Bedtimes and Broomsticks

by Amanda A. Allen

  “Did you hear about what happened to my daughter?” Scarlett asked. Her mind had fixated on Luna when Scarlett realized what a poor job Wally was doing to find the killer. He was completely inept.

  “You mean someone memory hexed her,” Mr. Jueavas asked. “Your Gram told me.”

  Scarlett paused and gave Mr. Jueavas a sidelong look. He grinned at her with all his latino charm and Scarlett could see her Gram’s point. But ew.

  “What do you think will happen if a hastily cast memory hex fails and Luna saw something. You think that whoever killed Lacey will leave Luna alone?”

  Mr. Throdmore cleared his throat and spit in the road before he glanced at Scarlett and said, “Pardon me.”

  “I’ll take that as a no,” Scarlett replied.

  “You weren’t their match in high school,” Mr. Throdmore told Scarlett gently. “Maybe you should consider other options. There are a lot of places to resettle. A lot of places with groves for your girls. Mystic Cove isn’t the only town like this one.”

  Mr. Jueavas spat now. And Scarlett knew it was on the behalf of Gram.

  Scarlett rose, glanced down at the men, and then laid a kiss on each of their cheeks. “I didn’t realize how much I missed you two,” Scarlett said. “Why don’t you come on over to the bakery sometime today. I made a triple chocolate, caramel, and pecan cheesecake. It’s in the back fridge. If I’m not there, Henna’ll give you a piece.”

  “Ooooh boy,” Mr. Jueavas said, “No one makes cheesecake like you, Scarlett Oaken.”

  “No one gossips like you two,” Scarlett told them grinning. “Thanks for the dirt. I’m not ready to give up on Mystic Cove quite yet. I might not be a match for the killer—but Harper is and she’s looking after my girls while I see what can be done.”

  “Harper?” Mr. Throdmore asked, giving Scarlett a doubtful look.

  Scarlett grinned wickedly. “There isn’t anything that Harper wouldn’t do to keep my girls safe.”

  She rose and walked away from the bench entirely unsurprised when Lex Warder appeared at her side as if they walked together so often that it was natural for him to be there. She felt as though he was one nudge from winding his arm around hers and tangling their fingers together. The askance look she gave him did not lessen that feeling at all.

  “What did you find out?” Lex asked without an ounce of shame. He tossed his gaze towards her in a way that said he knew was absolutely sexy, and he expected that to somehow change the way she would otherwise behave.

  She shook her head at him and turned into an alley without warning. He didn’t even stumble in following after her.

  “What?” She snapped at him. She should be disturbed. This might be Mystic Cove, but she was in an alley with a man she didn’t know and that may have been how Lacey Monroe died.

  “Those old coots wouldn’t talk to me,” he told her, still entirely unashamed. “But they probably know something.”

  “We are not a team,” she told him. Why had he focused on her? Simply because she’d argued with Wally? No one else had. Well…Harper almost certainly had. Or just cursed him out. Regardless, both of the Oaken girls had stood up to the useless sheriff.

  “We don’t have to be a team for you to tell me what you learned,” he countered, rubbed his hand over his close-shaved head and looked at her as if surprised she hadn’t given him what he wanted.

  “I don’t trust you. As far as I know, you were the one who hexed my daughter.”

  “But I didn’t,” he said, smiling smoothly.

  Her eyes narrowed on him, and she jabbed him in the chest with her index finger. “But I don’t trust you.”

  “Have you looked up Brad Day yet? He spends a lot of time at his Mom’s old place. Why? If he’s there because of his drinking problem and not because his wife is a shrew, he might know more details about Lacey than anyone outside of Kelly. Don’t wives blather all their secrets while they do their makeup or whatever.”

  Scarlett stared at Lex. Was he serious? Was he trying to make some pointed comment about her marriage? “Not all women match the stereotype you pulled out of your—”

  She stopped, cleared her throat, and turned away.

  “Look, Brad doesn’t like me. He isn’t going to tell me jack about Lacey. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know anything. Or have you tried Mabel? I know you’re chummy with that vampire, but he really did date Lacey. He can’t be the only one you get news from about the town.”

