by M. L. Briers
Marilyn snorted her contempt for Claudia. She still looked good, and she was moving just fine as she walked to the coffee pot – whereas it had taken Marilyn five minutes to shuffle her body to the edge of the bed – everything ached too much to go faster.
She might have loved to dance, but the dance didn’t love her anymore, and her body felt as if she’d been on a hundred-mile hike – even if she took yesterday’s long walk out of the equation – dancing was no longer her friend. “I might want you to kill me if the coffee doesn’t work,” Marilyn said and dropped her head back down to the counter where she groaned like she needed to be put out of her misery.
“Don’t you need to make breakfast first?”
“Make your own – there’s cereal in the cupboard,” Marilyn hissed like a snake that wanted nothing more than to strike. “You did this to me; I’m not rewarding you with pancakes and waffles.”
“I mean for the kids. Isn’t it in your mummy and me code that you have to send them off weighed down with calories and chock-full of the good stuff to see them through to lunch?” Claudia snapped on a bright, mocking smile when Marilyn opened just the one eye to stare at her.
“Bite me,” she offered as she expended the energy to lift just the one eyebrow. “And they aren’t here.”
“Went to church?” Claudia asked with a big dollop of sarcasm.
Marilyn slapped her palms down on the counter and pushed up. “The note says Scott drove them to the store…”
“Sunday opening in this town?” Claudia snorted a chuckle. “When did that happen?”
“Well, the church is a little more progressive since the new guy with a collar took over,” Marilyn said.
“Nobody is hunting witches anymore?” Claudia teased, and Marilyn snorted.
“Even my mother speaks to the church ladies now – although, admittedly, with disdain and in a condescending tone.”
“Yeah, but she uses that with everybody so they shouldn’t notice a difference,” Claudia offered back with a wide grin. “And how are you holding up after last night?”
“I’m getting too ol…” Marilyn stopped talking when Claudia offered her a look of disapproval. “Too unsubtle to dance like a teenager.”
“Then you should take a class.”
“Like Yoga?” Marilyn half-turned her nose up at the thought, she had looked into it before, but the women that went there were all peppy and had young children, and they all drank green juice that reminded her of the time Amber had wedged a sippy cup between her playhouse and the radiator – gross – nope, that wasn’t for her.
“Like pilates, or step class, or…”
“Ugh! Kill me now,” Marilyn said and dropped her forehead to the countertop again.
“Okay, baby steps,” Claudia said. “Buy a pushbike.”
“I haven’t ridden a bike since…” Marilyn thought long and hard, but she couldn’t come up with a year, or even a decade.
“Well, they say you never forget how,” Claudia said with a smirk. “A bit like sex – maybe…?”
“Don’t go there!” Then Marilyn saw the coffee mug coming towards her and purred. When Claudia placed on the counter in front of her face, she smiled at it. “Need fuel.”
“Can I get you a straw for that?” Claudia asked, noting that her friend still hadn’t moved.
“Baby steps, I’m getting there,” Marilyn grumbled as she wrapped her hand around the mug and dragged it towards her. “You know, I found muscles that have long since been forgotten.”
“Then just imagine what sex could do for you,” Claudia offered, slipping up onto the stool next to her, and stifling the groan she wanted to offer her hamstrings as they reminded her who was boss.
“Is that all you think about?”
Claudia offered her a wicked chuckle. “Pretty much, that and how to make my next ten million.”
“How much money do you have?” Marilyn said, looking shocked and a little sceptical.
“Fate’s been kind,” Claudia said, but for some reason, the smile on her lips didn’t materialise in her eyes. She’d wanted more from life, and now she was middle-aged she felt like something, or maybe someone was missing.
“Crime pays,” Marilyn said, bringing her back to the present.
Marilyn had the fairytale. She’d found the guy, got the house, kids, and it had turned into just another sad story like a country and western song.
