Biddy Daphne whirled around with a bright, almost endearing, smile. “We visit your town quite a bit, so we just might be back. Thank you, Sydney.” She gave a little wave and tittered as the bell above the door chimed.
Sydney dropped onto the stool behind the counter. Bethany poked her head through the curtain.
“All clear?”
Sydney shot her a look. “Thanks for nothin’, friend.”
Friend. Just one word to describe Bethany Kent, along with distant cousin, one of the co-owners of Mystic Tides, and gardener and herbalist extraordinare.
“Had to escape,” Bethany said, flinging back a piece of long reddish-gold hair. “Those old bats were driving me crazy. I knew you’d break down eventually and just handle it.” She smiled. “You’re not exactly known for your patience. Especially with lookie-loos who don’t even buy.”
“I really hate pushing like that, but they wasted so much of our time. We really needed to make a sale.” She shrugged.
“Have we made enough profit this month to get those shelves you want?”
“Oh, we won’t need to worry about that. Dad’s paying for the lumber and materials. He insisted, and you know I can’t dissuade him.”
Bethany gave her a little shoulder-shove. “As if you’d want to.”
“I like being spoiled, and he likes doing it. It’s a win-win. But I’m handling the contractor bill. I insisted.”
“Out of which sucky salary? Your teaching one or your shop-girl one?”
“I’m combining them,” Sydney muttered. She crossed her legs and bounced her foot, the high-heeled slide swinging at the end of her toe.
“Anything for your books,” Bethany said with a little smile.
A nice little trick to brighten Sydney’s mood—bringing up her favorite topic, and it worked. Sydney’s previous frustration melted away like ice cream on the beach, and her heart gave that little pitter-pat that came only with touching her books or thinking about her books or talking about her books. Basically anything that had to do with her books.
She couldn’t help but smile.
“Finding and procuring some of them have been real coups for me. I feel like Indiana Jones when I discover a new book. I know they’re expensive, but it’s like an addiction or something.”
“Or something,” Bethany said with a little smile.
Sydney smiled and decided not to point out that her father paid for her expensive hobby. She probably didn’t need to. Everyone in town knew Bryan Janzen was the wealthiest man in the county and spoiled his only child rotten.
“And they’re a great addition to the shop. Really.” Bethany gave a smirk, and Sydney knew what was coming. “Now, if you’d just let someone else touch them.”
Sydney hopped off her stool and wigged her foot back into her shoe. “Smartass.” She glanced at the door of the special collections room. Her beautiful collection could be seen through the glass, sitting on shelves that would be perfectly adequate for any other shop. But not theirs.
“I really need to protect them, especially after last week. I thought Grey’s sneeze was going to give new meaning to the term ‘fire sale.’”
“Too many animals in here at once I think,” Bethany said. “She can usually handle two, but three’s a bit much.”
As if they knew they were being discussed, two animals poked their heads above the lip of the little bed by the fireplace. Glimmer, Sydney’s perky little Yorkie, put her paws up on the edge and stretched. The movement made the little dark blue bow on her head waggle from side to side. Bethany’s black and white cat, Orca, stretched out, gave Glimmer a disinterested glance, and then rolled over and went back to sleep.
When Bethany started to walk toward one of the display cases with a stack of journals, Sydney laughed. “Why are you wasting your time with those? Here.”
She flicked her hand, felt the heat course through her fingertips, and the stack of books danced across the room in a frolicsome parade and nestled inside the display case—just as the bell tinkled above the double door into Mystic Tides.
Sydney closed her hands into fists and winced against the burn. It was never good to stop magic in mid-stream.
That was close.
Most of the people residing in Blansett knew magic existed, and some outsiders and visitors—those with a smidgeon of magic themselves—probably suspected it. The really charmed residents of Blansett, however, held magic at their fingertips and used it daily in one way or another, but displaying it in public was a no-no.
Sydney rubbed her fingertips together. Tiny sparks snapped and flickered on her skin as she dispelled any residual heat before the customer fully entered the shop.
