“No, but as small as the place is, we could probably take care of the whole job in a couple of days if all three of us worked together,” Nessa said as she put a huge jug of detergent in the cart and then checked the list. “Cinnamon and ginger. We need to go down the spice aisle, and we need flour and sugar, too. I brought partial bags from home, but they won’t last a whole week.”

Thirty minutes later, they rolled their cart, now loaded with full bags, out to the parking lot to find Flynn sitting in the same parking spot as before. April pushed the cart over to the SUV, and Flynn got out to help unload.

“Right on time.” He looked up at the sky. “A miracle may float down from heaven.”

“The only thing that’s coming out of those clouds is rain, and lightning to strike you if you don’t watch your mouth,” Nessa told him.

“I always knew you were a witch, but I didn’t know you could control the lightning,” he said.

“Never underestimate the powers of a redhead,” Nessa shot back at him.

“Did you get everything you needed?” April asked.

“Except for the air conditioners,” Flynn answered. “But they’ve ordered three small window units that I can pick up on Thursday. We’ll have a cool house by this weekend.”

Together they situated the bags in the back of the vehicle, and then April got into the back seat again. She wasn’t sure how they’d all three live together as adults, but there was a bed and a shower, and judging from all the groceries Nessa had paid for, she wasn’t going to go hungry. For all those comforts, she could put up with Nessa’s smart-ass attitude and Flynn’s secretive smugness. If they were still around at the end of the summer, she would use what money she had made at whatever job she could find to locate her own place. She didn’t intend to live with them forever.

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Jackson Devereaux had always loved the sunsets in North Texas. Maybe it was because he took the time to enjoy them more than he had when he lived in Austin, but in those days, he’d seldom seen the sunrise or the sunset. He’d worked eighteen-hour days at the law firm back then. Most of the time he had been in his office before daylight and hadn’t left until after dark. Nowadays he knocked off work by five thirty. His muscles might be tired, but his mind had not been tied up in stress knots since he left the city.

He sat down on the porch steps, and his big yellow dog flopped down beside him. “How did your day go, Tex?” He scratched the dog’s ears. “Did you chase any rabbits or tree a squirrel or two?”