Page 2 of A Touch of Spring Magic

She was going to be late for work. Jessica Maye was never late for anything.

But she couldn’t leave the book here. She didn’t even know how it had gotten there as she’d cleaned her kitchen—meticulously—before she’d headed into her office to work before heading up to bed.

She’d told Chloe to keep the book. Why was it here? Her mind raced for a logical explanation and then lit on one. Chloe had left it. She’d come last night to check on the feralish cat population she’d adopted from a local shelter and housed in the barn and on the property. Chloe checked in on the six to eight cats at least every other day. Jessica was not particularly fond of the cats, and yet she was less fond of mice and rats, and since Chloe had started her little ‘sanctuary,’ Jessica hadn’t once had to ask Meghan to come over and trap a mouse.

“I can do this,” she said and, dragging in a deep breath, Jessica grabbed a tea towel and threw it over the book.

She’d take the book to the thrift stone. Get it out of her life forever.

She didn’t want it in her tote. Could magic seep out? Was it even magic or…? Chloe seemed to think so, but she was happily cheerful about it. Yup. Chloe definitely must have dropped the book off last night thinking she’d give her big sis a scare. Probably thought she deserved it after the stunt she’d pulled.

Guilt pinched. She’d make it up to Chloe. She’d been trying, but there was still this distance. She could feel it. Taste it. And regret breathed in her.

She took a reusable shopping bag out of the bottom drawer where she stored them and slid the tea towel and book inside.

A quick glance at the clock revealed she’d only lost a couple of minutes with her panic attack.

Progress.

*

Jessica headed downthe long curving drive to the main wrought-iron gates that swung open with the touch of the remote. The gates had always seemed so imposing when she was a child, keeping people out, but when she rehabbed the gardens—her dream was to create a nursery with plants from around the world, which was why she’d spent her time and money repairing and updating the four large greenhouses.

There was a narrow private drive off the backside of Cramer Mountain, which fed onto the main road about a mile or more from the main entrance to the private Cramer Mountain neighborhood, with its award-winning golf club, tennis courts and pool. She’d have to check what hoops she’d need to jump through so that she could use the access road to the Cramer-Maye property. No way would the neighbors be okay with random customers and looky-loos driving along the wide, scenic drives peering into the beautiful and stately mini mansions on one- to two-acre manicured lots that her father had developed, customized and sold over the past couple of decades.

The twenty acres of Grandma Millie’s farm and farmhouse at the top of Maymont Drive was the last remaining acreage of the once massive farm. Jessica knew her father had plans for the property, but Grandma Millie had been unwilling to budge so far. Jessica hoped that she’d earned and saved enough and could earn enough in the future to eventually make an offer on at least part of the property. Grandma Millie was nearing eighty, but she bloomed with health and energy.

But the money was a future problem, and though she tended to dwell on future problems, Jessica knew that she’d never pursue her dream if she anguished about all the potential pitfalls. So first she’d focused on the greenhouses, and now that the weather was warming up, she intended to spend her weekends clearing out what was left of the garden—seeing what was still alive and figuring out a design. After tax season she could work in the evenings as the days would be longer.

Jessica drove down Maymont Drive towards the stately gated entrance and exit. She waved at the guard and drove by the small town of Cramerton, but instead of heading out toward the highway, she drove through Belmont to the thrift store that benefitted the local hospital. Keeping her car running, she grabbed the tote, squashing the stab of guilt that she didn’t consult her sisters first, but really, magic couldn’t have anything to do with them, even magic that wasn’t real.

“Like there’s any other kind,” she reminded herself firmly, and seeing the spires on the Catholic church she’d attended since childhood, she hurried up the short flight of rough brick stairs and propped the tote against the door. She looked at the tea towel with the design of lavender flowers. Safer to leave it wrapped around the book, though it was one of her favorites. She’d buy another.

“Good luck,” she whispered, trying and failing to shove away the guilt that clawed at her. She hurried back to her car, ruthlessly crushing the temptation to run back and retrieve the book. Why should she? She loved to cook, but the book spooked her. And it had made her act uncharacteristically, hurting Chloe’s feelings, bruising her trust. And how had it appeared in her house overnight?

The Mayes were better without the book. Who knows who put that book in Grandma Millie’s? Maybe they’d wanted to put a curse on them.

“Okay, you’re thinking a little melodramatically,” she pep-talked herself and turned on a Trevor Noah podcast to distract her during the drive.

Still, she kept thinking of the book in the bag, abandoned on the doorstep.It’s a book, not a baby.Her stomach cramped and sweat broke out on her upper lip.

What was she doing, getting so worked up about the book? She’d done the right thing. But she’d always been more than a touch superstitious. She’d tried to logic her way out of her behavior—knocking wood, changing a direction when a black cat ran by or tossing salt over her left shoulder so no one would laugh at her.

Keeping the book might only encourage that behavior or paranoia.

No. The book had to go. It wasn’t as if she was getting rid of a Maye family heirloom. None of her sisters had recognized any of the recipes or handwriting in the old, falling-apart book.

Even as Jessica got on the highway leading to Charlotte, the questions nagged over Trevor’s smooth voice and his friend and co-podcaster’s Christiana’s more adamant statements.

Should she have instead returned the book to Grandma Millie’s outside mini library?

What if Chloe or Rustin wanted to borrow it again for inspiration for his new restaurant—the Wild Side?

What if Grandma Millie had placed it there by accident?

No, Grandma Millie wasn’t even losing one neuron to the advancing years.

But what if one of her sisters tired of their single status and wanted to try their luck with the book?

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