Jackie’s breath caught. She’d worried someday this conversation would happen. Her greatest fear had been Daniel finding her. She always remained one step ahead of him, avoiding this encounter at every cost.
But now, thanks to Cousin Carol’s meddling she lay forced to face the man who broke her heart.
Chapter Seven
For a fleeting, very, very, very fleeting moment Jackie considered appealing to the Goddess to send an ass-zapping to Cousin Carol. That delightful thought of revenge was a super, super, super-duper fleeting moment because she wasn’t stupid enough to let the idea linger.
She may not have been a very good witch, er, very skilled. She was certainly good, even if she was only good because fear of retribution kept her from being bad. But the point was she might not have been the greatest witch walking the planet, but she was fantastic at thinking up revenge tactics. In particular, the kind she never acted upon out of fear.
“Are you going to answer me?” Daniel’s eyebrows throbbed, the way they always did when he was pissed.
Jackie opened her mouth, hoping some grouping of words would come out and sound somewhat coherent. Nothing, not one single syllable found its way to her tongue.
Instead, a stream of greenish, brown magic slithered out. Odd as she hadn’t thought of even one magic word, never mind a spell.
Daniel closed his eyes. “You promised.”
Jackie shook her head. “It’s not happening on purpose.” She coughed. “And bippety, boppety are not words in real charms.” She rolled her eyes. Some people were so gullible.
“I should have known you wouldn’t keep your word. You never have.” He released her hands and sat back. “Why are you here?”
Jackie covered her mouth and coughed, choked, then sputtered, “I don’t know exactly.”
By the time she’d gotten the answer out magic streams of greenish-brown spirals shot from her ears, covering the entire floor around them in a smoky haze.
“What do you mean, I’ve never kept my word?” It may have taken a few minutes for Daniel’s accusation to sink into her cluttered mind, but when it did, the realization of what he was saying hit home like a punch in the gut.
“You’re the one who didn’t keep his word.” She sat up, shoving at his chest and knocking him off her legs. “You’re the one who lied.” She scrambled to her feet. “You’re the one who left me in the dirt when your parents threatened to send you to Siberia like some, some, some, well, you know.”
The memory of that day all those years ago slapped Jackie’s conscience with the cold hard hurt that reminded her Daniel never loved her.
It took more effort than she wanted him to see to fight the tears. Magic streamers of brown poured from her ears. “Damn it!” She smashed her hands over the sides of her head, trying to trap the magic inside. “This is why I hate this place.”
“Because it forces you to admit who you are?” He stood and watched the room fill with uncontrolled, uncalled for, unwanted magic. Slow winding streams of rust weaved through the brown cloud while wild bright green spirals shot here, there, and everywhere.
Magic seeped past Jackie’s fingers, and a rusty-brown smoke cloud circled her body. She jammed her forefingers in her ears. “In any other town, in any other state, this never happens!”
With each exhale a colorful cloud puffed from her nose and mouth.
“Why do you keep denying what you are?” In the palm of Daniel’s hand danced an iridescent purple ball of magic.
“How did you get that?”
“How do you think I got it?”
Jackie snatched at the little ball, but it leapt to Daniel’s shoulder, then his head. Brownish-rust billowed from her ears, making it nearly impossible to see beyond her nose.
“You know what? I don’t care how you go it. You want it? Keep it. I’ve got enough other shit to figure out. I don’t need to worry about why you’re holding that.”
Seeing the magic love bomb Jackie had created all those years ago brought back a flood of emotion-filled memories from her wedding night. Tangled up together in the back of Daniel’s truck was when she cast her last heartfelt spell. It was when she created the magic love bomb.
Well, it was just a silly little sparkly purple orb that danced for Daniel, but they named it the magic love bomb because that’s what immature people did when they secretly ran off and got married without their parents’ approval.
