One
As I hadn’t made it home until after four, I got in later that morning than usual.
Not surprising, though, as I’d stayed until both Missy and Katey had fallen asleep, as they were both too terrified to close their eyes at first. Of course, once his people had passed out, so did Lucky.
He just splooted, legs splayed, head on the blanket, appearing to sort of puddle out of sheer exhaustion.
“You have to be a real sonofabitch to traumatize a mother, her child, and a puppy,” Crystal O’Shea muttered as she joined me in the main intake room after I got them settled.
“Don’t shoot him when you see him,” I told her. “He’s drunk. He’ll probably pass out on the grass.”
She smiled slowly. “You know, you always say that, and the men always do. Are you aware of that?”
I grinned back. “It’s just a guess.”
She nodded. “Yes. It always is, isn’t it?” Quick shrug from me and she leaned forward. “You know, some people say you’re a witch, Mere.”
I scoffed. “You know better. You’re the witch, Crystal, not me.”
She didn’t argue, and from the wind chimes out front, the constant aroma of burning palo santo, and the sigils in each room, we both knew it was true.
“May I make you a cup of black tea before you go?” she asked, her brown eyes warm as she looked at me.
“That would be nice.”
When she got up, she ran her fingers through my hair as she passed. “I don’t know, Mere, you feel magic to me.”
“That’s because you like me.”
“That could very well be,” she said with a smile.
I chuckled, and so did she.
Now, finally arriving at work, after ten, I noticed a new car in the parking lot of The Bower on my way in from the road.
Now, many people would ask, how can you tell a new car from one that had been there before?
The answer was simple; the town was the size of a postage stamp, so the cars that belong to the locals, I knew on sight.
From the parking lot, I walked under the arch that led from the lot to the courtyard and stood there a moment, lifting my face to the breeze. It was a cloudy, crisp mid-October morning, which was my favorite kind. The air smelled faintly of wood smoke, pine, and earth.
Once I crossed into the restaurant—it was all open now, not cold enough yet to not have people sitting outside—I walked to the counter, just checking on the ebb and flow of my place.
“Merritt,” Evelyn “Evie” Sanchez said as she gently shoulder-checked me, having just walked out of the kitchen. “Are you listening?”
But maybe she hadn’t just walked out and I’d been standing there longer than I thought.
“What?”
“Mere,” she grumbled at me.
“Sorry. And yes, of course I’m listening to you,” I assured her, turning and making my eyes big. “Always.”
“What did I say?”
“I have no earthly idea.”
Immediate scowl. “I said there are three men here to speak to you about the Rader property down toward the river.”
“It’s a creek,” I reminded her for the five thousandth time.
“How can a creek be that big, that deep, or that wide? My kids go tubing in that thing in the summer.”
“That’s because in the spring, the rains come and make the creek swell so that in the summer, it’s bigger.”
“I really don’t––”
“But,” I said, speaking over her, which was rude, but she seldom allowed me to finish making my point. “It’s designated as a creek. Go argue with the county.”
She growled at me.
“Is that them there?” I asked, tipping my head at three men I could see from where we were. One of them had to be the owner of the Lexus that was new to our lot.
“Yes. And when I asked where they were from, they said New York.”
“Huh.”
“Oh come on, that’s exciting.”
“Is it?”
She shook her head like I was hopeless.
“And why do they want to talk to me? I don’t own the Rader property.”
“I have no idea, and I don’t want to know. All I know is they want to see you.”
My brain kicked on a bit. “Did they buy it?”
“I think so, from how they were talking.”
“You know Bill Rader has been trying to unload those thirty acres for years.”
She nodded. “Yessir, he has.”
“And you know why he couldn’t.”
“Yessir, I do.”
“Why would they buy here? Why not in White Sulphur Springs?”
“Listen, if they’re trying to make Coille a resort destination or something, I say let them try. That would be lovely for the town.”
We had about fifteen hundred people in our small town, so I couldn’t see that happening, but I’d been wrong before. If it were me, I would have bought closer to White Sulphur Springs, or even better, in Lewisburg. Both places had double our population.
Visitors came to the area to go hiking, camping, fishing, boating, kayaking, stargazing, and, when weather permitted, take nice long scenic drives.
