by Tegan Maher
© 2019 Tegan Maher
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form, by any means electronic or mechanical, including but not limited to photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system currently in use or yet to be devised.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or institutions is entirely coincidental.
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Table of Contents
Copyright Page
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Thank you!
Howling for Revenge
CHAPTER TWO
Connect with Me
Other Books by Tegan Maher
CHAPTER ONE
I GROANED AS I HOPPED around a puddle of slush, then almost busted my butt when I landed on a patch of ice. I was officially sick of winter. Even though the weather didn't get too brutal in southern Georgia, the mud and freezing rain made me crazy. I was a warm-weather girl, and the whole winter thing—layers of clothes, wind so cold it hurt to breathe, and dealing with slick roads and sidewalks—was not my cup of tea.
The weather had been alternating between snow and freezing rain all week, and I was ready for a break. The thought had no sooner crossed my mind than a gust of icy air slapped me in the face, slithering its way down my neck and into my coat. Shivering, I pulled open the door to the Clip N Curl, anxious to get out of the cold and into the toasty interior of the beauty parlor.
"Shut the door!" Coralee exclaimed when the wind swept it out of my hands, letting in the nasty weather and letting out the warmth of the shop.
"I'm trying," I said, pulling it closed. "Stupid wind caught it."
I wiped my feet on the mat, then stepped onto the gleaming tile and started peeling off layers. "Man, am I ready for spring," I said, hanging my coat and scarf up.
"You and me, both," she replied, spraying a hefty dose of Aqua Net in a cloud around the girl sitting in her chair. "That's why I decided a pre-spring makeover special was in order. A little sprucing up warms the soul."
Belle, the resident ghost and former owner of the shop, nodded, her shimmery beehive wobbling a little as she did. "Somethin' needs warmin' up, that's for sure. I can't even feel the weather anymore, and I'm tired of it. Everything all gray and dreary."
Since Coralee just gave a little nod, I assumed her current client didn't know about Belle. Most people didn't, and considering Belle's next comment, that was probably a good thing.
"That color looks like crap on her. "Honestly, Coralee. I don't know why you let her talk you into doing it." The robust spirit curled her nose. "It makes her look pale and old, and I hope she doesn't tell anybody you did it."
I had to agree with her, though I did it in silence. The woman in the chair was probably fifty with a reddish complexion, and the black hair did nothing for her.
Coralee rolled her eyes and sighed, then handed the woman her hand mirror and spun her around.
"Oh my goodness!" the woman exclaimed. "You outdid yourself, Coralee—I'm gonna be the talk of the night at book club this evening!"
Belle snorted. "She's not wrong about that, though I doubt it'll be for the reason she thinks. If your luck holds, she'll keep her yap shut and they'll all think she went to that shop in the discount store instead of here."
The girl squashed that dream almost as soon as Belle uttered it.
Preening, she said, "You can be sure I'll tell everybody who's responsible and send them your way!"
I cringed and Belle threw her hands in the air. "There goes that, then. The best thing you can do is tell people she held you at gunpoint."
How Coralee managed to keep quiet all day and pretend the former owner of the shop wasn't there was beyond me, but somehow she managed to tune her out without missing a beat. I couldn't have done it.
"I'm glad you like it, Betty. And you don't have to tell anybody; just let them think it's your natural color!" Coralee gave her a wink that implied Betty's secret was safe with her. I had no doubt she meant it—smart of her to appeal to the woman's ego.
I smiled as Alyse popped out from the back, her trademark smile lighting her face. She did nails and filled the gaps when Coralee was too busy to keep up with the hair end of things.
"Hey, Noelle! How're you today?" She always seemed to lighten the air around her, infusing it with a little bit of her sparkle.
"I'm good, Alyse. How 'bout you?"
"I'm doin' okay," she said, smoothing a fresh towel over her manicure table. "I'd be doin' better if the weather would clear, but what can you do? C'mon over here and let's get you started."
The door behind me whooshed open, and two brunettes pushed into the shop, one statuesque and the other shorter with a little extra padding. Both were dressed to the nines, though they were a couple of decades behind in style.
I didn't pay much attention to them because my back was to the door, and I was chatting with Alyse. After several minutes, though, I realized there was trouble in turn two when the woman's catty remarks caught my ear.
The other woman was smirking beneath the cape as she looked at Coralee in the mirror. "I'm just saying you should be grateful I went away to college. Otherwise, you and Buddy wouldn't be a thing, and I'd probably be married to him right now. Of course, I can't blame him for settlin' for you. Keyhole Lake's tiny, so it's not like he had many options. Plus, not that he's not a nice-lookin' man, but I dodged a bullet there. Trailer-park chic isn't my look."
