They both looked at him with compassion but said nothing.
Sean shoved the card in front of them. “You’re claiming to be matchmakers, right?”
“Right,” Ambrose said.
“Then I need help with a match. I want to hire you. I’ll pay actual money. We don’t have to barter with the sex bench thing.”
“You’re already a client,” Dorcas said. “And we really want that bench. Now that we’re working again, the spark is back and we—”
“Okay, okay.” Sean held up a hand to stop the flow of details. “I’ll build you the bench. I might be able to get to it this afternoon. I’ll have to put off Calvin Gilmore a little longer, but once I have the plans, I’ll work it into my schedule.”
“I brought the plans.” Dorcas took them out of her oversized purse and slid them across the table toward Sean.
Just then the lights went out, which prompted a murmur of surprise from the customers.
“Oh, well,” Dorcas said. “I like candlelight better, anyway.”
“I’m sure this is temporary,” Sean said. And sure enough, as Madeline bustled around making sure everyone was okay, the lights came on again.
Now that he could see better, Sean glanced at the so-called plans for the sex bench and barely kept from laughing. The drawing was crude, as if Ambrose had used the concept of a fold-out ironing board as his model. There were no dimensions, just the words Crotch high and sturdy enough for two people lettered at the bottom. Sean would have to make all the calculations himself.
He folded the piece of paper and put it in his back pocket. “No problem. Like I said, I’ll try for this afternoon.”
“That would be wonderful.” Dorcas squeezed Ambrose’s hand. “Wouldn’t it, darling?”
“Excellent.” Ambrose gave her a fond smile.
The lights went out again.
“That’s weird,” Sean said. “Must be a short somewhere.”
Madeline passed by. “It’s not just here,” she said. “The lights are off over in the real estate office, too.”
Sean stood and looked out the window. Sure enough, they were. “I wonder if there’s a line down somewhere.”
“I wouldn’t mind that,” Dorcas said. “I think it would be fun to operate with candles and wood stoves for a while.”
Sean had a sudden image of sharing that cozy situation with Maggie. He wondered if he’d dare use the fireplace in the old house. But as he considered that, the lights came on again.
He sat down and glanced over at Dorcas and Ambrose. “So what do you say? How about my matchmaking situation?”
They both stared at him. Ambrose was the first to respond. “You want us to find someone for you?”
“Nope. I’ve done that. I want you to change me back to the way I was so I can seal the deal with her. That’s what I was trying to tell you on the phone this morning. The clincher is that if I can get her interested in me, I’m sure she’ll give up the idea of buying the property I’m after.”
Dorcas frowned. “You’re talking about Maggie, right?”
“Sure am.”
“You’re in love with her?” Ambrose asked.
“Well…it’s a little soon for that, but I think she’s really hot. I could love her, I’ll bet. She’s beautiful and smart. I think we’d get along great.”
“That’s a long way from thinking she’s your soul mate,” Dorcas said. “We’re in the business of soul mates.”
“Okay, then, I think she could be my soul mate. Can you change me back?”
Dorcas shrugged. “Can’t. I don’t have the necessary herbs and it would take days, maybe weeks to get them. But even if I could, I’m not sure it’s a good idea.”
“Are you kidding?” Sean thought of how sweet it would be to have Maggie eager to spend time with him. And there was the added bonus of protecting his property from SaveALot. “Do you realize what’s at stake?”
“Your whole future?” Ambrose suggested.
“More than my future! If SaveALot goes in, Big Knob will be changed forever. Maybe some people would be happy about that, but I’m betting most would rather keep it like it is.”
Ambrose nodded. “Probably so. Good luck with that.”
Disgusted with both of them, but mostly with himself for getting into something without checking it out first, Sean left the Hob Knob to pick up cleaning supplies. If he couldn’t make Maggie fall for him, maybe she’d fall for the house.
