Second Time's a Charm

by Taylor Epperson

Genres: Literary Fiction

Synopsis

Returning home after years away, Reece is going to have to avoid her assassin ex-boyfriend as she learns to care for the magical creatures now under her protection.

Three years ago, Reece McCarthen solved her problems the best way she could think of: running as far as possible. Abandoned by her childhood sweetheart, she left her gossiping small town, heartbreak, and emotionally distant father in the past. Now, she's happy if not just a bit bored running a magical flower shop with her best friend. Until she receives notice that she’s inherited her father's sanctuary for magical creatures.
 
Reece heads back to her cozy, magical town of Honey Brooke that unfortunately still hasn’t gotten over that one teeny, tiny fire incident when she was a teenager. What should've been a calm, quiet homecoming turns into chaos incarnate when Reece comes face-to-face with the reason she left in the first place: Laken Augustus. Her ex-boyfriend who seems to have grown up to also be a part-time assassin.
 
It's one tragedy after another, from dodging fire-spitting chickens and a poisonous porcupine to bolting after a runaway raccoon and realizing Laken is the only person who knows how to run a magical sanctuary. Not only did her father leave her with a whole slew of problems, but poachers are lurking in the shadows. Now Reece finds herself knee-deep in feathers, mud, and an inconceivable amount of debt. To save the sanctuary, she will have to work side-by-side with Laken.

Release date: April 21, 2026

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 400

Sample

If you happened to peek into Dirty Hoes Flower Co.’s window, you wouldn’t be drawn to our dancing lilies waving in their pots or the aesthetic wall of glass vases. The fresh, clean scents wouldn’t lure you in. And you definitely wouldn’t feel calm or at peace, despite the lavender. Instead, you’d be focused on the two women in the back, stacked on top of one another, screaming, swatting, and swearing—profoundly.

Why? I wish I had a better answer.

Maggie’s shoulders wobbled under my weight as she held my legs and I tried to reach the top shelf of our hardware room—a room we never went in because we didn’t know how to fix shit anyway. It was more of a neglected closet than anything. Dark wood shelves lined the small space filled with pot liners, planting gloves, clippers, and cleaning supplies. The cracked, beige tiles creaked under us. With no light or windows, I couldn’t see but continued reaching into the abyss.

“Stand still,” I groaned, stretching my arm over a dust-covered shelf looking for a damned pitchfork. A pitchfork to help catch the creature in the greenhouse. Because we were obviously experienced enough to do so.

“Reece,” she grumbled, “hurry up or my back is going to hurt worse than when Henry—”

“Nope,” I called down. “That’s enough. I don’t”—I grunted—

“need to know what Henry did to your back.”

“Fine,” Maggie whimpered, “but hurry up.”

“If you’d quit moving.”

“I can’t quit moving.” Maggie kept mumbling beneath me as my fingers began to lose feeling from holding on to the lip of the shelf. Looking for a better grip, something far worse caught my eye.

Not the pitchfork.

It was a spider crawling in a direct beeline for my head.

“Oh, fuck!” I yanked back, and with me, Maggie lost any sense of balance she’d held on to. Heart in my chest, I snapped my jaw shut and swallowed. If I didn’t, I’d puke. Only the flames of hell created such things, and we’d already had a morning. I curled my toes in my boots, stressed and clinging to the soles.

Vaguely aware of Maggie screaming, I swatted, thrashed, and slapped until I no longer saw the beast.

“What in the world?” She gradually regained her balance, no longer swaying me.

Between post-panicking breaths, I managed to get out the word “Spider.”

She tightened her grip on my legs. “Where did it go?” The nervous rasp in her throat increased.

Truthfully, I didn’t know where it fell. But I’d have rather not told Maggie that. My hand brushed a wooden handle, and I almost cried out with joy.

“Found it.” A loud clatter to the floor told her as much. Glancing down as I dropped the pitchfork, making sure my friend stood clear of the danger zone, I saw that atop her brown curls sat the too-many-legged creepy crawler. Cursed carnations. “Maggie, get me down.”

