found myself barely able to speak above a whisper. “You got new clothes.”
He smiled, his gaze darting to the ground in embarrassment. “Julie Bender found them for me in her husband’s old things.”
Julie had kept her husband’s clothes when he died a few years ago. She told me that she didn’t have the heart to get rid of them. I could understand.
“They fit you well.”
We stared at each other a moment as a spell floated up to me and bounced against my forehead before bobbing away. The magic reminded me of lightning bugs on a humid summer’s night.
“How did you get out here?” I asked.
“Uber,” he replied.
Yep, even in small towns we had Uber.
“Would you like to help me?”
“I—I came to keep you from getting your rear end full of buckshot.”
“I see.” He opened his palm, and a red spell fell onto it. Deciding it wasn’t the one, he dropped his hand away. “So only you and I can see them.”
He referenced what Willard Gandy had said earlier today. “Malene told me that she and some of her friends used to be spell hunters. They caught spells and sold them to witches, maybe humans.”
“The good kind, I imagine,” Rufus murmured.
“I guess.” Grass crunched under my feet as I approached. Lady jumped around, snapping at spells as if they were butterflies. “Lady, stop. I don’t want you eating one of those. They’re bad for you.”
She sulked away.
I took a spot off from Rufus and started inspecting the orbs. “But now even Malene and her spell hunters can’t see them anymore. No one can. Hannah, Sadie’s mom, hid all the spells from everyone.”
“So it’s just you and me. Is that right?”
“It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Maybe it’s not supposed to,” he murmured.
I glanced over and found Rufus studying me. Heat flared in my cheeks, and I turned away. There wasn’t supposed to be some sort of weird chemistry between us.
I hated him.
Right. Didn’t I?
While he quietly studied spell after spell and released them back into the atmosphere, I realized that there wasn’t much to hate.
I hated that, too.
Just the thought of it made me brittle.
“So does that make you a spell hunter?” he asked, amusement filling his voice.
“I’ve never seen any of these before. Not until you showed up.”
He seemed to consider that. “Maybe I’ll take up a new line of work, then. Become a spell hunter.”
I stared at him openly.
He laughed at my expression and poked a spell, sending it arrowing away. “What else have I got to do? I don’t know who I am or where I live, so I don’t know where to go. I also need to make money, so perhaps it isn’t a bad idea.”
I snorted. “You tell Dooley Hutto that he’s got spells out here and you’re searching through them, he’s going to want a cut of the profits.”
“I could give the money to you.”
His words made my entire body stutter. “What?”
Rufus gave me a sidelong glance before turning back to pluck a golden ball from the air. “You need it more than I do.”
“You don’t even know me.”
“But I feel like I do.”
I rocked back on my heels and turned my face away so that he wouldn’t see the fear in my eyes. “What do you mean?”
“I just feel that I know you, is all. Just one of those things, I guess.” He laughed. “It’s silly, I know. We’ve only just met, but you’re easy to be around.”
I exhaled, relieved. That was all Rufus was saying—that I was a comforting presence. He didn’t suspect.
“There are a lot of people who are easy to be with. But I’m surprised you’d say that, given how I was a bundle of nerves today.”
“You had a right to be.”
I opened my palm, and a magenta-colored orb slipped into it—a talking spell. Interesting. I’d never seen one of those before. You never knew when you might need a good talking spell. I slipped it in my jean pocket. It vibrated against my groin.
Great.
“My parents both died when I was younger,” I murmured.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said.
“My mother first and then my dad. They were both very sick and left me when I was barely eighteen.”
Why was I telling him this? Why was I revealing my secrets to Rufus? Maybe because it was a beautiful night. The stars shone high above us, and the spells were simply delightful to behold.
“What did you do after?” he gently prodded.
“Well, I went to school and got a construction and design degree, of all