Chapter Seven
Weird and Uncomfortable
‘How did you know I was here?’ The edge to my voice was sharper than a blade.
‘I didn’t at first. Came by to say thanks to Mo for telling me where your grandmother lived so I could get Indy to you last night.’
My blood pressure skyrocketed again. ‘You can go in and talk to her now, because I’m done in every sense of the word.’
He tugged his hat down. Blew out a rough breath. ‘I know this is wild for me to ask, and, of course, you don’t have to answer, but are you all right?’
Was I all right?
‘Are you screwing with me right now?’ My roar made him take a step back. ‘Was this a game to you? Figure out a way to intercept me at the trail? Play nice. Maybe even make your dog sick, all in the hopes you might get some information for your story?’
His eyes went wide. ‘Not telling you who I was at the clinic was a dick move, but purposely making my dog sick? Not even you believe I’d be that craven.’
‘Don’t act like you know me,’ I flung back.
‘I swear on the trail I had no idea who you were, Dani.’
‘It’s Dr McGuire.’ It was a petty comeback, but I wasn’t feeling kind at the moment.
‘I swear to you that it wasn’t until I asked Mo for help with a local vet that she gave me a name and an address.
’ He scrubbed a hand behind his neck. ‘If you recall, you didn’t introduce yourself on the trail.
Not until you walked out of your grandmother’s house did I realize who you were.
At that point, I kept my mouth shut because I was desperate for you to help my dog. ’
‘And after? When you knew he’d recover, but you still kept quiet. Kissed me,’ I said with an indignant huff. ‘What kind of man does that?’
He let out a heavy breath. ‘It’s why I pulled away from our kiss. It wasn’t fair to you. I should have come clean as soon as I knew Indy was out of danger.’
‘What stopped you?’
‘The minute I told you why I was in Harvest Moon, the easy rapport between us would’ve disappeared. I meant what I said at the clinic. You’re very good at what you do. I wanted to be in that space with you without it getting weird and uncomfortable.’
‘Well, guess what? It’s worse than weird and uncomfortable now.’
‘Yeah, I know that, especially after you shoved me out of the clinic this morning.’
The streets filled up around us with tourists darting in and out of the shops. More animals tugged their owners in my direction, and panic filled my chest. The last thing I wanted Bryce to see was the way the dogs in this town reacted to me. He’d already gotten too much of that with Indy.
I took off in the direction of the pharmacy, and like a bad rash, Bryce was hard to get rid of.
‘You seem like a quiet, reserved sort of person, but you were giving Mo an earful in there.’
Now he was eavesdropping?
I came to an abrupt halt, and he had to put out his hands so he wouldn’t crash into me. His warm fingers skimmed over my shoulders and, damn, did his grip make the blood hum in my veins. Flashes of the way he cupped my head, slid his lips over my mouth, made heat rise on my cheeks.
‘Not that it’s any of your business.’ I forced myself to take a step away. ‘But I was ordering her to stop telling people like you that my sisters and I have magic. It’s all a bunch of bullshit to make tourists visit the town.’
‘Magic? Yeah, I don’t believe that, but those kinds of stories start somewhere. I’d be interested to know their origins.’
I did not want to have this conversation with him, but maybe if I gave him a small portion of the truth, it’d satisfy him enough to let the whole thing go.
‘My grandmother’s side of the family settled in Harvest Moon right when it was incorporated in the late 1800s.
There was a big cache of silver here, and it drew people to the town.
Legends whispered over the years said my ancestor Sylvia Perkins had a knack for finding pockets of silver in the mountains.
That made her family rich. Because she and her husband were good prospectors, stories were spun about her’ – I made air quotes – ‘“gifts” for finding the motherlode. Somehow over the decades those gifts became magic. It didn’t help that my grandfather Beau had a way with the mountains too, being able to turn the roughest terrain into farming land, and that my grandmother Clo could grow anything in the soil.
’ I gave a sad sigh. ‘You give a spark of a story like that some oxygen, and it blazes into a wildfire.’
