Spotlight & Giveaway: A Touch of Spring Magic by Sinclair Jayne

Today, HJ is pleased to share with you Sinclair Jayne’s new release: A Touch of Spring Magic

She doesn’t believe in magic…right?

 
CPA Jessica Maye might secretly regret many decisions she’s made in her quest to be indispensable and perfect, but even she can’t pretend she hasn’t lost her shine and is stalled. When she’s shockingly fired, she takes it as a sign that it’s finally her time to follow her dreams. Returning to her grandma’s small family farm on Cramer Mountain, she’s drawn to opening a niche nursery and rehabbing the once famous gardens. But committing to host her sister’s bridal shower in the garden this spring cranks the pressure so tight she fears failing.

Landscape architect Brent ‘Storm’ Stevens worked hard to forget the high school heartbreak called Jessica Maye, so of course she’s his first potential client. He needs the job as much as Jessica needs the help, but neither seems able to call a truce with their rocky past.

Jessica’s unwilling to compromise on her vision, but the specter of disappointing her sister has her stifling her instincts and hiring Storm. And then that mysterious, heirloom Southern Love Spells book reappears and Jessica’s superstitious enough to worry. Storm’s not the one, is he?

Enjoy an exclusive excerpt from A Touch of Spring Magic 

Chapter One

Jessica Maye stood in front of the full-length mirror of what had once been a nursery in her grandma Millie’s childhood farmhouse. The light-charcoal suit matched her serious mood—the firm was barreling into the height of tax season—but she’d swapped out the matching vest for one in dark mauve that made her complexion pop. She might work at a conservative firm dominated by male management, but a woman still wanted to look her best.

She tucked her wavy red hair in a sedate French twist, added the pearl drop earrings that had been a graduation gift from her grandma Millie, and the Lady-Datejust Oystersteel and white gold Rolex—no diamonds; that was for when she joined her father’s company—that had been her graduation gift from her parents. She looked down at the pink-toned watch face. The watch was pretty and elegant, but she knew she’d never receive the upgrade. Nervous tremors hit her stomach, and acid washed dangerously up her esophagus. She promised herself that she would pursue her life dreams on her own terms, and that didn’t include joining Maye Properties and Development.

She’d already put plans in motion, hadn’t she, by asking Grandma Millie’s permission to move into the Cramer family farmhouse that had been empty for years, save for a caretaker who’d retired this year. That was step one. Now gaining her sisters’ agreement was step two. And then…and then… She pressed her hand on her stomach, closed her eyes and deep-breathed through the nerves that clawed through her.

She was thirty-one years old. Long past time to crave her parents’ approval.

“That and everyone else’s,” she gently mocked herself.

Time to stop ruminating. She wanted to be the first associate in the office. Prove her worth—even if it was hopefully only for a few more months.

Jessica hurried down the worn wood stairs to the farmhouse kitchen to make her protein drink and tea for the drive into work.

“There’s no hopefully about it,” she told her reflection in the large oval mirror, patinaed with age, which had hung on the landing long before she’d been born. “I will be my own boss. I will launch Cramer-Maye Gardens and Nursery on my own. Not the most inspiring name, but it had survived a Google search, and her attorney sister, Meghan, could help her with the legal setup.

When I tell them.

Ask them.

Again, with the nerves. Why couldn’t she jump into everything with no plans or worries like her youngest sister, Chloe? She always had to overthink. Appease. Gain permission.

“Just Do It,” she muttered the Nike slogan inspired by the Greek goddess of victory. “And I always win,” she said and turned on the electric teakettle. She caught her reflection in the massive window over the farmhouse-style sink that looked out over the former English-themed gardens that were now overgrown, choked with years of debris and who knew what else?

Well, she was going to find out. But not now. In late February the sun wouldn’t rise for another hour, and she’d be ensconced at her desk looking over one of her boss’s accounts that had come into question. Even though he was in his early fifties and an avid cyclist, he was having hip replacement surgery, and his client had called with some questions.

It was still dark outside. All she could see was her own, worried expression. She stretched her mouth wide, trying to release tension. Goodness if she didn’t destress, she’d be at the dermatologist for Botox and fillers like her mother’s posse soon.

“Yuck,” she muttered, making her tea and then dumping in the prepared Tupperware container of cut fruit and vegetables and protein powder and making her morning smoothie.

Her computer bag was packed up. What would it be like to not bring work home?

Jessica smiled at that because when she had all her ‘ducks in a row,’ as Grandma Millie would say, her work would also be home.

