The brunette grabbed her finger and twisted it, snapping her teeth together with a menacing crack. “This is fucking beautiful?” she crowed, stomping on a reprint of a melted Grandma Moses painting with her stained, soot-covered work boot.
In response, a puff of smoldering ashes in orange and blue rose and fell in fluttering flecks of color.
The third woman, chestnut-haired and elegantly dressed in a knit dress and dark shawl, pushed her way between the two women. She reminded Mick of Grace Kelly, her stature long and tall, her carriage willowy and reeking class.
Mick noted that somehow, in all the rubble surrounding her, and even with a burnt patch in her shawl the size of the black hole, this woman managed to look collected. “Ladies!” Then she hacked a cough—because, well, Mick conceded, the smoke had been thick.
She cleared her throat and straightened, cocking her chin upward. “We’re in a public place. Granted, that public place is experiencing some disharmony, but we’re still in public. Behave as such. And excuse me, but OMG, it’s almost like the universe sent us an engraved invitation, girls. Clearly,” she whispered, partially covering her mouth with her gloved hand and leaning into her friends, “I believe, after what we just saw go down, we have a paranormal crisis here.”
Mick wiped his mouth on his forearm to rid himself of the horrible aftertaste lingering on his tongue. It tasted like he’d eaten a fireplace whole. And apparently, he was “in” some kind of crisis. Whether it was whatever she’d labeled it was debatable. “You have a what?”
She dug inside her melted black purse and pulled out a gold business card while giving him a genuine smile. “You, sir, are in paranormal crisis. That’s what we specialize in. We’re sort of paranormal counselors, if you will. And aren’t you a lucky duck that we just happened to be here?”
The brunette snorted, tightening her tattered hoodie around her lean face. “Yeah. Lucky, lucky, lucky. I’m never fucking going on vacation with you two crazies again.”
The elegant woman slipped the twisted remnants of her mangled purse back over her forearm, where it dangled precariously, the balance of it now gone due to its untimely death by blowtorch.
Holding her hand out to Mick, she ignored the brunette completely, tripped on a broken stool, then righted herself. “I’m Wanda Schwartz-Jefferson. This mouthy abomination to your ears is Nina Blackman-Statleon, and this over here is her sparring partner, Marty Flaherty.” She waved a dismissive hand in the direction of the other women like she’d done this introduction a hundred times before.
Mick wiped the soot off his hands onto his jeans before shaking hers. “Mick Malone, and the store’s owner, Tessa Preston.” A black cloud of smoke followed his words, shooting from his mouth without warning. He frowned.
So curious.
While Tessa shook Wanda’s and her friend’s hands with stiff fingers, Mick held up the card Wanda had given him, and by the glow of the one pile of burning antique armoire still not completely tamped out, read, “OOPS—an Out in the Open Paranormal Support group, serving all your paranormal crisis needs.” “Paranormal crisis?” His eyes shifted to Tessa, wary.
Hers returned a vacant stare in response, and she remained silent. But her puckered goldfish lips began forming. The same lips she’d used when he’d pulled her pigtails as a kid or, later in life, when she’d disapproved of his prom date, Francine Lewbowski.
Nina bumped his arm with her shoulder, making him, at almost six feet six and 234 pounds, jolt forward. “Yeah. You read that right. Now, here’s the short of it, and believe me, it’s gonna be short because I’m sick and fucking tired of repeating the same bullshit over and over. But first, you’re a dude, so do me a solid?”
Mick stared down at her, frowning, still stuck on the words crisis and paranormal. “A solid?”
“Yeah. A solid. Figures someone from the Ice Age—er, I mean, Vermont—wouldn’t know what that is. It’s like a favor. Here’s the favor. Shut the fuck up and don’t whine. Being a dude, you’re supposed to keep all your girly crap on the inside. I like it when you keep it on the inside. In fact, I like it so damn much, it would bring tears to my eyes if I could still cry.”
Mick crossed his finger over his chest, bewildered but still willing to adhere to the man code. “I’m not sure why you anticipate girly crap, but the girly crap stays on the inside. Swear it. But if you don’t mind my asking, why am I hiding my feminine side?”
