by Maeve Hart
THE WITCH GET WITCHER
COZY MYSTERY - BOOK 3 THE RELUCTANT WITCH
MAEVE HART
Copyright © 2017 by Maeve Hart
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
CHAPTER 1
I sat bolt upright in a cold sweat; my heart was beating hard against my chest. I’d had the strangest dream. I let go of the breath I’d been holding onto when I saw Jacques was in the bed next to me and we were both safe in his shifter compound.
Lying back, I squashed my head onto the pillow content with my new life and especially my new fiancé. Even though he ruled the pack like the strong Alpha male that he was, toward me he was gentle and attentive. Nothing like the other men I’d had in my life. Who knew I had to become a wolf shifter to find true love? Not me.
I stared up at the ceiling in the top floor bedroom I shared with Jacques. Although I knew Jacques and I were a perfect match, not everyone in the pack was happy about our upcoming wedding. Kylie and Seamus had both shown their true colors when Jacques wasn’t around. They both hated me and wanted me to know it. They were a small problem to deal with compared to the happiness that was the rest of my life.
Things would never have been as good as this if I’d stayed with my family and agreed to their nagging about becoming a witch like them. I’d never been interested, although I was in awe of my grandmother and some of the things she’d done through her spells.
The trick now was to keep my new shifter status a secret from them—my family—especially my grandmother who freely admitted to killing an Alpha shifter who also happened to be Jacques’ grandfather. Granny killing the Alpha had been nothing more than a bedtime story when I was young—so I had thought. It wasn’t until a few months ago that I learned it was true. Since I’d met Jacques, I saw the Alpha my grandmother had killed as a real person and not some shadowy evil figure like she’d always made out.
Glancing back at Jacques, I saw him breathing deeply. He wasn’t going to wake anytime soon. I studied his handsome face, hoping he wouldn’t suddenly open his eyes and see me staring at him—that would be creepy. His face was chiseled and strong, his nose straight and his jawline masculine. His dark lashes were a perfect frame for the darkness of his eyes. When my gaze traveled to his hair, I had to resist running my hand through it.
“Good morning,” Jacques said in a croaky voice.
I turned to face him. “Hello.”
“How long have you been awake?”
“A while.” Enough to lie here and stare at your beautiful face, I thought.
“Come here.” He put his arm around me and pulled me close and I snuggled into his muscled shoulder. “Are you still coming into the city with me today?” he asked.
“Yes. I’m meeting Abbie for lunch. She’s taking an extra hour, and then I might do some shopping to fill in time until you’re ready to come back.”
“Be sure to take the credit card I gave you. Get whatever you want. Spoil yourself.”
Could life be more perfect? “Really?”
“Of course. What’s the use of money if you can’t spend it? I’m supporting you now since you left your business behind to be with me. I’d like to come shopping with you, but I’ve got meetings all day. We’ll have to shop soon. There’s a slight matter of an engagement ring. I’d like us to choose that together.”
“Okay.” My thoughts were drawn back to my previous engagement to Donald Farrell. The images of his disapproving face filled me with gloom. In his last days before he was murdered, Donald had been abusive to me.
“What are you thinking about? You’ve gone quiet.”
“Just the whole thing with Donald and Granny. And I was wondering how you would go about meeting my family. What if they—well, what if Granny recognizes you—sees a resemblance to your grandfather? She asked about you when she saw you at Don’s funeral, or was it Peter’s funeral? I can’t remember now, but she pointed to where you were sitting and asked if I knew the man who was sitting there. You’d gone by then and I said I didn’t notice anyone.”
“That’s a chance we’ll have to take. The alternative is you forget about them completely. You’re taking a risk associating with them. It’s only a matter of time before they figure out you’re no longer human.”
“I know, but I can’t just forget about them. They’re family.” I thought he would be more understanding since his parents died when he was young, or had that made him unsympathetic to the bond I had with my family?
“That’s where you’re wrong, Destiny. The pack’s your family now.”
“I hear what you’re saying.” I was close to my mother and my Aunt Flora—my grandmother not so much. My last interactions with her had scared the wits out of me and had me believing she really might be capable of destroying me like Jacques kept warning. I changed the subject. “Are we taking the helicopter?”
“Of course; it takes too long by car.”
I was pleased. I loved zooming through the sky, looking at the forest from above the treetops and then suddenly being over the tall buildings. It was interesting to see the gardens and pools that were on the rooftops of those skyscrapers.
He kissed me gently on my lips and I snuggled myself lower into his warm chest.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about our wedding,” he said quietly. “It would be better to have one here with the pack and another for your friends and family later on.”
