Casual Hex

by Vicki Lewis Thompson

  “I assume you never made it to Evansville,” Dorcas said.

  “Bob advised against it,” Gwen said quickly. “I have a guest room, so—”

  “Gwen is a wonderful hostess,” Marc said. “I am not such a wonderful guest. I am afraid travel weariness kept me from being very entertaining. I slept like the dead.”

  “Jet lag’s no fun,” Ambrose said. “We have some wine from Sedona that’s a cure-all for anything that ails you. If you’d like to stop by sometime today, we’d be glad to give you a bottle.”

  Gwen cleared her throat. “Thanks, but I don’t think we—”

  “That would be wonderful,” Marc said. “I would love to try one of the American wines, especially one that you recommend. When would you like us to stop by?”

  “Why not come around five?” Dorcas said. “We can offer you a glass of the wine so you can decide if you want a whole bottle. I’ll make a few appetizers.”

  “Really,” Gwen said. “That’s nice of you, but Marc and I have several things to take care of.”

  “We can finish them by five,” Marc said.

  Gwen laid a hand on his arm. “But—”

  “We can manage an hour.” Marc squeezed her hand. For some reason Gwen was trying to avoid this couple, and yet they were the whole reason Marc was in Big Knob. He needed to find out more about that, and he was very curious to see the inside of the Lowells’ house.

  “We’ll look forward to it,” Ambrose said with a smile.

  “Oh, by the way, Dorcas,” Gwen said. “I have your pendant.” She started to unbutton her coat. “I can return it to—”

  “Or I was wondering if you might be willing to part with it? I would like to purchase it for Gwen.” Marc glanced at Dorcas. “I do not know if you would consider selling it, but it looks beautiful on her. I am sure it looks beautiful on you, too,” he added quickly. “I only hoped that perhaps—”

  “Actually, I decided last night that I wanted to give Gwen the pendant,” Dorcas said.

  Gwen blushed. “Oh, no, I couldn’t take it. I’m sure it’s extremely valuable.”

  Dorcas gazed at her. “Would you deprive me of the pleasure of giving you a gift?”

  “Well, no, but there are gifts and then there are gifts. This one’s too much.”

  Walking toward Gwen, Dorcas laid a hand on her arm. “I have no daughters of my own, no one to pass things down to. That pendant seems made for you, and I want you to have it.”

  Nicely done. Marc admired the way Dorcas had taken charge of the situation. She had a great deal of personal power. He also suspected that she considered the pendant a talisman of sorts. It probably was.

  “What is the name of the stone?” he asked.

  “Larimar,” Dorcas said.

  “I have never heard of it, but it is beautiful. Where does it come from?”

  Dorcas trained her amber eyes on him as if he were a precocious kid who asked far too many questions. “The Dominican Republic, I believe.”

  Marc was convinced she had far more information on Larimar than she was giving him, especially when she turned away and gestured to the plants in an obvious attempt to change the subject.

  “What do you think?” she asked.

  “Bizarre,” Marc answered truthfully. “When did you first notice them growing here?”

  “Right after New Year’s,” Ambrose said. “Naturally, we dug one up and took it to Gwen for an ID.”

  Marc listened carefully. Unless he had lost every ounce of his intuition, Ambrose was withholding information, too. “Had you been to this clearing before?” he asked. “In other words, could they have been here all along, and you never noticed?”

  “It’s possible,” Dorcas said. “I’m not sure we’d been to this clearing before. What do you think, Ambrose?”

  Ambrose glanced at her as if looking for direction.

  They are making this up as they go along. Marc knew, without being able to describe the whys and wherefores, that Dorcas and Ambrose had put these plants there and then supposedly discovered them. The motivation was unclear, but once he had a chance to talk with Gwen alone, he would probably find out what their purpose had been.

  He decided to ask another question. “Have you ever noticed the unusual layout of the streets in Big Knob?”

  Beside him, Gwen drew in a sharp breath.

