by Judi Fennell
Or, wait… Maybe he could convince Zane to leave the journals to the town archives in Peter’s honor. Part of their history. He’d have to find some sickeningly sweet, unrefusable way to convince Zane that Peter would have wanted him to leave them for posterity and stress how much the town would appreciate the gesture. He had to play this right because he didn’t want Zane to have any reason to keep those journals.
Gary grabbed the pamphlets from the trunk and tucked them under his arm. Today’s PR campaign had just become more than a means to win the mayoral paycheck because the town archives fell under that office’s jurisdiction.
Mrs. Mancini, the Spanish teacher who’d made his senior year hell, smiled at him, and, for the first time, Gary could give her a sincere one in return. Those journals and their secrets were all but in his hands.
Chapter 15
Zane had expected the looks. Even a few questions. What he hadn’t expected was the utter silence as people stared at him as if he were his great-grandfather reincarnated, strolling down the middle of the road stark naked.
He glanced down. Still dressed, but he was going to check with Vana to see if she could read his mind because he had the oddest feeling that he’d been naked around her.
Wishful thinking.
Yeah, it was.
How did one ask a genie what the protocol was for sleeping together? Could she sleep with him?
That was a stupid question. All her parts had certainly responded the right way when they’d kissed. He couldn’t believe that they wouldn’t in bed.
He tripped on the curb and almost twisted his ankle as he landed in the gutter. Served him right. He needed to get his thoughts out of the metaphorical one and on to the reason he was here.
Carl’s Hardware was in the middle of a long row of brick-front stores. The same bench that had been there when he’d been a kid was still beneath the awning out front. His father used to buy him ice cream at Patty’s Parlor six stores down and they’d walk up to Carl’s to enjoy it. He’d told Dad he’d wanted to sit in the shade, but that was because Gary or one of his fellow bullies had usually been hanging out at the ice cream parlor. It’d been easier to avoid the confrontation than suffer through it.
Yeah, he enjoyed the irony of coming back as a professional athlete. No one would bully him now.
Something good had come from the bullying, though. Zane now gave speeches to school kids about the dangers of bullying to help others end the sort of the hell he’d gone through.
“That’s right, little lady. Step on over here.”
Speak of the devil. Gary stood outside Marsh’s Bakery accosting patrons, er, handing out some sort of pamphlet and schmoozing with a reporter.
“Come election day, all you have to do is push the button for Gary Huss for mayor, and this town will have all it needs to move into the twenty-first century.”
If they wanted a dictatorship. Zane doubted the guy had changed all that much in two decades. His middle name ought to be Napoleon.
“Zane Harrison!” Gary hollered when Zane made the mistake of catching his eye.
He should have brought Vana along and let her turn Gary into the rat that he was.
“Welcome back to your hometown!” Gary just wasn’t going to let it go. His tone was loud enough that the old men playing chess in the park across the street heard him, which would now link Gary’s name to the whisper-down-the-lane effect of the story of Zane’s return, an opportunity no politician would pass up.
Marlee, Zane’s publicist, would relish the PR op, but he had no intention of being part of Gary’s campaign.
Gary, unfortunately, had other ideas. He came over, clasped Zane on the shoulder, and shook his hand as if those twelve years of crap hadn’t happened.
“Local boy makes good. Our star athlete’s returned. What a great day this is for the town.” Gary had yet to let go of his hand, and, yeah, the photographer beside the reporter snapped a picture. “Did you come downtown to help out the local economy, Zane?”
Much as Zane would like to tell the prick off, he wouldn’t. He did, however, yank his hand away. “Thanks for the welcome, Gary. It’s nice to be back.”
The reporter flipped a page in her notebook. She looked young enough that the stories of his great-grandfather would only be urban legends to her, which was fine with Zane. “Hi, Mr. Harrison. I’m Cathy Lindt, reporter for The Harrison Daily. Can I ask you some questions?”
