Something Magical (Witches of Hawthorne Grove Book 1) Read Free Page B

said. She picked up the box and placed it inside a paperboard box before sliding both into a thick, gray craft paper bag.
    “I saw you with the lady outside and I thought—oh, well, it doesn't really matter what I think.” Waving away her words as if she were embarrassed to have made such a guess, she said, “We'll take one eighty.”
    He nodded and placed a few bills on the counter along with a business card. He tapped it, and picked up the box. “If you happen to locate the other pieces, give me a call. Thank you, ladies.”
    “No, thank you ,” Esmerelda said as he made his way to the door. The minute he stepped outside the shop, she turned to her sisters with a wide-eyed look of awe. “Did you see those eyes ? Oh my! Miss Dean isn't going to know what hit her!”

    * * *
    A t home , Jordan tossed the local paper onto one side of his kitchen table and set the package containing the letter box on the other. The overhead lighting in here was much better for allowing him to inspect it properly and as he lifted it out of the bag he looked at each side, his fingertips running along the edges of the inlaid mother-of-pearl while his brain made notes of the various repairs he'd need to do. New legs, a short length of mahogany for repairing the chip on the front. With just a bit of refinishing, the box would almost be like new.
    Jordan was fully aware most collectors preferred to find pieces in pristine original condition, but he rather enjoyed restoring those he found that were in such poor condition nobody wanted them. There was a certain satisfaction in taking something worn and broken and making it whole again.
    He himself had amassed a nice collection of letter boxes like this one over the years, but he wasn't in it for the money, so the fact that restoration tended to make a piece less valuable than an untouched original didn't bother him. Reclaiming antique boxes was a surprising past-time he'd stumbled upon and it was work he loved to lose himself in.
    Cautiously, he opened the box. The hinges still worked, but the pale blue paper lining that had been glued to the interior over a hundred years ago was picked and beginning to peel in spots. One corner was worse than the rest, and … he squinted at the paper. It looked like something had been wedged between the paper and the side of the box.
    Turning, he rummaged through a drawer until he found a pair of tweezers, which he used to pick gently at the item beneath the loosened paper, he pushed it slightly forward, hoping to move it along the edge until he could finally get a hold on it.
    Whatever the thing was, it was thin. He didn't want to damage the box but his curiosity was piqued. Using the end of the tweezers, he painstakingly inched the mysterious item hidden inside the box toward a tear in the corner. The thing was a devil to move beneath the tightly glued paper—until it reached that last, crucial centimeter. He almost had it out without mishap, but then his hand slipped and the blasted thing popped free. Without warning, it jumped the edge of the box, and pinged off his marbled counter top before landing on the unread paper he'd tossed on the kitchen table earlier—right over a notice from the local animal rescue shelter.
    Afraid he'd irreparably marred the interior of the box, Jordan ignored it to inspect the damage, but miraculously, the thing had sprung free without leaving a scratch … on the box. He was the one who had taken damage from that little battle. In his struggle to keep the box from sliding off the table while trying to catch whatever had sprung free at the same time, he'd sustained a nasty scratch on his inner forearm from the tweezers. He barely gave it a glance, though, because once he was satisfied the box hadn't been damaged, he'd sat it aside and reached for the thing lying on top of the paper to see what had been hidden inside.
    It was some sort of metallic, oval tag—brass, he decided once he saw the murky green patina creeping