  She might not be happy that he had asked, but if he was right about what was going on in Big Knob, she would ultimately want to know. Ignorance was bliss until you were disillusioned by the truth. He would rather not have that happen to her.

  Dorcas gave him the same quelling glance as before. “According to the people who’ve lived here all their lives, the star shape is to honor the wife of the founder, who said she was his shining star.”

  “We’re history buffs,” Ambrose added. “We read all about it, and Isadora Mather must have been something special.”

  “Gwen told me about her assistance with the smallpox epidemic, but I cannot help thinking there is more to the story. Are you aware of the Wiccan symbol, a five-pointed star surrounded by a circle?”

  Ambrose shifted his weight. “I’ve heard something about that, yes.”

  “I believe I have, too,” Dorcas said. “I don’t understand all the significance attached to it, though.”

  They were lying. Marc was as sure of that as he was of his ten fingers and ten toes. They knew a lot more about the five-pointed star than they were telling. But he would not press the issue because he could feel waves of anxiety rolling off Gwen.

  “The five-pointed star is a common shape, though,” Dorcas said. “After all, little children learn to draw stars that way when they’re in kindergarten.” She laughed. “They can hardly be creating Wicca symbols, now, can they?”

  “Certainly not.” Marc decided to let it go for now. “I merely thought the street arrangement was intriguing.”

  Ambrose nodded and gave him a man-to-man look. “Makes driving a bitch.”

  And the founder a witch. Marc almost smiled at his rhyme, but he dared not. Until he had more information, he had to pretend he was still in the dark.

  “Driving is a challenge here, but I guarantee Paris is worse,” he said. Then he glanced at his watch. “I hope you will excuse us, but Click-or-Treat is nearly open, and I must e-mail my sister.”

  “And I need to open up Beaucoup Bouquets,” Gwen said. “It’s getting late.”

  “It is, at that,” Dorcas said. “We don’t want to hold you two up. We’ll expect you at five.”

  “We will see you then,” Marc said.

  Chapter 13

  “He’s figuring it out,” Dorcas said as they trudged back to where they’d p arked the scooter. “He’s going to blow our cover, and it’s our fault, because we decided to find Gwen’s soul mate.”

  “But that’s what we do. We find soul mates. It’s our raison d’être.”

  “Pardon me if I’m not in the mood for French. So it’s our reason for being. I agree with that, but why did we have to work on Gwen’s problem right now? Couldn’t we have worked on somebody else’s soul mate, maybe a person without a curious bone in his body?”

  “It’s going to work out. . . . Somehow.”

  That was so like Ambrose, to leave it up to chance. She wasn’t constitutionally capable of that. She turned the problem over in her mind, considering it from every angle.

  Perhaps she should have anticipated this, but she’d never imagined a botanist would recognize the town’s symbolic street grid. She obviously hadn’t placed enough importance on Jean-Marc’s love of the unusual or his yearning to explore the unknown. As a result, she couldn’t escape her final conclusion. “We have to tell him.”

  “Everything?” Ambrose glanced at her in shock.

  “Enough to satisfy him.”

  “You can’t mean that.”

  “If he’s going to leap to conclusions, I’d rather beat him to the punch.”

  “You’re mixing your metaphors, Dorcas, darling
.”

  She sighed. “That’s hardly important at a time like this, Ambrose, love.”

  Ambrose started walking faster, which was his habit when he was agitated. “I don’t like the idea of telling him. He’s not the type to settle down in Big Knob. We’ll never be able to keep tabs on his comings and goings. He travels all over the world.”

  “So right before he leaves town, we’ll find a way to give him a memory potion so he’ll forget what he learned.” They’d walked far enough down the road that she could see the hated red scooter standing in stark relief against the white snow.

  Why couldn’t Ambrose have bought something cool like a midnight-black Harley? No, scratch that. He could barely drive the scooter. He’d kill them both on a Harley.

  “Counting on a memory potion always makes me nervous,” Ambrose said. “It feels like a morning-after pill. And what about Gwen?”

