1
Forget Santa. Forget the live reindeer. Forget adorable kids dressed as elves.
Asa in a black silk top hat was giving me hot flashes.
The tidy cravat was weirdly sexy. Very Mr. Darcy. He wore his Black Hat-issued dress pants, crisp white button-down shirt, and polished dress shoes. The cane he carved from a downed limb on my property, and he knitted a scarf for the occasion. The town festival closet—and yes, under Mayor Tate, we had a costume department—provided a period-appropriate jacket.
His gorgeous hair was scooped into a man bun to give him a clean nape for the sake of his character, and I already missed his braids. Though I was slightly obsessed with the black post earrings, representative of coal, and the thick black bar piercing his septum.
The sunset bathed his features in a golden glow, and the scowl cutting his mouth made me want to chuckle. Since it was genuine, not acting, I behaved myself. Mostly. Except for the videos and photos I sneaked of him while he bah humbugged at the citizens of Samford, come to enjoy A Downtown Dickens Christmas.
He could Ebenezer my Scrooge anytime.
“Scrooge is hot.” Camber fanned her face. “Good thing Mayor Tate skipped the fake snow machine.”
“His hotness would have melted it,” Arden agreed. “Puddles everywhere.”
The glare I cut them would have drawn blood in my black witch days, but I was a white witch now.
And I got zero respect. Seriously. None. At all.
Forget the boogeyman I ought to be to them. I was more of a fairy godmother in their eyes.
The ding to my pride was enough to almost make me miss inspiring pants-pissing terror in my enemies.
But fear, as sweet as it smelled—minus the urine—had never made me as happy as the simple love from these two human girls. Girls with expensive, if impeccable, taste. Girls who had long ago memorized the shop credit card. Girls who, after years of practicing, could forge my signature with frightening accuracy.
Like the one Camber scrawled on the receipt for our Victorian-inspired dresses with modern hemlines.
Camber was a vision in pine-bough green, while Arden made a bold statement in cranberry red. I got the best of both worlds in a plaid pattern that incorporated both of their colors with light gold accents. Black flats, shining jingle bell jewelry, and matching updos pinned with the liberal application of faux-holly hair sticks lent us a uniform customers would notice when it came time to ask questions or make a purchase.
The extra expenses brought a tear to my eye, but this was our grand reopening. We aimed to dazzle new customers while reminding old ones we were still here, and we were back in business after the remodel.
Not that the girls, or anyone else in town, knew the truth. That a black witch wrecked Hollis Apothecary in a fit of rage. They all blamed my fictional ex-boyfriend, and I had no choice but to let them. I hated to lie to the people who had embraced me, but I had fabricated a life story when I arrived in Samford, and I couldn’t edit the fine details at this point. They were facts in the minds of the townsfolk, and I was stuck.
Movement caught my eye where I stood in the doorway to the shop, welcoming in customers.
Dressed in ragged brown pants, a dirty white shirt, and ratty ochre jacket, Clay waved with his crutch.
His crutch.
That Asa, sucker that he was, carved to scale for him.
At seven feet tall, four hundred pounds, Clayton Kerr had no business dressing up as Tiny Tim.
Though I will admit, he was cute as a button in his newsboy cap covering his wildly curling brunet wig. He wore a gray scarf rescued from the bowels of my closet and a pair of fingerless gloves from the dollar store. His black suspenders, as mismatched as the rest of his outfit, strained to accommodate his height.
Those flimsy metal clips holding his pants up didn’t inspire much faith, so I was glad he kept his distance. I did not want one to cut loose and pop me in the eye if he moved the wrong way. That would hurt like…
…the Dickens.
And the mayor would never forgive me if I made a spectacle that marred her winter extravaganza.
Never mind our town was so small that characters outnumbered shoppers two to one.
That was the only reason Mayor Tate agreed to let the guys pitch in. Arden’s idea. Not mine. I would not have put Asa through this. He preferred to disappear into the background, not be thrust to the fore. Had I not assigned him Scrooge, we might have had a problem. His stark masculine beauty drew stares, and a middle-aged woman swooned at the sight of him. Granted, hers was a fear response, though she had no idea why gawking at him led to her collapse seconds later. His threat, his power, was a nagging prickle in the brain that warned prey to run, run, run until a thick door with a hefty lock separated them from him.
Not that either barrier would make a lick of difference to a daemon as determined as the one inside Asa.