by Vivi Andrews
But now, with the two of them alone save one adoring teenager currently hiding in the kitchen, the danger was suddenly clear and present in the front of her mind.
“I have to go. The shop. It opens.”
“In two hours. I checked out your hours. We have all the time in the world.” He smiled again—the same smile that had melted Mrs. Whittaker’s natural resistance to charmers.
The man had no survival instincts.
“But if I don’t get the shop ready, I won’t be able to open on time and then I won’t close on time and we couldn’t do our interview.” It took her about five seconds to open the shop and she wasn’t exactly a stickler for time during the winter season, but what he didn’t know might keep him alive until February fifteenth.
“Why don’t we just do the interview now? You’re here. I’m here.”
“I’m leaving. Let me out.”
He sighed, dramatically disappointed, and stood. “You’re a hard woman to figure out, Biz.” Then he flashed out another delicious smile. “I like that about you. You’re a mystery.”
“I’m not mysterious,” she insisted, collecting her things and sidling past him, careful not to touch him. “I’m boring. Ask anyone.”
“Oh, I will. You can count on that.”
Biz’s heart sank. What would he find out? She wasn’t openly out as a witch, but it was one of those secrets that was universally known around town—whether people really bought into it or not. She was charmed—or she had been—and now there were ghosts in her house.
“You don’t believe in ghosts,” she reminded him, clinging to her purse like a security blanket.
“Nah,” he agreed readily. “Now aliens on the other hand, that’s just a statistical surety.” He winked at her. Winked.
God, she hoped that was a joke. If he really believed in aliens, there was no telling what some of the townspeople might convince him of.
They’d always been so supportive of her, but if he started asking questions, stirring things up, they might realize that her charms could easily be curses in the wrong hands. And someone might suspect that hers were the wrong hands.
Biz didn’t know what to do. Disaster was looming, but she couldn’t see any way to avert it other than breaking the curse. Avoiding Mark Ellison wasn’t working. And telling herself she wasn’t attracted to him wasn’t a very effective method of denial.
He flashed his dimples, tipping an imaginary hat.
Biz ran.
Chapter Nine—The Dimples of Doom
Mark arrived at Charmed, I’m Sure fifteen minutes early.
And found the door locked and windows darkened.
“Dammit.” He should’ve known she’d stand him up. After the way she’d run from him this morning, she was probably halfway to Venezuela by now.
A cold breeze whipped up the street, carrying the salty scent of the ocean. Mark pounded his fist on the door, but he might as well have saved himself the bruised knuckles. He grumbled a few choice words and stepped back until he could see the upper windows. They were dark as well, but was that curtain fluttering? Was someone watching him?
Gotcha.
She wasn’t in Venezuela. She was up there, hiding behind that curtain, emanating guilt from every pore. He couldn’t see a thing, but he knew she was there just like he knew there was a story in this bizarre little town.
Mark folded his arms and directed a slow, inviting smile up at that window. Come on down and play, little girl.
He settled in to wait, staring at the window like he could force her downstairs by dint of his will alone. Biz may look like a soft touch, but she’d proven she wasn’t an easy target. He was going to enjoy chasing down this story a lot more than he’d expected. Damn, but he loved a challenge.
Having a staring contest with a drape wasn’t the highlight of his career, but Mark didn’t let his gaze waver. He was determined to get this interview no matter what it took, but he’d have a lot more fun if he could catch her with honey. He amped up the charm on his smile.
“Are you looking for Miss Marks too?”
Mark turned at the sound of the slightly nasal voice. Mrs. Kent’s other guest stood a few feet up the sidewalk, a box of candies clutched in one hand. What was his name? Flowers? Rose?
“We had an appointment,” Mark replied, still ransacking his memory for the name.
“Oh…” The pale man seemed to shrink in on himself. “You’re seeing her then.”
Bloom. That was what Mrs. Kent had called him. Mr. Bloom. “I was supposed to see her at two, but she seems to have vanished on me. Don’t suppose you’ve seen her?”
