Brittany’s favorite was the castle.
Steven’s was the dragon.
They made less of a mess with the frosting than Lucky would’ve thought. They were very mindful of the mess their mama would have to clean up.
“You’re quiet this morning,” Gwen noticed.
“I’m just enjoying the peace. This is my happy place, hanging out with you guys.” She accepted the dragon cookie with the glitter-sprinkled wings Steven handed her gratefully. “Oh, a healthy breakfast.” Lucky took a bite.
“It has been a little crazy since Roderick invited half of the press to hang around, but I guess it’s been good for all of the businesses. This place got a feature, so I have to definitely up my game.”
“I’m sure they were impressed that in a small Missouri town in the middle of nowhere, they were able to get allergen-free vegan cookies. I know I’m impressed.” Lucky grinned and ate another bite of cookie.
Gwen smiled and then slapped the ever-loving hell out of the dough. “It’s so cathartic. I really love it here.”
“I’m glad that they want you to stay.” Lucky pressed her lips together. “So, I have to tell you something.”
“I already told Mama that Jonquil is my fairy godmother. She didn’t believe me, of course.” Brittany cut out another castle with the metal form. “I wouldn’t, either.”
“Wise for your age, punkin’ pie.” Gwen nodded to her daughter.
“That’s the thing,” Lucky began.
“Oh, don’t tell me you’ve been slurping the Kool-Aid, too. Lucky. We’re adults. That fairy-tale stuff is for kids.”
“No, it’s for everyone. Remember when I told you I thought I saw mice and birds sewing? You thought you saw it, too!”
“I’m sure it was just low blood sugar,” Gwen said. “Everyone in this town takes the fairy-tale shtick much too far.”
“I’ve seen the godmothers fly.”
Gwen paused what she was doing with the rolling pin to fix Lucky with a hard stare. “Are you sick? Do you have a flu?”
“I haven’t gotten a chance to tell you what I found out from my mother. This is all real, Gwen. I thought it would be easier coming from me, but if you want to stay here, you need to know the truth.”
“You’re serious about this.” Gwen put the rolling pin down.
“Yes.” Lucky nodded. “Absolutely.”
Gwen wiped her hands on her apron. “Okay, give me the whole spiel. Might as well see how deep the crazy well goes.”
“Grammy is busy when the moon is full. Wonder why?”
Gwen laughed, but when she saw that Lucky wasn’t laughing, she contained herself. “No, come on. A werewolf?”
“Petunia told me it happened when she was saving Red from a werewolf. It’s why they want to move away from town.”
“Grammy? I mean, she’s cool, but she’s not cool enough to be a werewolf.”
“You think it’s cool? That’s kind of terrifying.”
“I mean, obviously. But all the best women are.”
Lucky nodded in agreement.
“Next. Lay it on me. All of it.”
“As I said, Petty, Bluebonnet, and Jonquil are fairies. Fairy godmothers, to be precise. It’s obvious who Rosebud Briar is, if you think about it. Phillip Charming, owner of the castle? During the daytime he’s a frog that sits in the mermaid fountain.”
“I tried to help him. I kissed his head, but he was still just an old frog,” Brittany said.
“Don’t kiss frogs, Brit. You’ll have to do enough of that when you grow up.”
Brittany laughed. “I like kissing frogs. They’re cute.”
“Gross,” Steven offered his opinion.
“Anyway, the town runs on magic. Magic is fueled by love. That’s why they want to become a premiere wedding destination.” Lucky sighed.
“Say I believe you for five seconds. Considering what you’ve dropped on me, the fact that you’re sighing afterward means there’s more. What else could you possibly have to tell me? Is your mom the Bride of Frankenstein, or something?”
“Nope. She’s a, or she used to be, a kitsune. A fox spirit. She fell in love with my dad and got pregnant with me. She had to choose between giving up her immortality and me. Obvi, here we are. That’s why I’m bad luck. It’s the last of my mother’s magic. It’s pure chaos and I can never be cured.”
