Curiously Enchanted

by Leighann Dobbs

  “How did you guess?” Sam asked, then quickly ducked his head to sniff at his person. “Do I smell like coffee beans?”

  This time Mortianna's chuckle was low and bordered on what she hoped sounded provocative. “Yes. A sinfully rich Arabian brew, actually.”

  Leaning forward, she propped her elbow on the counter and rested her chin in one hand, keeping her attention utterly centered on the man on the other side. “You're doing something new over there, I hear. Renovations?”

  “Very soon. Going vintage.” Sam shrugged. “I thought it was time to dress the place up a little. You should come in. Have coffee. We serve a wicked mean caramel latte that most of my female customers swear by.”

  “Oh, I'll bet it's decadent,” Mortianna said, following her assessment with a dreamy sigh. “One sip would likely be bliss, but I've got these crazy allergies?”

  Grabbing a tissue from beneath the counter, she nodded toward the coffee set. The tissue, she waved up and down in front of Esmerelda before swishing it in an upward arc toward the door to the storeroom where Serephina now paced back and forth in a worried march, but like Serephina's attempts to gain her attention before, the subtlety of her attempted signal was lost on Esmerelda.

  Covering her nose with the tissue, Mortianna faked a sneeze, then immediately nodded toward the coffee service again and asked Sam, “Do you think this might be a good piece for the new look you're after? Feeny says it once belonged to a Queen so it's probably ancient but it still looks nice.”

  Sam picked up one of the cups and turned it in his hand. “My grandmother had a set like this when I was a kid. I remember she always kept it on the kitchen table. Grandpa never touched it but every morning before school—”

  His words broke off and he slanted a quick, questioning gaze at her. “Do you have any of those cloth things that go under stuff like this? Grandma, she had these webby, lace-like circles and squares underneath the coffee server and the sugar and cream pots—dollies, or something like that,” he explained while making motions with his hands meant to define the 'webby things' he couldn't seem to recall the name of. “And lace-edged napkins. They were the only pieces of what my Grandpa called 'feminine frippery' she ever owned.”

  “Webbed and lace-like … oh, you mean doilies? Yes, we do have doilies,” Mortianna assured him. “Exquisite ones. Napkins, too, all edged with the finest Battenberg lace. We also have a table runner. Two actually. White and cream,” she said, holding up one of each. “Which do you prefer?”

  “I'll go with the cream,” he said. “There are six cups so we'd better make it six napkins, too.”

  Mortianna slid off the stool and pulled a thin stack of wrapping material from beneath the counter. “I'll wrap these while Merry collects the doilies. Do you like puzzles, Mr. Huntingdon?”

  His brows rose at the unrelated question. “Not especially, but now that you mention it, I suppose an antique one with one of those Old World scenes on top could add a nice something to the look and feel of the new décor.”

  “You're right and I agree that it would,” Mortianna said with a slow nod. Watching him as carefully as she was, she knew the exact moment he realized her question hadn't been related to the renovations at his coffee shop at all but to the puzzle piece she had seen him covertly filch from their last customer's purchase. His eyelids lowered and his expression suddenly closed.

  “I put my card in the box in exchange.” He offered the explanation with a shrug. “If she wants the piece back, she will know where to get it.”

  This time Mortianna's chuckle was less provocative and more the low sound of genuine appreciation for a fine move well played. “I do believe you've an impish humor, Mr. Huntingdon.”

  Esmerelda returned with the doilies and lace napkins and immediately started placing the delicate pieces of the antique coffee service into a foam-lined box. Mortianna helped, sliding the now wrapped tops to the sugar dish and coffee pot into the side between two layers of protective foam.

  “Cunning, but impish,” she pointed out with a smile. “Will you trade it for the quilt?”

  “That's a great idea, actually!” Sam said, his eyes suddenly alight with a brilliant spark of the impish good humor she had accused him of having. Mortianna thought his slow grin made him look almost boyish. “Do you think she would agree?”

  Sliding a snug, triple-reinforced paper top over the box, she moved to the register. “I don't think you'll get the chance to find out, honestly. The lady seemed very shy to me.”

