Page 20 of Clearly Charmed

I did not want to have this conversation with him, but maybe if I gave him a small portion of the truth, it’d satisfy him enough to let the whole thing go.

‘My grandmother’s side of the family settled in Harvest Moon right when it was incorporated in the late 1800s. There was a big cache of silver here, and it drew people to the town. Legends whispered over the years said my ancestor Sylvia Perkins had a knack for finding pockets of silver in the mountains. That made her family rich. Because she and her husband were good prospectors, stories were spun about her’ – I made air quotes – ‘“gifts” for finding the motherlode. Somehow over the decades those gifts became magic. It didn’t help that my grandfather Beau had a way with the mountains too, being able to turn the roughest terrain into farming land, and that my grandmother Clo could grow anything in the soil.’ I gave a sad sigh. ‘You give a spark of a story like that some oxygen, and it blazes into a wildfire.’

‘Clo? Was that the older woman I met last night?’

‘Yes, her daughter, my mother, Belladonna, has quite the reputation around here. My sisters and I have spent years battling all this magic nonsense and it’s exhausting.’

He was about to ask me another question when Julius, a seven-year-old Great Dane, buzzed toward me, tugging along his owner, Judge Greene.

‘Hello, Dani,’ the judge said in a no-nonsense voice before turning his attention to Bryce. ‘Who’s your friend?’

‘He’s not my friend.’

Bryce flinched again and the judge took a protective step toward me.

‘This is Bryce O’Dell,’ I finally said. ‘He’s Richard Morrison’s nephew.’

‘Oh.’ The judge pulled the cream Stetson off his head and placed it over his heart. ‘Your uncle was a good man. Played more than one game of poker with him. Sorry for your loss.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

He scanned Bryce for a minute, rubbing at his trimmed white beard. ‘You taking over his cabin on the bluff?’

‘Thinking about it.’ Bryce’s steady gaze flicked in my direction. ‘This place is starting to grow on me.’

Julius stepped in and nuzzled my leg. No shock or pain. Good. I loved this big oaf of a dog. I patted his massive head, and Bryce shot me a smile. Did he think he was off the hook? Because he wasn’t.

The judge gave me a questioning look until a few more dogs began to race in my direction, and Julius tugged on his leash, eager to greet them. The dogs did a weird kind of circle dance around me, and I held my breath as Bryce’s gaze morphed into confusion.

The judge cleared his throat, urging Julius back to his side. ‘Be sure to familiarize yourself with the laws around here, son. Don’t want to see you in my courtroom.’

‘Uh, yes. Of course, sir.’

The judge pulled Julius away, but the dogs stayed in a tight formation around me, happily panting and waiting for head pats. Bryce crossed his arms over his chest, amusement tilting up the corners of his lips.

Refusing to give him any kind of reaction, I spun around and broke away from the pack. With long determined strides, I headed toward the pharmacy again, praying the dogs would not follow. This had turned into a miserable day, and all I wanted was to go back to the clinic and forget about the last few hours.

Bryce caught up to me but stayed quiet. We shouldered past more tourists carrying bags from the Spell Book Spice Shop and Abracadabra Antiques.

‘The dogs around here like you. That happen a lot? Them coming to greet you like that?’

‘I’m the local vet. They know me,’ I said with a casual shrug.

I picked up my pace, not wanting to see that look of curiosity on his face for a second more.

‘Answer one question for me and I’ll leave you alone,’ he said, keeping up with me. ‘You barely touched Indy yesterday on the trail, and still you knew he was sick. How?’

His curious stare, the tilt to his head, was nothing new for me. Since I’d returned to town, more than a few people had questioned how I could diagnose their animals so quickly.

‘I noticed his pupils were larger. That his balance was slightly off. It’s what vets do. Assess animals. Notice symptoms.’

My car was only a few steps away. I had to get there and stop this interrogation before he made me so mad I said something dumb.

‘And the way you hit the ground on the trail? You looked out of it. That didn’t have anything to do with his diagnosis? Why you told me he should see a vet?’

I pulled in a full breath while internally cursing my inability to hide my instincts or my physical reaction.

‘It’d been a long day at my clinic. I was tired. There’s no mystery to it.’