Lucky’s eyes watered and her throat was tight after she spoke those last words. Speaking them made them more real somehow. More permanent.
Gwen huffed. “I don’t care if you’ve been dredged up straight from hell. There is nothing wrong with you and I’m tired of you thinking you need to be cured. You are one of the kindest, fiercest, most loving people I’ve ever known. I wouldn’t be half the woman I am today without you.”
“What I did to PTA Nancy and Melvin James wasn’t at all kind or loving.”
“Who said love didn’t mean fighting with every weapon in your arsenal? You were protecting me, you were protecting Ransom. You didn’t do it to be cruel, or selfish.” Gwen reached out and grabbed her hand.
“Are those the lessons you want to be teaching Brittany and Steven?” Lucky asked.
“Hell. Yes. I want them to fight for the people they love. I want them to stand tall for what they believe in, and I want them to fight dirty if they have to. There’s a lot of dead bodies on the high road. Everest is packed with them.” She gave Lucky a pointed look.
Lucky snorted. “So, you do believe me?”
“You’ve never lied to me, Lucky. Ever. So even though every word that’s come out of your mouth in the last five minutes has been absolutely batshit insane, of course I believe you.”
“Good. I’ll tell everyone you know.”
“Does Ransom know?” Gwen asked. Then her eyes widened. “Does Roderick know?”
She nodded. “I was so pissed Roderick found out before me, but apparently, the godmothers asked Ransom not to say anything and he promised to wait.
“You have to admire a man who keeps his word, even if it means you got left out in the cold.”
“Yeah, that was my thinking. I’m still a little mad about it.” Lucky ate another cookie.
“Told you so, Mama.” Brittany kept cutting out castles from the dough.
“Yes, you did. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.”
“That’s okay. You do now.” She looked up from what she was doing. “See, Aunt Lucky. You’re magic, too. I wouldn’t have a fairy godmother without you.”
“She’s my fairy godmother, too!” Steven cried.
“Nuh-uh,” Brittany said, smug. “She’s just mine.”
“Not fair.” Steven plopped on the ground and started to cry.
Brittany gave a dramatic sigh worthy of a nighttime soap opera. “I’m sure if you ask Jonquil, she’ll be your FG, too. But you have to ask.”
He kept crying and Gwen didn’t interfere.
“Use your words. That’s how you get what you want,” Brittany said.
“But?” Gwen prompted.
Brittany sighed again. “But it’s okay to cry if you’re upset.”
Steven sniffed a few times and stopped the roll of tears down his rounded cheeks. “Okay. Will you hold my hand while I ask her?”
“Of course.” Brittany had gone back to her task and Steven joined her.
“They’re such good kids. Have you talked to Jake?”
“I texted him asking when he’d like to see them and I haven’t heard anything back.”
“It’s good that you’re here. You’ll have all the support you can handle. So will the kids.”
“Roderick’s been spending a lot of time with them. They seem to like him now. Probably because he likes to take them to play at the fountain.”
Lucky nodded. “It’s a pretty magical place.”
“Literally, I guess.” Gwen looked at the big, hand-carved wooden cuckoo clock on the wall. “Oh! We should get started on this round of cake tasting so you can make your final decisions. Was
Ransom going to come?”
“He was supposed to, but he’s been dealing with a natural disaster in Ecuador.”
“Before you even say it, I am one hundred percent sure that it was not your fault.”
“I’m not. I mean, he was cruising along fine until I came back into his life. He tries to kiss me and he gets assaulted by a cherry tree. He does kiss me before a press junket and they bring up his worst memory—”
“A memory they were going to bring up anyway.”
“That is directly related to me.”
“Lucky, I hate to tell you this, but not everything that happens in the world is a result of you. Things just happen. Good and bad.”
“Look at what happened to PTA Nancy. That was a direct result of me.”
“Yes, thank you. Want another cookie?” Gwen grinned.
“No, you know what I mean. The dam failed. All of his crops are drowning as we speak.”
“Is it really that bad? Has he said anything?”
