Chapter 2 Prudence, Lists & Unrequited Infatuation （of a possum） #2
Little devils danced in Victoria’s eyes as she waved the slightly arthritic hand in the direction where the coffee carafe was being kept warm in the machine.
Pru did as bidden, hiding her smile. She also attempted to hide what she thought was a discreet glance she threw out of her front shop window to where the neighbor in question carried her own coffee into the construction site, ignoring the appreciative stares of the crew as she passed them by.
“You are about as subtle as they are, child.”
So much for thinking she had been inconspicuous.
Caught, Pru dropped the dainty cup. Victoria snickered.
The china fell and Pru was ready to reach for the broom, except instead of shattering into a thousand little pieces, it rattled on the stone floor of the shop and Victoria’s laughter ceased abruptly.
Pru watched in wonder as the cup stopped its awkward bounce and turned handle up.
Intact. Victoria gave Pru a calculating glance before nodding toward the coffee again.
“I wasn’t staring.” Pru sighed. Even to her own ears, the words were completely dishonest. Setting the somehow unbroken piece of kitchenware aside, she filled a new one for Victoria, who took it and winked.
“There’s no shame in that, Pru. She has always been gorgeous. Twenty-some years have done nothing but make her more so. All the Crowharts age beautifully. I am a living testament to that.”
“Since I have no idea how old you are, I will refrain from commenting.” Pru crossed her arms, on her toes where Victoria was concerned.
“Sassy. Always were. That’s good, because you will have to deal with her. And that’s one way to do so, child.”
Against her better judgment, Pru dared to give voice to her immediate follow-up question.
“And what are other ways?”
Victoria took a long sip, grimaced—because let’s face it, even Pru knew her brew was a work in progress, as were all her culinary talents—and then gave her a brilliant shameless smile.
“Besides sassing her? Fuck her. Either of those would work for you, Prudence Ophelia Fowler of the ancient and questionably reputable Crow’s Nest Fowlers.”
Rolling her eyes, Pru knew she had walked right into that one.
The door she had left open for Victoria’s teasing was the size of a barn, she had nobody else to blame but herself.
As for Victoria’s disdain for the Fowler clan, that was par for the course.
The Crowharts and the Fowlers had been on the island for ages, and their feuds were legion.
Nobody remembered anymore where it all began and how the clans turned enemies.
Both families had resided on the island since late 1600s, but the animosity had always been there, despite its roots being forgotten.
The more recent, if you can call it that, conflict dated back to the Civil War and the Crowhart family members serving the Union and the Fowlers eschewing the fighting and remaining in Crow’s Nest, with their patriarch becoming the mayor—at the expense of the Crowhart who were lost on the battlefield.
The feud ran for decades and was the veritable Hatfields and the McCoys of Dragons.
It cooled down when most of the participants died off, but the town still capitalized on the warring clans, and books and tours were given, memorializing the events long past.
None of those conflicts was current, however, and so nobody presently alive cared. Victoria yanked her chain every now and then, the inside jokes getting more and more ridiculous.
On her pillow, Patches emitted what could only be categorized as a particularly pathetic sound of yearning, and both Victoria and Pru moved closer to the window to observe Rhiannon Crowhart and her feline companion exit the building and stroll along the Market Square.
The disposable coffee cup was held gently by its lid, swaying along with the purposeful gait of the woman who carried it.
“Us Crowharts may all be beautiful, but nobody makes a mockery of the laws of physics quite like Rhiannon. It should not be possible to walk this easily on those stilts of hers. What are they, four inches? Mother Goddess, spare me.”
Pru allowed herself one more look at the high-heeled leather ankle boots, taking in the shapely calves and the jog of the hips before turning back to Victoria, who was watching her again as if she could read her mind. The little devils had multiplied in those forest-green Crowhart eyes.
“Instead of badgering a fellow business owner, why are you not over there questioning your niece, Victoria? Or bar that, aren’t at the Tavern?”
When she was not busy gossiping, Victoria ran the most successful restaurant on the island.
It was also the most successful restaurant in a hundred-mile radius, because Crow’s Tavern had a Michelin star to show for the hard work that went into it.
It had been recently awarded, but the star was a star, nonetheless.
Charming and quaint, it was renowned and revered, and a large chunk of the tourists that started flocking to Dragons recently came to sample Victoria’s cuisine.
Still, looking at the woman, one would never be able to tell.
However, underneath the false air of the island busybody lived a shrewd and savvy businesswoman, and an amazing chef.
“With the storm coming in, they will likely cancel the afternoon ferry anyway. Not many tourists are milling around today. And I’ll be fine feeding the ones that will brave the weather.”
