CHAPTER ONE #2
My cousin walked across the sales floor clutching her morning coffee like a lifeline.
She wore a long sleeveless black dress and strappy leather sandals.
“I know we usually do that for the winter holiday season…” she said, “but why not take advantage of the bump from the tourists and locals and their Halloween sales?”
“It’s a good idea,” I agreed, while my cousin let out a huge yawn.
Circe eyeballed me. “How in the hell you always wake up so freaking chipper and perky in the morning, absolutely mystifies me.”
I only smiled at her. This was a familiar complaint from my cousin. “I like to roll out early and get my walk in,” I said. “It clears my head.”
“If I didn’t love you, I’d hate you for being so damn bouncy and cheerful.” Circe narrowed her eyes. “Even your curls seem bouncier this morning.”
“Good thing you love me then,” I said as I began to set up the cash drawer for the day. “You’re a touch crankier than usual, sugar. How late did you stay out last night?”
“I got in around three,” she admitted. “I went to go hear Mark’s band play at the club down the street.”
“Did you have fun?”
Circe’s dark eyes narrowed. “It was okay. I’m not really into doing the whole ‘musician’s girlfriend’ shtick.”
I plopped a hand on my hip. “Please don’t tell me he expected you to sit off to the side and flutter over him the entire night?”
Circe adjusted one of the many silver pendants she wore around her neck. “Well, he was disabused of that notion pretty quick. I ended up dancing with some other guy after a few hours.”
“How’d he take that?” I wanted to know.
“Mark pouted,” she said. “The guy I danced with wanted my number.”
“And did he get it?”
Circe leisurely sipped her coffee before answering. “Nope.”
I sighed. “You heartbreaker, you.”
That made Circe chuckle. “I wasn’t trying to break any hearts. I was bored and decided to have some fun as opposed to sitting on my ass for the entire night.” She yawned and stretched. “Well, I better go take myself next door and get things rolling. Less than two weeks until Halloween!”
“Sales do usually go up around the sabbat,” I agreed.
“Exactly.” She nodded in agreement. “I think I’m going to put the black taper candles on sale today...”
“A Witch can never have too many black candles,” I said, tongue in cheek. “It’s like a Witches’ Union rule.”
Circe threw back her head and laughed. “If I told the customers that, I’d sell out by lunch. As it is, I bet half of my sales today will be to baby Witches or wannabes.”
“Snarky, snarky,” I said.
Circe pointed a manicured finger at me. “Hey, I wasn’t being snide. I’m serious. I get a lot of sales from neophytes in October.”
I nodded. “I bet Lorna does too.”
On cue, from the opposite side of my sales floor, a second connecting door opened.
“What does Lorna do too?” a silver-haired woman asked.
“Hey Lorna.” Circe waved at her. “We were just talking about how our sales jump in the last weeks before Halloween.”
Lorna Southern, my other retail neighbor and friend, walked in.
That day she wore a gauzy black shirt tucked into soft gray dress pants and stylish dark rimmed glasses that accented her pale gray eyes.
Her beautiful striped brown and silver hair was pulled up into a long straight ponytail, and layered bangs framed her pretty face.
Lorna was only thirty-six, but her hair color was all natural.
A family trait, she’d once told me. Apparently, all of the women in her family line had silver hair by the time they were thirty.
“New Moon Books typically enjoys solid sales numbers from mid September through the end of the year,” Lorna said. Then she smiled. “But goddess bless those newbies and Witchlings. They clean me out of all my metaphysical and magickal titles every fall.”
Circe gestured between herself and me. “Kate and I were going to leave the connecting doors open today… try to encourage the customers to wander and to shop a little more. Wanna join us?”
Lorna rested a hip against my counter. “I would. Cross promotion is always a win-win.”
“I’ll steer any items from either one of your stores directly back to your own registers,” I promised.
“Ditto,” Circe said.
Lorna nodded. “Dex is working the front counter for me today, I’ll be sure to let him know.”
“Cool,” Circe said. “When Taylor gets in, I’ll tell her too.”
“I’ve been thinking of offering Taylor more hours,” I said. “Or even hiring another person. Because I could certainly use more help, especially with the holidays approaching.”
Taylor was a part-time employee that floated between my shop and my cousin’s. She knew both of our stores’ stock and was invaluable on the weekends and during the busier times of the year.
“I bet she goes for it,” Circe said. “She hates working at the bistro. She’d love working here, with us, full time.”
