“Earth to Sinclair!” Garvin’s voice jolted me out of my tangled thoughts, and I blinked at him. I had no idea what he’d been saying, and it was obvious from his exasperated expression that he knew.
“We need to make a plan for this weekend,” he prodded, keeping an eye on me to make sure I paid attention. I nodded for him to continue. “We have four birthday parties, three Saturday and one Sunday. One is a princess theme, two are your generic birthday theme, and one is a cowboy party.” Garvin was in full business mode now, and it was always a sight to behold. For a man as flamboyantly dramatic as Garvin, it was disconcerting to see him shift into his role as CEO of multiple businesses. The family money originally came from tobacco, but Garvin had continued his father’s efforts to diversify the family holdings. They could see that tobacco was a slowly dying source of revenue and needed to make sure they continued to be profitable.
When Garvin realized the possibilities of my ability, he decided we would have a magician’s act for kids’ birthday parties. I had to give him credit. It was a brilliant idea. It suited my skills, while minimizing discovery, and it beat the illegal activities I had been known to carry out to make money in the past. Considering I hadn’t even graduated from high school when we met, I had come a long way.
“We’ll do the standard then for the two simple parties, but you want me to change it up for the princess and cowboy?” I surmised from his description. We had a simple routine for most parties, depending on the age of the kid, including your standard rabbit out of the hat, card tricks, and disappearing acts. The whole “magicians never reveal their secrets” shtick came in handy for us.
“Yes,” he said, looking uncomfortable. I waited for whatever insane idea the mother had requested for her little princess. “For the princess party, they want the illusion of a carriage turning into a pumpkin .... They want you to dress as the fairy godmother,” he finished in a rush, leaning away from me and whatever pissed off thing I could come up with.
I shrugged and smiled a little. I could see why a little girl would want that fantasy, and I had an idea of how to make it happen.
“I can make the carriage happen.” Garvin looked relieved that I was being reasonable. “But there is no way in hell I’m dressing up as a fairy.”
He groaned and set his hands on the table. “They are paying good money! And it’s not like you have to wear the actual clothes!”
“That is beside the point,” I told him, shaking my head. “Glitter, a wand, and a dress? I don’t think so.” I folded my arms across my chest and arched an eyebrow. “But you can if you want ….”
“Hilarious,” he deadpanned, and I smirked.
“I think it would be. Besides, out of the two of us, who makes the better fairy?”
“Well, it would clearly be me, but I think they’re looking for a more traditional godmother. And she’s not a fairy! What kind of fairy tales did you read?” he finished, exasperated with me.
“The kind where she was an actual fairy,” I said, mischievously. He looked at me suspiciously, never certain if I was telling the truth. Honestly, I wasn’t always sure. It seemed my mother’s versions of the well-known fairy tales were a little bit different.
“What about the cowboy one? That one seems more my speed,” I said, tapping the sheet in front of him. He sighed but moved on.
“Yes, it is. They want an old fashioned, high noon shoot out. Straight out of a John Wayne movie.”
“Hell yeah!” I fist pumped. “I get to be the bad guy, right?”
Garvin shook his head at me, attempting to hide his amusement at my excitement. He finally nodded, and I jumped up to dance around the table. In an odd way, being the entertainment at all of these kids’ birthday parties gave me back all of the birthdays I had missed. There was an innocent quality to them that I had been denied as a child. I think Garvin realized it, as well, and fought to make sure our business was successful. I knew he didn’t need the money or the hassle, but it had never stopped him from committing to it fully. Plus, I was pretty sure he secretly loved the parties too.
“Calm down, Calamity Jane,” he finally told me. “We have to finish this, and I need to find a damn fairy godmother.” I sat down on my knees and leaned over the table, giving him a peck on the cheek. “You’re the best, Garvin.”
