Chapter Seven
Blair was shaking as she left the farmers’ market.
As far as she was concerned, the fact that Luke wouldn’t sell her the painting was proof that he couldn’t be trusted, and that Blair should see him as one thing only: her rival, her adversary, and never her friend.
And never, ever anything more than a friend, despite that scorching kiss.
That ship had sailed over a decade ago, and it wasn’t coming back.
She went back to the art vendor to grab her purchases.
When the man at the booth asked if she’d been successful at getting the third painting in the set, Blair made a non-committal noise, waving at the man before taking her paintings and plant pots.
She wanted to get the hell out of this flea market before she ran into Luke Caldwell again, because this time there was no guarantee that she’d be able to stop herself from turning him into a toad.
Usually, when Blair was in a bad mood, driving on the road leading into Moonbeam Hollow cheered her up. The large wooden hand-painted sign never failed to make her lips smile and her heart warm.
Moonbeam Hollow
Inc. 1926
Where Nature is Our Strength
The sign didn’t do much to make Blair feel better today.
Maybe it was the torrential rain that had seemed to come out of nowhere, or maybe it was because Moonbeam Hollow couldn’t be her refuge anymore.
Not if Luke Caldwell was back, torturing her with his nice ass and lopsided smirk.
The town sign was swaying in the rain, and it made Blair shiver instead of making her feel like she was coming home.
Also, there was a cat under the sign. A brown tabby that Blair did not recognize, sitting on the wet grass in the rain.
That was weird. Cats weren’t supposed to like water, were they?
The only cat Blair had ever lived with was Kass, and he was far from a normal cat.
In fact, Kass was prone to taking long, hot showers to clear his head.
After Blair parked in the lot behind her café, she ran in through the back door in a vain attempt to keep her hair dry.
It didn’t help, though; she was soaked to the bone by the time she made it into the back room.
Blair kept a change of clothes in the café in case of spills, so she changed into jeans and a grey sweatshirt.
After checking on her part-time employee, Travis, Blair spent the afternoon in the back room catching up on paperwork.
Mostly because she knew she’d need to focus on these numbers, so her mind wouldn’t drift to reliving that hot-as-hell kiss with Luke Caldwell.
She was deep in an Excel file when a text came from Belinda.
belinda: Have you seen your café sign?
Blair’s brow furrowed. Like, had she ever seen it? She’d seen it pretty much every day since she’d had the thing custom-made six years ago. Blair had ordered it from the same sign-maker who made the town sign, and most of the shop signs on Main Street.
blair: What do you mean?
belinda: Your café sign. Where is it?
blair: Hanging above my door?
belinda: It’s not. Go look.
Blair’s jaw clenched. What the hell was going on?
Could the wind have blown it down? Blair hated rain – mostly because it made her wavy hair even more unruly than normal.
But she had no choice but to head back outside.
There were only a few people in the café – probably because of the weather.
Melody was reading while drinking a tea.
Looked like the romantasy book that Belinda’s book club would be discussing next week.
Blair hadn’t started reading her copy yet.
‘Going outside for a minute,’ Blair told Travis as she headed out.
The rain was no longer torrential, but still very uncomfortable to be in.
When she stepped in front of her café and looked up, her heart sank as rain splashed on her skin.
Belinda hadn’t been hallucinating. Blair’s custom sign wasn’t there.
She could see the thick metal eye hooks that the sign normally hung from, but the sign itself was gone.
She called Belinda, who picked up on the first ring. ‘Where the hell is it?’ Blair asked. ‘Who would steal a sign?’
‘It’s so weird. Was it there earlier today?’
‘I have no idea. I was at the flea market all morning, and I came in from the back door at noon. Did you see it when you got to the bookstore?’
‘I didn’t notice it. But I was just setting up a display in the window and looked over and there was no sign. Are any other stores missing signs?’
‘Let me check. I’ll call you back.’
Blair scanned the closest businesses. The Wolf Willow Bookstore sign was there, swaying in the rain.
Blair could see her sister in the window and waved to her.
The florist, The Magnolia Magic Flower Shop, still had its colourful sign above its door.
