Queen of Wands
The Meet Cute
Jesus. Was this a joke? Running his hand through his hair, David read off the items on Emily’s list in a hushed murmur.
“Sage bundles. White sage and sweet grass. Two or three. Not the ones tied with green string. Get the red.” He grimaced and looked around. What the hell was a sage bundle?
The list went on. “A really nice smudging feather. Look for one with flair.”
He studied a display of fairy catchers and shook his head in wonder. Wow. People bought this kind of stuff? Why? It was a reasonable question tempered by the knowledge he shouldn’t talk. After all, wasn’t he the guy with a renovated cellar man cave complete with 1970’s rock memorabilia and an autographed life-size standee of Rocky Balboa?
A glass case crammed with sparkly stuff caught his eye. Maybe Emily would be happy with a crystal bauble or a … what the hell was this? He peered closer, mumbling what he read on the tag. “Crystal chakra hanger.”
Okay. He knew what a chakra was. His yoga instructor, Reginald, went on and on about chakras.
As he went to scoot around the display case, his shoulder bumped a massive wind chime hanging from a shepherd’s hook concreted inside a large painted bucket. The deep clanging sound was jarring inside the shop.
Feeling like a drunken bull in a glass factory, he pinned his elbows to his sides and tried to avoid doing a Chevy Chase pratfall into a wading pool filled with colorful balls.
“Careful,” a grinning woman clutching a purse puppy said to him as he navigated the minefield of merchandise. “Don’t want to tumble into the spirit balls!”
He gave her a quick once-over, hoped she wasn’t a nutjob, and asked the obvious. “What is a spirit ball?”
“Ooh, they’re lovely,” she cooed with obvious delight. “Look.” She bent to scoop up a transparentornament-sized ball. The one she grabbed had a watery purple tint. “This one has a tiny toadstool! It would be perfect for a wandering pixie! If you’re lucky enough to catch one, that is.”
David assessed the woman’s amused wink. Apparently, this was the whimsy from the shop’s name. The quirky little shop had whimsy in spades. Double spades.
He smiled in return and gestured to the slip of paper in his hand. “Can you point me toward the sage bundles?”
She chuckled. “Are you smudging? How wonderful. And just in time for Samhain. Smart move,” she emphasized by lowering her tone. “Back right corner. Behind the tower of love potions. I think the white sage is on sale.”
Her puppy whimpered and wiggled. “Uh-oh. It might be time to hit the pavement. Good luck smudging!” she exclaimed before grabbing her merchandise and heading to the cash register.
“Back right corner,” he mumbled to himself. When he turned in that direction, the woman who’d been behind the counter when he came in walked past. She didn’t appear to notice him, but that didn’t stop David from getting the distinct impression she had been scoping him out.
His curiosity piqued, he watched her meander through the shelves and displays.
She was average height and moved with a confident grace that tapped on his brain. He was drawn to people, male or female, who acted comfortable in their skin.
For whatever reason, he fixated on what she was wearing. He wasn’t a fashion-minded guy, not at all, but raising a daughter by himself gave him a more than casual understanding of these things.
Her skirt was long. Its muted earth tones swished and swayed as she moved, reminding him of a kinetic watercolor. A plain white top revealed a nice pair of boobs. An assortment of necklaces, some long and some short, dangled around her neck. A wide leather belt hung low on her hips.
He slowly curved his lips into a smile although he wasn’t sure why. The hippie look wasn’t something he had much exposure to. Well, he realized with a smirk, that wasn’t entirely true. His crazy daughter was a modern-day hippie. Words like boho, hipster, and free spirit populated her vocabulary. Last year, she went on a steampunk craze. For years before that, she identified as a Ravenclaw, so he should probably be used to this stuff by now.
The woman turned a corner and disappeared into another room. She had long, highlighted dirty blond hair and her fleeting profile showed him a cute nose. He did a double take as she moved from his eyesight. Something about her was oddly beguiling.
Well, no matter. He shook himself and went back to locating the stuff on Emily’s list. He was traveling from Philly to College Park, Maryland, this weekend to help his awesome kid and her two BFF roommates move into new student housing. Declaring dorm life a bummer, the girls somehow managed to score an off-campus suite in an old house owned by the university. According to Em, every single item on his daddy-do list was critical.
