A Bundle of Trouble (The Lynlee Lincoln Sets Book 1)

by Olivia Hardin

  He smiled and pointed a finger at me the way one points a gun.

  “What do I do when I find out about it?”

  “I don’t know how deep this gal may be into the black arts. I just wanna make sure it’s not going to be another disaster.”

  I knew what he meant. Some of the world’s worst natural disasters were really the work of black witches and warlocks.

  I didn’t have to ask why. Goblins love to probe into things they shouldn’t. The phrase curiosity killed the cat… well, it probably killed a few goblins too. The fact that Tig knew the witch only heightened his interest.

  To bring to point how right on I was about my assessment of him, as he stood Tig looked at me and bunched his eyebrows together in an unattractive frown. “Aren’t you gonna open that envelope you got from the homeowner’s association?”

  I picked up a wadded up piece off paper from my desk and chucked it at him. He cackled like an old man as he proceeded toward the door.

  “You’ll have to pay for this one, you know? You’re putting me outside of my comfort zone.”

  “Aw, Lynlee, you have no comfort zone. You’re perpetually uneasy with life in general. I’ll email you the info on the bounty.”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to argue with him before he left the room, but it was easy to see how he might come to that conclusion about me. I was cool under pressure, and if I wasn’t cool, then I was irritable. I suppose one could say I didn’t give the impression of being very contented as a general rule.

  Listening to the slam of my back screen door with his exit, my mind immediately turned to Beck and the kids. I wondered what they were up to and a part of me yearned to be with them.

  And who says I don’t have a comfort zone?

  I wasn’t exactly thrilled when Beck asked me to watch the kids for him. Even when I was a teenager I never babysat. I mean, Mom pretty much knew I was a witch from about the age of ten. If that weren’t bad enough, I was pretty much a smart-mouthed teenager who didn’t take much from anyone.

  Even if I had wanted to make some money watching kids younger than I was—and I did not want that in the least—I wouldn’t have been allowed to do so. How could I be trusted when I might conjure a strip of duct tape to magically slap across a mouthy kid’s lips?

  I was really nervous about keeping Beck’s kids overnight. I adored the rugrats, but I wasn’t sure what to do with them during a full twenty-four-hour period. Still, Beck needed work and he had an interview about five hours away. The kids had school the next morning so they couldn’t go with him.

  He needed my help and part of me was honored he would ask. It was a pretty small part and it was quickly being crowded out by the anxiety I wouldn’t let show.

  “So Jilly’s bed time is eight. She won’t give you a bit of trouble. Her internal clock seems to be geared towards it and she’s ready to close her eyes at the appropriate time,” he said as he gathered up his bags and slung them over his shoulder.

  I didn’t feel the need to tell him that wasn’t surprising given she was a nymph. Just like the patterns of nature, a nymph’s body ran with order and efficiency. Once they had a pattern, they followed it.

  “Justin will be a different story. Nine o’clock. No exceptions. At eight forty-five have him brush his teeth, get a glass of water, and hop into the covers. It’ll take him at least that long to settle down.”

  The sound of beeping and clicking made its way down the hallway from the kids’ bedrooms. I grinned from the corner of my mouth. “Okay. Got it. What’s for supper?”

  “Supper? You’re a woman. Don’t you cook?’

  “Pfft! You’re dating the wrong lady if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  Beck’s chest rumbled with laughter. “Good thing you’re with me, woman. There’s lasagna in the oven.”

  “Wow. Beck the chef,” I murmured with eyes wide. My man never ceased to amaze me. He’d certainly settled into domestic life pretty well. About as quickly as I realized how impressed I was, my stomach sank in consternation. If he was the domestic one, where would that leave me exactly?

  “Are you good with all of this?” Beck asked, gathering up his bags and heading for the front door.

  “Piece of cake,” I shrugged.

  “I didn’t make any cake. You’ll have to work dessert on your own.”

  I chuckled and held the door open for him. He made his way out to his truck, tossing his things in the back and then hopping in the driver’s seat. I stood in the doorway a moment, one hand holding the screen door open, the other on my hip. When he glanced at me he clenched his eyes closed and shook his head.

