“Did you hear about Hortense?” Althea’s saying. “She’s closing the fabric store. Landlord sold the building, and she can’t afford the new rent.”
“Happening all over town.” Joslyn shakes her head, knitting needles clacking angrily, the usual gravel in her voice pitching even lower. “Everyone’s caving to that reptile realtor and his banker cronies. He’s been here twice already, wheeling and dealing. Thinks he can convince the town to revoke our historical designation and pressure us to sell. Why? So they can turn our family legacy into a condo complex?”
“Look who’s here, aunties,” Emmie says, ushering us inside.
Their faces light up when we enter, but Althea’s eyes laser in on me fast, narrowing with a scrutiny that makes my skin hot. I shouldn’t be surprised—an expert herbalist and former nurse, she’s always been the caretaker of the bunch. “Violet, are you all right, sweetness? You look like you haven’t slept in days.”
“That would be my fault,” Devlin says, and all three heads turn to him at once, their eyes twinkling.
Great. The aunts are already enraptured. Five words in, and he’s got the septuagenarian set on lock. Might be a new record.
“I’ve been keeping her up until the wee hours,” he says with a charming wink.
“Nowthat’sa story I’d like to hear.” Joslyn releases her knitting and waves two fingers, her needles magically continuing to work. Hands free for the moment, she pulls out her ancient pack of clove cigarettes and sticks one in her mouth, unlit. Thanks to a cancer scare in the nineties, she hasn’t smoked in decades, but she kept the oral fixation. Claims it calms her.
“Olivy didn’t fill you in?” Devlin takes the chair between Joslyn and Althea, unpacking his knitting. Yes, the man brought his own balls, just as he said he would. And needles. And a project already partway in the making.
Because ofcoursethe Devil knits in his spare time.
“She told us Violet had a handsomevisitorstaying at the café.” Joslyn shoots me a glare that says wewillbe discussing this later. Whether she means me having a handsome visitor, me not introducing him, or him being the Devil, I have no idea.
“Guilty as charged,” he says.
Beneath her silver-gray movie-star pin curls, Joslyn—glamor witch and self-proclaimed dame of Wayward Bay community theater—arches a delicate, painted-on eyebrow. “If I’d known the King of Hell was walking among us, I might’ve worn a nicer dress.”
“Your dress is beautiful, Aunt Jos.” I lean in to kiss her cheek, pointedly ignoring the plunging neckline of her black dress, far too formal and scandalous for knitting club or pretty much any occasion ever hosted in Wayward Bay, but Jos wouldn’t get caught dead in anything less.
Devlin laughs. “I try to keep the true identity under wraps. Awkward at parties otherwise. The fire, the brimstone, the torture.Ugh. Lots of stereotypes, as you can imagine.”
“Well, any friend of Violet’s is a friend of ours.” Althea pats his knee. “No matter how many people you’ve flayed and boiled alive.”
“And onthatnote, I’ll go put on the kettle.” I turn to Devlin and mouth, “Behaveyourself.”
Emmie follows me back to the kitchen. “Way to keep a secret, Violet!”
“It’s not a secret! Goddess, you’re as bad as the aunts.” I retrieve the brew I concocted for today—Family Ties, a green tea blend made with blueberry and coconut for protection, a whisper of cinnamon for love—and fill the teapot. “He’s just… consulting.”
“Consulting! Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”
“Stop trying to live vicariously through my non-existent sex life. Your non-existent sex life is bound to be highly disappointed.”
“Sorry, but I can’t rely on the other sisters. Darla’s always got her nose in a book, Fiona won’t date because she knows it’s not going to work out before they even kiss, and Olivy hates everyone. So that leaves you.”
“And the aunts. My money’s on Jos.”
“You’re filthy. You know that, right?”
“Learned it from watching you!”
Laughing, the two of us catch up on our various news—Emmie, learning how to make wedding cakes, her next frontier. Me, insisting the shop is doing just fine—while we wait for the tea to steep, then assemble the tray and head back to the sunroom.
Aunt Lorelei, a weather witch who’s more comfortable talking to trees and storms than people and saves up all her words until she’s got a bomb to drop, smiles as Emmie and I settle in. “Tell me, Devlin,” she says in her sweet, somewhat warbly tone. “How long have you and Violet been fornicating?”
“Oh, we aren’t fornicating at present,” he says casually, as if she asked him whether he’s got any food allergies or dinner plans. Emmie’s laughing her ass off—meanwhile, I’m just sitting here choking on my tea and bursting into flames, don’t mind me!
“At present…” Lorelei’s eyes light up. “So, you’re saying there’s hope?”
“No!” I blurt out.
