Never Been Witched

by BLAIR, ANNETTE

  She stretched, because she liked the way he watched her, as if he was interested, exactly where she wanted him. “I noticed that the downstairs bathroom has a gorgeous old tub but no shower. Is there a shower up here?”

  “If you want a shower, there’s one out back. I built two additions in the spring. One for the shower. One for the hot water heater. But I haven’t connected the heater to any of the inside plumbing, yet.”

  “So, outside, out back?”

  The twinkle in his eyes turned her knees to jelly. “Yes outside. It’s in that wooden cubicle between the back door and the tower.”

  “Well, then, I guess I’m off to the shower.”

  “Don’t use all the hot water. I’m next.”

  It was the most luxurious shower she’d ever taken, given its huge, wide showerhead with thick pellets of hot, soft water sluicing over her chilled body. The last time she’d felt this decadent outside, she’d been walking naked into the sea—sky clad—as she and her sisters prepped for a ritual cleansing with King, Aiden, and Morgan looking on.

  Still, this felt more so, because she was here at the lighthouse alone with Morgan. She didn’t dare look toward the upstairs window, in case he was there, because she wouldn’t want him to step back too soon.

  She shivered at the erotic image of what she wished watching her might do to him.

  With water this soft, her hair would fall into its naturally curly pageboy, but who cared? Nobody would see her except Morgan, and the truth was, he probably wouldn’t care if she wore a bag over her head.

  She finally looked up, but Morgan wasn’t watching, more’s the pity. Sometimes. She used to wonder if he had a sexual bone in his body, but he’d actually referred to the possibility yesterday, which gave her hope.

  Well, actually, she knew he had one sexual bone in his body. She’d noticed it when she woke up, before he stopped doing push-ups and turned away from her to reveal his gorgeous back, almost as amazing as his golden chest and perfect pecs. But every man got a morning boner. She’d like to see him with an afternoon boner. Or one that popped up just because she walked into the room.

  When she went back upstairs, Morgan went down to the shower, and as soon as she heard the kitchen door slam, she went looking for the window that overlooked the shower.

  She stood as far back as she could to watch him without him seeing her. Naughty thing. Oh my. She’d slept, literally—un-freaking-fortunately—with a hunky god with a bod to die for. Small waist with a line of golden hair arrowing from his belly button to one mighty fine specimen of bone hood. She put her hand over her mouth. His balls were black and blue. She’d think they must hurt, except that he washed his boner with vigor, which made her doubt his suffering, though he looked as if he suffered.

  Destiny fanned herself, she got so hot, but he stopped, damn it, slam it, before fulfilling her fantasy, and when he turned his back on her, both arms on the wall, head beneath the shower, and she saw his tight butt, she squeaked.

  He turned around and looked up.

  She took a quick step back.

  She’d never seen such a perfectly beautiful man butt. She hadn’t expected to see a butt cheek tattoo, either. Hidden depths there. Slam it, he moved. Whoa, a tattoo on his thigh as well, a larger one, more colorful, though Destiny couldn’t make out either design.

  He turned off the water.

  What? He was done? Sweet shivering man flesh, that was fast. She hadn’t started to dress yet. “Yikes!” Destiny sprinted to the bedroom and threw on her clothes so fast, she got whiplash from setting a new record.

  Of course, skipping her underwear helped.

  By the time she pulled down her red In Your Dreams tee, her face was so warm, she opened the bedroom window and stuck her head out to cool off, so he wouldn’t see the evidence of her peeping tomfoolery coloring her cheeks.

  “What the Hades are you doing?” he asked.

  “Drying my hair,” she called back, tossing her hair in the fresh sea breeze.

  “Nice view,” he said.

  “You’re right. Great view of the ocean from here.”

  “I meant the view from here.”

  “Huh?” She pulled her head back in so fast, she smacked it on the window sash. “Ouch.” She rubbed her sore head. “My backside? You admired my backside?”

  “You’re pleased, though you’re trying not to show it,” he said. “You don’t mind if I ogle you? Scratch that. You like that I ogle you.” His perception caught her unaware and radiated through her in a series of ripples that turned to delicious shivers in sensitive and unexpected places.