  “She doesn’t have to know. If I’m reading her right, she doesn’t even want to know. She likes her current view of the world.”

  “So we have to find a way to separate them.”

  “That might be fairly easy, if he decides to stay at Click-or-Treat for a while and she has to open up her flower shop. Don’t you have to check your MySpace page?”

  “Not really. There’s nothing—”

  “Ambrose.”

  “Oh. You mean we should stop by Click-or-Treat because Marc will be there.”

  “The thought crossed my mind.” She happened to know that Ambrose had a genius IQ, much higher than hers, but when it came to the uptake, he could be dumb as a box of rocks. Dumber, actually. Rocks could send out some incredible vibrations.

  As she climbed on board the scooter behind Ambrose, she thought about one particular rock, the Larimar she’d given Gwen. It seemed to be helping the situation, judging from the sparks flying back and forth between Gwen and Marc.

  But Marc had been too blessed curious about the Larimar, too. She would have pretended not to know what the stone was, except that she’d broadcast its name at the Bob and Weave yesterday. Besides, a man like Marc would have tracked down the identity of the stone eventually. All she could have done was slow him down.

  “Here’s how we’ll work this,” she said to Ambrose as they picked up speed on the main road. “If Marc’s alone at Click-or-Treat, great. I’ll find a reason to talk with him. But if Gwen’s there, too, and seems to want to hang around, then show her one of those silly videos you’re always telling me about.”

  “You mean, go on YouTube?”

  “YouTube, MySpace—whatever you do to get these things. I don’t keep track of all that terminology.”

  “Maybe I’ll show her the dancing hamster one. And I could show her Potter’s Puppets. She’s read all the Harry Potter books. She’ll like those videos.”

  “Just so she doesn’t eavesdrop on me and Marc.”

  “Leave it to me, dear one.”

  She would have to. The Internet was not her forte. But damage control certainly was, and they were in desperate need of some.

  As Gwen led Marc along the curving path that joined two points of the star, she tried not to think that her cherished hometown would look like a Wiccan symbol from the air. Witchcraft should stay in novels, where it belonged, not come poking out into everyday life. She’d loved every one of the Harry Potter books, but they were make-believe.

  She was perfectly willing to let Marc trash her personal reputation, but she didn’t want him messing with the reputation of Big Knob. She wasn’t sure how to tell him that, though. He seemed so interested in the subject that her reluctance looked provincial next to his big-city curiosity. So she walked along in silence.

  “Cherie, you seem upset,” he said in his wonderful French accent.

  “Not really.” She wished they could collect his suitcase and go back to bed. Then he would forget all about this Wicca business.

  “I could tell you did not want to go to the Lowells’ home for a drink. Is that it?”

  It wasn’t, but she’d go with it. “How do you feel about professional matchmakers?”

  “I do not understand.”

  “Dorcas and Ambrose are marriage counselors, but they also offer matchmaking services.”

  Marc laughed in obvious surprise. “People actually hire them to do that?”

  “Apparently, although I haven’t heard of anyone actually paying them for it. They . . . wanted to give me advice before you arrived.”

  “I see.”

  “I didn’t hire them!” She spun around so fast he bumped into her.

  “Hey.” Smiling, he grabbed her by the shoulders.

  She cleared her throat. “Please don’t think I’d do something like that.”

  “As you said about the condoms, if you hired them, I would be flattered, not angry.”

  “Okay, but I didn’t.” She loved looking into his blue eyes and could easily forget the point she’d been about to make. She forced herself to concentrate. “The thing is, it doesn’t seem to matter, because they’re hovering over us as if I did hire them. It’s embarrassing.”

  “If it is their profession, maybe they are driven to do that. Do you ever long to rearrange other people’s floral centerpieces?”

  “How did you know?”

  He shrugged. “When I walk by a garden where someone is weeding, I want to interfere because nothing is a weed as far as I am concerned.”

  She let out a breath. “I’m probably overreacting.”

  “Not necessarily. They do behave as if they have a stake in us getting together.”

