Witch in the House

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Witch in the House Page 11

by Jenna McKnight


  And her heart, blast it, did a little pitter-patter and made her think, How can I be mad at him when it’s my fault he’s here?

  “If a guy was at my sister’s house for dinner,” he said, “and two strangers showed up after dark and asked her to drive off with them, I’d sure want him to check them out.”

  “Sure, you say that now, but—”

  “Hell.” He blew out a breath. “I’d want him to pack a gun and go with her.”

  Mason wasn’t looking at her the way a man looks at his sister, but Jade wasn’t about to say so, because then he might move toward her with a line like, Yeah, how’m I looking at you? or I was speaking hypothetically, but now that you mention it… She wanted him thinking about leaving, not putting the moves on her.

  Instead, Mason took her by the shoulders and softly kissed her cheek, his breath warm and moist on her skin, and damn, in spite of all her resolve to the contrary, she didn’t have the wherewithal to spring away from him.

  She felt herself nuzzle against him. He lingered close until she whispered, “What’s that for?”

  “Dinner.” His voice was gruff, and not all attributable to his cold. He put two inches of space between them.

  Jade gazed up into his eyes, trying to read him, but it was too dark, and he was too close.

  Then, probably because she’d been too surprised to lurch away from him, he slowly pulled her back toward him, closing the gap until he held her firmly against his chest. He was tall and big, and had no trouble wrapping his arms around her in a warm, secure hold that made her remember what she’d been missing, and would take weeks to forget.

  When he oh-so-slowly relaxed his hug, still allowing only a couple inches of space between them, she whispered, “What was that for?”

  “To warm you up.”

  She wanted to lie and say it didn’t work. She wanted him to embrace her again, only longer, so she’d have more to remember. So she could dream of how close she’d come to getting it right.

  She didn’t dare. Instead, she forced herself to ease out of his arms, to turn away and stumble into the Jeep and slide behind the wheel.

  The problem with continuously developing and casting spells to get rid of Mason was that she was always aware of him. Always evaluating his face and mood—did he look or sound unhappy enough to leave? Everything he said and did. Was he any closer to leaving? Or further from it?

  As a result, Mason was always on her mind, and she noticed the little things about him that ordinarily might have passed unnoticed. The little smiles tugging at the corners of his mouth when he was amused by something she said or did. The heat in his eyes, which he quickly masked whenever she turned to him, but not quickly enough. The promising sizzle behind a kiss on the cheek.

  Fine. He could stay until Saturday morning, but that was it.

  Nathan’s truck died. Jade experienced a surge of incredible joy, thinking she might not have to leave just yet. Quickly followed by the voice of reason and Nathan’s truck revving back to life.

  Jade saw Mason’s brow crease. He probably was thinking, Great, their truck’ll die out on the road, she’ll give them a lift and never be seen again.

  “Don’t worry about them,” Jade said. “They’re Noah’s nephews.”

  “And Noah is?”

  “The milkman. He’s practically family.” And had been ever since her grandmother had helped his father with a Steady Business spell. When Weezy was in the kitchen, Noah left extra yogurt in the refrigerator and hung out for an hour. “Watch your toes.”

  She shut the door and threw the Jeep into gear, not leaving any time for Mason to talk his way into the passenger seat. She was often called out at odd hours to help someone. Even if she wanted to talk to Mason on the long drive, she sure didn’t want him seeing what she did once she got there. Noah wouldn’t have told his nephews she was a witch if he didn’t know they could be trusted; no one she knew could vouch for Mason.

  It was miles before Jade felt the cold again, miles during which she drove like a robot, following Nathan’s taillights through the snowy night as she relived Mason’s kiss, the touch of his lips, the pull of his arms. The heat in his eyes.

  Focus.