He located the sage bundles and grabbed a four pack of California sage because he liked California, and no other reason was needed. An antique urn stuffed with bird feathers situated near the sage suggested to David that these would be Em’s smudging feathers. He inspected the urn and also a glass case full of wands and feathers. Some of the feathers were wound with a colored cord or had objects hanging off the end. She wanted flair with her smudge feather, so he picked through the lot and found three turkey feathers with the ends wrapped in pink dyed hemp string with beaded ends. His daughter was all about pink, so the color choice was easy.
With one of his tasks checked off the list, he looked around. An elaborate tower of eclectic, mismatched bottles labeled Love Potions drew him in like a frickin’ magnet. He glanced around to make sure no one took notice of his interest.
After trying his luck with online dating, he found it exhausting to sample every piece of candy in the box. Besides, he was far too busy to devote much time to actively dating. If he stuck to his master plan, he’d retire in another eight years after he slid past sixty. He’d done his time in the work world and was proud of the business he and his friend Cliff started, but he wanted to do more. Whether that “more” included a companion of the female persuasion wasn’t looking too promising.
He’d done okay as a single dad. Emily was on her way to a brilliant future. They were solid, and he was damn proud of his only kid. Adjusting to life without her once she went to college had been tough, but he survived.
When online didn’t pan out, he took Em’s strongly worded suggestion and employed the services of Philadelphia’s top matchmaker. It was supposed to be easy and effective, but it wasn’t. One of the women he’d been matched with was a flat-out bitch, and the other regarded him through every second of their get-to-know-you dinner as you would a creeping fungus.
So, online dating was a bust, and the services of a matchmaker only lightened his wallet. With not a lot of other options available to him, he regarded the potion bottles, and thought, Sure. Why the hell not?
His hand, tentative at first, reached forward and waved over the colorful assemblage. Trusting his instinct, he picked up one of the Egyptian looking bottles and peered at the hand-lettered tag dangling from a ribbon tied around the neck.
“Horny Toad,” he murmured softly.
He felt the soft giggle before he heard it.
A mellifluous voice hypnotized his senses. “Horny Toad. Interesting choice. Complicated formula. Has to be brewed on the night of the new moon.”
David moved in slow motion, turning his head toward the voice. The hand that held the bottle froze in midair.
“I’d have figured you for this.” An elegant hand with dark red nails reached into the tower and extracted a squat bottle with a yellow top. “Cupid Crystals. Sprinkle in some coffee and see what happens!”
She was standing so close he could hear her breathing. Their eyes met, and the planet stopped spinning.
The hippie woman from earlier had bright azure blue eyes beneath real eyebrows—not that stuff women drew on. She was smiling. Laugh lines suggested a woman who appreciated life.
Feeling tongue-tied, he was momentarily overcome by the unfamiliar reaction.
“It’s sugar-free.” She laughed.
He found his voice because the sound of hers was enough to make him agree to walk like an ape-man if it meant she’d keep talking.
“Vegan?” he asked with an arched brow.
She cracked up laughing. He felt like Judd Nelson at the end of The Breakfast Club with a triumphant fist in the air.
“May I offer you a hand?” she asked. Her voice held a gentle, soothing softness. “I can take those things up to the register if you’d like.”
He blinked. That was it.
“It’s okay,” she assured him with a chuckle. “This is my store.”
“You’re the Queen of Wands?” he asked.
Her whole face brightened. The eyes regarding him had sweeping lashes. Azure sparkles shot from her expression.
“Yes! That’s me.” She curtseyed like a lady-in-waiting, and he was charmed beyond belief. “I’m Michele Davies, Head Wand Mistress,” she said with her hand out in welcome. “Micki to my friends.”
Knowing a key moment when it nipped at his heels, David put his stuff in a pile on a counter and reached for her outstretched hand.
“Mistress Micki.” He smirked way too boldly. “My pleasure.” He lifted her hand to his mouth for a courtly kiss. She hooted with laughter.
“Do you have a name, sir?”
He felt the wide grin moving on his face. “I am called David of Allyn, and I was told if I met you to say that the Brontë girls say hello.”
She gasped. Her gorgeous eyes widened, and happiness shot from her expression.
“The Brontë girls? Emily, Charlotte, and Annie? How delightful! I miss those girls. You must be Em’s dad, right?”
He still held her hand, and she was doing nothing to withdraw. It felt perfect in his grasp.
“Guilty with extreme pleasure,” he drawled.