  Scarlett took a step back, eyes narrowing even further until they were mere slits. If her daughters saw her now, they would be hopping to her command. But this Lex Warder didn’t even flinch.

  “You are not directing my investigation,” she told him. “Go. Away.”

  “You need me, druid,” he told her. This time he didn’t smile so winningly. “Someone in your perfect little hometown is dangerous. They’re a murderer, and if you don’t work smart, you’ll be next. Or maybe your little girl.”

  She slammed her hand into his chest, using wind magic to shove him against the building.

  “I am not helpless, and no one—you included—will lay one finger on my girls, my dog, or even some random chicken in my care.”

  He didn’t even blink. She was sure his power was ready and able, but he didn’t use it. He let her anger flow over him and said, “We could be a good team.”

  Scarlett took a deep breath, trying to access those puffy cloud thoughts, the calm of her people. All she could find was anger.

  But that wasn’t quite true. She could find stress. The burning acid of anxiety. She could find that well of failure that wanted to pull her under. She shoved all of it aside and focused on the moment.

  “Did you date Lacey, warlock?”

  “It wasn’t my blood at the murder scene.”

  Scarlett gasped, there was the slightest shifting of his eyes. She knew he was trying to distract her. With the knowing she knew it. Her gaze narrowed and she said, “How serious were you and Lacey really?”

  “What’s important here is that I didn’t set her car on fire,” Lex shrugged those wide, wide shoulders, and tried his charming grin again. “I didn’t leave blood at the scene. Wally might focus on me for a while, but eventually, he’ll turn back to your troubled little sister.”

  Scarlett pressed her lips together and reminded herself that she was immune to the charm that he was trying to manipulate her with, and it might be true that Wally would refocus on Harper, but he’d never find enough evidence to really hurt her. Besides he’d gotten distracted by the idea of some poor homeless person. Except when Wally didn’t find someone homeless, he might refocus on Harper.

  “There’s no evidence that Harper lit Lacey’s car on fire. I’m sure there’s any number of people who would have liked to do that. Any number of them could have done it.”

  “Maybe.” Lex shrugged, but he did it in a way that flexed his shoulders and then watched to see if her knees got weak. Her gaze narrowed on him, and he grinned that self-deprecating grin that saved him from being despicable.

  It was his smile—the one that acknowledged his failings with her—that helped her find her zen again. Calmness flowed over Scarlett and she could feel more than the power of the wind. She could feel the roots of her people, the strength of the trees, the brightness of the flowers, the giving of the water.

  “What do you say we team up? Let me help you.”

  Scarlett backed away from him, letting the wind magic fall and said, “You, my precious flower, are nauseatingly vain.”

  He saved himself from being worthless by laughing with true humor at himself. She found it charming enough to be mad at herself. She reminded herself that her ex, Grant, had been charming and she knew better than to fall for those ploys again.

  “Why do you think I need you?” She raised a brow. This time she was serious. There was something about him that whispered he hadn’t hexed Luna. And there was a huge piece of Scarlett that wanted to succumb to that whisper.

  “I’m a t
rained investigator.”

  “In Mystic Cove, lollygagging about? Please. Show me your references.”

  “What I’m doing in Mystic Cove is beside the point.”

  “Says the cagey dude who swears he’s the investigator. If you’re so good, why do you need me?”

  He glanced around, grinned at her, and then shook his head, “Usually I’m able to get my way a little easier. Look, my case doesn't concern this murder, but I can't let any hint of what I'm up to get out. I'll lose years of work.”

  “Mom here, I’m lied to 79% of my day, every day. I have a BS radar that is on point. I can't just take your word for it.”

  “Come on, Scarlett. This is a team job. There’s a reason cops have backup. Let me help you.”

  She did not bother to answer him. How many times could she say that she didn’t trust him? Or, perhaps it was truer to say that she couldn’t afford to trust him—not when it was her daughter on the line.

  Chapter 12

  Scarlett drove out to the Oaken family property, eyes focused on the road, trying not to think. They’d all be there. Her three cousins, her Aunt Briët, her sister Harper, her mother…and her Gram. Scarlett loved each of them, but she was sure her path had led away from Mystic Cove—for no other reason than to save her from being driven insane by their endless prying.

