Page 19 of Halloween Town

It was Thom’s now. And that truth sat heavy on Poppy’s chest, a grief-shaped loss she couldn’t quite name. From this point on, she’d only ever be a guest at Solstice Deep, standing on the outskirts of a place that knew her heartbeat.

Everyone but her seemed to think this was acceptable. The lake still rolled up to its shore, the wind still blew through the trees. Life carried on while she mourned the loss of her history, her place, her safety net.

And then there was Thom…

Like, actually there, outside the lawyer’s office, leaning against his truck, a solid matt-black number, feet crossed, and his red T-shirt covering his Canada-wide chest. He cocked an infuriating eyebrow and tipped his head to the side.

“Satisfied?” he asked, sounding both bored and arrogant. Bastard.

Poppy ignored him and carried on walking past him, heading for Spirited Grounds. If she was going to deal with Thom Sheffield, then she needed coffee. Good coffee.

Thom fell into step next to her but Poppy refused to acknowledge his presence. Ignoring him, she jammed her hands into the pockets of her jeans, another new purchase from Wren, and felt the cash Wren had shoved into her hand when she’d left yesterday. The hundred-dollar bill was way more than she needed, but that was Wren, always over-delivering.

She walked up the two shallow steps to the bright, fuchsia-colored door, stopping to take in the pumpkins, cobwebs, bats, broomstick and a massive sepia portrait of Effie Merriweather displayed in the bow window. Thom reached around her to open the door for her, and Poppy nodded her thanks. He’d always had great manners, dammit.

Poppy had always thought Spirited Grounds looked like a building that had taken a few too many shots of absinthe. The pale pink façade curved outward in a bow-fronted window, as if the coffee shop wanted to gossip with pedestrians walking by. Above the door, its sign was a black-and-gold number in a font so ornate it was practically unreadable.

Inside, the place mimicked a Victorian tea parlor with an identity crisis. Velvet drapes fought for dominance with aqua and banana-yellow wallpaper, while old gilt mirrors warped reflections—Poppy caught sight of herself and saw someone who looked like they made excellent life choices, which was both incorrect and alarming. Every horizontal surface was buried under cheaply bought treasures, and teacups—bright, chipped, joyfully unmatched—hung from the ceiling on thin wires. Candles took up corner space, cat statues smirked at customers from shelves, and second-hand books were stacked everywhere in loose, shaky towers, complete with hand-scribbled signs encouraging patrons to borrow, steal, return, or swap. A huge, spray-painted mural of the founders of H-Town, Jeremiah Blackwood and Constance Merriweather, the leaders of the Puritanical group who’d been too melodramatic to stay in Salem, covered the whole of one wall.

Morrigan, Madame Calliope’s black-as-night, chunky cat, lay sprawled over a sunlit table in the back corner, his languid posture suggesting he owned the place—which, in his mind, he did. H-Town was his kingdom and humans his serfs. Nobody dared move him, because crossing Morrigan was a risky move that might result in a swat or a nip. He preened, stretched, and eyed the room, his expression screaming that he’d judged everyone present and found his subjects lacking in every conceivable way.

The air smelled like espresso and cinnamon, dust and warm milk, adding to the off-the-wall vibe. The baristas were dressed in black aprons and beaming smiles. A crooked chalkboard advertised the Halloween Specials: Hallowed Harvest Chai (pumpkin chai with clove and cardamom), and the Pumpkin Hex Latte (pumpkin spice and cinnamon). Poppy felt her mouth twitch. Half charm, half insanity, zero apologies. Only in H-Town.

The door whispered an electronic boo as someone entered behind her, and Poppy shifted in line. There was something strangely perfect about just standing there, wrapped in velvet and nonsense, deciding between the Dark Séance—an Americano strong enough to raise the dead—or the Witch’s Cold Shoulder, icy, sharp, and emotionally unavailable. Poppy smiled to herself. If coffee shops were personalities, Spirited Grounds was overdressed, emotionally curious, and absolutely uninterested in being normal.

And she hadn’t factored in Effie, its resident ghost, yet.

“Why are we here?” Thom muttered from behind her.

She turned to look at him. “Did I ask you to follow me?” she demanded. Poppy knew they were being watched—by locals and visitors alike, for entirely different reasons. The locals, because she was woven into this town’s fabric and Thom’s renovation of Solstice Deep had caught everyone’s attention. The locals were also curious about why a high-flying success story had walked away from his career, and why he and his brother no longer spoke…

The tourists—particularly the women—had far simpler motives.

They were checking him out.

Poppy couldn’t blame them. Thom, despite his chronic grumpiness, was objectively hot. Annoyingly so. She wished she could ignore his sexy factor, but her gaze caught on the muscles in his forearms, the fall of his shirt over a flat, toned stomach, the strength in his thighs wrapped in loose Levi’s. The things those Levi’s did to his butt. Or what his butt did to those Levi’s. Broad shoulders, solid chest, a muscled neck she wanted to sniff…

And that was just his body.

His face was no less arresting.

So problematic. Especially considering she’d just run away from her wedding to his brother.

A little distance was in order. She needed a cooling-off period before she started noticing how attractive other men were—particularly tall, broad-shouldered ones in faded Levi’s. Still, on the plus side, she didn’t have a single regret about bolting from Benji. Not one.

Judging by the photos he’d been posting on Instagram—partying his way through the Bahamas, drink in hand—he wasn’t missing her either. Someone in the comments suggested he might be putting on a brave face to protect his pride, that he had to be devastated by what that bitch had done to him. But Poppy knew Benji well enough to read his eyes, to decode his expressions.

He was having a ball. And he wasn’t even vaguely concerned about being jilted.

The door opened again, and Luna stepped inside, dressed in a far-too-conservative pin-striped pantsuit worn over a pale pink T-shirt. And spiked heels. She wore a fierier shade of red lipstick than she usually did.

Luna in a suit meant that someone was going to get their ass handed to them today.

Thom released a low laugh. “Who are you taking apart today, boss?” he asked, his tongue firmly in his cheek.

Luna scowled at him. “I have a meeting with someone who had the gall to reject my grant application to turn the H-Town/New Solstice football match into a tourist event.”

Thom’s eyes widened, and he took a step back, looking genuinely horrified. “Luna, the grudge match is the one thing, the only thing, that hasn’t been Halloweenified. Leave it alone, I beg you.”