Hexes and Holly: A Paranormal Cozy Mystery Holiday Anthology

by Tegan Maher

  “I was just discussing with the sheriff his reasoning for leaving Bubba Johnson here in the town square on display for all to see.” I pointed. “He’s a kid, and he’s clearly incredibly upset. Surely, he could be taken somewhere private until you gentlemen are ready to deal with this?”

  “And why do you care?” the man asked me quietly, his head tilting as if I perplexed him.

  Again, I was overwhelmed by how handsome the driver was. So handsome. Incredibly handsome. “I, um…well, I don’t know, really,” I told him breathlessly as I blushed.

  I was attracted to him—again—with such an intensity I knew—for sure—he would sweep me off my feet, marry me. I would live the rest of my life devoted to him. His deep, intense eyes drove through my eyes and into my soul—

  —with the sharp bark of a dog, all my overwhelming attraction popped like a bubble.

  “Because I care that someone is in pain,” I told him angrily, picking my thought up right where I left off. “This is unnecessary and humiliating for him.”

  The man’s face dropped in surprise. Two seconds later, his eyes narrowed. “This is not your concern,” he responded, and the wave of attraction washed over me once more—

  —and then I heard a dog bark, and it was gone.

  What the hell was going on here?

  Martin Salvi strolled up and looked around. “How’re we doing?”

  The man looked at his boss. “We have a problem.”

  Then everything went black.

  6

  And then it was morning.

  I tried to stretch and realized with a start I was dressed. Fully dressed and laying on top of the bedspread—which was bizarre for me. Some people could sleep anywhere—but I wasn’t one of those people. I needed to be in pajamas, under the covers, with my pillow. There’s no way I would have just thrown myself onto the bed after…

  After…

  After what?

  I sat up, instinctive fear flashing a warning. Maybe I wasn’t in my hotel room at all—but no. I was—my suitcase in the corner, my hairbrush on the desk. My nightgown was still draped over the chair from where I placed it yesterday morning. A shudder ran through me as I thought back to the night before, searching my memories for the how and why of my above-the-bedspread dressed state…

  …but I couldn’t find a reason.

  I couldn’t find much of anything.

  I was still staring at the nightgown, confused when I heard a knock at the door. “Come in.”

  The door between my room and Gunther’s opened. His blonde brows furrowed, and his expression was uncharacteristically alarmed. “Are you alright?”

  “I…am…I mean, I’m physically okay. I’m not hurt or anything,” I told him slowly as I moved toward the edge of the bed. “But I don’t remember coming back here last night. Do you?”

  “I remember little of anything about last night,” Gunther admitted. He abruptly moved toward the chair, pulled it out, and sat down facing me. “I’ve felt this feeling before, though. That hollow sense of missing time. I felt it after I regained control of my body after—”

  “Mina took you over,” I finished, frowning. He nodded. “You think someone took us over last night?”

  “It’s possible, but even when Mina was in control, I remembered flashes of things. I don’t have that here. I don’t remember anything at all after we were arguing with the sheriff and…and…” Gunther’s face twisted in frustration. “I feel like there was someone else there. But I can’t remember who.”

  A newspaper slid beneath the front door, and we both turned to stare at it.

  “Maybe the paper will clear up some of the confusion,” I said as I retrieved it. Laying it out on the bed, Gunther and I looked down at the Mystic's End Herald. There were just a few articles in the sparse small-town paper. The headline read Rev. Dexter Kane wins raffle for new car at Christmas Festival! He stood beside a handsome man I didn’t recognize, their eyes shining as they shook. “Who’s that guy?” I pointed.

  Gunther squinted. “Martin Salvi. Says he’s some executive with the greyhound racetrack on the edge of town. I think he was the one giving away the car.”

  “Did we meet him?” I asked, confused.

  Gunther squinted again and frowned. “I don’t remember.”

