Chapter 4 Prudence, Possum & Awakenings #2
“Yes, I’ll order more copies, put them on sale. Freaking give them away, if it comes to that. Just send me the titles.”
Ceridwen nodded, and when the corners of her full mouth lifted this time, the smile reached her eyes, the faint crow’s feet giving her an ethereal air.
Damn, those Crowharts really won all the genetic lotteries.
Pru wanted to chastise herself for the objectification, but then she was simply being objective. The sisters were unfairly beautiful.
They hugged, and for a second, unlike any other dozens of hugs they had previously shared, Pru felt a distinct shock of electricity the moment their bodies connected.
The spot, dead center of her chest where Rhiannon’s eyes had pierced her during the tempest, twisted with an almost painful pull.
The ache was shades lesser than yesterday, but it was there nonetheless.
There was no thunder and no petrichor this time, simply a sudden slow turn of her heart, a recognition of sorts that she couldn’t name nor place.
Pru shook her head and adjusted her sweater.
“I’m so sorry, my clothes must’ve gotten some static during the wash.”
Pru finally lifted her eyes up only to catch Ceridwen giving her the strangest of looks.
A long assessing one, as if seeing her for the very first time.
It lasted for a good minute, the sea-green eyes penetrating, warm in their perusal, and Pru was just about to say something, anything to break the awkward silence, when the front door banged open loudly, making her jump.
Elegant as ever, Ceridwen turned around, not a sign of fear in her calm features.
“This wind. It’s been strangely drafty here lately.” Pru hurried to close the door, the weather still rather moody after yesterday’s storm that had lasted until the early hours.
And that is when she noticed the absence. The pillow on the windowsill, always occupied at this hour, was empty.
“Patches?” Even to her own ears, her voice was shrill. “Patches!”
She darted to the back room where the possum would occasionally hide from rude customers, but her trusted companion was nowhere to be found.
“Could she be upstairs, Pru?” Ceridwen’s words were gentle, and the hands tenderly patting her back were managing the near impossible—keeping Pru from flying into a full-blown panic attack.
“No, no, I brought her in the basket—” Pru turned sharply to the woven basket, one of the signature crafts of the island, only to find it empty by the counter.
“Darn it! Patches!” Tears threatened. The possum had never run away before.
“Maybe when the door flew open?” Ceridwen pointed toward the now closed main entrance, and they both reached it together in an instant only to have it thrown open in their faces once again by the one person Pru thought would never walk into her store.
Rhiannon Crowhart stood on the landing holding an entire handful of what seemed like…
trash? Candy wrappers, an old garment, and what looked distinctly like a semi-burned-down candle.
The candle that was one of the better selling items in Pru’s store.
Book Nest was proudly emblazoned on the side of it.
And was that the shirt she had thrown away last night while cleaning her closet?
Pru gulped and opened her mouth. To say what?
She did not know, but something surely, because Rhiannon’s face was the picture of profound displeasure, veering toward anger, and while Pru found herself fascinated by how the angular features were somehow more attractive when displaying such strong emotion, she’d rather not have it directed at her.
She was saved by Ceridwen, whose voice Pru barely recognized. The note of ice in it was foreign and out of place.
“The trash is a little too on the nose even for you, Rhiannon. Why are you carrying around Pru’s garbage?”
The smile that suddenly appeared on the face Pru had just been admiring was perhaps scarier than the touches of earlier anger. It was the smile of a tigress before she went for the kill.
“Why Ceridwen, how wonderful of you to confirm that the trash strewn all over my property, including in my own bedroom, belongs to… Who are you again?”
“I’m Prudence, owner of Book Nest, um…”
Pru could only muster a few words, but she was ignored entirely, Rhiannon taking a step closer, now standing face-to-face with Ceridwen, Pru slightly to their side, almost completely inconsequential.
Despite discussing her trash, the sisters had clearly forgotten all about her.
Their eyes met and held, and for a split second Pru was certain she’d hear the thunder from yesterday.