  She’d have stayed away longer from the house if not for her daughters. She had played with them, sent them back with Harper, done a little more prying, and she was going to put them to bed. Scarlett didn’t walk in the front door—she never had. She parked her old, rust and burgundy SUV where she’d always parked the little Honda Civic she’d had in high school, hopped the fence, and made her way to the family grove.

  The Oaken family grove was a meandering thing. It was in no particular formation but still somehow made a circle in the center where the shadows fell just so, letting flowers that preferred indirect light to flourish. Scarlett passed under one of the many oak trees, letting her fingers tangle in the branches and saying hello. She knocked on the trunk of the old willow she’d always loved and caressed her favorite mutsu apple tree.

  She wove her way out of the grove and towards the grape vines, called by the barking of their dog. She listened closely as she walked and heard her daughters whispering together. Something about Elsa and Batgirl and Starfire and the old willow tree. Not the one on the property here, but the one that Ella had loved so back in Spokane. Scarlett couldn’t help but feel brighter as she heard her daughters play.

  “Hey ladies,” she said, squatting down under the vines where the girls were playing in the dirt. “What gives?”

  “Elsa took Batgirl’s batterang,” Luna said, hands on her hips. “That wasn’t very nice.”

  Scarlett nodded seriously, seeing that Batgirl was in Ella’s hands and Luna was the one holding Elsa. At least Scarlett’s daughter knew that what she’d done wasn’t nice. That was a start, right?

  “What are we going to do about it?”

  “She needs to say sorry!” Luna’s serious face broke into a scowl. “And then she needs to call her Daddy.”

  Scarlett paused. It had been a while since Luna would get on the phone with Grant. How to explain to Grant that Luna was suddenly missing him? Let alone that she’d decided to speak to him again when before she’d been refusing to even say, ‘Daddy.’

  Max rushed up, swirling around Scarlett and demanding to be petted and scratched behind his ear, and saving Scarlett from having to say anything about Grant.

  “Shall we go see Nana?” Scarlett asked them, hoping the distraction would hold. “Did she make a big, yummy dinner?”

  “She made clam chowder, and crab cakes, and rolls, and chester pudding, but it’s a surprise!” Luna said, laughing and holding her hands over her mouth. She then held her arms up to Scarlett. The chance to lift her baby one more time was priceless. It wasn’t going to be that long, Scarlett knew, before she struggled to lift her girls. They were going to keep growing up on her, and she mourned the change already.

  Scarlett walked across the wide expanse of lawn and up to the big farm house where her Gram and mother, Maye, and Harper lived. Over the rise on the other side of the grove was another house with Aunt Briët. And on the other side of the grove with the stables with the horses they’d always had—and an apartment for Briët’s daughters above the stables. But all too often the Oaken women spent every meal together, all too often, you couldn’t move through one of the houses without a family member bumping into you or overhearing you or discussing you. All too often the weight of that many gazes would suffocate you.

  “Why isn’t she moving back here?” Lynette asked as Scarlett approached the swinging kitchen door. Lynette was the smart cousin, all books and learning, but she did her work as an engineer from a tiny apartment that she shared with her sisters. A fate that Scarlett could not abide even if the bob-haired, brainy cousin seemed happy enough.

  Scarlett glanced at her girls and then pushed on the kitchen door, letting it swing quickly open and Scarlett caught the sight of her mother, Maye, shrugging.

  “Hey guys. I want my own place, because I’ve had my own place for a long time.”

  Marta, another cousin who Scarlett hadn’t seen sitting in the corner of the kitchen said, “But druids live together.”

  Marta was the artsy one with a flowing muumuu, paint on her face, and perennially barefoot. Scarlett would be unsurprised to find that Marta didn’t own shoes. She didn’t seem to own the capacity to imagine that it was possible to be a druid and want your own space.

  Scarlett nodded and said, “Often druids do live together.”