Claudia wouldn’t have been so unforgiving of her ex if she’d been in her friend’s shoes. Maybe living alone wasn’t such a bad thing. At least nobody had ever disappointed her.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
~
Amber’s heart was thumping out a beat in her ears as she reached the kitchen door and caught sight of the burglar just as he made it out the backdoor. With every ounce of anger that she possessed, she lifted her hands, drew on her magic, and pushed out a blast of energy that hit him in the middle of his broad muscled back and sent him flying through the air.
Amber didn’t take her eyes off the man’s flight as she made it to the backdoor just in time for the landing. It wasn’t pretty, and the fact that he was waving his arms and legs like he was trying to fly and walk through the air almost made her laugh. She might have done just that if her victim hadn’t skimmed a bush and hit the broad trunk of the old oak, bouncing off its hard shell with a cracking thud and a loud grunt of pain to land on his back on the grass with another thud, that one muffled by the uncut grass.
“Serves him right,” she muttered to rally against the flash of guilt that flared inside of her.
Down and out – she’d got him good – and she should have been celebrating, doing one of those little dances that winners did – maybe even a victory lap of the garden. So why was that stupid guilt complex of hers tapping her on the shoulder and waving hello?
Amber rallied against her conscience, tripped over the lip of the doorframe and cursed, before she stomped down the porch, around the bush, and stood her ground ten feet away from where he lay. If ever there was a time to stick up for herself – that time was now.
“Why are you breaking into my house – again?” she demanded with a tone that sounded like Grandma Lou, even if it did quiver just a little bit, but she’d seen what her magic could do, and it was still tingling at her fingertips ready to go again.
Amber wasn’t entirely sure how ‘little ole her’ was going to explain being able to throw a guy thirty feet through the air when she called the cops, but maybe she could give him an amnesia spell or something before they arrived – Grandma Lou would know how to do it.
But the moment that he turned his head her way and she saw who was under his pulled up hoodie, Amber knew she wasn’t going to need to explain anything, because she couldn’t call the cops. “Seriously?” she demanded, and almost stomped her foot in annoyance.
How cruel of fate to make the only guy she’d looked at twice in what felt like years a man who was a lowlife thief. Geez, she should have known better even to think he was on her dance card – as Grandma Lou would say.
Oh yeah, she would have danced with him at the bar last night if he’d asked – but shame on her for even thinking it.
Hindsight was a wonderful thing, and this man was no white knight who was trying to save her from the vampire, if anything, they were probably in cahoots.
“I can explain,” Josh said, groaning as he tried to roll onto his side and his ribs protested. He needed another minute or two to allow his shifter blood to heal the damage she’d caused.
He hadn’t expected her to have some badass witchy moves, then again, he never expected her to catch him either, and lucky him for being on the butt end of her magic when she had. He guessed he deserved it.
“Yeah!” Amber spat out with a big dollop of disbelief at the guy’s attempt to wriggle out of it. “But I’m not sucker enough to listen to your lies.” And she wasn’t – she turned on her heels and stomped back the way that she’d come.
In a perfect world, she would have
been able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, and yet, in this one, she couldn’t even hop over the stupid bush that stood between her and the perfect exit, but how she wished she could that would have saved her forty steps and each step had a curse word behind it.
“I hate men,” she grumbled as she stalked into her kitchen, and slammed the door shut behind her with that excess magic that was burning to be set free. If she hadn’t attacked the poor wooden door, she might have been tempted to fry his backside.
Then she heard the footsteps on the back porch, and a groan or two that came from the thief’s lips, she turned and snapped the lock on the backdoor. Of course, the big, bad shifter could probably break down the door with a sneeze, but the act made her feel better.
“I just want to explain,” Josh said.
He had one arm wrapped around his body, his large hand pressing tightly against his side to dull the pain in his ribs. Josh rested his forehead against the wooden frame of the door for a second or two while that pain settled. He closed his eyes for a moment and held his breath until the stabbing pain eased.