Or the wind. Something that would come crashing down all of them any moment.
For the life of her she couldn’t say why she suddenly imagined storms everywhere. What was it about this woman? Even in her dreams, Rhiannon was always accompanied by storms, wild and violent, leaving Pru often battered and bruised by their intensity.
Except after a heartbeat, two, the air around Pru chilled and Ceridwen stepped back. A tiny step, yet the smile on Rhiannon’s face widened. If Pru expected grace in victory, she was mistaken. And when did mean-spirited delight become hot?
Pru shivered, and the small movement alerted the predator in the room to her existence once again. The gaze should not be this attractive either. It really shouldn’t. And yet here they were.
“And Ceridwen, would you care to explain how it is that you know to whom said trash belongs?”
Ceridwen’s own smirk was entirely too self-satisfied.
“Oh, you live, you learn. You live on the island long enough and you most certainly get to do all that learning. Actually, no, you wouldn’t know.”
It was like watching a tennis match. One played between two evenly matched pros.
A serve, a backhand, a forehand. The ball was in Rhiannon’s court.
And she would have probably volleyed back with a zinger, except a chubby gray ball of fur fell off Rhiannon’s porch with a squeal before struggling mightily to get on its four short feet, made a fierce face toward the step it had fallen off, and hurried in the direction of Pru’s door, all the while holding on to a small piece of candy wrapper.
One matching perfectly others in the pile in Rhiannon’s hands.
“Patches!” Pru felt a wave of relief mixed with dizziness at seeing the possum.
“Excuse me?” Rhiannon’s features were all confusion and disgust.
“Oh my gosh, that’s my possum!”
In the cacophony of exclamations, Patches’s little legs worked double time to escape the scene of the crime. Once she reached the relative safety of the bookstore entrance, the possum threw a longing look toward the Atelier’s second-story window where a black cat was lounging, ignoring the world.
With another squeal, Patches was suddenly airborne, Rhiannon’s elegant hands holding her up till they were almost nose to nose.
Pru held her breath. Patches stilled. Ceridwen stepped closer. Silence reigned. Rhiannon and the possum glared at each other.
“I think Patches is courting your cat.”
Pru was aware of how she sounded. She was also aware of how the entire situation looked.
And of course, she was very much aware of the stares she was getting from both sisters.
The moment felt awkward. She felt awkward.
In her years-old slacks and a sweater carrying the store’s logo, her hair its usual mess on top of her head, she looked precisely the country bumpkin that she was.
This was definitely not the way she wanted to meet Rhiannon Crowhart.
Not that she wanted to meet her at all. Absolutely not.
Not after the visions that came to her at night.
Rhiannon just kept staring at her, still holding the possum at eye level. Pru barreled on.
“I owe you an apology. I’ve never seen Patches do this before.”
Rhiannon lifted an eyebrow. When Victoria did it, it was impressive. This? Like the voice, this should be illegal. Pru bit her lip. Any second now she’d whimper. The eyebrow lifted higher.
“Am I to understand that you have a possum as a pet and that he is somehow in love with my cat, bringing her trash as a sign of his affection?”
“She. Patches is a girl. Patience Petunia, Patches to friends and family.”
Now both eyebrows went up, and Pru wanted to smack herself over the forehead. Could she look even more pathetic in front of this woman?
But then the angular features transformed, and Rhiannon let out a peel of laughter so smooth, low, and seductive, Pru wished the frown was back.
Because this laughter was pure sin. Just a stone’s throw away, in the days of her childhood, the town pastor at the church off the Market Square had warned about this.
The road to perdition…
Oblivious to the preacher’s warnings, Rhiannon pursed her perfect lips and made Pru think that perdition would be quite worth the price of admission indeed.
“A queer possum girl. How charming.” Then Rhiannon extended her arms and deposited the critter in question in Pru’s hands.
“She is that. Both charming and a queer possum girl. Though, ‘girl’ is perhaps no longer fitting. Patches will be ten this coming spring.”