  “Does this mean Harper is moving out?” Lynette asked. She was stirring the pot of clam chowder while Aunt Briët was cutting the centers out of the sourdough bread bowls, and her mother was slicing lemons and putting them in the big mason jars they’d be using for glasses.

  Scarlett crossed the room, kissed her mother on the cheek, and said, “Thank you for making my favorites even if we’re mostly vegetarians.”

  Her mother simply nodded in reply. The coolness between them was thawing, but Scarlett supposed that there was never going to be a time when her mom ever truly forgave her for missing so much of the girls’ lives.

  “Leave Scarlett alone,” Dawn said. The last of the Oaken cousins, she was freckled and braided and dusty from caring for the property. While Lynette worked on her computer and Marta painted, Dawn kept the Oaken farm running and the property prosperous.

  Scarlett turned and faced the big farm table where Gram sat at the end. Her head was cocked and she was looking Scarlett up and down much as one might examine a prize horse.

  “Are you sleeping with Mr. Jueavas?” Scarlett asked, determined to keep Gram on the offensive.

  “And if I am?” Gram asked smoothly while Lynette and Marta’s jaws dropped.

  “Shut up,” Marta said, immediately, glancing around the kitchen as if to check who else believed this nonsense. But…Scarlett’s mom simply raised a brow at them while Harper, who had been digging through the pantry stuck her head back into the room to cackle like a loon.

  “Go Gram,” Harper said. “You nasty ole thing.”

  “Don’t talk to your grandmother like that,” their mother, Maye said.

  But it was Ella who silenced them all, “Why does it matter if Gram takes naps with her friends? Back home I liked to nap with Heather when Heather and I took naps.”

  “Too true, pumpkin,” Scarlett said, running her fingers over Ella’s hair and then said, “Why don’t you and Luna go wash your hands?”

  The moment they were out of the room Harper asked, “Did you find anything out?”

  Scarlett shook her head.

  “What are you going to do?” Maye asked as she started spooning up bowls of soup.

  “Mom,” Scarlett said, letting out the secret she didn’t want to let out but that couldn’t be denied, “We’re leaving if I can’t figure this out. I can’t trust Mystic Cove with
Luna—not while we have a murderer on the loose and she knows something.”

  It was a truth that had been becoming clearer and clearer in Scarlett’s head over the last two days.

  The silence in the kitchen was stark for a long moment and then Gram said, “Well, spoon up the soup, Maye. We’re hungry, and if Scarlett isn’t going to wait until the dust settles to take off again, we need our chances for family dinner while we can have them.”

  Scarlett pressed her lips together tightly and followed her daughters to wash her hands only to find Ella in the hall, eyes wide, and sad.

  “You said we were staying,” Ella said in a near whisper. “That we could be with Nana and Harper.”

  Scarlett could see the sadness in her daughter’s gaze, and Scarlett knew that Ella had been clinging to a vision of a big family in exchange for losing her daddy. By the stars, Scarlett thought, why was being a parent so very hard?

  Scarlett took a deep breath, squatted down to meet Ella’s gaze and said, “Someone killed a lady here.”

  “People die everywhere,” Ella hissed, eyes filling with angry tears.

  “Luna saw it, Ella. Mommy is going to do whatever it takes to keep you and Luna safe.”

  “You promised,” Ella yelled, slamming past Scarlett and out the door.

  Scarlett sighed and turned to find her daughter, Luna, crying on the stairs. Scarlett sat down and pulled Luna close.

  “There’s food,” Scarlett said after a while.

  But Luna said, “I want to talk to my Daddy.”

  There wasn’t anything that made Scarlett feel more helpless or stupid than being a mother. She rubbed her hand down Luna’s back, over and over until Luna asked again. So, Scarlett let Luna call Grant.

  “Scarlett?”

  “It’s me, Daddy,” Luna said, snuggling into Scarlett.

  Grant’s reply was a shocked pause and because Scarlett knew him so well, she knew he was looking dumbfounded, glancing around frantically unsure of what to say. He hadn’t spoken to the girls since he had said the girls were freaks.

  “Hi baby,” Grant said. Scarlett could almost see the way his eyes were flicking from object to object. She wanted to punch him, so hard, right in between those stupid eyes.