Heavenly Hijinks

by Ashley Ladd

  An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

  www.ellorascave.com

  Heavenly Hijinks

  ISBN # 1-4199-0534-1

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  Heavenly Hijinks Copyright© 2006 Ashley Ladd

  Edited by Heather Osborn.

  Cover art by Lissa Waitley & Syneca.

  Electronic book Publication: August 2006

  This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502

  .

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

  Warning:

  The following material contains graphic sexual content meant for mature readers. This story has been rated S-ensuous by a minimum of three independent reviewers.

  Ellora’s Cave Publishing offers three levels of Romantica™ reading entertainment: S (S-ensuous), E (E-rotic), and X (X-treme).

  S-ensuous love scenes are explicit and leave nothing to the imagination.

  E-rotic love scenes are explicit, leave nothing to the imagination, and are high in volume per the overall word count. In addition, some E-rated titles might contain fantasy material that some readers find objectionable, such as bondage, submission, same sex encounters, forced seductions, and so forth. E-rated titles are the most graphic titles we carry; it is common, for instance, for an author to use words such as “fucking”, “cock”, “pussy”, and such within their work of literature.

  X-treme titles differ from E-rated titles only in plot premise and storyline execution. Unlike E-rated titles, stories designated with the letter X tend to contain controversial subject matter not for the faint of heart.

  HEAVENLY HIJINKS

  Ashley Ladd

  Trademarks Acknowledgment

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

  Armani: GA Modefine S.A.

  Barbie: Mattel, Inc.

  Bewitched: Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc.

  Blue Tooth: ICA. USA. G&S

  Calgon: Calgon Corporation

  Calvin Kline: Phillips–Van Heusen Corporation

  Chippendales: Chippendales USA, Inc.

  Evian: Societe Anonyme des Eaux Minerales d’Evian

  George of the Jungle: Disney Enterprises, Inc.

  Google: Google, Inc.

  Gucci: Gucci America, Inc.

  Harley–Davidson Motorcycles: H-D Michigan, Inc.

  Sun Signs: Linda Goodman, Bantam

  Manolo Blahniks: Blahnik, Manolo Individual

  Prada: Prefel S.A. Corporation

  Prozac: Eli Lilly and Company Corporation

  Tarzan: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.

  Heavenly Hijinks

  Chapter One

  As nonchalantly as he could, Leo glanced to his right and then his left. The Gemini twins were knitting. Knitting! Scorpio was chasing some tail—his own. And Pisces…Pisces was swimming—in circles. Surely they must perish from the tedium.

  Daughter of Cronus, what had his zodiac family come to? It was his birthday and he didn’t want to spend it with these sticks-in-the-mud.

  Last year the dorks had thrown a party in his honor. And what a party—punch and cookies. Not even spiked punch. Not one burnt sacrifice had been offered. Worst of all, Sagittarius had thought it’d be fun to pin the tail—on him.

  Brooding and deep in thought, a growl rumbled deep and low in Leo’s chest as he peered down from the heavens at all his little mortal Leos scurrying about on the planet below. On the whole, his charges were well and happy. No one overly misbehaved.

  Meanwhile, the stars were losing their twinkle. Bored out of his skull, he surfed a moonbeam over to his good buddy Cancer. “What’s up, dude? How about you and me hit the cosmos and find a couple of hot babes?”

  Cancer picked at something in his craw and grunted. “Can’t today. I got a little something hot planned with Virgo.”

  Leo shrugged and flipped his waist-length hair behind his shoulders. If Virgo was in Cancer’s house, so be it. He seriously doubted the teasing virgin would let him go beyond second base, no matter how smooth his friend’s golden tongue. “Okay. Later, dude.”

  He jumped aboard a shooting star and rode it to Cassiopeia. He let his appreciative gaze roam her delicious curves. “Hey, baby. How ‘bout you and me celebrate my birthday in style?”

  Cassiopeia’s ethereal gown shimmied as she sashayed toward him. She planted her fists on her hips and her arctic gaze froze him out. “Aren’t you a bit old for these shenanigans?”

  What shenanigans?

