“Don’t be silly! You don’t have to do them at all, Marissa. Go, get the baby. I can come back another time,” I assured her. Believe you me, I could wait for her to yank the skin right off my face without quarrel.
But Marissa shook her head, her bright blue eyes scanning my forehead. “I can do it in five seconds flat. Just hang on a sec.”
As she went off to grab her tools of the trade, Leif pulled out his phone and bit his lip. “I’ve got to grab this, but the timer is set. I should be back long before it goes off.”
He passed Marissa, who’d already grabbed her small vat of hot wax and wax strips. Without another word, she pulled out her scissors and snipped my eyebrows before applying a hot line of wax over them.
As she moved to grab the wax strips, I busied myself looking out the window to the street—and that’s when I saw it again.
The Aston Martin. Top down.
With Win in the driver’s seat.
Chapter 9
Just as Marissa smoothed the wax strips over both eyebrows, my shock changed to disbelief. “Are you kidding me?” I sputtered without thinking as I watched the car roll past, smooth and sleek, Win’s profile flashing under the lowering sun, making my eyes go wide.
Marissa backed up and looked at me, her expression concerned. “Stevie? Are you okay?”
Okay? I most certainly was not okay. On total impulse and likely a surge of adrenaline, I jumped up from the chair, tucking my purse under my arm as I went.
“Hold that thought!” I yelled to Marissa as I ran for the door. “I’ll be right back!”
“But Stevie, you have wax all over your face and your hair and nails are in foils! Let me at least take them out! Wait!” she cried, but I paid no mind.
I was going to find out once and for all what the frickety-frack was going on. Crashing my way down the sidewalk like King Kong vs. Eb Falls, I stumbled in my sandals, my ankles occasionally collapsing as I ran, while simultaneously thrusting my hand into my purse to find my keys.
I beeped my car and threw open the door, losing my grip momentarily and almost falling, but by golly, I hung on to that door and managed to get in the car.
Not without losing a piece of my dress when I slammed the driver’s side shut, mind you, but at that moment, I didn’t care about anything else but catching up to Win.
My breath came in harsh gasps, made harsher by the heat enveloping me from my car sitting in the sun for so long. But I paid little mind to the softening of the wax on my eyebrows when it began to slide down toward my eyelid as I roared out of my parking space and shot down Main Street to follow the Aston Martin.
Win had a bit of a lead on me, but he was adhering to the town speed limit, the way all good reincarnated ex-spies with a fake ID do (he’s a stickler for obeying the traffic laws, by the by), making it easier for me to catch up.
I soared out of town, finally close enough to see his hair ruffling in the wind. And then he looked up into his rearview mirror (I know he did. I’d stake my life on it)—and he floored it, shooting off like a ball from a cannon.
I gasped out loud at the audacity. “Crispin Alistair Winterbottom,” I yelped to the hot interior of my car, “you’ve got some splainin’ to do!”
Shoving the cutting cape out of the way, around my neck, I knocked off a couple of the foil wraps on my nails, which, along with my eyebrows, were melting.
I gave my car a bit more gas, knowing darn well Win would be the victor of this race, but I was at least going to keep him in my sights—well, that is, until I heard sirens.
As I whipped along the twisty, pine-tree-lined road, heading back to my house, I saw the flash of red and blue lights behind me, and then someone said into a loud speaker or megaphone or whatever police use to get someone’s attention, “Pull over!”
Me? Did they mean me?
“Pull over now, Miss Cartwright!”
Aw, c’mon! Win was getting away. If I didn’t catch him red-handed, it gave him a chance to hide the car again!
But being the rule-following citizen I am, I pulled over at the first section marked for trail hikers, crunching over the pine needles and rocks to put my car in park.
I watched in the sideview mirror as Dana sauntered up to the car, his uniform starched to within an inch of his life. When he approached, I rolled down my window, furious.