“The bistro?” Lorna frowned. “I wasn’t aware Taylor was working two jobs.”
“Neither was I,” I admitted. “I’ll speak to her today.”
“Ask her if her little sister wants to come work for you as well.” The new voice was deep, masculine, and came from the doorway to the bookstore.
“Hey, Dex.” Lorna gave him a wave. “How was your morning work out?”
Dexter, or Dex as he preferred to be called, leaned one broad muscled shoulder against the doorframe. “It was great,” he said, smiling at Lorna.
My heart rapped hard against my ribs. Seeing the young man framed enticingly against the doorway like that had my stomach tying itself up into knots. Silently I told myself to ignore any physical reaction to him.
“She and Toni have been going through a rough patch lately,” Dex said. “They barely managed to keep from getting evicted this summer. I know they are struggling financially.”
Circe blinked at the news. “She told you that?”
“No.” Dex shook his dark shaggy hair back from his eyes. “She didn’t tell me. I saw it.”
“Oh,” Lorna said, and that one syllable was significant.
With an elegant shrug, Dex went back to the bookstore.
“That boy is spooky sometimes.” Lorna chuckled. “But you know he’s always right.”
Circe shrugged. “It’s nice to have a psychic on hand. Plus, his masculine energy helps to balance out the three of us Witches.”
“That’s one plus, I suppose,” Lorna agreed with a chuckle.
“Also,” Circe said, “it certainly doesn’t hurt that Dex is very easy on the eyes. A sleeve of tattoos down one arm. Dark hair, blue eyes, all that wonderful muscle on a long frame.” She sighed. “He’s yummy. Like a romance novel cover brought to life.”
“That’s not appropriate.” I frowned at my cousin, even as Lorna chuckled. “He’s Lorna’s employee and he’s barely legal.”
“Pfft.” Circe waved that away. “Honey, he’s twenty-six.”
“I need to finish setting up,” I muttered. Tuning away from my cousin, I busied myself at the counter.
“Me too,” Lorna said and headed for her own shop. “Good luck today, ladies. I have a feeling we’re all going to have some great sales numbers. Plus, the stars are very aligned to prosperity this week, and that will certainly help.”
Circe went back to her own store. I stayed where I was for a few minutes and tried to maintain my composure.
It was beyond embarrassing, this physical attraction I had for Lorna’s employee.
First off, he was four years younger than me.
And secondly, I knew that Dex had not had an easy life.
He’d been sober for over two years and worked hard to stay that way.
The last thing he needed was to have an older woman making googly eyes at him every time he walked in the room.
Add to that he was a talented psychic, which meant that I worked hard whenever I was around him to keep my magickal and emotional shields up and in place.
He had enough unwanted attention from the female customers at Lorna’s bookstore.
She spoke to me about it sometimes, and it made me feel bad for Dex.
All those women saw was the pretty package.
They had no idea of what he’d gone through and how he’d suffered.
In fact, when Lorna had first met him, he’d been couch-surfing at a friend’s house—basically he’d been homeless.
The original contractor that Lorna had hired to turn her property into the bookstore it was now had been shady, and she’d eventually fired the man.
When someone from the Pagan community had recommended Dex as a handyman and for odd jobs, Lorna had given him a chance and he’d quickly proven himself.
Once she opened her store, Dex had become a full-time employee.
Now, Lorna and Dex were more than friends; they considered each other to be family.
For the past eighteen months, I’d worked very hard to project only casual friendly vibes around Dex.
And so far, it was working. My attraction to him started slowly.
Beyond his looks, he was just so kind. Probably because he knew what it was to be down on your luck, but he had this gentleness about him...
Maybe gentle wasn’t the correct word. Because he definitely wasn’t effeminate.
He was all male.
Catching myself, I steered my thoughts away from anything inappropriate.
Outside of business hours I did see him occasionally.
He lived in the tiny apartment at the back of New Moon Books.
While the bookstore was connected to my building on the lower level, the only entrance to his apartments was through the second floor of the bookstore.
There was no rear stairs or entrance like in my section of the building, and thankfully that helped keep me from bumping into him unexpectedly.
Dex was an extremely private individual, and I truly respected that and all the work he’d done to get his life on track. The bottom line was, he was an attractive younger man. I had noticed. It was no big deal.
At least that’s what I continued to tell myself.
Shaking thoughts of Dex off, I squared my shoulders. Halloween was less than two weeks away and I wanted my shop to be ready for it. I turned the store music on, cued up a Halloween playlist, and got to work.