Because a really small part of him wanted to whine as he surveyed the damage in Tessa’s store. From the blackened curtains now hanging in crispy clumps to the burned-clear-through-to-the-wiring walls, Mick figured whining would be a forgivable act after today’s events. You know, if he were to let his man guard down.
“Oh, you’ll see, Optimus Prime. Jesus, you’re big. Anyway, just remember you swore,” Nina warned with a cluck of her tongue, placing an elbow on what was left of Tessa’s glass checkout counter to lean back, clearly assuming a more comfortable position. “Okay. So here goes the spiel.” She swung her head in Tessa’s direction and wagged her finger. “You might wanna hear this, too.”
“Nina . . .” Wanda let out a warning growl, which struck Mick as odd.
The Nina woman rolled her eyes. “Just shut it, Suzy Sunshine. I’ve been streamlining this stupid speech so we can avoid all the minutia. It’s dragging us down, and to be honest, it’s as old and boring as Marty is. Plus, if you’ll fucking remember, we’re on vacation. So we don’t have the damned pamphlets to give him.” She turned back to Mick. “Anyway, no hand-holding, no bullshit poor babies. He’s a man. For the love of peaches, he’ll take this like one.”
Now, that statement brought cause for concern. He raised his hand. “Being the man here, what exactly am I taking?”
Tessa sucked in her cheeks, using an impatient hand to brush at her soggy hair. Hair he himself had dumped a vase of water on. So he could keep his knight-in-shining-armor status and save the distressed damsel’s hair.
Mick knew what that look meant. Her patience was dwindling. He should know. It did that all the time when he was around. Their love-hate relationship was an enduring one.
He brought out the worst in her, and she brought out the ten-year-old in him. His instinct to protect and look out for her had become fierce since her brother, Noah, his lifelong best friend, had died three years ago—and she didn’t like it. Which was what had led to their screaming match and then to the mess now surrounding them.
Tucking her burned turtleneck around her chin, Tessa spoke with a caution she reserved for difficult customers. “I’m not sure what minutia we’d be avoiding, and rude is the absolute last thing I want to be, but I think you can see from this mess, I have to go look on Craigslist under the heading bulldozer.” She gritted out the last word and finally shot the old glare of death at Mick.
Yep, from the way she was kicking at the slushy pile of blackened receipts she’d thrown the bucket of mop water on, Tessa was preparing for liftoff.
But goddamn it all. He’d lost his focus now. He couldn’t take pleasure in the potential verbal battle with Tessa, deserved or not, if he could only focus on things like the fact that he wasn’t supposed to need “bullshit poor babies,” whatever that was.
Nina squinted at Tessa, giving her an almost thoughtful glance. “Bulldozers. Okay, that’s as good a starting point as any. So why is it you have to rent heavy machinery, lady?”
Tessa blinked for a moment, as though saying out loud what had occurred would sound as ludicrous as it really was. Though, as Mick scanned her face while she mentally formulated her words, he saw the first sparks of anger.
He straightened, his shield of armor at the ready. But scratch that. While Tessa had much more practice being pissed at him, she wasn’t quite ready to throw down. “Because—of—him,” she mumbled in Mick’s direction.
“Bingo, lady,” Nina agreed, slapping the countertop for emphasis. “And what did he do?” she prompted, with what Mick would swear was a whiff of demonic pleasure.
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Tessa waffled then, a clear indication that her disbelief had returned full force. She clamped her teeth on her lower lip, her hazel eyes grazing the littered floor. “He . . .”
“He what?”
Marty pinched Nina’s arm with French-manicured nails. Mick knew they were French manicured because Tessa had hers done just like that all the time at Sally’s Salon just down the block. “Nina! Stop taunting the client this instant or I swear, when we get back to the inn, I’m going to make you eat that bottle of sunscreen whole.”
Nina flicked her fingers at a clump of Marty’s burnt hair. “I’m not taunting her, blondie. I’m forcing her to face the reality of what just happened. You know, so we don’t have to do the denial thing until we’re fucking blue in the face?”
Mick’s head shot up. “The client?”
Wanda patted his arm as though she were soothing a child. “You’ll see what she means in a minute. Nina, wrap this up—now, Miss Nurturer.”
Nina flipped Wanda the bird before returning her focus to a wobbly Tessa. “Where were we?”