“We haven’t really had time to talk. He had to fly out to survey the damage and meet with insurance adjusters, and he’s still paying his employees as if they were working their regular hours until he figures out what he’s going to do.”
“He’s got a lot on his shoulders. Maybe we should just pick the cake,” Gwen said. “Take whatever we can off of his plate.”
“We should put better things on his plate, Mama. I wanna make Uncle Ransom some cookies,” Steven said.
Gwen smiled, but it was a sad sort of smile. “Don’t forget, Ransom and Aunt Lucky aren’t really getting married.”
“I know,” Steven said.
“But if it’s okay,” Ransom said from the doorway, dressed in a finely cut suit and looking every inch the businessman, “I’d love to have the title.”
“Make sure that’s what you want. I don’t want them to get attached to you if you don’t want to stay around,” Gwen said quietly.
He came in and sat down next to Lucky and gave the kids a big grin when they handed him a plate of their practice cookies.
“Mama said we need to take things off your plate. We wanted to give you a different plate,” Brittany said.
“Ah, you guys. Want to have some with me?” Ransom asked them.
“No, we can’t. Not if we want cake,” Steven replied, his eyes wide with expectation.
Lucky watched him with them. He was so honest and open. He wasn’t afraid to be vulnerable with them. Nurturing. Protective.
It stirred longings inside of her that she’d tried to ignore because there was no point in wanting what she couldn’t have.
“What kind of cake are we trying first?” Ransom asked the kids.
“I’ll get them!” Brittany ran toward the walk-in cooler.
“Thanks for coming back for this. Someday, you’re going to make a great groom,” Lucky said.
“Thanks for understanding I had to get out ahead of that situation. Someday, you’re going to make someone a great bride.” He flashed her a grin.
She noticed that his attitude toward her was completely different than it had been these last few days. He sat by her, but his body wasn’t angled toward her. He hadn’t been in touch with her while he was gone. There was a distance between them now that her logical mind wanted to chalk up to stress, but that little voice deep inside, the one that was never wrong, told her he’d had enough of her disasters.
That he knew what had happened in Ecuador was somehow her fault.
She didn’t care about the cake. It tasted like ash in her mouth.
“You did a great job with the ruby cacao frosting. Where did they source the cacao? I think Grammy told me, but I can’t remember,” Ransom said.
“This is from the Gold Coast, I believe. I have the supplier’s number in the back if you’re interested?”
“Definitely. I’m going to need to source somewhere. My farms are fucked, not to put too fine a point on it. They don’t anticipate the floodwaters going down until they replace the dam. Local government doesn’t want to replace the dam. So, you can see my problem.”
“How awful. It’s quite incredible that no one died,” Gwen called out as she headed back to get the number for Ransom.
“It is.” He pointed to the lemon cake with the ruby frosting. “This one is my favorite.”
“Mine too,” Lucky said.
“That was easy. What else do we need to do for the wedding planning? I’m ready to cross things off my list.”
“I don’t know. Ask Petty and her magic notebook,” Lucky said on a sigh.
“Are you okay?” Ransom asked.
What could she say? I’m upset that you don’t want to be close to me after your business was almost single-handedly wiped out? Yeah, no.
“Fine.”
Roderick came through the door just then wearing a grim face. “Have you seen the story that bastard Melvin wrote?”
Lucky’s heart sank. “No. What did he do?”
“It’s all about you, Lucky.”
“At least it’s not about Ransom. They’re over The Boy Who Missed, and that’s what I wanted.” She swallowed hard.
“Nancy Slade looks like a lunatic. He did a feature interview with her. Here, read it.” He tried to hand Lucky his phone.
“No, I can’t look at it. Just sum it up.”
Ransom took the phone and paged through the article while Lucky waited on tenterhooks.
“Wow,” was all Ransom could manage.
“Will someone please tell me?”
Gwen had returned with the piece of paper with the supplier’s number written on it and shoved it at Ransom and, in turn, snatched Roderick’s phone out of his hand.