“I know. And you need to find that cop.” I frowned at him, but it didn’t deter him. He was like that, sneaking in topics that I didn’t want to think about, much less discuss. “Don’t think I didn’t see what happened.” I glanced away. “He saw through your illusion, and in the past four years, I’ve never seen that happen.” I refused to look at him, because in the last twelve years that I had been able to cast illusions I’d never seen it happen either. I wasn’t willing to admit to myself how disturbed I was about it, and I didn’t want to deal with Garvin. I jerked away from the table, and he sighed.
“I love you. You know that.”
I stared out the window, refusing to respond. I heard his chair scrape, and then he came behind me, pulling me into a hug. “Something is changing. I may not be magic like you, but even I can sense it.” I shuddered, and he squeezed me tighter. I fought the tears forming, as I looked at our reflection in the glass from the window. His tall frame was folded around mine, the lime green shirt he wore, practically blinding. I still didn’t know where he found dress shirts in the colors he did. I swore he had them custom made. He rocked us back and forth, and I felt some of my tension loosen.
“Change isn’t a bad thing,” he whispered. “Maybe you need to give it a chance. Maybe he’s meant to be a part of your life.” I couldn’t respond to his words, the knot holding back my childhood memories threatening to unravel, but I leaned into him slightly. He nodded his understanding and continued to rock me.
Sometimes I wondered where I would be if I hadn’t rescued Garvin that night. Would I have made it to my twenty-first birthday? It seemed as if I’d had a death wish back then. The way out had seemed impossible to me. And now, I wasn’t sure if I hadn’t wasted the life I’d been given. My mother’s words echoed in my head, “I didn’t have a choice. I love you.” Maybe it was time I figured out why she felt she didn’t have a choice.
After a minute, I shrugged his arms off me.
“Enough with this affection bullshit. You’d think you were a girl,” I growled at him, downplaying how much it actually meant to me.
He looked at me with knowing eyes, but only said, “Honey, you know if I was a girl you’d want to be me.” He flicked his hand at me, and I laughed. There was no denying he would be the better dressed between the two of us.
He wrinkled his nose at me. “By the way, you stink. Just gonna tell you that’s not the way you catch a man.”
I made it a point to look around, “I don’t see any men to catch.”
“Haha, you so fucking hilarious. As if you were my type.” He lifted his nose in the air and sniffed, and I was forcibly reminded of a large black poodle. I snorted at the mental image and skirted around him before he asked me what I was laughing about. Because if he asked, I would be forced to cast an illusion of a poodle running around my kitchen with a lime green bow in its hair.
Chapter Four
“The party was a hit,” Garvin said, carefully. I stared straight ahead, still pissed. “They loved you.” His tone had turned cajoling, but it wasn’t having the desired effect on my mood. “The carriage illusion was brilliant. You even had the mice!” I turned and glared at him. He gulped but gave an unrepentant smile. “We had to have a fairy godmother!” he exclaimed, not even trying to fight the smirk that was starting to form.
“Yes. You were supposed to hire someone. NOT spring it on me at the last damn second. I have glitter on me. GLITTER. Do I look like a person that wears glitter to you?” I growled at him, hitting the gas, as the light in front of me turned green.
“But it looks good on you!” Garvin said, cheerfully.
“Not the point.” I muttered, changing lanes to pass a slow po
ke. “I swear; how do people get their driver’s licenses?” I waved my hand indicating the person I was passing.
“Pretty sure they were actually going the speed limit, sweetie. You can’t hold that against them,” he mentioned, grabbing the door handle, as I accelerated to get back in my lane to avoid an oncoming car. “Why do I ride with you?” he muttered to himself.
“Because you feel a need for speed?” I smirked at him as the speed soothed my raw mood. We’d shown up at the party early to set up, me wearing my usual black. Garvin had been twitchier than normal, but I’d attributed it to nerves. For someone as flamboyant as he was, he tended to have performance anxiety. He was awesome, once he was on, but he had the worst stage fright beforehand.
But I quickly discovered his nerves had nothing to do with performing when he dragged out the damn dress.