She grabbed her prepared salad for lunch from the fridge and tucked it into her Parker Thatch slouch bag, which had been an extravagant Christmas gift from her mother last year. She slid the strap onto her shoulder, and that’s when she saw the book.

Jessica stared. Blinked. But the book still squatted ominously open near the stove.

It felt like all the air in the room was gone. Jessica gaped like a largemouth bass on the bank of the Catawba River. How did the book get here? She’d told Chloe—who’d found the book in Grandma Millie’s outdoor mini home library and had recklessly, of course, used it—that she didn’t want it.

No way.

No how.

Heart pounding so loud it echoed in her ears, she stared at the book and wanted it gone, but she didn’t want to touch it.

Southern Love Spells. Bound in worn leather, the book was a collection of handwritten recipes in different handwriting, likely passed down through several generations.

But not Cramer or Maye, she kept telling herself as her sisters had pondered the book’s origins and potential ‘power.’

She shuddered. Was the book truly… Jessica didn’t even want to think the word. Could thinking about it give it power like…like… She cast her mind about for something scary and remembered a week-long road trip she and her sisters had taken to Arizona and New Mexico when Chloe had graduated high school. Of course Chloe had become fascinated with Skinwalkers.

“Don’t say it.” Jessica scrunched her eyes shut, the terror of the stories they’d heard nearly ten years ago as fierce now as it had been then. “Don’t think the word or about them.”

How long she stood there, safe in her kitchen, she had no idea. She imagined her sisters would think she was being utterly ridiculous. It was a book. A book she’d used at Christmas to make a point that had become twisted and caused a riff—the first ever—between her and Chloe, and had of course infuriated Chloe’s now boyfriend, although chef Rustin Wildish was a million miles away from being a boy.

She caught the strap of her bag as it slipped off her shoulder before it splatted on the floor and fingered the cross on her gold necklace while she attempted to steady her breathing.

She was going to be late for work. Jessica Maye was never late for anything.

But she couldn’t leave the book here. She didn’t even know how it had gotten there as she’d cleaned her kitchen—meticulously—before she’d headed into her office to work before heading up to bed.

She’d told Chloe to keep the book. Why was it here? Her mind raced for a logical explanation and then lit on one. Chloe had left it. She’d come last night to check on the feralish cat population she’d adopted from a local shelter and housed in the barn and on the property. Chloe checked in on the six to eight cats at least every other day. Jessica was not particularly fond of the cats, and yet she was less fond of mice and rats, and since Chloe had started her little ‘sanctuary,’ Jessica hadn’t once had to ask Meghan to come over and trap a mouse.

“I can do this,” she said and, dragging in a deep breath, Jessica grabbed a tea towel and threw it over the book.

She’d take the book to the thrift stone. Get it out of her life forever.

She didn’t want it in her tote. Could magic seep out? Was it even magic or…? Chloe seemed to think so, but she was happily cheerful about it. Yup. Chloe definitely must have dropped the book off last night thinking she’d give her big sis a scare. Probably thought she deserved it after the stunt she’d pulled.

Guilt pinched. She’d make it up to Chloe. She’d been trying, but there was still this distance. She could feel it. Taste it. And regret breathed in her.

She took a reusable shopping bag out of the bottom drawer where she stored them and slid the tea towel and book inside.

A quick glance at the clock revealed she’d only lost a couple of minutes with her panic attack.

Progress.

Jessica headed down the long curving drive to the main wrought-iron gates that swung open with the touch of the remote. The gates had always seemed so imposing when she was a child, keeping people out, but when she rehabbed the gardens—her dream was to create a nursery with plants from around the world, which was why she’d spent her time and money repairing and updating the four large greenhouses.

There was a narrow private drive off the backside of Cramer Mountain, which fed onto the main road about a mile or more from the main entrance to the private Cramer Mountain neighborhood, with its award-winning golf club, tennis courts and pool. She’d have to check what hoops she’d need to jump through so that she could use the access road to the Cramer-Maye property. No way would the neighbors be okay with random customers and looky-loos driving along the wide, scenic drives peering into the beautiful and stately mini mansions on one- to two-acre manicured lots that her father had developed, customized and sold over the past couple of decades.

The twenty acres of Grandma Millie’s farm and farmhouse at the top of Maymont Drive was the last remaining acreage of the once massive farm. Jessica knew her father had plans for the property, but Grandma Millie had been unwilling to budge so far. Jessica hoped that she’d earned and saved enough and could earn enough in the future to eventually make an offer on at least part of the property. Grandma Millie was nearing eighty, but she bloomed with health and energy.

