A Flicker of Doubt - Tim Myers [53]
She was in the middle of selling a vast array of crystals and amethysts to an elderly man when I walked into The New Age, so I nodded to her, then browsed among the trays of polished stones. There was a great variety there, and I felt myself drawn to pick up one sample stone of each, hold it in my hand, then move on to the next selection.
I didn’t even notice the man was gone until Heather coughed gently. I dropped the adventurine in my hand and let it slip back to the pile.
“They’re lovely, aren’t they?” she said. “Most of these stones came from Hiddenite.” Hiddenite was a place an hour’s drive from Micah’s Ridge, and they had unbelievable deposits of precious and semiprecious stones there.
“I thought you just got your quartz there,” I said
“I do, but these are locally mined, too. You’ve got the touch for stones, don’t you?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I saw the way you were bonding with them,” said.
“I was just looking,” I insisted.
She smiled gently. “So which stone attracted you most?”
“I liked this one,” I admitted, pointing to a cent parallelogram I’d picked up and studied earlier, hadn’t been in a bin, but instead stood on a piece black velvet “Was this quartz polished into its at all?”
“No, it crystallizes naturally that way.” She picked the stone up and added, “It’s Calcite, actually, and’ one of the few pieces in my shop that didn’t come the United States.” She gave it to me, and I felt stone’s weight in my hand again.
“So what does that say about me?” I asked, trying to judge her sincerity. I didn’t put much stock in rocks, crystals, pyramids or many of the other things Heather sold in her shop.
If she caught my jibe she didn’t acknowledge it. “You’re a man who loves order. You’d like things in the world to be more defined than they are, but you also have a skewed sense of value compared to most people, you’re not concerned with acquiring great wealth, but you would like to acquire more friends than you’ve got. Wouldn’t say you’re a risk-taker, but you are willing to go out pretty far out on a limb when someone you care about is involved.”
I put the stone back on the velvet. “How much of that did you get from the stone, and how much from knowing me?”
She smiled again. “Perhaps I fudged a little, but I believe it’s true that our preferences reveal more about our natures than most people realize.”
“Heather, I really need you to stay at River’s Edge; I’d miss you too much if you were gone.”
“Me, or Esmeralda?” Now she was the one trying to lighten the mood, but I wasn’t going to let her.
“You,” I said earnestly. “I really want you to stay here with us.”
“Then don’t renew Sanora’s lease,” she said.
“I want you both here,” I said.
“But she-—”
I cut her off. “Don’t do this.”
She frowned, then a customer walked in before I could push her for a commitment.
“Excuse me,” she said.
“We’re not finished.”
“It can wait,” Heather said. Her customer was wearing a simple designer dress that must have cost her a fortune. From the way she was draped in stones, it appeared that she had an affinity for diamonds.
I slipped out as Heather waited on her customer. Instead of going back to the candleshop, I decided to speak with Sanora first. Maybe I’d have better luck with her. Unfortunately, she was taking the day off, or so the sign in the window of The Pot Shot said. I wished I knew how she could afford to be gone so much from her store. Whatever her secret was, I doubted it was anything I could apply to At Wick’s End. I’d tried several ways to bring in new customers, but I’d had tepid response from my marketing plans. We were getting by, and that was going to have to be good enough for. Once I figured out what had really happened, maybe I could focus more on the business, but knew the truth, the candles would have to wait.
I popped in to tell Eve I was going to be gone long than I expected and was surprised to see half a dozen customers in the shop.
She looked relieved, almost happy to see me we made eye contact. In a loud voice,