Chapter 4
STARBUCKS
Calliope was nothing like I expected. Not that I thought of her really before this weekend, but rumors had been circulating about the local witch far longer than I had lived in Mount Grove.
Discovering that she wasn’t eccentric, or for lack of a better word, a weirdo was a bit of a surprise.
She was certainly peculiar. It was like she was living a second ahead of me, always handing me what tool or part I needed before I even had a chance to ask for it.
This resulted in us not talking much, and that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
The shelving units she’d purchased were nice, but they had a lot of tiny parts to them.
We first sorted out all the pieces to ensure we had everything.
Calliope didn’t hesitate to get her hands dirty either.
I’d known a lot of women over my years, both platonically and socially, that would have balked at touching a power tool.
But not Calliope. She knelt on the dusty floor right beside me and we worked together to build each shelf, making the time spent on each unit go a hell of a lot faster than I had expected.
The silence was a bit awkward. Our eyes kept meeting, and we’d shoot the other a quick smile, and then duck our heads again. To be honest, I was not expecting only an hour to have passed when I checked my watch for the first time after we built the fourth shelf.
An hour? Really? I still had to be here for another three.
I didn’t expect her to be so shy. I wasn’t sure why, but that surprised me the most about her personality.
Being this close to her on the floor, I noticed she had extremely long eyelashes.
I wondered if they were fake, but doubted it.
She only wore light eyeshadow and liner.
I didn’t see any other makeup on her. She didn’t wear flashy clothes or jewelry—other than the fact that she had a subtle ring on each of her fingers.
Well, all except her left ring finger. That finger was naked, and I wondered if that was significant.
Back in my early days as a Marine, my troop had been on some R-and-R in Germany.
There’d been a Romani there who offered to take our fortunes, for a cost of course.
She had on rings like Calliope but also massive hoop earrings, a scarf over her head, and so many necklaces that it was a wonder she didn’t accidentally decapitate herself.
It was a look I’d seen on TV and in major cities that psychics wore.
Calliope might have been wearing a black dress with a witch’s hat on Saturday, but she was plain in comparison to those other women.
And yet, even that didn’t seem to fit her. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was an intrinsic beauty to her. Not dulled, but muted. Like the volume was turned down on her entire being.
Together, we stood the fourth shelf up. She wanted four of them on the left wall and then the other two behind her checkout counter. I had no idea what she was planning on putting on these shelves, because they were far too tall for her to easily reach the top two.
I refused to let her climb up on the ladder to bolt the unit to the wall.
I’d been appalled she’d even tried to with the first one.
What if she’d fallen? Besides, that’s what I was here for.
I didn’t mind, and actually appreciated her help, when we were on the floor building the shelves, but no way in hell was she climbing up the ladder to secure them while I stayed safe on the ground.
No fucking way.
While I didn’t really need her to, she still held the ladder steady for me as I drilled the screws through the brackets that connected the units to each other and the wall.
She’d gotten the exact right size shelves to fit four of them between two inner-wall columns.
Had that been dumb luck, her witchy powers, or had she actually done her homework and measured prior to ordering?
I was just about to insert the last screw through the brace when her head whipped around over her shoulder.
I thought at first that something had happened with Oolong and Joe, but both were curled up on a pillow Calliope had on her countertop.
I loved Joe, but damn was she a moody bitch.
She liked to fuck with Keys, which was hilarious because he was convinced that my cat was plotting his demise.
My warning to Joe not to eat Oolong had been real, because I honestly hadn’t been sure how she would react to meeting the bearded dragon.
Turned out, she loved him. Like really loved him. Almost immediately the two of them had started rubbing up against each other, and Joe licked his entire orange body. Oolong treated Joe like she was his first and only love. I was dreading separating the two of them when my hours were up.
With them sound asleep, I had no idea what had drawn Calliope’s attention until she spoke. “My phone’s about to ring. Are you okay up there?”
I hadn’t even had a chance to open my mouth to reply before AC/DC’s Witch’s Spell rang across the room. My eyebrows shot up, more from her music choice than the fact that she’d predicted her phone would ring before it had rung.
