Witch Way Now: A Paranormal Romantic Comedy (Raising Hell Downunder Book 4)

by Rhiannon Hartley

  Beatrix shook her head, forcing the memory away. So what if Jacob had once been a little boy, desperate for his father's approval? That didn't excuse what he had done. Not for a minute. It was pathetic, she thought, that he had lied to her, that he was pursuing this deal with Kappa just so he could prove to his Dad that he was as worthy a son as his older brother.

  It was no excuse, Beatrix thought. No excuse at all.

  "I don't know if we'll..." Beatrix began and then faltered. "I can't think about that right now," she said instead. "I'm going to peel those kumquats for the cleansing balm."

  "Oh, you don't need to waste time on that," Shauna said. "That's grunt work! That's what I'm for."

  Beatrix shook her head. "I don't want to do anything where I have to think," she admitted. "I just...I'm...I'll be with the kumquats."

  Shauna looked at her with sudden understanding, and Beatrix was surprised to find herself caught in a swift, firm hug. "You peel those kumquats, hun," she said. "If that's what you need, you peel the hell out of them."

  Beatrix bit her lip. "Thanks," she said after a moment. "I know I'm... I'm not myself today. And I must have been scary yesterday. I'm sorry about that, I—"

  "Don't apologise!" Shauna said sharply. "Your heart's been broken. You don't have to explain yourself to me. If you'd just let me, I'd go over there and key his shiny car."

  "I'll set his office on fire," Onyx offered. "I might even let him out first."

  Beatrix managed a weak smile. "Thanks, guys," she said. "But I don't want revenge. I just want to pretend I never met him. Don't want to think about him, don't want to see him, just... I want my life to go back to how it was before I ever met him."

  Onyx opened his mouth as though to protest, but Shauna shook her head at him, and he closed it obediently.

  "Just do those kumquats for now, hun," Shauna said. "And then have a coffee and some slice, okay?"

  "Okay," Beatrix repeated, nodding. "I can do that."

  ✽✽✽

  The problem with mindless tasks - like peeling kumquats, hosing down Gumbo's dog run, and turning over the compost - was that they left her mind entirely too restless. It was too easy to think about Jacob. How he had begged her to forgive him, had told her that he truly did care for her, that he wished he had told her about Kappa.

  But that wasn't enough, was it? The fact that he even considered an offer from Kappa - a proposal that would destroy her home - showed that he didn't care for her. Not really.

  And maybe he had issues with his family, maybe he did care too much what his dad thought of him. Beatrix understood wanting to make your parents proud of you. But that was no excuse. Maybe, just maybe, if Jacob had said he needed to take one meeting with Kappa to appease his dad, but had turned down their offer right away, she could have forgiven him. Could have understood that he was caught in a shitty situation, between family and whatever she was to him.

  "But he didn't," Beatrix said out loud, turning over the mulch with a pitchfork. "He just lied to me, again and again. Thought I wouldn't find out until it was too late. Didn't care about me."

  She stabbed the pitchfork down into the mulch with unnecessary force, and it slipped from her hands, tipping forward and spraying her with mulch as it went. She swore loudly and kicked the fallen tool in her exasperation. She succeeded only in bruising her toes, which just made her all the more angry.

  "Fucking hell!" she yelled, and she didn't try to retrieve the pitchfork this time. She pulled off her gloves, pushed her sweaty hair off her forehead and went back into the workshop.

  "I'm taking the rest of the day off," she announced to Shauna and Onyx, who didn't look even remotely surprised.

  "Probably for the best," Shauna said.

  "Do you want some company?" Onyx asked. "We could listen to vinyls in the dark and get high. Just like the old days."

  Beatrix forced a smile at the memory of a teenage Onyx - before he was Onyx - and herself, side by side and listening to the mournful music he loved so much, passing a single joint back and forth between them for what felt like hours.

  "No, it's okay," she said. "I should probably spend time with my mum. She did come to Sydney to see me, after all."

  "You go and be with your mum, then," Shauna said kindly. "I'm sure she'll look after you. And you just let her do it, okay?"

  "I'll try," Beatrix said with a tight smile.

