by Tegan Maher
He cut his eyes at me. “You just said you weren’t allowed to influence people’s behaviors. Now you’re doing the whole hypnotic suggestion thing on me?”
“No!” I exclaimed. “I’m simply stating that your eyes are unfocused, your head’s wobbling, and your mouth’s runnin’ so fast your brain’s not able to keep up. Bedtime.”
“I’m not a child,” he said, blinking hard a few times. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, just do it,” Addy snapped.
I pulled a deep breath in and sent a request to the universe for patience. When I didn’t get an answer, I took matters into my own hands. “Sleep!” I said, flicking a hand at Max, whose head dropped to the floor and promptly began to snore.
“See,” Addy said, “now how hard was that? I swear, the irritatin’ old goat can make a preacher cuss.”
She wasn’t wrong.
“Mercy popped in while I was driving home,” I said, shoving another bite of creamy deliciousness into my mouth. “Right after I talked to you.” I told them what all she’d said.
“That’s a shame,” Addy said, shaking her head. “Girl didn’t even feel right goin’ back for her daddy’s funeral.”
I shrugged. “I got the feeling there wasn’t much love lost there. She was pretty clinical when she told me about him and I didn’t pick up any bitterness. I think they honestly just weren’t close.”
That was hard for me to imagine because even though my dad had dropped us off on Addy’s doorstep when I was eleven and never looked back, I’d still be crushed to find out he’d died. Or maybe I wouldn’t have been. You can’t really know how you’ll react to something like that until it happens.
“I didn’t find anything out about the brother today,” Hunter said. “I ran out of time before I ran out of things to do, considering I spent two-thirds of the day just trying to figure out who she was.”
“Did you go out to the campground to talk to Frankie?” I asked. “Maybe find out who she’s there with?”
“I went out there, but there wasn’t anybody at the site. No vehicles, either, but the tent was still there.”
“Did you snoop?” Addy asked.
He arched a brow at her. “What do you think? I’m the sheriff, and the campground manager was right there.”
“Why didn’t you call for me?” she asked. “I coulda gone in.”
“Didn’t you already, though?” he waited, and her gaze slid away.
“Maybe. There wasn’t nothin’ there but a couple sleepin’ bags, a lantern, and some munchies.”
“Oh, well there you go, then. I should definitely arrest her for eating chips in bed.”
I had to laugh at that. “I’ve heard of gettin’ kicked out of bed for eating crackers but never gettin’ arrested for eating chips. I’ll keep that in mind.”
He crinkled his nose at me. “Nah, you’re pretty enough that you can do either and I won’t mind. Besides, you’re more of an ice cream girl, at least at bedtime.”
“Cheesy,” I said, grinning and tossing a balled-up napkin at him. “But it’s nice to know what I can get away with.”
Addy cleared her throat. “If we’re done talkin’ about the murder, I’m gonna go see if I can overhear any good pillow talk.”
“Eww! Addy. You wouldn’t,” I exclaimed.
“Course I would. I mean, not if ... you know.” Her silvery face had a decidedly pink hue.
I grinned at Hunter. “Isn’t she cute when she blushes?”
She grumbled and flapped an irritated hand at me, then disappeared. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Miss Fresh.” Her disembodied voice echoed a little before fading away.
“How does she do that?” he asked, reaching over with his fork and digging into another of the slices of cheesecake. “This stuff is delicious.”
“I know. And the best part is that I didn’t have to bake it.”
He tilted his head toward me. “Now that I think about it, you don’t hardly ever make cheesecake. Why not? It’s one of your favorite desserts.”
I gave him a sardonic smile. “Exactly. It’s one of my favorite desserts. If I made it, I’d eat it and be as big as a house. Either that or I’d get tired of it, which would be even worse.”
“Now that, I understand,” he said. “Except I love your mixed-berry turnovers, and even with eating them all the time, I’m still not tired of them. And I’m not fat, either.”
