Page 107 of Witches of Honeysuckle House
“If that’s okay with your mom.” Florence wasn’t quite ready to be alone.
“You know there’s always a place for you here,” Evie said. “Your old room …?”
But Florence shook her head. There were too many hard memories behind those walls.
“You can stay in my room!” Clara said.
Florence’s eyes strayed toward Owen.
“I think your aunt might want her own room tonight,” Evie said. “Why don’t you take the Honeysuckle Suite. It’s on the second floor above the kitchen—the one with the bay windows.”
“That sounds perfect,” Florence said.
Evie stood from the table and reached for Clara. “Come on, honeybee. I’ll tuck you in.”
“Where’s Angela going to stay?” Clara asked.
Evie and Angela shared a smile.
“In Mommy’s room,” Evie said.
Clara looked from her mom to Angela then back to her mom before she nodded. “A best friend for kissingandsleepovers.”
“I know someone who’d love to have a sleepover with you,” Florence said as she lifted Ink from her lap and handed him to her niece.
Clara held him close, and he rubbed his head against her chest. “Come on,” she said to him, “I never got to show you my room.”
Once the kitchen was empty, Florence turned to Owen. She took a step toward him, and when he opened his arms, she relaxed into his hold. They stood there for several long moments, the smell of chocolate and nutmeg and cinnamon all around them, and though Florence had lost someone dear to her, she didn’t have to bear that loss alone. Owen pressed a kiss to the top of her forehead. She pulled back and looked up into his eyes. There, she found an open sort of kindness that she was finally coming to realize wasn’t only something she wanted in her life, but something she deserved.
“I know you have your own room here,” she said, the words slow and careful. “And I know it’s still early between us, but it might be nice to not have to sleep alone.”
His lips curved up into the same grin that had first gotten her in trouble with him when he’d taken her sister’s job offer and walked into her shop.
“Are you asking me to bed, Florence Caldwell?”
She rolled her eyes but flushed. “Not like that. Not tonight anyway, and certainly not in my sister’s house.”
He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Then, he pressed his lips to her cheekbone, just below her eye, where her witch’s mark had once been, and said, “Don’t worry. You don’t have to be alone tonight.”
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Evie, Now
The morning of the fourteenth came in a burst of color, the sunrise the most beautiful Evie had ever seen. Where in years past the house would’ve opened a window wide and called her to the glass with a soft breeze, this time it was Angela who gently shook Evie awake.
“We need to get going if you still want to make the honey harvest happen,” Angela whispered from where she lay behind Evie.
Evie rolled over to face her and wrapped her arms around her. Their foreheads pressed together, then their lips. Angela was safe, and so was Evie. But that didn’t mean Evie was ready to let her go.
When they finally broke apart, it was only because Evie’s door opened with a bang and a “Mom! Time to get up!”
They spent the morning calling the festival committee. Each conversation brought with it a sigh of relief—and disbelief—that for the first time in seventy-eight years, no one had been harmed at Honeysuckle House.
The curse was finally broken. The cycle their grandmother started had come to an end.
Most of the tourists had already left, but that didn’t stop the town from celebrating. Their neighbors filled the lawn outside the bed and breakfast. While Owen worked the honey extractor in the front roomwith Florence at his side, Evie helped her neighbors make their own candles in the workshop.
At sunset, they lit a large fire out behind the house and gathered around making s’mores dipped in honey and sipping cider and telling their neighbors the full story of what had happened behind the walls of their house.