  ✽✽✽

  Beatrix had every intention of starting in on her backup bottle of Wade's calming potion as she walked back up to her house, Gumbo at her heels.

  "Daughter," a voice interrupted her.

  "Oh, hi Mum," Beatrix said. "Didn't see you this morning."

  "I was communing with the spirit world," Agnes said, nodding grandly. "I saw many things."

  Beatrix privately thought this was a fancy way of saying, "I slept in very late and forgot to check on you," but decided not to point this out.

  "Right," she said instead. "I, uh, was going to make some coffee. And Shauna brought this." She shook the plastic Tupperware container of Mars Bar slice. "If you'd like a piece. It's chocolate and crunchy."

  Agnes looked at the container with almost predatory hunger. "Of course, daughter. I want to be with you. You need to be looked after."

  Beatrix thought that was rather ironic as she watched her mother sit at her dining table, eating all of her slice as Beatrix made the coffee.

  "Have you given any further thought to revenge, daughter?" Agnes said, munching on her fourth piece of slice with relish.

  "I told you," Beatrix said wearily. "I'm not going to do anything like that. I just want to forget about him."

  "You ought not to forget," Agnes chided. "You should learn from this, my daughter. Learn you cannot trust an Ordinary, especially with your heart."

  Beatrix sighed. "I know, Mum," she said. "Trust me, I'm not going to be looking for a new boyfriend any time soon, Ordinary or otherwise."

  "You shouldn't wait too long," Agnes said. "You grow older each day, and even with your beauty, a discerning warlock seeks fertility in his bride and so—"

  "I don't give a fuck what warlocks think about my fertility, Mum," Beatrix said fiercely, stuffing a piece of the slice into her own mouth. "I don't want to talk about it, okay?"

  "Have you thought about what you'll do when the bushland is destroyed? Where you'll go? I do not know what a data centre is, but it sounds ghastly. You cannot live next to one," Agnes said, smoothly changing the subject.

  "I can't," Beatrix agreed. "I know that. I, um, hadn't really thought about it. I mean, it won't be for a while. There's approvals, Council, state laws, you know."

  Agnes sniffed. "So, you're just going to sit here and wait for it to be destroyed?"

  "No, Mum!" Beatrix snapped. 'but I'm not going to try and make a plan today. I just want to... I don't want to think. I just want to be alone and not think about any of this."

  "I see," Agnes' mouth was a thin line. "I've travelled all this way to be with you, and you want to be alone."

  "No, Mum, I didn't mean it like that—" Beatrix began, sickening guilt rising even though she knew her mother was being unreasonable. It didn't stop her from feeling guilty.

  "No, no, you've been quite clear," Agnes said, picking up the container of Mars Bar slice. "I'll return to my yurt. And perhaps I shall have gone, by the morrow!"

  She swept from the room, Gumbo watching her with soulful eyes as she went. Beatrix didn't try to stop her. She knew better than to stop her mother from making a dramatic exit. She had seen enough of those in her childhood.

  "Guess it's just you and me, buddy," she said, leaning down to stroke Gumbo's long, silky ears. "What should we do? I feel like death, and I can't stop thinking about stupid Jacob."

  And the mention of Jacob's name, Gumbo's tail wagged, and he looked around as though expecting to see Jacob - and Prada - appear from thin air.

  "I know, you miss Prada," Beatrix sighed. "I don't know what you saw in her; she walked all over you. Tota
l bully." Gumbo looked up at her, resting his chin on her knee. "But you loved her, didn't you, buddy?" she said, feeling her heart ache with sympathy for Gumbo. This wasn't his fault, and he was losing his little friend, even as she was losing the man she had thought was changing everything for her.

  "Not much we can do, pal," she said, sliding off her dining chair and allowing herself to slump onto her couch. "I mean, there's shitty TV, frozen pizza, and I can get out my emergency stash of weed. Does that sound good?"

  Gumbo gave her a rather disapproving look.

  "Yeah, yeah, I know your mother was a police dog, you freaking narc," she said, a small smile on her face. "You'll have to cope, buddy. After all, Wade says it's none of the government's business if I choose to put a plant in my own damn body. And I think he's got that one right, at least."

