Page 43 of Love's a Witch
“Smart,” I observed, bringing my mind back to the present. Something about being here, in this hallway with Knox, staring at this old painting, was causing a trickle of unease to drift across my skin. Pushing my sleeves up, I gestured toward the hallway. “Shall we crack on with this? I have more important things to do than come up with a marketing plan for you.”
“I can only assume you’ve never tried to hide magick in plain sight if you’re so quick to dismiss the work involved.” Knox continued down the corridor before stopping in front of a set of arched doors. Pushing them open, he strode inside while I did my best not to audibly gasp at the room.
Call me Belle, because I was more than ready to shack up with the beast if it came with the benefits of this home library.
Not one, not two, butthreerolling ladders were affixed to mahogany bookshelves that lined walls painted a deep forest evergreen, the rugs done up in muted shades of green and gold. Luxurious leather couches were tucked beneath a massive arched window that overlooked the forest and a deep ravine below us. One end of the room showcased a fireplace, a very important-looking desk for what I presumed were very important people, and a long worktable with several chairs clustered around it. Knox stopped at the table and gestured to it, but I shook my head.
Those leather couches were calling my name.
It took everything in my power not to leap onto a ladder and belt out a song, and I couldn’t help but trail my fingers over a fewrungs of one of the ladders as I passed by on my way to the couch. Somehow, I maintained a modicum of decorum that even I hadn’t known I possessed. Plopping down onto the soft leather seat, I let out a happy sigh and drifted my head back, my gaze going to the gold velvet curtains cocooning the windows.
Opulent yet understated, rich yet comfortable. I didn’t want to approve, yet I couldn’t help it. This room waseverything.
“Tea?”
“No, thanks, I’m good.” The sooner we got down to business, the quicker I could be on my way. But my thoughts couldn’t help but shift to other, more enticing ways to be spending a morning in this gorgeous library.
And I mean curled up with a good book, you heathens.
Except when Knox settled next to me, his knee lightly brushing my thigh, my thoughts did immediately go there as well.Guess I’ll retract that heathen thought.
“Here’s the challenge.” Knox waved a hand in the air, and I slunk deeper into the cushions as a 3-D image of Briarhaven appeared in the air. Cool party trick. Already I could imagine the number of spreadsheets and PowerPoints I could conjure in midair if I could harness my magick. Thinking about the fire earlier this morning, I winced and focused on the image of Briarhaven whirling gently in front of me. “Here we have Briarhaven. And around us we have villages tucked among the hills.” Knox expanded the virtual map to show the surrounding villages and the main motorway that connected us all.
Ominous clouds thundered in over rolling green hills, and snow began to drift down over Briarhaven like someone having upended a jar of powdered sugar. As snow began to pile up, the sun rose and set around the town, rain billowed in, and the hills turned golden with the arrival of autumn weather.
And still the snow continued.
“While us Scots are well used to mercurial weather, and often plan for all four seasons in a day, we’d be hard-pressed to explain away thesnow that has stuck to Briarhaven. You see, even if the snow popped by occasionally, that would be easier to explain away as typical moody weather than it would be to just have constant snow. There is nothing consistent about our weather, Sloane, even in our winters. The world will start asking questions, and as I’m sure you can understand, historically speaking that doesn’t go well for our people.”
Knox spoke of more than just us witches, but for all the magickals that had gone into hiding through the years until they learned to assimilate into everyday society. Or fled to live a hermit life tucked away deep in the hills somewhere. Which, essentially, was what Briarhaven had become.
A haven.
And I was disrupting it.
Wewere, but as the oldest, I did my best to shoulder the blame that came with it, even though my sisters insisted that I stop trying to protect them. If not me, then who?
And as much as it galled me to admit it, Knox was right. We had two choices: stay and help cover this curse to the outside world, or leave and figure out how to break our curse from afar.
Neither option was particularly appealing. I now had misfiring magick and was feeling completely off-kilter. Maybe I needed to be here, closer to what little roots I did have, and goddess help me, with a coven of women who might be able to have my back.
Yet I liked being the one to make the decisions for my little family. I liked being the one that kept everything together. But in one fell swoop, my newly found magick had tossed all sense of security I had in my life out the window. Now I felt bereft and powerless.
What also didn’t help matters was the gorgeous provost who was making me feel things that I decidedly did not want to feel.
Largely because I was certain that every woman who crossed his path likely had the same exact feelings as I did now.
The longing to feel his hands sliding up under my soft sweater, cupping me, his hands hot against my skin.
“Sloane?” I blinked as I realized that Knox had repeated my name twice now.
Reminding myself to not look directly at him, lest I fall under his beautiful-person spell again, I stared at the floating Briarhaven.
“You need to bring in snowmakers and host a winter festival.”
“Snowmakers?” Knox scoffed, and I bristled.
“Yes, snowmakers. Those machines they use to make fake snow with on the ski slopes? You need something very visible to explain away this amount of snow.”
