by Brea Viragh
Elon removed a slim music player from his pocket and flicked shuffle. It connected immediately with the wireless speakers he kept in the storeroom, sound bounding out and filling the air. A fiddler slashed his bow along the screaming strings in an old blues number while a wizened voice belted out a Cajun melody.
He remembered the first time he’d met Aisanna all those years ago. He had graduated college and set off on his own, determined to make his way without the ever-obliging hands of his mother and father pushing him forward.
He’d packed the backseat of his car with boxes and miscellaneous items he’d sworn he would need. The miles went by and he wondered what his family was doing. Whether his friends had picked up the same game of basketball they’d been playing since 1998 with no clear winner.
It was a crazy mixture of excitement and sentimentality. Several times, he’d almost turned the car around and headed home to safety. He imagined his life there in his cozy small town. He would go to church once a week, probably end up with some nice girl who went to his same high school. What had made him think he could make it on his own? Or, more to the point, that he had to? There was nothing to prove, no one holding a too-high standard over his head.
In the end, the familiar picture in his mind saw him pushing the pedal down and driving faster toward the horizon. There was no clear destination in mind. Elon drove until his gut told him to stop, following road signs and turning when the mood struck. He now understood there was something about Chicago drawing him forward like a fish on a hook.
That awesome sense of destiny had not lessened his anxiety in the least.
He took the seven hundred dollars in his pocket and rented a crappy apartment for a month. Roaches skittered the length of paper-thin walls while neighbors argued about whose turn it was to take the dog for a walk. The carpet smelled of stale urine with a hint of shattered dreams and an undertone of depression, but it was his place. The first one he’d gotten on his own without help from anyone.
That counted for something.
The next item on his agenda was a job. His degree was in marketing, and Elon decided the instant he finished his thesis—and walked down the aisle in his graduation gown—he’d rather do anything else. Down the road, perhaps, but not immediately. He needed time to explore. There was a huge world of opportunities. Places to go, new friends to make, and he didn’t want to be stuck in a rut without having experienced it. Any of it.
Which was what he did, driving the streets in search of help wanted signs. And there it was, a hand-drawn sign in looping calligraphy denoting the need for extra help. Flower shop? His mind immediately conjured a group of ladies lined in a row, their dresses in shades of matching pastel colors while they gossiped like hens.
Still, he listened to the urging in his gut, the tiny push from his mind that told him yes, this is the place I need to be.
Who was he to fight destiny?
Opening the door to a tinkle of bells, Elon had drawn in the scents of the workplace, contemplated the blooms on display, and wondered what kind of people stalked those counters.
Then he saw her.
She was a vision, with a mass of hair the color of autumn leaves cascading over the shoulders of her shirt. Her arms were bare, silver earrings winking at her earlobes and her mouth painted red. None of it compared to her eyes. Her eyes, sparkling with interest, were blue and amber and green, dominating a flawless face and adding interest to her tall, slim figure.
Weeks later, when the haze finally cleared from his brain, he would decide it had been a long fall off a short cliff. A cannonball to the gut or a bullet plowing through his chest. His heart stopped, skipped a beat, two, and then restarted with a zap.
She had shot him out of a holding pattern as his heart and loins simultaneously leaped to attention. Yes, his heart whispered. There she is.
“Can I help you?” she’d asked in a smoky voice.
He’d never seen a perfect human being before, such a striking combination of attributes. Yet there she was. Real. She’d clad her slender frame in a V-neck shirt the color of emeralds to offset her hair. Elon slapped his hands over his suddenly tight pants and considered his life most decidedly on the right track after all.
Only luck had him getting the job without any kind of prior training or experience.
Now he shook his head to clear it, and came to attention at the snap of her fingers. “Elon, my God. Get your head out of your butt and focus on what you’re doing. Those peonies look awful!”
CHAPTER 2
Did she have to babysit the man? Honestly, his attention was somewhere out in the stratosphere. It took every ounce of mental fortitude she possessed to get him to straighten up and focus. Focus. Some days, he wandered so far into his head, she wondered if he would ever come out again.
She was grateful for his work ethic, which she never questioned. Elon agreed to work holidays, weekends, overtime, any shift, whenever she asked, without prompting. He was an employer’s dream-come-true in that respect. After he’d applied for an assistant’s position two years ago, Aisanna had come to know Elon for who he was. Trustworthy and hardworking and an all-around good guy.
Not to mention damn attractive.
She could depend on him to open the shop on those mornings when she simply could not find the energy to make it in. Or when her family life went to hell and she was out half the night tracking down magical stalkers.
Elon would do what she asked of him and do it right the first time. And despite their considerable comfort in the working arena, there was no way in hell she’d tell him any details about Israel. She could picture it now, the look of horror on his masculine face as his good mood plummeted into the dirt.
Things did not work that way. Aisanna preferred not to mix her work and personal life, no matter how desperately Elon wished to break those barriers. There was an old saying her father once told her, which stuck with her to this day: Don’t get your honey where you make your money.
She lived the motto.