Not for the first time, Pru was taken aback by the older woman’s ability to speak of weather as if she had a direct line to the heavens.
It had been dewy earlier but was sunny and warm now, and Pru herself had forgone her umbrella this morning.
Granted, she lived above her bookstore, so her commute was not exactly long, and unless Victoria was foreseeing a torrential storm, she’d be fine climbing the back stairs into her tiny studio.
“Your weather abracadabra notwithstanding, you very diligently sidestepped the question about why you are hiding here and spying—as you put it—on your own niece.”
Victoria made a production of cleaning her glasses and taking another sip of coffee before leaning closer and lowering her voice conspiratorially.
“We aren’t on speaking terms. I put a hex on her when she left the island years ago.”
And that was one more curiosity that would often perplex Pru when spending time with Victoria: her singular sense of humor.
At least everyone in town either pretended it was humor or just another one of Victoria’s many eccentricities.
She’d joke about hexes and spells and potions, and people would laugh and laugh.
Pru didn’t find the magic talk all that funny.
For some reason it always made her do a double take, if only to see the smirk on Victoria’s face.
Pru wasn’t a skeptic, it wasn’t in her nature, but observing something so fantastical flaunted…
didn’t sit right with her. So, she oftentimes chose to dismiss it and move forward rather than dwell and give herself an ulcer.
“Setting the joking aside, did she do something that warranted you not speaking to her?”
Victoria gave Pru a careful look, as if assessing how much she’d believe, before shaking her head and resting her chin on her hand.
“In all honesty, nothing that I wouldn’t have done. Or haven’t actually done. Her timing could’ve been better, though, hence the not speaking. And the less-than-warm farewell. So, for now, I’m just going to observe her from afar for a bit. Safer that way. Rhiannon can hold a grudge like no other.”
As Victoria spoke, both observed the grudge-holder in question return to the construction site with a new cup of coffee. When she passed by the shop window, she threw a glance in its direction.
And just like that, the air around them filled with a distinct scent. A strong, comforting one. One that reminded Pru of green pastures and thundering storms.
She inhaled, marveling at the electricity making her lightheaded.
Or, was it actually the air?
There was no possible way Rhiannon could have seen them, obscured by stacks of books and displays of merchandise as they were, and yet for a brief second, Pru felt pierced.
A needle through a butterfly, the green eyes from her dreams caught her in place, pinning her, rendering her breathless.
They moved on as quickly as they had ensnared her, and when Pru finally inhaled again, closing her eyes and allowing herself to savor, she was unable to explain what was happening.
Except she knew the scent. Familiar, sweet, and fresh. There was nothing like it.
Petrichor.
The second the thought crossed her mind, above her, thunder split the pleasant silence of the autumn day, and when Pru opened her eyes a flash of lighting almost blinded her.
The world was suddenly very alive, the colors bright, vivid, the sounds of birds and rain permeating her bookstore.
She blinked once, twice, and everything was gone, the quiet falling over her again.
On her stool, Victoria sat still, the cup in her hand lifted halfway to her mouth, and watched Pru with wide eyes.
When Pru shook her head to dispel whatever had come over her, Victoria slowly lowered her coffee.
“See? The storm is here. And that’s my cue to not be. Here, that is.”
Her long gray braid bouncing on her back, she sidestepped the counter and bussed Pru’s suddenly chilled cheek, patting the other one.
“Um… Victoria? What kind of thunder comes before lightning?” Pru’s voice trembled slightly as she spoke.
“Hers” was the only answer she got.
For a second, Victoria’s hand lingered on her skin, and Pru could swear she heard the older woman whisper “Come what is meant” before she was gone, a whirlwind of colorful silk and jingling bracelets.
Patches yawned and turned over on her windowsill, giving Pru a strange look.
“It’s nothing, Patch. Must be that weather Victoria was predicting.”
As she murmured the words, the foreman, the one particularly guilty of ogling the younger Crowhart, slipped on the suddenly rain-slick cobblestones and tumbled backward into a vat of mixed cement.
Thunder sounded again. Rhiannon didn’t even flinch or turn his way.
The cat hissed. Patches whined pathetically from her perch, gazing at the beast hurrying after its mistress into the building next door.
How did Victoria put it? “Safer” away? As rain fell in sheets over the now deserted Market Square and the construction workers scrambled to get out of the downpour, Pru touched her sternum. For some reason the skin there felt tender. Bruised.
Then she rolled her eyes at her foolishness.
As she chastised herself for imagining things like being speared by the sheer force of a gaze that didn’t even see her, the one thing Pru couldn’t shake was the scent of petrichor.
In the quiet of the bookstore, with all the windows closed, it surrounded her as if she were standing in the middle of the deluge.