. The girls perched on stools at the bistro table that was pushed against the side wall.
They looked up from their coloring. Scarlett wiggled in her seat and chirped, “There’s a bandit in there!”
Storie grinned. Buddy the bandit. At least he was a bandit with a heart. “So I hear.” She flipped her hand up in a quick wave and followed the pounding to the tearoom.
“You came back—” She stumbled at the threshold. The slant of the shoulders. The way the supple cotton of his smoky blue T-shirt draped down his back. The fit of his jeans. Oh lord, that was not Buddy Garland. It was Reid Malone. “What are you doing?”
His momentum slowed as he hit the hammer against the underside of a shelf in the built-in unit. His body stilled, the muscles tensing under his shirt as he turned to face her. Deliberate. Unhurried. Bandit-like.
“Just helping out,” he said with a slow, sultry drawl that would melt any girl’s heart. Any girl except Storie. “Heard Buddy had to stop working here to go to another project. Thought I’d fill in for him.” He pointed to the floor.
“We don’t need you to fill in,” she said. Complete lie, but she didn’t want him in the café with his seductive smile and cowboy charm.
He looked at her for a long few seconds before nodding. “If you say so. Guess you have someone else to get all the work done on that list of yours.”
She followed the direction he pointed. A yellow legal pad was on the floor. He glanced at it, and she could have sworn his body stilled even more.
The busted air conditioner. Crap. She’d used magic to put it on the to-do list. Had he realized there was a new task added?
If he did, he kept quiet, finally raising his gaze back to hers, and said, “Might want to confer with Harper. She gave the okay.” He bent down and began to pack up his tools.
“Dammit.” On the one hand, she didn’t want him anywhere near her. He irritated the hell out of her, and she knew he had some agenda. She just didn’t know what that agenda was. But on the other hand, she and Harper needed the work done.
“Stop,” she said.
He turned to her, his lips curving into a taunting smile. “Stop, please?”
She blinked. Stared. And sucked in a calming breath. “Stop, please,” she ground out.
He gave a long-suffering sigh, making slow, deliberate work of unpacking the tools. “Since you asked so nicely.”
She seethed inside, but her hands were tied. Even if he was responsible for them losing Buddy, she needed him…at least for the moment.
“There’s a lot to do before you open. You should be working, too.”
She chased away her frustration and focused on the situation in front of her. “What do you think I’ve been doing?”
He looked up at her, his eyes boring into her. “Planting flowers?”
She barely resisted stomping her foot in indignation. Because while she might not have followed the traditional route, she had made flowers grow. Still, she wasn’t lying when she said, “No, I have not been planting flowers.”
He gave her a long, intent stare. “So how do you explain all those colorful things overflowing in the front beds, and all those bundles drying in the stairwell? Looks like you’ve been doing nothing but gardening.”
She bristled under his scrutiny, taking a step backward. Was his observation innocent, or was he trying to tell her that he knew they hadn’t been planted the old-fashioned way? “I can garden quickly, and I’ve been doing plenty of other things,” she said. “Like taking inventory, stocking, organizing, setting up the accounting system.”
He frowned, his eyebrows pulling together. “Uh-huh.”
“So where did Buddy really go?” she asked, changing the subject and getting down to the question burning in her mind. Buddy didn’t set her off-kilter or make her nerves twine. Reid did, and then some. “Or did you have something to do with him leaving us in the lurch?”
The corner of his mouth lifted in a smile and he looked at her as though he was ready to devour every inch of her. “Me?” he asked innocently. Or as innocently as a man with taut biceps, a little bit of a tattoo showing under his sleeve, and a soul patch could. “Why would I do something like that?”
She started to answer, but thought better of it. None of the scenarios were good, so she kept quiet.
“Don’t think too hard on it, darlin’. Buddy got a better offer, and I had a few hours to spare so here I am. I’m just helping out a friend.”
Helping out himself was more like it. He’d once gotten a pretty good sample of what was underneath her clothes. Now she bristled under his gaze, feeling exposed.
Was it possible that she was completely wrong? Was her embarrassment over that moment together so long ago coloring her perception of him? The truth was, since Buddy wasn’t here and the grand opening was looming, she did need Reid. “Full disclosure, Reid,” she said, nearly biting back the words before they left her mouth. But once they were out, she couldn’t pull them back.
He angled his gaze down at her. “Okay.”