“Oh no,” I told him, shaking my head. “That better be Garvin sized.” He gave me a pleading look and said, “I didn’t have a choice. There was no one available today. You can’t disappoint that little girl.” He gave me puppy eyes as he pointed to the birthday girl prancing around in her Cinderella dress. I closed my eyes against the sight. She was turning six today, the same age I was when I lost my family. “Please, Sinclair, it’s her special day.” I groaned, already knowing I had been defeated the second I saw her. Garvin knew me well, so he didn’t gloat, as he shoved the dress in my hands. “You can change over there,” he said, pointing to a tent set up next to the house. “I’ll get the rest of the stuff out of the car.”
I shuffled to the tent, barely keeping the dress from dragging on the ground. Moments like this made me wonder why I kept Garvin as a friend. He was a manipulative little bastard.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said, as I held up the silver heels, knowing there was a high likelihood I would trip and kill myself today. The dress fit me like a glove, exactly like I knew it would. I would give Garvin that much. He could size a woman up in a glance.
I stumbled my way out of the tent and right into the little princess. Her eyes grew huge as saucers when she saw me. I couldn’t stop my smile, as I winked at her and gave my wand a flick.
“Bippity Boppity Boo!” She giggled and clapped her hands. I kept my smile, as I slipped into my party persona. There was no way I would ruin this little girl’s day. However, when it was over, I would ream one lying Garvin.
“Did you really have to pass glitter out to the girls and tell them to throw it at me?” I demanded, gesturing to the massive amounts of glitter covering my hair and clothes. I hadn’t had an opportunity to change, so I was still in my godmother outfit, getting glitter all over my seats. I shifted, feeling like it had crawled between my butt cheeks and positive I would never get rid of all of it.
He had the grace to look sheepish at my comment. The little girls’ mother hadn’t looked happy when she saw him hand the little girls small containers of glitter. Luckily for him, they had dumped most of it on me and not spread it everywhere, so the mother hadn’t complained. However, he still had me to deal with and the copious amounts of glitter still coating me.
“I thought it would be fun,” Garvin said, sinking deeper into the seat. Obviously, he had realized his error in judgement, but since I was the one currently covered in fourteen different shades of pink glitter, I would decide when he was off the hook.
“Fun? Yes. Let’s define fun: enjoyment, amusement, or lighthearted pleasure. Did any of those appear to describe me as glitter was being thrown at me?” My eyebrow arched, as I awaited his reply.
“It’s no fun when you can freaking quote the dictionary.” Garvin muttered defensively.
“There’s that word again. So this ...” I moved my hand in a circle indicating us in the car, “is not fun for you?” He groaned and covered his eyes. “Let’s recap. Garvin will never ever blackmail Sinclair into wearing a dress ever again, if he values his balls, and she will never ever, and I do mean ever, have glitter thrown on her for any reason, up to and including saving her life, if it came to that.” My grin was sharp as I glanced over at him, hunched down in his seat. “Oh yeah, Garvin will also pay to have Sinclair’s car professionally cleaned, until she does not see one single speck of glitter.”
“I promise, I swear. Will you please stop now?” He looked at me pitifully, and I felt myself relent. I rolled my eyes at him and he sat up immediately, any shame instantly gone. “Whew, that was painful. I’ll take your car tomorrow to be detailed. Now, you have to admit, that was the happiest little girl in the world.”
I shook my head, never ceasing to be impressed at how quickly he got over things. “Yes, she was. But I’m warning you, Garvin—”
“I know, I know,” he interrupted me. “No dresses and no glitter.” He paused, and I could see the wheels turning. I knew it’d be a no, but I waited to see what he was coming up with. “How about a Cat Woman costume?” I gave him a disbelieving look. “Wonder Woman?” he tried next. I gave a faint shake of my head. He took a breath to speak again, but I just shook my head. We pulled into the circular drive of his southern mansion, and I stopped in front of his massive entrance. “Out,” I barked, and he huffed before opening the car door.
