by Vivi Andrews
Gillian sat back, frowning. “Damn.”
Mark matched her frown. He actually felt pretty damn good, considering he’d just taken a header toward the floor from ten feet up. Was it some kind of shock thing, delaying the pain? Was he bleeding internally? “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Hmm? Oh, nothing. You’re fine.” Gillian sighed, visibly disappointed by his good health. “Nothing for me to do to you. When Bizby called and said you’d fallen from the top of the ladder in the library, I thought for sure I was going to get to set at least a few bones. Maybe call in the med-evac team to fly you to the city for an emergency cranial reconstruction or something. But you barely have a bump. I’ve seen three-year-olds falling off their tricycles who took more damage.”
Mark frowned, remembering the moment when he’d felt like he was floating right before he fell, the odd sensation of the hardwood cushioning his body. “Gillian, do you believe in magic?”
That book had flown off the shelf and up to hit him in the head. Books just didn’t fall that way. Could Biz be right? Could there be ghosts in the house? There had been an awful lot of coincidences. Suddenly getting a full-body scan didn’t feel quite so foolish.
“Magic?” Gillian grabbed a needle and a trio of vials. Biz had demanded Gillian test him for everything from Ebola to bird flu. She slapped his inner arm and muttered, “Nice veins,” before jabbing him.
“Ouch. Dammit, that stings.”
“Wuss.” She was just overflowing with bedside manner.
“Is Biz really a witch?”
She snorted. “You must have hit your head harder than I thought.” Suddenly Gillian brightened. “Hey, you want a CAT scan? We just got a new machine. It’s awesome. I’ve been dying to take her out for a test drive, and there might be cranial bleeding. We have to check. You’re talking crazy. That could be a symptom.”
“I’m serious.”
“You’ve been listening to too much gossip,” Gillian grumbled, exchanging a filled vial for an empty one and continuing to drain his blood. “Biz is special. She’s got a—I don’t know, a sense or something, about love and stuff. But that’s no reason to tie her to a stake and whip out the kindling.”
“I’m not gonna burn anyone.”
“No? So you aren’t writing a story that would expose her? You don’t think using the word witch in connection with her name in print would impact her maybe just a little?”
The room started to get fuzzy around the edges. “How much blood do you need?”
“Last one.” She shoved his shoulder, none too gently, and he flopped onto his back on the exam table. Gillian grabbed his ankles and propped them up on a pair of stirrups that she yanked from beneath the table.
“What the hell?”
“Just lie back and think of England.” He started to squirm into a sitting position and she smacked him—again with a noticeable lack of bedside manner. “Elevating your feet helps the lightheadedness. Deep breaths, you big wuss. Practice your Lamaze.”
His manliness objected, but his stomach rolled unpleasantly when he even thought too hard about sitting up again, so he closed his eyes and focused on not puking all over Gillian’s exam room.
“Mark,” the doc said softly.
“Are we done?”
“Look at me.”
Mark opened his eyes and nearly swallowed his tongue. “Jesus!” Gillian stood between his spread legs with a scalpel hovering inches from his crotch.
“Biz is my best friend, Mark. She’s a precious flower, and there is nothing I wouldn’t do for her, are we clear?”
Mark nodded fervently, his eyes locked on the gleaming silver blade. “Precious flower.”
“If someone were to hurt Biz, I might have to hurt…someone.” The scalpel wagged. Mark managed not to whimper. “What are your intentions toward my friend, Mark?”
“I—” Intentions. Right. What were his intentions? Beyond avoiding getting his balls chopped off by Parish Island’s answer to Sweeney Todd. Biz. Something about Biz. “I like her. A lot.”
“Good. She likes you too. And I need you to do something for me.”
“What?” Anything, just get that knife away from my junk.
“I want you to seduce her.”
“You want me to what?”