The hunkiest hunk that Sydney had ever seen gingerly stepped over the threshold and glanced around with a bit of trepidation. His deep blue gaze swept the room, and she heard an audible sigh as he figured out what kind of a shop he stood in. Most men felt immediate discomfort walking into a shop clearly geared toward inner goddesses.
“Oh my God,” Bethany whispered. “Thor fell directly out of the movies into our shop. He’s gorgeous.”
That he was. Long strands of blond hair fell around his face, softly curling when they met the tightly stretched black T-shirt. The eyes… well, Sydney decided he could stare at her all day long. She would willingly fall into the swirling sea of his eyes. One brow lifted as his gaze flickered over dream catchers and crystal balls and potion bottles. When several cauldrons—cast iron of course—caught his attention, Sydney heard a softly muttered, “Damn.”
“Damn is right,” Bethany said quietly. “This guy is a hunk of perfection. Look at that body.”
Sydney nodded mutely beside her. Bethany jammed her elbow in Sydney’s side, and Sydney gave her friend a chastising look.
“Breathe, Syd. And close your mouth. You’re catching flies.”
The guy glanced at them and gave them a somewhat feeble smile. He held up his finger in a wait-a-second gesture and fumbled in his jeans pocket. He pulled out a wrinkled scrap of paper. His brow scrunched, and he yanked a cell phone from his other pocket. He dialed and then stood like a bronzed statue, his gaze landing on everything but them.
“He’s lost,” Bethany said.
“I guess he could be my contractor. Dad said I should call this guy he met. He was supposed to stop by today.” She glanced at a card on the counter.
You Dream It, We Build It.
Nicholas Spencer, Owner
She let her gaze drift from those massive shoulders to the wide chest—so fun to nestle against, my dear—to the slim hips and, she’d bet, a great pair of legs under those well-worn, and well worn, jeans. This guy was the total package. Thor in the flesh. “Please be my contractor,” she whispered, squeezing her hands together.
Bethany gave her a funny look. “What is wrong with you, Syd? I’ve never seen you acting—”
Bethany’s mouth snapped closed when a loud male voice thundered through the shop. “Are you freaking kidding me?”
The guy’s face turned dark when he saw them staring, and with a glare, he spun away from them to face the door. Sydney heard him whisper, somewhat furiously, “You know how I feel about all this hokey voodoo crap.” He paused. “Well, that doesn’t help me now, does it? Thanks for nothing, Janine.”
“He might be hunky,” Sydney said, letting her gaze run over the angry man, “but he’s kind of a douche.”
She flipped a strand of hair over her shoulder and straightened up, unraveling the spell the gorgeous man had woven around her. She mentally got her act together and started around the counter, determined to get this man out of the shop before he polluted the good vibes with his attitude. If she allowed him to rage beyond what she’d already seen, Bethany would be spending the rest of the afternoon adjusting the ambience.
Glimmer poked out of the doggie bed and cocked her head, as if wondering what had changed in her world. Sydney gave her a quick pet and adjusted her ribbon, which had slid to the side. Orca opened one eye and
closed it again, obviously deciding his attention wasn’t needed and sleep was far more important.
Mr. Bad Mood turned slowly as he shoved the phone back in his pocket, and his blue gaze swung up to meet Sydney’s.
“Can I help you with something? You look lost.” She kept her gaze steadily on his baby blues, but not for long because his gaze began to roam around the room again.
“What’s with all the fire extinguishers?” She watched as he counted them. Easy to do because the dumbass counted out loud like a kindergartener. When he got to eleven, he stopped and gave a whistle. “What gives?”
“We have a lot of precious items in our shop. Just trying to be prepared.”
“Uh-huh.”
She tried to smile, but it got caught somewhere and faltered. She didn’t know if it was because she’d already decided he was a certified douche—and didn’t deserve her smiles—or because of the way he was staring at her now. His gaze went from the top of her blond head over the silky midnight blue jumpsuit to the clear high-heeled sandals on her feet. He didn’t say anything, but his eyes said he liked what he saw. She was going to give him a few extra points for having a bit of taste, but then he had to go and spoil it.