“Yet,” I said. “But soon, we’ll be old folks, and cheesecake and turnovers and cinnamon rolls will just travel straight from our mouths to our backsides. Or at least that’s how it’ll go for me, probably. You’ll always be hot. It’s not fair.”
“I’ll love you no matter how much cheesecake travels to your backside,” he replied. “But just in case, you can skip your second piece and I’ll take care of it for you if it’ll make you feel better.”
I lowered my brows and hovered my fork protectively over my second slice. “Reach over here for it at your own peril. I know how to use this thing.”
He laughed as headlights lit up the curtain and the familiar sound of Gabi’s truck rumbled up the drive.
“Ooh, I’m glad she’s home. I have something I want to talk to you both about.”
“Oh, yeah?” he asked. “And what would that be?”
“Just wait ’til she gets in here and I’ll tell you both at the same time.”
It only took a minute for Gabi to make her way through the door.
“Hey, you two!” she exclaimed, tossing her bag on the counter. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in days even though we live in the same house.”
“I know, right? It’s been nuts the last few days. Plus, some of us have been keepin’ some mighty long hours,” I said, waggling my brows at her.
“Yeah,” she replied, a sappy smile sliding across her face. “I know. Things are goin’ good with us.”
Which I was glad to hear, considering her last boyfriend had kidnapped us and tried to kill us. That’s when we’d first learned about Shelby’s real powers.
“Pop a squat for a second. I’ve got something I wanna talk to you two about.”
“Okay,” she said, pulling a wine glass out of the cabinet and filling both hers and mine from the bottle on the table. She sat on the chair at the head of the long farm table and pulled one foot up under her. “Shoot.”
“You guys know how Kristen had to move into her parents’ house when her landlord jacked up her rent, right?”
They both nodded. “Well, I got her a job at Bobbie Sue’s—lord, that woman needs help in the worst way!—and I was thinking maybe now that Matt’s moved into Anna Mae’s, Kristen could have the apartment. I could even give her a cut on her rent if she agrees to help out with chores.”
Gabi pressed her lips together and bobbed her head side to side. “That could work. I like Kristen, and it would be nice to have another set of hands around here if she’s willing to help.”
My gaze slid to Hunter. He would never admit it, but I knew it had been a little hard for him when Matt moved out. Just like me, he’d grown used to having Matt around whenever he wanted to wander outside and work on the bikes or whatever. In a way, I wished we knew a man who needed a place.
“Well,” he said slowly, “I mean, Kristen seems okay. I like her, and she needs a place.”
He sounded a little hesitant.
“But?” Gabi asked before I could.
Hunter sighed. “But I had a friend call me today. I worked with him in Indie. He’s a detective, too, and he’s getting a divorce.”
“Okay,” I replied. “What does that have to do with Kristen moving into the apartment?”
“Well, I thought maybe he might be interested in it. He’s sick of city life and wants a change of scenery. He’s been married for almost a decade, and he just wants a fresh start, I think. I saw a posting for a game warden in our area, which he’s perfectly qualified to do, and I told him about it. He’s applying, and with his experience,
he’ll probably get it.”
I mulled that over in my head. It made sense, and it would give him a guy to hang out with again, but Kristen was really in a pinch. “How close were you two?” I asked. “Close enough that you’d want him living literally in your yard?”
“We were tight,” he replied. “After all that went down with me, he was one of the few cops who stuck by me. He even partnered with me for a little while until he was reassigned. But he also has the means to rent a place, and we’re not even sure yet that he’s going to get the job. It’s all fresh.”
Gabi hummed. “What about your house?”
Hunter furrowed his brow. “What about it?”
“I mean, why don’t you rent him your house if he decides to move here? You said he’s in a position to pay rent, and you know him, so you’d be taking less of a risk than if you rented it to a stranger. He wouldn’t be right here on the property with you, but it’s a solution to a couple problems all rolled up into one nice, neat little package.”