Her eyes kept getting bigger as she read, and her mouth dropped open by additional degrees with each swipe of her finger across the phone’s screen.
“Well, you made a convert out of that guy, I guess.” Gwen shook her head. “It says here that on his way to the airport his car service was late picking him up. His driver took a turn too fast and they skidded off the road into a ditch. They had to wait for roadside assist to pick them up, but when roadside came, there was only room for one of them in the car. The driver left him.”
“I could understand it if he treated his driver like he treated everyone else,” Roderick said.
Gwen nodded. “There’s more,” she said to Lucky. “After he got to the airport, finally, the K-9 unit signaled on his bag for meth. Turns out, his driver was delivering for a Kansas City dealer and they got their bags mixed up in the back of the car. So security took him to a room and strip-searched him. Cavity search and everything. He had to call a lawyer and he was able to prove it wasn’t his bag because a police unit went back to where the vehicle was parked and they found the driver with Melvin’s bag. His ID was still inside.”
“That sounds like good luck to me. I mean, he could’ve gotten in a lot of trouble,” Lucky replied.
“Exactly,” Gwen said. “But there’s more. So he missed his flight, and he had to pay to rebook. The airline wouldn’t comp it. Or give him a voucher for a hotel, so he had to stay in the airport overnight. He finally gets on his plane and his flight gets diverted to St. Louis because someone on board had food poisoning and couldn’t stop vomiting. He finally makes it home and on the way home from the airport, they’re in an accident with a manure truck. He has to walk the last mile home covered in cow shit. He believes that you are one hundred percent to blame for all of this.”
Ransom and Roderick are both snickering.
“I don’t think it’s funny,” Lucky said quietly.
“You’re the one who hugged him and kissed his cheek,” Ransom reminded her.
“You’re right and I shouldn’t have. I don’t know what I was thinking. Look at all the harm I caused,” Lucky said. “PTA Nancy lost her house.”
“How are any of these things your fault, Lucky?”
“I don’t know. How were feral pigs my fault? Wasps? Leeches? A tornado.” She studied him for a long
moment. “A flood.”
Ransom opened his mouth to say something, but no sound came out.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
“Oh no,” Gwen said, just as Roderick’s and Ransom’s phones beeped alerts. Gwen handed Roderick’s phone back to him.
“What is it?” Lucky asked.
“Heart’s Desire stock just dropped like lemmings off a cliff,” Gwen said.
“It seems like the investors and the board think that Melvin’s story might be true. I just got a text there’s already rumors flying around that what happened in Ecuador is because of Ransom’s marriage to Lucky,” Roderick said.
Lucky didn’t want to look at him. She didn’t want to see what she knew would be in his eyes. She supposed it was better to tear the Band-Aid off with a solid rip instead of picking at it. So she met his gaze and she saw all the things in his eyes she’d dreaded.
Regret.
Sorrow.
But ultimately, rejection. He didn’t want her now, but deep down, she always knew that was coming.
Ransom’s biggest fear had been facing down The Boy Who Missed.
Lucky’s had been this moment, right here. This moment where all the dreams he’d encouraged her to hold close were crushed under his heel like so much ash.
Chapter 17
Ransom Payne knew he was an ass.
He could feel Petty’s wrath before the fairy herself could. Granted, she didn’t know about what happened in Grammy’s Goodies.
Maybe she did already know. Petty knew everything.
He looked over his shoulder.
Pick ’n’ Axe Pub was quiet, except for the group of men at a large, round table a few feet from him and Roderick, but that didn’t stop him from looking for Petty, Bluebonnet, and Jonquil.
The place was mining themed, and he allowed himself to take it in while still scanning for the imminent wrath of his godmothers about to strike him down.
All of the tables were rough-hewn wood, with hand-carved benches. The lighting was dim, like any good pub. The rocky walls had been painted to look like there were veins of various minerals and precious metals. Of course, now that he thought about it, they might well be the real thing. Quartz candle holders sat in the middle of each table, and strangely enough, they didn’t seem out of place.
A Hilarious and Charming Feel-Good Read Page 16