Page 8 of Strings Attached
Watching her, I can imagine her playing the cello that currently leans in its case against a corner alongside her suitcase. I can imagine her grip tightening around the bow, herbody swaying with the music, those graceful fingers drawing out notes like she’s pulling magic from the strings. I shift in my seat because I don’t understand this magnetic attraction I feel toward her and I don’t like things I can’t explain.
Margaret’s hand drops. She looks back over her shoulder like she can feel my discomfort. With a shift of her hips that twirls her dress around her legs, she walks over to the desk. Those graceful fingers reach out again, pausing before touching the silver-framed photo I keep faced away.
“Oh, you have a sister too.”
The mint taste of memory magic strengthens again and turns bitter. I open a drawer to find a cinnamon-flavored mint to pop into my mouth. Anything to rid myself of this lingering taste of the past.
“I’m not the one being interviewed.”
She grins and settles into the chair across from me, all graceful movements but her eyes promise mischief.
I pull out the form and lift my pen. “So what exactly brings you to Magnolia Cove?”
I need to get through these questions as efficiently as possible and get this woman out of my office and preferably my life—quickly.
She tilts her head, studying me like I’m something worth looking at. No one has looked at me like that in years—like I’m someone they want to understand rather than avoid. The back of my neck prickles as she speaks.
“Besides my sister’s upcoming wedding?” A pause occurs while she whirls a ring on her pinky finger. “Well, there’s this grumpy bureaucrat who seemed like he could use someone to practice his scowling on and that feels like a noble use of my sabbatical time.” She smirks. “You’re doing great, by the way. Very intimidating. Do you rehearse your expression in the mirror?”
“Miss Sinclair?—”
“Missy,” she interrupts smoothly, her grin widening. “Since we’re on a first-name basis now, Dean.”
She says my name like she’s tasting it, like it’s a piece of music she’s considering how to play. The electric feeling increases. I’m certain if I reach out to touch the paper now, a static shock would leap up and shock me.
She twirls a strand of golden hair around her finger. “Besides, you’re deflecting. You’ve avoided my question about if you practice in the mirror.” She leans forward and whispers. “You can tell me. I’m great at keeping secrets.”
“You also seem to excel at sneezing in strangers’ faces.”
A whisper of red washes over her nose but she falls back into a chair with a laugh. “I’m a woman of many talents, Dean.”
And that’s exactly what I’m afraid of. The way she notices too much, asks too many questions, and already seems to draw toward anything radiating with magic. Like me.
The magic under my skin pulses. It’s becoming so untethered it should throb in my temples and ache into my bones, but it’s not. It’s simply rushing through me, like it’s responding to her presence, even though she’s a regular human. Or maybe because she is one. The dangerous ones always are—the ones who can peer through our carefully constructed illusions, who find the cracks in our magical concealment. After all, her sister had done the same.
“And,” she says, “you still haven’t answered.”
I think of Emma’s raw power this morning, of Nell’s broken heart a decade ago, and clear my throat. “Anything done with excellence requires practice.” I deadpan the response but she smiles, anyway. Without taking a breath I continue, “You’re planning to stay for how long?”
Her eyes are warm honey when they meet mine. She looks at me straight in the face—the way even most witches and warlockswon’t. “That depends. How long does it usually take to make you crack a smile? Because now it’s become a personal challenge.”
Her fingers dance against her armrest. I track the motion, their rhythm and sway. A shiver slips down my spine and I force my gaze back down to the blank page.
“Your touring partner, Jules Bouchard…” Her smile drops and her eyebrows rise and I’m pleased to have surprised her. “Will he visit during your stay?”
A shadow settles over her expression and she finally shifts those intense eyes away. “Not likely. Jules isn’t exactly the small-town type.”
“And you are?”
A dangerous question. An unnecessary question. Yet, I can’t regret asking it.
She meets my gaze again. “I could be.”
The air thickens with unspoken meaning. In another life, with different choices, this might have led somewhere else. I’ve seen that expression before—dim corners, whispered invitations—but this is different. There’s something genuine in how she holds my gaze, how she says my name like a gift instead of a conquest.
If I were someone else—someone without regrets, without past mistakes—I might lean closer. I might learn if her laugh feels as musical up close as it does across the room.
But I am who I am. Head Warlock of Magnolia Cove. Keeper of secrets. Already destroyer of one sister’s happiness. And she is who she is—human, perceptive, dangerous.
