by Amy Boyles
The breeze kicked a soft tendril of hair into my mouth. I smoothed it away. “So is that all? For years you wrote Mysterio letters from a dead wife?”
Idie confirmed it. “That’s it. I wrote letters. I explained that even though he didn’t want them, I felt compelled to send them. I would sign my own name, but also put Heather’s name on the page as well. Mysterio said he understood, but I doubt he ever read any.” She slanted her head toward me. “How’d you find out about them, anyway?”
“Mysterio gave them to Gretchen Gargoyle to hold. She seems to think that you were obsessed with him.”
Idie barked a laugh. “It’s not me who was obsessed. Read one. You’ll see.”
I pushed off, sailing on the swing. “I believe they weren’t from you. But did Heather ever talk about wanting revenge?”
If Heather could contact Idie and have her write, what else could she have done from the spirit world?
Idie shook her head. “No. She was sad and angry, but Heather never wanted to hurt her husband. You know, I’m not the only person who followed Mysterio and attended his show whenever he came to town. You should also talk to Hattie Hollypop. She owns Brews and Jewels.”
I pushed out of the swing. “They’re probably closed tomorrow.”
Idie smiled. “They are, but I overheard someone say—in fact, it was Gretchen. Gretchen Gargoyle mentioned that Hattie attends morning witch’s yoga in the park every Sunday. I know for a fact.”
“Gretchen mentioned it?”
“I did her hair today.”
My eyes lit up. “Thanks for the tip.”
Idie glanced at my tresses. “Don’t forget. Come in anytime to get a cut. And you know what, Pepper? First cut’s on me. I have an opening Tuesday.”
“I’ll think about it.”
As Idie climbed toward the senior center, Axel strode down the knoll. I started toward him.
“Had all the swinging you can take?”
I smiled. “I could continue. Care to join me?”
“Don’t mind if I do.”
We sat next to each other. The chains creaked and groaned as we drifted back and forth. “So what’d you find out?”
“You might already know, but Idie’s a medium. The letters are from Mysterio’s dead wife.”
He scrubbed a hand over his cheek. “Interesting.”
“Idie doesn’t claim to know anything and she doesn’t strike me as the type to murder.”
“You’d be surprised,” he said in a low, Southern drawl that made a shiver race along my spine.
“I could totally be wrong, but I don’t think so.”
He cocked a brow. “Oh? And why, Pepper Dunn, do you believe so fiercely that Idie Claire Hawker is not the type to murder?”
“Why do I get the feeling you’re not talking about Idie anymore?”
His expression darkened. Axel tapped his fingers on the chain. “’Cause I’m not.”
“What are you talking about?”
Axel’s harsh gaze sent a spear straight to my heart. I shuddered. “Sometimes even the people closest to you can betray, Pepper.”
I glanced left and right. “Have I missed something?”
He laughed, which lightened the mood by about a thousand degrees. “No, you haven’t missed anything. It’s something I haven’t told you, but it looks like it’s time. I’m talking about my brother.”
“Oh.” I pressed a finger between my eyes, smoothing out the worry wrinkle that had bloomed.
There was so much I still didn’t know about the mysterious Axel. Yes, he was a werewolf. And yes, he had been accused of killing some witch’s sheep, and that’s how he ended up in Magnolia Cove—because he had been on the run from them when he arrived. And his parents were living out of an RV in the Rockies. But this, this was news.
“You have a brother.”
“Oh, do I ever have a brother. Guy’s been in and out of trouble for a while. He was a good kid growing up. The best. Great guy. But then something happened. He got in with the wrong crowd. They put dark notions in his head. None of us—my parents and me—knew until it was too late.”
I rose and crossed to stand in front of Axel. He took my hands and pulled me to him. I eased onto his lap. It was awkward, sitting on him while he sat in a swing, but somehow we made the whole balancing thing work.
He had pulled his hair out of its holder and it hung loosely over his shoulders. I ran my fingers through his thick dark locks.
