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Her reaction to Eve’s cooking in those early days? That didn’t mean anything. She’d been a mess at the time, given to crying or freaking out for no reason at all.

Snow on Christmas Eve and great weather for all the town’s events and weddings? Luck, nothing more. That’s all it could be.

The fact that everyone who walked into her shop for the first time laughed at the “I’m a beautician not a magician” sign Eileen, the previous hairdresser, had given her early on? Well, it was funny. Maybe not that funny, but still…

“Mystic Springs is an odd town,” she conceded, trying to be reasonable, “I’ll give you that much, but…”

“It’ll be better if I show you.” Silas stood, took her hand and led her toward the kitchen.

On the way Gabi looked into Mia’s room, where both toddler and dog slept. “It’s late,” she protested. “And dark.”

“This won’t take long,” Silas said as he guided her through the kitchen to the back door, out onto her small patio.

Her heart hammered. “Blake is out there, somewhere.” She remembered his voice at her door, his face in the window. Her heart seemed to skip a beat; her mouth went dry.

Silas released her hand, leaving her on the patio while he stepped into the grass then turned to face her. “He won’t touch you, I promise.”

How could he make a promise like that? He couldn’t. No one could.

“No more lies,” he said in a low voice. “You’ve had enough of that in your life, and I won’t add to it. I won’t be a part of the problem.” He looked her in the eye. “You might not want to have anything to do with me, after I…”

“Just get it over with,” Gabi said, a bit too sharply. She wanted to be back inside, behind locked doors.

“Okay.” Silas moved to the middle of her back yard. The moon was bright tonight and he’d turned on the patio light, so he was well lit as he turned to face her. He lifted one hand, then the other. “I hear and understand animals, and they listen to me when I call.”

Great. He was crazy. “Don’t be ridic…” Before she could finish her sentence, birds swooped in and swirled around Silas. They seemed to come out of the darkness, but in reality they must’ve come from the trees in the back section of her yard, or from trees in the neighboring yards. He was not alarmed by the appearance of the birds; he seemed not to care at all that they flew close to his face, around his body in a kind of pattern. He didn’t even blink. An owl perched on one outstretched arm; a raven on the other. And still, the other birds swarmed around him.

A carnival trick, that’s all it was, an illusion, somehow. She tried to convince herself that was true, but the birds were real. She saw that much. This was no illusion.

With another wave of Silas’s hand the birds flew away, their unison beautiful, captivating, and impossible.

“Is that enough, or do you need more?” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He gestured with one hand, waving his fingers. Within seconds, small animals came scurrying toward him. Squirrels that scurried, one fat, waddling groundhog, a pair of skunks. And was that a snake? It was hard to tell at first, but then it moved through a shaft of light from the kitchen window and, yes, that was definitely a snake.

“Okay, okay,” she said quickly. “You can stop now.”

He did, sending all the animals, snake included, back into the shelter of the bushes and trees that surrounded the property.

She would never look at her backyard the same way again. There was so much life all around her and she’d missed it. What was she thinking? She wouldn’t be here tomorrow. There would be no opportunity to look at her surroundings differently.

Unless she took Silas up on his offer. Unless she could accept what she’d just seen. Unless…

“And you’re trying to tell me there are others in town like you.”

“Not exactly like me, but in a way, yes.”

“Magic,” she whispered.

Silas nodded.

Gabi closed her eyes. She wanted to deny everything he said, wanted to insist that the world was just as she’d always believed it to be. How could she?

“If you can take me as I am, I will fight for you,” Silas said as he walked toward her. “If you can accept the magic that’s a part of me, we can have…”

“I can’t love you,” Gabi interrupted. “I told you that from the beginning.” She was afraid to love, afraid of what might happen. She’d let herself love Blake. Her ex-husband had never been honest with her, the way Silas had just been. He’d never opened his soul to her. Blake had told her again and again that he loved her, and maybe in his own sick way he had.

It was easiest to believe that love was a lie, a fiction, more trouble than it was worth…

Silas wrapped his arms around her. “Let me change your mind.”