Blair even looked next door, and a brand-new Shirley’s Sugar Mountain sign was hanging there.
There were large sheets of plywood and drywall leaning on the window, all wet from the rain.
Blair should call the town by-law office – there was an ordinance in Moonbeam Hollow about keeping construction materials off the sidewalks.
But no, she wouldn’t stoop that low by tattling on Luke.
Even though he would definitely deserve it.
That’s when Blair noticed that the top piece of junk leaning against the window of the bakery had a very familiar oval shape.
Blair stepped closer, and yep, that looked exactly like the back of her café sign.
She lifted the now soaking wet sign to look at it.
In teal, orange and black font, the sign read The Harvest Moo Café.
Why was her café sign leaning on Luke’s bakery?
Wait. Harvest Moo?
This was her sign. It even had the chip in the paint from a rogue hailstorm three years ago. Blair ran her hand over the painted letters. Why, and also how, had Luke stolen her sign and somehow removed one letter from it?
A sound behind her startled Blair. ‘Meow.’
Blair turned. It was another stray cat – this one large and orange, standing on the sidewalk.
Moonbeam Hollow did not have a stray cat problem.
And now two in one day? And in the rain, too?
‘What’s going on?’ Blair asked the cat, but all it did was blink twice, then run away in the opposite direction from the café.
Sighing, Blair took her sign back to the café.
Travis was with a customer when Blair walked in. He raised one questioning brow about the wet sign under her arm but didn’t say anything as Blair went straight to the back room. She propped the sign against her desk and snapped a picture of it, sending it to the group chat with her sisters.
belinda: Thank heavens you found your sign.
bianca: You lost your sign? How does that even happen?
blair: Belinda noticed it was gone. I found it with some construction trash outside Luke’s new bakery. Luke clearly did this.
belinda: But why steal a sign? That doesn’t make sense.
bianca: You both see that the sign now says Harvest Moo Café, right?
blair: It’s his idea of a joke. Like the lock and smashing my plants. This man is here to ruin me.
belinda: Don’t jump to conclusions. There could be another reason.
bianca: Maybe you should convert your café to an ice cream shop? Harvest Moo is actually a catchy little name.
belinda: Hey, kind of off topic, but have either of you seen any stray cats today? Weirdly saw three in the rain on my way to the bookstore.
blair: I did! A brown tabby and a big orange guy.
belinda: Those are the same ones I saw. Also a calico.
bianca: I saw a big solid grey one in the backyard near the greenhouse.
Bianca blinked. This was no longer a coincidence.
Seeing cats everywhere confirmed to Blair that there was a magical reason behind these mishaps.
Cats and magic have always been associated with each other since before cats were domesticated.
This could be bad. Were the cats trying to tell them something?
belinda: I have more bad news. The mayor was just in and said the festival committee is having trouble finding large healthy pumpkins and the ones from Dewy Bramble Acres aren’t recovering from the blight. Without pumpkins she said they’d have to cancel the festival.
bianca: I know. I gave Raj some fast-growing seeds but those will still be pretty small by Halloween.
Blair tensed. The Moonbeam Hollow Fall Harvest Festival was the town’s biggest tourist draw.
If it was cancelled, then her café wouldn’t be the only business losing out on the biggest moneymaker of the year.
Not to mention new tourists who discovered Moonbeam Hollow through the festival visiting the town year-round.
Moonbeam Hollow might not be able to keep its reputation as the Most Autumnal Small Town in Ontario without the festival.
They couldn’t let that happen. If there was a magic reason behind all this, then it was up to the only three witches in town to get to the bottom of it.
blair: We need to have a family meeting about this tonight. I’ll pick up a pizza on the way home. Seven o’clock in the dining room.
belinda: I agree.
bianca: Bring milkshakes from Harvest Moo, too.
* * *
Belinda was sitting in the living room reading a book with an ornate cover when Blair came in with an extra-large butter chicken pizza from Moonbeam Pizza, the only pizza place in town. ‘Where’s Bianca?’ Blair asked.
Belinda barely lifted her eyes from her book. ‘Where else? The greenhouse.’