“As you can see, we have some very expensive volumes, and we'd like to protect them with new shelving with doors. But I still want the ability to view them.”
“Get your kicks out of looking at your possessions, do you?” He crossed his ankle over his knee and settled back in the chair.
Sydney leaned back against the table and folded her arms over her chest. Too late she realized it had pushed her cleavage into his view. And he noticed.
“I like to look at them, yes. Is there anything wrong with that?”
“Not that I can see,” Nick said. “I like to look too.”
There was no doubt what he referred to. She caught herself trying to tug the collar of the jumpsuit closed. Her fingers were tingling, starting to feel warm. She needed to get her frustration and agitation under control before something happened. Something rattled behind her.
Down, girl. Now is not the time for a floorshow.
He ran his hands over the fabric on the arm of the chair. “Nice feel to the fabric. Expensive?”
“A bit.” She pressed her lips together. “Can I get you a scotch, Mr. Spencer? Maybe a cigar? You seem to be making yourself at home.”
He threw back his head and laughed. “Now that would be great.” He lifted off the chair, his big body nearly filling the space in front of her. She tried to step back but came up hard against the reading table. “But I’m working right now.” He lifted a blond strand from her shoulder. “Maybe we could hook up later. There are some really nice watering holes in this town.”
She moved his hand away. “I’ll think about that.” She waved toward the shelves. “We were thinking glass-fronted doors.”
He rubbed his finger across his lips. “Glass, huh? That's pure custom there. That’ll cost you.”
“I assumed it would. I also want the shelves to be…fireproof.”
“Fireproof? Seriously? Do you have any idea what that adds to the cost?”
“Just give me an estimate,” she said.
He pulled a stubby pencil from his T-shirt pocket and then scratched it against his forehead as though releasing enough neurons for such a tough question. Good thing this brainiac was cute.
He thought for so long, she finally asked, “You do give estimates?”
“Sure.” But the tone of his voice belied he knew the meaning of the word, and his expression spoke volumes. He looked beyond doubtful. That frown line on his forehead made her fingers tingle with impatience.
“You are from You Dream It, We Build It, right? The website said—”
“Oh, yeah, sure, but I work in wood, beautiful woods I might add. If you want something completely fireproof, you really need a different material, maybe—”
“I want wood. I guess I didn’t mean fireproof as much as a fire retardant. We just need a small stopgap, but I want the shelves to be beautiful, elegant. Can you do that?”
“Sure. As long as you realize the limitations.”
“I do. And there are ways around the limitations. I can create a bit of precious leeway in the event of an emergency by weaving a time suspension sp—”
She clenched her jaw and squeezed her hands into fists when she felt the heat building in her fingertips.
Crap, crap, and double crap!
One blond brow rose. “You’ll do what to a what?”
Oh Jeez, Syd, why don’t you just come out and say, “I’m a witch. No biggie.”
Sydney huffed. “I’ll just make sure we have more extinguishers.”
“O-kay.” He glanced around. “Not sure there are any left in the town, but whatever you say.”
His gaze shifted to the door, and Sydney knew what he saw—a shop completely devoid of customers. He probably questioned whether she could afford the kind of work he did, despite the obvious wealth contained on the shelves.
“What kind of business is this really? I mean it looks kind of hokey, very touristy, but these volumes…”
She tilted her head and studied Mr. Studly then gave him the stock answer—the one all four of them gave when confronted with a Doubting Thomas. “We’re a magic and occult shop. Simple, harmless fun for the tourists. They expect that when they come to Blansett. We’re magical here, you know. Blansett is considered the Salem of the South, and most call it Magicville.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that… Simple, harmless fun? With these books? I think you’re fooling yourself, honey.” His eyes narrowed. “Or you’re playing with fire. Is that why you have all the extinguishers?”
When she didn’t answer, he strode to the shelves. He didn’t look at her innocuous volumes. Oh, no, not this man. He bypassed the shelf on botany and herbs, ignoring her seventeenth century volumes of Culpeper’s English Physician and The Complete Herbal. He glanced briefly at Benjamin Canfield’s A Theoretical Discourse of Angels and Their Ministries, but it held no interest for him. He gravitated straight to the occult section. He studied some of the titles—Nicolas Eymeric’s Directorium Inquisitorum and Pierre LeLoyer’s Discours et Histoires des Spectres—and then pulled a book off the shelf, rather roughly she noted. He flipped through a few pages, made a noise that hinted at disgust, and shoved it back on the shelf.
“Excuse me, that book is worth over a thousand dollars. Would you please—”
“You got ripped off.”
Her mouth dropped open. “I most certainly did not!”
Did I? I better not have or that weasel is going to pay through the nose—literally. She pictured aristocratic and snooty Randall Smythe-Warren with a pig snout and almost laughed.
“Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it’s worth a couple hundred bucks at most.”
He swiveled toward her, and his mouth twisted into something resembling…a smirk? Smirks infuriated her. She was starting to really dislike this man. Too bad because she liked the way he looked. When he ran his finger along the spines of an entire row, and she heard the riffling noise of flesh against leather, she darted across the room, nearly tripping over a chair leg.