Hunter swallowed. He’d talked about it lately in vague terms, but I wasn’t sure he was ready to cut that final string yet.
“You know what?” he said after a few moments. “That’s a great idea. It never even occurred to me. Plus, Kristen would be less likely to be weirded out by any magic that she saw, and the ghosts won’t have to sneak around since she already knows about them. Magic, too.”
That was true. Since Kristen knew all about us, we wouldn’t have to watch ourselves. I hated doing that when I was at home. Hiding my magic when I was in public was one thing but having to hide it at home was another. This was my safe place; the one place where I could be myself and be who I was without any worries.
“That’s definitely the better idea,” Hunter said with a decisive nod. “I’m okay with Kristen moving in here.”
“Me, too,” Gabi added. “It’ll be nice to have somebody fill Shelby’s feeding shifts. So when are you going to tell her?”
“I can talk to her tomorrow,” I said. “She usually comes out on Sunday mornings, and I need to talk to her about working at Bobbie Sue’s anyway, so I’ll just talk to her about that, too. Y’all okay with her movin’ in ASAP?”
They both nodded.
“Okay, then,” I replied. “Here’s to having a couple extra mornings to sleep in!”
That had been another hole in our lives that had opened up when Shelby’d left for college. We always alternated days getting up early to feed the horses and chickens and clean the stalls, and since she’d left, Gabi and I had picked up the slack. Hunter had helped, but he had his own job. Plus, he wasn’t exactly a horse person. He liked them, but he didn’t have the bug like Gabi and I did. He helped because he was a nice guy, not because he loved it. This was perfect.
“Hear, hear,” Gabi said, raising her wine glass.
I raised mine back, and Hunter tilted his bottle. His expression was open and happy, which made me feel better. I was afraid being confronted with a decision head-on like that would have stressed him, but he seemed to be fine with it.
It looked like we were taking our next step forward.
Chapter 14
I slept like a log, and when I woke up the next morning, things didn’t look quite as stressful as they had the day before. I’d also made a boatload of money the night before, which would go nicely toward a new pair of boots. I always hated spending so much money, but I sure did love my designer boots. I didn’t spoil myself with many things, but since I’d gotten to a place where I could afford spending a little mad money every once in a while, boots were one of my favorite splurges.
I shuffled to the kitchen and kicked on the coffeepot, then popped in a blueberry cobbler coffee pod and leaned against the counter. The smell of coffee brewing slowly made its way to my sleep-addled brain. I added a blurp of milk and a half-teaspoon of sugar, then took it the table and pulled up Wizards Unite on my phone.
The game had become a habit, and I enjoyed playing it while I had my coffee. It had taken the place of my news apps because, frankly, the news had become either so maddening or so terrifying that I’d stopped reading it. WU was a nice escape, and the animations made me smile.
Heavy footsteps thudded down the stairs, and Hunter popped into the kitchen.
“Mornin’ beautiful,” he said, then dropped a kiss on my temple on his way past. “Catching anything good?” he asked. He teased me about the game, but only in a lighthearted way.
“Meh, a couple blast-ended skewts and a Marauder’s Map,” I replied, running my fingers over my screen to capture another foundable. “The skrewts are funny, though. They fart fire so hard that it propels them around the screen when you catch them.”
He laughed and shook his head. “Sometimes I swear you’re a twelve-year-old in a really hot adult chick’s body.”
I flapped a hand at him and took a drink of my coffee. “It has nothing to do with age. Farts are always funny, and if they’re made of fire and pushing a big rhino-lookin’ thing around, they’re hilarious.”
He raised a brow at me as he popped a caramel-mocha pod into the coffee maker. I’d spoiled him since he’d moved in, and now he was as big a coffee snob as I was, at least at home. Not that either of us had anything against a good, strong cup of regular old Joe at the diner.