With magic pouring out of her ears and puffing from her nose and mouth, Jackie had set loose a magical shit storm in Daniel’s living room. The place pretty much looked exactly how Jackie felt.
She had never been good at cleaning up after herself, at least not in the magical sense. Let’s not kid ourselves. She kept a very tidy household. After all, she was raised in a house that had rooms only used when company came, and even that company had to sit on the plastic covering the sofa and chairs. Jackie knew how to clean a house.
She simply had no idea how to contain her magic or suck it back in once it managed to escape from her body.
“I would like to keep your little magic love bomb, but only if it comes with you. But as I see you have no plans to stay, take it.” From within the dense fog of brown and rust and green his hand reached for Jackie’s. “It will only kill me to keep something you don’t truly want to give me.”
Chapter Eight
The pretty purple ball of magic bounced on Jackie’s palm, and she could feel its desire. More than it wanted to be free, the stupid ball wanted to be with Daniel.
How was it that her own magic wanted to be with the man more than it wanted to be with her? It made no damn sense. But then, nothing ever did make sense around Daniel.
“I don’t want it. Keep it.” She tossed the traitorous ball back at him, then realized she’d just thrown a magic love bomb that might do who-knew-what at him. “Don’t touch it!” She leapt forward, knocking him backward and out of the line of fire.
They crashed onto the sectional, both quickly sitting up in time to see a burst of purple and green smash against the wall.
The sound of a tiny motorcycle engine revved past the couch.
“Oh, good Goddess. That damn annoyance is back. Why won’t he scram?”
“As I understand it you can’t simply banish your familiar. Sort of like you can’t make your heart stop loving someone.” Daniel stood up, watching Cricket, and for a brief second his features softened. “He always did love the purple ones.”
Cricket buzzed around, shooting up, then down, back and forth, side to side, darting in and out of the haze. As the smoke cleared Jackie saw him dive into the massive bush of petunias growing out of the wall.
Leafy green vines were covered in pretty trumpet-shaped flowers. The plant spanned a six-foot diameter on the wall. Hundreds of flowers opened wide as if welcoming the little pain in the ass.
Daniel looked at Jackie. She shrugged. “Hey, it could have been you wearing that petunia plant and getting dive-bombed by a ravenous hummingbird.”
“Is any part of my property safe from you?”
“I haven’t touched your car.”
“Truck. And you won’t.”
“What’s the matter? Don’t want to drive a flower-power vehicle?”
“Why don’t you like him?” Daniel held out his hand and Cricket landed. “He’s quite fond of you.”
“How do you fucking know what he likes and who he’s fond of? And why is he perched on your hand?” She marched over to where her familiar now sat, happily snuggled onto Daniel.
“Let’s just say I pay attention to him.”
“Well, obviously I pay attention to him, too. Why do you think the damn petunias are purple?”
For as long as Jackie had known Cricket she’d been unintentionally conjuring plants he preferred, yet another thing about her magic she hated. Somehow it knew what to do when Cricket needed something.
It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy helping others. She simply didn’t want a Cricket.
Jackie st
abbed a finger out and the pretty green and red hummingbird dutifully flittered over. “I’ll thank you very much not to interfere in this situation.” She marched over to the door.
“You can’t send him out. There’s more than five feet of snow beyond the Garden of Jackie that’s growing on this property. He’ll freeze.”
“Damn it! Go do something.” She waved her hand in the air, and Cricket sped away. The theme from Batman came from Daniel’s phone. “That’s a lame ringtone.” Jackie stomped into the kitchen for another piece of French toast as Daniel turned away and answered his phone.
“I know,” he said, then hesitated. “Yeah, well, I’m trying to get there. It’s just I have company.”
There was a pause.
“No. No. I’m not avoiding it. I hadn’t planned on the visit. She just showed up.”
Another few seconds of silence.
“What? No. I don’t want to say. What? Fine. It’s Jackie. She came home.”
