The residents here weren’t...typical. The large majority of folks here were in some way magical. And the few humans residing here were usually possessed with unusual talents. We had several witch clans, warlock groups, sorcerers and sorceresses...honestly I never figured out the difference but call one of them the wrong name and you’d be burping frogs for weeks. I tossed myself into the somewhat human category even though it made my parents see red. We were born and raised here, and all of us had some sort of magical talent. My older sister had talents similar to a Valkyrie. Although she got very annoyed with us when we told herthat.
“First of all,” she would sneer, “we have no Norse in our bloodlines. Second, Midnight Cove hasn’t had a war in 2,000 years. So kindly adjust yourpresumptions.”
It made us all laugh because the speech was always the same, but she had such a light, airy voice, it made her sound like a really ticked off cartoon character. Plus she was lucky if she was five foot tall on a good day. So none of us were scared of herwrath.
Ronnie, my sis, could sense when someone was about to die. It was a talent that no one in Midnight Cove knew about. If they did, she would be bombarded with visits all day long. It helped that she was also a gifted herbalist, so that was what she made her living doing. If someone came into the shop that she knew might kick the bucket, she could whip up something and convince them to take it with one of the many wild stories she was clever at crafting off the cuff. Sometimes it saved their lives, sometimes Ronnie came home morose. As talents went, I thought hers might be worse than mine. At least my people were alreadydead.
So far she had been able to avoid any visit from the Dating service, but my parents weren’t so lucky. Or maybe I should say they had been so lucky. After all, they’d been together for almost three decades thanks to the secretive meddlers. But I could honestly say, I’d never knew anyone who’d been given a puppy as agift.
To make it even worse, the dog either didn’t know how to make its way home or didn’t care enough. The traitorous little monster was curled in my lap and my fingers were curled in her silky coat as I read about potty training and puppycare.
“I don’t like you,” I told the dog. “You’re going home right after I feedyou.”
The as of yet unnamed dog snored and moved its little paws like it was involved in the best dreamever.
I steeled my heart against the adorableness. Also, according to the wisdom of the internet, puppies were ridiculously hard work. I guess I needed to ask the rightquestions.
Was I too busy for a puppy? Considering I was still in my pajamas at 11:30 on a Saturday, had no children, and stayed up at least three times a week until the wee hours of the morning reading, I was going to have to sayno.
Did I want a puppy? The answer to that as of about five hours ago would have been a resounding no. Now? With the adorable bundle resting on my lap snoring to its heart content, my answer was a hardmaybe.
I sighed and clicked off the internet. I wondered if maybe the dating agency was trying to distract me from what they were trying to do. With my love life. I shook my head. I hadn’t met a single person in town who’d turned myhead.
The one time I had, he knew exactly who I was and treated my awkward conversation making efforts like I was speaking Swahili and he was late for open heart surgery. In other words, rejected before I’d even opened mymouth.
So I treated the vast majority of the townspeople like we were merely existing in the same space. I nodded hello when I made eye contact and breezed right on by. That seemed to work for everyone, so it worked for me aswell.
My cell phone rang with the sounds of a Chewbacca rant. I tried to scoot the puppy off my lap, but it opened one eye and gave me a scary stare. I reached over, grabbed my cell, and slid the button over without checking to see who itwas.
“Hello?” I said, slightly out of breath from trying to move the moosepuppy.
“Miss Reaper?” a soft baritone rumbled in my ear. Notunpleasant.
“Yes?”
“This is Hank fromMidnight Blooms. You were supposed to be here an hour ago to pick up yourorder.”
It wasn’t aquestion.
“Oh, yes!” I slapped my forehead. “I’m sorry. I had anincident-”
“Don’t care,” he said abruptly. “If I have to hold these overnight, there will be a 10% upcharge. If you need me to put these back, there’s a 25% restocking fee. If you want me to deliver, I charge for gas and thirty cents permile.”
A smile made its way unbidden to my face. Hank was always at one speed. Grumpy as hell. “A 25% restocking fee?” I asked. “That’s a little steep. You must think awful highly of your plants to charge thatmuch.”
The reaction was immediate. One thing people in Midnight Cove knew was the epic rivalry of the two nurseries in town. Hank was a traditionalist. He liked blooms and veggies in their proper seasons. Nothing too outrageous. Nothing too tropical. Nothing that had the potential to suffer outside of its zone. This made Hank both a reliable gardener and plant provider, but it also made him a little bitboring.
The other nursery in the area, Pepper’s Perennials, had no such qualms. Ran by an uber friendly, adorable hedgewitch, she didn’t give a whit about the seasons, the zones, the kinds of plants she sold or anything else. She also didn’t care about Hank. Pepper was one of my few friends in this place and she was one of the most powerful hedge witches I’d ever known. Pepper didn’t have to care about that stuff because her plants never died. This, of course, enraged Hank. But it also helped him, too, because Piper tended to specialize in the exotic and unheard of, while Hank had the familiar beautiful blooms most of us knew and loved. Pepper also provided most of the herbs for my sister’s shop, so she was multi-talented.
“Pepper?” Hank practically spit through the line. “She wouldn’t know an azalea if one reached up and bit her in the ass,” hegrumbled.
“Well,” I drawled, “she is my best friend so I’m sure she’d make a special order if I asked her to. And she would deliver too, if I asked her, for free, and probably show up with pizza or dessert or something likethat.”
The line was silent for a moment. “Twenty cents per mile and gas for delivery,” hebarked.
“How about ten cents per mile, half the gas, and you bring me a cookie from Sam’s?” I grinned knowing I’d gone too far, but honestly, screwing with Hank had been the highlight of myday.
“You can get your own cookie. I agree to the other part.” His voice trailed off but not before I heard, “and you should be offeringmea cookie for accepting this sham of adeal.”
