Suddenly Psychic (Glimmer Lake #1)(14)

It was the man from the lake, she was certain of it. His hair was dark, and Robin had the same feeling as the first time she’d seen him. He was familiar. She’d seen him before.

Nothing about the man frightened her. He didn’t speak. He didn’t fidget. He was reading a book. What book? She couldn’t see. Why was he reading? Where did he even get a book?

The man looked up, caught her eye, and smiled.

The cold spilled over her, but it was familiar now, like a gust of fresh air in an overheated room. Robin closed her eyes and slept.





Chapter 5





Two weeks later

“I swear, no one ever closes a door or turns off a light switch in this house except me.” Grace Lewis’s voice cut through the shop and landed exactly as Robin knew her mom had intended—square on her daughter’s shoulders.

Robin instinctively looked up to see what she’d forgotten. There was one light on in the storeroom, the one she was working under.

Robin’s mother—the previous owner of Glimmer Lake Curios—walked into her daughter’s office, a converted galley kitchen with a bathroom attached.

“Hi, Mom.” Robin looked up, but she didn’t stand.

“Why was the door standing open to God and everyone?” Grace asked.

“I don’t know. I shut it. Do you want coffee?”

“You shut it? So it was the fairies?”

“Ha ha.” She pointed to the counter. “There’s coffee made if you want some.”

It was a long-standing family joke that Robin had seen “fairies” when she was young. In reality, Robin had a normal childhood imagination that her mother had done her best to stamp out by the time Robin entered first grade.

“The door keeps blowing open.” Robin paged through new auction catalogs. “I think there’s something wrong with the latch.”

“It doesn’t feel loose.” Grace unwound her delicate silk scarf and walked to the coffee maker.

“I know, but it keeps blowing open, so I think it must be something with the hardware.” She shrugged. “It’s an old house.”

“It is.” Grace poured herself a cup and sat across from Robin. “How was yesterday?”

“It was fine. I was exhausted by the end of the day, but I managed. And I slept really well last night.”

“That’s good. It was a Sunday.”

“And it’s the fall.” Sunday had been the first weekend day that Robin had watched the shop by herself since the accident. She was surprised at how exhausted she’d been, but in the middle of the fall season the shop didn’t get too crazy. By the time snow fell, she’d better be back to one hundred percent. “I’m sure I’ll be myself in a couple of weeks.”

“Good. You know I don’t mind helping out, but I worry about missing sales,” Grace said. It was Tuesday morning, and the new pieces her mother had picked up at a Sacramento auction house would be coming in.

“If you want to go back to buying only, I can find someone else to—”

“No, no!” Grace waved a hand. “I’m fine.”

You hate working in the shop. Robin thought it. She didn’t dare say it.

As Grace had gotten older, she’d grown worse and worse about customer service, especially when new people moved into town and didn’t realize who Grace Russell Lewis was. Daughter of Gordon Russell, owner of the largest lumber mill in the mountains and founder of Glimmer Lake, Grace was nothing if not proud of her family and her town. She was short with customers from the city and could be incredibly judgmental.

“Did the woman on Saturday come back?” Grace sipped her coffee. “She had… interesting ideas.”

“Nope. Never came back.”

“That’s a shame.”

You definitely do not think that.

The customer had proposed staining the gold birch of a Depression-era desk with a darker color. The look on Grace’s face had suggested the woman wanted to murder puppies.

“Don’t worry.” Robin sipped her tea. “You scared her off.”

“I suspect…” Grace raised another eyebrow. “…that the prices scared her off more than I did.”

“Mom, really?”

“Did she look like a serious customer to you?”

And that was why Robin was desperate to feel like herself again. She had to get her mom out of the shop. Grace had been driving customers away with her passive aggression, veiled insults, and dismissive attitude. Sure, Robin liked the original finish on the desk the woman had been looking at, but if it didn’t match her house, it didn’t match. She’d much rather a sell a piece—especially one that had been sitting in the store for six months—than keep it because she had philosophical differences with a buyer about furniture finishes.

Better for Grace to go back to buying, where she could charm auctioneers and find the best bargains for the store.

“I don’t think you need to be here today,” Robin said. “Nothing much going on except the shipment, and Brent said he could help me move stuff.”

Brent Russell was her neighbor at Suffolk Realty next door. He was also her second or third cousin and was great about helping her move big pieces.

“Brent?” Grace frowned. “Is he strong enough for that?”