  “While I, on the other hand, am not,” he said, dropping the words she hadn't said in a casual and as unconcerned manner as he'd had when taking the puzzle piece from her last customer while she wasn't looking. Another shrug lifted his shoulders. “If she doesn't call or come by the coffee shop soon, I will find a way to get the piece to her.”

  Mortianna speared him with a doubtful look as she rang up his purchases. “That will be one-hundred and fifty, even. Do I have your word on that, Mr. Huntingdon?”

  “Oh, absolutely.” Sam handed over his credit card. Three minutes later, he was walking out the door with his hinges and a very high dollar coffee service which had once belonged to royalty.

  Inside the store, Mortianna turned to Esmerelda, her eyes gleaming with pleasure. “That man is fun! Unlike you,” she pooed, giving her sister a quick nudge. “What is up with that face?”

  “This one?” Esmerelda demanded in an unexpectedly agitated—no, it was a furious tone, Mortianna decided—and it sliced out from between tight lips on a face sporting an ever darkening scowl.

  “Do you mean this particular look of utter horror and abject misery that's currently written all over my face?” Esmerelda uncharacteristically demanded again, her hand sweeping upward to indicate the face in question--hers. “The one you are witnessing right freakin' now?”

  With a roll of her eyes at her sister's far too overplayed dramatics, Mortianna's brows rose high. “Why, yes! I do mean that one! However did you guess?”

  Groaning with as much misery as the look on her face held, Esmerelda spun around. “Didn't you notice? It's the expression that sprouted the minute I realized fun is the last thing we are going to be having any time soon, thanks to my distraction! Like, for the next hundred years or so!”

  Casting a pleading look at Serephina, who now stood quietly waiting in the open doorway between the shop and the back room, her arms crossed loosely in front of her and one shoulder propped against the jamb, Esmerelda asked, “I sold the quilt to the wrong woman, didn't I?”

  Chapter Three

  Dragged from a deep, drowning kind of sleep—the kind of slumberous stupor you normally had to fight to wake up from—Emma's eyes snapped open.

  Disoriented and annoyed at having been snatched from her dream at such an inopportune time, her gaze flicked from wall to door to wall on its journey around the room before she turned her head slowly on the pillow she was clutching to find her fingers still clenched tight, digging into the soft cotton material of the black and white patterned quilt that covered her.

  Her cheeks were burning, her pulse racing in reaction to the dream she'd been having.

  About him.

  She gulped in a breath seeking to calm the erratic thrum of her wildly beating heart, but her devious mind had other ideas insisting replaying the last few scenes of the dream over in her head. The dream where the man with the too bold stare from the antique store was just about to kiss her.

  For the past three nights in a row, she had dreamed of him.

  Three nights!

  A man whose name she did not even know!

  A stranger.

  Embarrassed despite the fact she was totally alone in her own bed, in her own apartment, and knowing she was the only one who could possibly ever know what she'd dreamed, Emma's hands flew up to cover her damp, flushed face. How in the world could she have such dreams about a complete stranger?

  Yes, he was good looking.

  Yes, his voice had had that sultry q
uality about it that made her insides seem to melt when he spoke.

  Yes, she had had that strange reaction to him in the antique store a few days ago—but they'd barely spent five minutes together! That should not have been enough contact with the man to make her dream about him!

  Groaning in annoyance, Emma tossed the quilt and sheet to one side and swung her legs over the side of her bed. Beside her, the covers shook and wiggled; a furry white paw poked its way from beneath the quilt, followed by a pink nose and snowy whiskers. Emma reached over and scooped the cat up, then sat her carefully on the bed. “Sorry, Chloe. I didn't mean to wake you, girl, or to bury you in my blankets but I had that dream again.”

  There was definitely derision in her tone, but if Chloe picked up on it, the feline didn't react. Instead, she sat back on her hind legs and indulged in a long, drawn out yawn before blinking, sleepy-eyed, up at Emma.

  Fumbling around with her feet in the semi-darkness of her bedroom for her slippers, Emma glanced at the pale blue glow of numbers lighting the digital clock on her nightstand. 5:48 AM. “Great.”