“Showing off your hair to the ladies?”
He chuckled, revealing a perfect smile. “No. One of them yanked it out when I wasn’t looking. Those ladies are gropers. You gotta watch them.”
I laughed. Silence lay pregnant between us. I felt the weight of the conversation and shifted it to his brother. “So none of you knew what until it was too late?”
Axel’s head fell against one chain. “My brother let the wild of the werewolf take hold of him in his human form. He would play on the feral aspect, letting the testosterone rule his body. He became violent. He’d start bar fights, attack people for no reason. It got to the point where he became uncontrollable. The scales tipped and my brother did the unthinkable.”
Axel paused, sucked in air. His gaze drifted up to mine. He stroked my hair and pulled me down for a kiss that made my toes curl.
We parted and I inhaled the sweet air. “Why do I get the feeling you’re trying to distract me?”
He chuckled. “Is it so bad I want a kiss?”
“Nope. Not bad at all.” I traced my fingers along his jaw. His stubble pricked my skin and reminded me that beneath his cool exterior lay a rough, wild beast—one that was contained, but a beast nonetheless.
For a flicker of a moment, I wondered exactly how safe I was?
But the thought vanished as quickly as it had bloomed.
He sighed. “My brother started selling—things he shouldn’t have. Rare, exotic items that are illegal.”
“Like what?”
His jaw flexed. “Illegal potions, that sort of thing. Eventually, he got caught dealing large volumes and was sent away for three years.
“By the time he went to prison, I no longer recognized him. A man who only a few months earlier had been kind was now completely changed. He wasn’t the brother I knew any longer. He was someone else.”
I slid off Axel’s lap and sat on the other swing, facing in his direction. “Axel, I’m not questioning who you are. I hope I didn’t say something to make you think that.”
He rubbed his thumb over an eyebrow. “No, it’s not that. What you said about Idie reminded me of him. Of what my brother could’ve been, compared to what he is.”
“You know,” I said, “if I’d stayed in Nashville, I would be living on the streets. There’s another comparison for you. Less than a month ago I had no focus, no future. Heck, I was a waitress at an animal-themed restaurant. Maybe a little distance from bad influences can go a long way.”
He scowled. “It can.”
“Come on, Axel. There’s something you’re not telling me. I’m all fine and good with some secrets. Heck, I don’t expect you to tell me everything about yourself in one day. I don’t want to run away screaming, after all.”
He laughed. “I know. And if you start calling me every five minutes, that would kill my buzz for you, too.”
I grinned. “Don’t worry. I erase your phone number every time you call just so I won’t be tempted.”
“Good thing.” He launched into a long swing before coming to rest next to me. “My brother’s been in prison. Served two years.”
“And?”
“And I got a message earlier from a contact in law enforcement.
“About?”
Axel’s lips twitched as if he wanted to blurt out what clearly had knotted his tongue. His gaze swept from me to the stars and toward the senior center.
“My brother and I—”
“—Does he have a name?” I interrupted.
“Adam.”
I click
ed my tongue. “Adam. Got it. Recorded in my memory. What about Adam?”
“We haven’t gotten along since he started to change.”
“Okay. Well, you know, I’ve got issues with guys, too. Rufus attacks me hoping to steal my head witch power, or whatever he wants. Join the club. I get it.”
Axel shook his head. “It’s more than that. Adam tried to make me feral with him. He wanted me to be part of his little thing. He went so far as to try to get me to smoke, thought it would influence me his way. I wouldn’t do any of it, of course. That wasn’t for me. That’s another reason that why when the witches up north thought I’d been killing livestock—why that knife twisted in my gut so hard. It was an old wound. Adam wanted me to be one way. I wanted to be another.”
I frowned. “So what’s so important about all this now?”
He scraped the heel of his hand over his chin. “The message I received about Adam—he escaped from prison.”
My heart thundered. “Where do you think he’d go?”