Hysterically, I grabbed for something to hold on to, anything. “Get me down. Get me down. Get me down.” This is the end, I thought as I fought for my Gods-damned life.

“Reece!” Maggie screeched. “Oh my Gods, what’s wrong now?”

I leapt from her shoulders, wrapping my hand around the top of the door frame, and prayed to any God listening to keep me alive for ten more minutes. Ten more minutes and everything would be back to normal.

My life flashed before my eyes, and dust blew up from the ground where I crashed, but the world finally slowed. Glaring up at a very confused Maggie, I took in her round, brown eyes and knew they’d soon glow red with hatred. “There’s a spider in your hair.”

One inaudible scream later, she zoomed out of the room, smacking away at her curls.

With the pitchfork next to me, I took several deep breaths and tried to relax, knowing this should’ve been the easy part. Behind me, footsteps stormed from one end of the shop to the other. The yelling faded and Maggie’s fit ended with two slightly less angry eyes hovering above me.

“Got the bastard.” The look of victory painted her features. Dark, feathered lashes encircled her eyes, naturally rosy cheeks flushed against her brown skin. Maggie had always been the epitome of sunshine and everything else good in this world. The longer she stared at me from her stance, the harder I tried to hold back the muffled laugh blowing up my cheeks until I couldn’t any longer.

“Come on, now.” She reached out a hand. “We’ve got a rodent to catch and ten minutes until the store opens on our busiest day of the year. Best get our shit together.”

I took her hand, smiled, and pulled until I stood eye to eye with her. “Our shit is never together.”

That much remained true as we stood outside with our backs against the glass wall of our greenhouse.

Most flower shop owners lock their greenhouses, but sometimes… the owners have really bad days and accidentally end up on the store floor with a bottle of wine, leading them to forget. And when they forget, the enchantment hiding the greenhouse from creatures fades. And when that happens…

“Do you think it’s in there?” Maggie aggressively whispered, gripping the empty trash can and lid she held to capture the creature.

“I don’t know, why don’t you look?” Sweat poured from my body. Stress sweat. The worst sweat.

Maggie pinched her nose. “Didn’t you grow up at a magical sanctuary for animals?”

“Yes,” I argued in a hushed voice, “and there is a reason why I’m here.”

Right? There must be a reason. A reason I left my home, my father, and his magical sanctuary behind me. A reason I ran a flower shop with my best friend instead. A reason I never looked back. Maybe not a “good” reason but…

The shattering of a pot yanked my attention off of my past. Time ticked. I gripped the pitchfork and locked eyes with Maggie, signaling with two wiggling fingers the plan: I’d enter, throw the pitchfork, and when the creature ran out, she’d capture it in the trash can.

Somehow, she understood.

Being the only child of a mostly absent father and deceased mother, I became used to doing things myself—whether it was getting groceries, fixing broken bookshelves, running errands, or cooking dinner. And I felt glad for it, because currently Maggie resembled a stray puppy frozen with fear. I wasn’t the parent friend, but more accurately the “Fuck it; I’ll do it myself” friend. With a last blow of breath, I turned over my shoulder and crossed the threshold.

Scents of lavender and roses filled my nose. Two middle aisles separated the room and limited my field of vision. Walls were edged with troughs of greenery, succulents, and overhanging vines. On our middle shelves, our few magical plants grew. We kept three in our inventory: dancing lilies, luck-me-nots, and snapping dragons.

The lilies wave in the sunlight, wiggling and dancing, which is why we put them in the window of the shop. Luck-me-nots are more for fun; you pick a petal then ask it a yes-or-no question. If the petal grows back, it’s a yes. If not, it’s a no. Snapping dragons are nearly identical to snapdragons, but they make snapping noises with golden sparks when touched.

Most magical plants and flowers are too high maintenance for demand. Ones used for cures are kept by medics. Ones used for cooking are kept at taverns or sold at markets. We’d had singing irises, but they had a problem of singing whenever they wanted—until I took clippers to their stems one night.