But the money was a future problem, and though she tended to dwell on future problems, Jessica knew that she’d never pursue her dream if she anguished about all the potential pitfalls. So first she’d focused on the greenhouses, and now that the weather was warming up, she intended to spend her weekends clearing out what was left of the garden—seeing what was still alive and figuring out a design. After tax season she could work in the evenings as the days would be longer.

Jessica drove down Maymont Drive towards the stately gated entrance and exit. She waved at the guard and drove by the small town of Cramerton, but instead of heading out toward the highway, she drove through Belmont to the thrift store that benefitted the local hospital. Keeping her car running, she grabbed the tote, squashing the stab of guilt that she didn’t consult her sisters first, but really, magic couldn’t have anything to do with them, even magic that wasn’t real.

“Like there’s any other kind,” she reminded herself firmly, and seeing the spires on the Catholic church she’d attended since childhood, she hurried up the short flight of rough brick stairs and propped the tote against the door. She looked at the tea towel with the design of lavender flowers. Safer to leave it wrapped around the book, though it was one of her favorites. She’d buy another.

“Good luck,” she whispered, trying and failing to shove away the guilt that clawed at her. She hurried back to her car, ruthlessly crushing the temptation to run back and retrieve the book. Why should she? She loved to cook, but the book spooked her. And it had made her act uncharacteristically, hurting Chloe’s feelings, bruising her trust. And how had it appeared in her house overnight?

The Mayes were better without the book. Who knows who put that book in Grandma Millie’s? Maybe they’d wanted to put a curse on them.

“Okay, you’re thinking a little melodramatically,” she pep-talked herself and turned on a Trevor Noah podcast to distract her during the drive.

Still, she kept thinking of the book in the bag, abandoned on the doorstep. It’s a book, not a baby. Her stomach cramped and sweat broke out on her upper lip.

What was she doing, getting so worked up about the book? She’d done the right thing. But she’d always been more than a touch superstitious. She’d tried to logic her way out of her behavior—knocking wood, changing a direction when a black cat ran by or tossing salt over her left shoulder so no one would laugh at her.

Keeping the book might only encourage that behavior or paranoia.

No. The book had to go. It wasn’t as if she was getting rid of a Maye family heirloom. None of her sisters had recognized any of the recipes or handwriting in the old, falling-apart book.

Even as Jessica got on the highway leading to Charlotte, the questions nagged over Trevor’s smooth voice and his friend and co-podcaster’s Christiana’s more adamant statements.

Should she have instead returned the book to Grandma Millie’s outside mini library?

What if Chloe or Rustin wanted to borrow it again for inspiration for his new restaurant—the Wild Side?

What if Grandma Millie had placed it there by accident?

No, Grandma Millie wasn’t even losing one neuron to the advancing years.

But what if one of her sisters tired of their single status and wanted to try their luck with the book?

Jessica made a face. No that was dumb. The book wasn’t magic. She could almost imagine Father Pierre’s dark brows rising toward his receding hairline if she revealed that in confession this week.

Jessica worried her bottom lip—eating off her lipstick. The book didn’t feel like a mistake. It had felt like a…like an omen. A harbinger of change. Her stomach churned, and she sipped a little of her tea, hoping to settle herself. Her anxiety, something she’d effectively dealt with in high school and college by working harder than anyone, by not even letting the fear of failure stick a toe in the door, had ballooned over the past couple of years. Her nerves were harder to hide from her sisters, even though she knew she was behaving what her father would call overtly femininely hysterical. Reacting instead of acting, and letting her imagination run riot over sense.

“And he wouldn’t be that far off about the book,” she muttered, turning up the podcast.

She needed to calm down. Stop thinking of the book. It was just old—a collection of recipes—nothing special. Initially she’d been, like her sisters, caught up in the mystery. Goodness, she’d actually used it, had followed a recipe to the minute instructions, including walking a circle in her garden and three times around a large tree, fingers trailing along the ‘sturdy, thrumming trunk like how you would touch a lover.’

She’d been so caught up with the mystery of it all, the sense of expectation, and yes, a hope of magic as if she were still seventeen.

Dumb. Her tummy cramped and burned, and she swallowed the pain. She wouldn’t go back to the doctor, who’d run test after test and found nothing. She’d suggested a therapist, but no way would Jessica do that—show weakness and a selfish focus on her own problems to her parents. She could handle herself and her life even though for the past couple of years she’d had trouble falling asleep. Her mind had raced and her body had been jumpy, and all the yoga and breathing hadn’t helped. Only exhaustion had.