In her peripheral vision, Ceridwen’s eyes grew wider.
Was she surprised at how old Patches was?
Pru wanted to argue that she was perfectly aware it was a rather advanced age for this particular species, but it was something in the way Rhiannon was looking at Patches that made Pru reconsider further ramblings.
Rhiannon, who ignored her sister entirely, kept looking wondrously at the possum, the corners of those damnation-worthy lips twitching still. Yes, Pru thought, nobody could resist Patches. The sweet and funny-looking critter who was now giving Rhiannon a decidedly enamored gaze.
“I think, judging by Patches here, you are the charming one, actually.” The second the words came out of her mouth, Pru wanted to smack herself again.
Rhiannon allowed her smile to blossom once more, a full, delighted one that transformed her entire face, the angular features turning from austere to criminally gorgeous. Pru started to pray for the floorboards to open up and consume her whole. She’d be swallowing her tongue any second now.
“There are very few who don’t find me charming,” Rhiannon purred, still looking at the possum.
Swooning wasn’t an option, Pru realized.
She’d never recover if she did so in front of the Crowhart sisters, yet she really wanted to.
Who says things like that with a straight face and looks honest when they do?
In fact, Pru would bet her last dollar that people and possums everywhere dropped dead from longing and lusting after this woman.
Patches whined, squirming, no longer the center of attention, and for a second Pru thought she’d drop her. Unexpectedly quick, Rhiannon extended a long slender arm, making sure the finicky possum didn’t fall.
Their hands touched.
A full skin-on-skin contact, and suddenly the tempest from yesterday entered the store once again, thunder rolled, and the air grew thick and heavy.
Rhiannon’s eyes were stormy, the green almost entirely black and unreadable.
Time stood still, and Pru could swear she heard chanting, words as old as the cliffs, permeating the space, palpable in the saturated air around them.
If yesterday she had been a butterfly pierced by some collector’s hand, today she had been one encased in amber, the warmth enveloping her, making her blood molten.
Something surged inside, spilled and took hold.
She felt lightheaded, and yet her mind was clear and her senses sharp.
Sharper than ever. The heady intensity mixed with the honeyed, languid feeling of the amber was a curious combination.
Pru wanted to stop and admire the sensation, wanted to savor it.
Her veins pulsed with the rhythm of the chants, and she had a distinct vision of lifting her arms to the sky, rain falling all over her, soothing, caressing, seducing…
And then, just as quickly as it overcame her, the feeling was gone.
Rhiannon removed her hand slowly, allowing it to drop gracefully to her side even as lightning illuminated the far corners of the bookshop.
Her bright eyes were wide, unseeing, red lips, almost bloody, parted on a prayer or a scream.
Pru suddenly felt deflated, empty. Hollowed out, as if denied sustenance. She blinked and looked around herself, seeking something she had no name for.
Next to her, Ceridwen’s face was unreadable.
Rhiannon, her hand firmly at her side, finally focused her eyes on Pru.
The remnants of the storm swirled around her, and with something akin to fear carved into her features, she exhaled.
The air cleared. Pru felt the shift in her bones.
In the ensuing silence, not even the snuffles of Patches could be heard.
It was like everyone was collectively holding their breath.
What would Rhiannon do?
Ultimately, the choice was taken from her by a noisy group of tourists who bustled into the store, completely oblivious to the moment they were interrupting.
Pru opened her mouth, words eluding her once again, and she stared, feeling foolish, feeling gauche as this woman who had seemingly conjured a squall just moments ago looked away.
“I’ll let Boleyn know she has a suitor, because I am afraid Patches’s efforts have been deemed a nuisance. Ceridwen.”
With a nod to her sister, Rhiannon was gone, and Pru was left on the porch with an armful of squirming possum and the realization that Rhiannon Crowhart had not actually stepped over her threshold at all, and yet the havoc she wreaked just by coming close was considerable.
What would happen if she ever crossed that line?