Gray parrot’s vocabulary wasn’t exactly G-rated, and the last thing Rowena needed was for a mob of angry parents to storm into Open Arms, ready to burn the local witch at the stake.
If they made up their minds to do it there wouldn’t be any problem finding a public official in Whitewater to light the fire. Deputy Lawless would be happy to donate a whole book of matches to the cause of ridding his town of an unsavory element.
Rowena grimaced. Fortunately for her, even the deputy would have a hard time getting a blaze going today. A miserable cold drizzle had been falling all day, leaving the world beyond her front window soggy and gray. That meant there would be an hour of mopping muddy footprints before she closed up for the night. One could hardly expect kids charging in to see puppies and kittens to stop to wipe their feet.
But while they were leaving all of those damp patches on her floor, she’d just as soon they didn’t pick up any colorful language, courtesy of the store’s most incorrigible rogue. She left off cleaning the gecko aquarium and went to fetch the black drape she used to throw over Elvis’s cage to shut him up temporarily. Not that she had much hope her technique would work any better than her efforts to drive Cash Lawless out of her head.
Time and time again in the three days since she’d left the ill-tempered deputy’s office his chiseled features flashed into focus just when she’d least expected it. Those heavy brows, the arrogant jut of his nose, his mouth drawn into a sneer that almost—almost—negated the sexy shape of his lips. Too bad the man had such rotten things to say to her. Her cheeks heated as she remembered him taunting: Wait…just a minute…I’m peering into the future…
Jerk face.
The name a freckle-faced sixth grader had called his classmate in the shop the day before rose in her mind, the label not particularly eloquent, but describing Lawless to perfection, nonetheless.
He’d made it plain what he thought of her. He’d taken all of ten minutes to form his opinion. Less than that, really. He’d had his mind made up even before he met her. But then her “crimes” against Whitewater’s social order reached even deeper than opening a pet shop across from the school, as far as Lawless was concerned. Like far too many of the people in this small town, he would’ve been happy to deem just being different a crime. And if Rowena was anything, she was different.
Rowena swallowed hard, her fingers tightening in the folds of the cage drape. A familiar awkwardness settled over her, inescapable as the plaster dust when Open Arms was a construction site. Self-doubt crowded her.
What if her move here had been exactly the reckless mistake her mother and sisters had predicted? She’d invested every cent of the legacy her godmother had left her, the money that was supposed to be her nest egg. Knowing that safety net existed had been the only thing that had comforted her mother when Rowena had dropped out of vet school last spring.
She closed her eyes, remembering how the painful scene had ended in the wee hours of the morning, once Nadine Brown had realized there was no budging Rowena from the course she’d chosen.
Gray-faced with exhaustion, bordering on tears the cool and capable Dr. Brown never shed, Rowena’s mother had surrendered.
At least you’ll always have your inheritance to rely on, Nadine had said a week after Maeve’s funeral.
About my inheritance, Mom. While Auntie Maeve was in the hospital, we talked about how I should use it. She said it would help me find my destiny.
Your what?
My destiny. She didn’t dare say “soul mate” as the irrepressible Maeve had. Just listen, Mom. I’ve thought this whole plan out. You and Bryony and Ariel are right. I can’t save every stray I run across. But just think how many I could place if I used that money to work in tandem with a shelter, helping rehabilitate rescue dogs and cats, finding them homes.
And you’re going to support yourself how?
I could design all kinds of stuff—collars and bowls—and, well, sell fun pet supplies for ready cash, and I’d keep the pets I’m working with at the shop all day, so I can match them with owners. I know it’s a little unorthodox, but—
A little? her mother had exclaimed. Rowena, I’m trying to understand this. I really am. But it bewilders me that a young woman as bright and talented as you are would fling away six years of education to open a pet shop anywhere, let alone in a town where you don’t know a soul, hours away from your family. And with pets someone has already rejected? For heaven’s sake, why?
A question impossible to answer in a way her mother could understand.
Because I feel right inside when I’m placing rescue pets, and in vet school I felt wrong…
Rowena should have saved her breath. Article number one in the Brown Family Constitution was “logic above all,” mere instinct far too messy. “Rowena’s Voodoo,” her younger sister Ariel called it. Even now, pushing twenty-five, she still made “woo woo” sound effects to tease.
Rowena tossed the drape over the parrot’s cage in an effort to throw Elvis into a make-believe night, hoping that the wily bird would settle down, fall asleep and be blessedly silent.
Not that she had much hope that her ruse would work. Could you arrest a bird for profanity? Public indecency? Corrupting the innocence of a minor? Maybe she’d ask the good deputy, if she were ever unfortunate enough to run into him again.
Her mind filled with eyes that flashed, dark and angry, when she’d told him missing the appointment was no big deal. Talk about overreacting! And yet, didn’t it stand to reason that anyone who worked in law enforcement was bound to be a control freak? At least on some level. And it seemed that the needle on Lawless’ irritation meter jumped right off the charts where Rowena was concerned.
Guilt itched as she remembered the way he had chewed her out, describing Miss Marigold’s despair over her broken treasures. Rowena’s next-door neighbor had been heartbroken. Rowena had been hosing off some cage trays at the back of the shop the night of Clancy’s Great Scone Raid when she had seen the sixty-year-old woman carrying out a big box of something that clinked as she moved. Before Clancy’s escapade, Rowena might have plopped down the hose and hurried over to help, even if the lady did tend to look bug-eyed with alarm every time Rowena said hello.
But this time, Rowena had just stood rooted to the spot as Miss Marigold hauled her burden to where the garbage would be picked up the next morning. The older woman had been weeping, her nose chafed Rudolph-red, her eyes all swollen behind cat’s-eye glasses she’d probably bought sometime during the 1960s.
Rowena had tried to apologize, her stomach as knotted as her garden hose. But before she could get out more than a few words, Miss Marigold had dropped her box with a horrific crash and fled back into the rear entrance of the tea shop, as if Rowena had set an attack dog snapping at her heels.
Rowena had crossed to where the box lay off-kilter on one side. A china tea spout decorated with a motif of peacock feathers lay in the gravel, a teapot lid with a finial shaped like a cat a few feet beyond. Rowena stooped to pick each up, amazed at the delicate work.
She stared down into the box. Lawless had been right about one thing. Even if she did pay for the damages, it wouldn’t matter. She’d never be able to piece her neighbor’s treasures together again.
She’d lifted Miss Marigold’s box into her arms, holding it for a long time, not knowing exactly what to do with it. But somehow in spite of the wreckage she couldn’t leave the broken china for the garbage man to take. Instead she’d stuck it in her back room.
And what are you going to do, oh brilliant one? Wave your hands and say abracadabra? Cast some magical spell that would make the teapots whole again? Now, that would be a gift she’d be grateful to have at the moment.
The school bell rang in the distance, bringing Rowena back to the moment at hand. A parade of delighted faces, kids jabbering