“Well,” he said with a disappointed huff, “sorry to say, it seems I’m in the right place after all.” He gazed through Sydney and Bethany to peer hopefully at the curtain behind the counter. “I’m looking for Sidney Janzen. Is he around?”
Sydney straightened even farther. At five-eight, she was tall for a woman, but in her heels, she rose four inches higher. Of course, Thor here was probably six-four if he was an inch. Six feet, four inches of delectable hunky goodness. Too bad he was a douche. People should never speak to their co-workers like he had. Unforgivable. She—and all the co-owners of Mystic Tides—treated their employees like the goddesses they were. They couldn’t keep the shop open without them since they all had real jobs. Mystic Tides didn’t make nearly enough money to sustain them all.
“I’m Sydney Janzen.”
He gave her a quizzical look, and for one moment, Sydney thought he was going to argue with her—about her own name!
“Nick Spencer.”
Oh, that made his behavior even worse. This terror in blue jeans was the owner of the company and had spoken to an employee like that. No matter what her father had said, she wasn’t even sure she wanted to do business with this man any longer. “Mr. Spencer, I’m afraid—”
“Janzen… I figured you must be related to the guy who owns the lumber mill.”
The guy who owns the lumber mill? Sydney wasn’t sure any Janzen had ever been described so prosaically. The Janzens had been holy terrors when they arrived in the New World, and not above using magic to get anything and everything they wanted. There was a mysterious reason Manhattan had been acquired for some worthless beads, and it wasn’t because the native peoples were gullible fools. Christoffel Janzen had given a push, just a small one, and had practically owned the people of New Amsterdam after that little trick because they acquired all the land they wanted. Christoffel called it good negotiating tactics, but the Janzens hadn’t exactly been a truthful lot in the last millennium. His mother would have called it exactly what it was: magic. Either way, it worked, and after centuries of abusing their powers to gain almost total control over northern industries, the Janzens finally fled their rather dubious reputation in the north and headed for the south to begin a new endeavor—land grabbing and logging.
And so it began again, until Sydney’s grandfather, Pieter, put a stop to the use of magic for profit.
The guy who owns the lumber mill, my ass. Oh for the good old days. I could push this man into next Tuesday.
She held on to her annoyance by a thread, but it was incredibly hard. “Yes, Bryan Janzen is my father.”
“Met him a few weeks ago at some function or another.”
Sydney tilted her head. “It must be nice to be so social that you can’t recall where you’ve met someone.”
He ignored her. Just as well because she shouldn’t be baiting him. She was thinking of just getting this horrible exchange over with by pushing him out of the building when he said, “Is that Dutch?”
Confused, Sydney shook her head and drew back. “What?”
“The name, is it Dutch?”
“Yes, my father’s family is Dutch.”
His blue gaze drifted lazily over her entire body. She should have felt dirty, given his rather abrasive personality, but her heart did some annoying little pitter-patter and her skin tingled with a very distracting heat. She didn’t like it at all.
“You could certainly give Heidi Klum a run for her money.”
This again.
“Thanks ever so much, Mr. Spencer, but Heidi Klum is German.”
“Oh, there’s a difference?” He had the nerve to smirk. Oh, yeah, he really wanted a top spot on her list of disliked people. He was very close to the number one spot already.
She blew out of breath. “Yes, actually, there is a big difference. The Germans are far more patient than the Dutch.”
She tried to drill a hole through him with her eyes, but he snorted out a laugh.
“If you’re here to give me an estimate, can we begin please?”
She turned and had started to move away when she heard him murmur, “Sure thing, princess.”
She spun around and crashed into his chest, nearly bouncing off the hard surface. She teetered on her heels, and he brought his hands up to steady her. She planted her hands against his chest. So warm, so strong. Behind her, Bethany giggled. Sydney would get even with her for that.
