Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
THIS IS EITHER MAGIC OR I’VE LANDED IN A HALLMARK MOVIE
“Please don’t call me that,” I blurt immediately. “Miss Thorne sounds like I should be haunting an attic somewhere. It’s Keisha, or Ki-Ki for short.”
The driver glances over at me, one corner of his mouth lifting.
“Maceo,” he says.
“Ezra,” adds the quieter one beside him.
“Lucien,” my nice seat says, squeezing my waist gently.
Great. Three men with strong names and entirely too much composure.
Lucien’s voice slides right into my ear like silk, soft and smooth. The way he said, “Welcome to Ruby Springs”, each word carefully chosen and deliberately placed. Like he has welcomed a hundred people into Ruby Springs over the years and somehow saved this particular welcome, just for me.
The shiver that runs down my spine makes no sense.
I have never set foot in this place. I was born here but I’ve never known it.
I have never even seen it outside of my mother’s carefully edited stories and a handful of faded photographs that looked more like folklore than documentation of actual life.
Still, something deep inside me reacts anyway, immediate and instinctive.
My head swivels toward the windshield again, my mind refusing to accept what my eyes are insisting is real.
One second ago, the world was gray and hostile.
Now? Now everything is impossibly bright.
Golden, even. Warm sunlight pours over the town square.
People stroll along pristine sidewalks like they have nowhere urgent to be, like the concept of stress is foreign to them.
Children weave around an ornate fountain while adults sip coffee from ceramic mugs and laugh like the weather never tried to take me out five minutes ago.
It’s like someone hit a reset button on reality.
My mouth opens before my brain can catch up and stop it.
“Please tell me that was magic. Because that was definitely not the effects of climate change,” I blurt, because if this is just some weird meteorological coincidence, I’m going to lose what’s left of my sanity.
Maceo’s low chuckle rumbles through the cab, deep and rich like good coffee. He glances at me, catching my expression, then turns his attention back to the road with something that feels like amusement and satisfaction rolled into one perfect, insufferable package.
Ezra, the quieter one with the analytical eyes, does not laugh. He watches me like he’s trying to decide whether my reaction falls within normal parameters or if I’m about to become a problem that needs solving.
Lucien, beneath me, leans back slightly into the seat like he has all the space in the world, even with me sprawled across his lap in what has to be the most undignified entrance to a new town in recorded history.
His hand rests at my waist with a steadiness that makes my body feel oddly safe, like a tether I didn’t know I needed.
His voice comes again, close enough that I can feel the words against my ear.
“You know what this place is,” he says. It is not a question.
“I know what my mother told me,” I correct quickly.
My pride refuses to let me be seen as naive in front of three gorgeous strangers who look like they walked out of a calendar shoot titled ‘Men Who Could Carry You And Your Emotional Baggage Without Breaking A Sweat’.
“She told me Ruby Springs was hidden. Ward-protected, I guess. She told me stories, but. . .” My eyes sweep the street again, still struggling to reconcile what I’m seeing with what should be possible.
The cognitive dissonance makes my voice drop without my permission.
“It looks like somebody tried to build a small town out of a Pinterest board and succeeded beyond all reasonable expectations.”
Maceo laughs outright at that, deep and warm and entirely too attractive. He slows the truck as we roll deeper into town, the oversized tires humming over a road so smooth and well-maintained it makes my own travel misery seem personally targeted by the universe.
“It cleans up nice,” he says with obvious pride.
The town absolutely does.
Colorful storefronts line the main street, each one bright and cheerful like they’re competing for ‘Most Likely To Be Featured In A Romantic Hallmark Holiday Movie’.
Hand-painted signs swing gently in the breeze, advertising everything from handcrafted soaps to fresh-baked bread.
Flower boxes spill over with blooms so vibrant they look almost too perfect to be real, like someone cranked the saturation up by a thousand.
The sidewalks look clean enough to eat off, which is not something I would ever trust anywhere, because I am a woman who has lived in cities and knows the uncomfortable truth about public surfaces.
Something smells incredible. My nose catches it before I can steel myself against the sensory assault. Coffee. Fresh, rich coffee drifting through the open window like a deliberate lure designed to break down my defenses.
