The Professor Woos The Witch (Nocturne Falls Book 4)

by Kristen Painter

Pandora followed, trying not to give in to the sudden phobias kicking in. Claustrophobia and germaphobia. Neither of which she’d suffered from before entering this house. She focused on her breathing, which is what her sister Charisma, life coach extraordinaire, would probably recommend.

  Fortunately, the rest of the downstairs, including the kitchen, was in much better shape. Cole was at the big antique gas stove, looking very nice in blue jeans and an old T-shirt as he juggled pans of bacon and scrambled eggs. He was also wearing black-rimmed glasses that made his eyes even more piercing. What was it about hot guys in glasses? The combination of hot and vulnerable got her every time. Toast sailed out of a four-slice machine with a loud pop.

  “Morning,” he offered.

  “Morning.”

  He turned and gave her a nod. “It’s a mess. I already know that’s what you’re thinking.”

  She nodded back. “I wasn’t going to say anything.”

  “But you were thinking it.” He pointed to the coffee maker. “Cups and sugar are in the cabinet above, creamer’s in the fridge.”

  “Thanks.” She took the cue and helped herself.

  He looked at Kaley, who was practically balancing on her tiptoes with excitement. “Are you ready to go? Just because we have a guest doesn’t mean you can be late.”

  “Da-ad.” Somehow she turned the three letters into two syllables. She went flat on her feet. “My backpack is still upstairs, but I want to talk to Miss Williams.”

  “Go get it. Then you can talk to her.”

  Pandora watched Kaley leave with a bounce. Teenage energy. That was its own kind of magic. What sort of witchy wisdom Kaley thought Pandora could impart over breakfast, Pandora wasn’t sure, but they’d figure it out. Pandora went back to watching Cole. “How long have you guys been here?”

  “About three weeks.” He used a fork to turn the slices of bacon. “But I estimate it’ll take me six to eight months to get this place in shape to sell.”

  Pandora’s realtor side sat up. “You’re going to sell it?”

  He nodded while stirring the eggs. “It’s too much house for two people. Six bedrooms? Way too big.”

  She couldn’t argue with that. The place must be forty-five hundred square feet. “It’s going to be a lot of work.”

  He shrugged and started plating food. “I can handle most of it. What I can’t, I’ll hire out.”

  “You’re a contractor?”

  “I’m a math professor, but like most of us in the teaching industry, I’ve had to work through the summer to pay the bills. Construction has been my job of choice since I was a teenager. So, yeah, I know what I’m doing. Not all of it, but most. Like I said, the rest I’ll contract out.”

  A math professor who also worked construction? That explained the lean, tight body she’d seen yesterday. She had a sudden vision of him standing in front of a classroom. If her math professor had looked like Cole, she’d never have passed. Or she’d have done a lot of extra credit. “I’d be happy to help you with that. Recommending contractors, I mean. I know most of them. And which ones you should avoid.”

  “Thanks, I’d appreciate that.” He handed her a plate. “I’m impressed you didn’t put the hard sell on me to list the house with you.”

  She sat at the large round table in the seating nook. A hammer and tape measure lay beside a jar of strawberry jam and a stick of butter in a cut-glass covered dish. “I don’t believe in the hard sell.”

  He laughed. “Are you sure you’re a realtor?”

  “You say that like you think we’re in the same category as personal injury lawyers and used car salesmen.”

  Kaley moaned as she bopped back into the room and took a seat at the table beside Pandora. “Dad.” Her eyes went skyward. “Enough with the boring house talk.”

  He gave his daughter a look. “Did you apologize?”

  “She did,” Pandora offered. “Thank you.”

  Kaley sighed. “Now can we talk about witch stuff?”

  Cole balanced his plate, Kaley’s plate and a third plate of toast on one arm, then dug a handful of silverware out of a drawer and came to the table. He dropped the silverware with a clatter. “Kaley, how many times do I have to tell you? Witches aren’t real.”

  Pandora passed out the silverware. “I hate to eat your food and tell you you’re wrong, but you’re wrong. And Kaley really needs a mentor.”