Buddy was Coralee's boyfriend of fifteen years, and as far as I could tell, they were one of the happiest couples I knew. My breath caught as I waited with bated for the hammer to fall. No way was Coralee gonna let that slide.
"Get out," Coralee growled after a few seconds. I was glad to see she'd stepped back. At least she was giving the woman a chance to leave in one piece.
"You can't throw me out!" the woman exclaimed. "My hair's only half cut."
"Tough," Coralee barked, her eyes narrowed as she pointed toward the door with her scissors. "No charge. Trust me, Loretta—if you insist I finish, I'll shave you bald. And you better believe if I run into you again, I'll skip the scissors and rip it out by the roo
ts."
I'd seen Coralee mad a time or two, but this time was different. She was shaking, and her cheeks were the color of the cherry pie I'd made the night before. I was afraid she was gonna bust a vessel, but I wasn't sure if it'd be her own or Loretta's.
Belle hovered over her. "Calm down, Coralee. She's not worth it, and you're better than this. Don't let her get to you."
Loretta took her time getting out of the chair, and I pulled my hand out of the bowl of lavender water and dried it on my jeans, afraid I was gonna have to hold Coralee back. It's a good thing I did.
As Loretta sauntered toward the door, the woman glanced over her shoulder with a cat-that-ate-the-canary expression. "Better be careful with that temper, Coralee. It's not a good look on you. If I remember, Buddy likes a nice, laid-back woman. Like me."
My friend lunged at her, and I barely caught her around the waist before she managed to get her hands on Loretta. "I've heard you like to lay back," Coralee sneered.
Loretta had turned, a look of victory on her face when she knew she'd gotten Coralee's goat. Weirdly enough, when I held my friend back, the tall brunette scowled at me, almost like she'd been hoping to lose a few teeth. After a second, she dropped a ten on the counter, then looked around at the pink walls and 80s-era fashion posters. "Put that toward some modern artwork or something. C'mon, Priscilla. We'll go to the other shop, where I can get a decent cut."
At that, I almost turned Coralee loose to give the cow what she had comin' to her, but common sense prevailed. One of us needed to make wise decisions at that point, and Coralee was beyond being rational.
Priscilla shot an apologetic look in our direction, but didn't say a word. Instead, she gave her friend a suck-up smile and hurried after her. When the bell over the door tinkled and the latch clicked shut behind them, I loosened my grip. "You gonna be okay now?" I asked.
She pulled in a deep breath and slowly let it out. "Yeah. Let me go, and thanks. That woman has always done that to me. I don't know why I let her in the chair to begin with, but I figured maybe she'd matured in a decade and a half."
"Well there you go thinkin' again," I said, trying to lessen the tension in the room. Poor Alyse was still sitting behind the manicure table, her eyes round as an owl's, and Belle was hovering by the window, probably making sure Loretta was gone for good.
Coralee reached for her coffee cup, her hands still shaking.
"What was that all about?" I asked, wondering what on earth could have upset her like that. She was usually a water off a duck's back type of person.
"That was Loretta Higgins, the girl who dated Buddy before me," she said, taking a sip then smoothing her clothes. "She's been gone for the last decade because she married some fancy-pants lawyer and moved to Atlanta. I have no idea what she's doing back here."
"Why did she poke at you like that if she's married?" Alyse asked. "Seems like she ain't got anything to complain about if that rock on her finger's any indication."
"I have no idea," Coralee said, "but the last thing I expected was for her to drag up high school crap. I should have known though. She always was catty."
"So she's your Olivia?" I asked. Olivia was a bully, and my enemy since kindergarten. When we ran into each other, it was pretty standard for it to devolve into snide comments, catty insults, and even a hair-pull or punch or two.
Coralee shook her head and furrowed her brow in thought. "No, not to that extent. I mean, we didn't get along, but we never had any serious run-ins like you two do. A few name-calling episodes, maybe."
"Well it sounds like she's got some serious sour grapes," Belle said, floating away from the window and back toward us. "That's usually at the root of that kind of behavior."
"Maybe so," Coralee said, rubbing a hand over her face, "but if she had to sink her teeth into somebody's behind, she woulda done better to pick somebody who wouldn't knock 'em out for her."
As Alyse motioned me back to the table, I couldn't help but hope the woman had learned her lesson and steered clear of Coralee because next time, there might not be anybody there to hold my friend back.
CHAPTER TWO
ALYSE HAD JUST PULLED my nails from under the dryer when Raeann texted me and asked if I could help her out for an hour or so. Angel, the girl who worked for her, had the flu and the coffee shop was slammed. I started to drive because the weather was crummy, but if she was busy, there was no way I'd find parking. Since she was only a block and a half up the street, I decided to hoof it.
When I walked in the door, it was all I could do to push my way through the people to get to the front desk.
