Chapter 3
I saw him again today!
He smiled at me, his eyes crinkling with good humor, and I nearly swooned. His lips are a touch crooked, one side tilts up more than the other.
When he spoke, there was a whole universe of meaning beneath his very commonplace greeting, “Good morrow, Mistress Finch.”
My belly was full of swallows, and my heart thundered as if I had run through the meadow at full speed. I could barely utter my reply, such was I ravisht. “How now? Sir.”
He came to procure a tonic for his mother. She was feeling poorly. I sent him away with a mint infusion and set to prepare a more intensive tonic for her, which meant I would see him again on the morrow.
Present Day
Her card draws lately had been forecasting change. This time of year always signified change. Change was fine. But this felt… bigger.
The hot guy was gone.
“Forget whatever you’re thinking.” Tasha wagged her finger, the crazy two-inch nails, adorned with crystals and designs, refracting the light and creating rainbows across the shelves.
“You said he was hot.”
“He is. And we can admire that without jumping in to get our heart broke again.” Tasha tended to talk about things in the third person when she was stressed.
Mercy dropped into her favorite leather chair. She blew out a breath, her heart settling as she ever so carefully tried to watch him walk away toward the Historical Society without looking like she was watching.
Tash hadn’t missed a thing. “I know he looks good.”
He had a nice butt.
“He looks just as good going as he did coming.” She’d like to see him coming. Heat flushed up her body and into her face, so hot she bet she resembled a fire hydrant.
“None of that.” Tash could be as straightlaced as a puritan sometimes. “No more broken hearts.”
“Jason didn’t break my heart.” She conveniently ignored that Tasha wasn’t really talking about Jason.
Why were her friends—okay, so Dr. P. wasn’t really her friend—so opposed to her reaction to this guy? “Didn’t you tell me you did a rose quartz heart opening spell for me last week?”
Tasha frowned. “Yeah. You’ve been in a funk lately. That was for you to get over Jason and remove obstacles. Not to jump into something new. I wonder if I should have done the Abre Camino instead of the softer spell.”
“I love you, too.”
That was guaranteed to make Tasha bolt. Any talk of affection, and she was out.
Tasha scurried toward the door. “Have to get back to the inn. This new house cleaner has something fishy going on.”
At least a project for her to investigate would take Tasha’s focus off Mercy.
“See you later at the Hex?”
“I’ll try.” Tasha yanked open the door, the bell jangling frenetically. “Got to run!”
Finally… Mercy could read the journal that was calling to her like a siren to the sailors on the sea.
Mercy Finch’s diary!
She hadn’t put it down since it had flown off the shelf.
A stranger in town. Mercy Finch’s diary. What beautiful chaos was coming next?
Zane headed back toward the Finch & Fable, still slightly befuddled by the interaction with Eleanor Vane.
When he’d asked about records of the house, the rather stuffy archivist at the Historical Society, a woman in her sixties, had pinched her lips and scanned him up and down. “You’re finally here.”
She looked as if she disapproved, but there was an odd satisfaction in her tone.
He’d checked the local property records, and the owner was listed as EAVE Management, LLC. “Are you affiliated with EAVE Management?” He’d sent emails because there was no other way to contact the company. No street address, no phone number.
“The house is waiting,” was all she said.
It was a miracle his family’s home was still standing, and it was empty.
She sniffed and handed him the keys. “You need to request the aid of the proprietress of the Finch & Fable.”
He would confess to no one that he’d been secretly thrilled with her insistence that Mercy Costa must help him.
He wanted to get a better sense of the town so he took the long way back to the bookstore.
He looped around the green, past the town hall and the library, the farmers’ market marquee, then back onto Harbor Street.
He noted the Salt Box Provisions and the Driftwood Pointe Diner, then continued down the street to the bookstore.
The town exuded a New England coastal vibe.
Old buildings had been repurposed for commercial use with enough stores and restaurants to support the small town and the tourists who flocked here in the summer through to the Fall Equinox and Halloween.
If he were here for fun, he’d be stopping in every shop and building to admire the Federal architecture and renovated buildings. But his pleasure was inhibited by his larger problem.