“Seduce her. Show her a good time.” Gillian pulled a face. “You know her history. This last year has been the worst. It’s like all the joy has been sucked right out of her. I want you to put some of that joy back. She likes you. She wakes up when she’s with you. I haven’t seen her as alive as she is with you in years. So I want you to give her some sexual healing. Release all those happy hormones and convince her it’s okay to live again.”
“Isn’t that her choice?”
“You’re her choice. I’m only giving you my blessing and making sure you realize how important your responsibility to make her happy is.”
Her blessing. So that’s what she needed the scalpel for. “I want her to be happy too.”
Gillian beamed, for all the world like she wasn’t holding his balls hostage. “Great! Now how about that CT scan?”
An hour later, Gillian locked up the clinic after them, her shoulders slumped dejectedly. “I never get the good injuries. You’re so damn healthy.”
He snorted. “Sorry to disappoint you.”
“Hey, we can’t win ’em all, right? Maybe next time you’ll break something fun.”
Next time. Mark winced. “Look on the bright side, Gillian. Maybe one of the tests will come back with something festering and unpleasant.”
The doctor sighed. “A girl can dream.” Then she winked at him and wandered down the street in the opposite direction of Biz’s place. “G’night, Ellison,” she called over her shoulder. “Don’t forget what I said.”
Not bloody likely. It was engraved in his memory with a scalpel’s edge. Luckily her demands matched his own. Now he just had to convince Biz.
Chapter Sixteen—Love’s Labors Leapt
Biz tipped her face back to the pale winter sun and tried to let the sound of the waves soothe her. Unfortunately, she wasn’t feeling very soothable.
After Gillian evicted her from the clinic, declaring her a nuisance and an unbearable pest when she was only concerned for Mark’s health, Biz stormed back home, intent on ransacking the library—and giving her idiotic prankster ghosts a piece of her mind—but the ghosts had been hiding from her and she hadn’t been able to concentrate.
She kept staring at the spot on the floor where Mark had fallen, reliving the heart-stopping moment of his crash. She hadn’t actually seen any of the others get hurt. Die, she forced herself to think the word. She hadn’t seen them die. A phone call after the fact was bad enough, but the immediacy of the horror and helplessness of seeing Mark fall had trumped everything in her experience.
She’d fled the library, running down the twisting paths to her slice of beach. Before, the wind and water had always made her feel human again, saner. But today she couldn’t find peace.
Seeing him fall had really brought home the fact that Mark was at risk—whether he was terminal or not. For all she knew the curse could be changing its pattern. But instead of convincing her to keep him at arm’s length, his fall had sent a jolt of realization through her. Keeping her distance from Tony hadn’t saved him. Staying clear of Mark wouldn’t either. So that excuse was out the window.
In its place was her own fear of getting hurt, battling with the question of whether she would regret pushing him away if he didn’t make it. Was it really better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? Did she have that kind of courage? The ocean didn’t have an answer for her.
“Biz!”
She turned and her heart stuttered. He strode across the beach, looking gorgeous and healthy and not at all like a man who’d been on the floor unconscious two hours ago.
“Mark. You’re okay.”
“Much to Gillian’s disappointment.”
Part of her wanted to rush
into his arms like some cheesy slow-mo movie montage, but she held back, locking her fingers together at her waist to keep from reaching out to him as he closed the distance between them. She forced a smile. “Gillian does like her injuries. She gets bored with the cold and flu stuff that’s pretty much all they see at the clinic in the winter months.”
Mark’s dimples flashed. “As thrilled as I’m sure Gillian would be if I landed on her doorstep with two broken legs, I’m gonna avoid giving her that pleasure as long as possible.”
Biz answered his smile with one of her own, hoping hers didn’t look as fake as it felt. “That sounds wise.”
He ducked his head to peer into her eyes. “You okay? You look kinda spooked.”
Spooked. She certainly was that. She had a plethora of spooks and not much else going for her.