  “See, Dad?” Kaley said.

  He handed Kaley her plate and sat before addressing Pandora. “I get that the town is invested in this whole Halloween shtick, but you can’t tell me you think witches are real.”

  “I don’t think they’re real. I know they are.” Pandora helped herself to the jam. A big dollop fell off the knife and onto the table. “Bother.”

  He looked at her. “Did you just say bother? What are you, a Disney princess?”

  “I don’t curse.”

  “Why not?”

  Because her magic was broken, and a curse from a witch’s mouth, however casual, could still mean something. “I’m a witch and witches’ words have power. We have to be careful.”

  “Witches.” He shook his head in plain disbelief.

  Pandora considered the facts. If his daughter was a witch, and considering her lineage and ability to see auras, there wasn’t much question about that, then he needed to face the truth. If Kaley didn’t get a mentor to teach her, she’d never learn. Or she’d learn the hard way, and that was a dangerous path. “Well, I am one. My mother’s one. So are my two sisters. And so was the woman this house once belonged to.”

  “Get out!” Kaley’s eyes rounded. “That is so cool.”

  Cole stared at Pandora with obvious unhappiness in his eyes.

  She shrugged and spread jam on her toast.

  He took a long slug of coffee before finally putting his cup back down. “How can you make that claim?”

  “Because it’s true.”

  Kaley nodded, smiling. “See, Dad, I am a witch. Also, like, is that all the bacon there is?”

  “Kaley, give us a minute, honey.”

  “Yes,” Pandora said. “Let me educate your father, then you can worry about bacon.” Pandora made a face at him. “You inherited this house, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “So how can you not know your own family? Gertrude Pilcher was a witch. And a fairly well-known one, too.”

  “I’m not related to her. I’m related to Ulysses. He was my great-uncle on my mother’s side.”

  “Why didn’t your mom inherit the house?”

  “She passed away five years ago. Cancer. I might have met Ulysses and Gertrude once, at a family reunion when I was a kid. That was it. And I don’t remember it.”

  “I’m so sorry about your mom.” She couldn’t imagine losing her mother. Pandora’s heart ached for Cole. And for Kaley, who’d lost her grandmother. “That must have been hard.”

  “It was. Still is.”

  She was quiet for a minute. Then she spoke softly. “Related or not, your distant great-aunt was a witch.”

  Cole got a look on his face like he suddenly knew how to put an end to the conversation. Pandora recognized the look because it was one witches got from normies a lot. Normie was what witches often called the non-magical. The younger generation had kind of glommed on to muggle, though.

  “You honestly believe you’re a witch.”

  “I know I’m one.”

  “Then prove it.”

  And there it was. The challenge that always came from the disbelieving. Turn my ex into a frog. Make a million dollars magically appear. Show me your broom. “No.”

  “Because you can’t.”

  “I could if I wanted to, but I don’t want to.” Because her magic never worked right. Sometimes, it went horribly wrong. And neither was a humiliation she enjoyed. She put her fork down. “Time for me to go.”

  “Dad!” Kaley grabbed Pandora’s arm. “See? Now you know what I’m dealing with. Please don’t go.”

  The legs o
f Pandora’s chair squeaked across the tile as she got up. “Sorry, kid, I have to get to work. Have a good day at school.”

  Then she looked at Cole. Pretty, pretty, naïve Cole. “You have a good day, too. You and your small little mind.”

  She turned and stormed out before he could say another word. He was damned lucky too, because at that moment, if she’d been capable of it, she totally would have turned him into a frog.

  A sullen, angry Kaley sat across from Cole as their front door slammed shut. He’d known that would be the outcome of his challenge, and while he wasn’t happy Kaley was upset with him, it was better she understood now what was real and what wasn’t. He sipped his coffee. “Eat your breakfast. School’s in twenty minutes.”

  She glared at him. Probably wishing she could do witchcraft. “I’m not hungry.”

  “You will be later.”

  More glaring. Now with sighing. “Did you do the same thing to Mom?”

  He looked up from his plate. “What do you mean?”