  She didn’t need to go to Nathan’s place, not technically. She could have handed the sea salt-valerian mix to him with explicit instructions on what to do, but his family’s situation hit a little too close to home. When Mystic Manor had been heavily in debt, there’d been talk about the town taking it over, charging tourists to traipse through her historic house and touch her furniture and carry negative energy into her conservatory while a local guide explained how riverboat shipping and a lumber boom had made a tycoon of Sebastian Delarue. While her living situation and Nathan’s were vastly different, the underlying stress was the same. It had been a difficult time for her, and she hadn’t been pregnant, like Nathan’s wife. For all concerned, Jade wanted to handle this herself and get it done quickly.

  As the air inside the Jeep warmed, Jade noticed a hint of oranges and nutmeg. She grinned to herself, then, because she knew Mason, who’d driven it for hours today, had chosen Luck Soap from the assortment in his bathroom.

  So, he felt he needed a little luck, hm? A little extra help from the spirits to move his book smoothly through publishing channels, perhaps?

  He didn’t have to know the soap was charmed to make it work; all he had to do was think about what kind of luck he wanted while he was washing, and, barring any negative thoughts he might harbor to the contrary, the energy he sent out would do the rest.

  Funny he’d passed over the Love Soap. Maybe he’d given up on love for a while. Not that she could blame him, after being dumped like that.

  Darn, there I go again, thinking about Mason.

  Jade wiggled in her seat, mentally grounding herself to the here and now, concentrating on the swoosh of the wipers and the winding road instead of Mason in the shower with her soap. Geez, she hoped he didn’t think it was “Get Lucky” Soap. The way he looked at her sometimes, it was as if he wanted to gobble her up.

  How could a kiss demand so much attention when no lips had met? That was silly. Ridiculous.

  It was all the more special because it was different. She reached up and touched her cheek, right where Mason’s lips had caressed her skin. She wanted him to do it again, only mouth to mouth next time.

  Good grief, she was in big trouble. No wonder he hadn’t left Mystic Manor! The powerful attraction between them had overridden all her attempts to send him back. No spell to get rid of him was going to work if she wasn’t a hundred percent behind it. The same went for the one she planned to do for Nathan.

  She smacked the steering wheel with her palm. Concentrate! She could figure out what to do about Mason later. Right now, Nathan needed her help.

  This spell was a simple one, but her intention had to be clear. She’d sprinkle the sea salt-valerian mixture in a circle around the rental, focusing on how Nathan’s family needed that house to live in a while longer. It would buy extra time for them to find another place. A nicer place. With lower rent. Closer to his job. In a nice neighborhood.

  Now she was cooking!

  The perfect number of bedrooms and bathrooms to fit their situation. Low maintenance. Good, safe appliances. No hidden detriments or dangers. A perfect place for Nathan’s wife to nest. That was a different spell. She had everything she needed for that one, too.

  Maybe she could spend a little time thinking about Mason.

  “Mystic Manor, huh?”

  Anthony reviewed another recording, this one made at the local computer repair shop that afternoon. He always carried a busted laptop to break the ice. The tech had gone right to tapping buttons, bringing up screens that Anthony had no idea how to access.

  “Buddy of mine used to live there. Five, six years ago. No, a little more, I guess. Man, I sure miss him. Used to play poker together a couple times a month. You know, rotated where we played. But we never played there. Mm, this doesn’t look so goo
d.

  “Lucky bastard. Never met anyone could win as often as he did. He even won my bird dog once. Dog never was the same after that. Slept for a week when I got him back, then woke up and looked at me kinda like, Oh, man, you again. Like he was depressed to be home or something.

  “You met the old man yet?”

  That caught Anthony’s attention.

  “Ah-hah! You’ve got spyware on here. I can fix it. Give me a day or two.”

  “So what excuse did you give Jade?” Anthony asked when Mason related the postdinner, potted-tree fiasco.

  “Right then? Nothing. I froze, plain and simple.”

  Had Jade pressed, his only recourse might have been to pull out his Glock and shoot himself, but that would necessitate even more explanations, at which, apparently, he wasn’t very adept.

  He wouldn’t be any better at explaining why he was in her closet at three in the morning. With her off at Nathan’s, and Annie and Weezy not likely to pop in, he’d had the run of Mystic Manor all evening and into the night. He’d heard someone in the kitchen once, but since he hadn’t seen anybody when he went to investigate, he blamed King Kong and counted himself lucky.