Still, Aisanna studied her best worker and wondered why his face filled her mind more often than not. Elon Fayer had the arrogant good looks of a con artist without any of the cockiness. He was the tailor-made boy-next-door, she thought, with cheerful blue eyes, a hint of scruff, and a wide mouth always stretched in a smile.
He toed the line between skinny and muscular without the bulk of a habitual gym rat. When she hired him, he’d worn his mane of dark brown hair hung low, reaching his collar. Now he trimmed it to keep up with the times: simple and casual with shorter sides and longer on the top, slicked to the side with styling product.
His grin came and showed a slightly crooked canine. It was an honest face. An outgoing, friendly one.
In a different world, a different life, things may have turned out otherwise for them. Say, for instance, if Elon had been born with the genetic capacity for magic in his veins. Then she would have no qualms about bedding him and indulging in those secret, dirty fantasies every woman had about handsome male coworkers. Even ones who were five years younger than them.
She imagined they’d have fun together. Again, in another life. Elon was human, with no power whatsoever, outside of his miraculous ability to charm little old ladies. That he had in spades. This had made him a great asset to her growing brand. He was a budding botanist with heart and soul. It meant he was a good counterpart to her level-headedness.
Against her parents’ wishes, she had signed the lease on the building some seven years ago. They’d wanted her closer to home, closer to the family business. Considering her father worked for a bank and her mother worked on her face, Aisanna was not exactly sure what constituted a family business.
Flowers and plants, naturally, appealed to her on a basic level. Her magic sprang from the earth itself, and she, like her mother and her mother’s mother, held dominion over living flora. It was power in its simplest form, encouraging young things to grow.
She’d thought long and hard about what she wanted to do. Greenhouses appe
aled to her at first until she realized she hated getting dirty. Her first summer interning at a local nursery had been a disaster of callused palms and shin splints. No, she’d rather make beautiful arrangements. She did better behind a desk with numbers in a spreadsheet than digging in the dirt.
Thus, a shop. A business catering to the consumer while still letting her flex her muscles as a witch and soothe her desire for pretty things. It was the perfect mesh of two worlds.
The small storefront right in the hub of downtown fit her style seamlessly. She’d designed the decor and layout herself. Warm natural wood accented the glass displays and aged metal—farmhouse meets modern.
If anything, Aisanna needed to focus on her job. On keeping business steady through Valentine’s Day. Then she would have a chance to slow down and worry about the looming eclipse and the fraying veil keeping their reality and the reality of ancient magicks separated.
There was also the fact that she might be related to the Harbinger witch. Born into times of great change and great need, the Harbinger had the potential to restore balance. Aisanna’s middle sister, Astix, fit the bill, but good luck trying to get her on board with the concept. Astix still insisted they were looking for someone else, despite a rather spectacular display last month where the young witch managed to draw up magma from the earth’s core.
Yeah. In addition to Aisanna’s overbooked schedule, she had an unraveling veil, wild and uncontrollable magic leaking through, and an insane immortal on her hands.
She glanced at the peonies again and strangled a groan, casting another look in Elon’s direction. “Are you done wandering in the fields of imagination? Have you found your way back to reality yet? Because we need to get this order out the door in the next ten minutes.”
Elon blushed, the color traveling to the tips of his ears. “Yes, I have.”
He had strong arms, wide shoulders. He’d rolled his sleeves up to the elbows. Big hands, she thought, but they could do delicate floral work with ease and elegance.
“Let’s get on with the lineup for the day.” Aisanna tapped a few keys on the computer, bent down for a closer look, and sighed. “Have you spoken to Mrs. Ulrich about the arrangement she wants for her fiftieth wedding anniversary?”
He gave her a little nod and kept his hands busy, scattering papers in an attempt to find the right folder. “Um, yeah. I have the notes on it somewhere. Give me a second.”
He bent at the waist and gave her a prime view of his rear without meaning to. It was a struggle to look away. Just what, she wondered, was a man like him doing working in a flower shop? Then again, some people did well in a sales setting. They were built for people-pleasing.
She wouldn’t give him up for anything.
Finding the notepad, Elon straightened and relayed the information. “She left a message on the machine and I gave her a call first thing this morning. She wants roses, poinsettias, and those maroon irises you did for her daughter’s wedding two years ago.”
“She does realize that it’s the end of January and irises are not in season?”
“I tried to tell her, but she wouldn’t listen. She said if anyone could do it, it’s you. She’s willing to pay a little extra for the inconvenience. I explained the last-minute change and the likelihood of finding those particular flowers in those particular colors. I even suggested several perfect alternatives. You know how Mrs. Ulrich is when she sets her mind to something. She refused to make the change. If anything, she dug her heels in deeper. She’s like a mule.”
Aisanna listened to his soft-spoken words. Beyond the fact that she would have to go outside conventional means to get those flowers, the colors together simply didn’t work. They might if she did something to blend them. Well within her ability, sure. Totally outside the scope of a normal florist. It would take a lot of finagling.
Elon kept eye contact with each word and forced a smile into his voice to reassure her. “It won’t be too much of a problem, will it? I told her you could handle it. You always do.”
“Leave it to me,” she told him. “I’ll figure out something while you finish the peonies.”