"What's going on here?" I asked Rae as I pulled my apron from the peg behind the counter and tied it on.
"No clue," she said. "We were having a typical weekday when the place just filled up."
The masses were getting restless, so I didn't waste any more time. I jumped behind the espresso machine and started making the drinks as she called them out to me. I'd worked there since day one, so I knew the menu by heart, even when somebody wanted one of her "special" blends. As an accomplished earth witch, she combined herbs and spices that could do almost anything. My favorite one, Mocha Loca, would give you energy for hours without the lag after it that most of the energy drinks left behind.
Within twenty minutes, we had the front cleared and people were happily filling the tables, sipping tea or coffee and munching on my pastries.
"Looks like you're gonna have to do some baking tonight," she said, motioning to the decimated pastry case. "They cleaned us out."
"Wow," I said, wiping down the espresso machine. "I just filled that up yesterday afternoon."
"I know," she replied, "but at least they didn't go to waste."
I didn't want to mention what had happened at Coralee's within earshot of others, so I held off until the place cleared out half an hour later. As soon as it did, though, I spilled. If something happened and she heard it somewhere else first, she'd have killed me. Plus, I was worried about Coralee. I'd never seen her come truly unglued like that.
"Man," Raeann said after I was finished. "What was that chick thinking? I don't know her, but I do know Coralee, and being at the top of her list is not a place I'd want to be."
"Me either," I replied, thinking back to the scene, "but it's almost like she went there just to push Coralee's buttons. Why now, though?"
Rae shrugged. "You never know what motivates people, especially people like that."
"I guess you're right," I said, shaking my head. "If she has any sense at all, she'll steer clear and the whole thing will blow over."
Rae lifted a shoulder. "And if she doesn't, Coralee sounds like she'd be happy to put her in her place."
We finished and I hung around for another thirty minutes just to make sure the rush was over before I went to Reimagined, my upcycle shop. I had some work to do, and it would be a good way to work off the tension. For me, sanding, painting, and finding new ways to use old stuff was almost as therapeutic as baking, and even though I was a kitchen witch, I often found my magic bleeding through into my pieces.
As soon as I unlocked my door, Erol, the owner of the sandwich shop that had been there before I bought the place and turned it into my workshop, floated through the wall that stood between the Clip N Curl and Reimagined.
"Did you see it?" he asked, hovering along beside me as I went behind the counter and stashed my purse under it. "Coralee's tail's all twisted."
"Still?" I asked. "She was pretty much over it when I left an hour ago. Did something else happen?"
"No, but she's perseverating a little. Belle's tryin' to distract her by findin' stuff that needs doing."
I could understand that. I was the same as she was; it took a lot to rile me, but once I was mad, I needed some time to get over it.
"She'll be right as rain by the end of the day," I said. "All she needs is some space and a little time to cool off."
Erol chewed his lip and shimmered a little, something he did when he was upset
or worried. "I sure hope so."
"Is there something you'd like to watch on TV?" I asked. "I'm gonna go in the back and work."
"Yeah," he said, smiling as he turned his attention to his favorite thing on the planet. "There's a mystery marathon on the Hallmark Channel. I love those."
I switched it to the channel he wanted, then left him to it so I could get some work done. When we'd found his murderer, we'd also found most of his stuff, and the big screen TV was the one thing he'd asked to keep. I'd mounted it for him so he could watch it whenever, but he had to wait for somebody with corporeal fingers to change the channel for him. Luckily, between me and Coralee, that wasn't usually an issue.
The previous weekend, I'd picked up an antique armoire at an estate sale. One of the doors had been missing, but it had great bones. The legs were scrolled, it had beautiful trim work, and it was solid oak. They'd put it in the trash heap because of the door, so I picked it up for a song. I figured I could turn it into a knick-knack case or bookshelf.
I grabbed a screwdriver and went to work removing the one surviving door, then cleaned all the dust and cobwebs off of it. I was in the zone and lost track of time. When my phone sang with Hunter's notification tone, I was surprised to see it was after five.
I wiped the dust from sanding the armoire off on my jeans and opened the message—he wanted to go to dinner. Smiling, I told him to pick me up. It was my roommate Gabi's night to feed the horses, so I had the whole evening free.
While I waited for him to get there, I cleaned up the area, hung up my smock, and washed my hands. When the bell above my door tinkled, I was ready.
"Hey!" my own personal hunk of handsome said as he walked in. He leaned down and gave me quick kiss, then greeted Erol.
"Hey Hunter," Erol replied. "Do you all mind changing the channel for me before you go? There's an Avengers marathon on, and I just love them."
I rolled my eyes. "You love Chris Hemsworth is what you love."
He arched a brow at me. "Like you don't go all gooey when you see him, too."
Hunter elbowed me. "Do I need to worry about Thor?"
