Witch Slapped
A Beechwood Harbor Magic Mystery
BOOK THREE
Danielle Garrett
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Author's Note
About Danielle Garrett
Copyright © 2017 by Danielle Garrett
Edited by Magical Words Edits
Cover Design by Alchemy Book Covers
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
CHAPTER ONE
Winter in Beechwood Harbor was a beautiful time of year, despite the weather that tended to fluctuate between peaceful, crisp days with no wind or rain and days that were like miniature monsoons and made it feel more like a ghost town. All the shops were decked out with twinkling lights and festive displays, and most every house had some kind of decorations on display. In the center of town, a huge Christmas tree was adorned with soft twinkle lights and glowing ornaments. Even the Beechwood Manor had its own Christmas tree sparkling in the front window. Adam, Evangeline, and I had trekked into the woods behind the manor and spent hours debating which tree would look the best. After all, it would be showcased front and center for the entire neighborhood to see.
Everyone in town was electrified with the spirit of the holidays. Not to mention that the tip jar at Siren’s Song was overflowing by the end of each day. There was only one real complication: Yule Feast was on the horizon and Adam and I were about to venture into unchartered territory in our relationship. I had yet to meet his parents and it was a conversation I’d been dreading for weeks. Now that the time was drawing near, the stress was almost tangible, like the tingling in the air right before a lightning storm. I knew it was on the way and sure enough, one Wednesday night after a cozy dinner for two at McNally’s, it hit.
“My dad called today,” Adam said conversationally as we wandered down the street. We were taking advantage of a break in the rainy weather that had plagued the harbor for the past week. The rain had finally let up and moved farther up the coastline. It was still freezing cold, but with the right amount of bundling into coats and gloves and scarves, we were able to resume our usual practice of taking a post-dinner walk around town.
I cringed slightly. “Oh, yeah? How are they doing?”
Adam rubbed his gloved hands together, trying to get them warm again. “Same old, I guess. Dad’s up for a promotion at work. I told him he’s getting a little too old to be chasing bad guys down.” Adam paused and grinned at the memory. “He didn’t appreciate that.”
I laughed lightly. “I wouldn’t think so.”
“Apparently he’s going to remind me that he’s still the Big Bad Wolf next time he’s in town.”
I smiled and shook my head. “That should be quite the showdown.” I hadn’t met Adam’s wolf-shifter father, but I imagined that he’d been the one to teach Adam most of what he knew, and in beast form, Adam was quite intimidating. That is, when he wasn’t pilfering around in McNally’s day-old garbage, scarfing down as much discarded pub food as he could stuff into his muzzle.
“Well from the sound of it, you’ll get front row seats,” Adam replied. He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “I invited them for Yule Feast.”
My stomach flipped over and curled in on itself. “You did?”
Adam gave an easy shrug. “I thought they might like coming out to see the town and the manor. And, of course, meet you.”
My mouth went dry. “Oh,” I said, trying to manage a smile. “That will be nice.”
“Is that really so bad?” Adam fixed me with his dark eyes, giving me the you’re-not-getting-off-that-easy stare. “I mean, you look like you just swallowed a lemon or something.”
“I like lemons,” I hedged.
He groaned. “Holly.”
“Sorry,” I hurried to say. “It’s not bad. I just wasn’t planning a big thing for Yule Feast. You know, I thought maybe we’d stick to one big bash on Christmas day when everyone can come.” We’d done a similar event for Thanksgiving, with Nick, Cassie, Kirra, and Chief Lincoln. It had been a lot of fun and I’d secretly been hoping to gloss over Yule Feast, mostly to avoid the exact scenario Adam was proposing.
Adam scrubbed a hand over his sharp jaw line. “Listen, Holly, this is all new for me too. I just thought—”
“Adam,” I interjected, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk. I grabbed his arm and tugged him to a stop beside me, looking him in the eye. “It’s not a bad thing. I swear.”
He glanced down, breaking eye contact. “I probably should have asked you first.”
My heart twisted at his dejected tone. I burrowed into his side as we walked, then smiled up at him. “It’ll be fine,” I said.
“You’re sure you don’t want me to cancel?”
I shook my head and forced a smile for his benefit. “I’m sure.”
We continued our walk, winding through downtown past all the closed-up shops. Evangeline’s day spa, The Emerald, was still open, and the glittering marquee sign bathed the street with light. I spotted Lacey through the front window.
“Aha, I see it’s Fright Night at the spa,” Adam quipped, jutting his chin in Lacey’s direction.
I elbowed him playfully in the ribs. “Be nice. You and Lacey have been getting along fabulously, at least for you two, since Thanksgiving. And believe me—the rest of us would like that trend to continue.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Aside from eating, torturing our vampire roommate was one of his favorite past times. He almost took it to an art form.