He regarded her thoughtfully. “I’m sure you will. No one in the city does it better than you.” She raised her eyebrow and he stammered to correct his unintentional choice of words. “Does flowers better, I mean. You are the best at flowers. And…and bouquets and…”
She sent him a small grin for his show of faith. She could have told him she knew plenty of witches with greater skill than hers, her mother and sister included. Not to mention the vast array of healing magic her gifts encompassed. “Thanks. Now get to work.”
“You got it, boss.”
Aisanna appreciated his dedication, even though he was a regular guy. She could practically see his mental slap at the unintentional innuendo.
Then she shook her head to clear it and pointed over her shoulder. “I’m going to the back to see if I can find anything for Mrs. Ulrich’s arrangement.”
“Do you really think you have something in stock that will work? Like I said before, she’s really counting on those irises. I don’t think she’s willing to compromise.”
“Yeah, I know. But let me take a peek. I might be able to find a bulb and coax something in the next week. Or find a distributor somewhere willing to overnight.”
“If you think you can…” Elon trailed off. “I’ll watch the front. Oh, and Johan is in the prep room so I’d steer clear. Black mood.”
Aisanna nodded and made her way toward her office, leaving Elon to deal with the tinkling bell tones heralding a new arrival. Johan and his black mood? Definitely better to take the long way around.
She kept a small area near the storeroom for herself, for whenever she was forced to do paperwork. Something she avoided like the plague. Making sure the door clicked into place securely behind her, she slapped her hands palm to palm in preparation. She’d need a bit of magic to conjure those flowers. Damn Mrs. Ulrich and her impossible expectations. Double damn to Aisanna for constantly filling them when she should refuse.
“These are going to be the best irises you’ve ever seen, lady,” she muttered under her breath.
She drew air into her lungs and closed her eyes, going into herself, tapping the well of energy lying at the ready beneath the surface. She exhaled. Power swelled upward, bursting into reality. Transforming into physical substance. A clear picture formed in her mind of a flower, the maroon iris with a golden center. Forest-green sparks flashed into existence around her outstretched palm. Making sure to maintain the image in her head, she loosed her magic like an arrow.
When Aisanna opened her eyes, she held three blooms in her palm. Delicate leaves spindled out from a lush green center. They looked for the world as though they’d been plucked from some garden moments earlier.
Yes, they would do.
Her mother had told her it was stupid to practice obvious magic in front of humans. Aisanna felt the population at large were too caught up in their own lives and problems to recognize anything magical even if it bit them in the ass. So far, she’d been lucky. She didn’t want to think about what would happen if her luck ran out.
She waved a hand to preserve the blooms for the coming days while she worked on an excuse. “Now, where can I put you?” she muttered, glancing around the room for a hiding spot. “The safe.”
A knock on the door was the only indication he gave before Elon burst inside seconds later. “Change of plans! The Stevenson triplets want hydrangeas for their father’s funeral instead of the lilies we were going with before. Please tell me we have some in stock. We have about four hours to make the change before I need to drive them over to the funeral parlor.”
Aisanna shoved the irises behind her back and regarded Elon with wide eyes. Her heart beat like a mixer blade turned on high. “Hello? Have you ever heard of privacy?”
He laughed at her. “Did you hear me about the change?”
“Yes, I heard you. Although I think it’s a really stupid
idea. Maybe Johan will get to use his blue hydrangeas after all.” She used her free hand to shove hair out of her face. “Please, get out of here so I can concentrate.”
Elon rolled his eyes before exiting. She let out a whoosh of air and sank to the floor, weary from her near-discovery. All the time they’d worked together, she’d managed to hide her magic from him. There was no telling what he would do if he happened to find out about her. She took great pains to make sure that never happened.
“Are you sure you don’t need any help?” Elon peeped around a final time and lingered near the door. “Why are you on the floor?”
Aisanna shooed him away. “Get out.” She was too tired to deal with him. Five years younger and full of boundless energy, Elon was eager to please. “Can’t have a moment of peace around here,” she said to the blooms. “There’s always something.”
The rest of the day went on without any new complications. After his abrupt interruption, Aisanna hardly paid Elon any mind. They went about their duties separately yet worked in perfect unison. Even Johan’s good mood was restored.
She locked up at six o’clock and bid her coworkers farewell. Tomorrow held another full day of orders, not to mention the walk-in customers Elon generated with his fabulous PR plans. He’d managed to increase her out-the-door clientele by fifteen percent in the last six months.
Walking to the car, she breathed in the icy scents of the day, her lungs stinging from the cold. Fingers trembled as she reached into her bag for the ring of keys.
Please let the car start, she silently prayed. Come on, Baby.
That’s when she heard whispers on the wind. They started low, like gnats buzzing around her head. Aisanna wiggled her jaw to pop her ears. When that didn’t work, she tenderly worked a finger into the depths of her ear canal to clear it of any waxy buildup.
The whispers continued like a breath, or a forgotten song. She couldn’t make out the words. Was hardly aware of them. Yet something in the air felt charged. She swatted around her head to dispel the buzz. Her fingers grasped the keys at last and she hastily opened the driver’s side door, barricading herself inside the vehicle. The engine roared to life. Thank goodness.