Page 3 of Dream Weaver (Spellbound in Sedona #3)

COOPER

The next morning, I parked in a back lot, killed the engine…and stared at the dashboard. Back at the firehouse, everyone was prepping for the season. Testing out equipment. Running drills. Bonding.

I was at Heavy Metal Sedona on a wild goose-chase.

“Have a good day, son. And remember, what you’re doing is important too.” Those were the inspiring words Rich had sent me off with.

He’d been dead serious too. So were Alice and the other veterans of the Yavapai fire squad. I hadn’t encountered as many delusional souls since I’d visited Las Vegas. They actually believed in the whole lucky ax thing.

So did the local police, who were investigating their hearts out, though they had no leads.

The rookies and other newbies took it in with a mixture of amusement and dismay.

“You think they’re serious or just pulling our legs?” Mark had whispered.

“It pains me to say this, but I think they’re serious.” Chuck sighed.

I scuffed the floor. Had I really turned down job offers from three top-notch crews to join this hocus-pocus gang?

“Maybe the lucky ax has…what’s it called?” Mark mused. “A placebo effect.”

“As long as they don’t make us do yoga…” Chuck muttered.

“Or tune in to a vortex,” Mark added.

Or assist a fiery blacksmith who doesn’t want help, I nearly chimed in. A blacksmith who’d spotted the animal in me at one glance.

My inner grizzly hummed dreamily. She sure did.

Raging fires didn’t disturb my sleep, but a wisp of a woman with brown hair and green eyes had. All night long.

Auburn hair, my bear corrected. Like maples in the fall.

Or more appropriately, like the shadowy bases of Sedona’s red cliffs.

I thought the situation over. Abby knew about shifters, though very few humans did.

She’s not human , my bear concluded with a little cheer.

No, she wasn’t. So, what was she?

Not another shifter, judging by her scent.

Not a vampire, because they had no scent at all.

She smells nice, my bear proclaimed. Like dandelions and huckleberries.

In the chaos of competing smells in the metal shop, her sweet scent had stood out like a rose among weeds.

So, not a vampire either. That left two possibilities: witch or relic — a human with a trace of supernatural ancestry.

Anything but a witch, I prayed.

Even my bear went quiet on that one.

Working with a witch was a total no-go. Not after the war they’d waged against my clan generations ago.

Okay — many, many generations ago. So many, I didn’t know the details — not even what they’d fought over. But I knew the important part: witches were cruel, unpredictable beings and not to be trusted.

Not that I’d ever met a witch, but that was what I’d heard.

Plus, she’d forged the lucky ax. That could be witchcraft, right?

Or just superstition, my bear pointed out.

Behind me, the garage-style rear doors of the metal shop clattered open. Clenching my jaw, I headed in.

Walt introduced me to Louie the dog and three men — two youngish ones, Matt and Pablo, plus Bob, the veteran of the bunch — then left me to it.

“Abby’s assistant, huh?” Pablo glanced in her direction. “Good luck, man.”

“Yeah, bring a helmet.” Matt chuckled. “So she can’t bite your head off.”

He was only half kidding, I sensed.

“Oh, come now.” Bob came to her defense. “She just needs a little space.”

Yeah, like the last fire I’d worked on — a few thousand acres, give or take.

“Leave her alone, and you’ll be fine,” Bob said, as much to me as to the other two.

I would have loved to leave her alone, but I’d been appointed her goddamn assistant.

Finding Abby’s corner of the shop was easy. I followed her scent — and the noise.

Wham! Crash!

Pieces of scrap metal flew out of a container and clattered across the shop floor. I couldn’t see Abby, but I could hear her mutter and curse.

“Abby, your assistant is here,” Matt hollered.

A rusty crowbar landed an inch away from my toes. An old shovel came next, pinging off the cement floor before coming to rest against my boot.

Yeah, I got the message.

I circled to the less lethal side of the container and peered in. It looked like the set of an apocalyptic movie, with Abby as the earth’s sole survivor crawling over wreckage, determined to kick ass against an encroaching army of cyborgs.