“You are such a killjoy,” he sing sang, slamming the door shut. I spun my tires pulling away and saw him stick his tongue out at me like a schoolgirl. I flipped him the bird, as I turned into my own lane.
Only one thing could make this day from hell complete, and as I pulled into the carport next to my converted carriage house I saw him. My imagination hadn’t exaggerated his good looks, and my shitty luck was nothing if not abundant.
I set the car in park and sighed, as I looked down at myself. I had somewhat vainly hoped I would never see him again, and never in my wildest imaginings would I have been wearing a fairy godmother dress covered in pink glitter.
There was no denying his smirk, as I stepped from the car.
“I pictured several different scenarios for when I tracked you down. This one somehow didn’t make the list,” he said, his voice a low rumble that sent heat flashing through me. His eyes traced a path down my body taking in all the glory that was my appearance, thanks to Garvin. Now I had yet another reason to string him up by the balls.
My grimace was obvious, as I walked up to him. I desperately wanted to cast an illusion, making myself look like a supermodel, but I figured that ship had sailed. I didn’t know what it was about this particular guy that had me more worried about how I looked and less concerned about what his presence on my doorstep meant.
“Cheer up, princess. Most people don’t get arrested all dressed up. Think how pretty you’ll look for your mug shot,” he declared with a laugh.
“Fairy godmother,” I corrected him, opening my front door. I paused, as Serafin slipped out and rubbed up on the good looking officer. I couldn’t deny she had excellent taste, as I watched her. My cop looked down at her uncertainly. “First flirty cat?” I mocked him, and he squatted down to stroke her.
“No, but she does complete the picture,” he said, cryptically. I ignored him for the moment and debated if I really wanted to go inside my house wearing a dress covered in glitter. A huff escaped me, as I decided I didn’t want to live with the glitter, while waiting to make Garvin clean my house as well as my car.
I glanced over at him, but his head was still down petting Serafin. I guessed he didn’t consider me a runaway threat. He would be right. At some point, I had decided I wouldn’t continue running from my past, and that was obviously going to include Officer Cutie. I made a mental note to learn his name before I slipped up and said that out loud.
I carefully cast an illusion that I was standing in front of him wearing the glitter covered gown, while quickly stripping out of said gown. Luckily, I had a sports bra and boy shorts on, but they really left little to the imagination. It hadn’t slipped my mind that he had seen through my last illusion, a trick I wanted to know more about. Was he the only one? And how? At first, he had believed the illusion, but something h
ad allowed him to see through it. I was under no misconception. He was here because he wanted to know what had happened that day.
I kicked the dress over the side of the front porch, muffling the sound it made, as it landed on my hydrangea bushes. I winced slightly, hoping it hadn’t knocked my blooms off. I had been babying those damn hydrangeas for two years, experimenting with their colors. Garvin’s mom had assured me that gardening was a soothing, yet ladylike hobby. She was under the impression I could be made into a lady and, I suspected, her daughter-in-law. She still held out hope that Garvin was going through a ‘phase’ and would suddenly decide to marry and give her grandbabies.
I snapped back to attention, as he rose to his full height. I was an average five foot four, but he made me feel dainty, compared to his six foot plus height. I sucked at visual measurements, so he could be six foot one or six foot four, and I couldn’t tell the difference. He studied me, as I held my breath, hoping he couldn’t see through the illusion. He frowned slightly, a puzzled look on his face, but it cleared as his next words chilled me to the bone.
“Claire Monroe? Or should I say Sinclair Davis?” He asked, watching me carefully. The flash that went through me, as he said my given name, felt as if I had been burned, not with flame, but ice.
The fact he knew my name, the one given to me by my mother, a name I hadn’t gone by since I was six years old, terrified me. I shuddered from the cold radiating out of me, the day was a warm eighty degrees, but it could have been ten below freezing from the way I trembled. The past I had pushed away for so long came roaring back to me, an inescapable freight train that I either had to get on or be crushed by.
Unbound (The Trinity Sisters Book 1) Page 3
