Yesterday's Magic (6 page)

He’d done everything right. Flowers,
candlelight dinners, long weekends at the ski chalet. Most any
woman would have been thrilled. Bella had been bored out of her
mind.

Finally, when she hadn’t been able to stand
another fancy bottle of wine, she’d called it quits. He’d asked for
an explanation and she’d given him the best one she could.

Bradley, you make me laugh but never hard
enough that I fall on the floor and pee my pants. You make me cry
but never hard enough that I lose my breath and get the
hiccups.

She could have added
You make me come but
never hard enough that I forget that’s what I’m supposed to do.
After all, she didn’t think she needed to be deliberately
cruel.

He’d left more confused that ever. She hadn’t
really blamed him. And she had missed him. Even though the sex
hadn’t been great, she had missed the intimacy of sleeping with a
man, of holding him close, of feeling him inside of her.

A woman should have a lover.

And he should look a whole lot like Jedidiah
McNeil.

Her legs suddenly feeling like spaghetti, she
fell back onto the bed. Jeez, Louise. Where had that thought come
from?

She propped herself up on her elbows and
vowed to stop having ridiculous thoughts. She’d come back to this
time for a reason. A serious one. She needed to stay on task.

But if she had any extra time, well, then,
maybe
?

Oh, get a grip. She should be pissed at the
man—after all, it was partly his fault she was even here. She stood
up and then bent her arms to button up the back of her dress. Then
she tried to run a brush through her hair. It was wild as usual and
she settled with just gathering it up in one hand and wrapping a
ponytail holder around it. Even pulled up, it was long enough that
the ends hit below her shoulders.

She opened her bedroom door and Aunt Freida
was standing next to the black stove. Bella smiled at her and with
what she hoped looked like confidence, opened the cabin door.

The cold was so fierce that it stole her
breath and made her knees buckle. And as uncomfortable as that was,
the only word that she could think of was
fabulous.

Night had faded, leaving a soft, bluish dawn,
made lighter by fresh snow, perhaps an inch or two, that clung to
the branches of the evergreen trees. Sunshine and Rain, hitched to
a wagon, stood outside, their warm breath turning to steam. Twenty
feet out, four red birds set on the top rail of her Aunt’s wooden
fence.

She’d freakin’ stepped into the middle of a
Christmas card. She could practically hear the carolers and wasn’t
the pungent smell of freshly cut wood burning in the fireplace just
hanging in the air?

Her stomach growled when she thought about
cranberry and walnut stuffing. And the turkey and the potatoes. It
was perfect.

Except, she realized, as she lifted her gaze
to see another hundred yards out, her little pretend winter
wonderland didn’t include an outhouse. Or a thirty-yard sprint in
subzero temperatures.

“Best take your cloak,” Aunt Freida said.

Bella turned. Aunt Freida stood behind her,
holding Bella’s cloak. Bella reached for it and was halfway through
the doorway when her aunt cleared her throat. “You’ll want a
lantern, too,” she said.

Of course. Her new bathroom didn’t come
equipped with electricity. Any moron would know to take a lantern
with her. She really needed to be more careful or her aunt was
going to be either very suspicious or very sad that she had such an
idiot for a niece.

She grabbed the lantern’s handle and kept her
arm extended. She didn’t want it too close. Knowing her luck, she’d
slip, break the glass, and catch herself on fire. She gathered her
skirt up with her other hand, hoping to keep it from dragging in
the fresh snow. But that allowed a blast of cold air in and up and
she immediately dropped her hold. Who cared if her hem was wet?
Better that than other, more delicate parts, be frozen.

“Gives a whole new meaning to the word
frigid,” Bella mumbled as she made her way. She grabbed the heavy
door of the unpainted privy and it opened with a loud creak,
evidently startling the birds. There was a sudden flutter of
activity from the fence and when she looked that direction, she saw
two large deer, with widespread antlers. Their heads were up, as if
they were watching her, judging.

The last deer she’d seen had been dead along
the highway after some unsuspecting motorist had hit it.

She went inside, took care of business, and
got out fast. As promised, her aunt had breakfast on the table.
Bella quickly washed her hands in the water her aunt had warmed on
the stove and sat down to eat.

