Goddess, please let this work.
A gentle presence in the back of her mind whispered.
It will.
14
December 22
The Second Day of Yule
The sky was blue and cloudless, no trace of coming storms. Rowan shivered, her hands plunged into the pockets of her borrowed parka.
It’s cold enough to snow. Now, where’s the water?
It was Friday, the second day of Yule, three days before Christmas, and there had been a slight uptick in the crowds that filtered down the sidewalk hunting for breakfast. But they were still nothing compared to the usual press of bodies as the town filled with last-minute gift shoppers and merrymakers.
She manned a wassail table in front of the Magick Cabinet, passing out free treats to tourists and members of the community as they passed by. Wooden platters offered an array of Solstice shortbread, cardamom orange sugar cookies, rosemary goat cheese quick bread, and more. All infused with hearth magic.
Magic.
Memories of how it had felt coursing through her the night before warmed her, and she opened her awareness, conscious of the many vibrations all around. Rowan grounded, pulling energyup from the earth beneath her feet and sending her own back in a rhythm of give and take.
The exchange was good. Natural. More than that—it was righting something that had been wrong for a very long time.
Rowan settled her elbows against the table and picked up a piece of goat cheese bread, tearing a big piece free with her teeth.
“Hearth magic,” she said with a pleased moan.
An unexpected face chose that exact moment to appear in her field of view.
“Hearth magic?” asked Gavin, his voice amused.
“Gavin!” she blurted, spitting out bread in a spray. She held up a finger and took a long drink of cider to wash the rest down, noticing then that her snack had splattered his jacket.
“Oh, goddess,” she gasped when her mouth cleared. “Let me clean that up.”
Scrambling to the other side of the table to wipe it off, she realized too late that she’d used the same towel to clean up a spill of coffee earlier. Rowan stared at the cloth pressed against his chest, uselessly.
“I think I just made that worse.”
A cool smile pulled back his mouth and eyes ever so slightly. As his chest rose and fell beneath her palm, she was tempted to slip her hands through the opened zipper flap of his jacket and warm them up inside.
Stop it. Don’t you remember what happened last time you did that?As she took a hurried step back away, her eyes scanned for any signs of unintended magic.
“No harm done,” said Gavin. “It was already dirty.”
“Dirty by Gavin standards, and Gavin standards alone. Consider this my apology.” She dispensed a cup of wassail and handed it his way.
He narrowed his eyes in mock suspicion. “Wait, aren’t you giving this toeveryone?”
“You got me.”
He huffed the cider, eyes half-lidded in pleasure. “Is this mulled cider?”
“No, it’s wassail, which is mulled cider plus Paganism.”
“Does that make it witchcraft of some kind?”