Edging down the right, I checked each new inch of visibility. The little bastard hid somewhere. Raxxens are hellish creatures—large rats with six legs instead of four and a nasty set of razored teeth. Their appetite led them to our plants; hence, the enchantment.

One more corner remained to be checked, and my bones were trembling like a damned scared-shitless deer stuck on the path of a speeding carriage. I hate this job. Maggie owes me so much for this, she’d better—

I turned the corner and there it stood, nibbling on leaves. Gray wired hair rose along its spine as its stomp-able little head snapped toward me. Hellfire eyes poured into mine and I didn’t take another moment to look at its six legs. I launched the pitchfork to frighten it, turned, and hauled ass.

In those few seconds, time slowed. Ceramic fractured behind me, but I didn’t look. I locked my sight on Maggie and ran as if it’d latched on to my ankles.

Vaguely, I heard Maggie chanting I’m-scared-for-my-own-life phrases and run-for-your-life phrases. And when my feet reached the door, I hurdled over her trash can as if I’d been a horse in another life, putting every muscle in my body to work because I’d be damned if that thing touched me.

I landed in the cold, cobblestone alley directly beside the trash can, only to turn back around at my friend’s hollering. Already, the alley’s smell of rotten garbage slammed my senses—the bowels of our beloved town.

“Oh my Gods, oh my Gods, what do I do? What the fuck do I do?” Maggie slammed the lid shut and parted her mouth as if torn between bawling her eyes out and puking all over the place.

Rushing to her, I pressed down on the top. “Go, go, go!” I nodded to the wooden fence bordering the woods. We waddled over, carefully holding the trash can between our shaking arms and legs. Sweat formed along Maggie’s hairline; her wide eyes focused on the lid.

I didn’t blame her; stress sweat soaked my clothes and even the butterflies in my stomach were having panic attacks. My hands grew clammy during our stagger, and I half wanted to launch the entire damned thing. But we didn’t; we made it to the fence.

“Okay, lift it carefully,” my voice trembled.

“Okay… okay… okay,” Maggie repeated.

Unfortunately, as with the shelf inside, we came up several inches short. The raxxen shifted, and a chill shocked my spine.

“Throw it! Throw it over!”

I yelled.

Maggie yelled.

We bent down, jumped, and chucked our trash can into the woods.

I ran.

Maggie ran.

You’d think running a floral shop would be all fun and games, cutting stems and making bouquets, but that’d be entirely incorrect and too good to be true.

And we had a store to open.

Two messy globs of frizzy hair and exhausted independence sank onto the floor of the shop behind the desk—after we went back and locked the greenhouse. Despite going to battle approximately thirty seconds ago, Maggie looked like the sunshine main character of every story. Her curls were naturally beautiful and alluring, while mine were frayed and resembled a lion’s mane on a bad day—at least they did at that moment. Her eyes were pools of liquid brown like honey, mine were… seaweed green.

Her dresses were pastels and creams, mine were the darker shades. She wore pointed flats with straps, I lived in my leather boots and embroidered socks. Even in that moment, Maggie wore an orange dress tied in a loose bow across her chest. I wore my mauve one with a brown corset embroidered with flowers. Cute, yes, but two different people. If someone came in searching for a lost princess, I’d believe them if they told Maggie it was her.

Maggie, my best friend of three years, never seemed out of place, because she never was. This might’ve been our flower shop, but at its heart stood Maggie. Her strands of hair hanging loose appeared as though she’d put them there. Her chaos was… peaceful. Maggie knew exactly who she was, what she wanted, how to get it, and where she belonged.

Whereas I was more the type of person who never knew what I wanted, who I was, or where I belonged.

I thought I did, once upon a time. As a child, I saw it clearly, my future at the sanctuary with my family. Then when my mother passed, that future crumbled along with everything else. But I still had home, I still had Honey Brooke—until I didn’t. Not after the incident. Which led me here, clueless and sweating on the floor of a magical flower shop.

A flower shop where I’d built a new life for myself, one I truly loved and adored, yet still felt something missing. I still felt lost.

