The Cupcake Coven (19 page)

He nodded. “So you must be turning a profit.”

“A small one,” Rebecca lied.
Very small.
It could easily disappear if he found any major violations that needed to be corrected.

At last he seemed satisfied with the paperwork on his clipboard. She imagined all the boxes had been checked, all the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed.

“I’ll send you my report,” he said, finally.

“Can you give me a preliminary idea of how we did?” Rebecca smiled and resisted the urge to bat her lashes.

He shrugged. “Not bad.” Then he took a final critical look at Dru and left.

Rebecca didn’t relax until he trod out of sight. “What was his problem?” she wondered aloud.

Dru snorted. “It don’t take a genius to spot a goat in a flock of sheep.”

“What?”

“It’s just a cowboy sayin’. I don’t belong here. He can tell.”

“That’s ridiculous. You belong anywhere you want to belong.”

“Yeah, well it’s his job to be suspicious. We have another sayin’…”

“Oh goodie, she said in a monotone. “What is it?”

“Always take a good look at what you’re about to eat. It’s not so important to know what it is, but it’s crucial to know what it was.”

She chuckled.

“Finally. That pretty smile is back on your face. You looked like a cowboy about to be throwed off a bronc’s back while he was here.”

“I did?”

“Yeah.” Dru glanced at the clock. “’Bout time to unlock the door. You ready?”

“One more deep breath,” she said. After a hearty inhale, she nodded and began to walk toward the kitchen.

“Well, I’ll be!”

Rebecca whirled around in time to see Dru yank open the door, grasp a young woman and drag her over the threshold. He lifted her off the floor and into a bear hug. “Shasta!”

When he set her down, he pressed a kiss on her bangs. “Where the hell have you been?”

The expression on the young woman’s face betrayed a mixture of emotions. She looked surprised, nervous, and yet, something else. Hopeful?

“I—uh…I guess you know me?”

Dru’s jaw dropped. “Know you? Of course I know you. You’re my little sister. I helped our mama change your diapers.”

Rebecca approached cautiously. “Is your name Shasta?”

“I don’t know. It might be. I’ve had amnesia for three months.”

She checked Dru’s expression. His eyes rounded and his mouth hung open. At last, he blinked.

“Have a seat,” Rebecca offered. “Can I get you some coffee and a pastry?”

“Uh, sure. I loved that apple pie I had here the other day.” April sat at one of the customer’s tables.

Dru’s brows shot up. “You were here?” He pulled up a chair beside her as if she might escape. “Recently?”

“Yeah. But my b…my friend went up to the counter and ordered. I sat at this table and looked out the window.”

“What were you about to say?”

“What do you mean?”

“You started to say something else. Something that began with a b.”

Rebecca rested her hands on Dru’s shoulders. “Why don’t you let her ask the questions for a while, Dru. She probably has a lot more than you do.”

“Good point.”

April offered a cautious smile. “Your name is Dru?”

“Yeah. Dru Tanner. And you’re Shasta Tanner. You should have a birthmark in the shape of a heart on your thigh.”

Her fingers went to her right thigh as if she could feel it through her shorts. “How did you know?”

He chuckled. “Because I’ve known you since birth. Like I said…dirty diapers.”

Rebecca excused herself and strolled behind the counter, presumably to cut two pieces of apple pie. It also gave them some privacy.

He continued nostalgically, “That heart reminded me I was helpin’ momma, because I loved both of you.”

“Momma? I have a mother somewhere?”

Oh, shit. She doesn’t remember losin’ momma.
Dru hung his head. “Yeah. In heaven.”

“Oh.”

They shared a long silence, then he cleared his throat. “So, what else do you want to know?”

She pointed to Rebecca and whispered, “Is that your wife?”

“No. She’s my g—friend.” He hoped Rebecca didn’t hear his hesitation.

“So you have a girlfriend the same way I have a boyfriend? Just gettin’ to know each other?”

Dru smiled over his shoulder at Rebecca. “Yeah, but it’s a little more than that.”

“Like what?” his sister asked.

Dru hesitated, then lowered his voice and said, “More like love at first sight.”

Shasta tipped her head. “Awww…That’s sweet. So do you live together?”

“Yeah. Right upstairs. Where’ve you been stayin’?”

“The homeless shelter.”

“Homeless—” Dru forced himself to be calm. “But I checked that place.”

“Yeah, they don’t tell on people who’re stayin’ there. I heard them at the desk saying the same rehearsed speech. ‘I’m sorry. We can neither confirm nor deny that we have a resident by that name here’.”

Dru sighed. “Yeah. I got that speech. I called the day after I arrived. Never mind. There’s a guest room upstairs you can use for the night.”

Her brow wrinkled. “One night?”

“Well, yeah. Now that I’ve found you, I need to take you back home. You’re goin’ to the University of Texas. You missed graduation. You can stay at the ranch until next semester and then go back and finish up.”

“What?” She waved a halt to his plan. “Wait just a gosh darn minute. I don’t know you, and I certainly don’t know anyone in Texas. I’m not goin’ anywhere.”

Rebecca returned with their pie, and none too soon. She set a piece in front of Shasta and as she put the other one in front of Dru, she bent down and whispered in his ear. “Can I speak to you privately?”

He paused, then said. “Yeah,” and rose. He pointed a finger at Shasta. “Don’t you go anywhere. Hear?”

She rolled her eyes. “I won’t.” Then she aimed an impish grin his way. “I’d miss my pie if I did.”