  Jumping out of the truck and hurrying up the steps to me, he took my face in both hands and kissed me hard. “Sorry,” he whispered close to my ear. “I’m nervous as hell.”

  Pecking his gorgeous full lips one more time, I brushed my hands across his cheek and studied his eyes. “Nervous? Nothing to be nervous about. You’ve got this, Beck. There’s not a doubt in my mind. Now, go knock ‘em dead.”

  A few hours later, Jilly was proudly skipping around the house, waving her hands back and forth to dry the bright pink nail polish I’d applied for her. I wasn’t much of a girlie-girl in all honesty so I hadn’t done a very good job. In fact, I pretty much sucked at painting on nail polish, but little Jilly didn’t seem to mind the excess paint on her cuticles and smeared on either side of each nail.

  Just as predicted, when the hour arrived for her bedtime, Jilly allowed me to test her nails to be sure they were dry and then traipsed off to her room without a fuss at all.

  Justin hadn’t minded entertaining himself while I dolled up his sister, but once she was in bed he invited me into his room to play video games with him. Just Cause was a game I could get into—that is, after I figured out how to play it. I briefly wondered if I should have been born a boy, but it didn’t take long for the action to get to me. Justin and I were jumping around and screaming at the screen.

  Before I knew it, it was a quarter of nine and Justin was as hyper as if I’d fed him a bag of candy bars. I was in a predicament, and I knew it.

  “Whoa, it’s time for bed. Get to the bathroom and brush your teeth,” I advised him.

  “Ooo, just a minute. I can get out of village if I just get past this… aw man!”

  “That’s a sign, I think, young man. I want to see a toothbrush in your hand.” I laughed and ruffled his hair. When I realized the affectionate gesture I’d just made, I nearly snatched my hand away from him as if it burned. I do not ruffle kids’ heads.

  “Cld chou wead me a schltory?” Justin said to me, his mouth full of toothpaste and brush.

  “Come again?”

  He turned back to the bathroom and I heard him spit then clean out his brush before he returned to his room. “I said could you read me a story. I’m not tired yet.”

  I’m pretty sure my face showed horror for just a split second, but then I furrowed my brows and pointed to his bed. “A story? What kind of a story?”

  He shrugged as he curled into his WWE-decorated bed. I started to panic, looking left and then right for an escape. It may have been my alarm that caused me to make such a brash decision, but at that moment the only idea I could come up with was to read to him the book I had in my purse.

  The book had arrived at my house just the day before and I hadn’t started it yet. I didn’t have an e-reader, although overall I was pretty techno-savvy. No, I just liked the smell and feel of a real book in my hands. I was looking forward to the second of Liz Schulte’s Ella Reynolds’ series. Kill two birds with one stone then, Lynlee, I told myself with a raise of my eyebrow.

  When I returned to Justin’s room after retrieving the book from my purse, he scooted over to the far side of his bed. It took me a moment to catch on that he wanted me to sit beside him. A bundle of discomfort started to jiggle in my stomach, but I decided the sooner I could get him to settle down and sleep the better.

  “What’s it called?” Justin asked,
tucking his pillow against my side and snuggling into his blankets.

  “Dark Passing. Okay, so here we go. Chapter One: ‘ If I can make it through living in a haunted house with a deranged psychopath, I can make through a date…’”

  So I think I could probably blame Schulte for the fact that I got lost in the story and forgot my audience. I thought I would just read a chapter or two, Justin would fall asleep, and I could go on about my business.

  “Ew! They took off her skin!” Justin cried, and I jolted out of the story with alarm. The boy was no longer on his pillow but had his upper torso draped across my lap, and I was partially in the bed with his blankets across my legs.

  I stuffed my hand into my pocket to retrieve my telephone. It was almost eleven o’clock. A groan welled up within me and I dog-eared the page—almost the middle of the book. What the hell was I thinking?