  Bristling, he took a step away from her majesty, the ice princess. “Old? I’m 3500 years young.” He had at least five hundred more years ‘til he became an old coot.

  She raised a finely arched brow and folded her arms across her chest. “Get lost. Go sniff around elsewhere.”

  He’d be damned if he’d tuck his tail between his legs and slink off. Instead, he roared and stood tall and proud.

  “Grow up.” She turned to her friend Pisces, and they laughed together.

  5 Ashley Ladd

  His pride wounded, Leo flicked his tail and jutted his chin in the air. “Just wait until it’s your birthday. See if I care.” Like it was so bad to have a threesome? Would she have been more receptive if it had been with another man?

  Cassiopeia flicked her wrist with disdain. “Whatever.”

  He thought he heard her mutter, “Insolent braggart.” Her tinkling laughter grated on his sensitive ears. He kicked himself for wasting his time with these losers. “Who needs you anyway,” he mumbled.

  A sudden, uncontrollable urge to leave his house and feast elsewhere consumed him. The planet below sparkled. In fact, it didn’t just sparkle—it glowed. Mischief brewed in his soul and suddenly he knew he had to lose himself amongst the mortals, to go where he was revered as a god, where he wouldn’t crash and burn with the babes. “Hasta la vista, baby.” He caught an earthbound comet and escaped the unheavenly heavens.

  * * * * *

  Clestie Williams gaped at her aunt’s little shop of horrors—her little shop of horrors. Groaning, her hands splayed wide, she turned to her cousin and best friend, Elizabeth Lombard. “What was Aunt Petunia thinking, leaving an occult shop to us, and in particular to me? You’re an accountant. I’m a professional dancer, not a soothsayer.” At least, she hoped the injury to her leg would heal, permitting her to return to the dance world.

  Clestie flicked her gaze over the innumerable jars of frogs’ tongues, dried locusts, witches’ wart and even more horrendous stuff that lined the walls, and shivered. Whoever thought dried bug guts was an aphrodisiac was nuts, and she didn’t want to meet them. “Bless her soul, but Aunt Petunia was a little off her rocker.” Oy! Now she sounded like her dad. He’d never liked Petunia, had even tried to keep Clestie away from her “demonic” influence.

  Elizabeth chuckled. She had Petunia’s coloring, unlike Clestie who favored her father’s side of the family, with her rich chestnut hair and short, chubby figure, her sweet, velvety chocolate eyes and pug nose. And most particularly with her dowdy, nondescript dress. She definitely wasn’t the fashionista Clestie prided herself on being. “Aunt Petunia was a certified sweetie. And dancer or not, it won’t hurt you to own a business.”

  Clestie’s eyes crossed at the jars labeled “dried camel testicles” and “Druid’s Fantasy”—this was something she’d never seen on Broadway. Not even off, off Broadway. “Oh yeah, she was a sweetie. An ins
ane sweetie.”

  “That’s your dad talking. Good old Uncle Henry.” Elizabeth picked up the business ledgers from the nearby desk and narrowed her accountant’s shrewd eyes. She turned one of the books around and placed her fingernail under the bottom line. “She was also one heck of an astute insane sweetie. Apparently, this occult stuff is a booming business. Half my clients would kill for books this far in the black.”

  6 Heavenly Hijinks

  Clestie looked over the top of her reading glasses at the dingy little shop and then peered at the bottom line and whistled long and low under her breath. She perused the shop again, shaking her head at a jar labeled “flies’ wings”. “Seems there are a lot of nuts running loose out there that like this stuff.” And she was scared witless to meet them, too.

  Elizabeth snapped the records shut with a tsk-tsk. “Looks like our clientele love this stuff, and we’re not going to keep them calling them names.”

  “Our clientele? You don’t seriously expect us to run this place, do you? Count me out. Oh no, no, no. You can have it or put it up on the auction block if you don’t want it.”

  Elizabeth stood with a sigh. “And disappoint Aunt Petunia? She entrusted her baby to us, and she wants us to carry on her legacy. We’re all that’s left of the family.”