When Daniel paused, Jackie heard a voice speaking rapidly, though she couldn’t make out the words.
When he spoke again his tone changed. “I know how important this is.”
Yeah, yeah. It wasn’t nice to eavesdrop. But a girl had to use every opportunity to figure shit out and then get the hell out of town. So, yeah, she stood at the edge of the kitchen, holding a plate of food and listened.
“I’ll be there. Don’t worry, Dad. There’s no way that kid is mine.”
Jackie froze, forkful of French toast midway to her mouth.
Realizing she’d been right about him seeing other women made her stomach turn. She couldn’t even consider putting the tasty bite of syrup-laden eggy, grilled bread near her mouth.
“I said I’ll be there.” Daniel’s voice dipped to an angry tone. “No.” After a split-second pause he continued, “The less she knows, the better.”
Chapter Nine
The idea that Daniel actually had been with other women was not surprising or impossible to believe. He was a thirty-year-old man with needs.
Jackie knew this. She’d always considered that he could, would, should, maybe, probably—the right thing for anyone would be to find someone, anyone, a person he loved. This concept, idea, notion was very plausible to Jackie.
It made sense. People were meant to be with people. The heart needed a lover. Werewolves needed mates. They needed their true mates. High school sweethearts, professing their teenage love for each other in overly dramatic, absolutely foolish ways were not the same as finding that one person who made your world complete.
Lust-filled nights in a car by the pond were not the same as intimate moments between soul mates who shared an unbreakable bond.
Knowing this plus logically considering reality and the fact she and Daniel had been apart for years and years and years, then contemplating all the facts surrounding love and a man’s needs (all of which Jackie did in six point four seconds) helped to illuminate the entire situation, thus forcing her to recognize that life really was a shitball.
Realizing life was a shitball and finding a way to move forward with this newly gained perspective was a feat that required time to acclimate. Generally speaking, this was time best spent alone.
“Jackie, I have to go. I won’t be lo…” Daniel’s footsteps stopped. “Jackie?”
“Yes?” She turned around and forced a smile that practically broke her face.
Daniel startled, jumping back. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, of course.”
“What’s in your hair?”
“Oh, this?” She plucked a pretty blue flower. “It’s myositis scorpiodes. You don’t like it? I think it’s rather pretty.”
Who was she kidding? Certainly not herself. Jackie may not have been able to see what she looked like this time, but she’d seen her hair do this enough times to know she looked like one of those insane runway models that had been dressed by some famous designer in an outfit that no normal woman would be caught dead wearing.
“Why do you have forget-me-nots growing in your hair?” Daniel asked.
“Forget-me-nots? Oh, no. These are scorpion grass.” She looked away, noticing the petunia had withered and died on the wall.
Dreading what she anticipated she’d see, Jackie ventured a quick glance toward the floor. Sure as shit a grayish-brown covering of what looked like dry dirt floated over her feet and rose to her ankles. Shuffling her feet was useless. The action only made the smoke rise to her knees.
“Same thing. Listen, I have to head out for a bit. Just a short meeting to square away a little problem. I’ll be back and we can pick up where we left off.” He winked and walked a few feet into the kitchen, coming toward Jackie. In spite of how damn sexy he looked with smoldering eyes and a wicked smile, she had the good sense to step backward, taking the magic soil with her. Two more steps and she dodged behind the kitchen’s center island.
“You’d best be on your way. Don’t want you to be late for whatever thing you have to go do with whomever you have to do whatever you have to do.” She waved her hands behind her, trying desperately to force the dingy magic swirling at her thighs to go away, far away. “I’ve got some stuff to take care of, and I’ll do that while you do what you do with that situation that you aren’t responsible for creating.”
Ducking down she huffed and blew, waved and swatted, but to no avail. The dingy cloud churned and swooshed, and before she could even think of the words to any charm that might stop what was happening from happening, she found herself sitting in a thick trunk, branches shooting out in four directions.
