She grabbed his hand and held it up. “You’re picking at your nails. Keep doing that and you might start bleeding.”

“I need to talk to you.” He looked from Irene to Clem to Taylor. “All of you.”

“Tea shop?” Clem suggested.

“Tea shop,” Irene said. Then to Kaden, “Are you okay to drive?”

“I haven’t been drinking,” he said. “Not that I couldn’t use something to take the edge off.”

“No more bourbon,” Irene said.

“I was thinking tea,” he said.

“A man after my own heart.”

When they got to Lavender & Lemon Balm, Irene put the kettle on while Kaden paced the length of the shop. After his third turn, Clem said, “For fuck’s sake, please sit down.”

He stopped where he stood, shoved his hands into his pockets, then curled up on one of the armchairs. He wrapped his arms around his legs and buried his head between his knees.

Irene crouched in front of him with a steaming mug of tea and offered it to him. “This should help.”

“Thanks,” he murmured, staying as compact as possible as he sipped.

Irene settled into the other chair.

“What happened in there?” Taylor asked. “I know your family threatened to take the Haywoods’ garden, but there’s no way they’re going to be able to pull that off. The city council doesn’t have that kind of power, even with the city manager on board. The Haywoods have a deed for the land. The town could make it some kind of historic site, but they can’t just take it.”

He looked up at her. “What if they can?” Then, “What if they have already?”

Clem said, “If my Google search on the way over has anything to say about it, they don’t have a legal leg to stand on.”

“I’m not talking about the law,” Kaden said. “I’m talking about magic.”

The room fell silent.

Clem was the first to speak. “Short of mind control, Sylvia can’t really do that.”

Irene’s words came out as a whisper. “Unless she made us forget that it was ever ours to begin with.”

“I thought you and Kaden put that whole theory to rest,” Clem said.

“You told her?” Kaden asked.

Clem laughed. “Sound carries at the rope swing.” At the hurt look on his face, she said, “It’s not like I told anyone else.”

Irene reached across the space between their chairs and rested a hand on his forearm. “What’s happened since we last spoke?”

He set the tea down beside him and uncurled just enough to rub his temples. “The other night when I stayed over, I couldn’t sleep.”

“Not something a woman wants to hear,” Clem said.

Kaden glared at her, but even that back-and-forth was starting to feel comfortably familiar, and he knew that a week in Yarrow was not long enough to account for such a strong sensation.