  Loyalty to her father and love for her dear old batty aunt warred in Clestie’s heart. Petunia had been such a godsend after her mother’s early death. She pointed a shaky finger at her cousin. “That’s blackmail.”

  “No. I’m just speaking what’s already in your heart.” Elizabeth rounded the table set up to display sparkling crystal balls and gave Clestie a hug.

  Warmth flowed through Clestie and sudden tears stung her eyes. The tears she’d been holding back since their aunt’s death broke through her dam of resolve and she sobbed on her cousin’s shoulder for several moments.

  Elizabeth patted her back. “There, there. Aunt Petunia wouldn’t want you to be sad.”

  Clestie tried to smile past the haze of tears and finally a tremulous smile broke through. “She wouldn’t.” But she couldn’t stop the tears.

  When the waterfall slowed to a trickle, she gazed around the shop again, more daunted than ever. Her gaze landed on the séance table, and uneasy chills seeped into her bones. As much as she’d adored her great-aunt, she’d never understood her penchant for the occult. Her fanatically religious father had deemed anything occult to be demonic. Stuck between the two ideologies, Clestie had gone her own way, down a safer middle path, avoiding both extremes—until now, when she was being forced to choose. “I don’t know the first thing about this New Age stuff. I don’t have one whit of ESP.”

  Elizabeth clucked her tongue and tapped her foot. “Maybe you do. You’ve just never given it a chance.”

  Clestie stared down her nose at her very practical, very logical cousin who’d obviously lost her ever-loving mind. “You really think so?”

  “I don’t know. But it certainly is fascinating.” Elizabeth bent low and peered into the crystal ball that seemed to swirl with mist the closer she moved toward it. “It’s your business. You’ll learn. Besides, our aunt employed a couple of very capable helpers. Surely they’ll want to keep their jobs.”

  7 Ashley Ladd

  “Oh yeah. Sun and Moon.” When Elizabeth’s brow rose, Clestie continued, “At least that’s what Aunt Petunia always called them. God, I hope that’s not their real names.”

  Elizabeth nodded. “I hope not.” She flipped through the pages of their aunt’s little black book. “Aha! Here’s their phone numbers. Call them and see if they’ll stay on.” She handed a cell phone to Clestie with one of the numbers punched in.

  The bell over the shop’s front door tinkled and Clestie’s head snapped up. She squinted at the flustered older woman with spiked neon hair and eyes lined with thick, clumpy eye-liner who breezed through the door.

  “We’re closed.” Annoyed, Clestie swore at herself for not dead-bolting the door and boarding up the place.

  The woman’s face pinched and panic flooded her heavily rouged face. “Good lordy, no! You have to help me. Where’s Petunia? This is an emergency.”

  Clestie murmured an aside to her cousin, “Only boys in white suits can help her.”

  Elizabeth jabbed her in the ribs. With clenched teeth like a ventriloquist, she whispered in a sing-song voice, “Don’t insult the client.”

  Clestie cleared her throat. “Our great-aunt Petunia recently passed away. We’ve inherited her shop.”

  The woman slumped and clutched the counter as her cheeks paled beneath her paint. “Oh my Lord. How awful. Where’s Sun?”

  “We’ve not talked to the staff yet. We don’t know if they’ll be returning,” Elizabeth said with an appropriately subdued tone as she primly folded her hands.

  The woman took a deep gulp and then put an inhaler to her mouth and dragged several deep puffs into her lungs, hacking between each inhalation. “I hope she’s not had the baby yet. I’m desperate.” She sucked on the inhaler again.

  Baby? Desperate?

  Cash cow or not, Clestie didn’t know if she could take such drama. She removed her reading glasses and plunked them on top of her head. “I’m really very sorry. We’re just not set up yet. Can we get you a cup of coffee? Tea?”

  Vodka, straight up?

  The woman invaded her personal space, her fishy breath overpowering Clestie.

  Her hands stroked Clestie’s face making her shiver, and she had the urge to smack them away. Instead, she backed up quickly.

  Still, the spooky would-be client peered closely at her. “Who are you? You look like Petunia.”

  “I do?” Clestie gulped. “Petunia is—was—my mother’s aunt.” She’d really been more of a grandmother to her.

