Page 21 of A Pinch of Magic

“I did not say that!” Cam bristled.

“You didn’t have to,” Avery said with a friendly smirk in her voice. “Birdie told me.”

Cam practically threw a can of Italian tomatoes into her cart. Of course her grandmother had given her cousin the scoop. Of course Avery had known about the fishing date she had been on that morning—if it even was a date, she reminded herself—even before Cam had told her.

“She says he has eyes like Paul Newman’s. Anyway, you like him, he’s hot, and he told you he likes you. I fail to see the problem here, my dear Summer Sister.”

Cam lowered her voice. She most definitely didn’t need all of Silver Cove to hear her airing her business over tins of red kidney beans. “The problem is that he has two kids. Plus an unstable ex-wife. And you know I don’t do drama.”

“You mean you don’t do vulnerable. As in you guard your heart like it’s goddamn Fort Knox. As in you look for any reason not to get involved.”

“That’s not fair,” Cam said. “Plus, he lives in Silver Cove, and despite my present circumstances, I actually live in New York. That’s geography. You can’t argue with that.”

“Of course I can. Don’t you remember Giles? We were madly in love, and we made it work for ages even though he lived in London.”

“All I recall is that you had a lot of phone sex, and then after you inevitably broke up, you cried every time you saw Prince William in the tabloids for like six months.”

“That’s not how I remember it at all,” Avery said with a sniff. “We had a lovely time together. All I’m saying is that you should just see what happens with this smoke show of a carpenter.”

“Okay, Summer Sister, new topic. How’s the retreat? How’s glamorous Budapest?”

“Not great. It’s so cold I can barely go outside some days. And my Spanish sculptor turned out to be a dud. Well, married, that is. How’s Birdie?”

Cam looked around to make sure no one could hear her as she finished loading her cart. “I think she’s okay. And pretty soon the house will be fixed, as long as I can pull off this job with Izzy, which isn’t looking certain at the moment. And I am wondering if Birdie isn’t slowing down just half a beat.”

“Are you worried about her living alone? You don’t think she needs to go to one of those homes or something, do you?”

“Oh God no, nothing like that,” Cam said. “It’s just that it’s a big house, and sometimes she gets a little lonely there. In fact, I think that might be part of the reason she wanted me to come out here and why she wanted me to stay for the fete.”

“But she’s been alone all these years,” Avery said.

“I think it just hits a little differently when you’re her age,” Cam said.

“I guess it would.” Avery sounded uncharacteristically sad. “And the cookbook with the fabulous Izzy Jones? Sounds like that’s not going great.”

Cam had confided the identity of her latest cookbook “client” to her cousin, swearing her to secrecy. “It’s not. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to pull it off, Av,” Cam said as she finished paying for her items, now ready to wheel her cart across the parking lot. “And there’s another thing I need to talk to you about. You’re going to think I’m crazy.”

“You, crazy?” Avery laughed. “Cam, you’re about the sanest, most sensible person I’ve ever met.”

“Hold that thought,” Cam said. “So here goes. I think I found a cookbook with a ghost living inside it who wants me to find something for her.”

“Is this a joke?” Avery asked.

“I wish it was,” Cam said. “I’m dead serious. I found this old cookbook when I was volunteering to organize stuff for the town’s stupid jumble sale, and I took it home. Whenever I cook from it, there’s this thing that happens. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s a sound, like a voice, and there’s a presence there with me. I can just feel it.”

“And this… presence—what is it that it wants you to find?”

“I don’t know,” Cam said. “All I can make out is that the voice is saying ‘find it.’ I don’t know—yet—what it is, but I want to find out. It’s hard to explain, but it’s like she’s speaking to me for a reason. Like it’s urgent.”

“Did you hit your head?” Avery asked. “This is not the Cam Parker I know—falling in love, failing at work, and now SEEING GHOSTS? And since when do you volunteer for the freaking jumble sale? What’s happening to you?”

“Oh, Avery,” Cam said, slamming the trunk shut and leaning her forehead for a moment on the cold glass of the station wagon’s back windshield, watching her warm breath fog the window. “I’m not sure I know.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

On the way back to Birdie’s house, Cam was going over her mental to-do list for an afternoon of testing vegan recipes and ducking Russell’s calls when she noticed a glow coming from inside a store along the town’s main drag. It was a small storefront that had been an antique store for years, but the few times Cam had walked by it since she had been in Silver Cove this visit, she had thought it looked fresher and more appealing. She had admired the display, which featured furniture and accessories of different eras, a mix that might have seemed like a mishmash and yet somehow looked harmonious and tied together.

An antique dealer might know something about the provenance of her mysterious find. And it wasn’t like she was making any progress in the kitchen, anyway, so a little side mission couldn’t hurt. As soon as she had unloaded all the groceries at Birdie’s, she grabbed Parsley’s leash and fished the delicate cookbook from the shelf and headed for downtown. On the way, she swung by the town hall, which was set up for the jumble sale with items tagged and neatly placed on tables in the spacious common area. Cam spotted Ginny, the volunteer coordinator.