A Murder in the Making

Book 2: Magical Trinket Mystery

by Victoria Laurie

Genres: Amateur Sleuth

Synopsis

The latest mesmerizing novel in a new mystery series featuring the captivating Dovey Van Dalen, once the belle of 1840s Copenhagen, now a spellbound, magic-wielding mystic in present-day Washington, D.C., charged with recovering magical property from the unbound—by any means necessary.


Dovey didn’t expect to fall in love after the age of 200, yet she can’t stop thinking about Grant “Gib” Barlow, the gorgeous FBI agent who helped her crack her last case. A romance with an unbound is obviously a terrible idea, but for Gib, it could be fatal—because Dovey’s employer, Elric Ostergaard, arguably the most powerful mystic in the world, also happens to be her longtime lover.

Alas, Dovey’s efforts to steer clear of Gib become impossible when her best friend, fellow mystic, and unapologetic romantic, Ursula Göransdotter, tricks them into a lunch date—during which Gib is alerted that a fellow agent has been murdered in his own home. The state of the crime scene, and of the body, seem to defy logic—but Dovey immediately recognizes the Crushing Spell, which could only be cast by a supremely powerful mystic—like her boss. When another agent is killed in the same manner, Dovey races to find Elric for answers.

Meanwhile, the FBI body count rises, and it becomes clear that a rogue mystic is targeting the unbound agents, but why? What ensues is another missing magical trinket, a tense confrontation with Elric, a shocking discovery about Gib, and grave danger to all involved—forcing Dovey to navigate realm-crossing love triangles, supernatural power struggles—and ultimately, her own surprisingly vulnerable heart . . .

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 416

Sample

Lightning crackled across the sky, the light skittering along my bedroom walls and ceiling, illuminating shadows that were best left in the dark.

I reached over to my phone on the nightstand, lifting it to eye level. “Two a.m.” I sighed. It was hours before dawn and well before I could justify being awake and going about my day, finding any excuse to keep busy. Occupied. Purposeful.

My to-do list was getting dangerously short because I’d attacked it with vengeance every morning, afternoon, and evening the past few weeks. I’d cleaned gutters, painted the basement, sorted through closets, emptied, cleaned, and rearranged every cupboard, hung shelving in the garage, donated old items to charity, organized my trinket collection, and I was now down to scrubbing the grout in the bathrooms and recalking any weak spots.

And I’d be willing to do it all over again plus any other unsavory chore simply to avoid thinking about what I couldn’t stop thinking about.

Him.

As in Grant. Isaac. Barlow.

Gib.

I sighed again and rolled over, punching the pillow next to me in a small tantrum of frustration.

And longing.

Why? Why am I thinking about him again?!

Lightning pulsed into the room. Thunder roared seconds later.

I love the sound of thunder. I love how it begins with a crack like a branch breaking in the wind only to gain momentum and volume, the sound reverberating through the walls and windows, undulating along the landscape only to die in an echo.

I wondered for a moment how many thunderstorms I’ve lived through.

Thousands.

The math worked. Figuring fifteen to twenty thunderstorms a year, about average for southeastern Virginia, which had a similar climate to the parts of Europe I’d lived in, over the course of two hundred years. At a bare minimum I’ve lived through at least three to four thousand thunderstorms. Maybe more.

And even though I couldn’t remember all of them, or even most of them, of the ones I did remember, I couldn’t say that during any of them I’d ever felt this lonely.

This sad.

This … heartbroken.

Dovey Van Dalen, you are being ridiculous! I told myself.

And I was. But that didn’t help me push away all the feelings weighing heavily upon my heart.

I missed him.

I simply … missed … him.

Rolling over again, I stared up at the ceiling, waiting for another lightning strike. I didn’t have to wait long. Light sprayed across the room, dancing to the beat of the pelting rain.

I clenched my fists, wanting to alter reality in a way that didn’t leave me feeling so bereft, but I’d been over it and over it and there was no solution possible that could leave me even remotely hopeful.

I’d studied the problem dozens and dozens of times, and in no scenario that I imagined could I find a solution that worked.

Gib was an unbound. A mortal. Someone untouched by magical ability. He worked for the FBI, which meant interacting with him wasn’t simply risky; it was suicide.

For him more than me.

Elric Ostergaard, my lover, my employer, and my spellbinder, would never abide a suspicious unbound snooping into mystic business. As much as I wanted things to be different, the fact was that I am a mystic. I’m bound by a magical spell that grants me special powers beyond physics and chemistry, and a youthfulness that defies the imagination.