Bloom fidgeted with the ribbon on the candy box. “Not today, no.” He bobbed his head and started across the street toward the guesthouse.
Mark turned his attention back to Biz’s upstairs window and fired up his best smile. Come out, come out, wherever you are.
He wasn’t leaving.
Biz twisted her hands together, careful not to brush against the curtain and set it swaying again. Why wasn’t he leaving? He had to have realized by now that she’d changed her mind about the interview.
It was rude of her not to call him. Or at the very least leave him a note. But the less interaction she had with Mark Ellison the better. It was for his own good. She’d already seen far too much of him and proven, beyond doubt, that she couldn’t behave herself in his presence. Talking him into going after love, telling him witches existed…there was no telling what she’d say to him next.
No, cold turkey was best.
Though judging by the lazy smile he was aiming up at her window, he hadn’t gotten the memo. God, why was he looking at her like that?
After Paul, she’d never encouraged the men the curse caught. And yet they’d fallen for her in spite of her reservations. She couldn’t be sure how the curse picked its victims, so the only option was to avoid all contact with the masculine of the species. And Mark Ellison definitely counted as masculine.
His eyes continued to bore up at her even though there was no way he could know she was watching. Why didn’t he just leave? Was there some flaw inherent in a reporter’s genetic code that made him physiologically incapable of walking away from a dead end?
Biz was about as dead an end as he was going to find.
A sudden wind whipped through the room, twisting the drapes as a crash thrummed the lower strings of the piano. Biz spun and dropped into a crouch beneath the sill, her heart drumming. Had he seen her?
The curtains settled, the gust dying as abruptly as it had arisen. The piano’s discordant twanging faded. The windows were all closed, but she didn’t suspect for a second the wind had been natural.
“Dammit, Tony. What was that for?”
Of course, he didn’t answer. He never answered. She might as well have been imagining things and talking to herself. Being nuts would have been so much easier. For one thing, she wouldn’t spend all her time feeling guilty and helpless.
Biz sighed and dropped her head back against the hundred-year-old paneling that ran below the chair rail. Mark was still out there. She could almost feel the Dimples of Doom boring into her back through the layers of siding, plaster and oak. For whatever reason, the curse had made her into his obsession.
He would keep coming back. She’d have to face him eventually, but she couldn’t do it today. She had no idea what she would say to him. The truth? It was his life at stake, after all. If anyone had a right to know, it was him. But Biz had never told anyone the whole truth.
She closed her eyes, too tired to think straight.
She hadn’t gotten more than an hour of sleep since he’d walked into her store the day before. All night she’d dug through her grandmother’s grimoires and all this morning too. She hadn’t opened the shop for fear Mark would drop by early and catch her unawares.
Exhaustion weighed down her arms and legs. Even the muscles in her neck felt rubbery, like her head would wobble like Gumby if she tried to lift it from the wall.
&nb
sp; Three weeks, one day and just under ten hours. And over two hundred books she hadn’t cracked yet. Her eyes burned just thinking of all that tiny print. Some of the older volumes were even handwritten. Their so-soft whispers tickled the back of her mind, where a massive headache was building.
Why did her grandmother have to be such a collector? Why had Biz cast the spell? Why didn’t magical problems ever just magically resolve themselves? Why did Mark Ellison have to have dimples, determination and an ability to laughingly adapt to every obstacle she threw at him?
It was enough to make a girl wonder if he might be able to laughingly adapt to the extreme level of weird in her life. What would things have been like if they’d met under different circumstances? No curse, no ghosts, no guilt and no horror at the very idea of flirtation.
He would have been fun to flirt with…
Biz drifted off to sleep, fantasizing of all the things she would do with Mark Ellison if doing them wouldn’t kill him.
The banging downstairs was enough to wake the dead. Provided the dead were sleeping. Biz had never figured out whether the ghosts slept or not.