* * *
Through the glass window of the Bob and Weave, Maggie assessed the situation. More beauty parlor than hair salon, the Bob and Weave was straight out of the fifties. Maggie guessed that was the vintage of the three hair dryers standing against the left wall, their cracked vinyl seats and chrome hoods looking well used.
On the opposite wall each of the two styling stations had its own shampoo sink. No shampoo alcove separate from the stylist’s chair. Once you plopped yourself in the chair, you were there for the duration, unless you needed one of the hair dryers to complete the process.
A woman with long tawny hair was getting an updo at the far station from a blonde dressed in a tight black skirt, a revealing black blouse and stilettos. Maggie guessed that was the stylist named Sylvia who liked to talk about her orgasms. A woman with multi-hued stripes in her hair stood at the front counter rearranging a display of costume jewelry hanging on a revolving plastic rack.
She looked up when Maggie came through the door. “Can I help you?”
“Are you Francine?”
“That’s me.”
Maggie heard murmured conversation from the other stylist and her customer but couldn’t make out what they were saying. “Have you had trouble with your electricity this morning?”
“No. Why?”
“The lights have been going on and off at the real estate office and the Hob Knob.”
Francine shrugged. “The wiring in some of these old buildings is unpredictable, but so far today we’ve been okay.”
“Do you happen to have a computer?”
“Nope. Don’t have any use for the things. All that Internet and stuff—you can have it.”
Maggie finally surrendered to the inevitable delay. “Then if you have time, I’d love for you to cut my hair.”
Francine gestured to the front chair. “Take off your coat and have a seat. My next appointment won’t be here for another forty-five minutes, so I have time.”
The other stylist laughed at something her customer said. “Oh, yeah. Once with him and three times with the vibrator.”
Yep. Definitely Sylvia.
“How did he like that?” asked the customer.
“Not much,” Sylvia said in a throaty voice. “Can I help it if I’m multi-orgasmic and he’s not?”
Francine acted as if she hadn’t heard a thing, so Maggie followed her lead and hung her coat on a row of pegs by the door. Then she sat in a chair molded by hundreds of fannies.
“So what’s your name?” Francine fastened a towel around Maggie’s neck and snapped a vinyl cape over that.
“Maggie. Maggie Grady.”
“Just passing through, Maggie?”
“Actually, I’m here on business.”
“Oh, yeah? What sort of business?”
Maggie had a devil of a time concentrating on Francine’s conversation with Sylvia detailing the difference between clitoral and vaginal orgasms. “I’m, um, looking at property.”
Sylvia continued with her review of orgasm types. “Clitoral is like chocolate mousse and vaginal is like hot fudge,” she said. “Depends what you’re in the mood for, you know?”
“Property, huh?” Francine took out Maggie’s hair clip and combed her fingers through Maggie’s hair with practiced efficiency. “Whereabouts?”
Sylvia picked up a can of hair spray. “I’m mostly a hot fudge fan, though.” She whisked the spray over the finished hairdo.
Maggie had never thought about which kind of orgasm she preferred, but she hadn’t had either in quite a w
hile. Belatedly she realized Francine was waiting for a reply to her question about where Maggie was looking for property. “Oh, possibly that abandoned place at the end of town, the one with the old house on it.”
“Huh.” Francine twirled her around and tilted the chair back so Maggie’s head was hanging in the shampoo bowl. “Sylvia, isn’t that old house at the end of town the place Sean’s after?”
“That’s the one,” Sylvia said. “Back in high school me and Sean used to have some hot times on a mattress out behind that house. One of my clients said kids still go there to have sex.”
“Sean Madigan,” said the tawny-haired client as Sylvia unsnapped the cape around her shoulders and ushered her out of the chair. “What I wouldn’t give to get my hands on that boy again. What a hunk.”
“I wouldn’t kick him out of bed.” Francine ran warm water over Maggie’s hair. “I’ve never had the pleasure, but I do have my Sean fantasies.”
“The reality is ten times better,” said the client as she walked over to the counter to pay. “I’m sure Sylvia would agree.”