With no effort and clearly no intention to heed her screeching commands to stop, an oak tree shot straight up to the vaulted ceiling before sprouting leaves.
“I can fix this,” she called down, unable to see where Daniel stood through all the foliage. She could only imagine his face and how terribly irritated he must be. Who would not be pissed off if a twenty-foot oak suddenly appeared in his kitchen?
“You think you can fix this?” Doubt rang out in his voice.
“I think I can. Or, we could simply get an ax, which might be safer for everyone, the house included.”
“Well, at least none of the windows broke this time,” he said.
This time.
The not-so-gentle reminder of the incident that sent Daniel’s parents into a tirade about him marrying a witch still hurt. At the time Jackie was naive enough to believe it was the actual tree in the living room that sent Mr. and Mrs. Ridgeback into a rage.
Funny how time and experience brought clarity. The tree, though an expensive incident, had very little to do with their reactions. However, there was no denying it was certainly a catalyst to get the fire burning.
Daniel’s footsteps moved away from the kitchen.
To say any one of their parents approved of the union would be an all out lie. In fact, it was far more accurate to say they were all so angry they forbade Daniel and Jackie from seeing each other, even in school.
But the actual truth of just how disappointed they were with the marriage would best be described as Jackie’s parents threatening to give up their own magic “and die as mortals in a painful, ghastly, gruesome way” as Mrs. Tortellani so eloquently sobbed the distressing potential demise.
Daniel’s parents took it equally as badly. Mrs. Ridgeback threatened to send Daniel to military school, and when he agreed to go, she threatened to send him to Russian military school—in spite of the fact they were not Russian and knew not one soul in Russia.
“I’ll find a way!” she’d shouted. “They’ll keep you locked in Siberia until you’re thirty!”
Thinking back Jackie realized now just how Oscar-worthy these performances had been. Oscar-worthy and effective.
Brown and green magic swirled and puffed, winding its way through the leaves. “Oh, dear Goddess, please.”
Jackie wasn’t sure she could possibly withstand whatever else her magic brought on. Between the indoor tree, the gargantuan petunia, the blas
ted scorpion grass, and the memories from hell, she had no doubt her head would explode if one more thing happened.
“You know, you could try a spell and see if it works.” Daniel’s voice came from the left. He stood on the bridge that connected one side of the house with the other, passing through the lofted ceiling.
Jackie sighed. The poor man was delusional. “Probably this won’t live for very long so no matter what you won’t have to worry about watering it.”
At just that moment the giant dead petunia plant fell off the wall and crashed onto the stereo.
“Sorry.” A knot grew in Jackie’s throat.
Tears. Wretched tears built in her eyes. “Shit.”
“Doesn’t matter. I wanted a new one anyway.” He climbed over the railing, into the tree, and sat opposite Jackie.
“I’m not talking about the stereo.” She swiped away the few leaking tears with the back of her hand.
First, she was not going to break down into a blubbery wah-wah-wah girl in front of the man who broke her heart. It was not happening.
Second, she was not going to have to explain why anything else started growing in his house, and Jackie damn well knew the “anything else” would be god-forsaken bleeding hearts.
“Magic tears?” Daniel reached over and caught one on his finger.
“Don’t let that fall.” She grabbed for his hand, but he jerked it away, balancing the glistening little drop on the end.
“What will grow this time?”
“Why risk finding out?”
“Do you mean you don’t know?” He turned his finger and the drip slid down an inch. “I don’t believe you.”
“Daniel! You’ll regret it.” Jackie lurched forward and grabbed his finger, sucking it into her mouth. “Ha! There. I win.”
“Do you?” Daniel pulled her onto the branch in front of him. Before she could answer he leaned in and kissed her. Long. Slow. Hard. The kiss, as always, was perfect.
Magic and Mayhem: The Witch, The Weeds, and The Were (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Spaghetti Romance Book 1) Page 4