“Why are you really here? I k
now you’re not just helping out Buddy…or Harper and me. So what is it you want?”
He gave her that half-cocked grin again. “Full disclosure?”
She nodded. Not that she expected him to be completely straight, but even the partial truth would be something.
He paused, as though he was weighing his options, and then he said, “Like I told you before, I think we could have a little fun together. I’m a businessman. Bartering. Trading. I scratch your back, you scratch mine. Unfinished business, Storie. That’s what I want…if we’re being honest.”
She balked, stepping forward, resisting the temptation to jab her finger against his chest to drive her anger home. “So let me get this straight. You thought stepping in to pick up where Buddy left off might make me so grateful that I’d sleep with you?”
He shrugged. “You make it sound so sinister.”
She took a page out of Harper’s book of indignation and propped one hand on her hip. “Isn’t it?”
He tilted his head, that smirk firmly on his face. “No, it’s fun. F.U.N. Ever heard of it?”
“Kathy was right,” she said, not sure why she was so surprised. She’d hoped that she was wrong and that Reid wasn’t as self-serving as she feared.
“Oh yeah? About what?”
“She said I should watch out for you.”
“Too much hairspray will make a woman nutty,” he said.
“I think she’s right on target.”
“You’re a little untrusting, aren’t you, Storiebook?”
Her spine stiffened at the nickname her dad used to call her, but brushed it off. “I’m plenty trusting with people who’ve earned it.”
“What does that mean? You trust Harper? Her daughters?”
She nodded. “Exactly.”
“Uh-huh.” He folded his arms across his chest. “Anybody else, or does that about cover it? Any more friends hiding around here?”
She took a step back, the sting of his words making her feel as if she’d been slapped. How could he know how alone in the world she was, and why would he drive the point home like that? The swirling sensation sparking in her felt dark and concentrated. She fisted her hands and it grew until it pooled low in her belly.
His smile was taunting. “Since I’m not to be trusted, I guess I’ll just get back to work, darlin’.” His jaw tensed as he turned back to the shelves and set his hammer down gently. He angled himself up against the unit, placed both hands underneath, and shoved with all his might.
The shelf didn’t budge.
She bit her lip, trying to hold in mirth bubbling up in her throat. “Buddy popped the last one off like he was flipping a light switch,” she said, only mildly bothered at how much pleasure she took in his failure.
Reid shot her a look that made her squirm. “Did he now?”
“Yes, he did.”
He just scowled under his breath, readied himself, and shoved up against the shelf again. It jarred, but still stuck.
That shelf, she decided right then and there, wasn’t going anywhere. His back was turned to her so she flicked her hand, pointing her index finger toward him. A faint glow swirled around her fingertips from the magic. As he turned, she quickly tucked her hand behind her back.
He scowled, rooted his feet, and shoved again, this time bending his knees and thrusting upward with his shoulder, grunting.
The shelf held firm.
“What the—?” He cursed under his breath, his frustration palpable.
“Carpentry is hard work. I’m sure I can find someone more qualified,” she said sweetly. “I mean, you’re not used to manual labor. Boxes of beer, that’s probably the extent of your heavy lifting behind the bar.”
He tossed the hammer, spinning it around by the handle in his hand. His neck muscles strained, pulsing, but after a moment and a deep breath, his voice was calm. “You gained a sense of humor since I saw you last.”
She bit back a laugh. Her jabs at him had started out of anger, but he was pretty fun to tease, as it turned out. “You bring out the best in me, what can I say?”
He smirked, as if he wasn’t so sure that what she was exhibiting was her best. “I helped renovate that bar, so I’d say I’m plenty qualified,” he shot back.
She gave a slow, pointed look at the stubborn shelf. “If you say so.”
His face tense, he leaned against the unit, seeming to let his anger go. He crossed one leg over the other and folded his arms over his chest. “From what I hear, the upstairs needs some work. Wanna give me a personal tour?”
She tried to swallow around the tangle of nerves lodged in her throat. Reid Malone in her apartment? Near her bed? Her heart raced at the visual. Not in a million years. She didn’t want him down here, let alone upstairs. That was definitely off-limits.
She wanted to settle down, and falling for a bad-boy wanderer who was, quite frankly, an ass, wasn’t part of the plan.
