Sex, Lies and Mistletoe. Tawny Weber

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СКАЧАТЬ bag and peeked inside. “Ooh, my favorite. Mrs. Rae’s éclairs. I thought she’d retired.”

      “Mr. Rae’s off competing in some pumpkin-carving contest until next Saturday, leaving Mrs. Rae home alone for their anniversary week. Cecilia said her mom dropped off four dozen éclairs this morning with notice that she’d be making pies, too.”

      One of the joys and irritations about living in a small town was knowing everyone, and everyone knowing your business. In this case, both women knew Mrs. Rae’s irritation meant cherry pie by dinner.

      “Cecilia seemed surprised when I mentioned I was coming here,” Kathy said, not meeting Pandora’s eyes as she took back the bag and selected an éclair. “She said she thought Moonspun Dreams was doing so bad, your mom had given up keeping it open on weekends. I know I should have given her a smackdown, but the éclairs smelled too good.”

      While Kathy dived into her éclair with an enthusiastic moan, Pandora sighed, looking around the store. When she’d been little, her grandmother had stood behind this counter. The store had been filled with herbs and tinctures, all handmade by Grammy Leda. She’d sold clothes woven by locals with wool from their own sheep, she’d taught classes on composting and lunar gardening, led women’s circles and poured her own candles. Grammy had been, Pandora admitted, a total hippie.

      Then, when Pandora had been thirteen, Granny Leda had retired to a little cabin up in Humboldt County to raise chinchillas. And it’d been Cassiopeia’s turn.

      Her mother’s intuitive talents, the surge of interest in all things New Age, and her savvy use of the internet had turned a quirky small-town store into a major player in the New Age market. Moonspun Dreams had thrived.

      But now that the economy had tanked and New Age had lost its luster, it was almost imploding. Leaving Pandora with the choice of trying to save it. Or letting it fade into oblivion.

      “Cecilia was right. Things are really bad,” Pandora said. “No point in risking the best éclairs in the Santa Cruz Mountains over the truth.”

      “And now Moonspun Dreams is yours. Are you going to give up?” Kathy asked quietly, holding out a fingerful of the rich cream for the cat. They both watched Bonnie take a delicate taste while Pandora mulled over the slim choices available.

      Her mother had said that she’d run out of ideas. She’d told Pandora before she left to be the keynote speaker at the annual Scenic Psychics conference that the store was hers now. And it was up to her to decide what to do with it.

      After sixty years in the family, close up shop and sell the property.

      Or fight to keep it going.

      Her stomach pitched, but of the two, she knew there was only one she could live with.

      “I can’t give up. This is all I have, Kath. Not just my heritage, given that Moonspun Dreams has been in the family for four generations. But it’s all I’ve got now.”

      “What are you going to do? And what can I do to help?” Both questions were typical of Kathy. And both warmed Pandora to the soul, shoving the fears and stress of trying to save a failing business back a bit.

      “I don’t know. I’ve been racking my brain, trying to figure something out.” Her smile quirked as she gestured to the small table in the corner. Rich rosewood inset with stars and moons, part of the table was covered by a brocade cloth and a handful of vividly painted cards. “I’ve finally reached the point of desperation.”

      Kathy’s eyes widened. Pandora had sworn off all things metaphysical back in high school, claiming that she didn’t have the talent or skill. The reality was that Cassiopeia was so good at it, nothing Pandora did could measure up. And she’d hated knowing she’d never, ever be good enough.

      “What’d the reading say?”

      “Tarot really isn’t my forte,” she excused, filling her mouth with the sweet decadence of her éclair.

      “Quit stalling. Even if you don’t have that psychic edge like your mom, you still know how to read.”

      That psychic edge. The family gift. Her heritage.

      Her failure.

      “The cards weren’t any help,” she dismissed. “The Lovers, Three of Swords, the Tower, Four of Wands and the Seven of Swords.”

      The éclair halfway to her lips, Kathy scrunched her nose and shrugged. “I don’t understand any of that.”

      “I don’t, either.” Pandora’s shoulders drooped. “I mean, I know what each card means—I was memorizing tarot definitions before I was conjugating verbs. But I don’t have a clue how it applies to Moonspun Dreams. It doesn’t help me figure out how to save the business.”

      Yet more proof that she was a failure when it came to the family gift. Handed down from mother to daughter, that little something extra manifested differently in each generation. Leda, Pandora’s grandmother, had prophetic dreams. Cassiopeia’s gift was psychic intuition.

      And Pandora’s? Somewhere around her seventeenth birthday, her mother had decided Pandora’s gift was reading people. Sensing their energy, for good or bad. In other words, she’d glommed desperately onto her daughter’s skill at reading body language and tried to convince everyone that it was some sort of gift.

      Despite popular belief, it hadn’t been her mother’s overdramatic lifestyle that had sent Pandora scurrying out of Black Oak as soon as she was legally able. It’d been her disappointment that she was just an average person with no special talent. All she’d wanted was to get away. To build a nice normal life for herself. One where she wasn’t always judged, always found lacking.

      Then she’d had to scurry right back when that nice normal life idea had blown up in her face.

      “You’re going to figure it out,” Kathy said, her words ringing with loyal assurance. “Your mom wouldn’t have trusted you with the store if she didn’t have faith, too.”

      “The store is failing. We’ll be closing the doors by the end of the year. I don’t think it’s as much a matter of trusting me as it is figuring I can’t make things any worse.”

      Pandora eyed the last three cream-filled pastries, debating calories versus comfort.

      Comfort, and the lure of sugary goodness, won.

      “These are so good,” she murmured as she bit into the chocolate-drenched creamy goodness.

      “They are. Too bad Mrs. Rae only bakes when she’s pissed at her husband. Black Oak has a severe sugar shortage now that she’s retired.” Kathy gave her a long, considering look. “You worked in a bakery for the last few years, right? Maybe you can take over the task of keeping Black Oak supplied with sweet treats. You know, open a bakery or something.”

      “Wouldn’t that be fun,” Pandora said with a laugh. Then, because she was starting to feel a little sick after all that sugary goodness, she set the barely eaten éclair on a napkin and slid to her feet. “But I can’t. I have to try to make things work. Try to save Moonspun Dreams. Mom was hoping, since I’d managed the bakery the last two years, that maybe I’d see some idea, have some brilliant business input, that might help.”

      “And СКАЧАТЬ