I mean, here I am, two hundred years old, yet I don’t look a day over thirty. And in my home are small treasures imbued with magical elements that make them quite useful to a mystic like me.

For instance, there’s a candle in a candlestick on my dining room table that, when lit, can burn for years and years while giving even the darkest rooms a bright yellow glow.

And there’s a snow globe on my nightstand that predicts the weather. Before turning out the light several hours ago, a silver glitter had tumbled about its interior, letting me know that what’d been a drizzle-filled day would continue to heavier rainfall overnight.

There’s also a bronze cuff in my jewelry case that lends me superhuman strength. When I wear it, I can lift a horse. And I know that because once, in 1858, I literally plucked my horse from out of the mud where her hind legs had become stuck.

But none of the magical trinkets in my home could alter the fact that I longed for a man who could never fit into my world, while a man who’d literally created my world held on to his romantic interest in me like a charm he found lucky.

In the weeks since I’d stopped all communication with Gib, I’d spun about at a frantic pace, tackling that to-do list with vigor just to keep from standing still long enough to think about how much I missed Gib’s smile. His voice. The cut of his biceps, chest, and waistline where his sweater clung to him like it adored him as much as I did.

The swagger in his gait.

The smell of his aftershave.

The gravel in the sound of his voice.

The long scar along his right index finger.

The fact that he is drop-dead gorgeous but holds no airs.

The way he smiles crookedly before delivering a wry bit of wit.

The times his whole face lights up at the sight of a homemade cheese Danish.

The way he understands fashion in the same way that I do—as a form of flirtation.

The slope of his brow hovering over gray eyes that turn to silver if the light is just right.

I missed all these small things and the sum of their total. And I’d never felt so lonely in all my two hundred years on this planet—one-hundred and eighty of which had been spent happily in the company of another man. But now, that relationship felt stale and past its prime and I dreaded the day that Elric would ask me how I felt about us. My binding spell would compel me to tell him the truth—it quite literally wouldn’t allow me even the smallest of lies where my feelings were concerned, and then he’d know for certain what I’m sure he already suspected. That I loved Elric, but I was no longer in love with him.

I was in love with someone else. And if Elric asked me who that someone was, I’d be compelled again to answer him truthfully, and that meant that unless I got over my feelings for Gib, he was in mortal danger because Elric wouldn’t stand for a competitor. Killing Gib was something he could easily fit in between his morning coffee and his first business meeting.

I doubted he’d need to be closer than a mile away to all but obliterate Gib’s very existence. And I’d be responsible. His death would lay firmly at my feet.

With another sigh I rolled onto my side to stare hopelessly out the window. The sounds of thunder and flashes of lightning had moved off into the distance as the storm traveled northeast, but the loud patter of rain remained.

“It’s the rain,” I muttered. Gib and I had bonded on a rainy day weeks ago, and the fact that we’d sparked a flame for each other during an investigation into a deadly magical trinket from my world being used to murder people in his hadn’t dampened that flame one iota.

Rolling to the other side to glance at the snow globe only deepened my misery. The globe showed the weather three, six, nine, twelve, and eighteen hours in advance. I’d once watched it flash snow, sleet, rain, rainbows, and a bright moon all in one go, but right now it simply displayed a fluttering of silver confetti on repeat, meaning it’d still be raining eighteen hours from now.

I’d have at least eighteen more hours to be reminded of that rainy day with Gib.

Sitting up in bed I reached for my phone. I hadn’t taken a proper vacation in years. “Someplace sunny,” I mused, opening the search engine. “Anyplace that doesn’t resemble D.C.”

A rustle to my left let me know that Bits, my enchanted little hedgehog, was stirring in his felt-lined bed. No doubt, all the noise of the storm and my own agitation were keeping him awake. “Sorry, picklepuss,” I whispered. “I’ll try to be quieter.”

A pink nose appeared from the felt to sniff the air, as if testing the truthfulness of that statement.

I went back to the phone screen. There was a flight leaving for Bali at noon. “Bingo,” I whispered. “And three seats left in first class.”

I was about to click on the seat I wanted when an incoming text overrode the image on the screen.

It’s nights like these that make me wish I hadn’t already cashed in that rain check.

Missing you.

I stared at the screen, my heart hammering away in my chest. How had he known I was awake? Had he known? Or was the storm the reason we were both awake and thinking of each other?

Tears stung my eyes, and I dropped the phone into my lap. The enthusiasm for a vacation vanished, and all I wanted to do was curl up under the covers and feel sorry for myself. Not something I’m accustomed to, mind you, but the situation called for it.