  Gumbo made a soft whining sound and settled down onto the couch beside Beatrix. His loyalty to his mistress was far stronger than his anti-drug principles. Just as it should be.

  23 Jacob

  Jacob was slumped on the sofa next to one of Ant's headless mannequins when his phone rang.

  "Hi Dad," he said, trying to sound like a respectable professional and not like a miserable fuck-up who had spent the morning puking in front of the TV in his underwear.

  "Jakey!" his father sounded jubilant. "Martin and Phillip-y, the guys from Kappa. You must have wowed them yesterday! I got a call saying they're keen to make a formal offer!"

  "Oh," Jacob said. "Is that right? That's...great."

  "Are you alright, boy?" Chuck almost sounded concerned. "Coming down with something? Or did you have a bit too much sauce, celebrating early?" He chortled loudly at this own joke.

  "I'm fine," Jacob lied. "Uh, bit of a sore throat. Just drinking some tea." Jacob was absolutely not drinking tea. He was drinking the Irish coffee that Ant had kindly made for him. "Working from home today, to be on the safe side."

  "Of course!" Chuck said. "It'd take more than a cold to keep you down. Well, aren't you excited? We're going to make the sale!"

  "Of course I'm excited," Jacob said with exactly zero excitement in his voice. "That's great news, Dad."

  "Martin said he tried to call you, but you didn't pick up," Chuck said. "You need to get your phone checked, missing an important call like that."

  "I should," Jacob agreed, not saying that he had intentionally ignored Martin's call because he didn't want to talk to Martin or anyone from Kappa ever again, even though he knew he had to.

  "You pull this one off, well, you will have more than proved yourself. We'll have to go out to celebrate. Not that shithole we went to for your birthday." Jacob didn't point out that Chuck had chosen that shithole himself.

  "Right," Jacob agreed blandly. "Yeah, that would be..."

  "Your mother's proud of you, Jakey," Chuck said gruffly. "And so am I. You really impressed those guys."

  "I don't think it was me," Jacob said. "They just like the site. With the zone sub stations. Nothing to do with me, not really."

  "Ah, you've always been too modest," Chuck laughed. "Anyway, I'll leave you to it. Just got to wait for the official offer now, eh?"

  "That's right," Jacob said, wanting the call to end.

  "I bet that girl - Beyoncé, was it? - will be impressed. Girls love a successful man," Chuck went on, and Jacob's stomach twisted sourly, and he felt last night's beer and this morning's Irish coffee threaten to reappear in his lap.

  "Beatrix," he corrected. "And, um, she's not really that kind of girl—"

  "Oh, they all are!" Chuck said dismissively. "I bet she'll give you a bit of a private congratulations. Enjoy it, Jakey, you've earned your reward!"

  There was a beep, and the call ended. Jacob threw down his phone so hard it bounced from the sofa to the tiled floor, but he didn't bother to pick it up to check if the screen had cracked. Instead, he let out a groan and rubbed his face in his hands.

  "That good, huh?" Ant said, coming through the doorway with a glue gun, a fishing tackle box filled with rhinestones, and what looked like the insides of an old clock.

  "It was Dad," Jacob said dully. "Kappa are going to make an offer."

  "And you don't want to accept?" Ant said, plugging in the glue gun and scattering a few bright blue rhinestones speculatively on one of the cogs, as though testing the effect.

  "I don't fucking know!" Jacob spat out. "Dad wants me to. He'll be livid if I don't. But I don't... I never wanted to sell to Kappa. Didn't want to sell to anyone. I wasn't lying when I told Beatrix I wanted to develop the site myself, look after that land."

  "Shit," Ant said, scrunching up his face. "You're not going to get over that any time soon."

  "What if I made the biggest mistake of my life, fucking things up with her?" Jacob said, looking over at Ant. "I've never felt like this, not about any of the others."

  "Well, I can tell that, dude," Ant shrugged. "You weren't in love with any of them. But Beatrix? Man, you've been a goner from the start."