  “That’s sort of weird, don’t you think? I mean, I know them, but it’s not like we’re superclose. I don’t go over there for coffee every morning. I’m trying to remember if I’ve ever been in their house.”

  Marc rubbed his hands up and down the sleeves of her coat. “I know this sounds unlikely, but is there any way they could have brought those plants in themselves and then claimed to have found them?”

  “You mean it’s a hoax? A practical joke?”

  “No, not a joke. But what if they wanted to find you a nice botanist? What would be better bait than bromeliads growing in the snow?”

  She thought about that for several seconds. Finally she shook her head. “It’s an interesting theory, but the process would be too labor intensive. I don’t care how dedicated they are at matchmaking.”

  “They seem to have time on their hands, and they like coming out here.”

  “Marc, they’d have to practically live out here. You know as well as I do that keeping those plants alive in such a forbidding climate would take round-the-clock monitoring. They’d need some sort of portable plastic dome to protect them at night.”

  “I say they could be doing all of that. It could be a game to see if they can pull it off. If we came out here late at night and found a protective covering over them, we would know.”

  “Yes, we would.” She smiled at him. “But you’ll be in Evansville, won’t you?” Gotcha. “Want me to check on the plants and report to you in the morning?”

  He gave a little growl of frustration. “I suppose I could stay a little later than ten. But I will be gone before midnight.”

  “So I won’t see your rental car turn into a pumpkin?”

  “If I could manage that stunt, I could definitely stay all night. A pumpkin is easier to hide than a Pontiac.”

  “So all you’re worried about is having people see your car? We could hide it in the woods and walk back to my place.”

  He shook his head. “No, we could not. Sneaking around is not my idea of fun. I will leave town tonight, right after we check to see if someone is covering the plants.”

  “You’re a stubborn man.”

  “I do tend to stick with something once my mind is made up.”

  The way he said it warmed her all over. She had the distinct feeling he’d made up his mind about her, and that they’d be seeing a lot more of each other in the future. She couldn’t believe that Dorcas and Ambrose h
ad gone to the amount of trouble he was suggesting to bring them together, but if they had, the plan was working.

  She didn’t like being manipulated, but she couldn’t argue with the results. Marc was the lover she’d dreamed of ever since learning about the difference between boys and girls. He outshone by a mile that costumed figment of her imagination who had been visiting her at night.

  Thinking of her dream lover reminded her of how Marc had cried out in his sleep last night, which had started a whole chain of events she was most grateful for. But she’d never asked him about what must have been a nightmare. “Marc, did you have a bad dream last night?”

  He seemed to be looking inward, as if trying to remember. “There was something, yes.” Gazing down at her, he took her by the shoulders and turned her around to face forward. “But you reminded me of what happened after the nightmare. If we stand here another second, I will kiss you.”

  She liked knowing she tested his self-control, but she didn’t want to keep him from e-mailing his sister, so she did as he asked and started down the path again. “You seemed pretty upset by that nightmare,” she said.

  “There was a man, and he . . . oh, it is not important. It is too improbable.”

  “What is?” She wondered how he’d react if she told him the dreams she’d been having before he came to town.

  “Oh, there was this blond man in a police uniform, and he—ah, never mind. Forget about it.”

  She had the distinct impression that Marc was embarrassed to tell her the content of his dream. The man in a police uniform reminded her of . . . but no, that would be too crazy. Because Marc obviously didn’t want to talk about it, she let the matter drop.

  When Marc and Gwen walked into the Internet caf’ about ten minutes later, Marc was not surprised to see Ambrose and Dorcas there, too. Ambrose made some excuse about remembering he needed to check his MySpace page on the way home, and Dorcas had claimed to crave some of Jeremy Dunstan’s coffee, but Marc thought they were there to keep track of their latest matchmaking scheme.

  He pretended not to know that, though, and greeted them as if he had not expected to see them again so soon. Gwen introduced him to Jeremy and Jeremy’s Irish wolfhound, Megabyte, who sprawled next to the counter like a dog-shaped rug.