“Won’t my family think it’s funny that you don’t have anyone on your side?”
Jacques laughed. “There’ll be plenty from my side. I have many friends and business associates who’d expect to be invited.”
“Oh, yeah. I forgot about those.”
“It would be safer if you just disappeared and never went back to your family.”
“I could never do that. My mother annoys me, but she and I are still quite close and I have a bond with Aunt Flora. When you don’t have a lot of relations you tend to be closer to the ones you have.”
“I can understand that. I was quite close with my uncle.”
“Whatever happened to him? The one who raised you?”
“He’s around.”
“Will he come to the wedding?”
“Of course he will.”
“That’s good. I’d really like to meet him. He can tell me stories about you when you were younger.”
Jacques laughed. “Don’t expect him to reveal too much.”
I closed my eyes and enjoyed how it felt to be with a man who genuinely loved me, and who would never leave me. It was a dream that he would soon be my husband. In the back of my mind I was waiting for something bad to happen and for everything to come crashing down around me.
My mind kept telling me I wasn’t good enough for a man like Jacques. The one time I’d met my father, when I was seven, he told me I was ‘good for nothing,’ and that thought took hold and rested at the core of my
soul. Constantly, I chased away this negative mantra, but was it possible to eradicate it completely if it was true?
My other struggle was trusting Jacques financially when I’d always been independent. But that would be something I would have to get use to. Heck, there were worse things than that for a woman to come to terms with, I reminded myself. Many women would love to never work again and still have everything they wanted. If I’d held onto my interior design business that could’ve been my back up plan if things with Jacques didn’t work out. Should one have a backup plan, or is it better to focus solely on the original plan? Jacques’ original plan being to fully support me and spoil me forever. He was a billionaire after all.
LATER THAT DAY, I was on my way to meet Abbie when I heard a familiar voice from behind me.
“Ms. Stephens.”
I spun around to see the detective who’d been on the murder case of my murdered fiancé, Donald. His face was flushed as though he had been hurrying to catch up with me. Or had he been following me?
“Detective Andrews!”
“Logan, please.”
I laughed. “Yes, well, in that case, call me Destiny.” We had been on a first name basis. Didn’t he remember that? “What brings you out this way?” I asked, hoping I hadn’t done something wrong.
He ignored my question. “There have already been two murders. Be careful, or there’ll be more.”
“Two murders? You mean Donald Farrell, and his brother-in-law, Peter?”
His blue eyes bored through mine. “Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.”
“But Peter died from a heart attack. You said—”
His eyebrows drew together. “That’s what we were told by the coroner.”
“You think he was wrong?”
“I just want to tell you to be careful, Destiny, be very, very careful.”
A shiver shot down my spine as a cold shaft of wind swept down the street, lifting leaves into the air. “What do I have to be careful about?”
“Destiny, when you’re a detective pursuing violent criminals—animals—there is a risk factor that is always present, and the animal instinct takes over. The animals’ instinct is to attack and subdue the enemy in the interests of self-preservation. My job is to subdue those animals.”
I hoped he was speaking metaphorically when he said ‘animals’ and not referring to shifters.
He continued, “And when I’m tracking down those types of criminals, I become the most dangerous animal alive on the planet. I will not give up.”
I gulped, locked in the gaze of his blue eyes as they held mine with the intensity of a starving person looking at a piece of steak. My throat constricted. He had to know. He had to know I was a shifter and that I’d moved in with Jacques and his pack. The document that had been mailed to me after Donald’s death jumped into my mind. From Donald’s document, I knew he was spying on my grandmother and Jacques’ family. What’s more, a print out of an email from Donald to the detective confirmed it was Detective Logan Andrews he was working for.
“I should go. I’m meeting a friend for lunch.” I turned and walked as fast as I could away from the man.
“I will not give up,” he called after me.
I’d found out Donald had previous criminal charges, which had been dropped suddenly. The only conclusion had to be that my late fiancé had deliberately gotten close to me to get at my grandmother, find her secrets. Her secret—well, one of them anyway—was that many years ago, she had slain Jacques’ grandfather, the Alpha shifter. If Seamus and Kylie ever found that out, it would give them their excuse to get rid of me once and for all.
CHAPTER 2
A s I hurried toward the restaurant, I tried to work things out. Detective Andrews was warning me, I thought, more so than threatening me. He had to be the one who’d sent that document to me after Donald’s death. The envelope was written in distinctive blocky handwriting. If I could get a look at the detective’s handwriting, I’d know it was he who sent it.
When I looked in the window of the restaurant, I saw Abbie inside. She swung her head around and her perfect blonde, blow-dried hair swung about her shoulders. When I saw her smiling face, it made me feel better and I stepped inside. Abbie was my one true friend.