  Normally, she slept until eight, but these past few nights had wreaked havoc on her schedule with her dreams waking her at all hours and the lack of sleep left her feeling tired and distracted for the rest of the day. “And grumpy,” she grumbled aloud.

  Toes now firmly tucked into her slippers, she padded to the bathroom. “Shower first, Chloe, then I'll tell you all about it.”

  Forty-five minutes later, she had finished her shower, dressed, made coffee, and was fiddling with the seven charms hanging from the silver bracelet she'd discovered clinging to a loose thread on the quilt she'd bought from the antique store when her cell phone rang.

  Thrilled for the distraction, she swiped it up off the counter and peered at the screen. Vale's Vintage Interiors. She touched the screen to accept the call and put the phone on speaker. “Lindsay, hi! I was just thinking about you!” And she had been. Lindsay loved charm bracelets and Emma had been thinking this one would make a great gift for her.

  “Hi yourself! You're up early! But then, I hoped you would be. Listen,” Lindsay chirped happily. “Wanna come with me this morning? Say yes and I'll buy you a cup of the finest coffee Hawthorne Grove has to offer.”

  Glancing at the freshly brewed pot awaiting her on the counter, Emma started to decline, but Lindsay interrupted her refusal before she could utter the words.

  “I'm working with a new client. He owns the local coffee shop out there and that place serves some amazing joe. Come on, Emma. You're only going to spend the day staring at your computer again if you don't, right? Don't say no.”

  Without bothering to remind her long-time friend that staring at the computer all day was actually what she did for work, Emma glanced desperately at Chloe as if seeking some sort of feline intervention. A coffee shop was very public and generally filled with lots and lots of people and a people person Emma was not.

  Chloe looked up as if she had been intently listening to the entire conversation and was now waiting to see if her mistress would agree to the outing or not. Emma arched a brow in question and Chloe tilted her chin upward, giving a slow shift and flick of her tail before turning her attention back to her bowl, ignoring Emma in favor of her breakfast. Emma narrowed her eyes at the cat but then chuckled. “Looks like Chloe doesn't mind if I leave for a bit, so I guess that's a yes. Should I meet you there, or...?”

  “Thank Heaven for Chloe!” Lindsay laughed. “No, don't bother with the car. I'll pick you up at your place in … is half an hour okay?”

  If the past few days were any indication, half an hour would not be nearly long enough. Every day it was taking Emma longer and longer to rid her thoughts of the dream, but she agreed anyway. “Oh, and I have something for you. It's a bracelet—a charm one. You're going to love it!”

  And love it she did. Lindsay hadn't taken her eyes off the thing once during the entire ride to the coffee shop which Emma spent telling her all about about the disturbing dreams she'd been having.

  “So what do you think?” Emma asked as she walked beside Lindsay while Lindsay continued to admire the bracelet now hanging beautifully from her wrist. “Am I completely out of it? Dreaming about a total stranger—I mean, it's so odd, isn't it?”

  “Huh? Oh. Well, maybe a little, but I wouldn't worry about it,” Lindsay brushed off her concern with a shrug. “You spend so much time buried in all that research, Emma, you don't have any left over for yourself. Maybe your dreams are just trying to tell you you need more?”

  “More what?” Emma asked. “It's kind of difficult to have more of something you're not currently getting any of, you know.”

  Once again, Lindsay adjusted the silver charms dangling from the bracelet on her wrist with a quick flick of her other hand. “Your dreams are just telling you you're up for a bit of a distraction, Emma; a change. A quick little pick-me-up. Coffee.”

  Emma stared at her. “Coffee? You think the dreams I just described are my subconscious's way of saying I need coffee?”

  “Yes, that's it,” Lindsay said, settling her cream colored cashmere jacket into place before she continued. “Coffee! You definitely need coffee and, well voila! Here I am, happy to provide!”

  Emma scoffed and shook her head. “Maybe I'm not the one who's a little off.”

