Sunscreen and Spellbooks (Crescent Cove #3)

CHAPTER ONE

CATHERINE

My life didn’t fall apart all at once. It unraveled in a single unopened email.

Company Restructuring: Notice of Employment Termination for Catherine—

The cut-off subject line glares back at me, but it can’t be true. It has to be a mistake, perhaps sent to my email by accident. Catherine is a common name, and the company is made up of thousands of employees.

I stare at it for a full ten minutes before I click. Long enough to feel the dread crawl in, to sense something shifting under my feet like the ground already knew something I didn’t.

My full name waits for me on the bright screen of my laptop. My eyes quickly scan the email, but it only details the severance pay.

No warning. No conversation. Just a quiet, clinical ending to everything I thought I was building. Everything I spent the last seven years giving up—time with my family, friends, a social life, a chance at a relationship—to level up in. Not even a thank you.

“They didn’t even bother with the dignity of calling me or telling me in person.” I sigh, the sound hollow in the too-clean apartment as I slouch deeper into my chair.

Mango pats his claw against his heating rock in the open terrarium on my desk. At my attention, the bearded dragon swishes his tail and taps the surface again, impatiently.

“Don’t look at me like that. This promotion would have been an upgrade for both of us. Fewer hours, a bigger office, a closer commute. I might even have had room to set up a second terrarium so you could come to work with me and not just curl up in my coat pocket all day.”

He cocks his head to the side.

“Can’t a girl have a moment to wallow in peace?”

He stares at me, his tongue flicking out to lick his snout before tapping the rock twice.

“Fine, I’ll feed you.”

I push to my feet and grab the jar of mealworms from the fridge, feeding him a few one at a time before turning to face the tiny apartment.

Outside my window, the city hums like nothing’s changed.

A car horn blares somewhere below, sharp and impatient.

Tires hiss against pavement. Someone laughs on the sidewalk, bright and careless, the sound drifting up between the buildings like it belongs to a different world.

Late afternoon light spills through the glass in soft gold bands, catching on the edges of the whitewashed wood furniture and turning everything warm when it shouldn’t be.

I’d been at the office late last night, long after everyone else had gone home, wrapping up a project like always.

Putting my best foot forward. Giving them everything.

The merger had been all anyone talked about for months—whispers of new positions, opportunities, a chance to climb higher if you just worked hard enough, stayed late enough, proved yourself enough.

I’d believed them.

I’d built my entire life around that belief.

Seven years. Seven years of clawing my way up from entry level at Starlight Enterprises, fresh out of college at twenty-five, telling myself every missed holiday and canceled plan would be worth it eventually.

I shut the laptop with a little more force than necessary, the click loud in the quiet. I can’t read the email again. I won’t. The words are already burned into the back of my mind anyway.

Position eliminated. Effective immediately.

I drag a hand through my hair, twisting it into a messy bun at the crown of my head. A few purple strands slip free, falling into my face like they always do, refusing to be contained no matter how many times I try.

What do I do now?

The question hangs there unanswered, heavier than it has any right to be.

I glance around the studio apartment, suddenly too aware of how… curated everything looks. Clothes neatly hung. Shoes lined up with military precision. My bed is made with crisp white linens pulled tight like no one actually sleeps there. Like I’ve been staging a life instead of living in it.

The only real sign of me is the small framed photo on my nightstand.

Me and my aunt, sunburned and smiling, hair tangled from saltwater and wind, standing on the porch of her beach house. Crescent Cove stretched out behind us in endless blue.

I jump, nearly tipping backward in the chair as my phone suddenly blares to life.

“Kokomo” by the Beach Boys fills the apartment, bright and out of place against the quiet. I always keep my phone on silent. Always.

The sound feels… intentional.

I turn, heart still stuttering, and grab it off the desk. My aunt’s contact flashes across the screen. She and her golden doodle grin back at me as though they’re in on a secret.

Like just looking at her picture summoned her.

But that’s ridiculous.

Magic doesn’t work like that.

Magic doesn’t work at all.

Not anymore.

I gave that up years ago. Packed it away the same way I packed everything else that didn’t fit into the life I was trying to build. Because there was no room for it here. Not if I wanted to be taken seriously. Not if I wanted to succeed.

Not if I wanted to belong.

It’s also around the time we stopped talking as much.

At first, I was just busy. Then too busy. Then suddenly months would pass between calls, my phone lighting up with her name while I sat in meetings or stayed late finishing projects that might—might—give me the edge I needed for a promotion.

She never stopped trying, though.

Birthday cards every year without fail. Little notes tucked inside like she could still reach me that way.

Heat prickles behind my eyes.

How am I supposed to tell her this?

How do I admit that I gave up everything—including her—for something that didn’t even have the decency to end things to my face?

