Chapter 11
Snow fell for two days. Hard, slow, blinding, gentle. The ferocity of the snowfall changed with Jordan’s mood, Luke imagined. More than once he’d thought about going to her house, forcing her to talk to him, but until she was ready, talking would be a waste of time. Obviously she wasn’t ready. Would she ever be?
Maybe this was just another sign that Mystic Springs was dying. For years he and others had fought to keep the town alive. Those who wanted to isolate the town or remove all protections had their arguments, but there was a lot to be said for leaving things as they were. A place for Springers to be themselves. A place to celebrate magic, to embrace who and what they’d been born to be. They could come and go, could choose to leave for a few weeks or a few years or permanently. They had options.
But everything ended. Even Mystic Springs. Maybe it was time to pack up and leave it all behind.
For now, Luke tried to keep his mind on business, on choosing and wrapping Christmas gifts, and keeping the hardware store operating. The Milhouses had set up their sledding ramp in the middle of Main Street, and Luke had sold every sled in the store.
It hadn’t taken long for him to figure out what had happened, what had made Jordan lose control. If she hadn’t told him she was incapable of trust he never would’ve put the pieces together, but after talking to his brothers — and finding a bag containing three boxes of condoms in the middle of aisle four — it all made sense.
Travis and Eve had been trying to keep their relationship a secret, but it wasn’t. Jordan had been in the dark, since she kept to herself and didn’t participate in town gossip, but pretty much everyone else knew. They said it was just sex. Luke wasn’t so sure.
He hadn’t realized his brother sometimes used the back room of Benedict’s Hardware for a quickie.
Felicity and her friend Bria fought their way through the snow — it was falling pretty hard at the moment — and into the hardware store. Both girls wore heavy coats, gloves, colorful scarves, and warm hats. Today it was Bria who held a plate of cookies in her hands.
“What are the cookies for?” Luke snapped. “You got your snow.” He didn’t mean to be sharp, but the truth was he’d been in a really bad mood since the snow had started falling.
Bria sighed. The girl looked like she wanted nothing more than to run, taking her cookies with her. Felicity was braver. She lifted her chin and walked to the counter. “Granny Ramona and Nannie Ginger said we have to come clean.”
He didn’t care. Didn’t care about much of anything at the moment. But he asked, anyway. “About what?”
Felicity looked over her shoulder and urged her friend to come closer. “Bria and I took the Franklin Star. It’s safe!” she added with dramatic flair. “We wanted snow, and I had a dream that if I took the star it would snow, and…” She stopped and took a deep breath. “Well, it did. We got a lot more snow than I expected. Anyway, we’ll put the star back.”
Luke looked from one young woman to the other. “You two did that on your own?”
They both nodded.
He wouldn’t say so, but he was impressed. These girls were powerful if the two of them could manage moving the star without any help.
As angry as he was, he had to admit that these girls, and a handful of others like them, were the future of Mystic Springs. Felicity and Bria were a damn good reason to fight for the survival of the town. How could he walk away — run away — when there were young people like these out there. They deserved a chance. They deserved to know who and what they were.
“Put it back as soon as you can.” The damage was done, but everyone in town would feel better once the star was in place.
“There’s something else,” Bria said softly. She placed the plate of cookies on the counter. Gingerbread, he noticed, not that he wanted to eat another cookie before the Fourth of July.
When she hesitated, he twirled his fingers in an impatient “go on” motion.
“Jordan needs to know the truth, and I’m afraid to tell her.”
The young girl had Luke’s attention. This was the second time someone had mentioned that Jordan needed the truth. “Details?”
Bria pursed her lips, then blurted out. “She thinks she killed her husband, Dick, but she didn’t. She didn’t do it.”
He’d never thought Jordan was capable of striking her husband down, but she was convinced.
“Rick,” he said, correcting Bria almost automatically.
“No, I’m pretty sure it was Dick.”
Luke let that small detail go, for now. “It was an accident?” Jordan did need to know that, no matter what happened between them. Whether she ever trusted him, whether she wanted anything to do with him, she needed to know she was not to blame.
Bria shook her head. “No. Her father did it.”
“What makes you say that?”
The shy girl whispered, “He told me. His… his spirit told me he killed Dick.”
Luke leaned onto the counter. “Tell me everything.”
She did.
When Bria was finished, Luke looked from one girl to another. “How old are you two?”
“We’re both twelve,” Felicity said. “I’ll be thirteen in June, and Bria will be thirteen in August.”
“You’re pretty young to have so much magic.” They were both telekinetic, if they’d managed to get the star down from the top of the tree. Felicity had had a prophetic dream, and Bria was communicating with ghosts. What other powers might they have, now and in the years to come? What would they be like at sixteen, twenty, thirty-five?
How miserable would they be any other place but here?
“I have an idea,” he said. He walked around the counter, pointing at the girls. “You two watch the store for me. I’ll be back.”
“We can’t run a hardware store!” Bria protested.
At the exit, Luke paused and smiled. “I’m pretty sure you two can do anything you put your minds to.”
