by Vivi Andrews
“Of course! Mark, I lo—I really like you a lot. A lot. Even before I knew about the counterspell.”
The counterspell. Mark frowned. He believed in magic the same way he believed in Santa Claus.
Inanimate objects flinging themselves around and knocking him off ladders were a powerful incentive to believe in ghosts, but he still had a hard time buying all the way into the curse.
Part of him wanted to believe in magic. It was the same part of him that felt like a kid whenever he was with Biz. That dizzy, light, anything-is-possible feeling had died for him a long time ago, but she brought it back just by believing it was still there inside him. As if, like Tinkerbell, all it needed was her faith to survive.
But the grown-up, analytical, pragmatic side of him still saw her magic as the perfect coping mechanism. And if the curse was how she dealt with survivor’s guilt, the counterspell was what she needed to move on, and if breaking the curse meant loving him…was this just her way of telling him she loved him without having to put herself on the line to do it?
Of course she wouldn’t say it the normal way. She’d been burned by love in the past. Maybe this felt safe to her. Saying he could only survive the curse if she loved him—and obviously he was going to survive, so she must love him.
Or he was coming up with an elaborate rationalization because he wanted her to return his feelings so badly. Which was pretty damn pathetic.
The things love would do to a man’s dignity. “So what happens now?”
“What do you mean?”
“With the spell thing. How do we work it?”
Her eyes widened, the grim set of her mouth softening with wonder and hope. “You’ll help me?”
“Of course. All you had to do was ask.”
Biz studied Mark’s face, her heart turning into useless gooey mush at his words. If she hadn’t loved him before, that would have done it. But his easy acceptance just reconfirmed her conviction that he only thought he loved her because of the curse. Which meant tomorrow, if she succeeded, she would lose him.
“You’ll really do it?”
“This isn’t like a human sacrifice, is it? For the record, I’m not so good with blood. I got yanked from covering metro because I couldn’t even write about violent crime without getting squeamish.”
“No bloodletting. You just have to sit there and hold the bowl. Painless.” For him. She wasn’t sure how painless it would be for her when he realized everything he felt for her had been fabricated by a spell gone awry.
“When do we do this?”
“Tomorrow night. It works best on the actual anniversary of the original cast, but I don’t want to risk anything happening to you or Curtis if we wait until after midnight.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
He was so relaxed. She almost wished he had been more nervous. She felt like the only one who realized how crucial this was. Not Gillian, not Mark. But she had enough self-doubt for the group of them. “What if I can’t work the spell, Mark? What if I fail?”
“You won’t fail.”
His confidence in her should have sent her over the moon, but even with lives at stake, a small traitorous, utterly selfish part of her just wanted to keep him loving her as long as possible and damn the consequences.
But there would be consequences…and she couldn’t ignore them.
“What happened to Tony and Gabriel and Paul could happen to you,” she said, as much to remind herself of the stakes as to convince him.
Mark pulled the classic yawn-and-stretch move, draping his arm along the back of her seat and flashing her the cheesiest lecher leer she’d ever seen. “If I only have one night to live, don’t you think we’d better make the most of it? You’d be amazed how comfortable my backseat is.”
Biz burst out laughing. God bless a man who knew how to lighten the mood. “You’re just trying to get into my pants.”
He grinned, unrepentant. “My favorite place to be.”
Giggling, she crawled into the backseat, with Mark muttering about being too damn old for this and scrambling after her a half second later. With the ghosts in her house and the thin wall at the Shoreview, this was the most privacy they’d had yet, and Biz had every intention of making the most of it.
“You’re going to throw out your back.”
“Be quiet. You’re ruining the mood.”
“I kind of thought the mood was ruined when you started huffing and wheezing like a man on the verge of a heart attack.”
“Are you impugning my manliness?”
“I wouldn’t dare.” She squeezed the firm muscles of his arms appreciatively. He stopped moving, panting. “But I would like you to survive long enough to perform the counterspell.”
