“If he cheated on you, he was the stupid one.”
Every insecurity, every fear, came rushing back. “From the day we met I wasn’t enough for him. I didn’t love him enough, I didn’t make him happy. He wasn’t satisfied. Why he didn’t just leave me I’ll never know.”
Luke’s voice was tight as he said, “It’s not your job to make anyone happy.”
“It’s what he expected.”
Luke was silent for a while, then he took a deep breath and asked, “How do you know it wasn’t just a freak thunderstorm?”
“Two of them? One on the day he died and another at the funeral?” It was hard to believe in coincidence beyond a certain point. “I was so angry,” she whispered.
They reached Main Street and turned toward the EGG. She volunteered at the retirement community a couple days a week, more often in the winter when ice cream sales dropped and she had more free time. She liked it there, even though the old men flirted with her and the old women all tried to play matchmaker. She liked it, even though they kept that place uncomfortably warm, no matter the season.
Luke kept his pace slow and easy. She was hardly short-legged, but his stride was much longer than hers. He stopped well short of the walkway to the big building ahead. It, too, had been decorated for the holiday. The residents had been celebrating since the day after Thanksgiving.
Jordan hadn’t felt like celebrating anything for a very long time.
Chapter 4
After spending time with most folks, he could see something they needed. Something, anything. Nothing momentous, that wasn’t his way, but when it came to Jordan he saw nothing. Nothing at all. Maybe she didn’t need anything.
Maybe she just didn’t need anything he could provide.
Luke took her arm and turned around. He’d take her home, think on the problem overnight, and maybe tomorrow he’d have an idea or two.
Jordan allowed him to hold onto her bare arm for a long moment, then she gently but firmly removed it from his grasp.
She was cold to the touch. Freezing, in fact.
“Come to the store in the morning,” he said. “We’ll put our heads together, and maybe we’ll come up with something.”
“We need to find the star.”
Luke nodded. “You can help me wrap gifts while you’re there.”
She laughed, and the sound seemed to dance up his spine. It was a good laugh. “I’m not sure I can wrap presents as creatively as you do. Everyone will know you had help.”
“Creatively?”
“I was being kind.”
He wrapped his gifts as quickly as possible, and yes, he might fold the paper in a different way in order to make ends meet, and he had been known to use two types of wrapping paper when he cut a piece too short or ran out of a pattern.
They made the rest of the walk in silence, then stopped on the sidewalk in front of Jordan’s house. She turned to face him and looked up.
He wanted to kiss her. It was a crazy impulse; one he didn’t dare to give into. He didn’t want to end up like Donnie Milhouse, werewolf-cicle.
But he did place his hands on her upper arms. The chill she carried with her fascinated him. Were her lips as cold? Could he warm them for her? Why had she come to him for help? Maybe it meant something and maybe it didn’t.
“What would happen if I kissed you?” he asked.
Jordan looked surprised, and then she went up on her toes to bring her mouth closer to his. Luke held his breath. He wanted this kiss more than he’d wanted anything for a very long time. A breeze caught her hair and lifted it. Her lips we close, so close, but he didn’t move in. He didn’t want to spook her, didn’t want to scare her away. Almost there…
Suddenly Jordan seemed to realize what she was doing. She jumped back; her hands came up in a way that indicated she was protecting herself; and Luke prepared himself for a blast of cold.
She spun around and ran for her front porch. He didn’t get it. What had happened? What had changed?
Luke stood on the sidewalk for a few long minutes looking at Jordan’s front door. Her porch lamp was turned off and then the lights in her living room went dark. She’d been able to leave him behind, apparently without a second thought, but damn, he was going to dream about that almost-kiss tonight.
Jordan put away leftovers, washed dishes, and scrubbed the kitchen table. By the time she was done there was no evidence that Luke had been in her house. That was as it should be. As it had to be.
She’d almost kissed him. Impulsively, foolishly. It was her inner schoolgirl coming to the surface, she imagined. Who didn’t want to kiss Luke Benedict?
Why had she gone to him for help? True, he was supposed to know what anyone and everyone needed, but there were others in town she could’ve gone to first.
She’d gone to Luke.
Her mind was busy with a storm of I shouldn’t have, as she turned off the kitchen light and started getting ready for bed. Foremost in her mind was the certainty that she shouldn’t have told him about Rick. She hadn’t talked about her husband for years. It was too painful. Most women might file for divorce when they found out their husband had been unfaithful. Not her, no. She’d struck her cheating husband dead.
She didn’t bother with pajamas. Why should she? She lived alone, and she liked the cold. Jordan crawled into bed and embraced the cold she needed.
Constant numbness was preferably to the pain of guilt.
Sleep didn’t come immediately. It never did. Her mind went over the events of the day, as she wound down. Maybe the star going missing did have something to do with her inability to make it snow. And maybe it also had something to do with the fact that Luke couldn’t see what she needed. If they had the star back in place everything would be alright again. She wanted normal.
She always reached for normal and never quite found it.
Her current normal meant being her on her own, shield in place, needing and wanting no one.
