offered almond. “It’s hard for you to feel jumbled.”
Very. And every part of my make-up has excellent defensive mechanisms in the face of that kind of discomfort. Sadly, they don’t play well together. My Sagittarius sun heads for the nearest country she’s never visited, my Cancer moon tries to burrow into the sand, and my Libra rising tries to smooth everything out and act like the adult in the room. She burrowed her head under the pillow this morning and refused to get out of bed. “I’m being ridiculous.”
Violet shrugs. “Probably.”
I shoot her a disgruntled look. “Don’t try Blue’s tactics on me.”
A snort from the front window. “Someone needs to.”
Of course she’s been listening. I tilt my head and examine her work. She’s been making small changes, but they’re adding up into something bigger than the sum of their parts. Which is a distraction I’m happy to fuel. “Maybe we need to expand the window opening and get rid of that post. It chops up the view.”
Blue rolls her eyes. “It also holds up the roof. Specifically, it keeps Violet’s refrigerator from falling through the floor into our display window.”
I wave an airy hand. “Whatever. I’m sure you can figure out some other way to keep that from happening.”
Violet snickers.
I eye her.
She sobers. Matches my head tilt. Considers.
Oops. I also took a look at Violet’s chart this morning. She’s got a very interesting trine going on with her moon, and hopefully it will focus on worrying about view lines in our front window. Because otherwise I’m going to be moving that dang shelf around for three days.
Violet finally smiles. “If we take out the post, can we get rid of that bit of wall, too?”
I grin. Victory is mine, or it will be once Blue’s stubborn Taurus gives in to friendship and the fact that Aquarius is currently streaking through her sixth house.
Besides, she should have seen this coming. Violet doesn’t do walls.
I suddenly want some, however. For paintings I haven’t even seen.
DREW
I lean back on the tall chair I purloined from Hamish’s brewery and contemplate the canvas on my easel. Progress, finally.
Mabel chuckles. “That’s a lovely purple, my dear.”
That was the problem with the blue. It was supposed to be purple. And on a much bigger canvas. Which fortunately arrived last night, along with a note of apology and a couple of bottles of fancy beer that aren’t nearly as good as what Hamish brews.
I got spoiled this winter.
I glance out the window. I can’t see the brewery from here, or the inside of Shenanigans, which is probably good. I’d never get any work done.
And this work matters.
My eyes drift back to my canvas. It’s less lush than the ones I was painting this winter. Fewer moody layers. But it’s got a vibrancy that dances in the unnamed, unlabeled space between ancient rocks and flowing water.
My first painting of Indigo and her friends.
It’s going to be an interesting spring.
Chapter Thirteen
DREW
I squint down at the grocery list I scribbled this morning after scouting for anything that might resemble edible food in my fridge. It wasn’t a successful hunt, not with the higher standards I’ve evolved since I was a kid, anyhow. Back then, a little mold could be handled with a fingernail and a careful sniff, at least according to Mabel. In her defense, the scales of two hundred years ago tipped a lot harder toward not wasting anything that might still be edible. Nobody worried about a little extra green stuff.
Saying so got me a failing grade on a history paper once. It’s hard to properly cite a ghost.
I decide that the third item on my list is probably tomatoes and head to the side of the market that has nice, shiny piles of an impressive variety of vegetables. The couple who own the market have a daughter who’s studying to be a chef. I think we’re the side beneficiaries of keeping her well stocked in exotic ingredients. I pick up a mango and contemplate whether I’ve reached the part of the year where juice running down my chin is a good thing.
“Those are tasty. Violet brought a couple of them home yesterday.”
I look over at the woman who somehow snuck up on me in the middle of a wide-open grocery store. I’ve run into Indigo at the coffee shop a couple of times since our soup date, and once in the thrift store at the end of the street that has charming delusions of grandeur. But there’s been