lift. It snagged on his hand, its wide palm and long fingers outstretched to help her up.
Eyeing it like a dangerous viper, Poppy shook her head and placed a palm on the cold, gritty pavement, pushing off to a stand in one quick move. She relied on herself.
And the only hand she intended to ever reach for, to ever hold, belonged to the little man who also had sole claim to her heart. Mason, who was at this moment probably daydreaming about riding the carousel or chasing down Goofy.
Without a word to the stranger she jumped into her car and drove off, sighing with relief when the grocery store was no longer in her rearview mirror.
Thank God, Poppy thought on another sigh. Though she might still feel the smothering weight of that family curse, right now she had the distinct sense she’d just dodged a bullet.
* * *
NINETY MINUTES LATER, Poppy was in an even better mood as she stood in the clearing outside her home. With Grimm once again at her side, she’d accomplished nearly every step of the energy-cleansing exercise. Rock salt had been scattered near each cabin entrance—these five as well as the seven located deeper in the trees. At each door, she’d clapped loudly, startling Grimm and hopefully any negative energy that resided there.
Now she bent over the makeshift altar she’d established. Earlier, she’d carried a flat-topped rock to the center of the open area. Upon it she’d strewn petals from the daisies she’d bought. A white pillar candle was already flickering and beside it lay the bunch of sage she’d selected at Johnson’s. She’d turned it into a smudge stick by wrapping the leaves around a brittle handful of slender pine twigs and tying them in place with twine. The whole thing was supposed to be dried for a week, but she figured if she waited that long she’d feel too silly to go through with the ritual. Though she was considered the whimsical Walker by her siblings, as a single mother she had developed a decidedly sensible side.
She picked up the aromatic bundle. Her final cleansing act was to light the stick and wave the smoke around while thinking positive thoughts. The dry pieces of pine caught easily on the candle’s flame and she held it away from her body as the fire licked toward the first of the sage leaves. Smoke curled into the cool air and she moved her arm slowly. “I now release old stuck energy,” she said out loud. “I now attract new beginnings and new opportunity to this place.”
Grimm stayed close to her side as she turned, leaving her back to the steep drive that led up to the cabins from the road below. “I now release old stuck energy,” she said again. “I now attract new beginnings and new opportunity to my life.”
The scent of pine and sage rose and a sense of peace settled over her. Poppy closed her eyes, inhaling deeply. Wow, she thought. It works. For good measure, she repeated her last words, even louder this time. “I now attract new beginnings and new opportunity to my life.”
Grimm’s sudden bark scared the smudge stick out of her hand and shot her heart to her throat. It was his “stranger’s coming” bark, and Poppy whirled to see a monster SUV with tinted windows climbing the drive, crunching over the slushy snow.
Her dog barked again, the hair on his neck bristling. He was a very effective, although faux, bodyguard. The fact was, Grimm wouldn’t hurt a fly, but he had a deep voice and a brawny chest that gave him a belligerent demeanor. So, curious rather than alarmed, Poppy curled her fingers around his collar and watched the vehicle come to a stop.
Her jaw dropped when the door opened and a long leg in a familiar expensive boot emerged, followed by the rest of the rich stranger from Johnson’s Grocery.
Once again, her skin rippled in apprehension and her stomach knotted. Grimm let out another bark, the harsh sound more welcoming than Poppy felt. To disguise her trepidation, she shoved her hands in the pockets of the jacket she was wearing—her brother’s castoff—and leaned back on her heels. “What do you want?”
She couldn’t see his expression, as he was swathed in that scarf, sunglasses and brow-skimming cap. Shutting the driver’s door, he waved a flyer in his other hand. “A cabin to rent.”
Her mouth fell open again. Narrowing her eyes, she recognized one of the half sheets of paper she’d pinned around town in hopes of enticing summer visitors. Summer being the operative word, she realized now...and the exact one she’d neglected to include on the advertising. Knucklehead!
“Sorry,” Poppy said, commanding herself to stand her ground as the stranger moved from his vehicle and across the snow-covered clearing. “We’re not accepting guests right now.”
“Is that right?” He glanced around. “The coven using all the cabins?”
“The cov—” She broke off as he nodded toward the small altar and the smudge stick at her feet. Though it had extinguished upon landing in the snow, the pungent scent still lingered in the air. She inhaled a deep breath of it, trying to regain her earlier peaceful feeling.
For whatever reason, this man rattled her.
Deciding to ignore the coven remark, she took her hands from her pockets and crossed her arms over her chest as she tried pasting on a pleasant expression. “As I said, I’m sorry. We’re simply not ready.”
He glanced around again. Smoke rose from her cabin’s chimney, but three of the others ringing the clearing were obviously vacant, not to mention inhospitable-looking with their peeling doors and dirty windows. The one nearest hers she’d decided to work on first, and it looked much better with its new paint and sparkling glass. From here, the iffy state of the roof was not readily apparent, though she’d have to come up with the money to replace it sooner than later.
“I’ll pay you twice the going rate,” the man said, as if he’d read her mind. His gaze shifted to the flyer grasped in his left hand. “I’ll take the two-bedroom ‘nestled in the woods.’”
“Sorry again, not available.” Squirrels had made a home in the chimney and it smelled like something had died in the second bedroom. It was the farthest from the clearing and the last on her list to refurbish, though she’d foolishly—she realized now—advertised it, anyway. As her father’s daughter, she should have realized that unchecked optimism could come back to bite her on the butt.
Speaking of bites, she glanced down at Grimm, who stood relaxed at her side. Usually he took cues about strangers from her reaction and body language. Odd that he wasn’t picking up on that now...in which case he would be showing a lot of teeth and emitting one of his best back-off growls.
The long-legged man followed her gaze. “Nice dog.”
“If you like death-by-canine,” she said. “We call him Grimm, as in the Grim Reaper.” A little white lie. Her brother had chosen the name after some famous NFL player he admired.
The stranger patted his thigh. “Hey, Grimm.”
Her dog raced forward, his jaw stretched in a toothy smile.
The man ran his hand over her pet’s head. “Like I said, nice dog. And I’ll pay you triple for whatever place you have available.”
Triple? Triple? Poppy thought of her recent layoff, the cost of Mason’s plane tickets to Florida and back, the extra dollars she’d given James to dole out on her son’s behalf.
“Quadruple, then.”
A fool and his money...Poppy mused, tempted despite