We sat there for the entire two minutes we had to spare, straightened our dresses, and opened the doors to the line of customers waiting outside.

Rusty brick walls trapped the early morning sun from outside, casting a pink and orange hue over the beige tiled floors. Because Maggie believed strongly in aromatherapy, scents of lavender and eucalyptus were woven heavily through the air. Our wall of hanging glass vases drew plenty of attention, as always. Tin buckets on the ground poured out with shades of orange, yellow, pink, and white. Dancing lilies waved in the window, welcoming the sun and customers. Above them, wind chimes and suncatchers hung. Tables were filled with hydrangeas, orchids, marigolds, and tulips—our stock of nonmagical flowers. A small room in the back displayed our selection of gardening tools, gloves, aprons, and seeds.

I couldn’t ever have decorated our shop as beautifully as Maggie did. Considering my favorite colors were green and yellow, it would’ve come out looking like our bathroom on a rough night after bottomless margaritas at Louie’s downtown. As we opened, people came in and people went out, hands full of petals and greenery. It’s the same every Mother’s Day. Fathers with their children, young adults, employees kissing ass to their female bosses. Women buying themselves flowers because they could. Behind my smile, my chest tightened. Despite not celebrating the holiday in fourteen years, the pain remained. Maggie handled the preorders, taking the majority of our business, and I wrangled the last-minute stragglers—probably because that’s where I’d be, too.

Sometimes their eyes would catch on me, trying to figure out if I worked there or not. Whether it be the leather boots, frilly ghost socks, typically crooked apron, or cluelessness about anything they asked me that made them question, I’d grown used to it. Don’t get me wrong, I knew how to do my job as well as the next guy. It just didn’t come as naturally.

Maggie would stay working in the shop all hours of the day, ass crack of dawn to the haunted hours of the night. I, on the other hand, had already thought about what book I’d read when we locked up. Maybe one of my romance novels, a light and fluffy one making me forget how much love hurts. With that reminder, I debated one to make me cry. Or perhaps a thriller to make my skin crawl and keep me awake all night; that way I could blame the book and ignore my anxiety a little longer. Oh, I remembered: I’d started an enemies-to-lovers, and the slow-burn had finally started burning. Not a bad-ow-I-regret-this burn, but a good burn. Like the burn that roasts your marshmallows for s’mores kind of burn. Except… not. Or simply add in a bantering, bickering couple. Okay, maybe that wasn’t the best comparison.

Either way, I dreaded reading any further, because once the characters stopped being enemies, the fun would die and I’d lose interest. What that said about me, I chose not to analyze.

Standing behind our small desk, overly crowded by sticky notes, I came back to reality and began to write up this man’s ticket. He seemed decent, probably close to my age, though the thick cologne made me second-guess. Dark hair, close shave, and strong jaw. I cringed as he tried to force a conversation. I hated small talk.

“So do you have any Mother’s Day traditions?”

“Yeah,” I started without sparing him a look. I’d messed up the two on his receipt and felt like screaming. I didn’t, though. “Every year I dig up my mother’s grave and—” When I finally did pull my gaze up, my attention was immediately drawn to the dark-blond, broad-shouldered man entering our shop. The bell above the door rang. My hands clenched. My fingers cramped and I dropped my pencil. I couldn’t breathe as my stomach contorted as if trying to rip apart my heart, and I forgot the man speaking to me.

But the blond turned, and it wasn’t who I’d thought it was. Who I’d wanted it to be? Who I’d feared it to be? I wasn’t sure which fit more accurately. It wasn’t him.

It’d been three years since I’d seen Laken Augustus, so why did I look for him in every crowd? In every dark-blond, broad-shouldered man?

I shook the thought from my head, recovering my place in the conversation. “I’m sorry, what was I saying?”

The man, bug-eyed and frowning, said, “You were at the part about digging up your mother’s grave.” He swallowed.

Oh. “Oh, yeah, it’s a grand time.” I smiled and handed him his bouquet. He might as well have run away with his tail tucked.