Axel’s gaze made me freeze in my swing. “We used to be close, the two of us. He might want that connection again. If he knows where I am, there’s one place he’d go.”
I swallowed. “You mean here? Magnolia Cove?”
His fingers tightened on the chain until his knuckles paled. “You got it.”
TWELVE
“But what about the police? Do they know? Are they searching for him?” I said, feeling a surge of panic scramble up my throat.
Axel gazed at the ground. “They know. A lot of folks are looking for him, but Adam is resourceful. He’s good at evading authorities when he needs to.”
“But he can’t just hide in plain sight,” I said.
Axel lifted his face to me. His expression was a contortion of pain that made my knees shake. “Pepper, he can be dangerous. Right now, I need to focus on taking care of that part of my life.”
“Okay,” I said, trying to sound chipper. “If you need to focus on that, that’s what you have to do.”
“I don’t think you understand.”
“What?”
“I think we should cool off for a while.”
I swallowed a knot of emotion in the back of my throat. “You want to break up? Over this?”
He exhaled a shot of air. “I can’t focus on you and my brother. It wouldn’t be fair to you. I’ll still be your friend and help however I can with tracking down the information your mother left Mysterio, but that’s all I can give right now.”
I shifted my gaze to the soft ground beneath me. “I’m not asking you to give more,” I said quietly.
“I know.”
“But this is your decision?”
“It is.”
I tried not to be angry. I really did, but I still felt a swell of pain rumble in my chest.
That was stupid. Axel and I barely knew each other. We’d only been dating a week, I couldn’t be all torn up about him cooling his jets.
Could I?
Whatever. I didn’t need a boyfriend anyway. I could be friends with Axel. No problem. I could do it.
Even if it did feel like someone had taken a hot poker and rammed it into my heart.
I was a big girl and wore big girl panties. If he just wanted to be friends, I could do that.
Besides, I didn’t want to be with a guy whose brother wanted to influence him in bad ways anyhow.
But then why did it hurt so much?
“Okay,” I said. “I understand.”
The drive to Betty’s house was quiet. There was nothing to say. Nothing would turn back the clock and mend us together, and nothing he could say would ease the throb of pain in my heart.
His lips brushed my cheek as we stood on the front porch. “I’ll talk to you soon,” he said.
I plastered on a huge, supportive grin. I would not let him know how much he’d hurt me. “Okay. Let me know if I can help.”
He brought his hands to his heart. “That’s why I like you so much. Always thinking of others.”
Then why’d you break up with me?
We said goodnight. A row of buds dipped down to sniff me. I patted Jennie, the guard-vine. “Sleep tight,” I whispered.
As much as I wanted to eat about a dozen ice cream sundaes and wallow in a pity party, I pushed my feelings to the side and decided to stay busy. That was what I needed.
I also figured it would be best not to mention any of this to my family—at least not yet.
If I talked about it, I would start crying and I really, really didn’t want to cry.
Not because I didn’t care about Axel, but because I did. I didn’t understand how I could care about him so quickly and so fully.
Basically, I didn’t want to admit that he’d wrecked me because I was stronger than that.
The next morning, I was dressed and ready for some early morning yoga. I had on yoga pants, a yoga shirt and I even wore what I considered to be the perfect yoga headband. It was black, kept my hair out of my face and didn’t pinch my noggin too tightly.
My eyes grazed over the spread of grits, country ham, skillet hash browns, biscuits and gravy. I grabbed an apple from a bowl.
“Sorry. I’ve got to skip breakfast. I’ve got morning yoga today.”
Betty squinted at me so hard her bottom lip nearly touched her nose. “You going to that baloney?”
I bit into the apple and spoke between chews. “Yes, because that baloney might help me figure out what it was my mom wanted me to know.”
“She wanted you to know that she loves you,” Betty said.
“That’s not what I mean. What she told Mysterio.”
“I know what you mean.”
Cordelia poured a cup of coffee from a carafe at the sidebar and yawned. “As much fun as crack-of-butt—I mean crack-of-dawn, yoga sounds, I’m afraid that’s more exercise than I can handle this early in the morning.”