Tessa tilted her chin upward, smearing more soot over her cheek when she used her forearm to push the burnt strands of hair from her face. “We were playing the blame game. Mick in the antiques store with a blowtorch being the obvious suspect,” she offered in a reference to the game Clue. A game they’d played a lot of as kids at her parents’ cabin.
Nina gave her head a brisk shake and cracked her knuckles. “Right. That’s good. Okay, so what did the bad giant do with the blowtorch?”
Tessa’s lower lip trembled. Obviously, she was battling with more disbelief. However, she caught herself and reared her shoulders back, putting on her tough-guy front. “He . . .” She paused, taking a deep breath that shuddered. “He set my store on fire. Like he was some sort of human Bic.”
Mick winced. Yeah. He had. Strangest thing, too.
“And how did he do that, Tessa Preston?” Nina prompted, and if Mick was hearing her tone right, she did it with devilish glee.
Tessa was back to wavering, her eyes flitting from corner to corner of the store to avoid Nina’s. She frowned, opened her mouth to speak, then snapped it shut again. Evidently she still hadn’t passed disbelief. Instead, she jammed her hands on her hips and picked up the death glare where she’d left off.
Wanda tapped Nina on the shoulder. “I think we’re addressing the wrong person here, Nina. Tessa’s store can be cleaned up. Insurance claims filed, et cetera. She’s but a by-product of this mess and only distantly involved other than the clear fact that she has a relationship with the big guy. The one with the real problem here is Mr. Malone. It would seem that he’s the one most in need of our services.”
Nina gave a sharp nod. “I don’t like it, but you’re right.” She slapped Mick on his bare back, with a whole lot more force than he was comfortable admitting to. She was a girl, for Christ’s sake . . . “So, big guy. How did you set your lady friend’s store on fire?”
Mick shoved his hands in the pockets of his semi-charred jeans. They’d caught fire when he’d . . . well, just when. “Do you really need to hear me say it? Like, out loud?” Because all that “girly crap” he was supposed to keep on the inside just might find itself on the outside.
Marty shot him a sympathetic look and fluffed her crunchy hair. “Unfortunately, you need to hear it more than we do, Mick. Acceptance and all that therapeutic jazz.”
Nina winked an almond-shaped eye. “So, dude. Who set the nice lady’s store on fire?”
He scuffed his feet, feeling like he was in the principal’s office with all these female eyes on him waiting in expectation. And he’d been to the principal’s office more than once in his youth. “I did.” You, you, you, Mick Malone. Yes, you are essentially an arsonist. Wouldn’t that be the shit with the guys at the station? A fireman who’d set his best friend’s sister’s store on fire by . . . Shit. Shit. Shit.
Nina’s smile was pleased. Grimly so. “Riiiight. And how’d you do that, Gigantor?”
Oh. He had an answer for that—or maybe it was more like a question. “I feel like you’re supposed to tell me.”
Nina nudged his foot with hers. “Answer the question so we can get on with this shit already. You know, the acceptance-thing bit.”
He cocked his head to the right, opened his mouth to provide the much-anticipated answer, then closed it again, finding that he, too, couldn’t quite articulate the events of the last ten minutes or so.
Eyes, four pairs to be precise, bored into his. There was even some impatient toe tapping.
Women and their need for unnecessary verbal ownership. “I don’t know exactly how I did it.” And technically, he didn’t. In fact, what he’d done was nuttier than squirrel shit. To define it would mean going one step too far over the line of blithering idiot.
“I’ll tell you how you did it, Mick,” Tessa enunciated each word, her eyes finally beginning to settle into that familiar narrowing. The one that meant his ass chewing was about to begin. “You opened your big mouth again, which is no surprise, and stuck your nose in where it didn’t belong. Again, no surprise—only this time when you flapped your gums with all your lame, overprotective bullshit, it set my entire store on fire. That’s how you did it, Mick.”
Nina and Marty looked at each other, mystification all over their faces—which, if they were who they said they were, didn’t leave Mick with a reassured feeling.
Clearly, something had occurred here. Whether it had paranormal properties and he needed crisis management was yet to be decided, but it would certainly help if the crisis counselors in question didn’t have such a fish-out-of-water look.