My head turns instinctively, following the scent like a compass needle finding north, and there it is on the corner, a charming little café with a hand-painted sign that reads THE CACKLING HEN in cheerful yellow letters.
A chalkboard out front advertises something about honey-lavender scones and ‘today’s magical brew’, and the scent hits me so hard my stomach growls, betraying just how long it’s been since I’ve eaten anything resembling real food.
My entire body reacts like I’ve been wandering the desert for days, and this is the first oasis promising salvation.
“That’s rude,” I mutter, mostly to myself but loud enough for them to hear. “I’ve been out there fighting for my life against supernatural weather, and they’re just casually baking artisanal pastries like the world isn’t ending.”
Ezra’s mouth twitches like he might be fighting a smile, the first crack in his carefully composed facade. “You were walking,” he points out with academic precision.
“I was suffering,” I correct with dignity.
“Dramatically,” Lucien adds, and I can hear the smile in his voice.
The truck continues forward, and the street opens into the town center. That’s where my breath catches again, sharp enough to hurt.
A river runs right through Ruby Springs.
It’s not a dull, muddy waterway that carries old cans and questionable decisions. Nor is it the kind of urban stream that makes you wonder what’s growing in it and whether you need a tetanus shot just from looking at it. This river is genuinely, impossibly red.
Not horror-movie red, not the kind that makes you think of Stephen King novels and things that should never happen to nice people. This is a warm, rich red like garnets or good wine, catching the light and throwing it back in ways that make physics seem like more of a suggestion than a law.
It twists through town like a silk ribbon someone laid down with care, and little stone bridges arc over it at regular intervals, connecting streets and sidewalks like something pulled directly from a fairy tale.
The water glitters under the sun, sparkling like it’s proud of its own impossible beauty and wants everyone to know it.
“That is. . .” My voice trails off because words feel inadequate. My eyes fix on the river, unable to look away, as if staring long enough might make sense of it.
“The Springs,” Lucien murmurs, like he knows exactly what I’m seeing and what it’s doing to me.
“That’s why it’s called Ruby Springs,” I whisper, still staring, still trying to process the reality of it.
“Smart girl,” Maceo says with obvious approval.
My mother used to talk about it like it was the most beautiful thing in the world.
She told me the Springs ran red because my great-great-great-grandmother made them that way.
I’m sure I need to throw in a few more greats, but the exact number has always been fuzzy.
Well, she enchanted them. She always said it like a bedtime story, like Ruby Springs was a place of whimsy where magic was as ordinary and unremarkable as weather.
Seeing it in front of me makes those stories feel sharper somehow. Less like childhood fantasy and more like a memory I was never allowed to have, a birthright I was denied.
People turn to look at the truck as we roll through town, slow enough now that I can see faces clearly. Some smile politely in that small-town way that feels genuine but guarded. Some stare a little too long, curiosity overriding politeness.
My posture stiffens automatically. The reflex lives in me the same way breathing does. The immediate awareness of being watched, weighed, judged by strangers who think they have the right to an opinion about my existence.
Today, though, the attention feels different. Not hostile, exactly. Not particularly welcoming either. Just curious. You know that specific brand of small-town curiosity where everybody knows everybody else’s business, and they can scent newness in the air like bloodhounds picking up a trail.
My eyes flick down to my current situation, and reality crashes back in. I am still sitting on Lucien’s lap in the passenger seat of a tow truck, probably looking like I just survived a natural disaster.
The mortification creeps up my neck like a slow burn.
“This is. . .” I gesture vaguely at myself, at the cab, at the entire undignified situation. “This is going to be the town’s primary source of gossip for the next fifty years, isn’t it?”
Maceo grins, apparently delighted by this prospect. “Depends on how long you stay.”
Ezra’s dark eyes narrow slightly, something calculating flickering behind them. “People see how you arrive,” he says with the kind of careful neutrality that suggests deeper implications. “They’re going to talk.”
“That is deeply comforting,” I mutter, already imagining the conversations happening behind lace curtains and over coffee.