  “Nice shirt,” he said. “And it’s correct. You did make an appearance in my dreams last night.”

  They stood staring, eating each other up with their gazes, until Morgan grabbed his sneakers. “I dreamed that you were trying to drown me. I’m going for a run. Don’t wait up.”

  “Wait up? It’s six in the morning, three freaking hours after we went to bed. I should go back to sleep is what I should do.”

  “Go for it.”

  She’d rather have him in the bed beside her, but he wasn’t ready to hear that. What was with him? One minute he’s interested, the next, not?

  When she got downstairs, Horace, the lighthouse keeper, stood leaning against the front door, arms crossed, as if waiting for her.

  “I’m going for a walk,” she said. “Do you want to join me? I’d love to ask you some questions.”

  “Your wish is my command.”

  “Honestly?”

  “No. I’m a ghost. I can move small objects with my mind and satisfy you with a conversation. That’s it.”

  He couldn’t be flirting. Could he? She raised a brow, opened the door, but he insisted she precede him. A gentleman ghost.

  “You’ve got more spirit, for a spirit, than the flesh-and-blood man I’m living with.” They set off through the tall marsh grasses, Horace leading the way.

  “You’re underestimating him,” Horace said. “He’s been through the fires of hell and back, but that’s not my story to tell. It’s his. As a man, he’s very much aware of you, on both the spiritual and physical planes.”

  “You’re joking. He doesn’t know I’m alive.” Though he had noticed her backside and mentioned her role in his dreams, though they might have been nightmares for all he’d explained.

  “He most certainly does. I’m a man. I know these things. I can’t tell you anything about him, but I can tell you about the lighthouse.”

  Meggie and her angel appeared beside them, flitting and flirting butterflies seeming to follow in Meggie’s wake. “I can tell you what Morgan likes,” she said.

  “You’re Morgan’s sister?”

  Meggie nodded.

  “Who’s your angel?”

  “I named her Buffy,” she said. “She’s been with me my whole life and death. You can talk to her, but she doesn’t say much more than, ‘Be not afraid.’ She mostly only talks to me and Morgan.”

  “Morgan talks to her?”

  “Not anymore. He’s in hiding.”

  Destiny started a bouquet by picking bits of dry summer grasses and blooming fall wildflowers as they walked. “Morgan’s hiding from his guardian angel?” she asked as they cut through a wildflower field, Meggie gathering more butterfly followers.

  The little girl smiled, again like Morgan, one side up. A smile Destiny had at first thought mocking and later, self-deprecating. “Morgan’s hiding inside himself,” Meggie said. “He can’t move on with his life until he makes peace with his past, accepts his fate, and remembers who he is.”

  Destiny picked a straw flower and twirled it between her fingers. “You know, your brother taking part in the whole angel/ghost thing doesn’t make much sense, given the fact that he’s a paranormal debunker.”

  “That’s what he’s hiding behind, his debunking. That’s why you’re here. He needs you, Destiny.”

  Destiny shivered and stopped walking. Her psychic purpose couldn’t be to help Morgan
find himself. Could it? “If that’s my job, why are you here?”

  “I can tell you what Morgan likes, because if you know, it’ll be easier for you to get through to him, but I can’t tell you anything about your future.”

  “Funny,” Destiny said. “I can’t tell you anything about your future, either.”

  Meggie’s eyes twinkled. “Mine’s a done deal, wouldn’t you say?”

  Right. Ghosts had no future. A familiar warmth climbed Destiny’s cheeks. “Unless—do you believe in reincarnation?”

  Meggie directed her expression inward with a cat-who-lapped-the-cream expression. “One can only hope.”

  Horace resettled his cap and nodded. “I could do with another chance, myself. I’d like a big family next time around.”

  “Do either of you know why you’re still here at the lighthouse?”

  “To guide a ship through the fog?” Horace guessed. “Like always? I don’t know, but Meggie and I, we’ve been here a long time, and this is the most fun we’ve had. Right, Meggie?”

  Morgan’s sister skipped faster. “Right!”