  “This is ridiculous. Did we drink last night?” I asked him. “I remember going to dinner, and then I remember something getting stolen—”

  “The light projector,” Gunther said, pointing. “They were going to have a light show, and then the projector got stolen. But you’re right, I don’t remember much about it, either.”

  I read the rest of the article, hoping it would spark the gaps in my missing memory.

  The reporter, Pepper Stanford, documented the theft, the change in the car giveaway from a scavenger hunt to a raffle. She pointed out the irony of Rev. Dexter Kane’s win since he was one of the wealthiest men in Mystic’s End.

  “It’s strange,” Gunther said. “I remember all of that. But also…I don’t.”

  The two of us stared at the paper as if waiting for it to divulge more secrets. It remained frustratingly plain, with the same words we’d read several times.

  Gunther and I ate breakfast silently, lost in our own thoughts when two men slid into the booth behind us. “I wish she would just let things like this go. I swear, Ollie, she’s like a dog with a bone sometimes.” The waitress didn’t take their order, just let them know their food would be right out once the man finished complaining.

  Small towns.

  “Pepper’s Pepper,” Ollie, the frustrated man’s dining companion, said. I could practically hear the shrug in his words. “You’re like a dog with a bone when you get on some suspicion or another.”

  “Yeah, but I’m a detective.”

  “Well, she’s a reporter, Gabe. If that car giveaway was rigged, she wants to expose it. Especially since your department wouldn’t look sideways at Martin if he shot someone point-blank on the street.”

  “That’s not true!” Gabe protested.

  “It is true, but to tell you the truth, I don’t really care,” Ollie responded. I shifted slightly in my seat to get a look at the detective, but his back was to me. “Well, I would care about the shooting. The car? My dad felt like that car was his due for giving Martin the bottle he was looking for. Not Dad’s fault he found the bottle long before Martin got desperate and had the contest.”

  “Are you telling me that Martin did rig that raffle last night?” Gabe asked, stunned.

  “What would you do if I told you he did?” Ollie challenged him. There was a long, sullen pause, and then Ollie laughed. “See, that’s what I mean. You tried to go after him once. It almost cost you your badge. Just leave it alone, Gabe. Eat your eggs.”

  The sound of chewing replaced the talking.

  “Hey, hand me that paper?” I asked Gunther. He handed it to me, and I looked at the byline again. Pepper Stanford. That must be the Pepper that the two men behind me were talking about. I scoured the text again, looking for some sign of the suspicions Ollie and Gabe thought she had, but I saw nothing. Then I frowned. “They let the kid go.”

  “What kid?” Gunther asked.

  “The kid that was all upset last night?” I closed my eyes and tried to picture him, but I couldn’t. “The kid that they thought stole the… he was sitting on the…” What they stole had, again, just slipped from my mind. So had the image of the young man. It was like trying to grab a fish with my hands in a fast-moving river. I just couldn’t pin it down. I threw down the paper. “Man, this is frustrating.”

  “What is?”

  “That I can’t remember.”

  “What can’t you remember?” Gunther asked, genuinely curious.

  Startled, I stared at Gunther in shock. “What we’ve been talking about all morning. Us not remembering how we got to our hotel? That we have gaps in our memory from last night?”

  “I don’t have any gaps in my memory,” Gunther frowned. “You
have gaps in your memory?”

  I paused, replaying the night’s events. Gunther and I went to the diner to eat dinner. In the middle of dinner, we went into the square because everyone was…

  “Nothing,” I smiled as a pleasant surety fell over my mind. “It’s nothing. How’re your eggs?”

  Later that day, Gunther and I checked out of the old hotel. I don’t remember talking about checking out, actually. It just seemed like we were both sure it was time to head back to Mickwac, Texas. I could return in a few months when the construction was done. There was no need for me to stay.

  What a peculiar little town Mystic’s End was.

  No, not peculiar, I thought, frowning. It was perfectly normal. I was supposed to believe everything was normal. There was nothing paranormal here. I would get away from all the supernatural drama by moving here because there was nothing—absolutely nothing—paranormal about this place.