Jordan paid no attention to the knock at her door. Eve and Ivy had both tried to talk to her in the past couple of days, but she’d ignored them and eventually they’d gone away. Whoever was out there now would eventually leave, too.
The doorbell rang. And then again. The sound cut through her brain, too shrill, too loud. It didn’t stop.
She jumped up from the couch and ran to the door. Whoever was on her front porch was about to get a burst of…
Jordan threw the door open on Travis Benedict, in his tan uniform and a heavy brown coat. As usual, he seemed abnormally at ease. Nothing much bothered him.
“What the hell do you want?” she asked.
In a maddeningly calm voice he said, “You’re under arrest.”
“For what?”
He shrugged, then said, “For bringing the everyday function of Mystic Springs to a standstill with excessive snow.”
“You’re here. There’s hardly a standstill.”
He snagged a pair of handcuffs from his belt and dangled them. “Please don’t freeze me. The truth is we need a break, and the jail cells are enchanted so they block Springer powers. Come along peacefully, sit in a cell a while, give the snow a chance to melt.”
It was an option that had never even occurred to her, and in truth was kind of a relief. She didn’t want to bury Mystic Springs in snow. Maybe if it stopped, it wouldn’t start up again. Maybe she could bring herself under control in one of Travis’s jail cells.
“Don’t you want a coat?” Travis asked as she stepped onto the porch and closed the door behind her.
“I don’t need one.”
There was no car at the curb. Travis had made the short walk from the police station to her house, and she joined him on the walk back that way. By the light of day and from a certain angle she could see that he had a black eye. Not much of one, but a little color remained there. Yellow and blue, mostly.
“Did you slip and fall?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “Right into Luke’s fist.”
H
e didn’t elaborate and she didn’t ask for details, but she could safely assume Luke had figured out what had happened and taken his anger out on his brother.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
There were snowmen in the yards around her, as well as kids on the street having snowball fights. They laughed and played. As they neared Main Street, she saw the Milhouse snow ramp being put to good use. The snow hadn’t been an entirely bad thing.
“So, you and Eve,” she said as they reached the street and turned.
“Yeah.”
“Why didn’t I know? I talk to Eve now and then.”
He grimaced. “She wants to keep it a secret, though why she’d even try that in this town is a mystery to me.”
“You don’t want to keep your relationship private?”
“Why would I? She’s great. I don’t care who knows.”
The police station was straight ahead. Jordan found herself looking forward to spending a little time in one of the enchanted cells there. She needed a break. So did the rest of the town.
“So, you and Luke?” he said.
“Not anymore,” Jordan whispered.
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” Travis opened the door for her and she stepped inside. He led her to the side by side cells, and there he was.
Luke sat on one end of a cot. He stood when he saw her. Travis opened the cell door and Jordan walked in.
The ease she felt was instantaneous. Was it the cell or Luke? Did it matter? When she was inside, Travis closed the barred door, slipped a key into the lock, and turned it.
“Hey, you didn’t say you’d lock me in! I came willingly!”
Travis walked away. “Don’t look at me. It was his idea.”
She turned to stare at Luke for a long moment. He didn’t say a word. She didn’t know what to say. After just a couple of minutes Travis yelled, “Hallelujah! The snow stopped!”
Jordan stood near the locked cell door. She couldn’t take her eyes off Luke. He looked good, tempting, wonderful. He reminded her of what she couldn’t have, what was damaged inside her. “What are you in for?” she asked.
“Assaulting a police officer.”
“Your brother?”
“We only have the one police officer.”
“It wasn’t his fault,” she whispered.
“At the time, I didn’t much care.” Luke took one step toward her; she backed away one step and he stopped. “There are things you need to know.”
“Like what?” She tried to sound as distant as possible, as cold.
“Felicity and Bria took the star. They’re going to replace it.”
“But they’re just…”
“Kids, I know. Pretty amazing, right? I don’t think the star going missing had anything to do with your issue, but you never know. In any case, it’s safe and will be back where it belongs soon.”
She nodded. “Well, that’s great. You can go now, and I’ll stay a while until the snow has a chance to melt.”
“That’s not all,” Luke said. He took another step closer. She didn’t have anywhere to go. “Do you remember the truth my grandmother said you needed?”
“Helen doesn’t always get things right.” For a moment, a horrible moment, she’d thought the truth she’d needed to know was that Luke was as unfaithful as Rick had ever been.
“You didn’t kill your husband, and you didn’t make it rain at his funeral. Like every other Springer, your abilities fade when you leave town, and they eventually disappear.”
“You don’t know. You weren’t there.”
“It was your father,” Luke said. “He hadn’t been away from Mystic Springs for more than a few hours before he came to your place for a surprise visit, so his powers were at full strength. He heard the fight, and when Rick left Stewart followed. At the golf course he confronted your husband, and one thing led to another.”
Jordan shook her head. “Dad didn’t come until I called him and told him what had happened. He came for the funeral, but… No.”
“Bria can see and talk to ghosts. He told her.”
“That can’t be…”
“Did you father call your husband Dick instead of Rick?”
Jordan held her breath for a long moment. Her dad had never liked Rick. More often than not, he did call her husband Dick. Usually with “the” in front of it.
