"You're aware, I assume, of what people are saying about your aunt."
Heat radiated up from her neck to the roots of her hair. She dropped the rosebud and shot him a look. His intensity was disconcerting, unnerving, utterly mesmerizing. "What people?"
"People in town. I've hardly spent any time at all here, and already I've heard things."
"Hannah's an old woman, and she's lived in Frye's Cove all her life. People talk. I wouldn't pay any attention—"
"Then she doesn't fancy herself a witch?"
Piper took a breath. Who had he been talking to? But he'd never tell. Clate Jackson was the kind of man who listened to and remembered everything, but said nothing unless it was to his advantage. "Hannah's beliefs are her business and no one else's. I will say this: the witches I know are kind, knowledgeable, self-reliant, attuned to nature—and they make a vow to do harm to no one."
His intensity didn't let up, his eyes, even with the gray light, that searing, unsettling blue. "Not intentionally, presumably."
"You mean Stan Carlucci." Piper could hear the weariness in her own voice. "He's never going to let that one little mistake go. Well, you can forget whatever you've heard. Hannah doesn't go around deliberately poisoning people, not even Stan, who's as big an ass as they come."
Clate was staring at her in such a manner that she decided, belatedly, that perhaps he hadn't heard about Stan Carlucci's misfortune. She swore softly to herself. The best defense was sometimes a good offense, but other times it was knowing when to keep your mouth shut.
"And Stan Carlucci is who?" he asked mildly.
"A local selectman. I—you—" She winced, calming herself, then cocked her head at him. "Urn, what exactly have you heard about Hannah?"
A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, only increasing Piper's dread about just what he'd heard. He fingered a cinnamon stick. She noticed a tiny scar on his thumb, the dark hairs on his tanned wrist. "I gather there are competing theories as to why she sold her property and how I ended up as the purchaser."
Piper swallowed. When she was ten years old, she had vowed never to let anything her great-aunt did embarrass her. Hannah's actions were a reflection on her, and she was accountable for what she did, and Piper loved her unconditionally, totally.
But her aunt had never before claimed to have conjured up a rich, sexy Tennessean for her one and only niece.
Clate rested those mesmerizing eyes on her. "You've heard these theories, too, I take it?"
She cleared her throat. "Probably not all of them."
"You want me to run them by you?"
"Please."
He smiled. He knew she didn't want to hear the first thing about any competing theories. This was revenge, pure and simple, for having caught her trespassing again and then lying about it. Piper raised her chin, determined to hear him out without squirming.
"Let's see if I can remember." He narrowed his eyes a moment, as if thinking. She didn't for a second believe he didn't have this entire scene rehearsed. "First is the ghost theory. Supposedly Mrs. Frye believes one of my ancestors is haunting her former house—"
"Not true."
"No, I didn't think so. Then there's the devil theory."
The devil theory? Piper hadn't heard that one. "Go on."
"The devil made her cast a spell on me to lure me north so I could buy her house and land and build a resort that would forever change the destiny of quiet, picturesque Frye's Cove."
"That's crazy. Hannah's no tool of the devil. She's a sweet, caring woman."
"What about me?"
Piper shrugged. "I can't vouch for you. I hardly know you. Did you buy her land for a resort?"
He gave her a small, mysterious smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "That's irrelevant. In this particular theory, we're both tools of the devil, not just me."
"Just because Hannah has unorthodox interests doesn't mean she's evil. That's just people's ignorance of what real witchcraft is, not that Hannah's even a witch. So you can cross that theory right off your list if it means Hannah's involved with the devil."
"All right." He boldly settled onto a high stool at her worktable. The smell of spices, orange, lemon, lavender, and roses mingled with the cool, salty scents of the fog and the rain. "Well, then we come to the romance theory."
Piper was silent.
"The romance theory," Clate went on in that smooth, all-too-sexy drawl, "has it that your aunt sold her house as part of a spell to summon a man to Cape Cod who would fall in love with her niece."
"The man being you," Piper said neutrally, "and the niece being me."
"Presumably."
She cleared her throat. "Well, all these theories are very interesting, but Frye's Cove is a small town, and people will talk. Right now I have work to do."
"You haven't dismissed this particular theory."
"I haven't? Oh. Well, consider it dismissed. My love life isn't anyone else's business, and I'm sure yours isn't either."