I spent the next several hours contemplating a response, everything from “Hope you’re well,” to “Stop texting me!” to “I miss you too.”

My mind kept circling back to that last one, and I’d grabbed my phone at least twenty times prepared to tap that message out, but the image of Gib dead on the ground, bleeding from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, kept me from making that mistake.

I’d once watched Gib die, and there hadn’t been anything I could do about it except rewind time, after which I’d barely managed to avoid watching him die a second time.

The first time had been hard enough. It’d destroyed me. It’d been a pain beyond anything physical I’d ever experienced, and in my two hundred years I’ve experienced excruciating physical pain, which still hadn’t compared to those moments after I’d watched the life seep out of Gib’s beautiful silver eyes.

I couldn’t go through that again, and if I reached out to him, if I even responded with anything more than silence, then I’d be risking that very thing.

I’d never recover if Elric murdered him, of that I was certain.

By six a.m. I was ready to leave the bed. Even with the remaining items on my to-do list, it wasn’t as if I had anything pressing to attend to—it’d been a slow couple of weeks for investigations—but I was nothing if not disciplined, and getting up at six was routine for me.

Still, there was little enthusiasm for it.

Donning leggings and a tank top, I made my way to the basement, where the treadmill—aka the dreadmill—awaited me.

I hate running inside. I barely tolerate running outside, but my profession—mystic investigator of missing magical trinkets—called for a certain physical fitness. I couldn’t even count the number of times I’d had to chase down an unbound determined to keep his or her new magical toy, and sometimes things got quite physical, which is why I’m also trained in a variety of martial arts.

But this morning the dreadmill was exactly what I needed.

I ran steadily for an hour and a half—ten miles. By the end I was soaked in sweat, my legs felt like rubber, and I badly needed coffee, but mentally at least, I felt better. A little less melancholy and a little more determined to stay strong.

Heading back upstairs I noticed Bits was up, and currently digging into the Cheerios box, which was laying on its side on the counter with a large bulge in the center and the distinct sound of crunching coming from inside.

I smiled and shook the box gently. “Scoundrel.”

The crunching stopped. I giggled and tipped the box up, peeking inside. Whiskers covered in Cheerios dust and two black eyes stared innocently back at me. His expression seemed to say, “I have no idea how I got here!”

I laughed and set the box back down on its side. “Have at it, Bitty, but I’m making pancakes.”

Rustling from the interior of the Cheerios box let me know I’d piqued his interest, and his nose appeared from the lid, sniffing the air.

“Blueberry,” I added, moving around the island to open the fridge and retrieve the milk, eggs, blueberries, and butter I’d need to create a breakfast feast for us.

When I turned, Bits was on the island, licking the Cheerios dust off his paws, an eager glint in his eye. My head swiveled from the box on the counter next to the fridge then back to the island, and I shook my head.

I’d never actually seen Bits teleport himself from one place to another. He always waited for my back to be turned, but someday, I vowed, I’d witness it firsthand.

Just obviously not today.

I chatted at him for the next several minutes, stirring the ingredients and setting the skillet on the stove.

“What should we do today, Bits?” I asked him, feeling less inclined by the second to do anything involving my to-do list.

His gaze flickered from the griddle back up to me and his expression seemed to say, “We’re eating pancakes, woman!”

I laughed and tapped the top of his thorny head. “Yes, yes, but after that. Or more specifically, what should we plan to do after I check in with Hyacinth?”

Hyacinth is Elric’s new assistant. She’d replaced his former assistant—and Hyacinth’s identical twin sister—Sequoia a few months earlier when Sequoia had “retired.” I didn’t know the particulars around Sequoia’s permanent absence, but in the mystic world, “retirement” is synonymous with “dead.”

As there’d been no move that I could discern on Elric’s part to avenge her death, I had to conclude that Sequoia’s demise had met with Elric’s approval, which was why it puzzled me that he would replace her with her twin sister, but then it was rumored that Sequoia and Hyacinth had never been especially close, so perhaps Hyacinth’s mourning period had been short-lived.

Being Elric’s personal assistant was a coveted job, after all.

If I were being honest, which this morning I was inclined to be, I didn’t much like Hyacinth. But I had somewhat liked her sister, even though Sequoia had always had an agenda—common among mystics—but hers always seemed to me to be especially pronounced. I’d never understood why Elric had trusted her in the first place, except for the fact that he’d been the one who murdered the twins’ binder—which in effect, set them free. They could never be controlled by their binding spell again.