He leaned into the window by bending at the waist and planting his hands on his thighs. “Miss Cartwright,” he drawled calmly as his gaze roamed over my face and hair without even batting an eye. “In a hurry to get somewhere? Because I think you forgot to take the curlers out of your hair.”
I, on the other hand, was fuming as I popped the door, one of my cotton-ball-covered nails bending, and pushed it open. “You bet I am, buddy! So I suppose that wasn’t an Aston Martin up ahead, huh, Officer Knows All Makes And Models Of Cars Because He’s A Cop?”
He pulled his ticket pad from his shirt pocket and sucked in his chiseled cheeks. “I don’t know what you mean, Miss Cartwright. I only saw you breaking the law. Now, you can make this easy or you can make this difficult, and I can haul you in for failing to cooperate.”
I jumped out of the car, pushing the flyaway cutting cape out of my mouth and somehow managed to get my gooey fingernails stuck in my hair.
But I didn’t care. Enough was enough. Dana and Win were in cahoots, and I wanted to know about what.
“A ticket?” I barked, trying to shake loose my fingers so I could wave them under his nose. “Don’t you dare write me a ticket, Dana Nelson, or I’m going to put a hex on you that’ll stalk you the rest of your days!”
The moment the words slipped out of my mouth, I regretted them. It wasn’t like me to make threats, but I was so angry, I got carried away.
And Dana wasn’t going to let me get away with it. He wiggled the pad at me and rolled his tongue along the inside of his cheeks. “Is that how we’re going to play this, Miss Cartwright? You’re going to utilize your spooky magic to avoid getting a ticket? Does that feel fair to you? To hex a poor, unsuspecting, non-magical police officer—doesn’t that make you an evil witch, not the good witch Glinda like you advertised when you were selling me the white witch bill of goods?”
Stomping my foot in frustration, I yanked my fingers free as the wax that had dripped down my face began to harden from the breeze.
“You know darn well I wouldn’t hex you, Dana Nelson, but boy oh boy, do I want to. You know Win was in that car. You know it’s his Aston Martin! You two have been gaslighting me since this day began, and I’m not having it. I want to know what you’re both hiding, and I’m going to find out. So if you’ll excuse me, I have an Aston Martin to catch!”
Pushing him out of the way, I went to hop back in my car, but he latched onto my arm with a light grip. “Not before I give you your ticket, Miss Cartwright. Shall we add resisting to your list of grievances?”
I stared at him for a long moment, the remnants of my gel nails ragged and hardening, wax stuck to not only my forehead but the side of my face, the edges of the wax strips flapping in the wind, and made an executive decision—laws and following rules be damned.
I snatched the pad away from him and gave it a hurl toward the wooded area of the trail, watching with satisfaction as the slips of paper on the pad fluttered in the wind.
“You can take your ticket and stuff it up your rigid keister, Dana Nelson!” I gave him a quick shove and hopped back in my car so he couldn’t stop me, revved the engine, put it in drive and took off.
I didn’t even look in the rearview mirror to see if he was following me. Taking the winding road at a speed I knew deserved a ticket, all I could think was that Win must be heading toward our house. There was nowhere else to go but straight out of town if you took this road.
And when I got to our house, and I found him in that swanky Aston Martin, I was going to wring his neck for having Dana keep his secret when all he had to do was tell me he was bringing his stupid car here to Eb Falls.
I didn’t know what all the other nutty things going on today meant, but I did know, for some reason, Winterbutt didn’t want me to know about the car.
Swerving around the last bend in the road before our house, I think I took it on two wheels. I swung a hard right into our steep driveway, shooting up the concrete and stopping maybe two inches shy of the garage door.
Flinging open the driver’s side, I literally fell out of the car, stumbling and bumbling my way upright, my knees giving way for a moment before I gritted my teeth and managed to stand up straight as I fought the cutting cape that refused to stay out of my face.
At a quick glance down, I noticed a tear in my dress, but that was the least of my concerns as I stood tall, ready to march inside and demand Win explain himself.
That was when I saw them.
