Page 11 of Never Been Witched (Starfall Point #3)

“There have been so many changes,” Alice insisted. “Good changes, you know. You and Edison living together. Ben and Caroline making a family. We’re all so busy.”

“I would make a joke about finally getting a baby brother, but this feels like a significant moment,” Josh mused.

“We’re never too busy for you,” Riley assured Alice.

“You’re our sister,” Caroline told her. “We love you.”

“I also love you,” Josh told her. “Even though I just joined up.”

Alice nodded, smiling weakly. It was all too much.

“Well, I’ve got to get back to the shop,” she said. “I’ll trust you to find a way to store it safely.”

Caroline blinked at her, startled. “Really?”

“Tourist season,” Alice said, shrugging. “I can’t leave the shop without a clerk for hours at a time. Plus, I don’t know what Arthur is capable of. That cabinet is sizable.”

“OK, well, come by after work or something,” Riley said, frowning. “We can look through Aunt Nora’s journals, see if we can find anything mentioning an evil candleholder.”

Alice edged toward the gate. “I don’t think it’s pure evil. I’m not even sure the locks are entirely evil. I think it’s how you use them.”

Josh shivered. “They still give me the creeps.”

“Alice, are you sure—” But Riley’s question was lost to warm winds blowing in over Lake Huron as Alice bolted back toward Superior Antiques. She took the long way around Main Square to avoid the law offices of Tanner, Moscovitz, and Graves.

***

For two days, Alice took the coward’s way out.

She told herself it was the increased summer traffic keeping her in the shop, not direct efforts to avoid anyone and everyone.

She worked. She answered her grandparents’ calls on the first ring.

She read the group coven text chain—a thing she never thought she’d be a part of—without responding.

Then again, she at least opened those texts.

More hostile messages—from burner phones a certain party used to get around the block she’d put on his number—were deleted unread.

How had she reached the point in her life where she was dodging texts from burner phones?

Arthur was a perfectly nice roommate, all things considered.

He stayed on the first floor without her having to place a circle of charmed salt and herbs around the cabinet to contain him.

He greeted her warmly and kept her apprised of any “suspicious characters” he saw lurking near the windows while she slept.

(Squirrels, mostly.) He was pleasant company while she was alone in the shop, and he’d at least stopped heckling her while she was working with customers, which was a nice gesture.

He had no interest in moving on to whatever constituted the next plane.

And frankly, the idea of selling the cabinet and losing this comfortable new friendship when she needed one…

Well, if she hid the price tag and claimed it was a “display only” piece, that was her business.

Her grandparents would probably argue with her on that point, she thought as she sold a set of Saltykov enamel scent bottles to a perfectly lovely couple from Missouri. She bid them goodbye at the door, telling them to enjoy the rest of their honeymoon.

“Wouldn’t you hope they would enjoy their honeymoon whether you told them to or not?” Arthur asked her.

“It’s just something you say, because ‘have a nice day’ is overdone.

And customers like it when you demonstrate that you remembered something they told you in passing in conversation.

It encourages them to come back and patronize the shop again, if not on this trip, then the next.

Giving you their money becomes a cherished vacation tradition,” Alice said.

Arthur’s expression was amused. “Ah, a secretly mercenary soul, then.”

“Money makes the world—” she started to reply, when a tall, sandy-haired figure walking through the crowded cobblestone streets caught her attention.

It was the determined set of his shoulders, the angry energy of Clark’s steps, that was so different from the people around him.

She’d always thought of him as handsome, with his big brown eyes and square jaw.

She’d thought the ruddy cheeks gave him a boyish appearance, but Riley hadn’t quite trusted him from their first meeting.

Rightly so, Alice supposed.

And he was heading right for the shop door.

Alice flipped the door sign to CLOSED. Moving quickly across the polished wooden floor, she reached the sales desk in seconds.

She clicked a button under the register that allowed her to lock the door remotely.

It was recently installed and one of the few security measures she’d suggested that her grandparents had actually taken seriously.

“Isn’t that one of those customers you love so much?” Arthur asked, frowning as she switched off the shop lights.

“No, it’s not,” she told him.

“Why are you hiding from him? Has he hurt you?” he said, suddenly hostile and turning toward the door.

Snagging her key ring from under the register, Alice ducked out of sight behind the heavy damask curtain that separated the supply room from the showroom.

Her phone and her purse were upstairs, where she’d left them—to avoid calls and texts.

And if she wanted to go upstairs, she would have to go back out to the showroom where Clark could see her.

“Why aren’t you answering?” Arthur yelled as a fist began to beat against the glass panels. Alice stood absolutely still as she listened to Clark hammer at the door. Her breathing felt like hot, jagged glass piercing her chest, and she wondered if the coven would pick up on this.

A few seconds of silence passed and she counted them, forcing herself to breathe deeply and slowly.

Clark couldn’t yell, she realized, because a raised familiar voice might attract the attention of locals. To the tourists, he just looked like an impatient customer, pissed off that she was taking a lunch break.

“Alice?” Arthur had rematerialized in the supply room with her. “Are you all right?”

“I’m not sure. But I don’t want to talk to that man. I’m going to leave and come back later,” Alice said.

“Who is he? You’re a witch. You commune with the dead like you’re chatting over tea. Why are you so scared of a nitwit in a necktie?” Arthur asked.

“I have my reasons, and I’m going out the back,” she told him. “Be back later.”

Arthur tried to call questions after her, but she was already out the back door, using her enormous ring of keys to secure it before dashing along the alleyway behind the other stores on the square: the fudge shop, the T-shirt store, the other fudge shop, Manley’s Finer Antiques.

She made it to the end of the row and realized she was out of cover.

How was she going to make it across the square to Shaddow House without Clark seeing her and making a scene?

Was she in actual physical danger? Had things between them escalated that far?

Could she defend herself if necessary? She crept around the street side of Manley’s, searching for comfort in the familiar, warm, sweet, buttery-sugar smell of bubbling fudge.

She supposed she could duck across the street to the snow globe emporium and run until she reached the dock.

It would take longer, but it might give her a better chance at reaching Shaddow House without being seen.

Why weren’t Riley and Caroline picking up on her distress?

Every time they’d been in danger she’d felt it, and she’d gone running.

And now, she was all alone…because of her relationship with Clark.

It had been a matter of convenience at first, really.

Comfort. They’d gone on a few dates and while they weren’t particularly compatible emotionally , their physical chemistry was undeniable.

He knew when she needed him to be rough, and when she needed him to be slower, deeper.

She’d enjoyed lovers before—kinder men, more sincere—but it was Clark who never left her unsatisfied.

He’d teased her, telling her how shocked everyone on the island would be to see such a “good girl” as Alice Seastairs behaving as she did, taking what she wanted.

Eventually, they’d done away with the pretense of dates, meeting in secret, coming to a sort of “friends with benefits” arrangement.

And that was fine. She didn’t have to pretend that his inability to feign interest in her life was acceptable or that there was a possibility of anything more.

It was simpler that way, less stressful.

Until Alice met Riley. The new Denton’s arrival on the island had clearly thrown Clark off, making their meetings less about satisfaction and more about grilling Alice over her relationship with the island’s latest resident.

He tried to be subtle about his questions: What was Riley like?

How did she spend her time? Was she planning on leaving the house any time soon?

Alice told herself it was just professional curiosity, considering that Riley’s aunt had been his client.

He was just trying to make sure that Riley had everything she needed after the settling of Nora’s will.