The Cottage on Pumpkin and Vine (18 page)

Chapter 4

“S
mells good in here,” Sawyer said, coming in the back door to grab a bottle of water from the stash that Amelia Rose kept in the fridge.

“Wipe your feet.”

“On it,” he said, scrubbing the bottoms of his work boots on the wiry doormat. “Cooking lunch so soon?”

“We have a guest coming this morning,” Amelia Rose said, her small frame looking dwarfed by the large, old-fashioned stove she stood in front of, stirring a large pot of something. Her long, flowing clothes made her look even smaller.

“Already?” Sawyer asked. “Damn, we barely got rid of last night's heathens.”

“Sawyer Finn,” she said, turning with a hand on her hip. “Those
heathens
fund your paycheck.”

“I know,” he said, rubbing at his eyes. “I'm just cranky. All these damn pumpkins.”

“They're adorable!” Amelia Rose said, her smile taking over her face as she turned back to her pot. “I've never seen such amazing carvings. And the Cinderella carriage!”

Cinderella.
Something about that just pissed him off.

“You see amazing carvings all over the lawn,” he said. “I see rotting pumpkin carnage that I have to haul off at a hundred pounds per load.”

“Bah humbug,” she said.

“Don't even get me started,” he said. “So, how soon is this guest coming? How soon do I have to get all this mess cleaned up?”

“Don't sweat it,” she said. “It's a lawyer from Boston. She's coming early, so I'm sure she'll understand that we have a little cleanup to do from last night. I just want to have some lunch ready.”

“From Boston,” Sawyer said, snatching a piece of corn bread from a plate. “Fancy.”

“I don't know about that,” she said. “But I know we were not her first choice.” She threw a smirk over her shoulder. “I want to change her mind.”

“Fancy and snooty,” he said around a mouthful of corn bread. “How was the party?”

“Wonderful as always,” she said.

“Anyone find out they're going to die?”

She turned with a frown. “What?”

“Your fortune-telling,” he said. “Everyone always gets good news. I have a hard time believing that.” She cut him a glance that always gave him a little bit of the willies. “I love you,” he said. “I just, you know . . .”

“I tell the truth,” she said. “I always tell the truth, but if I see something particularly bad—I'm not going to tell someone that. No one should know certain things about their own future.” She shook her head. “It changes how you live if you know too much.”

“So you lie?”

“So I refund their money and tell them I couldn't see anything,” she responded quietly. She sighed then and blinked quickly as if clearing her mind of the subject. “You should clean up a little.”

Sawyer chuckled. “For what? I'm in the yard all day today with sour pumpkin guts and a giant muddy spider.”

“For our guest.”

“Since when?”

Amelia Rose sighed. “Because I feel like you should,” she said. “Can't that be reason enough?”

“No,” he said, laughing. “I promise, I'll stay out of the way.”

“You know, you could do with making an impression or two,” she said. “Maybe a bit of polishing.”

Sawyer chuckled. “For what?”

“For the female population,” she said.

“Please,” he said. “I do just fine with the female population.” He reached in the fridge for the water he'd forgotten about.

“Is that so?”

“That is so.”

“When's the last time you had a date?” she asked.

“Who said anything about dating?” Sawyer said, washing down half the bottle. “Dating is a headache.”

“It's getting to know someone.”

“It's a waste of time,” he countered, coming up behind her and squeezing her shoulders. “There isn't a woman out there worth all that.”

“You don't get lonely?”

“I have Duke,” he said, laughing when she rolled her eyes. “Besides, I'd never find the right mix of someone who'd put up with me. Next time you're brewing up potions, maybe you can craft me the perfect woman.”

“Well, sure,” Amelia Rose said, lifting a spoonful to smell the broth. “I'll get right on that.”

Sawyer leaned over to sniff the pot. “Now works, too.”

She chuckled. “Sorry, it's just soup.”

“I said next time,” he said, winking. “No rush.”