Yeah. That would help.
“Hold up, girlie.” Nina eyeballed Tessa like she was on trial for murder. “I came in just as the flames erupted, but the way it looked from where I was standing, those flames came from his hands. He didn’t do this with his fingertips? You know, like shooting fireballs from ’em?”
“Uh, no,” Mick interjected. “That was just my fingertips on fire; I had to put my pants out with something.” He held his hands up for inspection. Though not seriously burned, they were still a little pink.
Huh.
Tessa let out an exasperated sigh, the rise and fall of her chest making Mick instantly look away. Something he did often in honor of his best friend’s memory. “No! How ridiculous. Who can shoot fireballs from their fingertips? That’s insane.”
Nina twisted her lips in a mocking smile. “I so dig that word. Oh, and I totally dig ludicrous, ridiculous, preposterous, nuts, crazy, and certifiable. Love ’em, like all big hearts and flowers-ish.”
Wanda put her hand over Nina’s mouth in a move so quick it was almost blurry. “Is it any more insane than Mick shooting fire from his mouth, Tessa?” Wanda admonished. “I, unlike our reluctant antiquer Nina, was the first in the door. The walnut jewelry box in the front window caught my eye. Of course, now that lovely piece is just a tragedy, but I saw what happened, and so did you, Mick.” Her voice softened, as did her expression when she let go of the cagey Nina and set her aside as though she were lighter than a feather.
Yeah. Okay. He’d seen it, too. More to the point, he’d felt it erupt from his throat like boiling lava. Why wasn’t that freaking out anyone but him and Tessa? For the first time, his shock was replaced with suspicion for these women who had all the answers. “You have a point.”
“And seeing as the circus isn’t in town, I imagine fire-breathing isn’t what you do for a living, right, Mick?” Wanda asked, her voice soft and cajoling.
His spine went rigid under the women’s scrutiny. “Um, right. Not a fire-breather. I put them out. I don’t start them.”
Wanda nodded, the soft wisps allowed free in her loosely pulled back hair frizzy from the effects of the explosion. “Exactly. So I bet you’re wondering how you did what you did, right?”
Nina scratched her head. “Hang a sec. What did he fucking do, Wanda? I had him pegged as a demon. I was at t
he ready with Darnell and Casey on the voice-activated-dial gig, but now I don’t know. So if he isn’t a demon, then what the hell is he?” Nina asked.
“A demon?” Tessa croaked weakly, worry now creating lines on her forehead.
Mick’s head began to spin.
Marty tugged on Nina’s long hair, her lips forming a thin line. “Can it, mouth. Didn’t we tell you the best way to keep a client calm is to always appear in control? You know, like you actually know what you’re doing, Elvira?”
Wanda stepped in front of the other two women, blocking them from his sight while her eyes compelled Mick’s to focus on her. “First, before we get into explanations, let me give you our credentials as paranormal crisis counselors.”
“You have a degree in that?”
Wanda popped her lips at him. “Life is our degree, Mr. Malone. Now, we’re going to share something with you that will no doubt leave you in more shock than you’re already in. However, in order to prove we can provide services, it’s a necessity. And as Nina said, I imagine you’ll be able to handle it better being the big hunk of man you are. Women are far more emotional. Not to say that’s a bad thing, but it can hinder the process when you’re handing out tissues and dabbing tear-swollen eyes.”
“The process . . .” he mumbled. Jesus Christ.
“Indeed.” She nodded her affirmation, tugging at her gloves. “The process. I’d tell you to sit, but it seems we’re fresh out of furniture for the moment. So how about you just steady yourself? You’re a rather brawny man. It’s all in the balance and placement of your feet.”
“Maybe Tessa and I should go grab some dinner?” Marty asked, putting a hand on Tessa’s arm, her expression one of visible concern, putting Mick at ease for a moment.
Until he remembered the process.
“Oh, the hell,” Tessa responded. “I appreciate your concern, but I’m pretty tough, and I want to know what happened here, too, and what it has to do with demons. I don’t know what a paranormal crisis is, or what you mean by process, but I’m dying to find out. I have to put something on those insurance claim forms.” She gave Mick a pointed look.
The Accidental Dragon Page 2