Small talk might not have been my expertise, but I didn’t mind the flower shop. It was a good career. Dirty Hoes was technically owned by Maggie alone. I just comanaged it. I’d been there since opening, but ownership wasn’t something I felt ready to take on. We made good money, and I worked alongside my best friend every day. What more could one ask for? It wasn’t as if I wanted to finally feel like I’d found my place in the world. I’d adapted to being the odd one out, the messy chaotic one running behind with half a shoe on, the one who never knew where she’d left off in her books. I’d be fine.

Laken Augustus may not have walked in… but the bell rang again and someone else I recognized did. Alaric Parrington—the business commissioner from my hometown, Honey Brooke. I’d recognize his deadpan stare anywhere, his cold gray eyes, his slicked-back peppered hair. The glasses he wore for appearances. Across his black pants, he carried a brown satchel. New and sharp edged. And in his hands—a letter.

My gut dropped into whatever hell lay below.

I knew what that letter would say.

It’d say it was time for me to return home. To Honey Brooke. To my past. To my father’s sanctuary for magical creatures. To everything I’d left behind me.

And I wasn’t ready for that.

My father never tried to be a consistent man, rarely a stable figure in my life. But two things never changed: he loved his work more than anything, and he planned to leave for an adventure to find something more. Why? I had no clue, and I didn’t care.

But if I said I’d rather have my irritable bowel syndrome kick in while stuck in a crowded room with no lavatory in sight than go home—I wouldn’t be joking.

The door to our office creaked open a sliver as Maggie slipped in.

“What are you doing?” Maggie’s voice startled me where I’d been hiding, surrounded by unfinished paperwork and unorganized receipts.

“Is that guy still out there?” I nodded toward the shop, pressed against the wall as if it could hide me further.

Maggie tilted her head. “The one with a scary gaze and satchel who came in right before you barreled in here and slammed the door shut? Yes, he is. Do you know him?”

“He’s from my hometown.”

When her eyes widened, it was obvious she knew exactly how dire this had to be if he’d come out to hunt me down here. “The hometown you accidentally set on fire?”

Ah, there was that. You accidentally burn down one town center and get labeled an arsonist. “Yes,” I whisper-yelled. “That would be the one. And it wasn’t me, it was the hellblazers.”

The fire-spitting chickens.

“Well, what does he want?”

Grinding my teeth, I slumped into the wall with a sigh. I’d run from this for three years, but it seemed my past had finally caught up with me.

“He’s the business commissioner, so most likely, nothing good,” I said, skittering around the question.

Maggie popped a hip. “Reece,” she demanded, “what is he here for?”

I glared at her, arms crossed. A long, awkward silence passed, both of us locked in a standoff of wills. An unyielding staring contest only fueled the smothering tension between us.

I finally conceded.

“You aren’t going to like it.” No lies could be found; she wouldn’t want to hear about my leaving, either.

Scrunching her brows, my friend wasn’t backing down. “Do you think it’s possibly something important? Considering the lengths he went to to come here in person?”

I swallowed, rocking on my feet as the idea bounced around in my mind, yet it did nothing to subdue the nerves. I knew it must be urgent if he came here from Honey Brooke, but that didn’t make me any more eager to speak with him. But I needed to. “Perhaps.”

Maggie rolled her eyes. “I’ll be back.”

Only she didn’t come back alone. His voice came from the shop, a cold and short “thank you” as she opened the door. No, she didn’t. But yes, she did.

Face-to-face with Alaric himself, I bit back my displeasure and kept my murderous glares for Maggie between glances. My stomach churned like butter. I plastered a fake smile over my face, and I tried not to vomit.

“Alaric Parrington,” I greeted him. “Fancy seeing you here.”

He didn’t blink. No twitch of the mouth. No pulsing muscle in his jaw. The commissioner stood there, emotionless and stern. “Reece McCarthen, we have business to discuss.”

I gave a sorry, pathetic, tight-lipped grin and nodded, closing the door to the office, which happened to be equivalent to trapping myself in a cave with a hungry vulture.