  As we loaded our suitcases into the taxi, a dark gray dog barked at me, and for a moment, I almost remembered…

  “Leaving so soon?” an old woman, a caretaker at her elbow, asked as she shuffled toward us on the sidewalk. “I thought you were moving here to stay, Ms. Delphi.”

  “In three months,” I smiled at the old woman. “I’ll be back. It’s Christmas, and I want to go back to Texas and spend one last holiday with my friends.” I frowned. “I’m sorry, ma’am—have we met?”

  The caretaker next to her looked surprised.

  “You go on, girl,” the old woman said without answering. “Enjoy your time with your friends. We’ll meet again.”

  “I hope so!” I smiled warmly.

  The old woman laughed, and a dog barked.

  Want to read more?

  Visit https://leanneleeds.com/mystics-end/ for everything in the Mystic’s End Series!

  About Leanne

  Leanne Leeds writes sweet, fun, often romantic but always fast-paced paranormal mysteries, fantasies, and romances. She lives in rural Texas with her husband, daughter, and a house full of cats that would sound like Samson if they could talk.

  Follow Leanne Leeds online at:

  https://www.facebook.com/LeanneLeedsAuthor

  or text me at 512-359-3123 for updates and giveaways!

  Merry Misdeeds

  Misty Bane

  Merry Misdeeds

  By Misty Bane

  The Mystic Key Christmas Festival is one of Shay Graves favorite childhood traditions, and she can’t wait to experience it for the first time in fifteen years. While Shay expects to spend a fun evening full of Christmas magic with her daughter, instead she finds herself witness to a catty fight between two vendors and their displays of delicious Christmas confections. But when the argument turns deadly, and Shay finds herself close to uncovering the truth, she’s going to need a little more of that Christmas magic than she realized if she doesn’t want to be next.

  Prologue

  Victoria McMahon was a witch with a lot of enemies. It wasn’t because of her smug self-importance, suitably displayed in the way she lifted her chin so she could quite literally look down her pointed nose at everyone else. However, that certainly hadn’t earned her any friends. Nor was it because she pretended to be a stickler for rules and procedure so that her frequent snitching over unimportant details might seem like she was only an unyielding perfectionist instead of a sadist. However, that certainly hadn’t earned her any points with coworkers and bosses alike. It wasn’t even the greedy, tight-fisted way that she would hunt someone down who owed her as much as seven cents only to gleefully let them foot the bill every chance she got. However, that had certainly lost her many pity invites to restaurants and coffee shops from the softer-hearted employees at the Beachy Keen Resort.

  All of those things made Victoria McMahon unlikeable. Really unlikeable. They made coworkers scatter from breakroom chats, and neighbors peek out tiny cracks in their curtains to make sure the coast was clear before opening their front doors. But the thing that truly made her loathed—that caused good, decent folks to lose all sense of compassion and forego courteousness—was the way she unearthed any sort of weakness and zeroed in on it. Once she’d found it, whether by chance or because she’d intentionally drilled down deep enough, she began to poke. She poked and poked until finally the tender spot that had once been an occasional niggle now stole the moments of each day with its persistent aching.

  Pushing people’s buttons was Victoria’s forte, and she’d spent nearly her whole life honing the skill. At some point, during a time farther back than her memories reached, she’d discovered that luring negative attention was much easier than seeking its alternative. She was an attention hog, after all—not that she’d ever admit it—and so, while she was happy to receive attention in whatever form it came, there was just something special about creating discontent to get it. Even as a child, the very notion that she should be a good girl so that some incompetent teacher or negligent babysitter would be happy with her had made her nearly sick with disgust. As far as Victoria was concerned, behaving the way someone else wanted you to behave so that they would be happy was flat out contemptible. It was demeaning and pathetic and pitiful—not that Victoria had been capable of pity.

  But getting inside someone’s head? Finding their proverbial Achilles Heel and punching at it just often enough that you created a cozy little space in their mind? That was the stuff that Victoria lived for.