He groaned and started moving again. “It’s your own fault you know. You could have told me carrying you to your bedroom would involve eleven thousand stairs.”
“High ceilings mean more stairs. The Victorians probably weren’t worried about the difficulties involved in toting naked women up them when you’re already a bit overexerted.”
“I’m not the one who suggested round two in the car to help exert me.”
“I didn’t hear you complaining at the time.”
“God, no. Brilliant idea. And if I don’t pass out before I get you up the last twelve hundred stairs, I plan to demonstrate my appreciation. Thoroughly.”
“I could walk,” she suggested softly.
“Bite your tongue.”
“I’d rather bite yours.”
“Cheeky little baggage, aren’t you?”
Biz hid her grin against his shoulder as Mark once again began huffing and wheezing his way up the stairway. She let him have the last word. For now.
The ghosts were giving them privacy—thank God. But she couldn’t escape thoughts of the curse. Tomorrow they would break it. Tomorrow he would look at her without the curse directing his emotions, and everything he felt for her tonight would be a ridiculous memory.
Biz pushed the thought from her head. Live this night like it’s the last, because tonight, it is.
Chapter Twenty-Three—D-Day
Biz glared at the big red X on her calendar. Valentine’s Day. Doomsday. Tomorrow.
But now she was more scared of what would happen tonight than what tomorrow would bring. She knew she loved Mark. The only question was whether he would still love her after the curse was revoked. Tomorrow he would be alive and healthy and happy. But where would she be without him? How had he become so integral to her happiness in just three weeks? How was that even possible?
“You ready, darlin’?”
She turned around to find Mark waiting for her in the doorway. Self-consciously, her hand went to her hair.
It was silly, but she’d taken extra time with her appearance today—wearing makeup and a low-cut dress in a rich maroon color that suited her complexion to perfection. She wanted to be beautiful the first time he saw her without the curse’s influence.
He stretched out his hand to her, palm up. She walked toward him, slipping her hand into his, keeping her eyes locked on his to memorize the love in them. Who knew how long it would be there?
Silently they climbed the seemingly endless stairs up to the attic where she’d already laid out everything she needed for the spell. She brought Mark into the circle she’d prepared. He sat on the floor where she indicated, visibly uncomfortable with the trappings of her trade but not making a single sound of complaint. Biz moved to the other side of her cauldron and sat cross-legged, rocking a little to get settled.
The cauldron looked more like a plain wooden salad bowl than anything exotically magical, but her grandmother had taught her that simplicity and familiarity had power of their own, especially when combined with ritual and tradition.
Situated around the cauldron were the talismans she’d gathered to represent each of the men she wanted to free. A wooden stirring spoon for Tony, a string from the piano for Gabriel, the elementary-school style Valentine Paul had given h
er three years ago with Snoopy dancing and holding a heart, the card from Curtis’s roses and for Mark she’d gone classic and asked for a lock of his hair. She studied the objects, thinking of all the wonderful and horrifying things this spell had brought her over the last four years.
She studied them to avoid looking at Mark.
She couldn’t wait forever. It was already after eleven thirty and the spell needed to be complete before midnight. Before it was officially Valentine’s Day again. But she didn’t want to give him up a second sooner than absolutely necessary.
“You okay?” Mark reached for her hand over the cauldron, threading their fingers together.
Biz looked up and met his eyes, her heart swollen with longing and impending loss. She pushed aside the loss, holding tight to his hand. Right here, in this moment, he loved her and she loved him. That was something. Whatever else the spell had done, it had given her this feeling. No matter how fleeting. No matter what happened when the curse lifted.
Biz came up on her knees and leaned across the cauldron. She pressed a soft, closed-mouth kiss onto his lips and then pulled back just enough to look into his eyes. “Whatever happens next, I love you.”
“I love you back.”