White flakes…tons of white flakes swirling around the yard. In fact, as they fluttered and swirled, they looked like mashed potato flakes.
And lights—hundreds and hundreds of lights strung from one end of the porch to the other and all around the front yard attached to beautiful wood stakes, framing the perimeter.
Flowers—red and white poinsettias—to be precise, sat along the front steps, and in beautiful glittery silver and white pots all around the property.
Christmas trees in various sizes and heights, glittering with lights, sprouted up everywhere on the porch and all over the lawn.
Ohhh, and there were candy canes, too! Sparkly silver and white candy canes almost as tall as me, lining a path to a table covered in a gossamer silver tablecloth. Everything was so beautiful…
My mouth fell open as the reality of what I was seeing began to fall into place.
I gulped as I brushed my foil-covered fingertips over the cutting cape, my other hand going to my hair, where I still had a headful of more foil.
Blowing a sagging wax strip from my eye, everything hit me at once.
So, hold, please. A theory was forming in my brain.
Candy canes…snow…flowers…Donna Blitzhen.
Oh, dear.
Chapter 10
Then Win was there, handsome, perfect, tall and strong in an impeccable tuxedo, looking as gorgeous as he ever had while my favorite Christmas tune of all time, White Christmas by Bing Crosby, played softly in the background
He held out his hand and smiled that warm smile that left grooves on either side of his mouth and made my heart pound in my chest. His blue eyes sparkled as fake snow swished about our heads, and he took a step closer.
“Ohhh, Win. You look…you look so handsome,” I whispered, my voice shaking.
“Take my hand, won’t you, Dove?” he asked in his husky, cultured voice.
“But…” I trailed off, looking down at the mess I was, my ripped dress, my wrecked nails. “But I’m a mess,” I whimpered, feeling all manner of foolish.
“Surely you realize that’s never stopped me before, don’t you? Why would it now?” he said with a tender smile.
I took his hand, my own shaking. “I don’t understand…”
Pulling my knuckles to his lips, he kissed them with a chuckle. “Of course you do, Dove. Nothing has ever been simple for us, has it? Why would this be any different?”
He was right. I did understand, and when I attempted to speak, I tried to say real words but they just wouldn’t come out of my mouth. I know you all probably find that hard to believe, but I truly was almost speechless.
“I…”
“Come with me, won’t you? I have something I’d like to show you,” he said in his gallant, chivalrous way as he guided me along the candy cane path to the beautiful table with the flowing tablecloth and faux white and silver frosted candles.
Whiskey and Strike were there, each with a bow tie around their necks, sitting side by side. Belfry sat on Whiskey’s back, a tiny bow tie around his neck, too.
“Bel, you all look so handsome,” I whispered, my throat tight as I reached down and stroked each one of them on the head.
“Arkady?” Win called softly. “Present and accounted for, my dear friend?”
When Arkady answered, his husky voice sounded teary. “Dah, Zero. I am here.”
My pulse raced as Win pulled me to him, took the cutting cape from around my neck, set it on the table and wrapped his arms around my waist.
“Oh, Stephania. Of all the ways I imagined this moment, it certainly didn’t have anything to do with wax and hair dye, but now that I see you, now that you’re here, I realize this only makes the moment I’ve planned for so long that much more perfect.”
I stared up at him in wonder. “You’ve been planning this…?”
He threw his head back and laughed, the long length of his throat bronzed from the sun. “If you only knew. Every last second was planned, but then you came barreling in and, like anything one hopes to pull off without a hitch, chaos ensued, and your love of a good mystery became a bit of a hurdle. Not an insurmountable one, mind you, but a glitch in my giddy-up nonetheless.”
Flashes of the day were hitting my brain full force now, and some of it began to make sense. Boy, had I ever mucked this up.
“The car…” I muttered. “Your car…”
“Yes, Dove, the car is my car. The car that I was notified about today, while in the midst of my last-minute preparation for this elaborate event, was already here and waiting to be picked up due to a delivery date mix-up on the shipping end of things.”