“This is so good,” she said sometime later
after she’d plowed her way through two eggs, a thick slice of ham,
and two pieces of bread.

“It’s nice to have someone to cook for
again,” Aunt Freida said. “Your Uncle Herbert loved a big
breakfast.”

Aunt Freida had said her husband died around
the same time as the Sheriff's father. That meant she’d been alone
for about five years. “Have you ever thought about marrying again?”
Bella asked. She’d had this same conversation with her father on
several occasions. He always said that he couldn’t imagine finding
a woman who could compare to Bella’s mother.

Aunt Freida tapped her fork on the table.
“Well, you being family and all, I guess I can talk to you about
this. I don’t really have anybody else I feel I can tell,” she
added, almost sounding embarrassed.

The voice matched her cheeks, which had
turned pink. Bella’s curiosity ratcheted up a notch. “Tell what?”
Bella demanded.

“There’s a man who has recently expressed
some interest.”

Bella loved a story. She propped her elbow on
the table and cupped her chin in her open palm. “And how do you
feel about that?”

Aunt Freida rolled her eyes. “I’ve known him
my whole life. Doesn’t it seem a little odd to you that suddenly
we’d be as awkward around one another as if we’d just met?”

She was so not the right person to be asking.
She’d screwed up every relationship she’d ever had, always looking
for something that wasn’t there. “I have no idea,” Bella admitted.
“But I think you should stop worrying about it and go with it.”

“
Go with it? Go with it,”
her aunt
repeated, like she couldn’t quite get her mouth around the words.
“Go with
what
?” she demanded as she waved her plump
arms.

Bella stood up. She didn’t know what the
what
was. But it had to be something pretty special. Her
parents had had the
what
. It had been enough of a
what
that her father had given up all opportunities of
advancement in the Society when he’d married a mortal woman. Why?
Because of the
what
.

She hadn’t had the
what
with Bradley.
“The
what
,” Bella began, “is the thing that makes your heart
race when you hear his footsteps or your skin prickle when he
happens to brush your hand.” She started to walk around the small
table. Like always, it was easier to think when her legs were
moving. “It’s the thing that makes you want to cook him his
favorite dinner or hell, I don’t know. Maybe it’s the
what
that makes you feel like you want to tell the world about him but
you’re afraid to even say his name because if you do, it might make
it all go away. And you couldn’t bear that.”

She took a breath. And sat down in the
nearest chair, right on top of three naked dolls. She lifted her
butt and scooted them off to the side.

Her aunt had tears in her eyes. “Is that what
you had with your husband, Bella. Did you have the
what
?”

She didn’t even know if the
what
was
real. She could only hope. “Sure. It was the
what
, all
right.”

***

If it was possible, Aunt Freida’s store was
even more crowded and lacking in organization than Aunt Freida’s
house. Bolts of fabric were piled on top of one another. Shovels
and rakes and other tools hung from hooks on the wall. More of the
same were propped up under them. Dishes and pots and pans were
stacked high in big wooden crates. Groceries—bags of flour, salt,
and sugar, as well as a whole wall of canned goods—took up at least
a third of the store. There was a table of nails, wire, and oddly
enough, women’s shoes.

In the middle of all of it, was a big, cast
iron, pot-bellied stove. It had a flat top—there was a coffee pot
sitting on it. As Aunt Freida walked past the stove, she grabbed
the coffee pot. With her free hand, she lovingly patted the stove.
“Just got this beauty a few months ago. It’s going to make the
winter slightly more tolerable.”

Since it could not have been more than forty
degrees inside the store, Bella hoped the beauty heated up
fast.

Aunt Freida continued on to the rear of the
store. Bella followed, staying exactly in her path. How her aunt
managed to get through the tight aisle without knocking anything
off a shelf was a miracle in itself.

Aunt Freida sat the coffee pot down on the
plain wood counter. Then she took off her heavy cloak and hung it
on a hook behind the counter. Bella didn’t touch her own buttons.
She intended to keep every layer on for now.

