[A Wicked Witches of the Midwest 10.0] Murder Most Witchy

by Amanda M. Lee

  “When I picture it – this is in the thirty seconds I tried to fight and thought I wouldn’t be able to escape – I thought you would come back to the guesthouse and find me dead,” I continued. “I thought you’d blame yourself and I hoped I would be able to hang around as a ghost long enough to tell Aunt Tillie that it wasn’t your fault. I thought maybe she’d be able to help you.”

  A muscle worked in Landon’s jaw. “Bay, I don’t want to hear you talk like that. I … will need to punch someone if you do.”

  “I’m not saying it to hurt you,” I offered. “I’m simply saying it so you know that you were all I could think about.”

  “That doesn’t make me feel better. I should’ve stayed with you.”

  “Even though I told you I didn’t want it? That sounds a bit creepy and stalkerish.”

  “Which is why I left,” Landon admitted. “I had every intention of buying as many flowers as I could find in Hemlock Cove and returning at dawn to woo you.”

  I didn’t want to laugh. It was a serious moment. “Woo me?”

  “You heard me.” Landon made a face. “I needed you to forgive me, but I didn’t want to push you before you were ready. It didn’t seem fair.”

  “And now?”

  “Now all I want is to keep you close and safe,” Landon answered. “Part of me doesn’t want you involved because I don’t think it’s safe, but the other part can’t bear to be separated from you one minute longer.”

  “Look at it this way, at least you’ll be able to make sure I don’t get into trouble if I’m with you.”

  Landon laughed, the sound taking me by surprise as he rubbed his forehead. “I love you so much, Bay. You have no idea how happy I am to be back with you. I know it seems weird given the fact that you were attacked last night, but … I can’t stand being away from you.”

  “Some people might call that co-dependence,” I pointed out.

  “I don’t care what other people think. I only care what you think.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I think you should come over here and give me a kiss.” I patted the spot next to my thigh. “I’m ready to make up all the way, if you know what I mean.”

  Landon snickered, his shoulders shaking. “I know what you mean. Are you sure that’s a good idea? You are recovering?”

  “I think you’re hurting my feelings because you don’t want me.”

  “I always want you, Bay.”

  “You don’t seem to now.”

  Landon heaved a dramatic sigh and stared at the ceiling. “You need to come over and kiss me if this is going to work.”

  I was understandably confused. “Why?”

  “Because if you climb on me and start the kissing I can always claim it was your idea and I was simply too weak to stop you.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. “Oh, well, that’s very pragmatic.”

  “It is,” Landon agreed. “I need you. A lot. I don’t want to be the jerk who rolls on top of you when you’re hurt, though.”

  “That makes perfect sense.” I rolled to my left, taking him by surprise when I planted myself on top of him. “Are you ready to do my bidding, Mr. Winchester?”

  Landon nodded, pushing my hair from my face so he could stare into my eyes. “Yes. Just one thing, though.”

  I tamped down my impatience. I was antsy to finish making up. I think we both needed it to right our world completely. “What?”

  “I love you, honey pot.”

  I gave his flank a vicious pinch. “That’s Queen Honey Pot to you.” I planted a firm kiss on his lips. “No more talking. It’s time for action.”

  “You read my mind.”

  Fourteen

  “Why don’t you stay here,” Landon suggested a few hours later, the room completely dark except for the power light of the television. He trailed his fingers lightly over my bare back as he kept his lips close to my ear. “I’ll take a look around and come back as soon as possible.”

  It was an intriguing suggestion – mostly because I felt limp and boneless after our intense makeup session – but I had no intention of letting him do anything alone. “No. I want to be with you.”

  “You are with me,” Landon pointed out. “I feel as if we’re so close right now that we might be the same person.”

  “Oh, that’s definitely codependence. Aunt Tillie would punch you in the nuts if she heard you say that.”

  Landon snorted out a laugh. “Yes, well, that’s how I feel.”

