CASSANDRA WILLOWSTONE
Anger rolled through Cassie, but she choked it down. Carol knew full well she couldn't show up to Dorianna's real estate office without the dress.
It wasn't like she could expect Dorianna to repay her. Dorianna never did. It was just another kind of outcast tax she owed any time she dealt with Garden Grove witches.
Gritting her teeth, she pulled out her debit card and slid it through the machine.
After the transaction was completed, Carol put the receipt on the counter. Carol sniffed, looking down her nose at her.
"Good-bye," Carol said. What Carol really meant was "get your trashy self out of my store," which Carol had actually said to her. Several times. Lucky for her, the guy behind her was enough of an audience to mute Carol's sharp tongue.
She grabbed the receipt and stuffed it into her purse. Then she took the dress, carefully laying it over her arm.
When she turned around, she saw a pair of empathetic blue eyes meet hers. She felt like someone punched her in the gut. She stumbled backwards as though a blow had actually landed.
Mystery Man grabbed her wrist, keeping her on her feet. She couldn't look away from his eyes. They were blue. Like Arctic ice.
He looked so imposing. So out of her league. Yet her skin burned where his fingers touched her flesh. And that cold gaze? Warm and welcoming. A tropical ocean. Not an iceberg.
She felt like she knew this person, though she'd never seen his face in her life. He was ridiculously handsome. Five or six inches over six feet tall. Dressed in a tailored suit with a dark-blue silk tie. And he was ridiculously handsome. What was he? A fallen angel? A daytime soap opera actor? A Xiaohongshu thirst trap model?
Garden Grove had less than a thousand people in it, and they pretty much all knew each other. So either he was a stranger passing through or he was visiting a relative. Her gaze dropped to the garbage bag he held and realized he was dropping off clothes to be cleaned. So maybe he was new in town?
What did it matter? He'd overheard every mean word Carol had spouted at her. Mortification heated her cheeks once more, and she could no longer hold his gaze.
"Excuse me," she muttered. He still held her wrist and she pulled until he released his grip. Cassie wheeled around him and left the dry cleaners as quickly as she could.
She picked up Dorianna's Rolex at Hanover's Watch and Jewelry Repair. Mike Hanover, former best friend of Douglas Jones, handled the transaction with slightly less scorn than Carol. At least he hadn't called her an untrustworthy alcoholic panhandler.
With Dorianna's Rolex secured in her purse and her dress draped over her arm, it was time for her third stop on the humiliation train: Narrow's General Store.
She bought tampons, Vaseline, and condoms. She wasn't an idiot. She knew Dorianna's errands were designed to embarrass her. But she didn't care how much crow she had to eat if it meant getting the blessings of the coven to enter their ranks.
She could do this.
She had to do this.
Alexander Narrow was a lot like his name—tall and thin. She'd graduated with him from Garden Grove High School. He'd gotten a degree in Business Magic. Recently, he'd taken over the store from his parents, who'd decided to retire early and putter around on their small farm east of Garden Grove.
Alex didn't carry any hatred toward her, but he knew better than to be friendly. He scanned the items, told her the total, and took payment. Honestly, his indifference was a breath of fresh air compared to the way everyone else treated her.
She had one last task before heading to the opposite side of the town square so she could hand over her spoils to Her Spiteful Highness at Miller & Miller Realty.
Joe's Java.
She dreaded entering the coffee shop even more than she had the dry cleaners.
Joe Banton had divorced his wife, Marie, so he could be with Mom. Argh!
Mom wanted what she wanted—and it didn't matter who paid the cost. For Delia Willowstone, men were playthings ... as easily changed as a dress or a hat.
But Joe… He thought he was different. He thought he could hold onto her. He soon learned he could no more contain her mother than someone trying to hug a tornado.
Goddess help anyone who thought they could change the stripes of a tiger.
Mom had discarded him for Douglas Jones. Yep. Threw Joe away like a worn-out pair of sneakers.
Joe had loved her mother the same way her mother had loved Doug. And Doug had tossed aside Mom with the identical cavalier attitude and cold heart Mom displayed to Joe when she'd showed him the door.
At least that had been the assumption based on, as Sheriff Cooper told her, facts in evidence. She didn't know what had happened between Mom and Doug—honestly, no one did. But people felt the need to fill in the gaps.
The story of rejection and revenge fit too well not to be true.
Joe hadn't forgiven Mom's rejection even after she committed murder-suicide with black magic.
Cassie was sorry to say that with her long black hair and green eyes, she looked a lot like her mother. The physical reminder of the woman who'd broken his heart was painful, and that was the real reason Joe treated her worse than everybody else.
She huffed out a breath and gripped the handle as she tried to gather her courage to step into Joe's Java. This place reminded her the most of what she'd lost. Of the life she could have again if she played her cards right.
Everything rode on the coven's approval tonight. That fact tasted like vinegar, but so what? She had spent the last three years being either ignored or reviled.
"Are you going in, ma--miss?"