And, lucky me. I’d landed the part of the bad guy in that movie.

“Good morning,” I said, because my mother had taught me manners.

Apparently, Abby’s hadn’t taught her hers. After a sharp glare, she went back to heaving metal.

“Here to assist,” I added.

There. Now I could claim to have tried.

“Don’t need an assistant,” Abby muttered.

“Well, you got one.”

“We’ll see about that,” she mumbled.

Not exactly a promising start.

The morning was chilly, but she seemed comfortable in jeans, a tank top, and an off-the-shoulder sweatshirt. Maybe the flames tattooed onto her arms kept her warm. They seemed to flicker between light and shadow as she moved. The shop lights glinted off her hair, and that flickered too, between auburn and copper.

And, boy. She made a hell of a lot of noise for such a thin, wispy thing. A wispy thing full of pent-up power — or anger. She was way shorter than my six-foot-two, but what she lacked in bulk, she made up in sass and brute determination. At that very moment, she put her whole body into heaving aside a piano frame.

Yes, an entire piano frame.

“Can I—?” I started.

“No,” she grunted, shoving it aside.

I winced. A car crash would have made less noise. But, in terms of power-to-weight ratio, she was pretty impressive. I would have to push trucks around to exert as much force.

The banging, muttering, and tossing went on for another ten minutes. Then, quick as a cat, Abby leaped out of the container and stalked around, kicking the items she’d chosen into a rough line — everything from twisted wrenches to industrial scrap metal and rusty shovels. Chin in hand, she stood over them, considering.

I kept a safe distance, eyeing that rusty collection, then the nice, shiny steel ingots stacked by a wall. Back home at my family’s lumber mill, we MacGyvered repairs using scraps all the time. But not when lives were at stake.

“You’re not using fresh steel?” I asked.

She didn’t even look up.

I took that as a no.

Abby picked up a wrench as big as my arm and studied it. Seriously studied it, turning it this way and that, bringing it close to her eyes, then squinting along the length of it.

A minute creaked by, then another.

Back at the firehouse, the crew was checking lines…familiarizing themselves with new routines…getting to know one another. But not me. No, I was a spectator to a tattooed chick who preferred metal to people.

Abby discarded the wrench and spent the next five minutes inspecting a rusty sledgehammer.

I shuffled in place. Bob Dylan once sang that a person not busy being born was busy dying. Was this really the best use of my time?

“Can I help in some way?” I finally ventured.

“Yes. Go away.”

“Would love to,” I muttered.

“What’s stopping you?”

“Besides your stellar company?”

She shot me a dirty look and went back to the sledgehammer, tossing it from hand to hand and twirling it a few times. Either she was checking its balance or making sure I kept my distance.

I did, a safe six feet away.

Finally, she strapped on a leather apron and heated up the forge in her area of the workshop. I came up beside her, waiting. The coals turned the color of brick, then orange. Abby shoved the sledgehammer under them and waited some more.

It all reminded me of working with my uncle Rory. Patience was a virtue, and mine was severely tested.

Then again, anything Rory made lasted generations.

Also, Uncle Rory was about my size. Maybe even bigger. Abby only came to about the height of my shoulders, with the lean, tight build of a gymnast. It was hard to picture her hugging fans or smiling for cameras, though.

“So, what do you want me to do?” I asked, going for respectful apprentice .

“Get out of the way.”

She yanked the sledgehammer out of the forge, kicking up a shower of embers.

I motioned between us. “I am out of the way.”

“You’re in my light,” she grumbled, positioning the sledgehammer over the anvil.

Her light, not the light.

It reminded me of that phase my eldest sister had gone through as a teenager. My existence had been the bane of hers.

Helen is nice to us now, my bear pointed out.

Yes, but what a miserable three years that had been.

“How’s that?” I shuffled back a little.

“Still too close.” Abby gave the anvil a warm-up hit, exactly where my shadow fell. Then, bang! Bang! Bang! She started walloping away at red-hot iron.

Yeah, I got that message too.