  “I feel kind of hungry,” I admitted, trailing my fingers down his lean stomach. “We haven’t eaten since lunch.”

  “That’s because you’re a complete and total pervert, honey pot.”

  “And here I thought that was you.” I kissed his chin, feeling the weight of the past month simply melt away. We were back in sync, and I couldn’t be happier. Impulsively I wrapped my arms around him and buried my face in his neck. “I missed you.”

  “I missed you, too.” Landon kissed my forehead. “You cannot understand how much I missed you.”

  “I’m pretty sure I missed you more.”

  “It’s not a contest.”

  “Of course it isn’t. I already won.”

  “Ha, ha.” Landon patted my naked bottom. “It’s dark, but it’s not late enough to start wandering around the bed and breakfast without worrying that Wanda will catch us. We have at least two hours until we can do that. What do you want to do in the meantime?”

  I couldn’t see much of Landon’s face in the darkness but the way his lips curved told me he had a very specific idea.

  “Seriously? I won’t be able to walk if you’re not careful. I’m already hobbled.”

  Landon’s smile slipped. “Are you in pain?”

  “Just the pain of hunger.”

  Landon grinned as he slipped out from under me and moved to his suitcase at the end of the bed. I could see the moonlight filtering in through the window bouncing off the hard muscles of his body. “I thought of that and bought snacks at Target.”

  “Oh, score!” I couldn’t move my eyes from his back. “You’re thinner.”

  “What? Oh.” Landon shrugged as he carried armfuls of junk food to the bed, letting me hold up the blanket so he could slide underneath before spreading out his bounty. “I wasn’t much in the mood to eat while I was gone.”

  “Because the beard zapped your appetite?”

  “Because I got spoiled eating food at the inn and nothing holds up to it in the real world,” Landon replied. “All I could think of when I was eating greasy fast food burgers was that your mother probably made pot roast … or chicken … or homemade mashed potatoes … or red velvet cake.”

  “Yeah, I can see that.”

  “Or kebabs … or prime rib … or those awesome prawn things she made that one time.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Or how about her pancakes … and omelets … and bacon … and French toast … and croissants … and that pork loin she made that time she was experimenting with that honey glaze. I still dream about that loin.”

  “Everyone loves a good loin,” I deadpanned.

  “Funny girl.” Landon tickled my side before handing me a box of doughnuts. “We’re going to have a huge sugar rush when we’re done with all of this food. I should’ve taken you out to dinner, but all I could think about was … making up.”

  “That’s because you’re a pervert.”

  “Hey, you were the one who suggested it,” Landon reminded me. “I was willing to forego the experience because you’re hurt.”

  “Yeah, you put up a tremendous fight.”

  Landon grinned as he opened a bag of potato chips. “So, tell me what you did while I was away.”

  The change in subject matter threw me for a loop. “What do you mean?”

  “I want to know every single thing you did while I was away,” Landon prodded. “You said you were upset because we couldn’t talk about that stuff. I want to know
all of it.”

  “You want to know how my family spent weeks calling me pathetic and whiny?”

  “If that’s what happened, then yes.”

  “Oh, geez. Well … .” I licked my lips. “Viola is convinced that Bigfoot is hanging around behind the library.”

  “Why does she think that?”

  “You know, I didn’t really give her a chance to tell me why,” I admitted. “That was the day we decided to use the locator spell to find you and instead ran into you on the street.”

  “That remains a rather stupid idea,” Landon pointed out. “I’m going to let it go because you didn’t follow a magical blue light into danger and potential death. If you had, we’d probably still be fighting.”

  I didn’t believe that for a second. “You would’ve given it to me as a freebie even if it had led to danger – kind of like the whining and crying – because you felt guilty about abandoning me. I don’t know who you think you’re kidding, but I don’t believe that for a second.”

  Landon opened his mouth to argue and then snapped it shut. “You’re such a know-it-all. It drives me crazy.”