“I’m gonna pretend I know what you’re talking about and just leave you to it,” he said. “I’ll stick to Reddit.”
“Hey! I still love it, too,” I said. “But there are only so many hours in a day I can play on my phone. I have to prioritize.”
We finished our coffee in relative silence, just enjoying each other’s company. I wasn’t a morning person by any stretch of the imagination, so that was about as much as I could handle. It had been one of the biggest adjustments for me since he’d moved in because he most definitely was a morning person. I’d managed to not kill him, but it had come close a few times before we’d hit our sweet spot.
“So what’s on the agenda for the day?” he asked. “I’m sorry I have to work. I know you were looking forward to going riding today, but I have to—”
I held up a hand. “I totally understand. It’s not like you’re blowing me off to go watch football with the guys. You have a murder to solve. I think I’m gonna go to the shop and get ahead on that dining set.”
I’d had a woman email me asking if I could design a table and hutch from reclaimed lumber, which was right up my alley. I wasn’t usually into building regular old furniture, so I’d scratched around and found some great pieces I could repurpose into the hutch. The table was relatively simple, though, so I was doing it from the ground up.
“Good, then maybe if you get it done early, we can go camping next weekend. It’s the perfect time of year to go to the cabin. We’ll take the bikes and do some fishing.”
That was one of my all-time favorite getaways. Every couple of months, we’d rent a cabin an hour or so away and just take the weekend to chill out.
“I need to clean the pool up, too,” I said. “It’s getting warm enough now that we’ll be able to use it soon. As hot as it was yesterday, we could probably swim now.”
Matt had built me a pool a year ago, complete with a fountain and a hot tub, and we used it all the time. I’d hated to shut it down for winter, but it had just gotten too cold.
He swigged down the last of his coffee and stood to make himself one to go. “If you want to hold off, I’ll help you do all that once we get the Mercy situation squared away.”
“Oh, sure. Is that what I am to you? The Mercy situation? And why are you still here? Shouldn’t you be out finding who killed me?”
Mercy appeared, and her form looked a little less translucent than it had the day before. Her expression was a lot more snotty, too.
I narrowed my eyes at her. I still wasn’t caffeinated enough to deal with attitude, even if I did understand where it was coming from.
“He didn’t mean it that way, and you can’t just bust into my kitchen with a mood on, because let
me tell you, I’m not the person you wanna cross before coffee. Check yourself or I’ll toss you out of here so fast your incorporeal head will spin.”
She crossed her arms and smirked at me. “Oh yeah, and just how will you do that? I’m dead. I can go anywhere I want.”
Hunter snickered because he knew those were not the right words to say to me. I snapped my fingers and flames shot out of the candles she was hovering over. They flared so high I could see them through her before they settled back down into the wicks.
She sucked in a breath. “How did you do that?”
“How do you think I did that?” I asked, brow raised. “I think the real question you should ask yourself is if I can do that, what else can I do? Now, would you like to start this morning over with a more respectful tone, or would you like me to show you what else a cranky, non-morning witch can do to somebody who rudely interrupts her coffee? And here’s a hint—it’s a lot worse than shooting candle flames up your butt.”
She flickered a little, unsure of how to proceed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be all up in your face. It’s just that I’ve finally wrapped my head around the fact that I’m dead, and I don’t like it. I mean, everybody dies, but not by strangulation at age thirty-three.”
“Do you have some suggestions?” I asked. “Because we sure could use a little input. We talked to Frankie yesterday. She said she came here to make amends.”
I decided to leave it at that and let her give me some information before I shared any more with her.
“Yeah,” she said, her expression thoughtful. “I’ve been thinking that over. She came here to get me to go home. She said she misses me and that now that my dad’s gone, I needed to go back and help with the family business.”
Though she hadn’t told me exactly what she’d said, I hadn’t gotten the feeling that she’d been there to talk Mercy into going home. She’d made it seem like she’d just come here to patch things up with her friend.