Evangeline, our witch roommate, had opened her spa a few months ago when she decided to stay in Beechwood Harbor permanently. Since then, it had grown large enough that she now offered extended hours, which were mostly geared toward the after-work crowd. It was also convenient for Lacey and her vampire friends, who weren’t able to pop in during the daytime for obvious reasons.
“You want to go in and say hello?” I asked Adam.
He grimaced at me. “Not a chance. Last time I was in, Evie started telling me she had a new shampoo to treat my receding hairline. She told me that
it was best to get a jump on it at a young age.”
I stifled a giggle. “She might have started off as a TV star, but she’s a natural-born salesperson.”
Adam ran a protective hand over his thick, dark hair—which, for the record, definitely didn’t need a boost from any kind of shampoo. “Yeah, well she needs to learn to pick her marks a little better. My hair is perfect,” he replied, offended.
I rolled my eyes up to the night sky, pleading with the moon for mercy. “Yes, yes, you and Lacey could have some kind of hair-off.”
“Please tell me that’s not a real thing,” he said.
I laughed and popped up on my toes to press a quick kiss to his lips. “Don’t worry. You’d totally win.”
Adam grinned at me—a kiss was usually enough to get him to quit griping—and ran a finger down the side of my cheek. “Go say hi to the girls, but don’t leave me hanging for too long. I don’t want that to be the only kiss I get tonight.”
A sizzle of heat spread over my skin. “Deal.”
I jogged off across the street as Adam started up the hillside that led back to the Beechwood Manor. I paused at the door of the spa and watched him disappear into the darkness. He was so good to me—and for me. So why was I holding back and so scared of letting him get closer? There were dozens of girls in town that would be thrilled to be dating Adam St. James. They would dream of the day he’d invite them to meet his parents for the official stamp of approval. For me, though, the idea was more terrifying than thrilling. Would I ever be able to get beyond my past and move toward some kind of future?
With a heavy sigh, I tucked the tumultuous thoughts as far into the deepest recesses of my mind as I could and pulled open the door of Evangeline’s shop.
The bright lights and upbeat music went a long way toward banishing the dark musings and when Evangeline popped up from her seat at the front counter, I managed a genuine smile. She was decked out in a festive ensemble of a red pencil skirt and a green cashmere sweater. The colors looked even richer against her caramel-colored skin and her bright, smiling eyes. Evangeline had a wardrobe that most women would kill for and always looked put together. Even her pajama sets matched—and most were made from brightly colored silk to boot.
She waved me inside, her gold feather earrings tinkling beneath her long, raven locks. “Holly! I didn’t know you were coming in tonight!”
Lacey was perusing a stand of lotions, but turned when Evangeline greeted me, sending her platinum blonde locks over her shoulder. “Hey, Holly.”
“Hello, ladies. Adam and I were walking through the neighborhood and I thought I’d come in and say hello.”
Evangeline leaned to the right, glancing past me. “Where’s Adam?”
“He went back to the manor.”
Evangeline folded her arms, looking one second short of stamping her foot. “Is he still upset about my offer to give him some free shampoo samples?”
“Apparently you really did a number on his ego,” I said with a giggle.
She heaved her eyes to the ceiling with a dramatic sigh. “Shifters …”
“Tell me about it.”
Evangeline dropped her arms and waved a hand, beckoning me further into the shop. When she’d transformed the abandoned gardening store into a day spa, she’d turned the storage room in the back into three decent-sized treatment rooms that were now hidden behind a long, emerald curtain. The front of the shop was set up with display cases featuring all kinds of different concoctions. She stocked everything from fancy shampoos and soaps to at-home wax kits.
As the owner, Evangeline worked full-time at the store and also employed an esthetician, Lucy, who also happened to be one of my customers—a telepath who used my potions to block her live-in mother-in-law’s unflattering, incessant internal monologue. Evangeline’s other employee was a strapping werewolf named Ben, a masseuse who was very popular with the area’s female population, including—I suspected—Evangeline herself.
Lucy and Ben were likely already gone for the night as appointments were usually wrapped up earlier in the evening. Since Lacey and Evangeline were the only ones in the front room, Evangeline kicked her feet up on the reservations desk, showcasing a pair of ruby red stilettos that probably cost more than I made in a month. Evangeline raised a hand to cover a wide yawn. “Whew! Sorry.” She shook her head. “Why does Siren’s Song close so early? I could really use a double shot.”
I smiled and sank down onto the sleek black couch that was sandwiched between two product display cases. A glass coffee table sat in front of it, holding a neatly organized array of magazines. “What you need is some sleep,” I countered. “You’re turning into Cassie. You two could form some kind of sixty-hour-a-week club. Sickos.”