  “It’s genetic. You can’t hate me for genetics.”

  “I can’t hate you for anything,” Landon argued. “As you’ve reminded me all day – nonstop, I might add – I’m completely whipped where you’re concerned. I’m codependent. I would’ve spent the last three weeks whining about missing you if I weren’t undercover. In fact, I did spend those weeks being just as pathetic. I simply had to do it in my head.”

  “Yeah? Is it wrong that I’m happy about your misery?”

  Landon smirked as he grabbed the package of Oreos. “No.”

  “Are you only saying that because you intend to spoil me rotten until this thing is settled?”

  “Maybe.”

  I wrinkled my nose and grabbed an Oreo, twisting it and handing Landon the side with the filling. “I’ll tell you about my month if you tell me about your month.”

  “I already told you about my month. It was ninety percent boring and ten percent worrying. It was also a hundred percent internally whining while everything else was going on.”

  “I still want to hear about it.”

  “Fine. You first.” Landon licked the filling before pressing his mouth to mine and causing me to giggle. “I want to know everything. I don’t care how mundane you think it is. I want to know it all.”

  “Okay, but I don’t think you’re going to find the discussion about Aunt Tillie’s potential hemorrhoids and her obsession with shovels nearly as entertaining as I did at the time.”

  “Let me be the judge of that.”

  “You’re on.”

  WE SPENT two hours eating junk and chatting, catching up on anything and everything. Even though twenty-four hours earlier I’d worried nothing would ever be the same between us we had no problem slipping into a happy rhythm that erased the dull ache that plagued me for weeks.

  I told him about my mother making me feel bad, Thistle torturing me for being weak while apparently phone stalking him at the same time, and Clove’s excitement about getting married. I finished with Aunt Tillie’s determination to drag me out of my funk.

  “That’s how we ended up at the corn maze.” I hopped into a pair of yoga pants and tugged my hair back into a ponytail. “What are we going to say we’re doing if Wanda catches us searching the main floor, by the way?”

  “We’ll say we’re hungry and looking for food,” Landon answered, not missing a beat. “If we do our job correctly, she won’t know we’re out of our room.”

  “She must really think we’re perverts.”

  “Just you. She thinks I’m completely normal.”

  “Says the guy who asked if we could take a bath with the Oreos and potato chips and not get them soggy while engaging the jets,” I groused, shaking my head.

  Landon grinned as he pressed his hand to the small of my back and ushered me out of the room, pocketing our key before pressing a finger to his lips and glancing back and forth down the darkened hallway.

  We’d had our pick of rooms. He had opted for one in the middle of the hallway, explaining he didn’t want to get caught in an area of the building where we had no business being. Of course, we were sneaking around an almost-vacant bed and breakfast in the middle of the night. Everything on the first floor was an example of an area we had no business visiting.

  Landon dug out the small flashlight he bought at Target and pointed it at the stairs as we descended. Once we hit the main floor, I shot him a questioning look and he gestured toward the door behind the front desk. It was a small office. Wanda had been sitting in the office when we had checked in, and I caught sight of a froufrou lamp and a nature painting that looked as if it came straight out of a “how to buy bland art for a boring office setting” book.

  The office was locked, causing Landon to mutter something under his breath as he dug in his pocket. I watched him, curious. It took me a few seconds to recognize he had a lock pick set in his hands when he reached for the door handle a second time.

  “What are you doing?” I whispered, grabbing his wrist.

  “I’m opening the door.”

  “I know, but … why are you doing it that way?”

  “Because I don’t want to kick it in,” Landon answered, his patience apparently endless because we both were riding high after our makeup session. “I’m pretty sure that would alert Wanda to our presence.”

  “Yeah, well, I wasn’t suggesting you do that either,” I said dryly.

  “Sweetie, I love you more than anything, but I could already be in that office right now,” Landon pointed out. “I’m not trying to be difficult, but … how do you think I should get in the office?”

