Chip drew his eyebrows together. “Did I hear the words love spell in there?”
She jerked her head up and down. “Franca knows some old-school love spells, and I thought, well, since the usual methods weren’t working on Samuel . . .”
“That you’d try the unusual.” His voice was even, not giving her any hint of what was going on in his head.
She gulped down a breath. “You think I’m crazy.”
His lips twitched.
Cassie narrowed her eyes. “Chip?”
He burst out laughing. That dimple in his right cheek made an appearance, but its adorableness didn’t stop her ire from rising when he threw his head back and roared.
“It’s not funny.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Magic is a serious business.”
He laughed harder, clutching his ribs. Max trotted over to check on his person and nosed Chip’s thigh, whining.
It wasn’t that funny. She stomped to the utensil drawer for a butter knife. Yes, she might have had her doubts about Franca’s spells, but it darn sure wasn’t Chip’s place to judge.
Chip wiped his eyes, his laughter tapering off. “Don’t be like that.” He glanced at her hand. “What’s with the knife?”
“To scrape the wax off the floor.” Although a little jab to his midsection was awfully tempting. “Obviously.”
“Babe, with you nothing’s obvious. You might have got the knife out to prick your finger for another spell for all I know.”
Slapping the blade of the knife against her palm, the very dull blade that could barely cut through butter, much less her finger, thank you very much, she gritted her teeth. “Magic isn’t a joke,” she spit out. “And don’t act like you’re so immune to the supernatural. Do you walk under your ladder?”
He hooked his thumbs in his belt loops. “Well, come on, that’s just common sense.”
“Mm-hmm.” She poked the air with the knife. “And do you, or do you not, avoid crossing my cat’s path? My black cat?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Well . . .” He shrugged. “Maybe I am a little weird, too. That’s why we’re perfect for each other.” The smile that slid across his face was devilish and did funny things to her stomach.
She rolled the knife between her fingers. “You don’t think the juju wax on your skin was the reason why you kissed me, do you? The love magic didn’t rev your engines, so to speak?”
He dropped his head level with hers. “I don’t know much, but I do know that it wasn’t your mumbo jumbo that made me kiss you. I’ve been wanting to kiss you ever since you started breathing again in my arms. No magic required.”
“Well, okay.” They stared at each other. She tossed the knife on the island. “I don’t know where to go from here. I still have misgivings.”
“You’re scared.”
She opened her mouth to object, and he placed his finger over her lips. “When it comes to relationships, we all get scared. But I have to warn you, I’m a determined man.”
Her lungs froze. Her grandfather used to say it would take a determined man to capture her heart. After seeing his daughter’s disastrous relationships, he’d wanted a hardworking, moral man for Cassie. He would have loved Chip. The only question was: Could she?
“Since I know how much Halloween means to you, I’ve got to get back to work.” He leaned down and kissed the side of her mouth. He strode out of her kitchen, leaving her a messed-up bundle of mixed emotions.
Her plan was gone and buried. Once Chip’s lips had met hers, she’d known she could never settle for Samuel. Her boss had been the safe bet. If it didn’t work out, she wouldn’t have been crushed. She wouldn’t have been invested. But with a man like Chip . . .
There was nothing safe about him. If she let him, he could have the power to destroy her.
And give her everything.
Was such an all-encompassing love worth the risk?
Chapter 8
Chip adjusted the coffee-stained gauze around his neck and set his shoulders. He knocked on Cassie’s front door and waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
For a woman who was so all-fired up about the opening of her haunted house that night, she sure wasn’t pouncing at the prospect of potential victims.
He checked his watch and blew out a breath. He was early. The high school boys hadn’t even arrived yet. But damn it, he was the one all-fired up.
She wouldn’t talk about the kiss when he’d left last night, and that was a conversation that needed to happen. She hadn’t wanted to talk about much at all. Cassie had just told him the haunted house looked great, then scuttled inside her home, tossing a “Good night” over her shoulder.
He knocked again.
Well, there’d be no more avoiding the issue.
The door swung open and a pair of glowing red eyes peered ghoulishly out at him from the face of a skeleton bride. The eerie figure tipped its bony head. “Chip?” She stepped out onto the porch and scanned him from head to toe. “You’re a mummy.”
He held his arms out. “I didn’t think my Captain America costume would scare anyone.”
“But . . .” Cassie turned her head to look at the finished structure on her driveway. Black sheets were hung between painted PVC frames. Orange spiders, light projections from a hidden device, seemed to crawl over the makeshift walls. In the burgeoning dusk, he could just make out the wires crisscrossing overhead and the bats dangling from them. “What are you doing here?”
“You didn’t think I’d build your haunted house and not see it in action, did you?” Jinx padded out onto the porch and meowed up at him. Chip bent down and picked her up, with barely a shiver tracking down his spine. “I was hoping to get to scare some kids with you.”
The black paint around her mouth stretched into a gruesome smile. “You want to scare children with me?”
Chip tilted his head. She really did look ghastly. The black and white face paint stretched down her neck and chest, disappearing behind her ragged wedding dress before peeking out again at her hands. Her hair was a sickly purple gray that looked so stiff he’d probably lose his fingers if he tried to run them through it.
