The planner slams into the back of my head.“Ouch,” I say, rubbing the sore spot.
“Oh, shit, I see what you mean about haunted,” a familiar voice says.“Poltergeists are pretty serious, especially when they’re after a librarian’s to-do list.”
“Former librarian,” another voice says.
I squeal, turning around to see the sisters we’ve been waiting for all standing in the delivery doorway.
Ivy, with her brown hair in a riot of curls clouding around her head, her tortoiseshell glasses firmly in place above her trademark bright red lip, grins hugely at me.
Next to her, the middle sister, Rose, has her guitar strapped to her back, bright blonde highlighted hair pulled back into a ponytail that shines the autumn sunlight.She gives me an impish grin, petting the dog Ivy brought along absentmindedly on the head.
Posey brings up the rear, a duffel bag over her shoulder and a baseball cap set on top of her long, glossy dark hair.“Where are these ghosts?I built a contraption I want to try out.”
“Of course you did,” Rose says drily, rolling her eyes.“Hazel wanted to come, but even she knew she wasn’t ready for this.”
“Besides, I needed someone to watch the shop,” Ivy adds.
“Yeah, she’ll watch it… it just might not be the kind of watching you had in mind,” Posey mutters, and Rose snorts.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see you three in my life,” I tell them, and when I reach my arms out wide, they all pile into a group hug.
Even Posey, who usually could care less about displays of affection, grins at me as they pull back.
“I still can’t believe you were able to get away from your stores.”Between Ivy’s candy shop and Rose’s music lessons and instrument empire and Posey’s mechanic shop where she works on everything from cars to clocks to, well, contraptions, I can’t believe they were able to make it here.Especially now that I know just how hard it is to take any time off when you run your own business.
“Are you kidding me?Anything for you, Sylvie.”
“I just want to try my ghost trap,” Posey says, nose wrinkling.
Rose laughs at that.“I figured you might have some hotties down south.”She peers around me at Aiden, and it’s my turn to roll my eyes.
“You three must be the back-up witches.”Aiden wraps an arm around my shoulders, and I love the possessive gesture much more than I’ll ever admit.“I’m Aiden, Sylvie’s boyfriend.”
A blush fires up from my chest to my cheeks and I blink up at him, surprised and touched.It’s the first time he’s called himself that, and while I wasn’t certain what we “were doing,” I wasn’t in a rush to have that conversation in the midst of opening a bookstore, running an event with him, and oh yeah, banishing the trapped spirits of a coven of witches.
“I would say nice to meet you,” Posey drawls, “But being called a back-up witch kind of pissed me right off.”
He laughs at that, and some of the Romantic sisters’ tension ebbs immediately.“That wasn’t how I meant it, I’m sorry.You three are the main event.We can’t do this without you.”
“Awww,” Ivy says, smiling at me.“I like him, Sylvie.”
“Hazel is going to be so pissed she missed this,” Rose says in a sing-song voice.
“So, do the ghosts just throw things at you?I didn’t get a sense of the whole picture,” Posey says.Always straight to the point, that’s Posey to a T.
Meanwhile, Rose has picked a book up off the shelf and appears to be reading it, guitar still strapped to her back.
“No, they don’t just throw things.”Prudence hops up onto an empty spot on the shelf nearest me.“My witch hasn’t been able to actually do anything inside the store itself.It’s too dangerous.She’s having the soft open this afternoon as asidewalksale.”Prudence pronounces the word with the same attitude someone might sayviolent diarrhea.
“Heaven forbid,” Rose mutters, then shoots me a surreptitious wink.“On the sidewalk, like a common peasant!”
“Exactly,” Prudence bobs her head in fervent agreement.“Finally, witches with taste.”
I bite my cheeks to keep from laughing.Prudence’s ability to get under my skin has long since worn off, and now I’m mostly just amused by her absurdity.Otherwise?She’s a damn good familiar.
We wouldn’t have gotten nearly this far without her.
But today is the day it all comes to fruition, when we finally see if what we’ve been working on is going to work—or if the Romantic sisters will be able to figure out another solution.
