Page 6 of My Blind Date is a Warlock

“I’m a paying customer too. Or do I get to keep these for free, you know, as an apology for making me come all the way here for nothing?” He tapped an index finger on the stack of magic texts he was holding. And there was that pesky eye twitch again.

“I’ll be with you boys in a sec.” I grabbed Jacob’s books and ran them through the scanner, glaring at him the whole time, a smile frozen on my face for the sake of the other customers in the store. It was more of a grimace, actually, and the infuriating warlock had the nerve to chuckle under his breath.

“You okay there, sweetheart? You look like you’re about to burst a vein.”

I told him the total, which came close to three hundred dollars. Without batting an eye, he reached for his back pocket and handed me a credit card from his wallet. “If looks could kill I would have died a thousand times over, wouldn’t I? And I still don’t know what I’ve done to earn such scorn when we only met, what, ten…fifteen minutes ago? And here I thought my luck had turned around when I walked in and saw you standing there.” He paused, waiting for me to chip in. I quietly went about swiping his card and packaging his stuff in a paper bag.

“Thank you for your patronage. I’ll have my grandmother call you as soon as possible. Boys, you can hand those over now.” Despite my dismissive tone, Jacob lingered a moment longer, looking like there was more he wanted to say. Changing his mind, he gave me a brusque nod and made his way out of the store before changing it again and stalking back toward the counter.

“You know what, never mind.” He changed his mind again and walked out without a backward glance.

The rest of the day seemed to pass by at a snail’s pace, all my calls to my grandmother’s cell phone and landline going unanswered. I even called my mom just in case they were both preparing for the solstice celebrations together, but she told me she hadn’t heard from her all day.

“You know how she is. She’s probably in the city treating herself to a shopping spree or off in the woods somewhere doing whatever she does up there,” Mom said flippantly before cutting the call off with a hasty apology when something crashed in the background. She was babysitting Piper’s girls for the day and it sounded like she had her hands full. One of my grandmother’s closest friends, Catherine Hawthorne, stopped by the store and she too claimed not to know where she was. But I took her words with a grain of salt because there was a look on her face I did not trust.

CHAPTER 5

Five minutes after closing up shop, the wily crone finally decided to call back on my cellphone right as I made my way to where I had my car parked a block over.

“I’ve been trying to reach you all day! Where have you been?” I exploded before she could get a word in.

“Take a breath and let’s try that again, ‘kay? Here we go. Hello, darling, how are you today? I noticed all the missed calls. I hope you didn’t burn my shop down,” she trilled nonchalantly. “This is the part where you tell me what it is you need and do hurry—there’s a pitcher of margaritas that won’t drink itself.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose to stop myself from going off at her. My grandmother's free-spirited nature was something we both had in common, but I wasn’t in the mood for her frivolity right now. “Gran, where are you right now? You know what, don’t answer that. I had a warlock by the name of Jacob Buchanan come into the store today looking to collect his great-great-grandfather’s Book of Shadows. I couldn’t find it anywhere in the shop, so I told him you’d give him a call.”

“Oh my, I’d quite forgotten about that. I meant to call you this morning and tell you about it. Maybe I’ve had one too many margaritas. Last time I attend a garden party hosted by vampires. These bloodsuckers sure can pack away the booze.”

“I already checked your desk drawers, all of them, and there was no Book of Shadows,” I replied, trying to stay on topic as I tossed my bag into the backseat of my Jeep Renegade and hung my free hand on the top of the open door.

“Then you must have had blinders on because that’s where I left it.”

“Or maybe that’s your margarita brain talking.”

“I assure you, the Book of Shadows is right where I said it is. Now get your sweet self into my office and get it for me. You have Mr. Buchanan’s contact details, right? Won’t you be a dear and deliver it to him for me?” The question was barely past her lips and I was already shaking my head, my anxiety picking up speed at the thought of seeing him again.

“Uh-uh, no way. If the book’s where you say it is, you can just hand it over to him yourself. I played my part and let you know that he was looking for you.” There was a loaded silence on the other side of the line. I could almost hear the gears in Gran’s brain spinning. She was the only person who knew just how far my aversion to—and maybe even fear of—warlocks went. She was the only one I ever trusted enough to tell her what those monsters at Redwood did to me. The only one I told about the insidious cruelty hidden behind the charming smiles and well-pressed uniforms.

“Very well. How’s about this, grab the Book of Shadows from my desk and meet at The Eat for dinner? An hour from now should give me ample time to freshen up and sober up. I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages.”

I chose not to mention that we just had a family dinner at her house last Saturday, and that I made a regular stop by The Book Coven every few days either on my way to or from the boutique. “What about your vampire garden party?”

“Pfft, all they have here is booze, blood, and rabbit food. I need to get something greasy in me if I want to be useful at the ceremony tomorrow evening and wake up early to open the shop as well. What do you say?”

“Okay, fine.” I slammed the car door shut and made my way back to the shop. If that book was not in the drawer—and I knew that it hadn’t been when I searched for it earlier—I was going to switch her hair dye potion for a Medusa tonic. A potion that would morph the thick waves she was so proud of into a nest of snakes. And unlike Medusa’s snakes who adored her, these cold-blooded little monsters would bite.

“And for goodness sake, don’t show up in your flip-flops. Get a little dressy. Let’s make a night of it,” she told me as I made my way back to the store.

That right there should have triggered the warning bells. I should have heard that tell-tale tone in her voice. I should have remembered that I was not only dealing with my grandmother, but Beverley Barnes: formidable witch and matchmaker extraordinaire. But I was too busy grumbling under my breath at having to walk a block back to the store and was shocked to find that Tiberius Buchanan’s Book of Shadows was indeed in the top drawer, sitting right there in the same desk drawer I’d sifted through earlier that afternoon, thick and bound in sheepskin and remarkably well preserved despite its age.

Unable to help myself, I tried to pry open the copper clasp, only for the book to lash out and strike me with raw magical energy. One second, I had the book in my hands, and the next moment, I was thrown a few feet back and crashed against the filing cabinet. I must have passed out for a few seconds because then I was blinking awake, my head pounding from where it bumped against the corner of the cabinet. A glance at the time on my phone showed that I’d only been out cold for a brief moment, less than three minutes.

Never in my life had I ever come across a sentient book. There were rumors that some of the restricted texts in the library at Redwood had minds of their own, but this was the first time I’d seen such a thing. Of course, I wasn’t entirely sure. The blast that knocked me out could have just been a protection spell cast by the owner to keep curious eyes from reading through the secrets that filled up its pages. Most witches and warlocks tended to cast such spells on their Book of Shadows. But I got a distinct “Don’t touch me. Don’t open me. I will royally mess you up if you try” vibe from dear old Tiberius’s journal.

Hesitant to touch it with my bare hands, I went out to the store and grabbed one of the gift bags and wrapped the book up in decorative tissue paper before depositing it in the bag.

CHAPTER 6

I was ten minutes late for dinner. Right before I was about to take a shower, the mayor called me in a panic, wanting to cancel his order because he didn’t think a gift bag of homemade cosmetics was an appropriate gift for a bunch of men. Men who, the mayor explained, could afford the best products money could buy and not something made by a nobody from a nowhere small town.

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