He needed to get into that house. Hopefully, Mercy Costa would indulge her fellow villager and show him the house. Weird that Eleanor Vane insisted that it had to be Mercy. She was another part of the town he’d love to explore, but she was a complication that didn’t make any sense.
His cell rang. His sister.
“Hey, Abs, everything okay?” Her high-risk pregnancy was what started this entire quest. She was convinced the curse, a tale of witchcraft and revenge that had been passed down in their family for centuries, existed. She wanted it lifted before her babies were born.
“Hi, Z!” his sister said brightly.
His shoulders relaxed. She sounded upbeat.
“How is it going? What’s the town like? Have you been to the house yet?”
He laughed. “Slow down. The town is charming. Lots of red brick, construction from various architectural periods. Not a new building in sight. Every other building has a historic house marker with a few dating back to the early 1600s.” He couldn’t keep the wonder out of his voice.
When he’d rolled into town yesterday, he’d had the sharply distinct feeling of coming home.
“Get to the good stuff.”
“I haven’t gotten into the house yet.” He had to figure out who owned the house. Eleanor Vane had access, but he wanted to contact the owner. “But I’ve got a line on someone who might be able to help me.”
He opened his mouth to tell her about Mercy but stopped at the last minute. He wasn’t even sure why. But right now, Mercy Finch was his. Mercy Finch Costa.
The second his sister knew about her, she would become a tool to complete his mission, not just a beautiful woman to whom he was attracted. He had no business wanting her.
“What aren’t you telling me?” Her voice rose in panic.
Damn his sister and her supernatural abilities. Between her woo woo and their twin connection, it was hard to keep anything from her.
“Give me a day or so, and then I’ll share more. I just don’t want to get your hopes up.”
That should do it.
“Okay. Call me tomorrow.”
He sighed. That wasn’t a few days, but at least she hadn’t pressed him immediately.
The length of their call had taken him back to the Finch & Fable. He was struck all over again by the whimsical exterior.
The building had the soul of an English cottage.
Rough cut, irregularly-sized limestone blocks, sash windows with original wavy glass panes, and a forest green, wooden fascia sign with Finch & Fable in large gold letters, and Reading Room in smaller lettering comprised the structure.
A recessed door was flanked by large windows with displays of stacked books, pumpkins, silk leaves in burgundy, golds and orange, and twinkling fairy lights.
Ivy and flowering vines sprawled across the facade.
Terracotta flowerpots clustered around the entrance, with fall flowers, blowsy mums in yellows and burnt oranges, basil herb nestled among the fall flowers.
Birch tree branches gave the display some height, and trailing rosemary tumbled out of the pots toward visitors.
Zane said goodbye to his sister and then entered the bookstore.
The bell jangled overhead.
This time, Mercy sat in the giant leather chair, legs slung over one arm as she intently read a small book. Was that the book that had fallen when they’d met?
“You’re back,” she said brightly.
However, he sensed her annoyance.
She was a shop owner. You’d think she would be happy that she had a customer again. Of course, he wasn’t here to buy anything. And she would be the last person that he should want to spend time with. His earlier pleasure at seeing her again evaporated.
“Couldn’t Eleanor help you?”
“She sent me to you.” Whoa. That sounded a little too personal. “Ah, back here. She said you were the one to help me.”
“Me?” She jumped up from the chair. “Eleanor specifically told you to come to me?”
“Yes.”
“Huh.”
Was this his dead end? Where she told him to take a hike? Tension lined his shoulders. He had to get inside that house. His sister’s mental health depended on it.
She advanced until she was right in front of him.
She was the perfect height, with her head tilted back, her pert nose, haphazard curls half tied up and half swinging around her shoulders, golden amber eyes searching his face.
He gripped the key in his left hand so tightly the metal cut into his skin. His entire body tensed. He had to get in that house.
“There’s one problem.”
He let out the breath he’d been holding in a heavy sigh.
“I can’t…”
Fuck. He opened his mouth to beg.
“…until after closing time.”
“You’ll take me?”
“Of course. If Eleanor said I have to take you, then I have to take you.”
Why did that sound so ominous?