The Hidden Grimoire by Karla Brandenburg (pride and prejudice read TXT) 📕

He nodded. “Just remember I’m here for you. You aren’t alone anymore.”

No, now when I called for help, the danger fanned out to the people around me. Hannah had woven a spell to enhance positive energy for me.

Kyle was still vulnerable to negative intentions.

Chapter 29

When the flower shop opened on Tuesday, I walked over and ordered an arrangement for LeAnne and the new baby. With my task checked off, I returned to Windfall to restock bath salts.

Cassandra sat at her usual spot behind her sewing machine, but instead of doing alterations, today she was putting together one of her original designs. I paused a moment to watch.

Despite the court of public opinion, Lucas seemed determined to date her, even if she wasn’t quite as sure they could withstand the gossips. Opposites attract?

A parallel presented itself in my mind, one of me and Kyle. Dudley Do Right and the Witch. We’d survived the town gossips, to a degree. Then again, we weren’t married yet.

“What?” she said, bringing me out of my contemplations.

I laughed at myself. “Sorry, I was thinking about you and Lucas.”

She turned in her chair. “I have no idea what to do with him. I mean, what if it doesn’t work out? What if we aren’t compatible? Seems like an exercise in futility.”

“Wait. You went to school with these guys. You’ve lived here all your life. You should have at least some idea who Lucas is. Maybe it took you a while to connect, but I suspect the attraction is based on more than a sudden interest.”

Her cheeks flushed, shining through the light-colored foundation she wore. “Well, no, it isn’t sudden, but we haven’t spent much time together since high school.” She shifted in her chair, and I detected more to the story.

“Do tell,” I invited.

She looked away, the blush creeping across her skin. “Nothing to tell, really.”

“Why don’t I believe you?”

She fiddled with her hair, a stylized mess pulled into a bun on one side of her head and hanging straight to her shoulder on the other side. “Actually, high school sort of makes the case that this is a waste of time.”

She met my gaze head-on. I knew I was smirking—more trying not to grin like a fool over her discomfort. I wasn’t going to ask. She’d tell me if she wanted to share, but I was dying to know the untold story.

“A group of us used to go out in the farm fields on the weekends and drink. Cheap wine. Libby Frazier—you met her, she’s Dylan’s sister—was good at schmoozing people outside the liquor store.” Cassandra stopped, pressed her lips together. “It was a long time ago.”

“Go on,” I encouraged.

“Usually, it was a group of us girls, but one night, Chip—he was one of the groomsmen at Lisa and Dylan’s wedding—and Lucas, and Kelly Goddard, Lisa’s sister...” Cassandra rolled her eyes. “There was a bunch of people who showed up. Lucas, well, he was sitting beside me, and the more we drank, the more people paired off and wandered into the fields. You must have done similar stuff where you’re from, even without farm fields.”

I didn’t need to tell her I had no friends in school, that I wasn’t invited to parties. Instead, I folded my arms and cocked my head. “So you and Lucas paired off? Then you must have dated for a while in high school.”

Cassandra studied her hands. “We made out, but that was all. No official dating.” She looked toward the ceiling. “Boy, did he know how to kiss. I thought for sure he would ask me out, but he never did. After that, whenever we went drinking in the field, he’d hook up with me. I started thinking of him as my boyfriend, except aside from drinking in the fields, he hardly even looked at me. Oh, other than that one time on the Fourth of July. During the fireworks. I was waiting in line to buy a Coke and he took my hand and led me behind the kiosk where no one would see us and kissed the livin’ daylights out of me.”

“So why didn’t he ask you out?”

“He was a year older than me. That was the summer before college.” She studied her fingernails. “He said he’d be leaving and he didn’t want to get tied down.”

I did the mental math. Cassandra was a year older than me, he was a year older than her, which meant he’d had at least two years since he’d finished college. “And now?”

She held her arms out at her sides. “Even when he came home for summer breaks, he never said anything, never called me, like it never happened. I figured I was his practice for college. Learn to kiss, that sort of thing. I suppose I should be glad things never went any further.”

“Never?”

She sighed. “I always thought he’d be my first everything, you know? That when he came home the next summer, we’d pick up where we left off and sort of graduate to the next step, but no.” She leveled her gaze on me. “When he didn’t renew his interest, in a manner of speaking, I explored other avenues when I went to fashion design school in Milwaukee.”

“But you never got over him.”

“I don’t want to be ‘practice’ anymore. You know what I mean?”

“You want him to step up to the plate. Declare himself instead of pretending you’re not there, except as a make-out buddy.”

She cringed. “Well, sort of.”

“Yeah, I get it. You don’t want to be a booty call. But from what Kyle told me, when you went out the other night, he was making a public statement. Your own ‘Nobody puts baby in the corner’ moment. That’s why he didn’t take you somewhere out of town.”

“And look how that went. He still hasn’t called me.”

“You could call him.”

She shook her head. “No. He has more at stake. I don’t want to be a convenience. Let’s not forget he blew me off in