  “Make her leave too, because you didn’t believe she was a witch.”

  His turn to sigh. “Your mother left because she wasn’t—”

  “Ready to be a mother and she had to work on herself. I know all that. But why did she really leave? You made her, didn’t you?”

  “No, Kaley, I didn’t, but the truth is, your mother wasn’t a witch any more than you are or Miss Williams is.”

  “You didn’t give her a chance.”

  “Who? Your mother or Miss Williams? Actually, I did. Both of them.”

  “It wasn’t nice what you did to Miss Williams. She was going to teach me things. She was going to help me find a mentor.”

  “Kaley, she’s a real estate agent. Not a witch. It’s all just a gimmick because of this town. People like to pretend they’re something more than they are. That’s what they do here.”

  “It’s not just a gimmick.”

  “Yes, it is. This town makes its money on the idea that every day is Halloween. Honey, I know you’re disappointed. But being a teenager is hard enough without trying to be something you’re not. Now, please eat your breakfast.”

  “What’s so wrong with pretending? You can’t even do that.”

  Math wasn’t about fantasy and pretending. Math was about practicality and absolute truths. Just like construction. You couldn’t pretend to put a header in or your wall would only pretend to stand up. “Because that’s not how life works, Kaley-did.”

  “I hate that nickname.”

  “You didn’t used to.”

  Kaley went quiet, and her plate remained untouched. She stared at him with strange intent. Then her dark brown eyes narrowed down to slits. “Your aura is really ugly.”

  He’d had enough. “So is your attitude. If you’re not going to eat, then you can clean up. I have work to do before I drive you to school.” Because the sooner he could get this house in shape, the sooner he could sell it and they could get out of this weird town and back to North Carolina. Back to where life was normal and the only one pretending to be something they weren’t was Agnes Houston, the drama professor, who had never played opposite Brando, no matter how much she claimed she had.

  Kaley jumped up from the table and grabbed her backpack. “You don’t need to drive me, I’m walking.” She stormed out of the room.

  For the second time that morning, his front door slammed shut.

  He sat right where he was, watching the ripples on the surface of his coffee until it went smooth again.

  Kaley had been so excited about Pandora coming over. Now he had two women mad at him. And he deduced that the only way to make Kaley stop being mad at him would require Pandora no longer being mad at him also.

  He drank the last of his now cold coffee and jogged upstairs to his bedroom. There on his dresser was the thing he needed.

  Pandora’s business card.

  Clearing out the front rooms would have to wait a little bit longer. Cole had some groveling to do.

  “I’m telling you, Mom, she’s a witch.” Pandora cradled the phone between her head and shoulder while she brought up the MLS (aka Multi List System) to update a few of her listings. “She can read auras pretty spot-on.”

  “How old did you say she is?” Corette asked.

  “Thirteen.”

  “That’s the right age. Poor dear. Does she have a mentor?”

  “No. And she’s going to need one.”

  Corette sighed. “That’s for sure. And the father doesn’t believe?”

  “Nope. Total normie.”

  Corette tsked. “And him living in Gertrude’s house. She’s not going to like that.”

  Pandora squinted. “You know she’s dead, right?”

  “I know, dear, but there’s always a possibility that a witch with that much life in her might not be entirely gone.”

  Pandora laughed. “Oh, that would serve him right.”

  “Now, Pandy, we shouldn’t wish ill will on anyone. That’s not our way.”

  “I know. But he was such a…butthead.”

  “Very mature response, darling.”

  “Hey, you want to have lunch today? I could call Marigold, have her meet us too.” Pandora’s youngest sister ran the flower shop in town.

  “I can’t. I already have a lunch date.”

  “Stanhill?”

  “Yes.” The honeyed tone of Corette’s answer spoke volumes. For the last four years, Pandora’s mother had dated Hugh Ellingham’s rook, a position that was basically like Batman’s Alfred. Stanhill was universally adored by Pandora and her sisters. Didn’t hurt that he and Corette were well suited and deeply in love.

  “All right. Well, keep your hands on the table.” Pandora giggled. “We don’t want people to talk.”

