Skipping a few paragraphs in Hedge House, a paranormal/urban fantasy.  A customer has come into the shop and Cara is browsing while Tamira helps her.

She moved on the jewelry display as Tamira finished up with the customer. Engrossed, she vaguely heard the door chimes as the woman left.

“Finding anything?”

Tamira was suddenly at her elbow, her voice holding a slight challenge.

Cara shook her head. “Nothing here is my taste,” she replied. “I can appreciate the beauty of the pieces, but I can’t imagine wearing any of them. I do need to get a chain for this, though.” She pulled the Herkimer pendant from her pocket, holding it in her closed fist for a moment before slowly opening her hand to show Tamira.

“I think I have just exactly what you need.” She smiled and motioned for Cara to follow her to the back room. 

Cara followed and paused in the doorway. She wasn’t sure what she had expected – maybe a desk and office chair and computer for bookkeeping creating an oasis in a sea of boxes and unsorted stock – but that wasn’t what she saw. There was a desk and office chair and computer, but the walls of half the room were taken up with counters and lined with shelves that held bottles of various shapes and sizes along with baskets and bags. The counters were host to several mortars and pestles and a large number of small slow cookers.

“You can come in,” Tamira said, looking up from a drawer she was searching through.

Cara shrugged but said nothing. She felt unwelcome in the shop and really just wanted to go outside and maybe walk along the main street and look at the shops until Jacob came back.

She had a sudden urge to break down and cry but she wouldn’t do it here, not in front of this woman.

”

Tentative Blurb:

When Cara Hawthorne returns to the childhood home she had been torn away from twenty years earlier, she thinks it will be to do nothing more than settle her grandmother’s estate and return to her job as a junior lawyer at a prestigious law firm in Tulsa.

But every nook and cranny of the house and gardens unearths long-buried memories, and when the town’s mayor sets his sights on her and the property she finds herself caught up in a centuries old battle with powers she has only barely begun to understand

Find more great reading
at the Sunday Snippet group.

More from Hedge House, a paranormal/urban fantasy, almost finished first draft.

“The shop,” Tamira said as if they hadn’t detoured from the original question, “buys and sells antiques. Furniture, art, figurines, books.”

“Mostly,” Cara added dryly. “Or so Jacob tells me although he won’t say what else it sells.”

“A few homemade items,” Tamira replied. She studied Cara for a moment. “Jacob says you’re not sure if you’re staying in Crossroads?”

Cara shook her head. “I’m… torn. But if I don’t, I’ll sell you the business for a silver dollar.”

Tamira smiled and some sort of tension seemed to ease, leaving the air more breathable, and leaving Cara wondering why she had specified a silver dollar.

“I’m going to leave you two ladies to get acquainted,” Jacob said. “I need to run to the hardware store and the farm supply. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

The two women stared at each other in silence after he left, neither one knowing quite what to say. 

“So,” Cara broke the silence. “I’m afraid I don’t know much about antiques so I’m not going to be much help around here. But on the other hand, I also won’t try to tell you what to do or how to do it.”

Her words seemed to amuse Tamira and Cara felt a flash of irritation. 

“When I meet with the lawyer I’ll have him take care of transferring ownership of the shop.”

Tentative Blurb:

When Cara Hawthorne returns to the childhood home she had been torn away from twenty years earlier, she thinks it will be to do nothing more than settle her grandmother’s estate and return to her job as a junior lawyer at a prestigious law firm in Tulsa.

But every nook and cranny of the house and gardens unearths long-buried memories, and when the town’s mayor sets his sights on her and the property she finds herself caught up in a centuries old battle with powers she has only barely begun to understand

Find more great reading
at the Sunday Snippet group.

Picking up from last week in Hedge House, a paranormal/urban fantasy WiP.  Cara is getting to know Tamira, the woman who runs the shop her grandmother owned.

“Only if it makes you more aware of how your actions create ripples.”

“It wasn’t her actions, Tamira,” Jacob said, a low warning growl in his voice. “Put the blame where it’s due. Her absence was her mother’s doing. She’s the one that took her away from everything that she knew and got her exposed to that crazy cult.” He looked at Cara. “Apologies,” he said. “But that’s what it is.”

“You won’t get any argument from me about that,” Cara said. “I happen to agree with you. The things they did…” Her mind shied away from the events even as part of her knew with a deep certainty that Jacob did know… But how could he?

She shook her head sharply to clear the thought and pushed it down. Now was not the time to lose her mind or to explore random feelings and questions and knowings.

She smiled at Tamira. “Tell me about the shop?” she asked. “I don’t seem to remember it from when I was little.”

“Belle didn’t open it until after you’d been taken away,” the woman replied. “She started it because…” Tamira caught Jacob’s gaze and something seemed to flow between them. “Because she needed something to occupy her time after losing her son and granddaughter.”

Cara fixed her with an intense gaze, wondering what she had been going to say, but Jacob touched her shoulder and she turned to look at him.

“Not yet, Cara,” he murmured. “You’re not ready to know that yet.”

Tentative Blurb:

When Cara Hawthorne returns to the childhood home she had been torn away from twenty years earlier, she thinks it will be to do nothing more than settle her grandmother’s estate and return to her job as a junior lawyer at a prestigious law firm in Tulsa.

But every nook and cranny of the house and gardens unearths long-buried memories, and when the town’s mayor sets his sights on her and the property she finds herself caught up in a centuries old battle with powers she has only barely begun to understand

Find more great reading
at the Sunday Snippet group.