“I didn’t know Dad was even there, until after I called to tell him Rick was dead.” She’d called him on his cell, since he hadn’t answered the home phone. Now she knew why.
A tingle walked up her spine. It made a kind of sense. “The rain at the funeral…”
“Guilt,” Luke said. “He didn’t intend to kill Rick, it just happened.”
Emotion. Anger. A flash of power.
Jordan stepped around Luke and sat on the far edge of the cot. Her legs wouldn’t hold her up anymore. “Why didn’t he tell me?”
“He didn’t want you to know what he’d done. If he’d realized you blamed yourself, he would’ve come clean.”
She’d never told her father she’d killed Rick, had never cried on his shoulder on those nights when the guilt had been too much to bear. No, she’d borne the pain alone. If she’d been honest with him, if she’d shared her fears…
Luke sat beside her, close but not too close. “That’s the truth you needed to know.”
“Poor Bria. Talking to ghosts is not an ability I ever wanted to have.”
“She and Felicity are going to be something else,” Luke said.
“They already are.” He leaned into her, and she leaned away. “No matter what happened in the past, the truth is I didn’t trust you. I heard Travis and Eve, she called him Benedict and I assumed it was you. There’s another thing your grandmother was right about. My abilities are tied to my emotions, and I was so angry, so hurt. I lost control.”
“We can work on that, if you’re interested.”
If she was interested? She loved Luke. For a few hours, maybe a couple of days, she’d imagined a real future with him, but it had been nothing more than a dream. “I’m glad to know I’m not responsible for Rick’s death, I really am, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m always ready to be hurt, to be betrayed. What if I never get past it? What if I’m always and forever waiting for you to hurt me?”
He put an easy arm around her. “I want to spend a lifetime proving to you that you don’t ever have to worry about that.”
A lifetime. With Luke. Did she dare? Did she dare to take a chance?
“I love you,” he said. “I’m not going away, I’m not giving up on us.”
Jordan leaned into him and after a moment she smiled. She’d hidden for too long; she’d played it safe and in the process had all but disappeared. Maybe it was time to take a chance, to listen to her heart, to reach for the life she’d turned her back on. She wanted to get into mischief. With Luke.
“I love you, too. Where do we go from here?”
Luke reached into his pocket and pulled out that square, velvet box. “I’ve been carrying this around for two days, waiting for my chance.” He got down on one knee. “Marry me, Jordan. Trust me to make you happy, to love you, to keep you warm.”
No one could keep her warm but this man, she knew that now. A shiver walked up her arms. A smile bloomed on her face. “Yes.”
She trusted Luke with all that she was, with her fears and insecurities, her hopes. Her love.
He stood, sat back down beside her, and took her hand in his. The ring, his grandmother’s ring, was a perfect fit. She should’ve expected nothing less.
“Are we going to tell our children that you proposed in a jail cell, while we were both locked up?”
He leaned in to bring his mouth to hers. “Maybe we’ll save that story for the grandkids…”
Epilogue
Christmas Eve. The Franklin Star was back where it belonged. Springers — and a few Non-Springers — gathered on the street. The air was appropriately chilly. Punch, cookies, pigs-in-a-blanket, chips a
nd dip and more had been placed inside and outside the businesses on the south end of the street.
Christmas carols played softly, the music drifting from the library where Marnie had set up a radio with a couple of extra speakers.
Jordan wore one of Luke’s flannel shirts over a tank top. When she felt cold, he responded by wrapping an arm around her and holding her close.
There were more gifts than normal beneath the tree. Several people commented on the fine wrapping job Luke had done on some of the presents. Those would be the ones Jordan had wrapped for him. With him. Next year he might let her wrap them all. No one would complain.
Something had changed in the last few days, something inside him. The shift had been subtle, almost imperceptible at first, but he could not deny it. He still saw the practical things the people around him needed, but now he saw more.
Clint needed — surprise, surprise — diapers. Gabi Lawson needed something Luke couldn’t quite grasp. A safe place. A dog. A dog? He couldn’t entirely make sense of what he saw for her, but her need was strong.
Susan Tisdale needed a vacation. That was practical, he supposed, but still it was different from his usual readings.
Mystic Springs needed Felicity and Bria.
Helen Benedict needed grandbabies, and she was going to get them.
He saw something for almost everyone around him. When the information became more than he could handle comfortably, he shut it down. He’d never had to do that before, but he did it now.
Like Jordan, his abilities were tied to emotion. He’d been hiding for a long time, hiding just as she’d been, in his own way. Love had opened a door for him. He was going to have to learn how to deal with it.
When the gifts had been opened, Jordan lifted her hand and snow began to fall. Not a lot, just a few pretty flakes that drifted down. Some in the crowd were pleased to see the snow. Others groaned. There were still shady spots in town where remnants of the last snowfall remained.
As the snow fell, the Franklin Star came to life. It began with a gentle glow, a throb of light, and then the light grew.
It was not his imagination that the star’s light was brighter than it had been in many years.
Santa and the Snow Witch Page 7