  I narrowed my eyes and turned back to the door, annoyance flaring for the first time in almost twenty-four hours. “I love you more than anything,” I mimicked his voice to perfection, raising my hand. “That’s why I talk to you like you’re twelve and I’m stuck babysitting for the night.”

  I muttered a spell under my breath, a brief flash of light sparking against the jamb before the door popped open.

  Landon arched an eyebrow, impressed. “I forgot you could do that.”

  “Yes, well, I’m a witch of all trades.”

  “You’re my witch of all trades.” Landon leaned over to kiss me. “I don’t sound like that, though.”

  “You sound exactly like that.”

  “Whatever.” Landon cast another glance over his shoulder before following me into the office. He shut the door before flicking on the light, grabbing a blanket from the small couch in the corner and dropping it on the floor next to the door crack before moving toward the desk.

  “What’s that for?” I asked, confused.

  “In case Wanda comes downstairs,” Landon replied, keeping his voice low. “Nothing will keep her from discovering us if she comes in here, but the blanket will make it look as if the room is still dark from the other side of the door.”

  “Huh.” I hated to admit it, but that was fairly genius. “You’re smarter than you look.”

  “I’m going to show you how smart I am as soon as we’re done here,” Landon muttered, sitting in the desk chair and opening the top drawer. “I’m going to have you chanting my name because I’m so freaking smart.”

  “I’m looking forward to the attempt.” I moved toward a crate in the corner of the room and bent over. “Hey, Landon?”

  “What?” He was engrossed in a stack of letters he found in the desk.

  “There’s box of stuff over here and the envelope on top has a stamp from the state police on it.”

  Landon slowly shifted his attention in my direction. “Hold it up.”

  I did as instructed, causing Landon to frown. “The state police must’ve made notification while we were locked in our room.”

  “I feel a bit guilty that we were so wrapped up in each other we didn’t even notice that Wanda got the worst news of her life.”

 
“Yeah? I feel relieved because if we would’ve wandered down here and Davis was the one notifying her our cover would’ve been blown and we would’ve looked like the worst jerks in the history of jerks.”

  “Even more jerky than a Kardashian when a television camera is around?”

  “Even more.” Landon stared at the envelope. “I don’t suppose that’s open?”

  I shook my head. “No. It feels as if there’s a book inside, or maybe a journal.”

  “Oh, well, great.” Landon ran his tongue over his teeth. “I don’t suppose you know a cute little spell that will allow us to open mail and then reseal it without anyone being the wiser, do you?”

  “No, but Aunt Tillie knows how to steam an envelope with an iron and she’s really good at faking innocence when caught steaming my mother’s mail.”

  “Bay, how does that help this situation?”

  “It was simply an interesting tidbit.”

  “I still love you more than anything.” Landon turned back to his task. “You can’t open that. I’m sorry.”

  “Okay.” I kept the envelope in my hand as I searched through the rest of the crate. “It’s family photographs and stuff. Maybe the troopers collected it at Becky’s place and brought it to her mother.”

  “Does it look as if Wanda went through it?”

  “No. I’m betting she was so upset she shoved it in here and didn’t even look inside. She probably didn’t even see this envelope.”

  Landon shot me a quelling look. “Bay … .”

  “Whatever.” I rolled my eyes. “You’re no fun at all.”

  “Yes, well, I will show you a mountain of fun as soon as we’re back in our room.”

  “You have a very high opinion of yourself.”

  “I didn’t hear you complaining when the Oreo bath went so well,” Landon pointed out. “I … .” He broke off, an odd look washing over his features.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, instantly alert.

  Landon raised a finger and shushed me before killing the light. I couldn’t see what he was doing, but the sounds led me to believe that he was removing the blanket from the bottom of the door.

  I remained rooted to my spot as he cracked the door, cocking his head to the side before snapping his fingers in quick succession to get me to his side.