Page 28 of With All My Haunted Heart

“At least now we know it’s possible to transfer a ghost from one location to another.” With the last bit of my strength, I force my eyelids open. Elle sits beside me, a tender expression on her face. I swallow the rush of longing that warms my chest. “Trust me, I’ll figure this out for you. I promise.”

“Trust doesn’t come easy for me, but I can try.” She brushes a lock of hair out of my face, her fingers trailing along my jaw and down the curve of my neck as she pulls away. “Get some rest, Pippa.”

Elle finally releases me as she gets up to leave, and she passes Xander on his way back in. I can barely look at my best friend, my heart thundering traitorously in my chest. Even as I accept the painkillers, my mind is caught on the feel of Elle’s fingers along my skin.

The sensation carries me into a dreamless sleep.

I don’t feel human again until Wednesday afternoon.

After a hot shower to wash away multiple days spent in bed, I take stock of my situation. I lost four days of our already tight deadline to this mistake. Elle told me she doesn’t trust easily, and I’m not about to break that trust by failing here. I text Dea to overnight a pair of lepidolite spheres to the B&B—it’ll be good to have a backup in case I break another one—and get an update on the business. Unfortunately, the phones have been dead since I left. Not a single person has reached out for an appointment or consultation.

Eventually, my grumbling stomach sends me downstairs in search of food, and as I near the kitchen, the now-familiar sound of Elle’s true crime podcast washes over me. She’s fully absorbed in her work, folding dough around a rectangular block of butter. Once that’s done, she grabs her rolling pin and proceeds to beat the ever-loving shit out of the dough. With each slam of the pin, the muscles in her bare arms flex, biceps and triceps and whatever the damn muscles in her forearms are called. It’s obscenely attractive, and it makes me think of Sunday. Elle’s hand in mine. Her fingers trailing across my jaw.

And what do you think of me?

More than okay, at least.

I lean against the doorway as a wave of dizziness makes the room spin, and I raise my voice above the podcast.

“What’d that dough ever do to you?”

“Fucking hell.” Elle whirls around, brandishing the rolling pin like a weapon. When she sees it’s me, she lowers her arm and turns off her podcast. “Pippa. You’re awake.”

“And mobile.” I push away from the door and step farther into the kitchen. “What’re you making, and why does it require such violence?”

Instead of the smile I expected, Elle turns back to her mound of assaulted dough. “Croissants require a bit of muscle to get the lamination right.”

She’s closed off again, like the moment we shared on Sunday never happened. Elle didn’t visit again after that, but I assumed she was giving me time to recover. Every time I woke up, I found something delicious waiting for me.

Did I imagine the way she looked at me? The way she touched me?

“You certainly have plenty of muscle,” I say, trying to draw her back out of whatever shell has formed between us. “And the true crime? Does picturing the dough as the killer make it easier to whack it like that?”

Elle glares at me over her shoulder. “Did you come downstairs to make fun of my baking process?”

Her flat tone cuts deep, and I feel utterly foolish. I should have known better than to assume she had any interest in me. No one ever does, not beyond the solutions my magic can give them. I must have been more out of it than I realized on Sunday to read intention where there was none.

“Sorry,” I murmur, crossing the room to where there’s a bowl of fruit tucked into the corner of the kitchen. “Just looking for something to eat.”

I lean against the edge of the counter to lengthen my reach, and pain shrieks across my stomach. I hiss in a breath and pull back, sending the apple I was trying to grab tumbling to the floor. The pain in my abdomen lingers, and my knees threaten to buckle. I stumble toward the table in the center of the room and catch myself on the edge.

“Pippa?” Elle abandons her partially laminated croissant dough. “Are you okay?”

“Fine.” I push the word past gritted teeth and sink into one of the chairs. The pain is already fading back to a dull ache, leaving only embarrassment behind.

“You’re clearly not fine.” Elle crouches before me, those soft green eyes searching my face. “What happened?”

“It’s stupid.” I lay a gentle hand over the spot where she tased me four days ago. “The pressure from the counter hurt more than I expected.”

Confusion flits across her expression. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you did tase me on Saturday.”

Her brow furrows as she straightens back to her full height. “You haven’t healed it?”

I swallow down the sudden taste of bile on my tongue. “Healing magic isn’t exactly my forte,” I say, pushing against the rising tide of humiliation, the lifetime of deep shame.

“I’ve never heard of a witch who can’t do healing magic.”