“Stop that right now.” Push.
And nothing happened. He just kept on touching.
Stunned, she could do nothing but stare at him, lips parted and the heat from her skin making her hair lift from the back of her sweaty neck.
He gave her a look he’d probably mastered at the age of seven. The who-made-you-boss look. No one gave her that look. Everyone caved when she pushed. Everyone but Nick Spencer.
He ran his fingers across another book, a first edition Aleister Crowley, and she glared at him, incredulous as he pulled it from the shelf. Not only had he dared to touch a book worth three thousand dollars, he’d been completely immune to her power of persuasion. The command should have worked as easily as a TV remote changed a channel. She stared at her hands. Why, she had no idea because she didn’t know where her push power originated. It could come out her butt for all she knew. Yeah, that sounded like something that would happen to her. Payback for being a Janzen.
“Don’t get your panties in a bunch.” He shoved the book back on the shelf and rubbed his hands over his jeans as though they were covered in dust. She knew darn well her books weren’t dusty. “It’s genuine, but it’s worth two thousand tops.”
“And how on earth would you know that?”
He had the nerve to wink at her. “Hobby of mine.”
“Oh, I imagine you worked for Sotheby’s at one time?”
“The auction house?” He shook his head, that blond hair brushing across his black T-shirt. She thought of pushing her hands through those strands. She wanted to see if they were as silky as they looked. No man should have hair like— “No, ma’am. I’ve never worked at an auction house.”
He continued to molest her books, and with each swipe of his finger, her irritation level rose until she was ready to explode. When he paused at Luguni’s priceless compilation on demonology from 1669, Mallei Malifecarum, he gave her a glance.
“This is a dangerous book.”
“And is it worthless as well?”
“It won’t,” Sydney said. “I have created mag—” She snapped her mouth closed as his fingers hovered over the volume and he turned her way.
Why don’t you just go ahead and tell him all about the magical wards that keep your precious things safe? You, Sydney Janzen, need to stop gushing like an idiot. He’s doing something to you.
“You’ve created what?”
“We have an excellent security system.”
He rubbed his fingers together and gingering touched the Mallei, but he yanked his hand back suddenly, moving on to Albertinus’ Malleus Daemonum.
“The Hammer of Demons,” he said softly. “You do a lot of demon exorcisms in your little occult shop?”
“Of course not,” she said. “We do tarot readings, runes, a bit of— Please don’t touch that. It’s a first edition from 1620.”
Her fingers grew hot and throbbing and finally twitched.
He plucked the Albertinus volume from the shelf. “Another really dangerous investment if you ask me.”
And with that, it was all over with but the crying.
A glass witching ball on the reading table flew off its stand and flung itself against the wall. Nick whirled around at the sounds of splintering glass in time to see purple and rose shards twinkling down to the carpeted floor.
Sydney shoved her hands behind her back. “Crap!”
“What the hell…”
“I told you to stop,” she said quietly. “You really should have listened to me.”
“And when I didn’t, you decided to hurl a glass bomb at my head?”
“Of course not!”
“Surrre, honey. You’re a dangerous little woman, aren’t you?”
She pressed her lips together and huffed. “First, it came nowhere near you.”
“It’s obvious you’ve never played softball. I guess that’s a good thing for my health.”
She drew in a long breath, trying to control the tingle in her fingers. “Second, stop calling me honey. I’m no one’s honey, least of all yours.”
He slid the book back onto the shelf and pulled out a tape measure from his back pocket. “You have a lot of trouble with people touching your things, don’t you?” He stabbed the pencil behind his ear. “I have to tell you, it’s going to be tough to do this job if I can’t touch anything.”
“Oh don’t be ridiculous. You can certainly touch things.”
“Really?” He glanced at the shattered glass on the carpet. “This… what the hell was this thing anyway, something for a princess wand?” He walked over to the mess and toed the debris.
“It’s… it was a glass witching ball.”
He stared at it dubiously, and one brow rose. “What the hell does it do?”
“They’re used to ward off spirits, to capture evil before—” She shook her head. “Oh why do you even care? You hate this voodoo crap, and you’re a carpenter, not a…”
Witch. Warlock. Magician. Wizard. Take your pick. You’re none of them. You don’t fit in here and should go away. Before something bad happens.
Now if she could just make herself believe that because, despite his cocky arrogance, despite his irreverent attitude toward her entire lifestyle, and despite whether he was a carpenter, a warlock, or a garbage collector, this man did something for her. Something tingly and warm and thoroughly bad for her. She could almost feel herself being pulled toward him, and Sydney Janzen allowed herself to be pulled toward no one. She was all about the push.
She tried again. He needed to go away. Push.
Nothing.
Her head dropped down.
He continued to run the tape measure over the shelves. “I might be a carpenter, but I’m a man with varied interests, a man of many talents, a Jack of all trades, possibly even…” He glanced over his shoulder and gave her a sinfully seductive smile. “The man of your dreams.”
Sydney lurched back. “And a jackass with a high opinion of himself.”
“That too.”
Push, push, push, push, PUSH.