  “I didn’t know that’s what that meant. Mut-i-lat-ed. Wow!”

  His eyes were as big as saucers and a sick feeling settled over me. “You know, we are in a little bit of a bind here, mister. It is very, very late and you have school tomorrow. Close those eyes and get to sleep.”

  “Aw, but I want to find out who did it. I bet it was that jerk cop. Feegan.”

  I snorted. “You mean Fagan. Go to sleep. Maybe I can finish it with you another night, okay?”

  I finally got Justin to sleep, but I had to use slightly nefarious means. I contacted an associate, Sandy, to help me get the boy to drift off. Justin never saw the Sandman poke his head into the room and sprinkle him with the magical dust that would bring the boy good dreams. Satisfied with my decision to use magic for my babysitter duties, I headed off to Beck’s kitchen to get some work done.

  I had two tasks before me. One, I had to draft a response to the demand I received from the Lake Mayberry Homeowners Association. And two, I needed to research the bounty on Tig’s dark witch so that I could start investigating the matter for him. Pfft! I mentally muttered, The things one won’t do for a friend.

  I had to get the former task done first because if I didn’t, I knew the second would hijack my time for the rest of the night. So even though it made my pulse pound just to think about the “Mayberry Seven” as I liked to call them, I opened up the wadded letter from them.

  I had been in Lake Mayberry barely six months when I raised the ire of the “Seven.” If I had known how oppressive homeowners associations could be, I might not have purchased.

  Okay, I probably would have bought the mafia house anyway. I love that house with a great big <3.

  Cycling was my exercise of choice. Mainly because it just didn’t feel like exercise. I liked nothing better than to grunt and heave my way up a steep hill and then to come down the other side with the wind whistling past my ears. It made me feel like I was flying, which was something I couldn’t do, even with my witchy powers.

  Anyway, I mentioned how much I liked riding to a neighbor one day and discovered the association had a series of biking trails along the north end of the property. I remembered distinctly how Mrs. Fenton had leaned in close to tell me how just about 5 years earlier there was an imbroglio about dues and assessments. The majority of the association never made use of the biking trails. It was costly to keep them maintained and cleared, and several of the bridges over the springs and creeks needed rebuilding.

  Lesson number one: don’t get chatty with your neighbors. It can only lead to trouble.

  I checked out the old bike trails, and if I had been an emotional person I might have jumped up and down with glee. The twists, turns, hills, and curves made me salivate the way a triple cheeseburger with double bacon might have Rhiannon panting in a puddle of drool.

  So I decided to jump in and be neighborly. I approached the Mayberry Seven about fixing up the trail at my cost. I knew I could do it for super cheap because I had a group of wood sprites who owed me a huge favor from a few years back.

  Lesson number two: Never volunteer. Never, never, ever. It is like putting a target on your back.

  It took months to get the Seven to grudgingly agree to allow me to improve the trail. They probably didn’t expect me to be able to afford the project since they had no idea about my MAUC resources. I also may have jumped the gun a bit because before they could send me the formal letter about working under the direction of Tholsom Inglebrook, the Property Landscaping Director, I pretty much already had the trail up and running.

  It may be that I’d gone overboard on the project. Having the sprites get the job done in a little over 36 hours was a tad much. What really sent them over the edge was that, since the sprites were so eager to settle their debt to me, they went overboard too. Those shifty little fellows completely redesigned the trail to have stacked loops for an assortment of trail lengths and difficulties. Bridges, rock paths, steep hills, undulating rolls.

  The periodic water fountains were what put the Mayberry Seven into a rampage. Somehow the sprites had tapped into the homeowner’s association water lines to provide cool water for bikers and hikers. How dare we want homeowners to have access to the water they pay for?

  So, all of this is to say that I should have followed my normal operating procedure and minded my own business instead of mingling with my neighbors instead of offering to help out a quasi-government agency.

  The issue with the trail system was far from over, but for now the Mayberry Seven were taking cheap jabs at me. The current one being the deteriorating status of my storage shed out back. Grrr….

