Chapter One #2
Bianca’s mouth downturned in a familiar expression – she was clearly holding herself back from saying something. But then she suddenly flashed a look of pure mischief. ‘I saw the man in there today. A burly construction man who I’m sure knows how to use his . . . hands.’
Blair couldn’t help it: she snorted a laugh. Her sister frustrated her more than most people, but no one else in the world made her laugh like Bianca.
‘Are you looking for a tryst?’ Blair asked.
Bianca snorted incredulously. ‘I’m not into lumberjacks. I was thinking about a tryst for you, Blair. You can’t stay single and grumpy forever. You pretend you don’t care about relationships, but I happen to know you still have a worrying addiction to mid-tier romance movies.’
Blair rolled her eyes. Easily said by an unemployed botanist considering running off to India.
Blair wasn’t grumpy – she was responsible.
She had to be. She was the eldest sister and had been put in charge of Belinda and Bianca when she was only eighteen.
Now Blair ran her own business and was the only one of the three who worried about the condition of their house (which really needed a new roof in the next five years), while also worrying about their secret coming out in Moonbeam Hollow.
‘I’ll worry about my own love life,’ Blair said. ‘And my own business. Did I see you reading an India travel guide?’
‘Now who’s snooping?’ Bianca paused. ‘You know what you should do? Go visit the space next door. Be neighbourly while doing some reconnaissance to see if they’re only a bakery or a bakery café.’
That wasn’t a bad idea. Knowing what kind of establishment Shirley’s Sugar Mountain was would ease Blair’s mind and hopefully stop the Stitch Witches from loudly declaring allegiances already.
And if Blair was honest – she did want to see the rest of the flannel-clad man.
Just to admire, of course. Nothing else.
‘Okay.’ Blair placed a burnt orange mug on the counter.
‘I’ll bring over a pumpkin spice.’ Without looking into the man’s eyes, she couldn’t tailor the drink to his exact tastes, but her off-the-shelf pumpkin spice syrup was the best around, thanks to her skills with potions. ‘Can you watch the shop?’
* * *
After topping the pumpkin spice latte with a swirl of whipped cream and a light dusting of cinnamon and nutmeg, Blair took off her cream apron emblazoned with Harvest Moon Café in a curly orange font, and walked outside, taking the warm drink with her.
It was a crisp late-September day – the autumn equinox actually, when day and night were equal in length.
It was an important day for witches for many reasons.
To Blair, seasons changing always reminded her that the world kept moving, whether she moved with it or not.
And autumn equinox was a particularly special day for Blair, because it was the official start of fall – Moonbeam Hollow’s most picturesque season.
The Harvest Moon Café was on Main Street in the tiny town, with the post office on one side and what was an empty storefront on the other.
Across the street was an adorable row of pale brick shops with peaked roofs adorned with white gingerbread trim and matching hand-painted signs.
The Wolf Willow Bookstore, the largest of the shops, was where Blair’s sister Belinda worked.
The idyllic Victorian architecture and massive trees lining the streets had resulted in Moonbeam Hollow being named the Most Autumnal Small Town in Ontario.
The annual Moonbeam Hollow Fall Harvest Festival attracted thousands, and honestly, the little stall the Harvest Moon Café set up at the festival kept Blair afloat during the slower months after Christmas, when treacherous roads and bitter winds kept tourists out of Kawartha Lakes, the region Moonbeam Hollow was in.
Blair smiled as she inhaled deeply, the scent of fall leaves and crisp air warming her core.
Blair loved fall. She loved cozy sweaters, warming spices and the brilliant shades of red, orange and yellow the town was blanketed in.
Blair’s ancestry may have originated in a more tropical climate, but as far as she was concerned, she was born for this season.
The storefront next door had brown paper covering the windows, but the glass door was uncovered, so Blair peeked inside.
It was clearly a construction zone and there was no way of knowing if the finished space would be a bakery or a bakery café.
And it was empty. Leaning even closer, she was surprised when the door shifted. It was unlocked.