  He’d searched every guest room; every box, tin, and trunk; every closet, cabinet, and drawer on both floors, except for the conservatory, which he’d get to later.

  Only one room had been locked, and it was a doozy. Talk about War of the Witches! Two altars stood on opposite sides of the blue room, and even though they both held candles, incense burners, and various small items, such as crystals, they couldn’t have been more different. One was simply a scarf-covered dresser, without a speck of dust. The other was a marble-topped table, and who’d notice the dust on it with a crystal ball the size of a bowling ball sitting on the tabletop? Oh yeah, Jade knew she had witches in the family.

  Clothes in the closet and drawers belonged to a man and a woman, and it definitely wasn’t the room Jade had shared with her husband, then locked up when he went missing. All the sizes and styles were wrong.

  Tables held bowls of salt. He’d have to get back on the internet and find out what that was about. Family photos covered the walls, along with a framed collage of Mystic Manor during various stages of construction. Not exactly the blueprints he’d heard about in Anthony’s update, but maybe the old guy at the hardware store had embellished.

  Nothing was revealed about Jade’s missing husband, so Mason had moved on to her office. He spent a lot of time going through hanging folders, trying to discern what devious method she used for filing, only to throw up his hands and conclude there was none. After that, when a quick scan showed six hundred thousand files on one computer alone, filed by the same devious method, he installed wireless network adapters in both of them. With Jade’s odd hours, and Annie and Weezy coming and going whenever they pleased, the only way he’d be able to examine those files thoroughly was from the privacy of his room.

  And that had brought him to her room. Mason’s flashlight lay on a shelf, and as he took a moment to rotate it toward a stack of shoeboxes, he caught a familiar smell. It wasn’t the first time he’d smelled cigarette smoke in the house, but he’d yet to see anyone light up.

  “Hey, Anthony, you smoking out there?”

  Anthony was slouched on his tailbone on a chair. He’d kicked off his shoes and propped his feet on the windowsill on the far side of Jade’s queen-size bed, keeping an eye on the driveway as he listened to snatches of conversation he’d recorded, sharing pertinent details with Mason after each one.

  “Yeah, I took it up five minutes ago. Figured after thirty years of clean lungs, I owed myself a treat.”

  “You can’t smell it?”

  “No. I thought you had a cold.”

  Mason paused in surprise. “Hey. Wow.”

  “What?”

  “Jade made me some tea. I guess it worked. My throat’s better, too. Which reminds me, you need to send your mother some flowers.”

  “I do?”

  He told Anthony about the bouquet from Lyle and Brenda.

  “I’ll do it first thing tomorrow,” Anthony said. “If Lyle stopped in and chatted, I might get something, but if he just called it in, well…”

  Mason checked his watch often, hoping Jade would be home soon, even if it meant he had to quit for the night, because the longer she was out with those two bozos, the more he worried about her safety.

  “What do you know about Noah?”

  “The milkman?” Anthony said. “Took over the business at fourteen when his father died. So, clear this up for me—you just walked out from behind the tree and led the guys into the dining room to enjoy the fire?”

  “That’s about it.”

  Bingo! Letters from the dead husband in a shoebox. Undated, so Mason had to read them. Stockard wasn’t much of a writer, and it was easy to see these were written before Jade had married him.

  He went through every shoebox. Lots of stiletto heels. Even strappy sandal ones; man, what he wouldn’t give to see Jade in those and a short skirt. Thinking about her in the red pair made him forget he’d been awake since dawn.

  “You couldn’t come up with a reasonable excuse,” Anthony said around a yawn, “because you always think you’ll never get caught.”

  “Never have been.”

  “Until now. You’d better have a good story by the time she gets back.”

  “Nah, I covered my ass in the driveway. Told her, ‘come on, a woman living alone in a relatively remote area, answering the door in the dark of night—what man wouldn’t be concerned for your safety? If you were my sister, I’d want me to check out the guys at the door.’ I think she bought it. Plus, I warmed up the Jeep for her.”

