While I waved to her from the kitchen window, Kyle’s arms wrapped around me from behind.
His voice tickled my ear. “You miss her, don’t you?”
“I do.” I turned in his arms. “She’s the only real family I have.”
“Technically speaking, that’s not true, but I know what you mean.”
I broke away and took a mug from the shelf for him.
“You want to tell me who Hannah is?” he asked while I poured his coffee. “Or why you want to reconcile with the cousin who came over here to explicitly tell you to leave him alone?”
“Hannah is a woman I met over the summer, a friend of Nora’s.” I handed him the mug. “As for Jason, he is still my cousin. Considering he has no idea what kind of person I am, I’d like him to set aside his preconceived notions. If he still doesn’t want to own his family after he’s had a chance to know me, I’ll concede, but his wife wants her children to know where they came from. I think she deserves that.”
“She’s pregnant. When a woman is building her own family, it’s normal for her to want to reach out, but life doesn’t always play out the way they hope. This promises to be one of those instances.”
I set a hand to my hip, frustrated with him. Of all people, he should understand. He’d struggled with family issues growing up, too. Wasn’t he trying to use Thanksgiving as a family building block? “So I shouldn’t try? Is that what you’re suggesting?”
“I don’t want you to be disappointed.”
The way I didn’t want him to be disappointed if family holidays didn’t turn out the way he pictured them. I pursed my lips, holding back my opinions.
“And if it’s about that cute little girl...” He arched an eyebrow at me.
Suggesting he wanted to discuss having children again? “Kyle...”
He held a hand up to stop me. “I know. And no, children won’t make or break my feelings for you, but I have to say, until I met you, I’d never considered having kids. But creating something that was a part of you, a part of me, something we made together...” His breath caught. “It’s a heady thought. Knowing we could have children. Knowing you’re the one I’d want to have children with.” He wiped his forehead. “Does that make sense?”
So much sense. His confession made me giddy. I imagined little Kyles running around, or an adorable little girl like Georgia of my own—minus the special talents, because those were overwhelming enough without the added worry of mentoring.
I gave him the best response I could, given the moment. “Nora’s of the opinion I might not be able to have children, whether I want them or not. But if I could, if we could...”
Kyle set his mug on the counter and pulled me close. I held on, tight in his embrace, listening to the beat of his heart in rhythm with mine. When he sniffled, I pulled away. His eyes, that beautiful slate-blue color, welled with tears. With a nervous laugh, he wiped away the tears before they fell and cleared his throat, his voice thick with emotion. “I’m sure you have things to do before you head to work.” His deflection acknowledged we didn’t have to talk about this now. With his feelings plain to see, I feared I’d disappoint him, regardless of what he said.
The tug on my heart told me I’d be disappointed, too, but Nora had a sense about things. If what she said was true, the decision was out of our hands. Even though I’d come to terms with my gifts, times like this made me yearn to be more normal.
Kyle cocked his head. “I’m headed across the street to get some work done. You want me to walk you into town when you go?”
I shook my head, not trusting my voice.
He nodded and rested his forehead against mine. “I’ll stop in at lunchtime to say hello.”
“Sounds good.”
He grabbed his coat and left. The rigid set of his shoulders telegraphed his effort to trust me to take care of myself and not smother me with his overprotective streak. He kept his head down and didn’t look back until he’d reached the door of his house. With an equally stiff wave, he disappeared inside.
The shop didn’t open for another couple of hours. I retreated to my workroom, took a deep breath and glanced at the cupboard that held the grimoires. “What will I need today?” The cupboard doors didn’t open. No books appeared on the table. “All right, then.”
Apparently, it was going to be a quiet day at Windfall.
Cassandra and I arrived at the same time. With a laugh about serendipity, I let her unlock the door and followed her inside. Early November snow began to fall in earnest, which meant foot traffic would be sparse.
Cassandra settled in at her sewing machine in the front window to do alterations, and I made myself a cup of hot chocolate. Ash curled up on my lap when I sat on the stool behind the counter.
“No visit from your favorite policeman to make sure we opened safely?” Cassandra asked.
“It’s his day off.”
“I guess I did see Roxanne making the rounds this morning, but I’m surprised he didn’t insist on walking you to work anyway.” Cassandra might be the one person in town who wasn’t convinced I’d made the right decision when I’d taken Kyle back.
“He’s making an effort to scale it back,” I told her.
“He’s a cop,” Cassandra replied. “Not sure you can overcome that training.”
Which wasn’t exactly what she’d said to me yesterday. What had changed her mind? “We live in Hillendale, for heaven’s sake. It isn’t as if murderers or villains run rampant.”
“Seems as if you’ve seen more than your fair share of trouble.” She lifted the presser foot with an exaggerated clunk and pulled the garment she was working on to cut the trailing threads.
“What’s got you in a mood today?”
She sighed, set the garment on her sewing table and twisted in her chair to face me. I waited, but whatever she had to say wasn’t forthcoming.
I cocked my head and raised my eyebrows. “Cassandra?”
“Okay, here it is. Lucas Ford asked me out.”
I laughed. “And that’s a problem why?”
“So did Toby Dexter.”