“Sure.” He’d rather have said no, but turning her down would be as bad for his image as endorsing Gary.
“Did your family really move away because of the ghosts haunting your home?”
He needed a new publicist if Marlee thought this was a good idea. “We moved because my father died and the place was too big for my mother to keep up.”
“So you never saw any of the ghosts?”
“There are no—”
“Of course he couldn’t see any ghosts,” said Gary, stepping in front of Zane. Not unsurprising because Gary hadn’t liked sharing the limelight on a normal day. Now that he was running for office, he’d be even less inclined to. “They’re ghosts.”
The reporter took a step sideways so she was again facing Zane. “What about other phenomena? Things that moved by themselves, disappearing staircases, bears charging through the house?”
Zane withheld his wince. Man, he hated that story. “I don’t have any stories. I was young when we moved away. I got involved with football soon after and never had the chance to come back, especially once I was drafted.”
“So, are you back to stay now? Are you planning to retire here?”
Either the kid was utterly clueless or she was destined to become an investigative shark. His retirement, injury, and contract were all things he didn’t want to discuss. “I’m back to get the house in shape to sell.”
“You’re selling?” asked the reporter. “But a Harrison has owned that house for over a hundred years.”
“And no one’s lived in it for the past twenty. I think it’s time.” Zane edged toward the hardware store. “If you’ll excuse me.”
“Oh, but—” The reporter hadn’t quite honed her stealthy side to the point it’d need to be, so Zane was able to slip inside the store before the rest of the question was asked. He’d let Marlee do damage control on this one if necessary.
“Well, look who it is! Zane Harrison!” said the blue-haired woman wearing a blue-and-white checkered vest behind the old-fashioned cash register. Zane glanced at her back to make sure she wasn’t sporting a tail on the off chance that Merlin could change his form like he could his feathers. “I’d know you anywhere. You look just like your father.”
“Thank you, Miss…”
“Missus, my dear boy. Mrs. Winters. I don’t suppose you remember me. I went to school with your father. Both me and my Johnny did.”
He did remember her. She’d been one of the few who’d believed him about Gary and the bullying. “Of course I do, Mrs. Winters. How are you?”
“Ah, well, my rheumatism keeps acting up when the weather gets damp, but I guess that’s to be expected. A tad lonely, too, now that the old gang is moving on, as we like to say. So much more positive than dying, you know?”
He hmmmmed his reply. This place was a real party. Ghost stories, gossip, rheumatism, and death. Things hadn’t changed at all. “I need a few supplies to fix up the old home, Mrs. Winters. Can you point me to the paint, please?”
“In the back there. I can mix up any color you like. Carl’s son—he took over when Carl passed six years ago, you know—well, he finally broke down and bought one of those new paint-mixing machines since people were willing to drive forty miles to The Home Depot to get their colors made, which was just silly. Now they get them here, and the machine has paid for itself three times over. See? You can teach an old dog new tricks. Or I guess it’s an old dog that can teach you new tricks.” She chuckled, her ample bosom heaving beneath the blue-and-white-checked pattern.
“I believe you have
a rather interesting shade of pink in one of the rooms in that house of yours, if I’m not mistaken, Zane,” she said when she’d recovered her composure.
Unfortunately, her comment nicked his composure. The empty bedroom on the third floor. He’d forgotten about the paint in that room. Dad and Mom had painted it at least once a year, and every year the pink would bleed back through. Weird.
Or… magic?
He’d have to have Vana fix that. He couldn’t sell the house with a self-painting room; the rumors would never go away.
“That color is long gone, Mrs. Winters.”
“Is it? I could have sworn June said she saw it the other day when she checked the place. She and Jack really appreciate you paying them to take care of the place. Ever since Jack hurt himself at work, well, the money’s been a godsend.”
“She must have meant the color of the curtains. I’m going to change those, too.” As soon as he had Vana un-magick the walls.