  Relief flooded the woman’s gray eyes and a spot of natural color returned to her cheeks. “Then you’ll have inherited her gifts. You can help me.”

  8 Heavenly Hijinks

  Before Clestie could sneak in a protest, the woman broke into raucous sobs and squeezed the breath from her. “Thank the gods, we’re saved.”

  The gods?

  Clestie desperately needed a puff on the woman’s inhaler. Her pulse raced and her lungs were about to explode. She tried to extricate herself from the death grip but couldn’t budge. “I-I don’t have any gifts.”

  Elizabeth pinched her arm and glared. She mouthed, “Fake it.”

  Clestie gulped. Over the woman’s shoulder, she mouthed back, “I don’t know enough to fake it.” She was a complete occult virgin. She’d successfully resisted her aunt’s many attempts to indoctrinate her in this weird world out of respect for her father.

  The woman cackled insanely. “Oh, I’m sure it flows through you. How could it not when it was so very strong in Petunia?”

  What part of no did the daffy woman not understand? “I’ll call Sun and see if she can help you.” She tilted her head at Elizabeth. “Call her,” she mouthed as she passed her the cell phone.

  A couple minutes later Elizabeth returned with a frown. She pulled Clestie to a private corner and whispered, “Sun’s in labor. And she’s taking at least a three-month maternity leave, if she returns at all.”

  Clestie stifled a moan and massaged her aching forehead. “Great. Just great. What else can go wrong?”

  The bell tinkled again and Clestie slumped against the counter and breathed a sigh of inordinate relief. “Hallelujah! She left.”

  Then a duet of voices interrupted the blessed silence, and Clestie’s heart skipped a beat. She clawed at Elizabeth’s wrist. “Hurry. Lock the door. They’re multiplying.” Like an invasion of locusts and all the other frightening biblical stuff in Revelations.

  Her cousin rolled her eyes and shook off her death grip. “Our aunt was revered.”

  Clestie could go for a little mediocrity about now. “Do I have to go out there?” She’d rather face a swarm of locusts.

  “Afraid so.” Elizabeth patted her back.

 
She wished Elizabeth had a canister of oxygen as well. She might have to purchase an inhaler of her own. Truly, she’d have to practice her deep breathing exercises as soon as she could get a few minutes to herself. The way things were going, she’d have to lock herself in the bathroom to get any private time. “Save me.”

  Her cousin cracked a smile. “Welcome to the joys of entrepreneurship.”

  Clestie checked her watch and almost groaned when it only emphasized how many hours of daylight were left. “You mean the headaches.”

  The bell tinkled again…and again. By the time Clestie ran to the front, a mini mob had formed. She dragged in several deep, cleansing breaths. “I’m sorry, but we’re not open for business.”

  9 Ashley Ladd

  “But we’re lost. We need guidance.” They started chanting, “Sun. Moon. Sun. Moon.”

  A tall blond man with golden tresses cascading down his back pushed through the crowd. And he was only wearing a loincloth! But he moved oh-so sensually, with leonine grace and assured strides, that he could be forgiven anything. “Perhaps I can lend assistance. I am a master of reading the zodiacal charts and prophesying fortunes. I also read the tarot.”

  Really needing that oxygen desperately now, Clestie was about to hyperventilate as her gaze took in the nearly naked Tarzan. Mesmerized by the man’s godlike beauty, Clestie’s skin tingled in decadently scandalous ways and she prayed that mind-reading wasn’t another one of his many talents. Her respiration shallowed and perspiration beaded heavily on her brow, threatening to run into her eyes. She dabbed at the tiny droplets with her fingers as she searched for her voice. After several muffled attempts, she finally croaked out, “You can?”

  Elizabeth hissed, “Mr. Chippendales is stealing our business. Kick him out.”

  Ignoring her cousin, Clestie stepped forward, trying not to ogle the man’s hunky bod. But his rippling muscles and shimmering hair made her pussy clench and her nipples peak so tightly that she was about to orgasm without anyone touching her. His intensely golden eyes and sparkling smile stole her breath. “Are you applying for a job?”