“Oh, Angie, you don’t know the half of it. The last time Sean and I got it on was two years and six days ago.” Sylvia wiggled her hips as she walked past Francine’s station. “I could come just thinking about his naked butt.”
“It was a year, two months and ten days for me,” Angie said. “I’ve tried to get him interested since then, but no dice. Unless he’s doing somebody who’s not talking, he’s taken himself off the market.”
“I doubt he’s shagging anybody in town.” Sylvia opened the old-fashioned cash register with a clang. “Word would get out if he was. And he doesn’t take many trips, so I think he’s on hiatus for some reason.”
“What a loss to womankind.” Francine massaged shampoo into Maggie’s hair. “An Adonis like Sean needs to be sharing his gifts.”
Maggie listened in amazement. Didn’t they see the bad haircut and the double chin? Sean wasn’t ugly, but he was no Adonis.
Sylvia bid her client goodbye and came back to straighten up her station. “Are you thinking of moving here, Maggie?”
“Uh, no.”
“Just thought I’d ask, because I’m not sure Big Knob is the place to invest.” Sylvia threw towels in a hamper and came back to sit in the vacated chair. “I know that’s popular, to find land in some town that’s about to boom, but I can’t see Big Knob ever booming.”
“Me, either.” Francine rinsed conditioner out of Maggie’s hair, wrapped a towel around her head and levered the chair upright again. “I’d try closer to Indianapolis or Evansville. We’re really out of the way, here.”
Maggie had the oddest feeling they were discouraging her so Sean wouldn’t lose the property he wanted. “So are jobs tough to come by in Big Knob?” She didn’t have to have public support for her project, but it wouldn’t hurt. And jobs were usually a hot button for people.
“Not really,” Francine said. “It seems to work out. Like take Sean, for instance. He apprenticed himself to Abe, who was the only skilled carpenter in town. So when Abe retired, Sean had plenty of work, and we still had someone who could do that kind of job.”
“As if he needed a tool belt to make him look any sexier.” Sylvia snapped her fingers. “Damn, why didn’t I think of that? I need to find something for Sean to build for me, preferably in my bedroom.”
“Forget it.” Francine towel-dried Maggie’s hair. “That’s been tried. The boy has changed his ways, for some crazy reason. So, Maggie, what kind of haircut are you looking for? Just a trim, or something more drastic?”
Maggie looked at herself in the mirror, her hair a mass of ringlets that would turn to frizz the minute they dried. Her stylist in Houston kept urging her to keep it long, but Maggie was sick of dealing with it, especially when she traveled. She planned to get this promotion, which meant she’d be traveling even more in the future.
“I want it short,” she said. “Really, really short.”
* * *
Dorcas left Ambrose to pay the bill and stepped outside the Hob Knob to check for Maggie’s car. It was still parked in front of the real estate office, but Dorcas couldn’t tell from here if Maggie was in the office or not.
Ambrose came out, tying the belt on his leather jacket. “Ready to go home?”
“Not yet.” Dorcas gazed at the real estate office. “I’m worried about the communication spell. The lights and phone and stuff were only supposed to go wacko at Denise’s office, but the lights went out twice at the Hob Knob. What if we screwed up the spell? Maggie could already have the info she needs to close the deal. Denise could be on the phone with the property owner right this minute.”
“I’m sure the spell worked.”
“I don’t know. We’ve never tried to bespell electricity and phones and computers before. Are you sure Mercury was the right god?”
“Of course! He’s the god of communication. Her computer is out of commission and Jeremy is in Evansville so he can’t fix it yet. Everything’s fine, so relax.”
“Let’s think of some excuse to go over there, so we can be sure.”
Ambrose sighed. “Like what? We’re not planning to sell the house. We just bought it, and besides, I don’t like anything else we saw in Big Knob except that monstrosity Sean wants, which would take way too much work to fix up.”
“We’ll say we want to check the market value of our house.” Dorcas started across the street.
Ambrose followed her. “That’s a dumb question, Dorcas. It’s only been six weeks.”
