Chapter 2
Jena pulled back the front window’s curtains, the air shimmering with dust as light streamed in. She doubted they’d get any customers this early—or at all—but sitting in the dark wasn’t exactly her idea of a good time, and there was plenty to do.
She sighed, her gaze sweeping over the smattering of odd-shaped tables crowded with crystals and the overflowing built-in bookcases lining the dark-papered walls.
Once upon a time, this had been a sitting room in the old Victorian brownstone.
In fact, she was pretty sure the worst of the drafts were coming from the fireplace hidden by that central transplant of shelves against the far wall.
Jena considered moving the damned bookcase for all of point three seconds before remembering the flying squirrel infestation junior year of high school.
There was no way the chimney behind it was up to code.
Still…eh, worst case scenario, she put a pin in that idea in case she ever needed to commit insurance fraud.
It was a distinct possibility.
She frowned, wending through oddities and mismatched stacks to the very small corner of the room that’d been put to rights as she’d photographed and inventoried stock.
Not for the first time, the theme to The Sorcerer’s Apprentice plinked through her mind.
Too bad magic didn’t work that way, and hiring a brownie was way out of her budget.
They didn’t exactly work for bread and milk anymore.
She shivered. Ugh. The draft was definitely worse over here.
Nope. not turning on the heat yet. It’s your own fault you forgot your stupid sweater—
The bell above the door rang as someone came in. She turned, and her stomach dropped beneath a wave of rage and longing that just pissed her off more.
Chase Montgomery was in The Witchery.
Chase fricking Montgomery was in her store after everything he’d done and his goddamned mother had gotten her fired, and the son of a bitch was smiling at her.
Her stomach flipped. Ugh! Damn his stupid handsome face.
Well, the half she could see under that hat, but the rest of it could go to hell too, along with the rest of him.
“Hey. You forgot your—”
“Get out.”
He flinched, dipping his head with a little nod, then opened his mouth like he was going to say something.
“I said, get out!”
“Yeah, I just—I got your sweater.” He held it out like a peace offering.
Jena stared at it and then at him, her hands fisting at her sides.
He took a step toward her, then another, and she closed her eyes. I will not hex him, I will not hex him…
“Here,” he said, his breath teasing across her skin, too close.
The sweater’s weight settled around her shoulders with a wave of musk, and a tremor went through her, her knees threatening to buckle.
His cologne…damn, it did things to her. She put a hand on a table to steady herself, light-headed, gritting her teeth as her lady bits sat up and took notice.
Guess she hadn’t outgrown that reaction to the jerk—a flood of memories from high school washed over her.
Nope. Nooo. Not going there again. He was a Montgomery, and she was a Seymore.
Stay in your own lane Jena, lest you get run over a second time.
The back of his hand grazed over her cheek, and she trembled, every hair on her body standing at attention. “You’re shivering,” he murmured, his voice like melty chocolate.
Her eyes snapped open at his uninvited touch, the divot between his collar bones front and center.
She raised her eyes to his, shadowed beneath the brim of his stupid hat and glared at him.
“Touch me again, and I swear to God, I will hex your pathetic pencil dick until it shrivels up and falls off.”
His smile widened and dimples studded his cheeks. “It’s good to see you too, Jena, and you’re welcome.” He tipped his hat and made his way to the door, far too silently for a man of his size.
Her knees gave out as it closed in his wake, and she sat heavily on the floor.
What the hell had that been about? His entire freaking pack had made her life miserable growing up, and her senior year had been hell thanks to him.
Her fingers rose to the scar beneath her chin before she could shake the memory away.
She pulled the sweater off and held it up to the light.
Had he done something to it? It didn’t look ruined, didn’t smell—her nose wrinkled.
Ugh. Yes it did. Or maybe that was just his damned cologne still stinking up the shop.
Meh, she couldn’t get the smell out of her nose.
It wasn’t horrible—far from it unfortunately—but it was definitely him… which made it horrible on principle.
She ran a hand over her face. Why would he have brought it to her?
Whatever. Weres, dogs, maybe he felt the need to fetch and retrieve.
Jena shook her head, sure the reason would bite her in the ass soon enough.
She carried her sweater behind the counter and tossed it over the chair.
It would just have to sit there and stink until she was ready to go to the laundromat again.
Something thunked on the coffered ceiling above, and her eyes rose at the sound.