  Destiny found it suddenly difficult to swallow, imagining what Morgan must have suffered at his little sister’s death. “Okay, Meggie. Tell me what your brother likes, because leading him to what he likes will probably bring him back to the time he’s trying to forget, right?”

  Meggie looked up at her angel, and the angel’s love for the child warmed the air, overflowed, and touched Destiny: utterly powerful, beautiful, and, surprisingly, given the fact that Meggie was dead, life-giving.

  Chapter Ten

  SWEATY from his run, Morgan took another shower and changed into a fresh chamois shirt, unbuttoned, and jeans, buttoned for his own safety. From a front upstairs window, he watched Destiny hiking back toward the lighthouse carrying a bouquet of wildflowers, bittersweet, and oak sprigs, and trailing butterflies for a good tenth of a mile behind her, her wide-brimmed red hat flopping in the breeze.

  Though walking alone, she spoke with animation to, well, several nobodies, judging by the movement of her head from side to side as she addressed the shadows. A kook with invisible friends, though her mention of Meggie last night had carried more coincidence than he cared for.

  He met Destiny in the kitchen where she set the live flowers into an inch of water in the copper sink, and the dry ones on the cabinet beside it. Then she filled a bowl with Lucky Charms, poured milk over them, and took her breakfast out to the dock to eat while she dangled her feet in the water.

  He ate Wheat Chex over the blue-cotton-skirted sink and watched Destiny out the window. “Sick bastard,” he said, washing the bowl. Why didn’t he just go out there and sit beside her like he wanted to?

  He went up to the room where he’d set up his drafting table and architectural supplies, because it pulled in the best natural light, and got to work on his design for the lighthouse.

  He noticed a while later, when he got up for an apple and a glass of milk, that Destiny had set up her easel outside. He went out to take a peek at her work, surprised at the scope of her talent.

  “What?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “You’re looking at a gorgeous seascape, but you’re painting a purple house with a blue It’s a Boy flag out front.

  “Oh, I don’t paint what’s in front of me. I paint what I see in my mind’s eye.”

  “That’s scary.”

  “No, we had a grandmother who painted Paxton Castle in great detail from the Salem dock, where she could never have seen the detail. That painting helped bring my sisters and me here to the island in the first place.”

  “Double scary.”

  “The baby boy in this house is a big deal. I sense a lifetime dream come true and lots of celebrating.”

  When a big, fat raindrop hit her painting, Morgan helped her gather her things and led her up to the room where he worked on his art, his architecture.

  “I won’t bother you,” she said. “I need silence to work, too.”

  He didn’t like working with anyone else in the room, so why had he brought her here? He said nothing and helped her set up by the second window. For the rest of the morning and into the afternoon, they worked in silence, while his awe of her talent grew, along with intimacy and a palpable sexual awareness, on his part at least.

  At suppertime, she began to chop vegetables and bread chicken, while he opened a can of beans. “Is that what you’re going to eat?” she asked.

  “I eat a lot of beans, here,” he said. “No problem. I’ll go upstairs so you can have your own space.”

  “Oh for heaven’s sake. I’ll cook for both of us. I like to cook. My sisters and I practically raised each other, so we’ve been cooking forever. Just find some kind of dinner table, okay?”

  “There’s nothing in this house that resembles a kitchen table. Never has been.”

  She took her pots off the monster stove’s fire and went into the parlor. “There’s a table. Bring the one we used last night.”

  “That skinny side table?”

  “Bring it.”

  When he got it there, he was surprised to see Destiny get beneath it. “Morgan hold up the two wings, while I unhook and swing out the legs.” She worked some kind of miracle down there, stood, and wiped her hands on her jeans. “You can let the table rest on the legs now. There you go. It’s a gateleg table, now our dinner table. Two straight parlor chairs would work with it.”

  Morgan brought the chairs and set them in place. When he took a bite of her chicken cordon bleu and pan-roasted vegetables, he saw her in a new light. “This is better than restaurant food.”

  “I should hope so.”

  “But you acted like such a spoiled brat when I first met you.”

  “I did not. You disliked me on sight with no instigation from me.”