  “I don’t know, Mase. You give a woman hours to mull over something like that, she’s bound to come back angry.”

  “Anybody who loves chocolate as much as she does and leaves it behind to go help two strangers—which, by the way, is nuts; you have to try some of her mousse. Anyway, someone who can do that isn’t the type to hold a grudge.”

  “You have to remember, this is a small town.”

  “Say, did you see who shoveled the walk?”

  “I figured you did.”

  Mason leaned around the jamb and stared at Anthony.

  “Right. What was I thinking?”

  “We need a camera out there.”

  “I don’t know about you, but if I were playing dead,” Anthony said, “I wouldn’t shovel my wife’s walk.”

  “You might if you were in town to pick up a million dollars.”

  “Are you about done? I can hardly keep my eyes open.”

  Mason closed the lid on the red sandals and returned the box to the stack. “Do you mind? I’m being thorough.”

  “Yeah? What’ve you found? Hey, you’re not trying on her bras and panties, are you?”

  “Very funny.”

  Mason snooped through built-in drawers next, suddenly engrossed in trying not to picture Jade in silky lingerie. His fingers slipped through stacks of it, searching for anything below the skimpy items. Some slinky. Some lacy. All sexy. It was several minutes before he realized Anthony hadn’t said anything.

  “You still awake out there?”

  “Yeah, just thinking. Is that why you didn’t become a spy when you had the chance? You were afraid you’d freeze up like you did downstairs?”

  “Hell no. Spies get sent places they don’t want to go. Cold places.” Mason shivered just thinking about it. “And they get shot at.”

  “You’ve been shot at.”

  “Yeah, but they were all amateurs.”

  “That’s not it. You’re a risk taker. Like scuba diving—most people go down to see fish; you’re not happy unless you’re exploring wrecks. And what you did in Jade’s office—how are you going to explain networking cards in her computers?”

  “There’s enough wires under there to hold up a bridge. She’ll never notice.”

  “But if she does.”

  “Then what’
s to say I put them there?” Mason pulled a pink-flowered hatbox off the topmost shelf, disturbing the layer of dust on the lid as little as possible as he lifted it off. “Hey, found something.”

  Anthony strolled over to the closet door. “Anything good? Knife with dried blood? Murder pact signed by all three women? Love letters dated last month?”

  Mason spread the contents on the carpet, sorting through what was left behind when a husband disappears.

  “Passport. Birthday cards. Anniversary cards. Wedding photos. Same guy as in the pictures scattered downstairs. Three guys, hunting, fishing, a boat. Nice boat. I could live on a boat like that.”

  “They owned it together.”

  “I guess so—a cruiser like that isn’t cheap. What happened to it?”

  “It was in their names; the husbands’. It sat on a lift for a year, then the wives leased it out. What else do we have?”

  “Pocketknife. Yo-yo. Wedding band; too small to be his. High-school diploma. College diploma. Hey, wait.” Mason fanned through birthday and anniversary cards, taking a closer look. “These are to him, mostly from Jade. Some are from his parents. This is the kind of stuff you save for somebody else, in case they come back. She didn’t kill him.”

  He felt it in his bones, as sure of her as he was of his own name. He’d wanted to kiss her deeply by the Jeep. At the last minute, common sense had grabbed hold of him and steered him to safer territory. If there was any chance of enjoying Jade’s arms around him, the gun had to go. Fortunately he was carrying the baby Glock and could move it to an ankle holster.

  He fanned through the contents again. No love letters from Jade to Stockard. He couldn’t believe she hadn’t written any. Jade was a font of feelings, of emotions. A woman who’d love deeply and passionately and have no qualms about committing those feelings to ink.

  The slimeball hadn’t kept them. In that instant, Mason decided he didn’t like Stockard. Dead or alive, didn’t matter, even if the guy had met some untimely horrible fate and wasn’t guilty of insurance fraud, he just plain didn’t like him.

  Stockard better hope he was dead, because if he was alive and had left Jade to think he was dead, to find out the man she’d loved hadn’t loved her back, it’d take more than Anthony to hold Mason back from punching the guy out.

 

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