“I’ll be fine,” I told her. I didn’t add that, with my height, I wasn’t actually that high off the ground. If something crazy happened and the ladder started to fall, I could just jump down.
Calliope headed over to her phone. A part of me wondered about the timing. Had she told someone to call at this time so she could ‘predict’ it?
She picked up the phone, moving her long brunette hair to her other shoulder as she did. “Mr. Nguon, hi. Thank you so much for getting back to me.”
I turned back to the shelf, but then realized I couldn’t drill without potentially disturbing her call. I’d wait a minute to continue.
“Yes,” she continued. “I just wanted to make sure that that number was accurate before I put the order through.”
I turned again, curious at the note of nervous anticipation in her voice. From my spot on the ladder, I watched as she bit her thumbnail as she listened to whatever was being said to her on the phone. She was tense, but like a volcano of excitement waiting to erupt.
Suddenly she smiled, exclaiming, “Absolutely!” Her body started to shimmy back and forth, and I swore I saw her physically have to push her joy down so she kept a modicum of professionalism in her voice.
“Thank you so much, Mr. Nguon. I will get it packed up first thing tomorrow morning and my dad will have it delivered by noon.” She paused, her cheeks flushing at the reply from the other end of the phone.
“Right. Um, check is fine. I know it’s a bit old fashioned, but trust me, it’ll be a lot easier doing it that way than trying to hand my dad a credit card to run.
” She laughed, and the sound reminded me of wind chimes.
“I appreciate your business. Thanks again!”
I watched as Calliope hung up the phone and placed the device on the counter.
There was a solid ten seconds where she just stood there—and then she let out a shriek of excitement, startling both me and our pets.
She jumped up and down, threw her arms up in the air, and swayed her hips in what could only be described as a Happy Dance.
Mesmerized, I put the drill down—the last bracket still loose—and descended the ladder to approach her.
Her happiness was palpable, and I realized for the first time that this was Calliope Hutchins.
Not the shy woman I’d met on Saturday and who had greeted me at the door.
This, right here, was the vivacious, excitable, and passionate woman she truly was.
And she was glorious.
I was nothing more than a moth to her flame as I approached, completely captivated by her celebration. I didn’t even want to join in with her. Merely witnessing it was fulfilling on its own. I didn’t want it to stop.
She either sensed my approach or glimpsed me, because suddenly she froze.
Like a deer in the headlights, she became a statue with her arms still up, her mouth open, and her legs spread mid-dance.
I suddenly felt like an intruder, and kicked myself for staring so openly as she closed down again before my eyes.
I hated it. Watching her fold these exquisite pieces of herself back up, hiding them from not only me but also the world.
She straightened, ducking her head and hunching her shoulders.
Like a student standing before the principal.
How few people got to see this side of her?
The uninhibited, incredible creature she buried.
Why? What had happened to her that she felt she had to hide such a monumental part of herself?
I wondered if it was an ex, a man who thought he could tame her, to dim her light.
If so, the fucker was dead. I’d hunt him down, string him up by his balls, and beat him within an inch of his life before leaving him out for the vultures to finish off.
Cheeks flushing, she opened her mouth, and a flash of anger took over me. She was about to apologize. To fucking apologize for being her?
“Don’t you fucking dare,” I snapped, unable to stop myself.
She jerked back, eyes wide, and I cursed myself for not having a better hold on my anger.
I took a deep breath and a step back so she didn’t think I was crowding her.
Softer, I said, “I just meant, no apology is necessary. Who was that on the phone that had you so excited?”
Her light brown eyes glanced to the counter, where Oolong and Joe watched her in open fascination. Something pinched inside my chest, and I realized I was fucking jealous of my cat. “Um, that was my first bulk order. He wants over fifty jars!”
She wasn’t able to keep the smile from her face, and I wondered how the fuck I could have ever thought this woman was plain. I was a fucking moron.
“Jars of what?” I inquired. I wanted to keep her talking, keep her smiling.
“My honey.”