Zane headed down the closest aisle toward the paint. He didn’t want to get into any hero-worship discussion. He’d paid June and Jack Ertel because they were the closest neighbors and the house had needed the upkeep. The monthly check-ins he’d made with them had given him peace of mind and allowed him to stay away.
He should have sold the house right after Mom died, but it’d been easier to write the check to the Ertels than come back and deal with it. But life was now pushing him toward a slew of decisions he didn’t want to deal with. Coming here had been about getting things done instead of sitting around and stewing about things he couldn’t change.
Zane made quick work of the supplies and managed to hear only two stories about the eccentricities of his forefathers before he left the store. Mrs. Winters was a veritable font of information when it came to the Harrison reputation. Thank God, there weren’t too many of that old crowd left to remember all the stories.
He’d always been bummed that his parents had been older when they’d had him, a theme among Harrison men. Peter, Jonas, and his father had all married later in life, then had a child—just one, a son—even later. His father had been old enough to be his grandfather, and his age used to bother Zane a lot.
“Zane, you’re really serious about selling your home?” Gary grabbed his arm the minute he stepped outside of Carl’s.
He wrenched his arm away. “Yeah.”
“That’s too bad. Harrisonville won’t be the same without the Harrison homestead.”
That’s because it’d be ridicule free, but Zane didn’t say that. No one needed to think that he was getting rid of the house for any reason other than money. Not because the stories and the ridicule would never stop as long as a Harrison owned the house. He’d like to get married some day and have a family. He certainly didn’t want to saddle his kids with this infamy. He’d promised himself years ago that the Harrison stories would stop with him.
But then he drove home and opened the door, shooting that theory to hell.
Chapter 16
He’d walked into a real-life Fantasia.
Zane ducked under the vacuum-cleaner hose that was dancing along the curtain rod, then sidestepped the mop and bucket that were splashing water all over the hardwood floor, gaped at the small rug that was polishing the chandelier, and stared at the squirrels that were using their tails to dust the banister.
But he came to a full-on, mouth-dropping stop at the sight of Vana. She’d changed from the harem outfit into a pair of pink shorts and a lighter pink tank top, but she still wore her genie slippers. Nothing overly outlandish in that, but what nailed him to the floor was the fact that she was hanging upside down by those slippers from the top of the frame around his great-grandfather’s picture, which was now gracing the second-story wall.
Meanwhile, she just licked the edge of a rag and wiped a smudge of dirt off Peter’s shoe as if what she was doing wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. The gossipmongers would have a field day with this.
Zane dropped his bags with a thud.
“Uh-oh. Company.” Merlin flew from the sconce on the wall and landed on Vana’s heel. Which he pecked.
Vana shook her foot and was now hanging by one—count it, one—curled piece of fabric. “Knock it off, Merlin. You know I’m ticklish.”
“Yeah, well, he’s puckish.”
Vana bent backward as if she were a ribbon acrobat at Cirque de Soleil. Without the ribbon. “Zane! You’re back!”
She did a half-kick move that would have had her taking a header onto the first floor if the chandelier-polishing magic carpet hadn’t flown under her feet to float her gently down in front of him.
She hovered right at eye level. “What do you think?”
What did he think? What did he think? He couldn’t think. Well, actually he could. About what would have happened if anybody but him had walked through that unlocked door. About trying to explain her slipper trick, the mop, the squirrels, the vacuum, and oh hell, were those rabbits sweeping dust bunnies off the floor with their tails?
This place was insanity.
He’d been out of his mind to come back. Utterly loco to open her bottle in the first place, and completely out of his mind to have even entertained the idea of allowing her to do anything around this house.
“That’s it. This is over.” He grabbed the mop, ignoring its squeal of protest—he wasn’t even going to go there—and started shooing the rabbits and their dust counterparts out of the foyer, flicking the vacuum switch off in the process. Which had zero effect on the vacuum.
Neither did pulling the plug from the wall; the vacuum kept sucking dust mites as if everything were fine.
Everything was not fine.
“Zane, what are you doing?”
