“You should let me give you a reading, Kendall,” Mason said.
The store was finally quiet, and they were trying to clean up.
As she set a coffee cup in the dishwasher, she wondered if she should have told him that someone had left a voodoo doll by her back door. But the store had already been filled with customers when she’d arrived, and maybe because it was Friday, they had been rushed off their feet all day, so she’d never had a chance. In fact, they’d been so deluged with business that she’d had to call Vinnie and ask him to run over to the bakery and pick up some more pastries.
Vinnie had agreed cheerfully—maybe because he owed her forty bucks. Or maybe just because he was her friend. He’d even hung around helping for the rest of the afternoon.
“You’re going to give Kendall a reading?” Vinnie asked Mason.
“You bet,” Mason said.
“No readings,” Kendall said. Was it because she didn’t believe?
Or because she did?
Vinnie picked up one of the crystal balls off the shelf and stared into it. “I’ll do the readings, thank you. I see someone tall, dark, handsome—and suspicious, even threatening. Someone who will be taking our princess to the ball. And guess what else I see? She’s accompanied by the most striking footman ever. He’s lean, he’s mean, he’s a walking sex machine. And his name is Vinnie.”
“What the hell are you going on about?” Mason asked.
Vinnie set the ball down. “The charity thing at the aquarium tomorrow night. Hey, Kendall, I found someone to sit in for me, so I can go.”
Mason quickly shot Kendall a hurt glare. “You’re going, and you asked Vinnie to go, and you didn’t even mention it to me?”
“Mason, we didn’t get a chance to say two words to each other today.”
“You certainly said more than two words to me. You said, ‘Mason, clear that table. Mason, they need coffee. Mason, take that reading and I’ll handle the register.’ You said, ‘Mason, quick, brew another pot of pecan-cinnamon coffee.’ You said—”
“All right, all right,” Kendall said, laughing. “I get your drift. And don’t look at me like a puppy I threw out in the rain. You’re invited, too.”
“I am?” he said, brightening immediately. “Cool. But it’s a benefit. I think I’d feel…smarmy if I didn’t pay. Wait, I get it. The Flynn brothers get freebies. They’re smarmy, then.”
“No, they bought the first twenty tickets or something like that,” Kendall corrected him.
Mason looked at Vinnie. “She likes him, you know.”
“Yeah. Go figure.”
“You did call him tall, dark and handsome,” Mason reminded Vinnie. “Though he was kind of a jerk to you.”
“He was suspicious of me,” Vinnie said. “But he isn’t anymore. I don’t think he is, anyway. Is he, Kendall?”
“I don’t know. I think, when you’re straight with him, he’s straight with you.”
“You do like him,” Mason teased.
Kendall refused to take the bait. “And you’d better like him, too, since it’s thanks to him you’re both going.
“So should we meet at your place Saturday after work and all go together?” Vinnie asked.
She hesitated, not about to tell them that she was spending the night—maybe more than one night?—at the Flynn plantation. Not that it mattered, since she had to come in to open in the morning, then go home to change for the party. “Sure, we’ll meet at my place. It starts at eight, and I’m sure Aidan will want to be there when it starts.”
Kendall was just about to lock the door when Ady came in with Rebecca. Neither had an appointment for a reading, and Kendall thought at first that they had just stopped by to say hi, but then Rebecca said to Kendall, “Mama wanted a minute with you. Not a full reading or anything, just a minute alone.”
Ady was looking at Kendall so anxiously that she agreed, leading the old woman back to her private reading room. Her tarot cards sat on the table, but she avoided looking at them.
“Miss Ady, you don’t want a reading,” she said, after the old woman was seated and she had taken her own chair on the opposite side of the table. “You just had one a few days ago.”
Ady pursed her lips. “I had a dream,” she said.
Kendall smiled. “We all have dreams. I just had a terrible nightmare myself. But that’s all they are, just dreams, Miss Ady. Sometimes they have something to do with things that happened during the day, sometimes with things we’re afraid of. Are you worried about what Dr. Ling told you?”
Ady waved a hand in the air. “I’m not worried about me at all, Kendall Montgomery. You’ve taken care of me, and I’m right grateful. It’s you I’m worried about.”
“Me?” Kendall said, surprised.
Ady leaned forward, her old face set with determination.
“Do you know why Amelia didn’t leave that plantation to you?”