Creating that debt had perhaps left him feeling more secure about Sequoia’s intentions than perhaps he should’ve.

As for Hyacinth, she was about as likely to betray Elric as she was to throw herself to one of Jacquelyn’s dragons. The outcome in both scenarios would’ve been the same. Painful and decidedly not quick.

In answer to my question, Bits’s gaze once again darted back and forth between me and the griddle. It was good to know that he was solely focused on the most important part of the day ahead—breakfast.

I sighed and flipped the pancakes. “Won’t be long now,” I assured him. He wiggled his nose.

An incoming text pinged my phone and I began to reach for it but hesitated. If it was another text from Gib, I didn’t know if I’d have the willpower to let it go unanswered.

Bits made his usual impatient chuffing noises while eyeing me sternly.

“It might be work,” I told him, and I crossed my fingers that it was. I needed a case to get my mind off my heartache.

It turned out that the text was from my best friend and fellow mystic, Ursula Göransdotter.

Good morning, stranger. Thought I’d check in with you as I haven’t heard from you in the past few days. No doubt you’re still hiding yourself away, moping.

I sighed and replied: Am I that transparent?

Only to me. Let me pull you out of that funk and take you to lunch today. There’s that lovely bistro at the north end that serves that marvelous lobster bisque you love.

I didn’t reply right away, mostly because I didn’t want to go anywhere or do anything that would require me to make much of an effort with my appearance, which wasn’t a good look on me, but Ursula was spot-on; I was in a definite funk, and I wanted to stay there for a while.

Please say yes, came the next text.

I smiled. She knew me too well.

Yes, I replied, rolling my eyes.

Ursula sent back a few celebration emojis and instructions to meet her at the bistro at one o’clock. Another impatient chuff from Bits had me setting the phone down to turn off the burner.

“More for you, Bitty,” I told him, plating only one pancake for myself, leaving the other entirely for him. The lobster bisque was indeed a favorite of mine, and it was so rich and creamy, I was glad I’d gotten in the ten-mile run.

After cleaning up the breakfast dishes and collecting a decidedly pudgier Bits, I headed upstairs to select an outfit.

“Goodness, I haven’t been out in public in weeks,” I told Bitty, setting him on the carpeted floor of my walk-in closet. He eyed me skeptically and I added, “The grocery store and the hardware store don’t count, and you know it. Now, what shall I wear?”

Bits stood up on two feet to sniff the air, wobbling a bit as he considered the choices in front of him. He then tucked himself into a ball and rolled slowly forward, stopping just underneath a pair of silk, candy-apple red, pleated slacks. I moved to the slacks and took them off the rack. “Bold choice, Bitty. Are we really doing bold for my first outing in weeks?”

Bits was already in motion again, rolling to the opposite side of the closet to pause right underneath a carmine-red mohair sweater with a mock turtleneck and wide sleeves. Cropped at the waist, it was an exquisite piece I’d picked up a decade earlier but had worn only a few times, so it still looked new.

“Red on red, eh?” I asked him. He was certainly pushing it given the funk I’d been in, but in his 170 years as my personal stylist, he’d never steered me wrong.

Bits made a chuffing noise again, then formed a ball for a third time and rolled right over to my extensive shoe collection. I knew which cranberry patent leather booties with a pointed toe he’d stop in front of before he did.

“I take it you’d like me to stand out in the crowd today, eh, picklepuss?”

Bits unfurled himself and rose up on two feet again, sniffing the air impatiently while I hesitated taking the sweater from its place on the rod.

I glanced doubtfully to my left, where I could see a corner of the window, peppered with raindrops, the weather continuing to accurately reflect my snow globe’s prediction.

I wanted to dress in charcoal grays and black accents, but Bits was perhaps right on target in that what I probably needed was a great big dose of eye-popping color to counterweigh the dull and dreary day.

I took the sweater off the hanger and walked the few steps over to him. Reaching for the booties, I gave in. “Okay, okay. You win. I will not shy away from color today, Bitty.”

When I had the booties in hand, however, I glanced down only to find the place he’d literally just been occupying … empty. He’d vanished.

Behind me I heard a scuffling sound and a glance over my shoulder showed me that he’d merely teleported himself into his felt snuggle located on top of my nightstand.

I chuckled. “Someday, you prickly beast, I’m going to catch you in the act.”

Bits made another chuffing noise. Obviously, he doubted it.