Dru wanted to shake her, but how could she possibly know what he’d gone through to find her. He’d be sure to tell her at some point. Rebecca grasped his hand and practically dragged him to the kitchen. Even so, he refused to go further than the door so he could keep an eye on Shasta.
I’m not lettin’ her out of my sight.

“She can have the guest room for as long as she wants, Dru.”

“But you have bad guys comin’ after ya, Rebecca. I don’t want to put her in danger. I have to get her home.”
And I should take you with me.

Rebecca took a deep breath and looked like she was wording her thoughts carefully. “The sigil magic will protect her here, and I can make another sigil to protect her anywhere.”

“Think you can make one to restore her memory?”

She paused. “Not a sigil, but maybe there’s a spell. It would be better if I take a little time to research it with Myranda or Hanna. Spells on the mind are very tricky.” She stroked his brow as if ironing out some wrinkles. “It doesn’t sound like there’s any rush to get her home. What’s another few days?”

Dru searched her eyes silently for any sign of ulterior motives. Nah. She wasn’t like that. At last, he said. “Yeah. Sounds like it might go over better with Shasta too.”

Rebecca let out a deep breath. “Okay. When you’re ready, go get her things from the shelter and move her into the guest room. If you know where she is, you’ll be able to relax and figure things out with her.” She gave him an apologetic smile and whispered, “Try not to be bossy. Trust takes time.”

Shasta Tanner.
The name still seemed foreign. She felt more like an April, but that’s probably because she couldn’t remember being called anything else. Why was she in this part of the country? How did she get here? And how much longer would it take to recover her memory?

Mike said his came back gradually with the help of other people filling him in. Was this guy really her brother? How could he know about her birthmark if he wasn’t? Maybe she was wearing a bathing suit around him at some point. She hadn’t bought a bathing suit yet though. She didn’t know if she could swim and suspected her fair skin would burn in the sun.

Yeah, he’s probably my brother. And he has a girlfriend, so what would he want me for? Maybe he has no other family.

Dru sat down with her again. “Any more questions?”

“Only about a million.”

He chuckled. “Shoot.”

“How old am I?”

“You were twenty-two on May fifth.”

“Darn. I missed my birthday.”

Dru chuckled. “We’ll have a belated party for ya.”

“Am I married or engaged or anything?”

“Not that I know of.”

Whew.
“Where do I live?”

“Well, you were goin’ to school in Austin. You lived in the dorm there.”

“What was I studyin’?”

“Your major was Liberal Arts.”

“Hmmm…so I guess I’m a liberal.”

Dru laughed. “I wouldn’t be surprised, but that’s not what the degree is about. Basically, it’s a little of this and a little of that. You didn’t really know what you wanted to be when you grew up, so you figured you’d find it along the way.”

“Did I?”

He shrugged. “Not sure. I spoke to your roommate, but I forgot to ask about that. She told me you were into Wicca, and the other wiccans on campus were all worried about you when you didn’t come back on time. They did a spell for you in case you were in trouble. At the time, I thought it was horse-hockey.”

She chuckled. “How did I get here from Texas—and why?”

“From what I gathered from your academic advisor, you were flunkin’ out of school—probably because you spent so much time with momma near the end. Your English and history professors let you do an extra credit assignment over spring break. It had to do with our roots here in New England.”

She rolled that around in her brain for a moment. “Geez. Losing my mother and flunkin’ out of school. Sounds like I had a tough year.”

Dru looked serious. “You did. There’s one other thing that happened, but I don’t want to burden you with more than you can handle. Not right off the bat like this. Rebecca wants to invite you to stay in her guest room—for as long as you like. There’s no rush. We can talk things out a little slower that way.”

She smiled. “Thanks. I’d appreciate that.”

“Okay. So after we finish our pie, we can go get your things from the homeless shelter. Oh. If that’s okay with you?”

“I should probably talk to my caseworker first. She’s been tryin’ to locate my next of kin. Do we have any other close relatives?”

“No. When momma died in February, that left just you and me.”

“I figure we must have had a papa at one time.”

Dru fidgeted. “Well, it’s like this…We don’t exactly know who he is. He must have lived near the ranch, because momma had the two of us four years apart, and we’re full blooded brother and sister.”

“Huh. I wonder why she kept him a secret.”

“I wonder too. I figure, he might have another family somewhere.”

“Yeah, that would make sense. It doesn’t speak well of him though.”

“No. It don’t. But I suppose it could be other things.”

“Like what?”

“Maybe she was ashamed of him.”

“Still doesn’t paint him in a positive light.”

“Nope.”

After a few moments of quiet contemplation, she moved on. “You mentioned a ranch. Tell me about that.”

“We grew up on a cattle ranch in Texas. Momma was the full time cook. She fed about thirteen of us three meals a day, every day. The owner’s wife was a terrible cook, so everybody loved Momma and we got to grow up there.”

“Huh.” She had to come up with better reactions. So far, her former life didn’t sound too bad.

“You love to ride,” he said and smiled.

“Ride?”

“Horses. You had your own from the time you were nine. Your first was a pony you named
Scooby Doo
.”

Something about that name rang a very distant bell. Or maybe she’d heard it on TV. She rubbed her temples.

“Sorry. Is this too much at once?” Dru asked.

“No.” Her head started to hurt. “Uh, maybe.”

“Okay. We should probably take a break and go get your things.”

“I—I have a date. My friend Mike is taking me out to lunch.”

His look of disappointment was hard to miss. “Want to come?” she asked impulsively.