  I made a hasty and admittedly emotional response draft to the demand. I liked my storage shed the way it was, but the Seven wanted me to have the building updated and painted to match my home. Double grr… I set the letter aside and turned my attention to the dark witch.

  Believe it or not, there are actually alternate internet feeds for the magical world. Facebook? Try Spellbook, for obvious reasons. Craig’s List? That’s Oz’s List, after the “great and powerful” wizard. (Okay, so that’s a little tongue in cheek since everyone knows the wizard wasn’t really magical, but he did have a lot of cool stuff to give to Dorothy and her entourage.)

  My head was lolling and slipping off of its perch in my palm by the time I finally tracked down the bounty. I scribbled the information on my notepad and glanced at the clock in the lower corner of the screen. It was well past two in the morning and my eyes were crossing. Slapping my laptop closed, I yawned and dragged my feet down the hallway to bed.

  My body was curled up into a tight ball, the blankets wrapped up to my chin, and I was still freezing. Did I forget to pay the gas bill? I thought even as I shook my hand to conjure my wand. I pointed it over my shoulder to my right, sending a spark into the fireplace as my body shivered and my teeth chattered.

  If the cold weren’t enough, I was in the middle of a fabulous and very hot dream about Beck. I clenched my eyes shut and tried to recover the vision, but it escaped me. For some odd reason, even though I couldn’t get the dream back, the scent of Beck was strong in my nostrils. Sometimes I liked to sniff the air the moment I was within touching distance of him just so I could take in that smell. It was a warm earthiness combined with a scent like… like fresh laundry.

  I sniffed again. Fresh laundry and burning paper.

  I bolted upright, tossing the blankets off with such force that I lost hold of my wand and it went flying across the room. That was unfortunate because I had just realized that I was not in fact in my own house with a fireplace in the bedroom.

  Beck didn’t have a fireplace. That meant a stack of magazines were currently caught up in a building inferno against the far wall. I tripped over the blankets as I tried to get out of the bed and fell against the nightstand, whacking my forehead on the corner.

  “Damnit!” I cried, clutching my head and crawling to retrieve my wand. As soon as I had the magical stick in hand, I used it to toss water onto the fire until it went out.

  Just then Justin came charging into the room, his eyes wide in alarm. “What happened?”


  I was distracted by the fact that, when I brought my hand away from my forehead, it was wet and red with blood. A curse was on the tip of my tongue, but I held it at bay due to the mixed company. “I just had a little accident, Justin. I’m okay. Just give me a minute.”

  “We’re late.”

  Those were Jilly’s words, and I looked to see her hiding behind her brother and looking at the scorched wall in her father’s room. I’m in so much trouble.

  ~oOo~

  I got the kids to school only half an hour later, finessing the attendance officer with a story about an “unfortunate accident” that morning. The poor young woman kept glancing in dismay at the gauze I was holding against my forehead. Once she had the children off to their classes I spent about ten minutes convincing her that she didn’t need to call an ambulance for me.

  Even though I didn’t want an ambulance, it was clear I needed to do something since it wouldn’t stop bleeding when I got back to Beck’s SUV and looked at my head.

  “Hiya, girlfriend. What’s up?” Rhia answered her phone with unusual perkiness.

  “What’s wrong with you? Did you just feast on a small dog or something?”

  She snorted. “Nope, just a bag of fresh blood, a dozen pancakes, a double order of sausage, and a few gallons of orange juice. The juice is what did it. I’m on a sugar high.”

  “I’ve had a little accident. Are you close enough to get to my place?”

  “Is it serious? What do I need?” Her tone changed to all business.

  “Not too serious, but I’m bleeding like a stuck pig. I’m glad you’ve had your blood dose for the morning.”

  I used my amulet to orb back to my place and had just gotten in the door when Rhiannon pulled up in front of my house.

  “Damn, girl. You weren’t kidding. What happened?”

  I explained the morning, trying my best to downplay my own idiocy. Rhia couldn’t hide her amusement. By the time I got to the part about falling out of the bed, she was laughing hysterically.