The tape measure unwound, Nick measured, and then the metal snapped back into its case. Nick moved to the end of the bookshelf and repeated the process. Completely oblivious to her power.
Sydney rubbed two fingers over her temple, up and down, up and down, as she tried to form a cohesive thought in the presence of this man who, for some unknown reason, could resist her. That. Just. Wasn’t. Possible.
What is wrong with me today? Have my powers completely dissolved in the last half-hour?
She was completely losing it.
He continued to take his measurements, but he never wrote anything down. She began to have serious doubts about her father’s recommendation. What had made him think that Nick Spencer was the man for such an important enterprise, for any enterprise?
Nick stood back and took another glance at the shelving. “When do you want me to start?”
“I haven’t accepted your firm yet.” Sydney pressed her lips together.
He glanced over his shoulder and then turned slowly. That smirk hovered on his lips again, and those blue eyes sparkled like sunlight on the sea as his stare ran down her body. “We both know I’m the man for the job.”
Sydney pulled in a sharp breath. He’s not talking about the shelves. What has my father done to me, bringing this man into my life? He needs to go. I can’t do this.
Push.
Instead of retreating, instead of responding to her will—and everyone responded to her will—Nick took a step toward her. She lurched backward and raked her hands through her hair.
“So when’s a good time to start…Sydney?” His low voice, rumbling and dense like a tiger’s purr, vibrated the air between them and swelled over her like a dark wave.
The weight and passion of the sound nearly knocked her off her feet. She barely recognized her own voice. She sounded timid and bespelled. “You’ll give us a ten percent discount, right?” Push.
A smile tipped the corner of that gorgeous mouth. “Not a chance in hell.”
He might as well have dumped a bucket of ice water on her. Whatever dark magic this non-magical being wielded, his words brought her out of the enchantment. She shook her head furiously, her hair brushing over her shoulders. “What did you say?” How was he resisting her?
“Oh, sorry, I meant to say that just isn’t possible. You have to be a preferred client. We haven’t established that you are a preferred customer… yet.” That tone again. That rumbling purr.
He was trying to get on her nerves and confuse the hell out of her. She could tell that. When she heard a small noise behind her, she knew she wasn’t the only confused person in the shop. She whirled around to find Bethany in the doorframe, her mouth hanging open, her eyes wide. She held up her hands in a “what gives?” gesture.
“I don’t know,” she mouthed at her cousin.
What the hell was going on? Her powers had worked this morning with several lookie-loos. Why she’d even sold a couple hundred dollars’ worth of rune stones to Abby, despite her interfering friend. She’d also talked Kathy into working for her on Monday night and had even convinced the office supply guy to give her some free sample reams of paper. Who the hell gave away samples of paper?
She stared at her hands again and turned back to Mr. Full of Himself.
“Are you sure you can't give me a discount?” Push. Push. Push, damn it.
He drew in a deep breath and appeared to think. Of course she should have known there was nothing good for her in that pretty head of his. She got the answer she expected but should never have gotten in a million years.
“Yep. Pretty sure.” He pulled the pencil from his ear and a notebook from his T-shirt pocket. He scribbled something on a piece of paper, ripped it out, and shoved it toward her. So high tech, this guy. It was as though he’d stepp
ed out of the Dark Ages. He sure looked the part.
She glanced at the numbers that looked mostly like hieroglyphs then stared up at him.
“Are you out of your mind?”
“Nope. I told you it’s a custom job.”
“I could get a whole houseful of furniture at Ikea for a third of this price.”
He shrugged. “Long drive, but you'll save a lot of money so you can afford the gas.” He glanced at the bookshelves again. “To be honest, you were probably ripped off on quite a few of those volumes, but they’re still quality and…rare. They should be taken care of. I can do that if you decide to go with us.”
He sauntered toward the door, and she watched his butt as he moved. God, he was good looking. Bethany stepped out of his path, looking a bit dazed. He turned back toward Sydney.
“I’ll have my partner draw up a real estimate. We have computers and everything. I don’t know how to do much business on them, but Janine is pretty tech savvy. She’ll be in touch.”
Janine. The woman on the other end of his temper tantrum. She was a partner, not an employee, so maybe he wasn’t such a douche after all. She gave him back a few points, grudgingly.
And with that, he walked across the shop, pulled open the door, and the bell over the door tinkled merrily behind him.
“What just happened?” Sydney said.
Bethany just shrugged, but she did it with a smile.
* * * *
Nick stood on the wrap-around porch for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the bright sunlight. He raked the hair back from his face and smiled. The audacious little witch had tried to push him, several times, and hard. The first time surprised him because he’d thought, initially, the shop was all commercial bullshit based on the abundance of tourist crap. Dream catchers? Crystal balls? A display of wands? Really… He could get that stuff at any tourist trap in Salem, and most of the people who sold them were charlatans looking for a quick buck.
But then he’d walked farther into the shop and felt the dusting of magic coating everything. Protection spells. Wards. The entire shop reeked of enchantment, and it had drifted around Sydney like crystalline air. He realized then just how powerful she was. The shop had been imbued with so much magic he wondered how anyone drew a breath without being charmed.
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