Biz sat back down, releasing his hand. I hope that’s true in ten minutes.
The grandfather clock downstairs in the library began to thrum. Quarter ’til. No more time to waste.
“That’s my cue.”
Biz began whispering the words of the spell as she bound the talismans to one another, using the piano wire to tie them together. The heavy wire fought her, but she yanked until it cut into her palms, pulling it tight. When she was sure it wouldn’t come springing undone, Biz wrapped the talismans in the item she’d chosen to represent her—her favorite purple scarf—and set the knotted bundle in the cauldron. She poured the oil over it, repeating the spell a second time as the words started to take on a rhythmic cadence, sucking in the power in the room.
Outside, the winter storm that had held on for days seemed to grow louder, but inside the room the air itself seemed to hush to listen to the rise and fall of her voice.
She set aside the oil bottle and floated her palms over the cauldron, beginning the third and final repetition of the spell. No longer even thinking of the words that flowed so naturally off her lips, Biz concentrated instead on the power that drove her tonight. Not guilt over what had happened to Paul and Gabriel and Tony. Not desperation to return her own life to normal. Just the simple, powerful truth of love and her need to save Mark. Even if it meant giving up her own heart for good and watching him walk away with it.
She spoke the last word, and as she did a single green spark fell from her hovering fingertips, landing on the oil-soaked bundle and igniting it.
Blue flame shot toward the ceiling in a brilliant iridescent column. Mark shouted and fell back, but Biz kept her hands in the flame. It was cool to the touch, flowing around her fingers like water in a stream.
The flame began to twist, an aqua cyclone spiraling toward the exposed roof beams. Paul appeared at the center of the funnel, and Biz gasped when two other figures joined him. Two faces she hadn’t seen in so long—Gabriel’s cynical frown and Tony’s gentle eyes greeted her. She nodded her goodbyes, knowing to speak would disturb the spell, and tears gathered in her eyes as a thunderous tide of sound rumbled up through the floorboards. It shot toward the ceiling and the point of brilliant white light that had appeared there, carrying the spirits and the blue flame funnel cloud with it.
“Biz!” Mark shouted over the rushing wall of sound, trying to jerk her hands away from the flash of fire, but the flames had already gone out, the sound and the fury vanishing with a barely audible whoosh and leaving behind nothing but a small pile of ash in the shape of a heart.
Her ears rang and her breathing came fast. “Whoa.”
Now that’s what I call magic. She hadn’t known she had it in her.
Mark crawled around to her side, eyeing the salad-bowl cauldron suspiciously. “What the hell was that?”
Biz smiled, still a bit dazed. “It worked.”
Oh baby, had it ever worked. The rush of the curse unlocking had streaked through her as soon as the fire lit, a power cascade unlike anything she’d ever felt. Every cell was still tingling with the aftermath, her entire body coming awake after a long sleep.
She was free. Gabriel, Tony and Paul were free to move on.
But so was Mark.
Her high suddenly didn’t feel quite so high.
She studied his face, looking for signs of his changed affections. Mark continued to stare at the salad bowl. “So apparently when you said you were a witch and this was a curse, that was literal. And those guys in the fire tornado were…”
“Ghosts.”
“Right. Okay. Just give me a minute to have an aneurism and I’ll be right with you.”
Biz watched for the moment he realized what had happened. Would he be angry with her? Disgusted? Or, perhaps worst of all, indifferent?
“How do you feel?”
He shrugged. “Fine. A little dazed. How about you? That was some pretty…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “Damn.”
She wet her lips nervously. Fine didn’t sound much like deliriously in love with you forever and ever. “You don’t feel different?”
Mark frowned. “Am I supposed to?”
“You aren’t supposed to, necessarily. I just thought you might feel…differently about things.”
“Like search your feelings, Luke?” He grinned, dimples flashing, suddenly boyish, a ten-year-old Star Wars nerd in a thirty-two-year-old body.
