Chapter One

“ C ome on! It’s just for fun. Think of it as a way to meet new people. If the new people are all cute, single guys, that’s a plus, right?”

Izzy looked at her sister. Harper, the golden child of the family, moved around the pile of tissues and empty jars of peanut butter, picking up trash and putting it into a bag while retrieving spoons and hoarding them in her other hand.

“Dating and I do not mix.”

“Maybe you should!”

“Even if I should, not here, not like this, no. Speed dating and magic don’t mix.” Izzy snorted at her sister as she marched off to the kitchen. Harper had recently had twins, was married to a gorgeous guy who adored her, and already had her pre-baby body back. To Harper, everything was “just for fun” or “just try it out!”

“In Pine Ridge, everything mixes with magic, it’s just that most people don’t know it. You’re new in town, and you need to meet people. You like the coffee at The Pine Loft. This is just what you need!”

“You’ve never had a breakup. You have a perfect life. You don’t know anything about what us ‘normal’ people need.”

Harper dropped the silverware into the kitchen sink with a clatter. She marched back into the living room with her hands balled on her curvy hips, somehow already in perfect skin-tight jeans.“You know nothing. Adian won’t nurse for more than ten minutes at a time, and Alana is like a vacuum. I’m a hormone bomb with no appetite, but I have to eat so I can nurse. I can’t have coffee. I’m too tired to have sex. My hair is shedding.”

Izzy was stirred from her funk by her sister’s confession. “I’ll come help with the babies this weekend, I promise. I’m sorry, honey.”

“No, I’m sorry. I get it. Travis was your first Big L. We all thought... Well. You two have been together since high school. We thought he was the one.”

Izzy nodded, unable to speak around the bundle of hot tears wedged in her throat. When all the other girls in high school were dating a new boy every week, she’d been cautious. She’d been patient. Watching her parents’ marriage implode had soured her on romance, especially since her mother’s refrain was, “Our first mistake was when we got married after only three months!”

Harper, several years older, way more gorgeous, and about to fly the nest to NYU Pine Ridge, and was able to ignore the ugliness of divorce and custody battles. Fifteen-year-old Izzy had front row seats to the chaotic, bitter end of a marriage and her clueless mother’s attempts to navigate the dating scene after almost twenty years away from it. The results?

Harper had fallen wildly in love with a local boy in her college town who was her perfect match in every way. Izzy had made dating a calculated study of trial and error— other people’s trials and errors. She’d moved slowly, carefully, and only given her heart away after she’d “analyzed" Travis for the first three-and-a-half years of high school. Travis was a safe bet. She knew that he didn’t play around. She knew he planned to work at his father’s construction business. They both planned to go to the same college, Antonia College, the closest state college to their high school.

It would be graduation, marriage, apartment, house, baby.

It would be a long, loving marriage with no shocks and heartbreaks because her studies and Travis’ predictability would allow her to avoid all of them.

It would be safe.

“Izzy?”

“I thought he was the one, too.” Izzy smiled up at her sister, her grin broken on one side.

“We were both fooled, but that doesn’t mean every man is out to fool you. I don’t think Travis intended to... do what he did.”

Izzy shook her head. “Yes, he did. Dad did, too. Dating is not fun, Harper. Not fun for normal people. You married Alban. You married a witch—”

“Warlock,” Harper corrected.

“Whatever. How do you know that—” Know that he’s really the guy you love? How can you ever trust someone who can magic away a bad memory of a fight, or solve a plumbing problem with a wave of his wand?

“I know Alban. I would love him with or without magic. And you’ve liked Pine Ridge since you moved here!”

That was true. Izzy loved the little town. If her sister and Alban hadn’t told her that it was a haven for people who used magic, she wouldn’t have noticed. They also insisted that some people in town were vampires, werewolves, and other sorts of magical creatures. Izzy wasn’t sure she believed them about that . Wouldn’t there be killings, skulking figures, and wild howling in the night? Pine Ridge was incredibly peaceful.

“I like it here. It’s peaceful. If there’s magic, it doesn’t bother me. That’s what I need. I need peace and not to be bothered.”

Harper leaned in and sniffed her. Sniffed! “No, what you need is a shower and a shampoo. You need to get up and get out of this apartment. You need to meet people, and make friends, even if they’re just friends. Honey, sometimes you have to take a risk. Get back on the horse. A different horse! Maybe a wild horse!” Harper straightened up with a kiss on her forehead.

“Wild? Risk? You faint if your purse doesn’t match your shoes.”

“That was before motherhood. Now I’m happy if I can see my shoes through my permanently puffy eyes.”

Izzy shook her head. That was Harper, seeing flaws that didn’t exist. “You look amazing.”

“And you will, too. After a shower. Extra conditioner.” Harper tugged on the tangled autumn orange locks. “Reintroduce your hair to the wonderful world of shampoo and detangler, and then come on over. You should be with family, and we’re all you’ve got.”

They both winced.

Their mother had moved to Cozumel to be with her latest internet Lothario.

Their father was “finding himself” in places without wi-fi and cell service.

And Travis... Well. He waited until graduation was over. Was that because he was struggling with the idea of leaving her, or had he just figured it would be easier to stay close to Antonia until his classes were finished?

Whatever the reason, Harper, Alban, and the twins were all the family Izzy could count on. In late July, Alban had come and loaded up her half of the apartment (while offering to hex all of Travis’ shoes so that he would constantly trip.) Harper (with three-week-old twins) had come along with him and hauled her crying ass to Pine Ridge.

Izzy had moved into their old second-floor single bedroom in a quaint red-brick in the center of town. She could have walked from there to the residential neighborhood Harper’s little family of four lived in, but she never had. She’d come to Pine Ridge, pretended to deal, pretended to look for a full-time job, and cried a lot.

“I don’t feel like going out.”

“Sweetie. It’s been two months. You don’t have to be over him, but you have to do more than a weekly pilgrimage to the grocery store or a Saturday splurge on coffee and a bagel at The Pine Loft. Seriously, Alban’s family has lived here for three generations. The people are great. He brags all about his smart little sister-in-love. They want to meet you, not just have a ‘sighting.’”

Izzy grunted. “Sister-in-love? That sounds corny. Or like a new television series about Mormons.”

Harper rolled her eyes. “At least you’re making jokes again. Hey, look, I’ll make a deal with you. We’ll pay October’s rent if you babysit this weekend—and you do one event of my choice that gets you to meet other people.”

Izzy jumped in place, spine feeling a jolt of panic, like when you start to tumble down the stairs. October? She still didn’t have a full-time job. She was doing some free-lance work as a proofreader, and subbed at an online cyber school, but she didn’t have a job. She didn’t have a job, a boyfriend, or a ring on her finger. She didn’t have any of her plans!

Suddenly, pumpkin spice lattes with a bunch of strangers didn’t seem so bad.

Well, not worse than her life, anyway.