But she had thought of a solution—though it was long term. She’d never loved her job. She’d liked numbers okay in college. Her father had pushed her into economics and business and accounting, and she’d dutifully followed and had been good at it. The firm she’d been hired by had been a prestigious get, but Jessica never felt like she belonged. And now her father talked about when she joined his company, and she’d felt like what was left of her independence would be swallowed up.

“Again with the melodrama.” She gave up on the podcast. It was just going to be one of those days, and she needed to focus on her to-do list for her clients today. The phone calls. Zoom meetings, and the associate meeting later this morning in the conference call—that email had hit her inbox last night as she did her mandatory last check of her business account.

She exited the road, mentally shimmied her body, shaking off her anxiety about the book, her career, her father’s beginning moves to suck her into SRP Maye Development Inc. She always needed to put her game face on to walk into the office. And she’d need to fix her lipstick.

She could play it cool. She had skills. A will of iron. And as of a little more than a year ago, the beginnings of an escape plan and new career and life plan.

By the time she’d parked in the parking structure and keyed herself into the building’s tower, she had her confidence and cool back.

Less than thirty minutes later, Jessica—stunned—collapsed against the passenger door of her Acura RDX and tried to catch her breath. The two security guards who’d escorted her out of the building stood on either side of her, arms crossed and faces carefully blank. They’d had the same expression after they’d watched her clear off her desk, and deposit her work laptop, cell and tablet along with her ID and key card into an official-looking lock box.

Then they’d escorted her out of the building like she was a felon. A few people had arrived in the few minutes it had taken Drew Whittaker III, one of the founding partner’s grandsons, to fire her.

Fired.

Jessica could barely comprehend the word. It buzzed and shouted in her brain like wasps disturbed from their nests and infuriated, looking for someone to blame and sting.

Fired.

For doing her job. For trying to help a colleague. None of it made sense. No more salary. No after-tax-season bonus that she’d been especially counting on this year.

“Get in the car, miss,” Daniel, one of the security guards said, gruffly.

She looked at him, feeling totally lost. She knew his wife’s name—Heather. His kids. She’d chatted with them at company picnics.

He took the fob from her limp fingers, popped the locks and put her cardboard box on the floor of her front seat.

“Don’t make this harder on yourself. It’s still early. More and more associates will be arriving.”

Bile rose to her throat along with acid, and the few sips of tea and one of protein drink burned.

Do not cry. Do not.

He closed the door. The thud sounded like a bell of doom.

She had to move. She had to go. She had to get away from the disaster that was swamping her. Jessica had never once considered that she’d ever be fired. She’d never once had less than a stellar review on anything including the time she’d run a food bank drive as a church service project as an eighth grader.

“Miss Maye, please, this is a gift.”

“A gift?” She stared at the security guard, not comprehending the word.

“Could be the cops instead of us, and you wouldn’t be heading to your cushy home,” Bill, the other security guard, chimed in.

“What?” Her body started to shake even though she told it not to. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t…”

“They all say that.”

“Of course not, Miss Maye.”

Both Bill and Daniel spoke at the same time, only Daniel was more polite about it. And she’d ceased to be Jessica, now she was Miss Maye, and somehow they thought she was being fired for doing something illegal.

And Mr. Whittaker hadn’t even allowed her to defend herself. To show proof of what she’d started working on yesterday afternoon. She’d alerted her boss to a discrepancy in a client’s account from one of the partners who was having emergency heart surgery. He hadn’t replied, and when she’d tagged him for a meeting sometime today, she’d instead been summoned to the executive suite and was dispassionately fired. The human resources rep and security had been waiting outside the door.

Papers to sign. Her last check. Information on how to roll over her retirement account and sign up for COBRA insurance as a stopgap until she found other employment. There was also a generic reference letter that she’d worked for the firm for eight years.

Eight years.

Fired.

“Make it easier on yourself,” Daniel said, basically folding her into her front seat and closing the door.

This was it. The end.

No. The beginning.

But it didn’t feel like that.

Still her brain scrambled to protect her. She had new career plans. Dreams. True, today wasn’t supposed to be day one. Her start date had been hazy, safely in the future, with her savings piling up. Renting out her condo and moving to Grandma Millie’s unoccupied farmhouse had covered her mortgage and homeowner dues plus padded her bank account.

Now she might have to sell.