After parking a few meters from the entrance to the bistro, I pulled Luna’s visor down to check that my bold red lipstick—appropriately named Vixen—hadn’t smeared or stained my teeth.

Luna is my Porsche 718 Cayman in arctic gray. She was a birthday gift to myself, and she was still brand-spanking new. I adored the car and especially appreciated that the good-sized vanity mirror, lit with soft lighting, was enhancing some of my best features.

My mother was a celebrated beauty back in Copenhagen in the early 1800s. My father—a wealthy merchant—had reportedly paid a hefty price for her even though, technically, she should’ve gone to him with a sizable dowry.

My grandfather, however, hadn’t been an especially agreeable man so much as he’d been an especially greedy one. He’d raised three exquisitely beautiful daughters to the ripe old age of fifteen and auctioned them off one by one, each one’s price increasing in value as their beauty became more and more celebrated.

My mother had been the most beautiful of them all. In personality she was affectionate, thoughtful, and loving, and her death when I was only ten devastated me. We were so close, both in personality and in looks. Side by side, I could’ve easily passed for a younger version of her. As I grew older, there were people among the town that hadn’t heard of her passing that often mistook me for her.

Little had changed of my features in the past 18 decades; Throughout all those years I’d kept my wavy dark blond hair long and wore colors that complemented the warm ivory glow of my skin tone.

My brow was high but a pronounced widow’s peak kept it from feeling out of proportion, and the rest of my face angled nicely into a pleasing heart shape.

My eyes were rather deep-set, but their light blue irises glowed from the depths, especially in the right light.

I also had my mother’s nose and lips—perky and full. The last bit of good fortune she’d bestowed on me was a double row of straight, strong, white teeth.

On occasion, I’ve been accused of putting on airs, but the truth is that I’ve never felt more than a moment or two of insecurity because, in a strange way, the face staring back at me in the mirror has always been more my mother’s than mine. Seeing her there looking back at me often fills me with comfort. I adored Mama, and even after all this time, I still miss her deeply.

Fluffing up my hair a bit and dotting a little more red lipstick on my lips, I sat back to reassess my appearance. I smiled in satisfaction. Why I didn’t wear red more often was perhaps its own miscalculation.

Reaching for the umbrella on the passenger seat, I glanced quickly at my watch, noting that I was running late, but then, Ursula was never on time, so I had still likely beat her here.

It’d been a while since I’d seen my dear friend—scratch that, my best friend. At least a few weeks, which was another oversight I was finding myself happy to rectify today. I hoped that she’d been having a bit of fun with her on-again, off-again love interest, Dex—a mystic I genuinely like, save for the fact that, while he treated Ursula like a queen whenever they were together, we all knew he was in love with his partner, Esmé Bellerose.

Esmé and Dex were thieves who’d officially become employees of SPL Inc. (Elric’s business front) several weeks back—right around the time I’d first met Gib, in fact.

While Elric had assigned me to investigate the theft of trinkets by the unbound, Esmé and Dex stole trinkets from other mystics to add to Elric’s personal collection.

Ursula is also employed by SPL, and I am perhaps the only other mystic besides Elric who knows what she does for him, and that is a secret I’ll gladly take to my grave. Suffice it to say that Elric’s wife, Petra Dobromila Ostergaard, has been losing a few IQ points the past decade, making her just a wee bit less able to outsmart her husband.

My best friend is significantly older than me, and it’s rumored that Elric is responsible for her binding, which I know happened perhaps in the early eleventh century. Ursula remembers little of her homeland or her parents and siblings. The longer a mystic lives, the less likely it is that they’ll remember their unbound days. She firmly believes, however, that she came from the Duchy of Brittany because she distinctly remembers the news of the death of Duke Geoffrey I, who ruled over her homeland in the early 1000s, reaching her village, and the fear that Geoffrey’s son, Alan III, was too young to stand against other rebellious counts in the region who would’ve thought nothing of trampling the village—loyal to Geoffrey and Alan—on their way to stake a claim for power.

It was near that time when she was bound, leaving the troubled, turbulent world of the unbound behind.

For much of her early life as a mystic, she made her living as an artist—both a painter and a sculptor—talent which allowed her to float among the various mystic courts, collecting gossip to report back to Elric as his loyal spy. A job that very nearly had her beheaded a time or two.

Along with being a talented artist, my friend is also a rather famous potion specialist—she can brew a love potion that you’ll remember fondly forever. She’s also a respected linguist, fluent in perhaps fifty different languages.

Dumb, she ain’t.