‘Clo? Was that the older woman I met last night?’
‘Yes, her daughter, my mother, Belladonna, has quite the reputation around here. My sisters and I have spent years battling all this magic nonsense and it’s exhausting.’
He was about to ask me another question when Julius, a seven-year-old Great Dane, buzzed toward me, tugging along his owner, Judge Greene.
‘Hello, Dani,’ the judge said in a no-nonsense voice before turning his attention to Bryce. ‘Who’s your friend?’
‘He’s not my friend.’
Bryce flinched again and the judge took a protective step toward me.
‘This is Bryce O’Dell,’ I finally said. ‘He’s Richard Morrison’s nephew.’
‘Oh.’ The judge pulled the cream Stetson off his head and placed it over his heart. ‘Your uncle was a good man. Played more than one game of poker with him. Sorry for your loss.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
He scanned Bryce for a minute, rubbing at his trimmed white beard. ‘You taking over his cabin on the bluff?’
‘Thinking about it.’ Bryce’s steady gaze flicked in my direction. ‘This place is starting to grow on me.’
Julius stepped in and nuzzled my leg. No shock or pain. Good. I loved this big oaf of a dog. I patted his massive head, and Bryce shot me a smile. Did he think he was off the hook? Because he wasn’t.
The judge gave me a questioning look until a few more dogs began to race in my direction, and Julius tugged on his leash, eager to greet them. The dogs did a weird kind of circle dance around me, and I held my breath as Bryce’s gaze morphed into confusion.
The judge cleared his throat, urging Julius back to his side. ‘Be sure to familiarize yourself with the laws around here, son. Don’t want to see you in my courtroom.’
‘Uh, yes. Of course, sir.’
The judge pulled Julius away, but the dogs stayed in a tight formation around me, happily panting and waiting for head pats. Bryce crossed his arms over his chest, amusement tilting up the corners of his lips.
Refusing to give him any kind of reaction, I spun around and broke away from the pack.
With long determined strides, I headed toward the pharmacy again, praying the dogs would not follow.
This had turned into a miserable day, and all I wanted was to go back to the clinic and forget about the last few hours.
Bryce caught up to me but stayed quiet. We shouldered past more tourists carrying bags from the Spell Book Spice Shop and Abracadabra Antiques.
‘The dogs around here like you. That happen a lot? Them coming to greet you like that?’
‘I’m the local vet. They know me,’ I said with a casual shrug.
I picked up my pace, not wanting to see that look of curiosity on his face for a second more.
‘Answer one question for me and I’ll leave you alone,’ he said, keeping up with me. ‘You barely touched Indy yesterday on the trail, and still you knew he was sick. How?’
His curious stare, the tilt to his head, was nothing new for me. Since I’d returned to town, more than a few people had questioned how I could diagnose their animals so quickly.
‘I noticed his pupils were larger. That his balance was slightly off. It’s what vets do. Assess animals. Notice symptoms.’
My car was only a few steps away. I had to get there and stop this interrogation before he made me so mad I said something dumb.
‘And the way you hit the ground on the trail? You looked out of it. That didn’t have anything to do with his diagnosis? Why you told me he should see a vet?’
I pulled in a full breath while internally cursing my inability to hide my instincts or my physical reaction.
‘It’d been a long day at my clinic. I was tired. There’s no mystery to it.’
‘As a journalist, I have to admit the stories Mo spins are interesting.’
‘Let me guess. She told you my mother suspiciously wound up pregnant three times. No fathers in sight. That she floated in the lake in front of my grandmother’s house surrounded by flowers, did some incantations, and poof, her babies were gifted magic.’
He scrubbed at his chin. ‘Yeah, it was something like that.’
I huffed out a bitter laugh. ‘Well, if you believe that, I’ll sell you some magic beans that’ll grow into a giant green stalk. Take you to a magical place with a golden singing harp.’