As if in response to her doom-and-gloom thoughts, the wind kicked up, flattening her skirt against her thighs, and Biz shivered. Before she could say Southern gentleman, Mark’s coat dropped around her shoulders, still warm from his body and carrying the slightly peppery scent of his cologne.
“Thanks.” Biz tugged it closer around her, somehow resisting the urge to bury her nose in the lining and inhale.
“I’m fine, Biz,” Mark said softly. “Healthy as a horse. Even if you were cursed, maybe it’s already run its course.”
“Maybe.” But she didn’t believe that. No matter how much she might wish she could.
“I bet I’m your reward for keeping your chin up through three years of karmic crap.” Mark grinned cockily, wagging his eyebrows.
A helpless smile tugged at Biz’s lips. It should have been annoying for a man to know he was that gorgeous, but the little self-deprecating flicker in his eyes made his arrogance work. It was unfair, but somehow he was even more appealing when he was mocking his own masculine beauty.
And damn her if the man wasn’t beautiful.
“Why aren’t you dating some supermodel?” The question jumped out of her mouth before her brain had time to process how dumb it was to say that aloud to a man who might actually be interested in her. God only knew why. God and the curse.
Mark snorted. “Stick figures have never really been my type.”
“You know what I mean. Pretty people should date other pretty people.”
“And you aren’t pretty?”
Jesus, his eyes. The way he was looking at her right now, as if she wasn’t just pretty, she was the pinnacle of femininity. How was she supposed to defend against that look? Her knees melted and her legs wobbled. Funny how necessary those joints were for her equilibrium.
“I…” Biz tried to swallow, but her mouth had suddenly gone dry. “Stop it.”
“Stop what?” He caught a loose curl and tangled it around the crook of his finger. His insanely blue eyes were so close. Had they been that close a second ago? Was he leaning in? Was she? She’d forgotten how to breathe, how to think, how to do anything other than look into those impossible eyes and wait.
“Mark…what are you…?”
“You said I had to be open to opportunities. Ready to leap. I’m leaping…”
His lips brushed hers, so softly at first she could have convinced herself she imagined the touch, then firmer, sweeter, drawing each moment into sensation.
Last night’s kiss was reckless, foolish, a rush of pent-up emotion, but this one was too slow, too gently persuasive to be anything other than a perfect invitation. She fell against him, lured by the kiss, forgetting all the barriers she’d placed between them. The wind wrapped around them, urging them closer.
His spicy, peppery scent went to her head as his hands went to her hips, gripping her tight and pulling her close. He coaxed her mouth open, and the second his tongue teased inside, she forgot where she ended and he began. Her entire existence twisted into a cyclone of touch and taste.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been kissed like this. I’ve never been kissed like this. This wasn’t lust and heat. This was warm persuasion, a seduction of her soul as much as her senses.
Was this what a love spell felt like?
Biz jerked back, yanking herself out of Mark’s arms and stumbling away until she had enough distance that she wasn’t going to fall right back into them.
“Biz?”
She shook her head, mute. Was this what a love spell felt like? Fizzy and sweet and warm with the surge of fiery heat almost swamped by the promise of comfort and companionship.
Was this what the boys had felt when the curse sucked them in? Was it coming for her now?
“I-I can’t do this. I’m sorry. I really like you, Mark, but I just can’t.”
She scrambled up the beach, running as best she could with the sand sucking her feet down and dragging at her steps.
“Biz!” he called after her.
She didn’t look back. Running, always running from Mark.
Chapter Seventeen—Someone to Love is the Answer
Biz stormed into the library. The boys must have sensed her volatile mood and gone to ground. For the first time in years, the house felt completely, eerily empty.
Desolately so. Hopelessly.
D-Day was looming, Mark was temptation with blue eyes, and she was no closer to finding the damn counterspell.
“Dammit,” she shouted at the books, focusing on her anger. It pushed aside the hopeless mix of despair and longing, clearing out her thoughts.