“Some other time,” she said just as a gust of swirling wind blew through the little tearoom from the front. Her magic was working without her even trying. Oh boy. Maybe he was bringing out the worst in her. Mortal men. “Not,” she said, just loud enough for him to hear.
“Don’t be so sure about that,” he said. “I have a way of wearing women down so I can do what needs to be done.”
She froze, blinking away the fog filtering from her brain to her eyes. She got the feeling he knew exactly what would wear her down, and he might also know just what she needed, more than she did.
Chapter 7
Storie wielded a brand-new black-handled carving knife in the air. “You could have called me, Harper! Or texted!” Anything to alert her to the fact that Reid would be here every day until the grand opening. She knew she was deflecting her emotions, lashing out at Harper instead of at Reid, but she couldn’t stop herself.
Harper lurched back. “Hey, watch it with that thing! You’re gonna take an eye out.”
Storie froze for a second, glancing at the shiny blade in her hand. “Preferably Reid Malone’s,” she said, brandishing it again until it pointed in the direction of the tearoom where he pounded away. “Seriously, how long does it take to fix some warped shelves?”
“Longer than five minutes. Give the guy a break. At least he’s here. He has his own business, plus about a bazillion dollars, so it’s not like he needs to finish our renovations for us. We owe him.”
Right. She pressed her fist to her forehead, the blade sticking straight up toward the ceiling. “Mineral rights,” she said to herself, remembering what Kathy Newcastle had told her.
“Right, Barnett Shale.”
“And he has the bar.” She looked at Harper. “So why is he here?”
“Shoot,” Harper said, “when Buddy’s not working, he’s next door parked on a barstool. Maybe another job really did come up for Buddy, and Reid’s just helping out a friend. Southern kindness.”
“No. He’s after something. I feel it in my bones.”
“And your bones are never wrong.” Harper skirted around the center cutting island, ducking as she sidled up, then grabbed Storie’s wrist and gently took the knife from her death grip.
Like taking the blade would stop her from derailing Reid Malone. Sure, he could probably destroy her in a surprise full frontal assault, but to fight back, she wouldn’t need a knife. She just needed a flick of her wrist, or focus and a quick spell, and he’d be annihilated.
No contest.
But she couldn’t do any annihilating until she knew what he was after.
Harper studied her. “You’re a little distracted. You sure you’re okay? Maybe you actually like having Reid here?” She flashed a suggestive smile. “It’s been a while since you dated anyone, and we’ve already established that the man is hot.”
She shot Harper a gimme a break look. When he watched at her, she felt exposed, as if he knew things about her. And him knowing things about her would never work. “I’m fine,” she said, “and no, I don’t want him here, but I know we need the help.”<
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“If you say so,” Harper said. She smiled like she knew better as she ambled out of the kitchen and gathered up Piper and Scarlett. “See you in the morning,” she called, heading out for the night.
“’Bye!” the girls called.
Storie waved them off and watched them drive away. She locked up and leaned against the door, her shoulders sagging. She couldn’t tell Harper how she felt, how drained she’d gotten after growing the flowers and using her magic to do little things around the shop.
For all his faults, she missed her dad. Sure, Harper and the girls were like family, but she had never told Harper the whole truth about who she was. She was alone. This would be her life: no real family. No true connection to another person—witch, mortal, or otherwise. And no children of her own.
“If you’re tired already—”
She yelped, clutching her hand to her heart. “Reid!” She caught her breath. “I didn’t know…I forgot…you were still here.”
“Too much to do to quit early.” He held out the yellow legal pad. “Long list.”
She glanced at the clock hanging on the wall near the kitchen window. “It’s ten thirty.”
He leaned in the threshold to the kitchen. “Got nothing better to do. Did you eat today?”
Had she? The day had started early with another shipment of books and curios, the delivery of the computer, and a training session on how to use the bar-code scanner. She and Harper had discussed menus for the next month.
“Does coffee count?” she finally asked.
“Doesn’t fit into any part of the food pyramid,” he said.
She laughed. “How do you know about the food pyramid?”
“This may be Podunk Whiskey Creek, but we still get occasional updates from the USDA.”
Podunk Whiskey Creek—her dream town. “I guess you do.”
“You okay?”
She put her hand to her growling stomach. He’d planted a seed, and now she was starving. Too bad she couldn’t just conjure up some crispy french fries, and maybe a chocolate shake. Her stomach rumbled again. “Hungrier than I realized.”
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