Page 39 of Oohs, Ahhhs, and Orbs

I inhaled sharply as I took in what she’d just said. I thought back to the way she had touched her belly the night I saw her standing in the restaurant with her friend. Her action made sense now. But the way she looked at Logan as if he had betrayed her made me wonder about this woman’s intentions in telling me.

“Congratulations to Kristy,” I said, doing my best to sound unaffected by the news. “How far along is she? Does she have morning sickness? I have a potion for that, too.” I turned around to find the morning sickness elixir.

Kristy’s friend snapped at my flustered rambling. “No. She doesn’t have morning sickness. She’s six months along.”

My hand froze mid-reach as I stared blankly at the blue potion. I dropped my hand and slowly turned around as my mind raced.Six months. They have been divorced for six months.

“Yeah,” she said. Marlene crossed her arms and lifted her chin as a smug expression came over her face.

Six months.

“Okay,” I said slowly. “That has to do with me because...” I trailed off. I was concentrating on controlling my breathing. The last thing I wanted was for the vile woman to get satisfaction from seeing that anything she said or did affected me.

She shrugged. “Nothing, really. Especially if you step back and let her and Logan work things out.”

“Oh, should I?” I asked as I cocked my head to stare her down. “Isn’t that up to Logan?”

“How is he supposed to try to work things out with her when he’s got you stringing him along?” she demanded, her tone sharp and accusing.

“Stringing him along?” I asked. “Really? In what way am I stringing him along?” Inside, my blood was beginning to boil. I looked the woman over. She was very lovely with her pretty blonde hair and heart-shaped face. It was a real shame that her attitude royally sucked. I understood standing up for your friends. What she was doing here, though, was interfering in a situation that genuinely didn’t concern her. Plus, she was drawing conclusions about me that she had no business even speculating on.

She had no right to interfere with Logan and me in our relationship. She was trying to push me out of the picture, and I even understood what she was doing at the shop. Her goal all along had been to make me doubt Logan. But it wasn’t going to work—not this time.

“Look,” I said slowly. “If there’s anybody interfering, it’s you, Marlene. If Kristy wants Logan back, then that is between her and Logan. I’m not going to answer for him. No. What you’re trying to do here,” I waved a finger back and forth between the two of us, “isn’t going to work.”

She straightened her shoulders and looked down her nose at me. The revulsion was evident on her face. “You have nothing to offer Logan.”

“Really?” I asked. “And Kristy does?”

“As I said, they were college sweethearts. They were in love for a very long time.”

I placed my hands on the glass counter and leaned forward. “Kristy has a strange way of showing her love. If there’s one thing that I could promise, it’s that I would not cheat on the man that I love. Now, please leave.”

I stared her down with narrowed eyes and watched as her hand tightened into a fist on the small paper bag that held the potion. “I just thought you should know that if Logan had been around more, then Kristy wouldn’t have had a reason to cheat. He works so much and left her lonely on so many nights.”

I just smiled at her. “Isn’t that what every cheater says to excuse their actions?”

Marlene glared at me so hard that I was actually impressed. If she had any tiny amount of magic, I would probably have been nothing but a pile of smoldering ash on the floor. With a growl, she spun on her heel and stomped to the door, but I noticed she still took my potion with her. I could tell she was about to slam the door closed behind her, but with a little wave of my finger, I used air magic to cushion the door frame. I grinned, knowing that she was unable to make the satisfying crash that she had hoped for.

As soon as she was gone and I could no longer see her through the window, I sagged against the glass. I squeezed my eyes shut and took several deep breaths in an attempt to get my heart rate back under control. I had done everything I could to keep any weakness from showing while being confronted by Marlene, and I wasn’t one hundred percent positive that I had managed.

I opened my eyes and blinked several times, waiting for my vision to clear. Once I could see clearly, I noticed I was staring down at the shelf of athames inside the glass case. With a huff, I pushed back from the counter and walked into the back room, looking for my polishing cloths and the compound I used to clean the metal.

I brought all the materials with me back into the front and set them down on the glass, then slid the door open underneath to pull all the athames out. It had been a while since I’d taken the time to clean them properly. Athames needed respect. They were an important tool for any witch, and even though the ones for sale weren’t owned by me personally, I had been taught to always treat them carefully.

As I was finishing up the first of the four athames, the bell over the door rang, and I barely withheld a grimace at the thought that Marlene might have returned. Or worse—Kristy. When I glanced up, I sighed with relief to see Logan striding through the shop looking like sex personified in his black slacks and a white button-up shirt rolled to his elbows.

“Hey,” I called out with a genuine smile. “You’re here.”

“So I am,” he grinned back, then leaned over the glass counter to give me a fast but scorching hot kiss. I took in a much needed ragged breath. Every time the man touched me, it turned my knees to jelly. But when he had his mouth on any part of my body, I forgot how to breathe.

He looked down at the blades set in a row across the towel I had spread out to keep the athames from sitting on the glass and let out a low whistle. “Those are some wickedly sharp blades, little witch.”

I picked up the fanciest one and handed it over to him. It was covered in deep red gemstones, some larger than others, but all of them glowing almost eerily. “These are athames. Remember when I told you that was likely your murder weapon if a witch was making a sacrifice?”

He hummed as he tested the sharpness of the thin, narrow blade with his thumbnail. “It’s certainly sharp enough to kill.” He held the athame up and turned it under the bright lights of the shop overhead. “Is it just me, or does it seem like thegemstones are glowing?” He squinted his eyes and tilted it again. “And full of liquid?”

I shook my head. “It’s not just you. This one is fairly new to Oohs, Ahhhs, and Orbs. Sometimes we get donations or offers to buy items like this from family members who don’t know what to do with them after a relative has passed. Not everyone has magical blood, so though the previous owner practised witchcraft, they weren’t actually a witch. When that happens, the family just wants to get rid of them. I think my grandmother picked that one up from an estate sale, though.”

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