Page 20

Chapter

Twenty

brIDGETTE

I t was Monday morning, and I was grinding herbs into a powder that I would later boil and strain to make some new potions. I was lost in my thoughts of the weekend as I worked. Logan and I had spent the entire weekend together. Luckily, he hadn’t been called out for any new cases. It was nice just being together. Both of us were doing our own thing side by side as he studied his cases, and I read through my grandmother’s magic books. When we weren’t working, we were just relaxing on the couch together, watching movies.

We made dinner together Saturday night, and that was a whole new experience for me. As we boiled our pasta, we joked around, laughing and teasing each other. It felt good to have someone to spend time with who wasn’t a family member or my best friend. Not that I didn’t love having their company, but it was a different type. One that I could definitely get used to.

I heard the bell ring in front of the store and called out a greeting. I sat down the pestle I was using to grind the herbs in the mortar, then flexed my fingers that had begun cramping up. I quickly washed my hands and dried them with a towel. I walked into the front of the store to see the woman who had accosted me two weeks ago while I was at the first dinner with Logan. She was looking at Mildred, holding her with a grimace on her face. Then she sat Mildred back down with a heavy thunk on the shelf, making me frown. I already didn’t like the woman, but she didn’t need to treat my friends that way.

I watched as she continued around the shop, occasionally picking things up before setting them back down again. She didn’t look like she was enjoying herself the way a customer usually would as they perused the shelves. Logan had told me that if she bothered me, I should let him know, but I figured I could handle her myself. Plus, I was really curious about what she had to say.

I stood at the cash register and just waited to see what she was planning. It didn’t take her long to make her way to the back of the shop where I was standing. As she looked up at me, she feigned surprise. The woman would not be winning any Oscars for her performance.

“Oh! I didn’t know you worked here,” she said.

I just cocked my head as I looked at her and gave her my best customer service smile.

“Yep! That’s me. I work here. Is there anything I can help you with? Marlene, isn’t it? Are you looking for something in particular? Maybe a gift? Perhaps you want to do a spell of your own?” That same grimness she’d shown at the sight of my favorite skull figurine came on her face at my words. Inside, I was laughing. Obviously, the woman was not into witchcraft.

“Oh. I’ve just seen the shop every time I pass by on the street, and decided I would stop in for once. It’s...” She stopped and looked around before bringing her gaze back to mine. “Interesting,” she finished lamely.

“I like to think so,” I chirped brightly. “It’s the only occult shop in town.”

“Yeah,” she said with a slight shudder she couldn’t hide. “Occult. So are you like a witch or something?” she blurted.

“Or something,” I replied. “I have potions if you need one. Do you need a success potion? Maybe a concentration potion? Those are popular with students. Maybe you need one for your or someone else’s health?”

“You have health potions?” Marlene asked, her eyebrows raising.

“If you’re getting a cold, a health potion will knock it right out. Better than echinacea, although I do use some of that in my potion.”

She lifted a hand to her throat. “My throat has been a little scratchy recently.”

I looked behind me at the shelf against the wall where I kept all the potions and plucked a lime green potion up. “This will be the one you’re looking for, then,” I said. “Would you like me to bag it up for you?”

Marlene looked suspiciously at the small glass vial with a cork in it. “Umm, sure,” she mumbled and looked around again as if she was lost for what to say or do next. “Yeah, sure. How do I take the potion? What, exactly, do I do with it?” she asked as I put it in a small bag and handed it over.

I gave her a smile and said, “Pop the cork and chug it back like a shot of tequila.”

“Do I need to take it with food?” she asked.

I smiled. “You can take it with or without food. In the morning or at night, whatever you prefer. It has a delicious flavor. Tastes a little like mint,” I told her.

“Okay.” She looked dubious as she glanced down at the paper bag with the pretty purple tissue sticking out of it. “How much do I owe you?”

I waved a hand. “It’s on the house,” I told her with a bright smile. “See how you like it and come back for more if you do. Tell your friends.” Inside, I was saying, ‘Please, don’t tell your friends! I don’t need Kristy in the store!’ But I was doing my best impression of customer service of the year. I kept waiting for her to finally say what the reason was that she’d come into my store to begin with. And, finally, she didn’t disappoint.