“Well, since you're preordering,” she said. “I assume forty-four, twenty-four, forty—”

“Surprise me,” Sawyer said, snatching another piece of corn bread from the platter.

“Blue-eyed blonde who bats her eyes?” she asked, turning to flutter her eyelashes.

Sawyer laughed. “Blue eyes are good. But make it a brunette. Batting optional.”

It was a joke he perpetuated—teasing her about her fabled “mystical” abilities. Amelia Rose was more than his employer. She'd been kind of a mother figure to him ever since he landed in town all those years ago. She looked out for him in a way, so he returned the favor. She never appeared to care one way or the other what people thought of her, and that was part of why he loved her, but he leaned toward the more realistic side of things. Fortune-telling and other magical hooey might be popular around this area, especially at Halloween, but he believed in setting his own fate. And changing it. No one person could look out there into the cosmos and point at an end result.

That being said, if anyone had a fifty-fifty shot at it, it was Amelia Rose. He'd seen enough in his twelve years in Moonbright to at least give him pause.

And if asked, he'd deny that a hundred different ways.

“So, have you ever been in love, Sawyer?” Amelia Rose asked, her tone dancing in that zone he recognized. The one that said none of this was random and she'd just been building up. “The real kind, I mean?”

“Love,” Sawyer scoffed, leaning against the counter. “Now,
that's
smoke and mirrors.”

Amelia Rose glanced over her shoulder. “So that's a
no,
I'm guessing?”

“Well, you've known me since I was eighteen,” he responded.

“And I don't stalk you,” she said, laughing. “
And
I've never read you.”

“As it should be,” Sawyer said. Whether he believed or not, he didn't take the chance of someone poking around his thoughts.

“Totally respect that,” Amelia Rose said, waving a wooden spoon around. “But you didn't answer me.”

Sawyer blew out a breath, feeling his grin fade a little with the memory. “Nah,” he lied. “I never had time for that.”

“Not even when you were young?” she asked.

His eyes landed on her, and the corn bread he'd just swallowed felt like it had hardened halfway down. “Why would you ask that?”

Amelia Rose shrugged. “Because I didn't know you then.” She tapped the spoon on the rim of the pot and laid it on a plate. “And because you had a girl's class ring tied to the console of your motorcycle when you first got here.”

A
zing
ran through his body at the mention of that ring. At the memory of the girl it belonged to, and the last time he'd seen her.
She'd been crying.

“I don't know too many females who give up their jewelry,” Amelia Rose said. “So I figured you either killed someone or had a bad breakup.”

“Well, aren't you and your long-term memory the observant little pair,” he said, shaking his head free of the images. That was a long time ago, and not a place he was up for revisiting.

“Part of my charm,” she said, winking.

“Well, part of mine is getting back to work,” he said, brushing his hands off on his jeans. “Thanks for the snacks.”

“Like I had a choice?”

“I'm putting the gnomes back out, leaving a few of the bigger pumpkins, and tomorrow I'll deal with the cornucopia,” he said.

“Sounds good, but get some help with that,” she said. “I don't want you throwing your spine into a knot.”

“Yes, ma'am,” he said.

“You still didn't answer me,” she added as he pushed open the back door.

He winked in her direction. “No, ma'am.”

* * *

Sidney had to stop and take a breath when she pulled up in front of the B&B. Work her shoulders free of the stress and her neck free of the tension she'd worked up on the way. Not to mention the unwelcome memories flooding her brain. She could live with the worry over this case. That was expected. That, she could talk herself through. Old high school memories of the one who got away—the one she never even really had—that was something else. Something she had no business filling her busy head with right now.

Getting out of her car, she took in the scene before her. The Rose Cottage reminded her of something out of a fairy tale. Or an old and more comfortable time. Quaint and cozy and warm, with Halloween decorations still up and mountains of pumpkins and fall foliage tucked around. A giant spider on one side of the porch. Zombies crawling out of the ground. Okay, maybe that part wasn't so cozy, but someone definitely got into Halloween.