After I leaned over and kissed her, I asked, “I’m not late, am I?”
She smoothed back her hair and nodded toward a glass of bubbly. “No, but I’m sorry. I had to start without you.”
I laughed as I sat down. “A drinking lunch? Are you sure that’s wise?”
“I wouldn’t normally, but you’ll never guess what happened today.”
As Abbie launched into the latest drama at the advertising agency where she worked, my mind was fixated on how I could make an excuse to see the detective to get a look at his handwriting.
Abbie only drew a breath when the waiter asked me if I’d like a drink as he passed us menus.
“Just a sparkling water for me, please.”
“What? I don’t want to drink alone.” Abbie pouted.
I giggled. “Okay. I’ll have what she’s having.”
The waiter left while I scanned the menu. “Sounds like you’ve had a hard day already.”
“Yeah, I am—I’m having a hard day. That’s why I was pleased to get out of the place.” Abbie opened her menu and asked, “What are you having?”
Placing my hand over my stomach, I thought of the slinky wedding dress I’d always pictured myself in. We hadn’t set a date for the wedding yet, but I knew from what he said, Jacques wanted to get married within the next few months. “Maybe I’ll have a salad.”
“No way!” Frown lines marred Abbie’s forehead.
“What?”
“You never eat salad.”
I hated it. She was right. “Okay, I’ll have the gnocchi and the garlic bread, no, maybe the herb bread with salad on the side.”
“That’s more like it,” Abbie said, looking back at her menu.
I didn’t want to travel back in the close confines of the helicopter with garlic breath, and every time anyone mentioned herb, I thought of Herbert—that was the name of the Alpha shifter that Granny had killed. Of course, Abbie knew nothing of my shifter life. The only thing she knew was that my grandmother was a professional witch and that Fauna, my mother, was too, along with Aunt Flora.
When Abbie closed the menu, she said, “I’ll have the same as you.”
“Snap!” I said.
“And snap for having the same drink as me.”
We both laughed at what we used to say when we played together as children.
“I win because I said it first,” I pointed out.
“Okay, I’ll let you have that win today—since I’m on the losing end of everything else, I might as well lose here too.”
“Thank you. I’ll take it.”
Abbie sighed. “I’ve been there the longest and I’m clearly the best at what I do, so tell me, why do they keep promoting men over me?”
I shrugged. “I’ve don’t know. It must be hard and annoying.”
“You’ve got no idea. I’ve been there longer than Terry, and I’m better than him. Now he’s my boss.” She shook her head. “He’s so annoying. He’s only about thirty and he acts like he’s fifty. He wears brown trousers and brown shoes.” She gagged. “And shirts with stripes that run diagonally. I get seasick when I look at him.”
I nodded, trying to remember if I’d ever seen a shirt with diagonal stripes. I hadn’t. “Have you asked the big bosses why they promoted him rather than you?”
“Yes, and they just make some excuse about me not being the right fit. It’s all mumbo jumbo.”
“Yeah, the right fit meaning you’re not a man and he is, right?” The air in the place was cold and I rubbed my arms.
“Exactly. Here, wear my jacket.” She picked it off the chair next to her and thrust it at me.
“You don’t need it?”
“No. I’m used to the cold. At work they have the air-con colder than this.�
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“Thanks.” I tried to pull her jacket on except my arms were too big and my shoulders too wide. Instead, I flung it loosely around my shoulders. “Thanks. That’s better.”
I was grateful that Abbie had never mentioned my weight unless I’d mentioned it first. She’d supported me through every fad diet I’d ever been on and had never passed judgment. I’d given up diets because they made me fatter.
“How’s Steve?” I asked so she wouldn’t tell me that jacket was particularly small, or some such lie to make me feel better.
She sighed. “Just the same.”
I nodded, wondering if she was getting tired of him. I never said anything to her because he was such a nice guy, but he was boring.
“How are the wedding plans going?” She grabbed my left hand. “No ring yet, I see.”
“No. We’ll get one soon, no rush for a ring.” I knew Abbie was thinking that it should’ve been the first thing. I’d gotten good at reading minds since I’d become a shifter. As well as that, I’d sensed Abbie was slightly disappointed that Steve hadn’t asked her to marry him. I didn’t need my shifter sense of picking up on energies to know that.
The waiter took our orders and when he left, I said, “Mm, I’ve just realized how hungry I am.”
She leaned forward and looked me in the eye and I felt a confession was going to be forthcoming. “You know, I went back to the bar you and I always used to go to with some people from work, and I ran into your detective.”