He’d be a great dad. Oh jeez. Where had that thought come from? Just because he smiled like a kid? She was screwed. So totally screwed. She was supposed to be letting him go and she was fantasizing about having his babies. Bad, bad, bad.
“What was all that your heart is free to go where it will stuff?”
Of course he would have picked up on that line of the spell. “That’s, uh, part of the curse. Freeing you. You know. From…”
“Biz? From what?”
“Freeing you from loving me, okay?” She jumped to her feet, needing to not be sitting cross-legged on the floor when he told her he had more passion for cockroaches than he had for her. Feet planted, shoulders square. Strong. No slumped little witch to be crushed by a man’s lack of affection.
Mark climbed to his feet, but he didn’t approach her. That had to be a bad sign. Why wasn’t he pulling her into his arms? Assuring her she’d worried for nothing? Soothing away all her cares with kisses? Why was he frowning? Oh God. Frowning had to be a bad sign.
“Let me see if I’ve got this. You just cast a spell to get me to stop loving you?”
“Not quite. I cast a spell to remove the spell that was making you love me.”
Anger crowded the confusion off his face. “I guess you pretty much suck as a witch, then.”
“What?”
“Look, I think I’ve been pretty understanding about all this—”
“You’ve been great.”
“And I know you’ve got baggage. You’ve dealt with some pretty major shit in the last few years and I get that, but you can’t just wave your magic wand and get rid of the way I feel about you. I love you, Biz. Not because of a spell or a curse or ghosts or stories or whatever the hell you think is forcing me to love you. I just do. Okay? That isn’t going to change just because it’s less scary for you to magic it away than it is to acknowledge your own feelings for me. You said you love me? So own it. Stop hiding behind magic and—”
His words cut off when she slammed into him and slapped her mouth over his. Her arms twined around his neck, and she kept him locked in the kiss until she was certain he knew exactly where she stood. Only then did she let him up for air.
“Whoa.”
“I love you, Mark Ellison.” She bit her lip, still twitching with fragments of nervous doubt. “You’re sure your feelings haven’t changed even
a little? The spell…”
“Biz. Baby, if you believe you can make love happen with a wave of your hand, I believe it too. You’ve bewitched the hell out of me, but it isn’t because of a curse. It’s because of you. Brace yourself, because I’m about to say the cheesiest line of my life, but you are all the magic I need, darlin’.”
Biz’s breath caught in her throat. Damn. No wonder the man had gazillions of fans reading his articles. He’d hit her right in the heart.
In the silence of an empty, ghost-free house, the grandfather clock began tolling the hour. Midnight.
“Happy Valentine’s Day,” Mark mumbled against her lips.
“It is,” she whispered back. For the first time in years, it was a very happy Valentine’s.
Epilogue—The Lusty Month of May
“Will that be cash or credit?” Biz raised her voice over the tumult. Charmed, I’m Sure was packed with noisy day-trippers out from the mainland. May Day officially opened the summer season, and life had come back to Parish Island. Though life had come back to her months ago.
Without thought, her eyes scanned the crowd until she saw a familiar dark head chatting with a customer by the new bay window he’d helped add to lighten the place up a bit.
Mark’s “Island Living” columns in the Gazette were doubtless part of the reason the preseason events had drawn such crowds this year. It was a good year for Parish.
And a very good year for Biz. She couldn’t seem to stop wandering around with a stupid grin on her face—except when Gilly insisted on calling her Mark’s Biz Marks all the time.
“Do you take AmEx?”
Biz snapped her attention back to the line of customers. The next time she had a moment to think, she looked up to see Mark crouched down in intent conversation with a young boy with carrot-red hair and freckles from his hairline to his collar.
The line at the register had cleared out, so Biz slipped from behind the desk and wove her way toward her man and the boy.
Mark’s deep voice carried to her. “Do you believe in magic?”
She paused, partially hidden by a display case.