“Careful there, Miss Janzen. Immovable object meet unstoppable force.”
She stared at his chest for a moment, that big expanse of black cotton torturing her nostrils with a wonderful scent of…. sandalwood. She breathed deeply and forgot where she was for a second. Finally she lifted her face. “Why are we talking physics?”
“Because if you plow into me too often, you’ll break. And I’m a carpenter, not a doctor, so let’s keep the crashes to a minimum.”
“I can understand that. You’re very…” Her fingers flexed against his chest, actually curling into the material. What the hell is wrong with me?
His thumb brushed over the tattoo on her upper arm, black ink of a heart interlaced with a trinity symbol. Grey had designed it, and Sydney and her cousins all had one. The Celtic trinity knot symbolized her three best friends connected by her love. They’d done it on a lark one beautiful summer day, hoping to help Halona on the road to happiness. It hadn’t worked completely, but at least she was sure Halona knew she was loved.
“Nice tattoo.”
“Thank you.”
“What does it represent? Anything in particular?”
“It’s personal,” Sydney murmured.
“You’re really not into sharing much, are you?”
He just stared at her, those sea-blue eyes simmering with something like humor. She glanced at his hand, which was still moving almost hypnotically on her skin. She could have stood there all day, his touch grazing her softly and leaving a trail of heat in its wake, but she hadn’t truly decided whether she even liked him. In fact, as his eyes continued to travel over her face, which was now burning red-hot, she twitched her arm.
“You can stop touching me now.”
“And if I don’t want to?”
She stared at him, pushing her power toward those blue eyes. “You can stop touching me now.”
“If you say so, princess.” He dropped his arms, and he began to saunter around the shop floor, his hands skimming over various objects, lingering a bit on others. “Everything looks pretty good in here.” He nodded toward the special collections room. He glanced through the glass door. “Lots of books in there. That the room?”
“Yes.”
“So show me.”
She gestured toward the closed door.
“You first,” he said with a small smile. “I’m looking forward to the view u
nder all that silk.”
“The view…” Heat burst through her. “Oh! You’re… you’re…”
A dimple appeared in his cheek when he smiled, this time wider. How dare he have a dimple?
“I’m what? Cute? Irresistible?” When her eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to… possibly scream, he said, “Should we go directly to adorable?”
“Arrogant, full of yourself, possibly even a do—”
“Watch your mouth, princess. There’s a lady present.” He gestured toward Bethany, who had the nerve to giggle again.
Sydney mouthed, “I will so get you.” He caught her words and laughed.
“Go ahead. If the back is as good as the front, I’m going to die and go to heaven.”
“We can only hope,” Sydney muttered. “Bethany, if you-know-who comes by, just keep her away from you-know-where. An open door is not an invitation. She’s not to enter. Ever.” Sydney shuddered at the thought of Grey stepping foot into her room now that she’d moved some of her more pricey volumes in. There weren’t enough fire extinguishers in the world to deal with the potential loss. “Okay?”
“Sure thing,” Bethany said. “You-know-who can’t go in you-know-where.”
Nick watched the exchange but, surprisingly, didn’t comment. She’d give him a half point for that.
Sydney turned, pulled a key from her silky pocket, and opened the door. Then she stepped back to let him into her sanctuary, her pride and joy, her favorite place in the world. She could smell the power in those books.
“Nice digs.”
Digs? He’s a complete Philistine.
“I like it,” she said.
“What’s not to like? Great wood.” He dragged his finger over the smooth, shiny surface of the mahogany table then glanced at his fingertips. The cretin had the nerve to check for dust? “Great chairs.” He plopped his gorgeous butt—she’d seen it firsthand when he was on the phone—into one of the cushioned armchairs placed in the room for reading pleasure. He bounced a few times, like a kid testing out a new spot on the couch. “And really great books.”
Well, at least he had a bit of taste. She followed his gaze, which roamed over the floor-to-ceiling shelves taking up two walls.
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