She blinked blearily, momentarily confused by the fact that she was curled up on the floorboards below the window in the library. Tony had tucked a pillow beneath her head and draped an afghan over her, but in spite of those comforts, the ache in her hip and the lack of sunlight coming through the window told her she’d been lying for far too long in one position on the hardwood floor.
The hammering sounded again, so hard it sent a slight, shimmying vibration through the floor beneath her.
Mark was determined. She’d give him that.
His tenacity would have been impressive if she hadn’t been so sure it was caused by the curse.
She sat up, her stomach rumbling. Time for dinner.
If she could ignore temperamental ghosts slamming doors and clanging on pianos, she could ignore thwarted suitors pounding on her door. He could knock all night if he wanted.
She padded on bare feet into the kitchen and dropped a bagel into the toaster, frowning at the appliance when it didn’t start itself. “Tony?”
Where was he? For that matter, where were all three of them? It wasn’t like them to vanish on her.
A fresh round of bangs shook the floorboards, and Biz frowned. Funny. It seemed to be coming from inside the shop.
The memory of Tony knocking Mark’s legs out from under him flashed in her brain, followed by visions of the ghosts unlocking the door downstairs, letting Mark in and beating him senseless.
“Tony, no.”
Without a second thought, Biz ran. She clattered down the stairs so fast her foot slipped out from under her and she nearly took a header down the last few, but an unseen hand on her shoulder jerked her back. “Thanks,” she called, continuing her sprint. She leapt over boxes in the storeroom like an Olympic hurdler—if Olympic hurdlers caught their toes on the hurdles and staggered clumsily against the wall before regaining their feet—and burst through the door into the shop.
Every light was blazing and every surface was a bright, bloody red.
She wasn’t sure what she’d expected. Mayhem. Chaos. Mark lying crippled and helpless on the floor.
Her ghosts had never hurt anyone before, but they had been making their presence felt more than usual since Mark’s arrival in town. The curse going through another iteration was bound to set them off. She hadn’t been able to imagine what they would do.
But Tony had caught her on the stairs; he hadn’t been in the shop.
What she saw in her shop was so far from her vague expectations, it took her a moment to realize what she was looking at, like a pointillist painting coming into focus.
Gillian straddled the apex of a ladder, a hammer in one hand and a fuchsia heart in the other. Around her, the shop was an explosion of pinks and reds and romantic slogans—like a giant box of Sweethearts had blasted Valentine’s gaiety onto every surface.
“What in God’s name are you doing, Gillian?”
Gilly squeaked and whipped around to face her. “Biz! What are you doing here?” The ladder groaned and rocked at her sudden movement, but Gillian just reached up and braced the hammer on the ceiling, easily rebalancing the ladder in a feat of coordination Biz never would have been able to accomplish.
“This is my shop. I live here.” And I’m afraid to go out the front door because I’m being stalked by a pair of sexy dimples on a mission. “What are you doing?”
“I came to find out how your interview went.”
“And that required a hammer?”
Gillian looked at the hammer in her hand then at the crepe paper hearts dangling from the ceiling. “It was supposed to be a surprise.”
“Oh, I’m surprised. But maybe next time you’re going for stealth you ought to avoid hammering through the floorboards.”
“The house was dark. I figured you were out. So how’d it go? Please tell me he was a total jerk. Mrs. Whittaker is going to start a campaign to drag him back here and adopt him as the town mascot if he doesn’t reveal his nefarious intentions soon.”
“Back here?”
“Ollie Janeway saw him leave on the five o’clock ferry.”
He was gone? Biz’s stomach took an elevator drop toward her toes.
She should be happy. That meant he was free of the curse, but something in Biz whimpered. She hadn’t expected him to give up so easily. She’d told herself that she was running from him because of the curse, but was it also because she wanted so badly for a man like that to think she was worthy of the chase? Either way, it was too late now.
“I didn’t meet him. I couldn’t.”
Gillian’s eyes filled with disappointment and pity. “Oh, Bizby.”
