Along Came a Husband by Helen Brenna Read Free Book Online Page B

two moseying around her shop and took a deep breath, hoping to clear her head.
    “T-shirts?” the woman in front of her said, not a little irritated. “On sale?”
    “I’m sorry. Just the rack in the corner is thirty percent off.”
    The woman shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Then you should be more specific with your signage.”
    Normally, Missy would’ve ignored the comment, but this morning was nowhere near normal. “Don’t like it?” she said, raising her eyebrows. “You can leave.”
    The unrepentant comment had no sooner left her mouth, than she recognized it as having come from the old Missy. The spoiled, immature, reckless and rash Melissa Camden. The young woman who had unapologetically married Jonas less than three months after meeting him. The woman who had pouted—she had to be honest, at least with herself—when Jonas had had to work late or leave town for an assignment.
    “Well, I never!” The woman roughly hung the shirt back on the rack and huffed out of the shop.
    Missy glanced around. One down. Two more to go.
    Apparently, Jonas barging back into her life had somehow thrown Missy back in time, as if she’d lost the past four plus years of growing and maturing. She’d been only twenty-three when she’d met him and an immature twenty-three at that. But she’d known what she’d wanted back then. Him.
    She’d been doing tarot readings, for fun, at the bar she was working at in Quantico, Virginia. To this day, she had no clue what had drawn her to that town, but back then she wasn’t questioning much. She’d broken free of her father and the last thing she’d wanted was structure or rules. She’d been letting her instincts and intuition drive her on the way to discovering this world.
    What had driven her on the night she’d met Jonas had been her body. She’d wanted him, and she was going to have him. They’d made love in the back of his SUV, and from that moment on she’d believed she was supposed to spend the rest of her life with him.
    How could Fate have been so wrong?
    Missy pressed the inside of her left arm against her side, putting close to heart the chakra symbols she’d had tattooed there not long after Jonas had supposedly died. Steady, Missy. Remember who you are. Remember who you’ve become.
    Maybe Jonas dying had been the best thing that had ever happened to her. She’d been forced to find herself apart from who she was with him. Being on Mirabelle had helped her become Missy Charms, the responsible, respectful, albeit a bit flighty, woman who ran her own small business.
    She paid her bills, mostly by the due dates, and she’d employed the same student for several summers in a row, helping the young woman, Gaia, make her way debt-free through college. Whimsy might not yet be breaking even, but she had the luxury of not having to worry about making a buck.
    Not the typical, north woods, painted-fish-mailbox kind of gift shop, Missy inventoried, among other things, candles and incense burners, tarot cards and wind chimes, Buddha statues and water fountains, unique books and greeting cards made from recycled materials, clothing made from organic fabric and handmade jewelry, some of which Missy made herself.
    In a place like Los Angeles, her wares would’ve likely flown off the shelves, but the Mirabelle residents had all thought she was crazy. Maybe she was. Maybe her gift shop never would break even. The important part was that all of her inventory came from either small U.S. businesses, more often than not owned by women trying to eke out a living, or foreign fair trade markets. There were more important things on her agenda than turning a profit.
    Missy glanced around her shop and tried to shake off all her misgivings. Stretching out her neck to relax, she walked to the main desk, lit a stick of pine-scented incense and stuck it in a holder on the counter. The clean scent might go a long way in clearing her head and helping her dispel the negative energy she