“First world problems,” I teased.
“No, I mean like a competition or something. What the heck, right?”
“Still not seeing the problem,” I said. “You like Lucas, right? No contest.”
Her pale complexion flushed with color. She glanced out the front window.
“Okay, first things first,” I said. “When did they ask you out?”
“At the bakery, getting coffee.”
I laughed. “This morning? Both of them? At the same time?”
“This morning,” she repeated.
I waited, but when she didn’t elaborate, I set Ash on the rug on the counter and went over to Cassandra. “I thought you wanted Lucas to ask you out.”
“Toby asked first, and Lucas was there. I’m pretty sure he only asked because Toby did.”
“But he asked.”
Cassandra adjusted the headband in her mane of ice-blonde hair, but remained silent.
“What did you tell them?” I pressed.
“Nothing.”
I blinked, not sure I’d heard right.
She heaved a sigh. “Toby, I went to school with. Lucas, he’s a year older, you know?”
“Okayyy.”
“I was standing in line, checking my phone, waiting for my coffee and Toby leans in and tells me how good I look today and asks if I want to go out this weekend.”
She was dressed in a black sweater, camo pants, a rhinestone belt—her unique style. Toby was the mason’s son, the one who repaired the crumbling chimneys in town and added the artistic decorations to hide the bumps. Cassandra’s camo pants—well, everyone had their own criteria for attractive. Many of the folks in this part of Wisconsin were hunters and it wouldn’t surprise me if he found a woman in camo irresistible.
“I ignored him,” she went on. “Then there was a whisper in my ear. Lucas standing a foot behind me saying, ‘or you could go out with me.’”
“Like I said, I’d lay money he asked because Toby did.”
“But he asked you,” I said again.
She closed her eyes and tilted her head with a dramatic sigh. “Relationships suck.”
Once again, making me laugh. “You aren’t even in a relationship, unless there’s something you’re keeping from me.”
“Right. Says the woman who took the cheating bastard back.”
Target hit. Cassandra normally wasn’t a mean or vindictive sort, and I chose to think she was shooting darts at me to keep from dealing with her own problem. I returned to my stool behind the counter.
“I’m sorry,” she said a moment later. “You and Kyle, it’s none of my business, and honestly, I’m a little jealous. The guy wears his heart on his sleeve. The way he looks at you...”
“Is exactly the way Lucas looks at you. Why didn’t you accept?”
“Because it was a knee-jerk reaction on his part. Seriously. If he wanted to ask me out, why wait until someone else does?”
Because Lucas was the buttoned-up sort. He was a teacher and as conservative as they came. Sandy brown hair, freckles, glasses. Cassandra wore rhinestone belts with camo pants.
“What do I do?” she asked.
“Well, if he asked once, he might ask again, but you might have to wait a long time. You’ve already been waiting a long time. Since he made the first move, you could give him a call. Ask him what he has in mind.”
Cassandra was rarely timid. In fact, I admired her ability to put the town gossips in their place. The uncertain look on her face was alien to everything I knew about her.
Her voice grew quiet. “If I go out with him, you know what everybody’s going to say, and it won’t go well for him.”
“What? That he’s a lucky guy?” I teased.
She exhaled a sigh. “They’ll either make fun of him or me. I don’t think I’m up for either scenario.”
“Nora always told me what other people think of me is none of my business,” I told her. “Pretty sure you subscribe to the same motto. Why now?”
“Because I’m not the only person this affects. I don’t care what they say about me, but he’s more soft-spoken, you know what I mean?” Again, she shook her arms at her sides. “He was whispering when he asked me out, for heaven’s sake.”
“So you call him where there isn’t anyone to hear and you go somewhere no one will see you. Find out if he’s too much of a wimp for you or if he’s as sweet as you think he is.”
She shook a finger at me. “He’s not a wimp.”
“Then you’ve got nothing to lose.”
“And everything to gain,” she said with a sarcastic flourish.
“You like him, don’t you?”
“What if I’m too much for him?” she asked.
“I’ve never seen you so unsure of yourself,” I said. “And I know you want to date him. What’s the worst that could happen? It doesn’t work out? At least then you’ll know instead of pining after him.”
“I do not pine,” she said. “Sappy people pine. Like you and Kyle. Honestly. I knew it was only a matter of time, even if I’d hoped you were done with that phase of your life.” She said it with a hint of humor, and I knew she was teasing more than serious. “I’ll call Lucas. After I finish hemming Alice’s pants.” She took the garment she’d been working on and pulled pins.
“I’m going in back to mix bath salts,” I said. “You want me to make some for you? Brynn’s Mix worked for Lisa and Dylan.”
Cassandra laughed. “No, thank you. I’m not the enchanting type. I’d rather do this on my own—pass or fail.”
“Look at you, using schoolteacher language.”
She laughed again, and I smiled, pleased with myself for having made her feel at least marginally better.
Half a dozen jars of bath salts later, the bell on the front door rang, the first customer we’d had all day. I printed labels, leaving Cassandra to help whoever had come in—until I heard the customer raise his voice.
“She isn’t home. She has to be here.”