  “Maybe the snarky shirts you and your sisters wore had something to do with it. ‘I’m a Witch with PMS. Any Questions? ’ Plus, you’d just outed your triplet status and made us all feel pretty stupid for not figuring it out ourselves.”

  “King and Aiden didn’t seem angry. I’m thinking the problem was you, not me.”

  Mentally, he slapped himself upside the head. It had been the triplet connection. Jealousy, plain and simple. He shook his head. “Maybe you’re right. I’m not good with women.”

  Destiny choked on her tea. “Sweet stinging nettles, what did you say?”

  “I did not say that out loud.”

  She put down her fork. “You know what, Morgan? I’m beginning to think that we don’t know each other at all. Let me introduce myself. I’m Destiny Cartwright, the middle triplet. Abandoned at birth by our mother and raised by our alcoholic father, we are so not spoiled. If not for finding our half sister Vickie after we got thrown out of college for non-payment of tuition, we’d have ended up living in our van. But Vickie gave us a home and part ownership of the Immortal Classic.”

  “I like Vickie,” Morgan said. “And now I respect her.”

  “Me, too. Anyway, I’m here to find my psychic mandate, my reason for being. My sisters have already found theirs. And frankly, I’m feeling a bit like the loser triplet, because Storm, the baby of the family, found her psychic goal before I did. Now, tell me about you.”

  “Morgan Jarvis, as you know. Your brother-in-law King’s roommate senior year of high school. I’m an architect working on the castle and the windmill, and I’m planning on buying this place.”

  “My cup runneth over with knowledge,” she said facetiously, picking up her fork. “So your life started when you became an architect?”

  Morgan considered her question and nodded truthfully. “As a matter of fact, it did. Tell me about your walk. You seemed to be having a fascinating conversation with some imaginary friends?”

  “I was walking with Horace. He told me some interesting things about the lighthouse. It’s forty-six feet tall and holds secrets and treasures that nobody else knows about.”

  “I doubt that. I’ve explored every in
ch of the place.”

  “Okay, tell me about the cellar.”

  “It doesn’t have a cellar.”

  “Wrong. Under the house is a maze of pilings. There’s also an old cistern under the floor in the northeast corner. The maze leads to an escape hatch beneath the tower.”

  “Your source is suspect.”

  “You’re jealous of a ghost.”

  “Ghosts don’t exist, and I have my debunking equipment with me to prove it.”

  “Never mind. I can prove it.” She got up from the table in the middle of her delicious dinner and went to the closet beneath the stairs. Morgan nearly had a heart attack.

  “Here, I found it. Come see. A captain’s chest, just like Horace said. It belonged to Nicodemus Paxton, who built Harmony and King’s castle.”

  “That doesn’t prove that your phantom lighthouse keeper exists,” Morgan answered with relief. “Come and finish this nice dinner you made.”

  “Hey, this is weird,” she said.

  Morgan stood, ready to jump from his skin if she didn’t finish her thought, but he didn’t have to wait long.

  She came into the kitchen carrying the hanger with the cassock on it, its stiff white collar stuffed into its pocket. “What do you suppose this is?” she asked. “It looks like something a priest would wear.”

  “Thanks for dinner,” Morgan said, going out the kitchen door, unable to explain to Destiny what he was running from, and why, because he didn’t quite know, himself.

  “Are you some kind of priest?” she called after him.

  He stopped. “No, damn it!” he shouted and started running.

  Chapter Eleven

  DESTINY expected Morgan back before she finished the dishes, but he remained absent. She filled glass containers—beakers, cruets, jelly jars, and measuring cups made with swirls of color, of milk glass, or of opalescent glass—with the assortment of flowers and grasses she’d found. After distributing them to every room in the house, and setting her candles in old, unmatched candlesticks on every mantel, she wandered like a forlorn idiot, though her Samhain decorating cheered her somewhat.

  She decided that she needed to occupy her mind, so she went to the room where she’d left the giant pickle jar of Chinese lanterns, maple sprigs, and marsh grasses, the room where books lined the walls. You could learn a lot about a man through his reading material, so she got nosy.