However, a celebrated beauty in her own right, she definitely is.

Since the 1960s she’s been constantly compared by nearly every unbound of a certain age to Brigitte Bardot, and I have to chuckle each time an unbound mentions this because in 1978 Ursula attended a cocktail party where Ms. Bardot was present, and it’s rumored the movie star left early because she could no longer claim to be the most beautiful woman in the room once Ursula arrived.

As I reached the entrance to the bistro, the door was held open for me by an elderly gentleman on his way out. He tipped an imaginary hat as I smiled and thanked him. Heading to the hostess stand I wasn’t surprised to see the restaurant’s sparse lunch crowd. The rain was keeping everyone indoors, chained to their desks today.

“Hello,” I said, greeting the hostess.

Her eyes flickered over me. “Wow,” she said, before I could say more. “Your look is exactly the color we need in here today. I’m so sick of this rain!”

I laughed lightly. “I wish I could take credit for selecting this ensemble, but my stylist did all the work.”

“Professional stylist?”

I winked conspiratorially. “Of a sort. Anyway, I’m probably the first of my party here. I’m meeting a friend, and the reservation might be under her name, Ursula Göransdotter.”

Ursula had chosen her surname to honor her mystic mentor, Göran the Terrible, who, according to Ursula, was only terrible to his enemies.

“Oh yes,” the hostess said. “They’ve arrived. This way.”

My brow furrowed slightly when the hostess referred to Ursula as “they” but then I thought about it. Using the “they” pronoun as a default was rather clever and helped to avoid the potential for insult.

I followed along as we wound a circuitous route through the restaurant all the way to the back right corner and, sitting in the booth, there they were.

And by “they” I mean Ursula and Gib.

His back was to me as we approached, but there was no mistaking that copper blond hair, those gorgeously broad shoulders, and that seductive aftershave.

My breath caught and I stopped in my tracks as a tightfisted panic clenched in the center of my chest. Should I turn tail and walk straight back out of this restaurant and never speak to Ursula again?

I mean, she knew I’d been doing my level best to avoid Gib. She knew how hard the past month and a half had been for me, and how many weak moments I’d had, holding my phone, staring down at it, my finger hovering over the keyboard unable to think of anything to text him, but wanting to simply connect with him again. But for his own safety, I couldn’t. And she knew that too.

“Dovey!” I heard Ursula call, and my gaze snapped up from the hold it had on Gib’s broad shoulders to find hers, locked on me, a smile plastered to her lips and a scoundrel’s glint in her eye.

I will kill you, I mouthed right before I noticed Gib stiffen, then turn his head sharply.

I couldn’t help but stare at him, reading every emotion that flashed across his face like the lines in a poem we’d both been reciting.

Surprise, to see you,

Relief, you are near,

Desire, I keep for you,

Hurt, you made clear,

Hope, I still have for us,

But loss I still fear …

Then, after those first fleeting moments, Gib adopted a brief, forced smile, calming the tumble of emotions reflected in his eyes and expression.

I quickly mirrored him, before focusing fully on the other person at the table.

“Ursula,” I said flatly, offering her only the slightest nod. She’d set me up and she’d no doubt set Gib up too, given the way he’d stiffened when Ursula had called to me. My best friend was a scoundrel of the highest order.

Smiling winningly back at me, she pretended not to notice the fury in my eyes, jumping up from her seat to wrap me in her arms, squeezing me tight. “It was for your own good,” she whispered.

I patted her numbly on the back and pulled away. I’d have to think up an excuse—a reason not to stay—but as I turned to nod and smile politely at Gib, all semblance of intelligent thought went right out the window when he stood up to offer me a warm smile and his hand.

Dressed smartly in navy blue jacket, turtleneck, and polyblend joggers, he’d styled his all-navy-blue attire with suede, sand-colored fatigue boots and the cologne that had haunted my dreams. I took his hand, and he covered it with his other one. “Looks like I still had some credit in the rain check account after all,” he said with a wink.

I wanted to cry … as in, I literally wanted to cry, and my eyes did, in fact, water a bit. I’d been awful to Gib. I’d ghosted this lovely man, disappearing from his life without explanation, knowing I’d hurt him terribly, and yet here he was holding my hand both gently and warmly, effortlessly evaporating the awkwardness from this encounter.

I swallowed hard and cleared my throat. “It’s nice to see you, Gib.”

“Nice to be seen, Dovey.”

Ursula waved to her side of the booth. “Dovey, take a seat next to me. Gib arrived just before you and we were catching up.”

I release