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“Me, neither. Hello, dear.” Kathleen held out both hands to Goldie, and she took them, feeling calluses across the older woman’s palms and the strength in her fingers. “I left my coven behind a long time ago. I know you didn’t have a choice, but I know how hard that is. “
“You didn’t have a choice either,” Aiden said sharply. Goldie blinked. Whathaddriven a witch into the arms of a wolf pack?
“Creature comforts are hardly a replacement, but I hope they help,” Kathleen said with another hard squeeze of her hands.
Goldie almost protested that leaving her coven had been the least of it but held her tongue. The last twenty-four hours had sucked for a lot of reasons, but her family wasn’t one of them. She knew they’d be waiting when she got back, dozens and dozens of witches with their perfect magic all tangled up together. “I’m fine.”
“Now you are.” She stooped to the bags. “Everything will run a little short, but I brought anything you could need.”
Goldie poked at a bag and saw the tip of a hair dryer. “Thank you,” she said feelingly.
“Maybe you can, uh, wear some right now?”
Goldie stood up quickly and brushed down the coat.
“And you?” Kathleen asked, eyeing her son.
“Be right back,” he said as he put one hand to the coat zipper, thought better of it, and jogged up the stairs.
Kathleen put her hand on Goldie’s arm. “Are you all right? Aiden explained what you’re doing for us.”
“It’s for us, too. Nothing good comes of a feud.”
“Bless your heart.” Kathleen glanced up the stairs. “Honestly, I can’t believe he hasn’t clawed anyone’s eyes out.”
“I’ve thought about it,” Aiden said from the stairs, now dressed in jeans and a red plaid shirt he was still buttoning. Goldie was surprised the clothes weren’t smoking with the speed he’d donned them.
“I would’ve ripped their eyes out,” Kathleen said simply. “Don’t you think I might not.”
Goldie gasped at her bloodthirsty statement. She spent most of her life negotiating with people like this, mountain folk who viewed life as a simple, brutal thing. Yes, her whole family grew up in Appalachia, but Harpers Ferry was different. On any given night, tourists from around the world outnumbered residents. It gave them far more diplomacy than most West Virginians.
“I’ll be right back, too.”
She disappeared into the guest bedroom with a sack of clothes and found a pair of yoga pants and a sweatshirt with the double Vs of the University of West Virginia logo. The yoga pants were more like capris on her, but with a pair of fluffy socks, she didn’t look too ridiculous.
She ran a hand over the logo. She loved it out here. She belonged in this world of plain speaking, not her family’s world of customer service. Her aunts figured that out when Goldie was in her teens, and they banished her from the coven business. It was a relief for everyone involved, but it pushed a lonely teenager even further outside the coven. That’s when she started selling furniture. She’d watched one too many episodes of Antiques Roadshow, so when she recognized a silver platter at old man Jenkins’s estate sale for five bucks and flipped it for $500, she’d stepped even further away from her family.
She shook that off and nearly shouted in triumph when she unearthed a bundle of hair ties. She pulled her hair into a high ponytail and felt ridiculous that such a simple thing could make her feel more like herself.
She stepped back into the foyer. Aiden was collecting the bags of supplies. He walked past her to put them on her bed.
“I’m so ashamed of my kin, I could spit,” Kathleen said with a shake of her head as she helped with the bags.
“They’re not your kin,” Goldie couldn’t help pointing out.
Kathleen laughed. “It’s far worse than that. They’re my in-laws.”
“Come sit, please, Ma,” Aiden said and escorted her to a door opposite the dining room. When he flipped on a light, Goldie saw a chaise, two chairs, and a loveseat collected on a rug with sundry side tables. Goldie was amused to realize it was the company parlor like they were living in the last century. She’d have to look for the manufacturer’s mark, but from what she could see, it was another fortune in turn-of-the-century Mid-modern furniture.
“But I love them anyway,” Kathleen said as she settled into one chair.
Goldie realized it was smaller than the others so the tiny woman’s feet could touch the ground, and she fell a little in lovewith the man who found his mother a chair that would fit her for his visiting parlor, and with the mother who would bring his kidnapped victim mascara.
As she sat down next to Aiden on the loveseat between him and his mother, Kathleen caught her hands and looked at her fingernails. Goldie had given herself a manicure a week ago with orange nail polish, but it had been bashed to pieces.
“I can fix these,” Kathleen said.
Goldie glanced down at the women’s nails—short and trimmed but painted a garish purple—and fell a little more in love.
