For this interruption, Leanne was missing the main point of the meeting she shouldn’t have agreed to attend. “It’s two in the afternoon.”

“It’s booze o’clock somewhere.”

Leanne sighed. There was no point in trying to reason with Juniper “Junie” Vanderpol. She’d never get Junie to understand that Leanne had an actual career, not just a place where she showed up to occasionally earn cash to pay the rent. Junie preferred living as the spirit moved her; Leanne’s middle name had been “Moonbeam,” though she’d legally dropped it down to a mysterious M when she reverted to her maiden name after her first marriage. People could do that free of charge during divorce proceedings, no separate name-change decree required.

“I’ll be home around five,” she said. “I’ll have a drink with you, then I’m going out. If you’d called ahead, you would know my coven’s having a party tonight.”

“Sounds fun…” The wistful tone came across crystal clear.

Leanne knew her mother was angling for an invite, and she’d be damned if she added that much chaos to an occasion that already might blow sky-high. Between Danica and Clem, the coven had as much tension as it could hold. They didn’t need Junie adding her special brand of spontaneity to the mix.

“I’m sure it will be,” she said briskly.

She swallowed the rest of her words. You’re my mother. We’re not besties. That wasn’t how Junie had raised Leanne, however. She had been twenty when she chose to get pregnant, twenty-one when she had Leanne, and she’d raised her as if they were friends who cohabitated. There were never any rules—Leanne ate cookies for breakfast, cereal for dinner, or whatever she could find, and there was always another handsome man promising Junie the sun and stars. More often than not, she’d believed them, and she had been married six times. Oddly, the one person Junie hadn’t married was Leanne’s father; Leanne had never met the man, as far as she could recall, though there had been so many “uncles” that she was sick of the word.

“See you later,” Junie said, some of the brightness seeping out of her voice.

Leanne cut the call, wishing she could siphon away the insidious guilt as easily. It was easy to tell that her mom was lonely, but it wasn’t Leanne’s fault that she’d lived like a nomad, never putting down roots. Unlike her mother, Leanne had chosen St. Claire after doing significant research on the place and finding a coven that fit her. She’d moved here intentionally after college, selected this as her home, and never regretted that decision. If Mom wanted to live in St. Claire, she could find a place here, but she couldn’t burst into Leanne’s life and expect everything to work out long-term.