The books hissed and grumbled back at her, their whispering more distinct as it reflected her frustration.
“Oh, shut up.”
Spotting the book on the floor that had launched Mark from the ladder, Biz decided she was not above taking her aggression out on defenseless inanimate objects. She may not be able to beat the curse itself senseless, but she could destroy that book.
She stalked over to it, glaring down at the familiar brown leather tome. She knew this book. It was a repeat offender. This book had crashed to the floor and disrupted her first kiss with Mark.
It was also her grandmother’s favorite reference. The first one she’d gone to when she first realized the curse might have backfired. She’d scoured the pages over and over in the last year and found nothing, not a single helpful spell.
She hefted it into her arms, half-intending to chuck it across the room, but her anger drained out of her into the soft leather. She couldn’t hurt this book her grandmother had touched a thousand times. Biz sank down onto the window seat, settling the book on her lap. She ran her fingertips over the engravings on the cover and listened to its voice—not her grandmother’s voice, but a resonance once removed, familiar and dear in its own way.
Her grandmother had been so good at listening to the books’ voices, learning their personalities. Whenever Biz struggled to hear them, Gran would pat her hand and tell her, “You just aren’t listening right, Elizabeth. Let it come.” Always so confident that someday it would.
Biz splayed her hands on the warm brown leather. Her chest ached with the memory of her grandmother’s soft voice and strong, sure hands. The universe gives us things exactly when we need them, girl, Biz could remember her saying. You just gotta know how to ask right.
She recalled her grandmother sitting in this room, petting the books and whispering. Talking pretty to them she’d called it.
Biz stroked her fingers over the smooth leather her grandmother had touched so many times. Maybe the ghosts hadn’t been motivated by only jealousy. Maybe they knew something she didn’t. Maybe this book wasn’t just a handy projectile.
She took a deep breath, trying to think how to ask the book to help her the right way, but all the pretty words were swallowed up by desperation, and she just ended up saying, “I need to undo this love curse to save Mark. Please help me.” She gave the book an extra little pat, like a good pet, and opened the cover.
The pages were so thin they ought to be transparent, but they didn’t feel fragile beneath her fingers. They flipped quickly, as if of their own accord, until about a third of the w
ay through when suddenly they stopped, the rest of the pages sticking together like they’d been glued down.
Biz lifted her hands away from the book, taking the hint, and studied the page. True Love Antidote.
Impossible.
She’d read every page in this book a dozen times and she’d never seen the spell before. Tingles shot down to her fingertips like they did when magic was flowing strongly around her. She read quickly through the curled text that filled the page, almost skimming in her eagerness to consume every word.
Cure to all love spells…release all victims…
It sounded perfect. Exactly what she needed to break the curse, release the ghosts and put everything back to normal. She could do this. It was elementary magic.
Then she saw the last words on the page and her heart froze into a block of solid ice.
Only the selflessness of one truly in love can break the spell.
True love? She had to be in love with him to break the spell? Sure, she was infatuated with Mark—that went without saying—but love? The selflessness of true love? What did she know about that?
Before the curse, Biz had always been easygoing, a go-with-the-flow kind of girl, but you couldn’t just go with the flow with love. You had to want it badly. You had to pin your affections to someone until they couldn’t drift away when the mood struck. And she’d never done that.
Any closeness she had let herself feel for the boys had turned out to be an illusion, conjured by a spell gone wrong. Even when she was casting spells for Mr. Right, it was asking for someone to come love her. Even then she hadn’t been risking anything. What had she gambled? It had never been her life on the line, or even her heart. They had all wanted her more than she’d wanted them. But now, with Mark, it had to be real?
No pressure on the relationship or anything. You just have two weeks to fall head over heels for a man you’ve been shoving away for the last week. No problem.
What about Mark? Should she tell him about the antidote spell? She honestly didn’t know if that would make it easier or harder. Did she want him to try to make her fall in love with him?