  Sam recognized the woman from the antique shop the second he spied her coming across the lot with Lindsay. Red hair. Glasses. That distracted air about her that seemed more due to a deep internal focus than any outward stimulus. Even from here, where he stood with Gem behind the barista's counter, she seemed aloof.

  His first reaction was irritation.

  After he'd left Seville's, he'd been to six different shops looking for a quilt like the one she'd snatched right out from under him the other day but no one had anything even marginally resembling the one she'd got. He'd missed Lindsay's last appointment because of it—because he'd been so determined to at least find something close to the quilt Little Miss Red Hair and Glasses had scooped up before he could open his mouth to make an offer for it.

  Not that he had a clue why that particular style of quilt had suddenly become so important to him. All he had known at the time was that it had and she had robbed him of the chance to own it.

  Bottling his annoyance, he wiped the earthenware mug he'd been drying one last time and stepped up to the bar so Lindsay and her friend would be sure to see him when they walked in. He glanced at his watch. One minute after. Late but not late. He grinned.

  “It's about time you got here,” he teased when Lindsay and her red-haired companion walked inside. “I'd almost decided to call in your competition so I can finally get something done around here!”

  “Bite your tongue, Samuel Huntingdon,” Lindsay fired back as she slipped out of her coat. “My competition would just bankrupt you and leave you with exactly what you already have. At least you'll get a few genuinely useful tips out of me before I hit the road with your life savings.”

  Sam chuckled, then motioning to the timid lady at her side, he asked, “Who do we have here? Wait, haven't I seen you someplace recently?”

  “Sam Huntingdon, Emma Riley,” Lindsay said, motioning with one hand from one to the other as she made the introduction. “Emma's a long-time friend and a die-hard coffeeholic, so surely you can imagine my surprise when she told me she'd never been in here before.”

  She shook her head and tugged at the hems of her layered shirts while her gaze swept around the coffee shop, then, propping her hands on her hips, she glanced back at Sam, brows drawn and eyes narrowed. “Emma lives about twenty minutes away and not once has the aromatic call of your brew lured her here for an early morning cuppa. You're slipping, Huntingdon. What's up with that?”

  Lindsay peered at him for a second and then shook her head as if to say, What a shame. Sam's brow rose. He stuck out a hand to Emma. “Well, there's a thing I can definitely do something about. Gem! Get Lindsay and her friend a cup, won't you? On th
e house,” he murmured in an aside to Emma when he saw her reach for her purse.

  Their eyes met and her cheeks immediately colored. The smile she offered was a tad bit shaky, too, if he wasn't mistaken. Curious, he tilted his head to the side and let his eyes ask the questions his brain told his lips to ignore.

  “Thank you,” she murmured, ignoring his inquisitive gaze. “And we have met before though we weren't introduced. Seville's?”

  Sam snapped his fingers as if he had only just recalled where he had seen her before. “That's it! You're the lady who was in front of me the other day. You picked up one of those wood-carved puzzle things, right?”

  Turning to Lindsay, he explained, “She was in line ahead of me and unfortunately she left before I had a chance to question her about her caffeine habits.”

  “Mm,” Lindsay hummed. “And you no doubt question everyone you meet about those, right?”

  “Um, coffee shop? Hello?” He gestured to indicate the shop and grinned. “Of course I do. Would have got around to it with your Emma here eventually, too, but I was distracted by—”

  “Her eyes?” Lindsay's eyes were sparkling brightly now with the light of merriment over being allowed to indulge with him in some good-natured teasing. “Of course you were. They are the color of deep, rich coffee, after all.”

  Sam noted the way Emma's breath caught right before her shocked gaze flew up to meet his and he bit back another chuckle. Was it his imagination or had Lindsay just embarrassed her? He couldn't help but notice, though, that what Lindsay said about her eyes was true. They were a perfect blend of dark and light, like warm coffee and rich cream, one color swirled into the other until…

  Realizing his thoughts had wandered into territory which would be impolite to explore at the moment, Sam cleared his throat and walked back around the end of the bar. “I think it's time we stopped chattering on about your friend as if she weren't here and got down to business. And speaking of business,” he said with a nod toward Emma, “You girls are going to swoon over my find at the antique store.”