Evangeline laughed. “I know. It’s a little out of control. I’m debating whether or not I should be closed one day a week. I think Lucy and Ben are about to mutiny if their schedules don’t die down a little.”
Lacey shot Evangeline a sly grin. “Oh, you know Ben would do anything you asked.”
I glanced back at Evangeline as she shrugged off Lacey’s comment, but she couldn’t seem to mask a wide smile. “Oh, really? Come on, spill.”
Evangeline laughed. “There’s nothing to tell.”
“Yet,” Lacey added, setting down the bottle in her hand. She crossed the shop and sat beside me on the couch.
“He is pretty yummy,” I said, smiling over at Evangeline. “Even by movie star standards.”
“First of all, I’m no longer an actress and I was never a movie star.” Evangeline rolled her eyes. “And second, I never said he wasn’t attractive. I merely said that as his boss, I have an obligation to keep things professional.”
“I’d fire him if that’s the only thing standing in the way,” Lacey said, unflinching.
I laughed. “I think if she did that, she’d lose half of her clients. You wanna talk about a mutiny …”
“Holly’s got a point,” Evangeline said. “His backside and quote-unquote magic fingers are the best advertising I never had to pay for.”
We all dissolved into giggles.
“His schedule is tricky, though,” Evangeline said. “That whole once-every-full-moon thing is exhausting.”
“How long has he been a werewolf?” I asked. Ben came into Siren’s Song a few times a week, so we’d had our fair share of interactions, but I’d never managed to get much information out of him. He seemed to prefer keeping to himself. But surely Evangeline knew his story. He’d been working at The Emerald for a few months. That was plenty of time for her to dig up some dirt.
“A few years,” Evangeline answered, dropping her feet to the floor. “He hasn’t told me how he was turned, though.”
I nodded. It was a fairly common story. Most werewolves were very private and liked to blend into human communities rather than live inside the haven system. I turned to Lacey. “You approve of this union? Don’t vamps usually avoid werewolves?”
“Only the ones who act like beasts on the days they aren’t wearing their fur,” she answered, her nose turning up slightly. “Ben doesn’t seem like that kind of werewolf.”
Evangeline waved her hand through the air. “Enough about Ben. What’s going on with you and Adam?”
My heartbeat picked up again, slamming back into the same cadence as when Adam brought up our new Yule plans. “What do you mean?” I asked, my voice too thin.
Evangeline hitched a shoulder. “How are things going? You never give us the gossip, girl.”
Lacey reached forward and snagged a magazine from the coffee table, clearly uninterested.
I sighed heavily. “He just told me that his parents are coming to town for the Yule Feast.”
“Oh?” Evangeline said, her lips forming a small O.
Even Lacey looked up from her magazine.
As I’d feared, this was a much, much bigger deal than I wanted it to be. I dragged in a sigh, trying to slow my frantic heart. “I’m not sure I can talk him out of it.”
“Talk him out of it?” Evangeline’s eyebrows knit together. “Why would you want to do that?”
I glanced at my interlocked fingers in my lap. “I just think it’s too big of a step. I mean, they don’t even live here. If they did, I wouldn’t think of it as such a big deal. Maybe.” On second thought, I was pretty sure that geography didn’t matter.
“Holly, honey, this is a good thing,” Evangeline said, her voice soft, as though she realized she was dealing with a flight risk. “Adam’s crazy about you. You’re crazy about him. It’s a natural next step in your relationship.”
I glanced at Lacey and then at Evangeline, feeling like I’d been tossed overboard and couldn’t reach the lifesaver. “Then why does it feel so incredibly terrifying?”
“Are you worried his parents won’t like you?” Evangeline asked.
“Or that they will?” Lacey added pointedly before I could answer.
“That’s not it,” Evangeline told Lacey with a disbelieving laugh. But her eyes widened when she looked back at me. “Is it?”
I shook my head, not sure which part I was denying. “I’m sure it will all be fine. I’m probably over-thinking it.”
Evangeline didn’t look convinced. “Holly …”
I quickly cut her off before she could press me further. “I’m not sure how I feel about it. It just happened. I haven’t had time to process yet. That’s all.”
They shared a doubtful glance but let it slide.
I pushed up from the couch and slipped my hands back into my gloves, preparing for the frosty night air. “It’ll be fine,” I insisted, more to convince myself than my friends. “Besides, you’ll both be there if I start tanking, right?”
Evangeline offered a gentle smile. “Of course we will.”
Lacey nodded, not looking up from her magazine.
“Then I don’t need to worry.” I forced a smile before making my way back to the front doors. “See you both at home.”
They called out their goodbyes as I pushed out into the night, more confused than ever.
CHAPTER TWO
Witch Slapped: A Beechwood Harbor Magic Mystery (Beechwood Harbor Magic Mysteries Book 3) Page 1