Blair shouldn’t go inside. Trespassing would be very, very wrong. But . . . there was no one in there. There could be someone in the back room, presumably where the actual baking would happen. But Blair was a witch. She could easily peek around the counter undetected.
She mouthed the words to a small spell, not of invisibility – she was pretty good at making herself invisible, but making her clothes disappear was trickier.
And she suspected that someone seeing a floating cream cable-knit sweater with a brown corduroy miniskirt and tights would be much worse than someone seeing her.
She instead cast a silence spell. All Blair needed was to get behind that counter to see if there was an espresso machine, then sneak out unheard by any burly men in jeans in the back room.
Inside, the first thing Blair noticed were large sheets of white paper taped to the wall.
She stepped closer and saw that they were illustrated mock-ups of what the finished bakery would look like.
Blair couldn’t help studying them, her heart falling a bit at the cream mouldings and pale green panelled walls.
This place was going to be lovely. There were even glass chandeliers in the drawings.
Blair had no issue with the cozy clutter of her café, but this chic new space was going to make the Harvest Moon Café seem old-fashioned.
She’d have to renovate. Blair’s stomach tightened at the cost.
But she couldn’t spend too long looking at these plans that resembled a quaint little bakery in Paris – she was silenced, not invisible. She headed straight for the counter to see what equipment the man had brought in.
Then three things happened almost simultaneously.
First, Blair tripped over something as she stepped behind the counter.
Her tripping caused her to fall right on top of the thing, spilling the pumpkin spice latte on herself and on the obstacle.
And finally, upon landing on the hardwood, she had the perfect view of a box with a photo of a high-end Italian espresso machine on it.
The kind that Blair dreamed of getting when she’d first set up her café.
The kind that would cost more than her current espresso machine, drip coffee machine and display fridge combined.
‘First day here and people are already throwing themselves at me,’ a voice drawled.
A male voice. And that was when Blair realized what she’d tripped over – worn denim.
The same legs she’d been admiring from her window.
This person . . . man . . . was on his knees working under the sink behind the counter.
And Blair was now sprawled on top of his solid calves.
‘What the hell!’ he added, probably when he felt the hot pumpkin spice latte penetrate his jeans.
Blair closed her eyes with embarrassment, crawling off the man.
‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t know anyone was here.
’ She tried to sound light and chipper but was probably failing.
‘I came to deliver a pumpkin spice latte as a welcome-to-the-neighbourhood gift! I’m Blair, I own the café next door.
Are you . . . I mean . . . I see that espresso machine.
Is this going to be a café? Because there’s already a café in this town.
Mine. I’ve been here six years, and Moonbeam Hollow is loyal to its locals, not to fancy Cordon Bleu-trained .
. .’ She trailed off, conscious that she was being ridiculous.
This guy was a delivery person or a plumber or whatever, so why was she telling him off? Blair was even more mortified.
The man let out a husky laugh, untangling his arms from under the sink. ‘Are you going to say something? Like apologize after breaking and entering and dumping hot liquid all over me?’
Blair winced. She’d forgotten about her silence spell – he hadn’t heard her rambling. She said the reversal incantation under her breath while brushing herself off. ‘I’m so sorry.’ She leaned down to pick up her orange mug from the hardwood.
But when the man emerged from under the sink and spoke again, she realized that his voice sounded familiar. Painfully familiar. ‘Blair?’ he asked. ‘Blair Briarwood? I know it’s been a while, but a simple hi would suffice. You didn’t have to fall at my feet.’
Blair looked at the man’s face with one side of his lip quirked up in a cheeky smirk, and her knees almost gave out.
She’d know those brown eyes and dark wavy hair anywhere.
The broad, strong, flannel-clad man in front of her was none other than Luke Caldwell, her high school rival-turned-boyfriend who she had not seen or heard from in over a decade.
Luke had grown, but he was still handsome as hell.
And he still took all the air from Blair’s lungs when he smiled wide, which is what he did next.
This was exactly why she’d had this impending sense of doom all day. Luke Caldwell’s return to Moonbeam Hollow was going to be nothing but trouble for Blair.