I grabbed a towel and dried my hands as I walked to the front of the store. My cousin Jason, and the woman who’d transferred to be with him.
Jason took a step toward me. “Where’s my daughter?”
Chapter 20
“Do you want me to call Kyle?” Cassandra asked.
“Not until we know what this is about,” I told her.
“Georgia’s gone missing. Don’t tell me you don’t know where she is,” Jason said.
I crossed my arms. “What do you want me to tell you?”
“Where is she? I know you have a hold on her. She calls out to you in her sleep. She asks to visit you. She’s only met you, what, twice?”
“Three times, I think. How long has she been missing?”
Jason tilted his head and sent me a searing gaze. “Don’t play games with me.”
I glanced at the woman beside him, Narcy’s foster sister. “How do you fit into all this?” I asked her.
“Leave Sharon out of this,” Jason said.
“Then why is she here?”
“She was babysitting.”
Well, well, well.
Obviously reading my expression, Jason followed up with, “It’s not her fault.”
“But it’s mine? Tell me, Jason, how am I responsible for your daughter’s disappearance while this woman was babysitting her?”
Sharon remained silent beside him. Was she using Georgia as leverage in her campaign to win Jason over?
And now Georgia was missing.
I closed my eyes and reached out to Georgia telepathically. Where are you, sweetie?
Georgia giggled in response. Mommy.
I opened my eyes and fixed my gaze on Jason. “She’s with her mother.”
“She wasn’t when we left.”
“Well, she is now.”
He stared me down a moment before he reached for his phone. Jason paled when LeAnne confirmed their daughter was with her.
“We looked everywhere for her,” he said when he hung up.
“Evidently not. Tell me. Why did you come here rather than call the police when she went missing?”
“Call it a hunch. How did you know where she’d be?”
We glared at each other in a standoff.
“Come on, Jason. Let’s go,” Sharon said, reaching for his hand.
I cocked an eyebrow at the gesture. Jason pulled away from Sharon. “You go on,” he told her. “I have a few more things to discuss with my cousin.”
Sharon shot me a nervous glance. “I’ll wait in the car.”
Rather than answer Jason’s question, I asked one more of my own. “How did Georgia disappear in the first place?”
“I’m under a lot of pressure to prove myself after the transfer. LeAnne’s on bedrest. Sharon is working on a project with me and offered to watch Georgia while I finish my part.”
Sharon, who was laying groundwork to win Jason over. Deflect. Distract. And when Jason wasn’t paying attention, make her move. I hoped LeAnne and Georgia didn’t wind up in the crosshairs.
“You know I’d be happy to watch her for you,” I said.
“I’ve got it covered. I don’t know what kind of influence you have over my daughter, but it has to stop.”
“Georgia and I share a connection. It’s called family. Some people feel that more deeply than others.”
He shook his head. “You did something to her. She wouldn’t just disappear.”
“Maybe not, but she might hide. You can try to explain away the unusual things she does,” I said, “but you know they started before she met me. I can help, if you’ll let me.”
“Sharon warned me you’d try to take her away from me. Sounds like she was right.”
I grunted. “You’re going to believe a coworker over your own family? Sharon has a different agenda.”
“I know
her a lot better than I know you.”
“And does LeAnne know that?”
Which of course pissed him off. I had to wonder how far Sharon had gotten with him. Jason shook a finger at me, clenched his jaw, and stalked away.
Now I was worried. My encounter with Sharon had left me uneasy, and she hadn’t been paying attention while she was watching Georgia. As much as I didn’t want to cause problems between Jason and LeAnne, something had to be done. Jason’s family was at risk from influences other than mine.
I called LeAnne. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m on bedrest. Georgia’s cuddled up beside me and we’re reading,” she said. “All in all, I’m feeling pretty good. Thank you for the flowers, by the way.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed them. Listen, I don’t mean to butt in, but Jason said he’d asked someone to watch Georgia?”
“You mean Sharon? I can’t do much, and he’s stressed about work. I would have asked you, but she was here helping with their project.”
“This is none of my business, but Jason won’t listen to me and I think it’s important. Sharon. She came to me the other day to tell me she’d seen Jason in my shop with Georgia and she wondered how well I knew him. I’m very concerned that Georgia went missing while she was in charge.”
“You know how kids are. I’m sure Georgia was playing hide and seek and Sharon lost track of her. Georgia was chilly when she crawled into bed with me, as if she’d been hiding outside.” LeAnne sighed. “Thank you for your concern, and I’m sorry Jason bothered you, but I’m not worried about Sharon.”
I pressed my lips closed, holding back further arguments. “If you need me for anything, please call me.”
“That means the world to me,” LeAnne replied. “Honestly, I don’t know why Jason thought you’d know where Georgia was. It isn’t as if she would walk ten miles to find you. I’m sorry he troubled you.”
I disconnected, no further along in my mission to prove to Jason I wasn’t someone to be feared or reviled. If anything, the situation might get worse with me pointing out Sharon’s attentions.
Ash jumped to the counter and mewed at me. I reached out to stroke her fur.
“I’d heard stories about your life before Hillendale,” Cassandra said. “He’s your cousin?”
The Hidden Grimoire Page 9