"What?"

"I'll call you a bitch if it'll help bring us closer as people willing to explore our inner woman."

Lulu gave a snort of her own. "You've got a quick mouth on you when you want to. You carry your weight and you keep your word. That goes a way with me."

"I also make superior gingerbread."

Lulu walked over, picked up a slice. "I'll be the judge of that. See that you read October's book before the next discussion."

Nell's dimples flickered. "I will."

Upstairs, Ripley annoyed Peg by demanding a bowl of soup minutes before closing.

"I've got a date, so if you don't finish this before my time's up, you'll just have to wash the bowl yourself."

"I can dump it in the sink the same as you would, for Nell to deal with in the morning. Give me a hot chocolate to go with it. Are you still stepping out with Mick Burmingham?"

"That's right. We're snugging in and having a video festival. We're watching Scream One, Two, and Three."

"Very sexy. If you want to take off, I won't snitch to Mia."

Peg didn't hesitate. "Thanks." She whipped off her apron. "I'm gone."

Appreciating the fact that the café was empty, Ripley settled down to enjoy her soup in blissful solitude. Nothing could have spoiled her pleasure more quickly than hearing the click of Mia's heels on the floor barely one minute later.

"Where's Peg?"

"I cut her loose. Hot date."

"I don't appreciate you giving my employees permission to leave early. The café doesn't close for another four minutes, and it's part of her job description to clean the case, counters, and kitchen after that time."

"Well, I booted her along, so you can kick my ass instead of hers." Intrigued, Ripley continued to spoon up soup as she studied Mia.

It was a rare event to see the cool Ms. Devlin heated up, and jittery. She was twisting the chain of the amulet she wore around her neck, continued to worry it as she strode over to the display counter and hissed.

"There are health regulations about cleanliness in food services. Since you were so generous to Peg, you can damn well scrub this up yourself."

"In a pig's eye," Ripley muttered, but felt a tug of guilt that threatened to spoil her appetite. "What bug crawled up your butt?"

"I have a business to run here, and it takes more than stalking around the village looking cocky, which is your specialty."

"Oh, get fucked, Mia. It'll improve your humor."

Mia rounded back. "Unlike you, fucking isn't my answer to every whim and itch."

"You want to play the ice maiden because Sam Logan dumped you, that's your…" Ripley trailed off, despising herself even as the hot color in Mia's face drained. "Sorry. Out of line. Way out of line."

"Forget it."

"When I sucker punch somebody, I apologize. Even if you did come in here looking for a fight. In fact, I'll not only apologize, I'll ask you what's wrong."

"What the hell do you care?"

"Normally, I don't. But normally I don't see you spooked. What's the deal?"

They'd been friends once, and good ones. As close as any sisters. Because of that it was harder for Mia to sit, to open up, than it would have been if Ripley had been a stranger.

But the matter was more important than feuds or grudges. She sat across from Ripley, leveled her gaze. "There's blood on the moon."

"Oh, for-"

Before Ripley could finish, Mia's hand shot out, gripped her wrist. "Trouble, bad trouble is coming. A dark force. You know me well enough to be sure I wouldn't say it, wouldn't tell you, of all people, unless I was sure."

"And you know me well enough to know what I think of portents and omens." But there was a cold chill working up her spine.

"It's coming, after the leaves finish dying, before the first snow. I'm sure of that, too, but I can't see what it is, or where it comes from. Something's blocking it."

It disturbed Ripley when Mia's eyes went that deep, that dark. It seemed you could see a thousand years in them. "Any trouble comes to the island, Zack and I will handle it."

"It'll take more. Ripley, Zack loves Nell and you love him. They're at the center of this. I feel it. If you don't flex, something will break. Something none of us can put right again. I can't do whatever needs to be done alone, and Nell isn't ready yet."

"I can't help you that way."

"Won't."

"Can't or won't comes out to the same thing."

"Yes, it does," Mia said as she got to her feet. There wasn't temper sparking her eyes; that would have been easy to fight. There was weariness. "Deny what you are, lose what you are. I sincerely hope you don't regret it."

Mia went downstairs to greet her book club and deal with the business at hand.

Alone, Ripley rested her chin on her fist. It was a guilt trip, that was all. When Mia wasn't shooting out spiteful little darts, she heaped on layers of sticky guilt. Ripley wasn't falling for it. If there was a red haze over the moon, it was due to some atmospheric quirk and had nothing to do with her.

She would leave the omens and portents to Mia since she enjoyed them so much.

She shouldn't have dropped in tonight, shouldn't have put herself in a position where Mia could try to pin her. All they did was annoy each other. It had been that way for more than a decade.

But not always.

They'd been friends, next to inseparable friends, until they'd teetered on the cusp of adulthood. Ripley remembered her mother had called them twins of the heart. They'd shared everything, and maybe that was the problem.

It was natural for interests to diverge when people grew up, natural for childhood friends to drift apart. Not that she and Mia had drifted, she admitted. It had been more like a sword slash down the center of their friendship. Abrupt and violent.

But she'd had the right to go her own way. She'd been right to go her own way. And she wasn't going back now just because Mia was jittery over some atmospheric hitch.

Even if Mia was right and trouble was coming, it would be dealt with through the rules and obligations of the law, and not with spellbinding.

She had put away her childish things, the toys and the tools she had no further interest in. That had been sensible, mature. When people looked at her now, they saw Ripley Todd, deputy, a dependable, responsible woman who did her job; they didn't see some flaky island priestess who would brew them a potion to beef up their sex lives.

Irritated because even her thoughts sounded defensive and nasty, she gathered up her dishes and took them into the kitchen. There was just enough guilt still pricking at her to oblige her to rinse the dishes, load them in the dishwasher, scrub out the sink.

That, she decided, paid her debt.

She could hear the voices, all female, flowing back from the front of the store where the book club gathered. She could smell the incense Mia lit, a scent for protection. Ripley snuck out the back. A fleet of steamrollers couldn't have pushed her forward and into that noisy clutch of women now.

Just outside the back door she saw the fat black candle burning, a charm to repel evil. She would have sneered at it, but her gaze was drawn up.

The waning globe of the moon was shrouded in a thin and bloody mist.

Unable to work up that sneer, she jammed her hands in her jacket pockets and stared down at her own boots as she walked to her car.

When the last of the book club members were out the door, Mia flipped the locks. Nell was already clearing plates and napkins while Lulu closed the register.

"That was fun!" Stoneware rang gaily as Nell stacked coffee cups. "And so interesting. I've never discussed a book that way. Whenever I read one, I just think, well, I liked it or I didn't, but I never talked about why. And I promise to read next month's selection so I'll have something to contribute."