She always told me I was more than enough. That anyone who couldn’t see it wasn’t worth fighting for.

But she didn’t understand this world.

She didn’t understand what it took to survive in it.

She was my mom’s twin, but they’d always been so different. My mom grounded, practical. My aunt… something else entirely. Something brighter. Wilder.

And then my mom got sick.

And no amount of magic or medicine could save her.

That was the year I stopped believing in things I couldn’t control. The year I buried magic alongside everything else that made losing her hurt more.

I threw myself into school. Into work. Into becoming someone who would never have to rely on hope again.

The phone stops ringing.

The silence lasts all of one second before it starts up again, the cheerful melody somehow louder this time, more insistent.

Like it won’t let me ignore it.

With a sigh, I hit answer and flop back onto the bed, the mattress dipping beneath me as I stare at the eggshell-white ceiling.

“Hey,” I say, trying and failing to keep the crack out of my voice.

“Hello, sunshine. I’m so glad I caught you. I’m leaving in a week for a two-month overseas trip.” Aunt Mirabella’s cheerful voice spills through the phone, warm and bright and completely at odds with the hollow feeling sitting heavy in my chest.

For a second, I just close my eyes and let it wash over me. Familiar. Safe. Like nothing in my life just cracked open.

“Oh, wow, that’s quite the adventure.” I roll onto my stomach, propping my chin on my hands as I watch Mango munch happily away like the world isn’t quietly ending two feet from him.

“I know, I know. I’m a little nervous, but mostly excited.

” I can practically hear her smiling. “It’s actually the reason I’m calling out of the blue.

I know you’re busy with that career of yours, but I was hoping—maybe—there’s any way you could dog-sit Gin for me.

She’s not a young puppy anymore, and I don’t think she’d do well on such a long trip. ”

Busy with that career of yours.

The words snag somewhere behind my ribs.

My gaze drifts to the laptop on my desk. The email sits there, burned into my retinas. I’d closed the laptop as if closing it would somehow undo it. Erase it from time and memory.

We regret to inform you.

A memory pushes in before I can stop it—one I didn’t ask for.

The summer before I moved to New Maydel.

Before the job offer. Before I traded everything in for a shot at something bigger.

Gin had barely been a year old, all oversized paws and endless energy, running circles around me like we were already best friends.

Her fluffy golden tail wagging so hard her whole body moved with it.

She has to be… what, eight now?

Older. Slower.

Still waiting for someone to come home.

“Catherine?”

“Sorry.” I clear my throat, pushing myself up and sitting back on my heels. My eyes sweep over the apartment, the too-small kitchen, the stack of unopened mail, the life I built piece by piece that suddenly feels… temporary. “I just—yeah. I can take Gin for the summer.”

The words come out easier than they should.

Like the decision was already made somewhere deep down before I caught up to it.

I reach for my laptop, fingers hesitating for half a second before I open it and switch back to my banking app instead of the email. Numbers are easier. Numbers make sense.

Savings. Rent. Groceries. Severance.

I do the math automatically, like I’ve done it a hundred times before, like if I get the equation right the outcome might change.

A few months. Maybe.

If I’m careful.

If nothing else goes wrong.

If I figure out what the hell I’m doing next.

“Oh, good.” Relief softens her voice, twisting something in my chest. “I can make arrangements to drive up in a day or two and leave her with you. Unless you’d rather watch her at the house. Although that’s a bit of a drive to work for you. Either way, maybe we can find time to have lunch?”

Lunch.

Normal things. Simple things. Things that belong to people whose lives aren’t quietly unraveling in the background.

“Funny thing, actually.” I click back to the email tab still open on my laptop. “I’ll have plenty of time. I just… got laid off.”

A pause. Not pity. Just quiet.

“Oh, sweetheart.” The sound of her voice is so reminiscent of my mother’s, something I haven’t thought about in years. Maybe it’s even part of the reason I pulled so far away from her, from going back to Crescent Cove.

I swallow. Force a laugh that doesn’t quite land.

“Well, sometimes life closes one door only to open another, even better one. I know you had your heart set on this promotion, but what do you plan to do now?”

“Honestly? I’m not sure.” The words leave my mouth before I have a moment to process them.

“Well, mi casa es su casa. Literally, niece. Your grandmother didn’t just leave the house to me, but to both of us. You’re always welcome to come home. Even if it’s just for a change of scenery until life leads you to your next destination.”

Home.

My stomach churns at the thought of giving up everything I’ve built, but I’ve already made up my mind.

“Yeah. So a change of scenery might be exactly what I need. I can watch Gin and house-sit for you while I look for a new job this summer.”

“Just let me know when you’re driving down. I’ll make up the room for you.”