“You know, Kristy and Logan were college sweethearts.”

“Oh?” I asked and just folded my hands together on the glass, waiting for her to continue.

“She’s pregnant!” she blurted out.

I inhaled sharply as I took in what she’d just said. I thought back to the way she had touched her belly the night I saw her standing in the restaurant with her friend. Her action made sense now. But the way she looked at Logan as if he had betrayed her made me wonder about this woman’s intentions in telling me.

“Congratulations to Kristy,” I said, doing my best to sound unaffected by the news. “How far along is she? Does she have morning sickness? I have a potion for that, too.” I turned around to find the morning sickness elixir.

Kristy’s friend snapped at my flustered rambling. “No. She doesn’t have morning sickness. She’s six months along.”

My hand froze mid-reach as I stared blankly at the blue potion. I dropped my hand and slowly turned around as my mind raced. Six months . They have been divorced for six months.

“Yeah,” she said. Marlene crossed her arms and lifted her chin as a smug expression came over her face.

Six months.

“Okay,” I said slowly. “That has to do with me because...” I trailed off. I was concentrating on controlling my breathing. The last thing I wanted was for the vile woman to get satisfaction from seeing that anything she said or did affected me.

She shrugged. “Nothing, really. Especially if you step back and let her and Logan work things out.”

“Oh, should I?” I asked as I cocked my head to stare her down. “Isn’t that up to Logan?”

“How is he supposed to try to work things out with her when he’s got you stringing him along?” she demanded, her tone sharp and accusing.

“Stringing him along?” I asked. “Really? In what way am I stringing him along?” Inside, my blood was beginning to boil. I looked the woman over. She was very lovely with her pretty blonde hair and heart-shaped face. It was a real shame that her attitude royally sucked. I understood standing up for your friends. What she was doing here, though, was interfering in a situation that genuinely didn’t concern her. Plus, she was drawing conclusions about me that she had no business even speculating on.

She had no right to interfere with Logan and me in our relationship. She was trying to push me out of the picture, and I even understood what she was doing at the shop. Her goal all along had been to make me doubt Logan. But it wasn’t going to work—not this time.

“Look,” I said slowly. “If there’s anybody interfering, it’s you, Marlene. If Kristy wants Logan back, then that is between her and Logan. I’m not going to answer for him. No. What you’re trying to do here,” I waved a finger back and forth between the two of us, “isn’t going to work.”

She straightened her shoulders and looked down her nose at me. The revulsion was evident on her face. “You have nothing to offer Logan.”

“Really?” I asked. “And Kristy does?”

“As I said, they were college sweethearts. They were in love for a very long time.”

I placed my hands on the glass counter and leaned forward. “Kristy has a strange way of showing her love. If there’s one thing that I could promise, it’s that I would not cheat on the man that I love. Now, please leave.”

I stared her down with narrowed eyes and watched as her hand tightened into a fist on the small paper bag that held the potion. “I just thought you should know that if Logan had been around more, then Kristy wouldn’t have had a reason to cheat. He works so much and left her lonely on so many nights.”

I just smiled at her. “Isn’t that what every cheater says to excuse their actions?”

Marlene glared at me so hard that I was actually impressed. If she had any tiny amount of magic, I would probably have been nothing but a pile of smoldering ash on the floor. With a growl, she spun on her heel and stomped to the door, but I noticed she still took my potion with her. I could tell she was about to slam the door closed behind her, but with a little wave of my finger, I used air magic to cushion the door frame. I grinned, knowing that she was unable to make the satisfying crash that she had hoped for.

As soon as she was gone and I could no longer see her through the window, I sagged against the glass. I squeezed my eyes shut and took several deep breaths in an attempt to get my heart rate back under control. I had done everything I could to keep any weakness from showing while being confronted by Marlene, and I wasn’t one hundred percent positive that I had managed.

I opened my eyes and blinked several times, waiting for my vision to clear. Once I could see clearly, I noticed I was staring down at the shelf of athames inside the glass case. With a huff, I pushed back from the counter and walked into the back room, looking for my polishing cloths and the compound I used to clean the metal.