The whole right side of his body was crying out for the time it needed to allow it to heal, but he didn’t need the wicked witch calling the police on him, and he felt guilty to his very core for her house getting tossed. It wasn’t meant to be like this, or maybe it was and he was soft in the head because she was female.
“Oh, please let me in – said the mental patient – I’m not here to murder you; I just want to talk, honest,” she tossed back, flipped him the middle finger, and turned back to the coffee pot. Something stronger would have been a blessing, but it was nine-thirty on a Sunday morning, and she wasn’t a day drinker – yet, but any more days like these last ones and she might become one.
“I can break the lock…”
“I can break your neck,” she said, turning back and skewering him with a death glare through the glass. Just a little bit of magic behind that look and he’d be crying and singing soprano. Damn, she wanted to do it, but she couldn’t – yet – because he hadn’t done anything new to warrant it, and she wasn’t a bad person or a bad witch, she liked to think of herself as fair.
“I didn’t come to rob you…”
“This time or the last time?”
“Either time,” Josh replied. He could have cut his losses and limped away, maybe he should have, but it didn’t feel right to leave her with the wrong idea about him. “I was with you last night at the bar,” he reminded her.
Amber paused for thought, and she narrowed her eyes on the coffee pot as it did its thing. It was true; he had been at the eighties night – but, maybe he’d had time to trash the place and make it there before she spotted him.
But wait – Amber got there later than her, and would he have had the time to wait for Amber to leave, then trash the place, and make it to the bar before she’d spotted him?
It would have been helpful to have a damn timeline, but it wasn’t like she’d checked her watch – mainly because she didn’t have one, but that was not the point. Amber couldn’t remember the first time she saw him in the crowd, and that meant she didn’t know what came first – her new roommate or the wolfman.
“With me – hardly?” Amber snorted her contempt for that idea, and yet, somewhere inside her, she felt like a fraud. She had seen him and contemplated dancing with him, and maybe more – until Scott had taken a hit to the head.
Ooo, a hit to the head? Had he done that?
No, she’d spotted him on her way out the bar when she was following Scott, and shifters might have been speedy, but they still couldn’t be in two places at once, unless he had a twin, but that still wasn’t him being in two places at once.
Damn it! In an attempt to pin a crime on the man so she’d feel better about attacking him, she was wrapping herself in knots.
What was his crime?
Why had she taken her witchy wrath out on him?
Oh yeah, he’d broken into her house!
Maybe he hadn’t broken in last night, but he was undoubtedly guilty today, and he’d broken into her shop – he had form.
Phew! Vindicated, and her guilty conscience could take a hike.
“So, which one of your furry little friends trashed my place last night?” she asked, and for one long moment, she thought she saw something on his face – was it guilt? Shame?
Amber had pinned the tail on that donkey and scored a direct hit on his guilty ass. Oh, he knew who had done it, and there he stood with his sexy body and his crinkled up eyebrows that made him look all innocent and man-hunky – well, she had his number, and she wasn’t falling for it.
“Listen,” Josh said and held both hands up to his chest in mock surrender to show her that he meant her no harm, even if it did pain his ribs to let go; he wanted her to see him for who he was, and he wasn’t a threat.
“Are you gonna mansplain it to me, sweetheart?” Amber tossed back, mocking him and hitting him with the daggers she threw with just a look. Funnily enough, she didn’t feel like putting any magic behind that look either, but if she had, well, she would have hit him a good one.
Josh opened his mouth and paused, whether it was for thought at her words or something else like making up more lies on the hoof, Amber couldn’t be sure, but he did have a strange look on his face. It reminded her of when her brother was constipated – same look – different reason? She’d blindsided him with that one.
Josh pointed his finger at her but kept his hands firmly at his chest. “You have a real problem with men,” he said as if he’d hit on a great eureka moment.
“I do?” Amber snorted a chuckle of disbelief.