  And as she positioned a shiny silver tray of perfectly squared fudge on the table that she’d rented for the Mystic Key Christmas Festival, she had that familiar feeling of impending victory sparking inside of her. She never did tire of the satisfaction that came with besting someone, and that was a good thing, really, because everything else in Victoria’s life was as joyless and bland as her fudge.

  Despite appearances, the fudge was not the reason that Victoria had rented a space at the Christmas festival. Neither were the frosted gingerbread men, nor the miniature fruit cakes that she’d magicked the cutest little pans for.

  Victoria stepped back and took in the display she’d spent the previous hour arranging with meticulous detail. Her tablecloth was red and white plaid—a Christmas staple as far as she was concerned—and the trays and stacked dessert towers were shades of dark green, silver, and gold. She’d painted the tiniest sliver of glitter along the edges of each to catch the eye of festival-goers as they passed.

  Her desserts looked impeccable, and there was not a stray crumb or fingerprint smudge in sight. Each display was positioned precisely seven inches apart and home to a different baked good. Her eye bounced from one to the next to ensure that she’d adequately spaced the chocolate fudge from the chocolate truffles, the colorful sugar cookies from the colorful peppermint meringues, and anything else that may share the same color palette.

  Once she was satisfied, she let her gaze wander to the green velvet backdrop behind her table and then down to the nearly empty tote bag resting on a chair. Her final creation, the one she’d been planning and perfecting night after night, was sealed tight in a handful of Tupperware containers, just waiting for their moment to shine.

  She glanced out of the corner of her eye at her table neighbor, Brunhilda Dunkel. The older woman, a nix with white streaks in her aging silver hair, donned a white Christmas sweater bejeweled with sequin candy canes, and Victoria couldn’t help but think how tacky it was. Nearly as tacky as the hand-painted signs Brunhilda used to identify each confection item on her table, Victoria thought.

  Brunhilda had pretended to busy herself ever since she’d arrived, but Victoria knew there had been many stolen glances of jealousy at Victoria’s far superior display. It was almost too easy, and a smile began to creep onto her lips. Just as she averted her gaze from Brunhilda back to the tote bag, something behind the older woman’s silvery bun drew her eye, and her stomach lurched.

  She wasn’t certain if it had been the disagreeable color of his orange suit among the red, green, and white Christmas décor or the bright lights fr
om above bouncing off of the troll’s bald head. It didn’t matter, though. What mattered was that she had seen him, and if she had seen him, it was because he had wanted her to. Her chest suddenly became heavy as the feeling of dread settled in, and she sucked in a shallow breath. She forced herself to look again, her eyes slowly traveling past Brunhilda’s red backdrop and over the top of her head, but when they finally reached the spot where she’d seen him, he was gone. Her stomach twisted in knots, and she took a few deep breaths as she reminded herself that he wouldn’t do anything in a public place. He was only there to scare her, and while it had worked, she reminded herself that her Sammy Simschwitz problem would be over soon enough.

  Strangely enough, Sammy Simschwitz wasn’t even her biggest problem. However, he was her most dogged, and she was anxious to finally be rid of him. She smiled to herself at how stupid he was for thinking he could possibly get the better of her and resolved to put Sammy out of her mind and focus on a much more pressing issue.

  She cast one final glance at Brunhilda, and eager anticipation replaced the dread that had filled her. Satisfied that the reveal of her last dessert would provide the exact response she was hoping for, she strode to the bag, fighting against every fiber of her being to keep from shooting Brunhilda a smug smile. It was far too soon for that. Victoria had learned that you only had one shot at the victory smile. If it came too soon, then you missed the moment when it would have the most impact. Sadly, serving it up a second time never had quite the same effect.

  Victoria reached into the bag, still biting her lower lip to fight back a smile.

  As luck—or perhaps karma—would have it, as meticulous as she had been in creating her master plan, pondering every possible action and outcome, and creating backup plans for her backup plans, there was one thing she hadn’t considered.