1. Chapter 1 #2
Ava reads over my shoulder. “That was fast.”
“They were waiting for me.”
She looks at the photograph at the top of the email. Behind the festival tents, the mountains rise dark and jagged beneath an amber sky. Red leaves frame the edges of the image. The same mountains from my dream. A strange sensation stirs beneath my breastbone, directly over my solar plexus.
Ava feels it. “What?”
“I’ve seen this place.”
“Online?”
“No. At your birthday party, and again in a dream.”
Her gaze moves from the screen to my face. Unlike many people, Ava does not laugh when I tell her something impossible. She may dispute it, organize it, or ask whether I have eaten enough protein, but she does not laugh.
Three customers enter, followed by a construction crew that has apparently decided baked goods are essential to structural restoration. Ava turns toward the register. I look down at the acceptance email once more. For the first time, a name catches my attention beneath the vendor instructions.
On-site security and vendor check-in will be coordinated by Blackridge Protective Services. All vendors must comply with access-lane, fire-safety, and closing procedures.
The language is severe enough to drain the romance from nearly any autumn festival. I scroll past it and find the link to the vendor portal.
By noon, I have reserved a small cabin in Cady Springs, ordered two additional folding display walls, and announced the festival to my followers.
Twelve people respond within the first hour.
Three ask whether I am offering distance readings.
One wants to know if the flower essences are safe for cats.
Another writes that she lives forty minutes from Cady Springs and has already booked a Saturday appointment.
I limit myself to four private sessions each day. Experience has taught me that enthusiasm does not create energy where none remains. Giving until I am empty helps no one, although I learned that lesson much later than I should have.
By Wednesday afternoon, my vehicle contains several boxes of candles, four padded cases of crystals, three folding tables, one portable massage table, two garment bags of fabric, and enough rosemary to protect a small nation.
The drive into Cady Springs winds through steepening hills painted with autumn.
Gold aspens shimmer beside the road. Dark evergreens climb the mountain slopes, and the air pouring through my cracked window smells of cold earth and woodsmoke.
With every mile, the restless pull inside me becomes quieter. Not weaker, but closer.
Festival signs direct vendors toward a broad park beyond the town’s main street.
White tents stand in orderly rows beneath the trees.
Workers carry crates, test strings of lights, and argue cheerfully over the placement of hay bales.
Beyond them, the mountains rise against a sky already deepening toward evening.
I stop at the check-in table, collect my credentials, and follow a volunteer’s directions toward booth 37.
The location is better than I expected. A massive maple tree spreads red-gold branches over the rear corner, and a low timber fence separates the artisan booths from a quieter garden area.
If I angle the privacy screens correctly, clients on the massage table will see leaves and filtered sky rather than the back wall of the kettle-corn vendor.
I open the rear hatch and begin unloading. The first folding table catches on a box of candle vessels. I tighten my grip, pull harder, and nearly send both onto the pavement. A large hand closes around the opposite end of the table.
“Stop.”
The voice is low, controlled, and entirely too close. I look up.
He is tall enough to block a portion of the autumn sky. Long dark hair brushes the collar of a black jacket. His body is lean rather than bulky, but muscle defines the hand holding my table and the forearm visible beneath his pushed-up sleeve. A tattoo disappears beneath the cuff.
His eyes settle on mine. They are dark and penetrating. Despite catching me off guard, something inside me becomes perfectly still.
The man from my dream had no face, but I know this energy. Water held beneath ice. Intensity compressed until it has become control. A locked door with something restless behind it. Scorpio … strong Scorpio energy.
He looks from me to the equipment protruding from my vehicle. “You can’t unload here.”
I glance at the empty lane. “I appear to be doing it.”
“This is an emergency-access route.”
“I’ll only need a few minutes.”
“You have already been here eleven.”
I study him more carefully. A radio is clipped near his shoulder. A small black emblem is embroidered over his chest.
BLACKRIDGE PROTECTIVE SERVICES
Somehow, the universe has led me across Colorado to be reprimanded by security.
“You timed me?”
“I noticed you.”
The words pass between us before either of us can make them ordinary.
His expression does not change, but the energy around him does.
A subtle tightening. Awareness sharpening into something warmer and far less professional.
I should apologize and move my vehicle. Instead, I hear myself ask, “What month were you born?”
His eyes narrow. “Move the vehicle.”
“October or November?”
“I’m not discussing my birthday.”
“November, then.”
He releases the table and steps back. “Move the vehicle. I’ll take this to your booth.”
“You’re unloading for me?”
“I’m clearing an emergency route.”
“That is unexpectedly helpful.”
“Don’t mistake it for flexibility.”
There it is again … that immovable, grounded force from the vision.
Mountains.
Autumn.
A man with very stubborn energy.
Unable to control the recognition of it all, I find myself smiling. His gaze drops briefly to my mouth and returns to my eyes. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“It doesn’t look like nothing.”
“The universe has a sense of humor.”
His attention moves over my boxes of oils, candles, and carefully padded crystals. Whatever warmth appeared in his face disappears beneath obvious suspicion.
“What are you selling?”
“Balance.”
He looks at the overloaded vehicle, the table wedged between two boxes, and the bundle of rosemary hanging from the rear handle.
“You may want to keep some for yourself.”
He carries the folding table toward Booth 37, then returns and lifts the heaviest crystal case as though it weighs nothing.
“Vehicle,” he reminds me.
I stand beside my open hatch for one more second, watching him walk away.
The universe has sent me the same message four times in seventeen days. It might have warned me that the stubborn man would be infuriating and very sexy.