about it, the more I liked the idea. Beez had been my best friend since we met in kindergarten. No one knew me better, and being able to spend more time with her sounded great. Having that to look forward to might make my silent mornings in the shop feel less like drudgery.
Not that it changed that niggling feeling that something serious had to change in the shop, something bigger than just painting the break room purple and letting Beez read tarot cards. But it was a nice start. “We can go out on Monday when we’re done with Dad’s, buy some paint and stuff for the back room.”
Her grin lit up the whole shop. “Awesome.”
We hit the street, and despite the cool afternoon, I was warm. Yeah, working with Beez could be good. Maybe I’d look into those graphic novels again too.
Chapter Five
Beez headed for her car as I unlocked the shop.
I didn’t look for my father when we got in, just marched right past the overturned rack of new releases to drop off foxy’s food in the office. Then, taking the extra bowl we’d gotten out of the bag, I filled it with water in the bathroom sink and took it out to set behind the counter.
Foxy followed me through all of this, watching with fascination, so I turned to him, crouching next to the dish. “Is this a good spot for your water?”
He delicately set his toy on my jean-clad leg instead of the floor, leaned down to take a drink, then reached up to grab his toy again, and disappeared out to the front of the store. I decided to take that as a yes and stood.
Time to deal with the rack, I supposed.
Movement caught my eye—foxy making a beeline for the couch.
The couch that already had an occupant.
“Holy fucking shit!” I jumped back, my shoulders jarring the hold shelves behind the counter and leaving a dull ache in my back. That was gonna bruise.
The man sitting on the couch looked like the star of one of the books I’d been cataloguing that very morning—an old western gunslinger. He had wavy golden hair and deep brown eyes that stared at me with unnerving intensity. Like I was being weighed as a threat. That shouldn’t take long, since I undeniably was not one.
Him, on the other hand . . . under his long brown duster, he was wearing a leather gun belt. With a gun in it.
My heart leapt at someone openly carrying a freaking weapon in my shop, and I had to remind myself to breathe.
Just as I managed to drag in a deep breath, logic brain kicked in and pointed out the obvious. The gunslinger was dead. He was as translucent as morning fog. As translucent as my father, who was standing next to the counter alternately glaring at me and then the stranger.
I wondered if Dad was more offended that the man was in the shop, or that he knew how to sit on the couch while dead. I coughed to disguise a laugh, but I could barely choke it back.
Meanwhile, foxy hopped up on the couch right next to the gunslinger, looking at him expectantly.
The gunslinger looked at foxy, then closed his eyes and sighed. It was another oddity about ghosts. They didn’t need to breathe—they didn’t have bodies—but they all went through the motions of the physical things they had done in life. Like the gunslinger, who was giving every sign of exasperation.
“A fox? Really?” His voice was deep and rough, like he gargled rocks or smoked a pack a day. I wondered if ghosts could smoke ghost cigarettes. I’d never seen it happen, but like I said, ghosts are rare. I’d only seen a scant handful in my nearly thirty years.
Yep, that was me. The world’s weakest social mage, with the most useless peripheral ability known to magic.
I wasn’t going to let him malign my not-familiar, though. “What’s wrong with a fox? He’s a good fox.”
The gunslinger turned to look at me. “A trickster. Woulda been better off with a mouse or a hawk. Something smart without being clever.”
He said clever like he meant pestilent, and dammit, I took offense.
“They’re the same thing.” Okay, yeah, so I’ve been called clever. That and “gifted” were the gifts that kept on giving well into adulthood. Giving, you know: anxiety, depression, and generalized feelings of failure.
The gunslinger lifted one eyebrow, and the opposite side of his lips quirked down, expression screaming “like I said,”