Why, then, did his heartbeat race and his palms tingle? “I wouldn’t want to spend my night with anyone else.”
Cassie pressed her creepy hand against her heart. He couldn’t read her painted face, but Chip suspected he might have just hit a home run. And it was about damn time.
Jinx pawed his arm, and Chip stroked his hand down her back.
“No Max?”
Jinx scrabbled against his grip and Chip let her down by Cassie’s feet. “Max doesn’t do scary. If a kid started screaming, he’d probably try to launch a rescue operation.”
“Well,” she said with her skeleton smile, “no one’s perfect. Come on in.”
Chip wiped his boots on the doormat and followed her inside. He paused in her entry. Lifting his face, he sniffed the air. Sugar . . . butter . . . and . . .
“What is that smell?” He hurried after her, heat unfurling in his belly. Whatever was baking in her kitchen was the scent he couldn’t get out of his head. Her scent.
“My grandma’s Annie cookies.” She stopped at the threshold to the kitchen and glanced back at him. Could a skeleton look flirty? “I’m icing the last batch. And you”—she flicked a glance up and down his body—“should definitely try one.”
He trotted after her, his mouth watering. He didn’t know if it was from the aroma of the cookies or the soft sway of her hips under that dress.
She picked up an icing bag and bent over a tray.
The stained and torn gown she wore didn’t cling to her curves, and her makeup certainly wasn’t intended to attract. She shouldn’t have looked sexy frosting—he examined the gingerbread men–shaped cookies and grinned—bandages for her mummy cookies, but damn it, she did.
A crunchy-looking strand of hair drifted down to her chin. She puckered her lips and blew it off her face.
>
Something shifted, fluttered in his chest.
But was she his?
Thinking about how to raise the subject, he picked up one of the warm cookies and took a bite. He moaned. “What is this?”
“I told you.” She finished, adding eyes peeking out from the bandages on her cookie and moving to another. “Annie cookies. Or more precisely, anise cookies. The name got butchered somewhere along the way.”
He took another bite and let the flavors explode on his tongue. “It’s sweet and spicy and tart all at the same time. Your grandmother was a genius.”
Cassie arched a white-painted eyebrow. “I don’t think she invented anise cookies. But yeah, I like the mix of the licorice flavoring with a sugar cookie. She used to make them for Christmas, but I think they’re better for Halloween. Anise just seems like a darker, more complex spice, something suited for goblins and ghouls rather than a jolly Santa Claus.” She reached up and wiped a bit of icing from his lip, then blushed. She ducked her head back to her cookie. “The icing has a bit of lemon juice in it. I think the citrus gives the anise a nice punch.”
Chip rubbed his mouth, his flesh still humming from her touch. Cassie was the one who packed a punch. She was just like her grandmother’s cookies: a mix of sweet and heat, spice and tart. Every part of her he found appealing, knowing it all added up to this complex woman.
“Can I help with something?” He grabbed another cookie. “Besides the taste testing,” he added before biting off the mummy’s head.
“You can grab me that platter behind the toaster oven and start plating the cookies that are dry.”
Chip rose and retrieved the purple platter. A folded piece of red construction paper toppled onto the counter. He picked it up. It must have been tucked behind the plate. He turned to hand it to Cassie when his gaze snagged on the words written in bold black print.
His body went rigid.
“Do you have the plate—” Cassie sucked in a sharp breath. She reached for the cardstock, but Chip lifted his hand. “It’s not what you think,” she said.
“What were you supposed to do with this one?” The back of his throat felt raw. The romantic poem written under Sam’s name could only have been another attempt at magic. He’d really thought that he had a chance. That she’d given up on the idea of her and Sam. “Stick it under his pillow?”
She swallowed, her throat rolling. “Burn it and bury the ashes. But—”
“Am I ever going to have a shot?” He ground his back teeth. “I can fight a lot of battles, but I’m having a hard time fighting against a screwed-up fantasy. It’s like fighting against a ghost.”
She snatched the card from his hand and crumpled it. “I made this stupid card days ago and never got around to throwing it out. It means nothing. I . . . I’ve changed my mind. Sam isn’t the man for me.”
Chip clenched his hands. He wanted to believe her. But she wasn’t the only one taking a leap of faith.
She stepped up to him and placed her hands on his hips. “I thought a man had to have a steady, nine-to-five job in order to be a steady person. I didn’t want to turn into my mom, busting her butt not only to take care of me, but to take care of her latest boyfriend who couldn’t fend for himself and usually ended up stealing her money. But I was only trading her mistakes for my own. And I was about to make the biggest one of all by letting you get away.”
Chip gripped her shoulders. “I’m not one of those guys. I’m a safe bet. I need you to know that.”
“I do.” She rolled up on her toes and brushed butterfly-soft kisses over his cheeks, his jaw, the corner of his mouth.