“But if that computer’s working, we have to take action.” She stepped up on the sidewalk in front of the real estate office. “I admit to being a little worried. Sean is miles away from being ready for his soul mate. Did you hear him? I think she’s hot. Nothing about feeling a psychic connection. It was all about sex.”
“At least we jump-started his libido.”
“He needs to get beyond that!”
“Guys don’t start out with a psychic connection. They start out wanting to get in a woman’s pants.”
Dorcas came to an abrupt halt. “Are you saying that’s the way you felt when you first met me?”
“Pretty much.” He gave her a cocky, purely male smile.
She skewered him with a look designed to wipe that self-satisfied smile off his face.
It worked. “But, hey, I felt that connection right afterward! Really soon afterward! Like almost immediately.”
“Liar.” She kissed him quickly on the mouth before taking his arm. “Let’s go check on the current market value of our house.”
Chapter Eight
Sean soon realized he couldn’t clean the whole house in the time he had left. Closing off the attic was a no-brainer, but he decided to close off three of the four upstairs bedrooms and leave only the master open. He put special effort into that because it had a small balcony opening off it and the balcony gave a view of Big Knob that wouldn’t quit.
The balcony was safe to stand on. He’d kept tabs on structural details over the years. Any signs of termite damage or dry rot and he’d taken steps to correct the problem.
No one knew he had a key to the house and he’d been careful about his timing whenever he went in, making sure no one was around. He’d found the key by accident while cleaning out his mother’s belongings after she’d died. Surprisingly enough, whoever had evicted them all those years ago hadn’t bothered to change the locks, and the key still worked.
In the ten years since, Sean had kept the house from falling down and trapped the mice that had found their way inside, but he’d never bothered to clean. With no electricity he had to do it the old fashioned way, with a broom and dust pan. By noon he still wasn’t done, but he had a new idea.
Taking his phone from the pocket of his jeans, he dialed Maggie. She seemed surprised to hear from him, as if he’d worked some kind of magic to get her number. She’d probably forgotten that she’d given it out to Denise in his presence.
“H
ave you had lunch?” he asked.
“Not yet. I was just about to—”
“Don’t bother. I’ll have something here for you.”
There was a pause. “That’s a nice idea, but the clouds have come in again and I think it’s about to rain some more.”
“That’s okay.” He’d noticed the clouds, too. “We’ll eat in the house.”
“Eeuuww.”
“Trust me, there won’t be a single thing eeuuww about it.”
She didn’t sound convinced. “Why don’t I just grab a sandwich at the Hob Knob before I come over? I’ll be there such a short time, anyway.”
Not if I can help it. “Look, we didn’t get off to a great start this morning, and you bought my breakfast, which I didn’t mean for you to do. Let me take care of lunch.”
“Well…okay.” She sounded less than enthusiastic.
“Great. See you at one.” As he flipped his phone closed he thought about how easy this would have been yesterday. He’d never had trouble talking a woman into a lunch date. Most times they’d asked him. As for the setting, any woman in Big Knob would have agreed to a picnic served in the middle of an ant hill if that meant he’d be there.
The timing of this transformation was disastrous. But he’d have to work with what he had, and he had this magnificent house with its high tin ceilings and the massive staircase up to the second floor. He had a master bedroom with a view of Big Knob.
If that rocky promontory had some effect on the women in town, he’d use that view to work on Maggie’s defenses. With less than an hour to get ready, he had to move fast. He had sandwich stuff at home, but what he really needed was a bottle of wine like the one Dorcas had served last night.
He pulled out the card Ambrose had given him this morning. If the Lowells were billing themselves as matchmakers, they couldn’t very well turn down this request, especially because he was willing to pay for it. He dialed the number and Ambrose answered.
Sean didn’t waste time on pleasantries. “Ambrose, this is Sean, and I need a favor. In exchange I’ll install mirrors over your bed.”
Over Hexed: The Hex Series Page 8