“I told Dana it was an Aston Martin,” I murmured, as though that made a difference now. “I knew it.”
“And I’m told he tried to convince you it wasn’t.”
I winced with a grimace. “You were told right. At first I believed him—”
“But then, let me guess, you decided I was trying to keep you from my beloved car and thought to chase it down yourself?”
I snorted a giggle. “Sort of—among other things.” So many other things.
“By other things, do you mean the blonde woman you all but hunted down at The Sunshine Inn today?”
I gasped and swatted at his chest. “I saw you get in a black sedan with her from my bedroom window. I was home when she picked you up. I thought she was—”
“A criminal from my sordid past who perhaps was blackmailing me to do her evil bidding?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.
Man. He really was good at this.
“I heard you on the phone a couple of weeks ago with someone named Marsden, who I was sure was your handler back in your spy days, and then I saw your Aston Martin and the blonde woman drove you here in a black sedan and I just sort of ran with it…”
He cupped my cheek and grinned. “Which is one of the reasons I love you so. No matter how convoluted, your busy brain can convince you of anything. It’s one of your most fascinating traits, and I wouldn’t have you any other way.”
As the sun now began to dip on the horizon, I asked, “So who’s the blonde?”
“Your sister with a blonde wig, of course,” he said, and then he laughed. “She played the part well, eh?”
Hal, of course. That explained how she was able to get away from me so quickly. She’d used her magic. “I’ll say. But why is Hal here?”
“Because I needed her help to surprise you. She does run a factory that makes Christmas decorations, which are hard to come by this time of year—when she found out what I was planning, she offered her services, and I’m ever so grateful to her. So much of my vision was made reality because of Hal and Atticus and almost everyone in town. She’s also—”
“Donna Blitzhen,” I said on a breathy laugh. “Like Donder and Blitzen.”
“You snooped at the inn, didn’t you? To verify your suspicions because I didn’t answer your text about the name?”
“Oh, I snooped all right, but that wasn’t how I got her name. That’s how I confirmed she was staying there. I told you in the text. I got her name from a slip of paper you carelessly left at Madam Z’s with her name and some numbers. You’re a little rusty, Spy Guy. By the way, wha
t were those numbers? Two thousand, thirteen, or something like that?”
“Admit it, you thought they were coordinates.”
I snorted. “I did, funny man with the funny accent. But what were they?”
“The number of lights I needed for groupings. Though, I have to agree with you. I’m quite rusty if I’m leaving evidence behind.”
Sighing, I mused out loud, “Donna Blitzhen. Very clever, you two are. Very clever indeed.”
“We certainly had a laugh over the name she chose to register under at the inn, but we also knew if everyone in town didn’t know who she was, there would be speculation—because Eb-Fallers don’t only like to bring casseroles. They love to bring a good bit of gossip. So we let almost everyone in on our little secret, including Chester and Sandwich. They, of course, called me directly after you saw them at the coffee shop, utterly panicked they’d ruined everything.”
“You know, I had a very strange encounter at the store today. A gorgeous ghost with long red hair threw a bouquet at me. Might she be one of your afterlife admirers?”
“That could be. I’ve had several visits from the afterlife since I began planning this. Busybodies, the lot of them,” he joked.
As I processed the conversations I’d had with people today, I finally understood why no one would look me in the eye, but that also reminded me of the garden club ladies and Leif.
“So Leif knew, too?”
“He did. Leif, who, by sheer luck, you happened to make an appointment with on the very day I needed you to be off for a few hours, and who desperately tried to stall you this afternoon by balking at the condition of your hair. He was quite prepared to draw out your appointment if need be, using the severity of work he convinced you was needed as an excuse. He sends his apologies for making you feel so poorly, by the way. Also, the garden club ladies knew. As did Adele from the flower shop, who provided these brilliant poinsettias. So many people, I’ve lost count.”
Gettin' Witched (Witchless in Seattle Mysteries Book 12) Page 7