“You do,” he said, sounding sure.
“I do not have a problem with men,” she said, slowly shaking her head, and that snort of disbelief turned into a mocking chuckle.
“Daddy issues?” Josh asked and regretted the words the moment they were out of his mouth. She snapped to attention and gave him the kind of look he figured could kill him if she just put her mind to it, but there was no backpedalling now. He’d said it; he owned it.
Still, it was a dumb move. Never anger a witch, especially one that could toss you thirty feet through the air without convening a coven to do it, and she looked mightily miffed off.
“Daddy issues?” Amber repeated, pulling her head back and twisting it to the side as if she was trying to identify which planet he was from, and how best to send him back there.
“It makes sense…” Josh said and stopped talking when her eyebrows shot up towards her hairline, and her chin went down, so she was eyeing him from under her long lashes.
Maybe doubling down wasn’t in his best interests, but, phew, she looked like a million dollars, a million dollars of trouble, he reminded himself. But then, some women were worth it, and nobody could expect a redhead not to be all kinds of bat-shit crazy.
“You might want to leave now,” Amber said and felt decidedly witchy as she raised her chin and put a wicked smile on her lips. “While you can still walk away.”
Josh reached up and scratched the back of his head as he considered her words. Backing down from a fight wasn’t his thing, and being challenged wasn’t the best tactic when dealing with a shifter, and his beast was antsy – not least because she’d kicked their butt with her magic. But, he felt the need to explain himself – for her to see him in a better light. “I came here to…”
“What part of get lost, don’t you understand?” Amber asked, snapping at him like he was a bad puppy who’d just peed up her couch.
Amber knew why she was getting decidedly testy, it had something to do with the fact that his wolfie-pup eyes looked like a stray that had been kicked – and technically, he had. She’d kicked his backside with her magic, and now he was standing there pleading his – sort of – innocence and trying to make excuses for why he was there.
Well, nobody was tugging on her heartstrings today – or stoking her guilt. There were times when she felt more Catholic than witch where
her guilty conscience was concerned, but this wasn’t going to be one of those damn times. He was wrong, and she was right, and no amount of puppy eyes was going to change that fact.
“Go – be gone,” she said with a flourish of batting him away with a wave of her hand, and she had thought about using her magic just to give it a little sting in the tail, or a hard nudge, but she decided against it.
“Fine,” Josh bit out as if those words left a sour taste in his mouth. “But, when I’m gone…”
“We can all rejoice…”
“Go and take a look, I wasn’t stealing, I wasn’t snooping, I wasn’t doing anything I shouldn’t have been doing,” he said, and promptly turned on his heels, and stomped down the porch with his big heavy feet.
“Except breaking and entering, and I’m too damn old to get a visit from the Tooth Fairy,” she yelled after him, eyeballing him through the window as he stomped away with wide strides on long legs that ate up the distance between them.
Amber realised that she was staring a little too hard, especially when her gaze went to his backside that filled out a pair of jeans rather nicely, and tried to pull her gaze away, but failed. “But, if you were the Tooth Fairy, there would be a lot of women pulling their teeth out and waiting for you to visit their bedrooms of a night,” she muttered and then cursed herself for thinking about him naked.
Naked!
Him!
Pah!
Men sucked!
Amber frowned on that thought. “Maybe I do have a problem with men,” she said to herself and grimaced. “But most of the men in my life bloody well deserve it.”
“Amber?”
Amber shrieked and spun in place with her magic ready at her fingertips and a belly full of anger inside of her.
Now what?!
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
~
Josh heard the shriek and his instincts kicked in. One moment he was cursing females and the next he was rescuing one – or so he thought. Perhaps breaking into her house again wasn’t the best idea in the world. Still, he went through the backdoor like there wasn’t even a lock trying to bar his entrance – he had the best of intentions followed by the worst pain he’d ever had to endure as the magic hit him hard and fast, and took him down to his knees.