Heat pooled low, but this was important. He ignored the urge to press her up against the fridge and have his way with her. “Cass, I’m serious. I know you think handymen are as undependable as musicians, actors, and any other flake profession you think of—”
“I don’t. Not anymore.” She ducked her head to press her lips to the underside of his jaw.
“But I’m not just a handyman. I have plans. I’m—”
She pressed her finger against his mouth. “I don’t care if you’re Bill Gates or the pizza delivery man. The profession doesn’t make the man. You’re kind and funny and too independent to ever take advantage of a woman.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Babe, I’ve been trying to take advantage of you from the moment we met.”
“Is that so?” She ran her hands around to his back and leaned into him. “Well, now that you have me, whatever are you going to do?”
His mind raced with possibilities. The kitchen island was good and sturdy, but at this point in their relationship that seemed a bit presumptuous, even for him. Besides, she must have spent hours on her costume and makeup. If he did everything he wanted, all that hard work wouldn’t survive.
So, he said the only thing that came to mind. The only thing he knew to be true. “I’m going to keep you.”
She gave him the most beautiful, grotesque smile a skeleton bride could. The red contacts she wore couldn’t hide the glistening of her eyes, or the joy brimming within.
She arched her neck and parted her lips, and all thoughts of saving her makeup flew out the window.
The buzz of a doorbell cut through the moment like a skill saw.
He dropped his forehead to hers. “Saved by the bell.”
She leaned back. “What?”
“Your paint job. It was about to get very, very messed up.”
The doorbell rang again.
Cassie sighed and stepped out of his arms. “That must be the high school kids. Rain check?”
“You can count on it.” He knew that rain check would pay dividends. A future of mussed-up hair and ruined makeup. Laughing by her side, and holding her close when the times weren’t so funny. Years of making kids scream in terror, and always having a front-row seat to her unique brand of weird. Heat radiated through his chest at the thought.
He raised his arm in an after-you gesture. “It’s time to get this scare show on the road.”
His stomach fluttered.
He didn’t want to wait one moment longer.
Epilogue
Cassie shivered, and Chip wrapped his blue and red arms around her, pulling her back against his front. She snuggled into his heat.
The air was crisp, the perfect temperature for the Halloween parade. People crowded the sidewalks, everyone chattering excitedly as they waited for the parade to start. Jack-o’-lanterns lined the street, and the storefronts on Pumpkin Lane were packed with shoppers and trick-or-treaters.
Jinx batted at a stray Tootsie Roll.
Leaning down, Cassie scooped up the candy and put it in one of her pockets to throw away later. “That’s not a treat for you.” She adjusted the dirndl on her cat, then pulled a bag of treats from a lumpy pocket in her skirt. “This one’s for you.”
Max trotted over to investigate, his lederhosen twisting at his tail.
Cassie fed him a treat from another bag and tugged the costume back into place.
Chip shook his head. “You know, when I suggested you dress as a witch for Halloween, this wasn’t what I had in mind.”
Cassie gave Max one last pat on the head. “You wanted a witch. You got the witch who tried to eat Hansel and Gretel.” She fingered her grimy cloak and grinned. Their costumes had turned out pretty darn good, if she said so herself, especially for a rush job.
Max nudged her hand, and she slipped him another biscuit.
Chip sighed. “You really are like that witch, fattening my dog up with sweets.”
“I don’t know what you’re complaining about.” She pulled out another bag. “I have something sweet for you, too.” She held up an Annie cookie. “Besides, Halloween is supposed to be creepy, not sexy.”
He took the cookie with one hand and waved his other in front of his body. “And you asked me to wear this because . . . ?”
She fought her smile. The double standard wasn’t fair, but when he’d mentioned a Captain America costume, she knew
she had to see him in it. Was it her fault he filled it out so well it made every red-blooded woman come to attention and want to salute?
She patted the star on his chest. “Because ever since I met you I’ve nearly choked to death, I’ve fallen down a flight of stairs, and almost cracked my head open in a freak wax accident. The odds are higher than average that some other calamity will befall me today.” She batted her eyes at him. “I thought I might need a hero to rescue me.”
He tapped the fake wart on her nose. “Rescuing you might be a full-time job.”
“Think you’re up for it?” she challenged.
“I think,” he said, and turned her until she was leaning back against him again, “that I’m the only man for the job.”
Cassie’s throat went thick. She thought that, too. It had taken her some time to realize it, but now she knew she wouldn’t trust any other man to have her back.
Cheers erupted as the local high school marching band kicked off the parade. A blue Caddie rolled behind them, the Pumpkin Festival Queen sitting on the edge of the backseat, waving like a member of the royal family.
Cassie burst out laughing. Instead of one of the young beauty pageant winners, an octogenarian had captured the title that year. It was another one of those wonderful twists that life liked to toss into the mix every now and again. Like the twist of fate that had taken the cookies she’d bought for one man and used them to throw her into the arms of another.
She rested her hand over Chip’s gloved one at her belly.
And she wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Annie Cookies
2 cups sugar
½ cup lard
¾ cup milk
2 eggs
8 drops (or 2 tsp) anise oil
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
7 to 8 cups flour
The Bakeshop at Pumpkin and Spice Page 19