“I’ll get the stove going and get us a fresh
cup of coffee,” Aunt Freida said, looking amused. “Well, this is my
little store.”

It wasn’t Bloomingdale’s but then again, it
wasn’t so little either. It was packed, literally from floor to
ceiling in most places, with merchandise. Bella was immediately
thankful for the two front windows. Without them, the place would
have seemed absolutely claustrophobic. It did pain her, however, to
see that there was no display in either window. Merchandise was
simply stacked up against the glass.

“What do you think?” Aunt Freida asked.

Sometimes honesty was simply not the best
policy. “It’s very nice,” she said.

Aunt Freida nodded. “A few months ago some
young whippersnapper came into town and opened his own store. He’s
just down the street a bit. His name is Saul. He even charges a
little less for some things. But he doesn’t have what people need
or want. Not like me.”

She could only imagine. It seemed to Bella
that Aunt Freida’s store had at least one of everything in it. And
it was all piled on top of each other.

Aunt Freida studied her and it made Bella
suddenly nervous. Suddenly her aunt smiled. “I haven’t been in
Saul’s store for some time now. He knows me and he follows me
around like a dog tracking a bird. But you’re a strange face, one
he wouldn’t associate with me. Maybe you could go shopping later
today and report back.”

Excellent. If there was one thing she was
good at, it was shopping. “I’ll take very good notes,” she
said.

“Saul’s won’t be open yet but in an hour or
so, you better go. By noon, everyone will know that my niece is
visiting. Word travels fast in Mantosa.” Aunt Freida grabbed a
newspaper off the pile in the corner and twisted several of the
sheets. She opened the door of the stove, carefully laid the
newspaper inside, and added some small pieces of wood. She pulled
out a box of matches from the pocket of her skirt, struck one, and
soon heat was pouring out of the stove. Bella got as close as she
could without actually standing on top of it.

“What can I help with now?” Bella asked.

“You can watch the counter while I unpack the
boxes that came in earlier this week. If it don’t have a price
marked on it, then there will be one listed on this sheet.” Aunt
Freida pointed at a piece of paper next to a drawer that was filled
with coins and paper money.

“If they tell you they have an account, make
sure you add their purchases to their card.” Her aunt opened what
looked to be a small recipe box. It had to have at least fifty
cards inside. A quick look told Bella that they weren’t in
alphabetical order.

Oh brother. Organization was clearly not her
aunt’s strength. Perhaps jumping in and asking for work had been a
mistake.

Bella heard the door, felt a blast of cold
air, and saw a woman, all bundled up in a heavy coat and boots,
hurry inside. The woman unwound the scarf that was wrapped around
her head and Bella saw dark hair, speckled with silver, pulled back
into a long braid. The woman looked to be about forty. She wore no
makeup but had a natural beauty that told Bella she would always be
a pretty woman, no matter what her age.

This was a woman full of sadness. Bella
didn’t need the gift of colors to know that—she could tell by the
look in the woman’s eyes.

Aunt Freida moved out from behind the
counter. “Oh, Elizabeth,” she said, hugging the woman. “It’s been a
long time.”

“Too long,” the woman agreed. “But you know
how it is?”

Aunt Freida nodded. “Hard to get out when
you’re feeling lower than a snake’s belly in a wagon track.”

Aunt Freida definitely had a way with words.
Bella looked at Elizabeth, gauging her reaction, and she realized
that Elizabeth wasn’t focused on her aunt at all. She was staring
at Bella.

“Hi,” Bella said, feeling awkward, hoping
like heck there was no egg yolk on her face. She had, after all,
almost inhaled her breakfast.

“This is my niece, Bella,” Aunt Freida said,
waving an arm in her direction. “Bella, this is Elizabeth Clover.
She’s Jedidiah McNeil’s older sister.”

Oh, yeah. Same blue-gray eyes. Same hair.
Elizabeth was a very feminine version of her younger brother. “I
met your brother yesterday,” Bella said.

Elizabeth inspected the heel of her boot. “I
hope he was polite,” she said.

She decided not to tell the big sister that
she’d had dreams about the little brother which had prodded her to
wake up and decide she needed a lover. “He’s quiet,” Bella
said.