Tomorrow morning, before she went to the hardware store so she and Luke could formulate a plan, she needed to make a trip to the EGG. There were holiday parties to organize, menus to discuss, people to visit. When that was done she’d make a big batch of peppermint ice cream and take it to the EGG. It was a favorite holiday dessert.
Helen Benedict loved peppermint ice cream. She made a special request for it every year.
Jordan wished she could avoid Luke’s grandmother, but that was impossible. Helen seemed to always know when Jordan would be at the EGG and sought her out. Just last week, the older woman had taken Jordan’s arm and said, “Honey, you need a man…”
The town was in an uproar over the Franklin Star going missing. Most residents took it as a bad omen, while others were simply angry that someone had stolen it. They figured it had to be a Non-Springer, of course, which narrowed the list of suspects considerably.
From now until New Year’s, Mike and Cindy would be in and out of the hardware store, helping when they could, spending their holiday vacation assisting with the family business. Mike worked for an insurance company in Eufaula. It wasn’t a long daily trip, but he enjoyed his vacations, his stretches of time within the Mystic Springs city limits. Cindy volunteered at the EGG and babysat for Gabi on occasion. In her spare time she painted. She was actually pretty good. She painted a lot of big colorful flowers.
Several of them were for sale in Luke’s store, but they weren’t exactly selling like hotcakes.
Cindy was perturbed that so many in town assumed a Non-Springer was to blame for the star going missing, and she had a logical argument.
How the hell could someone without magic or a hell of a tall ladder have gotten the missing topper down? It had taken half a dozen telekinetic Springers to place the star at the top of the tree.
It was a sight to behold, the placement of that star. With the help of those six Springers, the star had floated through air to the top of the tree, where it had landed. Not one of them could’ve managed alone. Not one of them could’ve
called it down.
By lunchtime Luke had heard every possible theory about the missing star. He didn’t have a theory of his own.
He’d expected Jordan to be at his door early in the morning, as she had been yesterday, but she hadn’t shown. She might be embarrassed because she’d almost kissed him. Maybe she regretted telling him that she’d killed her husband.
If she’d killed Rick Carter, it had been an accident. Like freezing Donnie. Accident or not, her emotional responses were extreme. Beautiful as she was, Jordan would be a dangerous woman to get involved with.
She might be worth the risk.
He’d eaten a sandwich and had just finished restocking a couple of shelves when Felicity Adams arrived, bringing more cookies. The child seemed determined to fatten him up.
Today she had his attention. Felicity was normally a sunny child, smiling, running, embracing life as a child should. As she placed a plate of poorly decorated sugar cookies on the counter, she propped her elbows on either side of the plate and sighed.
He had no choice but to ask, “What’s wrong?”
“I’m pretty sure I’m not going to get what I want for Christmas.”
“What makes you say that?” He smiled. “Are you on the naughty list?”
Felicity rolled her eyes at him in a way that only a pre-teen can. There was such attitude in that rolling of the eyes. “Of course not. I might not be an angel, but I am definitely not naughty.”
“What do you want?” Luke asked, wondering if it was something he could order and get delivered before Christmas Day.
Her expression remained solemn. “You can’t help me.”
“I can try.” It was what he did, after all. Helping with the little things was his job.
Felicity shook her head, then looked up at him with big, green eyes that seemed to cut right through him. “Only one person can give me what I want, and she’s out of order.”
“Out of order?”
“Broken. Unable to function. Out of order.”
Luke got a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Tell me what you want, kid.”
“I want snow on Christmas Eve.”
Peppermint ice cream delivered and a long meeting — the second one of the day — about the Christmas morning breakfast out of the way, Jordan left the EGG and walked toward Luke’s store. Could he help her? Could anyone?
There were a number of people at the end of the street, near the hardware store. They all stared at the top of the tree, as if by staring they could make the star reappear. In front of her own place, Jordan stopped. There were too many people there. She hated crowds, truly hated them. Maybe she could see Luke later…
By the time she noticed Marnie Maxwell hurrying toward her, it was too late to hide.
Marnie smiled, waved, and stopped directly in front of Jordan. “Are you going to open up this afternoon?”
“I hadn’t planned…”
“I need ice cream,” Marnie interrupted. “Preferably strawberry, with pickles. I bet you don’t have pickles, but I can get those from Eve and mix them in myself.”
“That sounds perfectly awful,” Jordan said.
“I know, but I really must have it. Last night I dreamed about ice cream and pickles.”
Jordan pulled keys from her pocket and unlocked the door to her shop. “How many people know you’re pregnant?” she asked.
Marnie stopped in the doorway as Jordan walked toward the back room. “Pregnant?” She went pale, her eyes widened, and after a moment she stepped inside and sat at the closest table. “No. What makes you say that? Are you psychic, like…”
“Pickles and strawberry ice cream,” Jordan said as she scooped said ice cream into a to-go carton. “That’s all I have to go on, but trust me, it’s enough.”
“Maybe,” Marnie whispered. “It has been…” She counted on her fingers, looked to the ceiling, and counted again. “Holy cow, I’m pregnant.”