Let’s see, would it be about the incident with the fire-spitting chickens burning a building to ash three years ago, or my estranged father… or his sanctuary for magical creatures? Something else?

Quickly shuffling through memories I tried to keep locked away, I scoured for anything that might’ve led to this. Obviously, the incident with the chickens, yes, but what else? There was that one time at school with the chemicals and the kid’s brows I’d accidentally burned. Or when I’d worked at the local market and mixed up the sleeping elixir and the pain-relieving elixir. I took half the town out before we realized what had happened. Or maybe it was about—

“Are you going to ask me to sit?”

Lurching forward, I nearly choked on my words. “Yes.” I gestured to the chairs in front of our thrifted wooden desk, stumbling over my feet. “Of course, please.”

Our office wasn’t anything spectacular… if you didn’t know it was an office, you’d probably never guess. The walls were covered with clippings of our shop in the town’s newsletter, the desk was devoured by preorders, and the folders stacked on top were overflowing with Maggie’s color-coded tags (which I knew nothing about).

Crossing my legs and perching myself taller over the surface, I folded my hands and turned my panicking eyes cold. I was innocent, no reason to act otherwise. Or at least I told myself as much. “You said there was business to be discussed?”

“Yes.” Alaric plopped his satchel in front of me and dug through it, pulling out papers. “Your father has left town.” Not the chicken incident. Okay? “Permanently.”

Oh. My world came to an abrupt stop as his words sank in because of what they meant.

My father had always said he planned to up and leave one day for a grand journey, something about a search for the dragons. “It’s in our blood,” he’d say because his father went on the same kind of adventure, the differences being (1) he didn’t abandon everything to do so, and (2) he actually found dragons—or a dragon, to be specific. But it couldn’t fly and had been badly injured by poachers. Thus, the family sanctuary for magical creatures was born. My family’s greatest treasure, the town’s pride and joy.

But I never believed he would do the same. Or had the adventurous spirit even.

He actually did it. He did it and he didn’t… he never tried to—I shouldn’t have been surprised he hadn’t reached out. We weren’t close anymore. It was that exact family legacy I’d left behind, after all. Swallowing, I resumed my place in the conversation. “And this is relevant to me how?”

Alaric’s glare poured into me; his downturned eyes were heavy. Bored, tired, or irritated, he didn’t seem to enjoy his work. “He’s left the sanctuary to you.”

Oh. My. Gods. If my pathetic excuse of a stern look and straight spine somehow managed to hide my nervousness beforehand, it definitely showed through now. I dropped my jaw and gawked as if I’d heard him wrong. Maybe I had. The whole thing… my family’s life’s work… their legacy. The room started shrinking. “He—he, um”—I shook my head—“he what?”

“Your father has left McCarthen’s Sanctuary for Magical Creatures to you.”

A home for animals that had been injured, mistreated, and even tortured for their magical qualities.

I blinked rapidly. No… it wasn’t possible. “Are you sure? He actually signed it over to me? Reece McCarthen?” Alaric’s deadpan stare told me he was tired of ridiculous questions. “When did this happen? Did he leave a note, a letter, or anything at all?”

“He contacted us three days ago to update the sanctuary’s pass of ownership. We were notified by a neighbor of his departure. I do not have the other answers you seek.”

Fair enough. “Has he already left?”

“To my understanding.”

I huffed, unsurprised at my father’s lack of communication with his own daughter. One might think leaving with no planned return date would call for a letter at the very least, but not with Chester McCarthen. No, after my mother died, his grief had consumed him. He shut out everyone that wasn’t a magical creature, including me—especially me. Shaking it off, I resumed the conversation. “Who’s watching it right now?”

“Family friend.”

“Right.” Probably Harvey Stiller, my father’s friend. Too bad he couldn’t keep it. He and his wife owned the town bakery. I squeezed my hands into fists. “And what am I supposed to do with it, then?”

Alaric unfolded his hands and straightened his spine. “You have two options. One: sell it. Two: own it.”

Own it? The words repeated in my head. My jaw tightened, stressed. My whole life would be uprooted. The life I’. . .