“This is lovely.” Her gentle purr seeped into his system.
He firmed his grip on her hand and grasped at straws for more to say. “She, uh, gave me a list. The girls are moving to off-campus housing.”
Mistress Micki smiled broadly. “I see. Which explains why you appear so out of your element. Is this your first time?”
“Aw, come on.” He chuckled. “It’s too soon for bold innuendo.”
Once again, she cracked up laughing. Only this time, she took back her hand, snorted with amusement, and teasingly smacked his arm. With an eyebrow-wagging smirk, she muttered, “Who should say what is ever too soon?”
This unexpected encounter with a captivating woman struck him center mass but not like a thunderbolt. It was more like a sensual massage of his deepest, most profound emotions. Ms. Davies had his full attention.
“May I see the list? It might help.” Her smile was easy and natural.
The list. The list. Where was it? He dug into the pockets of his suit and found it scrunched into a brick. He tried to unfold it, but his fingers weren’t cooperating. She murmured softly and gently removed the paper from his hands.
“Let me. I’m good with untangling things. You should see me with a bin of Christmas lights.”
He watched her smooth out the paper. They were standing close, and he swore when she moved, he caught a whiff of her perfume.
Micki read the scribbled list, nodding while she murmured each item out loud. Then she inspected the pile of merchandise he left on the counter next to them.
“Leave this stuff here.” He enjoyed her voice very much. She had a wonderful way of speaking that was low, soft, and clear. “Don’t worry,” she chortled, “no one will touch it.”
He was half startled when she matter-of-factly reached for his hand, said, “Come on,” and pulled him to the other side of the shop.
David marveled at the sensation of her strong, slim fingers twined with his. He glanced at their joined hands. She had delicate wrists strung with colorful bracelets.
As she pulled him along and they wove through the aisles and displays, he wondered if anyone had ever affected him the way this woman did. It seemed unlikely for the simple fact that every sensation with Micki felt new.
They stepped into a nook crammed with candles and holders of every size, shape, and color.
“Okay, so,” Micki said with a smile, “it looks to me like Emily wants a pillar candle setup. Something safe but real. No battery-operated candles.”
He nodded. This was something he could understand because Em was a candle freak. She even poured her own sometimes.
“What do you suggest?”
Micki looked around. She banded one arm around her middle, placed her elbow on top, and tapped a finger on her lips. “Hmm. Let’s try this.”
She took a lightweight resin pillar finished to look like hammered metal and lowered it into a tall hurricane cylinder. Snapping her fingers as though a new idea occurred, she took a handful of colored stones from a display and sprinkled them inside the cylinder around the base of the candleholder.
“Totally changeable by season or mood,” she explained.
Snatching a cream-colored pillar candle from a shelf, she lowered it onto the platform. “Perfect. Totally safe. Easy to clean and maintain. The flame stays inside the cylinder.”
While he considered the clever solution to his daughter’s request, Micki gathered a pile of colored candles—some tall and some short and squat. With a warm smile, she said, “A housewarming gift. From me.”
Without a single clue why he blurted out what jumped into his mind, David barked, “I’m driving to Maryland this weekend to help them move. Would you like to come? Um, I mean, would you like to drive down with me?”
He knew a surprised blush when he saw one, and the rosy hue on Micki’s fair-colored cheeks was easy to see.
“Oh, uh, well, gee, David. Could we maybe start with coffee first?”
Coffee? Hell to the yeah! He could do coffee, tea, matcha, power drinks, water, or whatever brew she had steeping in her cauldron.
With no reason to hesitate, he grinned, and asked, “Are you asking me on a date because if you are”—he chuckled after she snorted from his choice of words—“how about after work? When do you get off?”
He heard the words get off and clamped down tight on his urge to laugh. Asking if she wanted to come and now this? Oh, god. Real smooth—not!
In a gently teasing tone, she ribbed him just a bit. “Aren’t you a bold one? Ha! How do you know I’m not married?”
He answered instantly. “Because you aren’t wearing any rings despite having on more jewelry than three people combined, and you strike me as a woman who wouldn’t have a problem wearing a man’s ring.”
Her laughter was proving to be a turn-on.
“Well played, David.”
“Thank you, Micki. I aim to please.”
Her guffaw hit straight in his groin.
“My goodness.” She chuckled. “This is going to be interesting.”
He could not agree more.
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