It was a good thing, Jordan thought as she bagged up Marnie’s ice cream. Mystic Springs needed babies. Lots of them. There had been a time when babies had been a part of her plan, but now she wondered if it would ever happen.
It certainly wouldn’t happen if she continued to hide in her own little world.
She walked Marnie out and locked the door behind them, and sighed when she saw that there were now more people gathered around the tree than there had been when Marnie had come along. The librarian thanked Jordan for the ice cream and took off, walking fast. Jordan was tempted to cross the street and head home, maybe call Luke later.
But what she’d lost in the last few years was more than her magical abilities. She’d lost the ability to trust, to be a part of the world, to feel.
To love.
No one was going to magically return those things to her. If she wanted to reclaim all she’d lost she was going to have to work for them.
Chapter 5
Jordan made her way through the door and past an exiting customer, heading for the counter. Her shoulders seemed a little tight, her smile a little forced. He’d just about given up on her showing up. If last night had spooked her, she’d gotten past it.
When she was closer to him, in her own space away from the other shoppers, she visibly relaxed. The once-forced smile was transformed into something more real. More true. He liked it.
“Where did that grin come from?” Luke asked.
“I have news,” she said in a lowered voice.
“Spill it.”
Jordan stood at the counter where Felicity Adams had been just a half hour earlier and shook her head. “Not yet. The news isn’t mine to tell.”
“That’s disappointing.” He lifted a cookie from the plate at the end of the counter. “A bribe, perhaps.”
She looked at the cookie for a long moment, and seemed to be considering the offer, but then shook her head and declined. “As I said, not my news to share. I don’t think it will be long before everyone knows.”
“Take a cookie anyway,” he said. “I swear, it’s like everyone in town wants me to be as fat as the Santa in their story books.” He waggled a tree-shaped cookie with green icing in front of her nose. “Save me from myself.”
She accepted the cookie but didn’t take a bite, then she glanced around. “Is anyone else here?”
“Not at the moment.”
For a second or two Luke let himself enjoy just looking at Jordan. She was gorgeous, with that long blond hair and the long legs. Even her arms, oddly bare for a winter day, were nice. If he thought she was in the market for a man…
“We need to make a plan, don’t we?” she asked. “How can we find the star and put it back in place in a week? I don’t even know where to start looking.”
Neither did he, but he didn’t want to say so, didn’t want to send her out of here. He liked this Jordan. She smiled. She cooked for him. She almost kissed him.
She trusted him. With her fears, with her darkest secret. He still didn’t believe that she was responsible for her husband’s death, much less that she’d murdered him, but she was convinced. For now, their focus needed to be on the immediate problem. Maybe they could tackle the other issue later. Would there be a later for them? Damn, he hoped so.
They couldn’t be entirely sure the star had anything to do with Jordan’s issue, but they didn’t have anything else to focus on. It was a place to start. “We could talk to some of the old folks at the EGG,“ he suggested. “Most of them aren’t as powerful as they used to be, but collectively…”
Jordan shook her head. “I was there a little while ago and asked around. No one has any idea what happened.” She took a small bite of the cookie. “It’s not like there’s a shortage of psychics in town. Someone must know something.”
“True, but no one’s come forward with answers. You’d think they would.” He wondered how many people she’d spoken to at the EGG. Jordan wasn’t one to seek out company. He’d be surprised if she’d spoken to more than two people.
Every holiday was wel
l celebrated in Mystic Springs, but for the past couple of years all the residents had really embraced Christmas. They’d thrown themselves into the holiday spirit as if each holiday was the last.
And maybe it was, for some of them. If things didn’t change around here, it could be the last Mystic Springs Christmas for all of them.
Marnie, their Non-Springer librarian, was supposed to be a part of saving the town. He didn’t know how or why, and in the past couple of months he’d wondered if that flash of knowledge, his certainty that the town needed her, had been anything other than wishful thinking.
“I’ll head over that way after I close up shop tonight,” Luke said. “My grandmother is in one of her moods. Maybe having a project will help her refocus.”
Jordan smiled. “You want to make the missing star a project for Helen?”
“Why not? Won’t hurt.” At least, he didn’t think so.
It was dark before Luke closed the hardware store. Jordan waited for him, standing just beyond the entrance to Eve’s Cafe. The lights were still on there; she could see the customers through the big window. A few people had nodded to her as they’d headed in for supper, but no one had stopped to speak. Then again, she’d made it pretty clear she wasn’t much for conversation, hadn’t she?
Luke locked the door behind him, turned and saw her there. He looked surprised.
She walked toward him, wondering if it was at all wise that she was here. “I thought maybe you could use some help with your grandmother.”
“Always,” he said, his surprise fading.
He’d parked his green pickup in a gravel side lot, instead of on the street in front of his store. He went directly to the passenger door, opened it, then grabbed something off the seat and tossed it into the back. The truck rode high, and there was no running board, so he took her hand and helped her in. It was the gentlemanly thing to do, she supposed, and Luke Benedict was definitely a gentleman.
Santa and the Snow Witch Page 3
