My face flushed. “We may need it. After all, you don’t have any tools, and you don’t remember how to use magic in order to get them.”
Rufus glanced around. “I’m sure there are tools around here somewhere.”
I pointed to the barn. “Liam has a box inside that should help us, but the first thing we have to do is fix the foundation, and for that, we’ll need this.” I lifted the hammer from my belt.
Lady scampered by, chasing a butterfly. Oh, how I wished to be chasing butterflies instead of living in the nightmare I’d woken up to.
As I strode toward the barn, Rufus followed. “And why is it that you own a magical hammer that I’m sure you don’t use?”
I cocked a brow. “What makes you think I don’t use it?”
“Everything about you makes me think that.”
I bristled. “Since when did you learn everything about me?” I stopped walking to glare at him. “Listen, you know absolutelynothingabout me.”
Because if you did, you would try to hurt me.
“I know that you’re wounded,” he replied, sorrow filling his eyes.
I stalked off, anger wafting from me. “I’m not talking to you about any of that.”
“I didn’t ask you to. All I’m saying is that a witch who denies the magic around her is suffering from wounds.”
I whirled and pointed the hammer at him. “You can stop right there talking about my suffering. If you’re going to yammer on, you can just start walking down that road and disappear—forever.”
He stiffened. “I promised to help, and I’ll keep my word.”
I had no comment for that because the last time Rufus promised to help me, he forever changed me.
We walked to the place where Sadie’s body had been discovered. A wave of anguish rocked me before I got ahold of myself. Tears dripped from my eyes, and I wiped them on my sleeve.
I bent and hovered the hammer over the spot. “I don’t use the hammer because it’s persnickety, if you must know. I’m sure you can guess what it does.”
“Turns everything it touches to gold?” Rufus asked with a glint of humor in his eyes.
I tried not to smile and mostly succeeded. “No, it doesn’t turn things into gold. It was gifted to me years ago by a witch who trained me. It had been given to her and so on.” I lifted the golden hammer so that Rufus could get an eyeful of it. “This fixes things, which is great. So all I have to do is tap this foundation and you’ll never know that Sadie was found here.”
Rufus tutted. “But it can’t be that simple or else you would use the hammer every day of the week. Knowing you, you’d use it on your heart to fix whatever happened to you there.”
I bristled. “It doesn’t work on people. You’re right—it’s not as simple as that.”
Rufus stared at the hammer as if he would slice through it. The intensity of his gaze made a shiver work all the way to my core, igniting my center and sending a wave of want straight to my girlie parts.
Butter on a biscuit! With Sadie dead, my bank account a desert and my business on the line, I was now looking at Rufus Mayes and feeling things that I never should have been feeling. Hate as hot as lava should be firing through my veins, but no, I was feeling—dare I say it—lust.
I had gone and lost my darned mind.
Rufus’s dark eyes softened. “You’re right. I don’t know you. So please, instruct me.”
I hovered the hammer over the foundation. “It will fix things, but sooner or later, when it fixes something, something else breaks. That’s just how the magic in the hammer works and why I don’t use it very often, but today is an exception. We have no crew, and Dooley is threatening to fire us because he’s an evil old man.”
Rufus leaned against the barn and crossed his arms. “So you plan on using it until your luck runs out?”
I nodded. “We need to fix the foundation and get the poles inside reinforced. After that, it’s replacing broken boards on the face of the barn. If we can get a lot of that done today, Dooley will calm down and then maybe I can convince the unionized wizard mafia, or whatever, that I’ll have their money to them soon enough.”
He rubbed his hands together. “Well, what are we waiting for then? Let’s get started.”
I took a deep breath and tapped the hammer over the foundation. In a blink, the broken concrete was smooth and dry. I exhaled and rose.
