Page 34 of Enchanted Village

“Oh, that’s too soon after everything you’ve already done. I couldn’t ask you to—”

His hand was suddenly a light touch on hers, his eyes shining down at her.

“Margaret,” he said, voice so low that she doubted even Liza could hear him. “I know you said that it’s difficult for you to ask for help. But remember, with me . . . You don’t need to ask.”

She shivered under his touch.

“All right, then,” she said, forcing a smile that she hoped hid the way her body was heating up. “Until tomorrow.”

He smiled at her, letting his hand fall. He grabbed his toolbox from the ground, tipped his head to Liza, and headed to the door. He stopped there, at the threshold, for just a moment longer, holding Margaret’s eyes in a way that made her legs feel like jelly, until at last he disappeared out of the door and into the foggy November morning.

“Oh, he is the whole package, isn’t he?” Liza purred, craning her head to look out the window as he walked past. “Look at him go.”

“Liza,” Margaret said. “You can’t just be letting strange men into my pub!”

Liza rolled her eyes. “Oh, poor you. A handsome, kind man spent hours fixing up your pub—by hand, I might add—and has offered to do it again. And he wasn’t a ‘strange man.’ You’ve met him multiple times. In fact, it sounds like you spent considerable time with him yesterday.”

Margaret glared as Liza waggled her eyebrows. “That wasn’t anything. He agreed to help because he felt bad about inciting Bernie. It was completely friendly.”

“Ah, right, friendly,” Liza teased. “What I just watched was purely platonic.”

“As a matter of fact,” Margaret insisted. “We agreed on those exact terms.”

“You what?” Liza said.

“I made sure he knew that I can’t afford distractions right now, with Fox Bar opening,” Margaret said, then hurried on before Liza could disagree. “I know I promised to keep an open mind, but Fox Bar changes things, Liza. I need to be sensible. Silas and I can be friends. But for now, that’s all I have to give.”

For a moment, Liza’s mouth hung open. Margaret watched several emotions pass across her friend’s face: disbelief, betrayal, horror. Eventually, though, something settled, and Liza pressed her fingertip to her temple and took a breath.

“I . . . I have my thoughts,” she said. “But for now, I will keep them to myself.”

Margaret arched a brow. Liza never kept anything to herself, not when she was happy, not when she was sad, and certainly not when she was angry. Liza’s mother often joked that the day Liza learned to speak was the last quiet day of her life.

“And if it’s Fox Bar you’re worried about,” Liza said, “and you won’t focus on anything else until you’ve taken care of that . . .”

Liza pulled out her wand, tapping it on the chair before whisking it through the air toward Margaret. Instantly, Margaret felt like an egg had been cracked on her head, and then, there was a sensation like cool air crisscrossing over her scalp. She reached up and touched her head, finding Liza had corralled her curls into a French braid that was tied at the bottom with a perfect bow.

“Then we’ll take care of it,” Liza said. “I say we start with some reconnaissance around town. See what details we can gather. I’ve tried on my own, but it’s a mixed bag of gossip. I say we go straight to the source.”

“Liza,” Margaret said with a sigh. “I need to . . .”

“Put in a windowpane by yourself?” Liza asked, cocking her head to the side. “Craft a wooden sign by hand? How, pray tell, will you be doing those things without the good professor’s assistance?”

Margaret opened and closed her mouth. She wasn’t sure, exactly. She’d planned to deal with those things last after some research. But now that Silas had taken care of nearly everything else, she found herself at a bit of a loss for next steps.

“C’mon, Mags,” Liza said. “It’ll be fun.”

Margaret didn’t trust the gleam in Liza’s eye, but then again, she was curious.

Liza looked Margaret up and down. “Why don’t you change, and I’ll gather some tools?”

“I don’t want to know, do I?” Margaret asked.

Liza flashed a devilish grin. “I guess you’ll just have to see.”

Chapter Sixteen

It had been too long since Silas had had a proper project to work on.