  "She's not like anyone else," Jacob said quietly. "I'll never meet someone like her, not ever again. And I fucked things up. I mean, I can't blame her. I was the one who lied. The one who's planning to sell her home to the evil empire."

  "Yeah, that's pretty bad," Ant agreed. "I mean, it's... Well, I don't know if I could see past that with a guy, not even a guy like you. But I know how much your family means to you. That you couldn't just tell your dad 'no'. I mean, bloody hell dude, you were in an impossible position."

  "If I don't sell to Kappa, Dad will never forgive me," Jacob said. "And if I do, then there's no way I can ever make things right with Beatrix. But even if I don't sell to Kappa, she still might never forgive me, and so..."

  "And so you'd be missing out on a huge deal for nothing," Ant finished. "Yeah, I get it. But do you really want to sell to Kappa? When you first got this site, you were all gung-ho to develop it yourself. You had a goddamn twenty-year plan! What happened to your best practice mixed-use commercial precinct?"

  "I still want that," Jacob said quietly, his head pounding. "I'm supposed to have a meeting with a not-for-profit tomorrow about a tenancy. I don't know if I should even bother now."

  "Take the meeting," Ant said. "I mean, Kappa hasn't even made the offer yet. You'd be stupid not to."

  "Yeah," Jacob said, exhaling loudly. "Guess I would."

  ✽✽✽

  Jacob tried his very best not to look over at the workshop and the house beyond as he parked his dusty car outside the sales office. Had it really only been two days since he was last here? It felt like a lifetime. Like he was returning to a place he barely remembered.

  As he opened the door, a wave of sense-memory hit him as he thought of how he had made love to Beatrix over his desk. He thought of how she had hidden beneath it when she had been bound to him. He thought of how he had sat there, waiting, willing, wishing from a message from her. God, was this whole place infested with memories of Beatrix? He wondered very briefly if he could cleanse it with sage. Beatrix would know how, of course. That was the whole damn problem.

  He set Prada down, and she settled herself demurely in her little bed, looking up at him expectantly, as though she still thought that Gumbo and Beatrix would arrive at any moment. She kept her ears pricked for a low bark in the distance and the return of her enormous friend and the woman who made her master so very happy.

  "Afraid it's just me today, girl," he said, shaking his head. "And the people from Free & Able."

  He hadn't cancelled the meeting. It would have been rude, for a start, and he hadn't got an offer from Kappa yet, so it made sense for him to continue behaving as though his treasured plan of developing the site sustainably over the next twenty years was still possible.

  Opening his laptop, Jacob let out a groan. He didn't want to be here. Didn't want to be sitting in this chair, staring at this screen, reading these words. All he wanted was to see Beatrix. To beg her once more to reconsider. To ask her what he had to do to make her forgive him. If he gav
e up the deal with Kappa, would she take him back? It terrified him to know that he'd risk his Dad's fury just for a chance with her, but he couldn't deny it. If Beatrix would only care for him again, he'd set fire to the deal in an instant.

  "But she wouldn't," Jacob said out loud, sighing. "She'll never forgive me, no matter what I do."

  He looked down at Prada, whose eyes were half-closed. She looked up at him, tilting her head as though in agreement. "I know," he said. "I don't deserve to be forgiven, not after what I did. But I wish..." He shook his head. Wishing wouldn't get him anywhere.

  ✽✽✽

  "This bushland is really lovely," Terry said, waving one hand at the line of trees. "You'd be keeping some of it, right? Maybe putting a walking track in? That would be good for our people."

  "That's the plan," Jacob admitted. "Maintaining a significant element of the natural environment, even as we develop. Really important for preventing flood damage to the topsoil and for lowering the carbon footprint of the whole site."

  "And it's pretty," George said, grinning. "Terry's right; our people would love this."

  Terry and George ran the state's biggest employer of people with disability. Free & Able was exactly the kind of company that Jacob wanted on his site. At least he had, before Kappa had come along.

  "Well, it would make for a nicer working environment for most people," Jacob agreed, though his heart wasn't in it as he spoke. All his passion for the project had left when Beatrix had furiously accused him of betraying her, all in service of the mighty dollar.