He scattered the squirrels with a sweep of the mop along the spindles as if he were playing a harp. “I’m putting an end to this craziness.”
She shoved her hands onto her hips. “It’s not craziness. It’s magic.”
“In your world maybe. In mine, it’s crazy. Insanity. Foolishness. And the best way to get me committed, never mind all the bad press I can’t afford.” He shooed a raccoon out of the storage space under the stairs. “Vana, this has to stop.”
She clasped her hands in front of her chest, her eyes sparkling. “But it’s working, Zane. My magic is working! And I did it without kissing you.”
He didn’t find that cause for celebration.
God, just shoot him now. He either had to knock down her happiness or put up with… this. And as for no kissing, well, he’d already decided kissing was a bad idea, so maybe it was a good thing that she’d gotten a handle on her magic and was finally in control.
An image of her out of control flashed through his mind. Vana, naked and writhing beneath him, her hair fanned out on a silk sheet beneath her, sprinkled with rose petals.
Where the hell was this coming from?
He shook his head—and the mop. The one whistling, “Whistle While You Work,” if he wasn’t mistaken. Or out of his mind.
“Vana, look. I’m sorry. This…” He waved his hand toward the vacuum that was now playing cobra to a snake-charming squirrel. “Is not working. I wish you’d make it stop.”
Vana glanced at the vacuum, her bottom lip caught between her teeth, and when she looked back at him, it was as if the sun had turned in on itself and sucked all the life from the room. “If that’s what you wish.”
“It is.” Wasn’t it?
Vana blew a half-hearted kiss and the vacuum fell to the ground, undulating as gracefully as a ballerina at the end of a performance. Only instead of applause, there was a deafening silence.
Nothing had ever sounded better. Until he realized the room was too silent.
Vana and Merlin were staring at him. So were the bunnies and squirrels. Maybe even the vacuum, too.
Oh, no. They didn’t get to make him feel guilty. He had a right to call the shots in his own home. And for now, that’s whose it was.
Zane grabbed the stuff he’d bought and strode towar
d the kitchen to get away from the looks. “What happened to just painting the back of the house?” he muttered, then slammed to a halt on the threshold of the kitchen.
Forget the foyer; this room was a disaster.
He dropped the bags and braced himself in the doorway, trying to take in the scene in front of him. A fine coating of flour decorated the walls, every cabinet door hung lopsidedly off its hinges, the drawers were pulled open, and a flock of pigeons had made nests in them.
“What. Happened. Here?” He hadn’t been gone long enough for birds to make nests in kitchen drawers.
“Holy smokes!” Vana bumped into his back. “I… I don’t know. I didn’t do this.”
“And the leprechaun who lives under the front porch did?” Zane pinched the bridge of his nose. He had a hellacious headache. “Think, Vana. What magic did you conjure while I was gone? Besides the menagerie out in the foyer, that is.”
Vana ducked under his extended arm and shuffled around the kitchen, tapping her teeth with a fingernail.
“I didn’t use any magic to paint, just like you asked. I did as much as I could with the paintbrush, but painting that way isn’t as easy as I thought it’d be. Nothing like painting a canvas. There are bugs and mildew and broken siding, not to mention climbing a ladder…” She dusted some flour off the edge of the table. “I was going to paint the front-porch spindles, too, but figured working on the inside would be easier. I found Peter’s picture in the attic. Since you weren’t here and neither was anyone else, I figured magicking it onto the wall wouldn’t be that big of a deal since he would love to have it hanging up in his favorite place in the whole town. And then there was all the dust your cleaning lady couldn’t reach, and well, I could get it done before you got home.
“No one would be suspicious of a clean foyer. That’d be the first thing you’d touch up to make the house warm and inviting to prospective buyers, right? So I be-wished the vacuum to get the job done. Such a handy device. We didn’t have them the last time I was out of my bottle, and I’ve been dying to try one. Faruq would never fulfill that part of my requisitions list.”