A man in a worn blue jean jacket, even more worn jeans, and aviator sunglasses was lugging large garden gnomes off of a low-boy trailer, so she could only imagine how much cheesier it was about to get.

“Good Lord,” Sidney muttered as she slung her overnight bag over her shoulder and eyed her car. It was spitting and hissing and doing everything just short of a body shiver. It didn't look good. Stepping forward, she had to throw both arms out to steady herself. “Shit!”

Thin high heels and cobblestone. Great. Thank God she'd thought to throw in some flats.

She noticed the man working stopped to watch her, and she righted herself immediately, holding her chin up and tucking her hair behind her ear. He probably thought she looked ridiculous here in a pencil skirt and heels, and she wasn't about to give him more to amuse himself with.

He turned anyway, after his initial pause, striding back to the trailer. Something struck her as familiar, watching him. Something about his strong, purposeful gait.

“Quit ogling the gardener, Sidney,” she whispered to herself. It had evidently been too long since she'd been with a man. Way too long. “Seriously. Find some normal.”

The woman who opened the door before she reached it, however, beaming at Sidney with kind eyes, beads hanging down to her knees, and rings on every finger, probably wasn't going to fit that bill.

* * *

Sawyer grunted his way from the low-boy to the edge of the flower garden with his third gnome. Big ugly shit. He never could see the appeal. And Amelia Rose's gnomes weren't of the puny variety, either. Each one came up to his chest and weighed probably seventy-five pounds. So dragging them on and off the trailer was no small task. The giant cornucopia—now that, he'd need some help with, but these ugly trolls he could handle. Gnomes, trolls, it was all the same.

He just about dropped the fattest one while watching the fancy lady lawyer from Boston get out of her not-so-fancy car. Legs that went on for fucking days, followed by a tight little skirt, and she perched on impossible heels. All of it was concealed somewhat by a long, tailored coat once she stood, but that first glimpse was sweet. Then she hobbled over the cobblestone and nearly busted it, so it was all he could do to look away and give her some dignity.

Still, there was a familiarity about her. Something in the vulnerable way she tucked her hair behind her ear and held her chin. Something that struck a nerve. A protective one.

“Sleep deprivation is making you soft, old man,” he said under his breath.

The early-morning cleanup from last night's party and departing guests on top of a couple of restless nights had Sawyer feeling a bit fuzzy.

He'd make it an early night tonight. Hit the bed early and not let his mind wander where it had been the last thirty minutes. Speeding back to a place he didn't need to go. To the last time he'd felt something. Another lifetime ago. Another version of him.

* * *

“Your room is all ready for you,” Amelia Rose was saying. That's what she had said to call her. At first, Sidney thought it was her first and last name, but then she corrected her when she called her Amelia, so she assumed she was just mysterious like that. Like Madonna, or Cher. To be honest, Sidney had a hard time concentrating on the woman's words, she was so distracted by the visuals and the warmth she felt surrounding her like a big embrace. Well, after she got past the shock of the big skeleton guard dog just inside the door.

A beautiful old antique upright piano adorned the front living room, old sheet music perched atop it, just waiting to be played. Black-and-white and sepia-toned photos were everywhere, capturing people there in the house, playing the piano, and some of what Sidney assumed to be the town of Moonbright. It was a warm and welcoming, homey place, marrying the past and the present perfectly. Wing-backed chairs lined the walls, inviting conversation or sitting with a book and a cup of coffee. The adjoining dining room had a beautiful long table with a buffet, the table adorned with three-wick candles placed every few feet.

“How long have you been here?” Sidney asked as they'd circled back to almost where they started, a quaint old skeleton key dangling from her fingers.

Amelia Rose just laughed, the long beads she wore tinkling against each other. Her long gray hair was beautiful, pulled over in front of one shoulder and woven with more beads. Sidney was at once captivated and amused by this woman. She didn't know whether to take her seriously or just sit back and enjoy the show.