“Late date night?” I chirped.
Cordelia flashed me a sour look. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Betty’s gaze zipped from me to Cordelia. She opened her mouth to speak when Amelia bounded down the stairs.
“Ooh! So you’re going to the Sunday morning yoga class? The one at the meadow behind the courthouse?”
“That’s the one.”
Amelia plopped into a chair and started heaving gobs of food onto an empty plate. “I hear it’s a lot of fun. You’ll have a good time. I’d love to join you but I’m allergic to yoga. All those positions make me hurt just looking at them.”
I cringed. Wow. I hadn’t bothered to think about the positions. How was I going to pretzel my body into some of those contortions? Maybe I could just sit those out.
“The instructor makes everyone go into the positions,” Amelia said, “whether you’re a newbie or not.”
So much for my hope of not looking like a complete idiot. “Well, I guess I need to be on my way. I’ve got about ten minutes before it starts.”
Amelia scrunched up her eyebrows. “What about Hugo?”
“What about him?”
“Aren’t you taking him?”
I sank onto one hip. “Now why would I take a dragon with me to yoga class?”
Cordelia finished a sip of coffee. “Because it’s a familiar yoga class. You’re supposed to bring your pet familiar. Helps you bond. It’s like doing yoga with your baby.”
“I’ve never heard of doing yoga with a baby.”
Cordelia flipped her golden hair over one shoulder. “I’m sure someone does it somewhere.”
“That doesn’t sound like a thing,”
Amelia smiled brightly. “But familiar yoga is. You’ll have to take Hugo or they won’t let you into the class.”
Great. “Okay. Well, everyone cross your fingers that he doesn’t spew fire on the instructor.”
Betty swiped a napkin across her mouth. “I’m betting he does.”
“Thank you. That helps me feel better,” I said sarcastically.
“You’re welcome
.”
When I arrived at the class I felt like a total idiot. There were about ten other witches all with their regular, normal familiars. Most of them were cats, though I did see a couple of dogs.
And none of them had a dragon—much less a baby one named Hugo.
I glanced around, looking for Hattie Hollypop, but didn’t see her. What I did see were witches keeping a wide berth from me. A couple of cats hissed and a dog growled.
“He’s only a baby,” I said to the animals. “He’s not going to hurt anybody.”
“I’ll scratch his eyes out if he tries,” said one particularly feisty Siamese cat.
I dodged the animals and worked my way to the back of the crowd. At least that way, if Hattie happened to show up late, maybe I could work my way up to her.
Gretchen Gargoyle arrived. I realized she must’ve known about Hattie coming to the class because she came herself. She took a spot off to the side.
The instructor, a tall extra thin redhead with long arms and slim legs, came to the front and put her hands together. She gave us all a wide smile.
“A big welcome to all the witches I’ve seen before and to those of you who are new.” She tipped her body to the left and looked squarely at me. “I see at least one new member in our little yoga coven. Do your best to follow along. I will come and correct you. Be sure to breathe deeply and enjoy this time to connect with your familiar. I see we have a new animal—a dragon. How exciting. I hope he won’t try to eat any of the other creatures.”
She blinked at me as if expecting an answer.
“No,” I said quickly. “He won’t eat anyone.”
I didn’t think.
“How wonderful,” she continued. “Now. Let’s get started, shall we? Everyone cradle your animals in front of you like so, and extend your left leg back.”
The instructor held a small hedgehog in her arms while demonstrating the pose. “She’s got a tiny animal, and I’ve got you,” I said to Hugo.
“Mama,” he said.
I was in mid-leg extension when a woman with blond hair huffed toward me. She wore a sour expression and her boobs were barely contained by her yoga clothes.
“This spot taken?” she said.
It took me a couple of blinks, but I realized it was Hattie Hollypop. Whoa. Did she look different on a Sunday morning than when I’d last seen her strolling with Mysterio.