They also came to hunt in the nearby Monongahela National Forest. I had no problem with hunting as long as they stayed off my land, which all my neighbors did.
It was only out-of-town guests who sometimes got turned around and wandered in.
Also, in my opinion, if you were going to hunt something, it was only fair that whatever it was you were trying to kill was outfitted the same. That only seemed sporting.
I suspected that the men had taken the survey map, come out here to take a look at the property, and realized that to access the Rader piece, which had several cabins built on it, they needed Desmond Laramie to sell his small parcel as well, which was the two acres that had access to the main road.
Without Desmond selling—which he’d told everyone he never would because he hated Bill with the blazing heat of a thousand suns—the only other option was to see if I had any interest in selling a portion of the long drive up to my house.
This had happened several times over the years, and each time, everything had crumbled when I said no thank you.
Hopefully Evie was wrong and they were just looking, and no money had changed hands.
From where we stood staring at them, they all appeared to be young guys, so either they’d gotten royally screwed—Bill had never been forthcoming about the limitations of his land—or they were simply looking.
I hoped, for their sake, that they hadn’t been duped.
And really, even aside from that, building in Coille was unrealistic.
We were situated halfway between White Sulphur Springs and Tuckahoe, and there was nothing out here but miles and miles of nature.
Perhaps they were opening a retreat, not a resort.
Two years ago a very nice lady from New York—Victoria something; I couldn’t for the life of me recall her last name—had wanted to buy Bill Rader’s land to do just that.
She had loved the vibe of The Bower and been thrilled to discover that I only employed women, and wanted to see if I would be interested in stocking her candles, lotions, and jewelry, which she would also sell at her spa, The Goddess.
When I’d told Idunn Shelby, who made all the beeswax candles for The Bower, as well as selling them online, she was not pleased.
She didn’t want any candles but hers in my restaurant.
As I’d only used her creations for years, I had to tell Victoria…
something Italian maybe, that it wouldn’t work out.
She’d insisted on speaking to Idunn, and that was the last I’d heard of her.
Idunn was just a tad territorial and liked me quite a bit.
“Oh my God, why’re you yawning right now?” Evie asked me, dragging me back from my wandering thoughts.
“Need coffee,” I whimpered.
She muttered something about me being annoying under her breath but left, I was hoping, to procure me some caffeine.
“Mornin’, Mere,” Brandon Hubbell called over to me from his regular stool at the counter, sipping coffee I desperately needed.
“Good morning,” I greeted him and his crew, lifting a hand to them all.
Brandon was a landscaper, and he and his guys always stopped in for breakfast before hitting the road for Lewisburg.
Not many people worked in Coille; there just wasn’t enough to do.
So if the men standing in the courtyard wanted to try and bring some jobs here, it was probably a good thing.
Besides The Bower, there weren’t many places to work.
Hard to account for it, but as usual, every stool at the counter was filled with regulars, the tables in the courtyard too.
We had some empties inside, near the enormous hearth, but even though it was crisp outside, between low sixties and mid-fifties, people wanted to soak up the sun while they could still get it.
It wasn’t time to fire up the hearth yet, though right before Samhain, or Halloween, I would get it going.
Even in our tiny town, on any given morning, we were packed. We stayed steady all day, with two peaks, one at nine in the morning and the other at seven at night.
As I made my way to the kitchen, since Evie hadn’t yet reappeared with a mug for me, I waved at all my first-shift people and got multiple calls of “Hey, Mere” back. It was Merritt, but everyone had been shortening it forever.
Paris Croft, my day manager, saw me and strode across the main area to slip her arm through mine, as was her habit.
“What?” I barked at her. I did it with everyone, so she wasn’t fazed.
“Don’t growl,” she warned me, steering me toward the redbrick courtyard. “Did Evie tell you about the guys waiting for you?”
“Yes.”
“Then why aren’t you speaking to them?”
“No coffee.”
“Yes, I’m aware. And because Evie made it sound like you were needing more than your regular, Lupe is making you that spicy concoction of hers with the chilis because she said your something chakra needs it because it’s out of alignment with Uranus.”
“All of what you just said is wrong,” I assured her.
“Anyway, I’ll bring it to you when she’s done, but you do need to go chat with them. New people bringing new business is good for the town.”
I squinted at her.