stepped around Marla and bridged the distance in a few strides. “I know what you said.”
Head bent, Tessa yanked at the lid on one crate. She stared at the dusty toes of his boots when he stopped inches from her. With the crowbar, she fiercely yanked at the metal clips that clamped the top of a crate.
“Give me that,” he said, closing a hand over the crowbar.
Her hand wasn’t quite steady. She looked up, saw that Marla and Regina had disappeared, left her alone with him. “A reflexologist would help you. I sense you’re tense.” Actually she was the tense one.
With more force than necessary, he worked at the lid, then flipped the final clip on the crate. “My state of mind isn’t why I’m here.”
“Are you looking for something in particular?” Perhaps he wouldn’t ask her to help if she treated him as a customer, if he thought her too odd. “If you want a reading, I can do your astrological chart. You’re a Taurus.
Stubborn, steadfast, persistent.”
His frown deepening, he set the crowbar on an adjacent crate. “A Taurus? How do you know what…”
“You were born in May. So that’s your birth sign. It’s the bull,” she said and stepped out of the storeroom. She waited until he stood beside her, then gestured toward palm-size crystals in various colors displayed in the store window. “Or we have several healing crystals, if that’s what you’re looking for.”
As she’d expected, he stared at her again as if she was short a full deck. “Healing crystals?”
“They’ll help when your shoulder aches.”
“When my—” His dark eyes slitted. “Is that knowledge about my shoulder supposed to impress me?” She didn’t miss the cynicism lacing his voice. “Everyone knows I had a dislocated shoulder.”
Tessa was accustomed to mistrust, but for some reason, she wanted to prove to him she wasn’t a liar or a fake. “Yes, that’s true.” The act wasn’t working. He wouldn’t go away no matter how difficult she seemed to be. Tessa went with the truth, hoping it might throw him off guard, confuse him even more. “Like me, they probably read all of that about you in the newspaper.”
A hint of an amused smile tugged up the corners of his mouth.
She’d heard he was well-liked. In fact, she couldn’t recall anyone saying anything uncomplimentary about him.
“You’re a bit of a local hero, Mr. Holmes. One newspaper article was a biographical piece.” She knew more. People talked about him. Responsible. Practical. He was so sensible he’d retired from rodeo. Another man might have foolishly kept competing even though an injury had made him less capable. He was generous with his time and money. He would come to a friend’s or neighbor’s aid without being asked. But socially he’d become a loner since a broken engagement to a young woman from a neighboring Montana town.
He moved closer to a counter. A fan on it fluttered sun-streaked strands of his brown hair away from his forehead. “What’s this for?” he asked, drawing her away from her thoughts.
She pivoted to see him gesturing at the display of scented candles. She couldn’t resist a tease at his expense. “Light.”
Straight, dark brows bunched with his scowl.
“Some people buy them for romance,” she said to lighten the moment.
“Or séances?”
Tessa went on. “Other people find tarot cards and Ouija boards and dowsing rods interesting.”
“All things to help tell the future.”
“If that’s what a customer wants. I don’t use crystal balls or tea leaves or tarot cards.”
“I heard differently. I heard you can read crystals to predict the future. Something about different crystals meaning different things.”
Why would he have bothered to learn about that? “Crystal clairvoyants cast five crystals. The pattern in which they fall tells the future.”
“But you don’t do that?” He stopped beside shelves where she’d displayed ginger jars containing herbs, decks of tarot cards, astrological charts and the colored crystals.
“I can, but I don’t predict.”
He pivoted toward another wall of shelves displaying tea leaf cups, runes, Celtic crosses and candles. “You told Sylvia not to have real flowers.”
She couldn’t help smiling. “Yes, I did.”
He kept staring at the high ceiling as if something important was written on it. Hanging from a beam, a giant brilliant blue sphere rotated in slow motion in a corner of the room. “Isn’t that predicting?”
“I never told her they would wilt.”
“This building must be a devil to keep cool,” he said suddenly.
Tessa nearly laughed at the so serious, practical observation. “Not usually.” The cost of heating or cooling the old building had seemed inconsequential to her. She’d fallen in love with the Victorian. It had carried a positive aura with its warm, homey feel. At the time, she’d needed to keep negativity out of her life. She doubted this man would understand such whimsical thinking. “It has been miserably hot,” she finally added.
“Global warming.” A crackly voice cut in. Tessa smiled at Margaret Hansen, one of her best customers but a legendary eavesdropper. The elderly lady had a penchant for hot-pink fingernail polish. Today it matched the artificial pink rose stuck in her snow-white hair. “Can I see that one?” she asked, pointing to an astrological chart under a glass display.
The store occupied the first floor of the Victorian. Tessa had replaced one of the side windows with a huge, octagonal-shaped one. On sunny days, light poured into the room. Italian lights outlined display shelves. In the middle of the room near the checkout counter was a black wrought-iron spiral staircase that led to a loft and shelves of books about astral projection, channeling, I Ching, even herb cooking.
She withdrew the astrological chart for Margaret. “Look it over, Mrs. Hansen. See if it’s what you want.” Tessa crossed to Colby. He was staring at the storeroom. “Yes, it was once a kitchen. Still is, but I cook upstairs in my apartment.”
He slanted a look at her. “Is supplying an answer before I ask a question supposed to be a demonstration of your mind-reading ability?”
“It’s called observation. I saw you looking back there. Why are you here?”
“Don’t you know why?”
“Yes, I’ve heard.” Tessa had read the newspaper stories about Harriet Martel’s murder. Colby’s aunt had been forty-three, the head librarian and four months pregnant.
As if tempted, he touched the deck of red tarot cards. “My aunt—”
“Was Harriet Martel,” she finished for him. “I’ve heard about her. I’m very sorry.”
He