Aggie was up, and she shouldn’t be out of bed.
Jena bit back a curse and pushed through the curtained staircase at the back of the shop, then took the steps two at a time to the landing leading to the living space above.
Architecturally, the building hadn’t been changed much, if at all, from when it’d been built sometime in the 1890s, but the previous owners had decided to “modernize” the rooms above the store in the 60s. The results were unfortunate and so very, very rust and avocado.
Aggie had always talked about restoring it, but money had been tight.
What they had done was piecemeal, as evidenced by the half-stripped woodwork around the living room.
Gorgeous oak grain peeked out from beneath odd intervals of chippy, yellowed paint.
Raising Jena, running the shop, and then her cancer diagnosis, had derailed Aggie’s plans to bring it back to its former glory and been hell on the maintenance, too.
The place needed some serious repairs, and it wasn’t happening anytime soon.
Which is why seeing Aggie sitting by one of the floor-to-ceiling windows with a dental pick working white paint out of the acanthus leaves carved into the trim was a punch to Jena’s gut.
“Aggie…”
The older woman flipped her off and kept working.
Jena sighed. “You want your tea?”
“Why, so I can puke it up?”
“You need to stay hydrated,” Jena said, going to the connected kitchen to put water on to boil.
“My earlier question stands.”
“I ordered some more peppermint.”
Aggie snorted. “Stupid expense,” she muttered.
“No, it was a necessary expense. Most of your herbs in storage went moldy. Next year I’ll get the greenhouse going—”
“Next year I’ll be dead.”
“You keep being such a bitch, and I can guarantee it.”
Aggie cackled, and it devolved into a wracking cough. Jena hurried in with a glass of water and held the woman’s frail shoulders until it passed.
“You know that paint’s probably full of lead.”
“Somehow, I don’t think that’s what’s gonna kill me,” Aggie muttered, taking the glass of water and sipping it.
“The new scarf looks good. You’re getting better at wrapping them.
” Jena tucked in an end of the peacock print silk covering Aggie’s bald scalp, missing her thick gray braids.
Chemo was awful, and that wasn’t the only unwelcome change it’d wrought.
The tie-dye caftan swamping Aggie’s frame was easily three sizes too big now, and she’d been slender to begin with.
“Stop standing there feeling sorry for me. I do enough of that myself.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Lies.” Aggie sniffed, and her azure-blue eyes flicked to the clock above the boxed-in fireplace. It looked like someone had shoved a shipping crate against the wall, but at least there wasn’t a draft. “Why are you here? I thought you had to work this morning.”
“I did, until her eminent highness Mrs. Mary Montgomery got me fired.”
“I’m not surprised. A dog with a bone, that one, and she hated your mother. Always was a venomous bitch, and she’s done a fine job of poisoning her entire pack—so explain to me why you smell like you’ve been marked by one of them.”
Marked by…Ew! Jena sniffed her shirt. “Is that what that smell is? Ugh! I’m going to kill him!”
“Kill who?”
“Chase. He was just here returning the sweater I’d left at Sal’s.”
Aggie’s brow rose. “Was he?”
“Yeah, and now I know why; the jerk wanted to mess with me. God, what does he think I am, a fire hydrant?” Jena’s temper spiked.
Oooh! That asshole had no idea—wolfsbane.
That’d been one of the few herbs she’d been able to salvage from storage, and she could spell a charm.
Those didn’t have active intent, so she wouldn’t get whacked with karma.
Jena didn’t quite rub her hands together—
“Wasn’t he your first crush?” Aggie asked, pulling herself off the floor to sit in one of the overstuffed armchairs ringing the room.
No, he’d been her only crush, and her stupid stomach still got butterflies when he was around. Jena pinched her nose and sniffed. God, that stank. “Absolutely not.”
Aggie eyed her like she knew she was lying, resuming her architectural dentistry from a different angle. “You know they can’t just pull those pheromones out of a hat, right? It only comes out around their mate, well, unless they’re going through puberty, but he’s what? Thirty, thirty-five?”
“Thirty-six,” Jena murmured, grabbing a notepad to scratch out a list of spell ingredients.
He was a senior when his sister Sue and Jena were freshmen, and she was definitely not his mate.
She snorted, the idea laughable after the way he’d treated her.
“Would his hand count? Because he’s always smelled like that. ”