They hadn’t even let her say goodbye to anyone. Or do a final check of her email or explain to her clients what was happening.

She gripped the steering wheel. The security guards flanked her car. Bill shooed her away flipping his hand impatiently.

Like I’m an insect.

They think I embezzled.

The thought was ludicrous. Impossible.

Don’t think. Start the car.

But her body wouldn’t listen, and she stared at the expensive fabric of her power suit pants as she tried to breathe.

She heard a rap on the hood of her car, and she jerked in response. Both security guards now stood in front of her car, motioning her to pull out.

Eight years and she was taken out like leaking, stinking trash.

“Cameras in the parking garage,” Daniel reminded her. “We gotta do our jobs. You don’t leave, I will call the cops.”

How was this even happening? Jessica felt like she was in a nightmare. Trapped. Frightened. Her body, her pride not responding, not saving her. Her hands shook so much her keys—now stripped of the precious key card that had allowed her access to the parking structure, building, elevator and cafeteria—fell in her lap.

She just needed to press the start button.

Get out. Get home.

She’d imagined a busy day full of purpose. Further unwinding the unexpected confusion she’d discovered in the Arnott account. Perhaps she’d meet her sister Meghan for a glass of wine at the rooftop bar they both loved. Instead, she’d been treated like a traitor and criminal and, while not physically marched out and shot on a firing line, it sure felt like that.

She rubbed her sternum.

“Jessica…Jess.” Daniel tapped on her window, his face creased in lines of resignation and sympathy. “Do you want me to drive you off the premises? Call one of your sisters?”

She flinched, one more fresh humiliation heaped on the others because they would come. But then they’d know she’d been fired.

Fired.

Her eyes burned. A fat tear fell out.

No. She wouldn’t cry. The firm wouldn’t get that satisfaction. She was a Maye. That still meant something. She was strong. She’d rebuild her career in the image she wanted. On her own. In the image she wanted. Finally she’d make herself happy and proud.

Feeling defiant, and knowing her face was probably as blotchy red as a demon’s, she started her car and backed out of her spot, tires squealing a little on the first turn down the ramp.

The late-February sky was pale blue, sun just cresting. The air was still chilly, but she opened her sunroof and stuck her fist in the air as she exited the parking lot for the last time.

She would have preferred to gun it down Tryon Street the whole way, but life wasn’t a movie, and she’d probably get pulled over, so when she hit the first traffic light as it turned yellow, she stopped and glared at the reflection of herself in the steel and glass building that loomed gray and indifferent over the city.

She dashed away her stupid tears and before she could make up an excuse to change her mind, she hit the sister group chat before the light turned green and she tapped the microphone.

“Dinner at the farm tonight. I’ll cook.” Why not? She had all the time in the world now, and as much as she’d like to sulk and hide, she needed to clear the budding idea for her new career and life with her sisters, and then Grandma Millie before…gulp…she had to spin the story tightly enough to not send her mother rushing for a Xanax or her father into save-Jessica mode. Meghan would help her. As an attorney, she could always twist fact to suit.

“No excuses,” she added. “Send.”

Today was unexpectedly the first day of her new life. Her stomach heaved, and Jessica grabbed her empty tea thermos and hurled what remained of her sloshy stomach. A car honked behind her. And then another. She replaced the cup in the holder, cracked the window and placed the lid tightly on. Trying to settle her squeamish stomach and humiliation, she dug in her handbag for a wipe, and then gently pressed the accelerator down.

First days could be tough. But it was time to pull herself together and get to work.

Excerpt. ©Sinclair Jayne. Posted by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.
 
 

Giveaway: Winner will receive one ebook copy of A TOUCH OF SPRING MAGIC from Tule Publishing plus one additional ebook from Tule Publishing of the winner’s choice.

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Meet the Author:

Sinclair Sawhney is a former journalist and middle school teacher who holds a BA in Political Science and K-8 teaching certificate from the University of California, Irvine and a MS in Education with an emphasis in teaching writing from the University of Washington. She has worked as Senior Editor with Tule Publishing for over seven years. Writing as Sinclair Jayne she’s published fifteen short contemporary romances with Tule Publishing with another four books being released in 2021. Married for over twenty-four years, she has two children, and when she isn’t writing or editing, she and her husband, Deepak, are hosting wine tastings of their pinot noir and pinot noir rose at their vineyard Roshni, which is a Hindi word for light-filled, located in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. Shaandaar!

Buy: https://tulepublishing.com/books/a-touch-of-spring-magic/