His full lips quirked up into a wide smile. ‘I know better than anyone you need a good lead if you’re going to sell a story. What Mo is spinning does feel pretty contrived…’
‘But…’
He took two steps closer. That scent of ink and cedar heavy in the air.
‘None of what she told me matters. The truth is that I’m here to do a puff piece. Take some gorgeous shots of the scenery. Sell the small-town charm.’
‘If that’s the truth, the people here will be more than happy to talk to you.’
‘Everyone but you, I take it.’
‘Oh, you do not want to talk to me.’ I crossed the street to get to my truck and barely had the door open, when he jogged after me.
‘Wait. What about the…?’ His heavy gaze darted to my lips.
‘Don’t worry about the kiss, Bryce,’ I said, that awful ache crowding my chest again. ‘It was nothing. An emotional reaction to what happened to Indy.’
‘I disagree.’ He stepped closer as I slid behind the wheel. ‘I may have been wrong about not telling you who I was, but you know as well as I do that our kiss was…’ He gave me a rueful smile like he was replaying it in his head.
‘A mistake,’ I said emphatically.
He sighed. ‘What about the other thing?’
‘For a serious writer, you sure talk in circles.’
‘Why did you take off from the coffee shop like your ass was on fire?’
Ice shot through my veins at the reminder of what Aster had revealed. That Max was not my soulmate. That this stranger in front of me with hair that was the shade of the valley at dusk, and eyes so brilliantly blue it was hard not to stare, was supposed to be my perfect match.
No. Aster had been wrong once. She was wrong this time too.
‘It was just a small sisterly disagreement.’
His mouth thinned like he didn’t buy my answer.
‘Make sure Indy stays hydrated. Eats small bits of food over the day.’ I turned on the engine, hoping he’d get the hint.
‘I noticed the signs around town about your vaccination clinic tomorrow. When is it over?’
‘Three o’clock.’
‘If Indy is up for it, I was considering taking one of those beginner trails you mentioned yesterday. I’ll be there at four.
I think Indy would like to see Flora.’ His gaze locked with mine.
‘It’s been a long time since I’ve connected with someone the way I did with you last night.
Don’t shut me out, Dani. We can put rules in place about my job. What is on and off the record.’
A flicker of vulnerability flashed across his eyes, and for a moment I let myself believe it was real, until I remembered that his job was to get close. Squeeze as much information out of me as possible so he could get his story.
‘It’s clear where we stand now, and I can tell you for a fact that neither I, nor my sisters, will be speaking to you for your article.’
He gave a nod like he was expecting that answer. ‘Figured as much but let me counter with this. Everyone in this town is eager to speak with me. Would you rather I get stories about your family second-hand from a person like Mo, or get the real story from you?’
‘What I’d rather is that you leave town and never come back.’
‘There are several reasons why that can’t happen,’ he said with a heavy sigh.
Yeah, this was going to be way more than a ‘puff’ piece.
‘Dani, I’m going to be here a while. The article is for the summer issue so it won’t be due until the end of December.’
I gripped the steering wheel. Heaved in a full breath at the thought of having to avoid him for several months.
‘Please give me a chance. Google me. Read my work. You’ll see that I’m fair.’ He trained that deep blue gaze on me. ‘Meet me tomorrow. You can ask me any question about my writing. How I’m planning to approach the article.’ His pleading look was meant to soften me up, but I wasn’t buying it.
All that time in the clinic, he’d had every opportunity to confess who he was.
To tell me the real reason he was in town, but he’d stayed quiet.
Then there was that soul-melting kiss, which I thought was spontaneous, born out of a complicated mixture of fear and relief, but now it felt contrived.
Another way to get me to let my guard down.
The deceit and manipulation reminded me too much of Belladonna, and I refused to have one more person like her in my life.
‘Goodbye, Bryce.’
I shooed him away before yanking the door shut. His determined look warned he wasn’t giving up, but neither was I.
I’d spent a lifetime protecting my sisters from people who stared. Spoke in whispers about us. Bryce was just one more person to add to that list.