I brought all the materials with me back into the front and set them down on the glass, then slid the door open underneath to pull all the athames out. It had been a while since I’d taken the time to clean them properly. Athames needed respect. They were an important tool for any witch, and even though the ones for sale weren’t owned by me personally, I had been taught to always treat them carefully.

As I was finishing up the first of the four athames, the bell over the door rang, and I barely withheld a grimace at the thought that Marlene might have returned. Or worse—Kristy. When I glanced up, I sighed with relief to see Logan striding through the shop looking like sex personified in his black slacks and a white button-up shirt rolled to his elbows.

“Hey,” I called out with a genuine smile. “You’re here.”

“So I am,” he grinned back, then leaned over the glass counter to give me a fast but scorching hot kiss. I took in a much needed ragged breath. Every time the man touched me, it turned my knees to jelly. But when he had his mouth on any part of my body, I forgot how to breathe.

He looked down at the blades set in a row across the towel I had spread out to keep the athames from sitting on the glass and let out a low whistle. “Those are some wickedly sharp blades, little witch.”

I picked up the fanciest one and handed it over to him. It was covered in deep red gemstones, some larger than others, but all of them glowing almost eerily. “These are athames. Remember when I told you that was likely your murder weapon if a witch was making a sacrifice?”

He hummed as he tested the sharpness of the thin, narrow blade with his thumbnail. “It’s certainly sharp enough to kill.” He held the athame up and turned it under the bright lights of the shop overhead. “Is it just me, or does it seem like the gemstones are glowing?” He squinted his eyes and tilted it again. “And full of liquid?”

I shook my head. “It’s not just you. This one is fairly new to Oohs, Ahhhs, and Orbs. Sometimes we get donations or offers to buy items like this from family members who don’t know what to do with them after a relative has passed. Not everyone has magical blood, so though the previous owner practised witchcraft, they weren’t actually a witch. When that happens, the family just wants to get rid of them. I think my grandmother picked that one up from an estate sale, though.”

I leaned over so I could watch as Logan turned the blade over, examining the handle closely. “It’s funny. I could have sworn when she bought it a couple of months ago that those stones were rubies.” I shrugged. “I guess they are actually garnets with how dark red they are.”

I glanced at the time on the register and was surprised to see that it was already past six o’clock. I hadn’t seen Shayla all day and wondered if the hotty professor was keeping her busy. I decided I was done cleaning for the moment and would finish tomorrow, so I started placing the athames back into their shelf. Logan handed me the one he’d been studying, and I smiled at him gratefully.

“Want to head upstairs and grab some leftover pasta from the fridge?” I asked as I wiped my hands off on the towel.

“You had me at head upstairs ,” he grinned, making me flush at the suggestiveness. “I already locked the front door,” he said as he walked around the counter. When he got to me, he bent down, and I lifted my chin, expecting another kiss. Instead, I found myself being hauled over his shoulder. As I squealed out a shocked laugh from the sudden move, he smacked my ass then rubbed the sting away.

He took the stairs two at a time. I noticed he was careful not to jostle my ribs with his shoulder and warmed at the thoughtfulness. “The door is closed?” he asked. When he opened it, an angry Mortimer yowled and ran through the open doorway as if his tail were on fire.

I sighed. “I had to lock him up again. When I brought out the athames, he started acting crazy and wouldn’t stop clawing at the counter.” For the hundredth time, I wished I knew what his problem was.

Logan stopped and slid me off his shoulder, and I found myself sitting on the island that separated the kitchen from the small living room. I spread my legs wider in an invitation that he immediately took advantage of. He cupped my cheeks with gentle hands, then breathed against my lips.

“You have no idea how much I missed you today. After spending all weekend together, I crave just being near you.” He brushed his lips over mine. “I don’t ever want to leave your side. I am already so addicted to your touch,” he ran his nose down my neck and over my collarbone. “Your scent.” He licked a path down until his mouth was hovering over the swell of my breast and gently bit me there. “Your taste.” He licked the sting away, and by the time he was tugging my shirt to the side and pulling the cup to my bra down to expose my aching nipple, I was panting as my belly clenched in anticipation.

“Please, Logan. I need you,” I whispered huskily.

“You have me, sweet little witch. Always.”