“Ugh. Gillian, could you please not look at me like I’m some pathetic love charity case? I get enough of that from the rest of the town.”
Gillian wiped her expression clean. “I’m sorry.” She was silent for a whole millisecond. Biz should have known she wouldn’t be able to leave it at that. “It’s just I saw the way you were looking at each other at the diner this morning, and yes, he might be a scumbag reporter who’s trying to use your personal pain for his professional gain and I think he’s a reptile of the lowest order, but you were so into him and he definitely seemed into you and it didn’t have to be forever-after stuff as long as you got back in the saddle and lived again. You weren’t the one who died, Bizby, and I’m sick to death of you moping around like a corpse. Just looking at you is depressing.”
“Ouch. I think you just called me a zombie.”
“Well, you are when it comes to love. Romantically undead.” Gillian climbed swiftly down the ladder, hanging the hammer over the third step. “You can’t let your bad luck beat you, Biz. You have to get back in the game.”
“It stops being a game after the third funeral.”
“That wasn’t your fault,” Gillian exclaimed. “You had nothing to do with their deaths.”
Biz studied the grain in the hardwood floor. What would Gillian say if she knew the truth about the curse?
“You used to be all about love, Biz. All these decorations? Where do you think I got them? They were stored in my basement because you didn’t have room for all of them here. These are your decorations, Bizby. This is what your shop used to look like every year and now it’s…it’s just wrong in here.” Gillian bit her lower lip, and Biz thought she saw uncharacteristic tears shimmering in her no-muss, no-fuss, no-emotion best friend’s eyes. “I’m worried about you, Biz. You’ve changed.”
“Sometimes change is a good thing.”
“Not this. Not sucking all the love out of your life and replacing it with doom and despair.”
Biz looked around the sickeningly over-decorated shop, and memories rose up off every beribboned surface. Memories of the girl she used to be. Eager for life. Back when everything was easy and light. Guilt, regret and fear were heavy emotions. They tangled around her like a steel-mesh net until nothing felt l
ight anymore. “So that’s what this was? An attempt to shake me out of my slump?”
“This is more than a slump, Biz,” Gillian said seriously. “You like this Mark guy. I know you do. Even if it’s just a fling, it’s the perfect time to get back in the saddle.”
“Gillian, I appreciate your concern, but I’m staying far away from the saddle.” Gillian’s expression turned mulish, and Biz quickly amended, “For now. I just need a little more time. Besides, he’s gone anyway.”
“You’ve had time. Guys who make you light up the way you did with Mark don’t come along every day. I know you miss Paul and Gabriel and Tony, but don’t let your past screw with your present. You’re into him. He’s into you. So take a trip to Raleigh and get into his pants.”
A short laugh burst out of Biz. Only Gillian could take her tragic love life and make her laugh. “You’re a good friend.”
“But you’re going to ignore my advice. I get it. But I’m not going to stop nagging you.” She waved around the bedecked shop. “This is who you are, Biz. Remember that.”
Gillian squeezed her in a quick hug, before charging off into the night in a typically abrupt departure.
Biz stood alone in the center of Charmed, I’m Sure and studied the Valentine bliss coating every surface. She waited to feel caught up in the same dizzy euphoria that used to sweep over her every year in the season of love, but all she felt was a hollow pang in her chest.
This wasn’t who she was anymore. She flipped off the lights, turning her back on the shop.
No use pretending. Nothing more than who she used to be.
Chapter Ten—Terminally Romantic
Mark’s cell rang as he was zipping up his suitcase.
He’d driven back to Raleigh for a change of clothes and ended up packing half his closet for the siege he was planning against Biz’s defenses. He was going to have to break a few land-speed records back to the coast if he wanted to catch the last ferry out to Parish. There were three people who were likely to be calling him—his mother, his sister or his editor. And none of those three women knew how to have a conversation that didn’t last two hours. He didn’t have time for them right now.