  “Pandora.” Corette mock-scolded. In the background, Pandora could hear the chimes that sounded when her mother’s shop door opened. “One of my brides just came in for a fitting. I have to go.”

  Corette’s shop, Ever After, was the go-to destination for all things bridal and formal in town. “Love you.”

  “Love you, too.” Corette hung up.

  Pandora set the phone down. The irony that her mother ran a bridal boutique and yet all three of her daughters were still single was not lost on Pandora. Someday, she might make good use of her mother’s shop.

  And someday Pumpkin might lose weight.

  Maybe she’d call Willa, see if she wanted to do lunch. Pandora could even pick it up and take it over to the jewelry store. They did that at least once a month. Willa’s back room had heard more Nocturne Falls gossip than Birdie Caruthers, the sheriff’s nosy aunt and receptionist. Okay, maybe not more than Birdie. But close.

  The bells above Pandora’s office’s front door jangled, and she looked up. Right into the face of Mr. Doubter McDoubty Pants. She leaned back in her chair. “Thought of an insult you forgot to hurl at me?”

  Cole frowned. Which sadly, did nothing to make him ugly. “I didn’t hurl insults at you.”

  Pandora tipped her hand back and forth. “Let’s call that a draw.”

  He stopped in front of her desk. “I came to apologize, actually. I’m sorry about breakfast. That’s not how I planned for it to go.”

  “That’s good to hear. How did you plan for it to go?”

  His mouth crumpled into an uneven line before he answered. “I don’t know. But not like that.”

  “Do you plan everything?”

  “Yes. Don’t you?”

  “No. That’s not a very fun way to live your life.”

  He shifted uncomfortably and pushed his glasses back. Goddess, he was pretty.

  “Something else you wanted to say?” she asked.

  He took a deep breath. “I could use some help with Kaley.”

  Her brows popped up. “And you think I’m your best shot?”

  “She likes you a lot. She got really mad at me this morning.”

  “That makes two of us.” She nodded at the chairs across from her desk. “Sit
down.”

  “Thanks.” He took a seat and crossed his long legs, one ankle on one knee. “I really am sorry about this morning.”

  “Only because Kaley got mad at you. Doesn’t change the way you feel, does it?”

  His mouth did the crumpling thing again. “No.”

  Pandora rolled her eyes. Normies. “What is it that you think I can do for Kaley?”

  “She thinks she’s a witch.”

  “Because she is.”

  Cole opened his mouth, then closed it again. Maybe he was figuring out something new to say. “I was thinking maybe you could…play along with that.”

  Pandora narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean, play along?”

  “She thinks she’s a witch, you claim to be one, so help her figure out how to be one, too. At least until this phase passes, because it will. When she was six, she wanted to own a zoo until she realized she’d have to have more animals than just cats and dogs. When she was seven, she wanted to compete in the Olympics until she found out jump rope isn’t an Olympic sport. Something will happen to make her realize this witch thing isn’t for her.”

  “I like Kaley.”

  He smiled, which was some kind of dark magic, because for a moment she forgot she didn’t like him. “She’s a great kid.”

  “But I don’t like you.” There. She’d said it.

  He shrugged. “Fair enough. I’m prepared to sweeten the deal.”

  She hadn’t been expecting that. She’d been ready to say she’d help for Kaley’s sake, but now she was curious. “How so?”

  He paused like his next words were going to be painful. “If you help Kaley, I’ll give you the house listing.”

  An electric charge zipped through her, but she maintained her composure even as her brain went crazy. The Pilcher Manor. Not only would it be a killer commission, but she could make sure it ended up with the right family. She picked up a pen and twirled it through her fingers. “So you’re basically paying me off.”

  He sighed. “Yes.”

  Something bold entered her bloodstream. “No.”

  “What?” He stared at her. “You don’t want it?”

  “I do, but I have no idea what sort of…work you’re going to do to it. Or what kind of shape it’s going to be in when you expect me to get top dollar for it.” If he didn’t believe in her, she damn well wasn’t going to let him think she believed in him.