Page 1 of Under Daddy's Spell

Chapter One

“TWO HUNDRED FIFTY DOWN...” Tessa descended the ladder, moved it to the next section, and concluded as she climbed back up, “Only thirty-seven thousand, seven hundred fifty to go.”

Her evening staff, three part-timers who were college students from nearby Tulane, usually took care of this task during slow periods in the evenings. But she had two out on vacation before fall classes resumed next week. That left the most dreaded job in the store—dusting the nine hundred shelves, twelve end caps, numerous marketing displays and revolving racks, and the half-dozen sales tables up front holding her stock of thirty-eight thousand paperback and hardcover books—to whoever had time.

Today, that was her.

“Ah, the joys of being the boss,” she sighed as she retrieved her duster from the cleaning caddy.

Her method was as routine as the task. Starting at the section behind the register, she made her way from the top shelf down and always worked her way around the walls before moving to the center aisles then up front at the bestseller displays and clearance tables, coming full circle so nothing got missed.?

When she swept the long-handled Swiffer across the top shelf, she stirred up a gray powdery cloud that rained down on top of her. Tessa closed her eyes and mouth and waved a hand in front of her face, but she wasn’t fast enough. Her nose and throat burned already.

Then, the inevitable happened. She sneezed. Not once, but back to back to back to back. Four times in a row, which was always the case with her.

With tears streaming from her eyes, she blindly descended the ladder in desperate need of tissues.

She had to acknowledge that her method was only foolproof if everyone followed it. That amount of dust didn’t accumulate overnight. She’d have to remind the girls about the top shelf—yet again.

Once she’d stopped blowing and sniffling and crying, she headed to the bathroom to clean up. When she flipped the light on, she almost screamed at what she saw in the mirror. Her once auburn hair and her face were entirely gray, except for the black streaking her cheeks where her mascara had run.

She looked like something out of a horror movie.

As she thought about the filth covering her from head to toe, she recalled a discussion in science class years ago about the composition of dust. It not only included pollen, dirt particles, and carpet and clothes fibers, but bits of dead insects and human skin.

Tessa freaked out. Spitting, because it was on her lips and, dear god, her tongue, she flipped on the faucet and pumped her palm full of liquid soap. She scrubbed her face twice, and after ensuring her hands were meticulously clean, cupped and filled them with water to rinse out her mouth.

Drying her face with the scratchy brown paper towels didn’t add to her fun, but she was still covered and didn’t want more sticking to her wet skin. Next, she bent over and shook out her hair, ruffling her fingers through it to eliminate as much of the filth as possible. Lastly, she brushed off her clothes.

When she rechecked the mirror, her skin was a human flesh tone again, and her freckles, which she went to great lengths to conceal, shone through. That was easily fixed with a reapplication of makeup. Not so easy—her hair. The thick mass of curls stood out from her head in every direction, making it look like she’d spent the last hour in a wind tunnel.

Dear heavens, she’d never wrestle it into the controlled spirals she’d left the house with that morning. She needed a shower, but Kayla, her evening help, didn’t come in until four. Did she close and go home to clean up or wait?

She didn’t consider herself a necrophobe because who wouldn’t get the willies if covered in human skin, but the freaked-out, bug-averse, germa-phobe inside her screamed,go now!Her entrepreneurial side that couldn’t stand the thought of losing a sale wouldn’t consider it.

“Go to your happy place,” she told herself, “where bug bits and human skin floating around in the air don’t exist.”

Positive thinking only went so far.

Tessa didn’t stop gagging until she reached her office and stripped off her filthy clothes. She used her expensive exfoliating wipes to wash her neck, chest, and inside her ears. The thought of that was so disgusting, she used two more on her face—to be safe—then slipped into the spare blouse and skirt she kept on hand for emergencies such as this.

Actually, she had imagined spilled soup, not so much skin—

Back to gagging, she grabbed her makeup pouch out of her purse, and, forcing herself to think about anything else, she went to fix her face and try to do something with the hopeless situation of her hair.

Tessa didn’t have to worry about customers needing her while she was gone. The store was empty except for her.

It had entered the dead zone, the period between two and four o’clock each afternoon when traffic in the strip mall and, subsequently, her small independent bookstore, slowed to a trickle. It got so quiet sometimes she’d talk to herself. When she started answering, she’d sing. Since she was hopelessly tone-deaf, she didn’t dare with anyone around. But if they walked in on her off-key caterwauling, it was better than them thinking she had cracked up. Although her staff, who had done so more than once, would probably disagree.

Fifteen minutes later, she on the ladder again, dusting the same shelf but carefully away from her so she wouldn’t suffer another near-asthma attack. Slowed by straightening, returning the out-0f-place books to the correct section, and reshelving the few returns left by the register as she went, she’d only made it to the end of the first wall an hour later.

She was ready to start along the rear wall when she spied a hardcover on arts and photography tucked in the middle of self-help. Rather than climbing down and moving the ladder again—it was great for toning her legs, but she’d already made a dozen trips up and down—she stretched for it.

A deafening bang on the other side of the wall shook the shelves and the floor. It also startled Tessa so much that she jumped. Not a good idea while hanging off the side of a ladder three rungs up.

She teetered and grabbed onto one of the vertical section dividers that, unlike the shelves, was bolted into the wall.

Another bang was followed by a third. As she clung to her precarious perch, books thudded to the floor up and down the aisle.

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