“Okay, then.” The teddy bear of a man stood and reached his hand toward me. “Let’s see what’s goin’ on in that head of yours, shall we?”
He led us through the back and down a quiet hallway to an unmarked door. He didn’t say a word as he worked the lock and pushed the door open, motioning for me to go in ahead of him.
The room was barely big enough for the three of us to squeeze in and shut the door behind us. The smell of cigars and stale beer hit me right away. I also detected a hint of something sugary sweet—cherries maybe—but I couldn’t quite make it out.
“Okay, cher. You get comfy on the sofa. I’m gonna grab something really quick.” The voodoo priest disappeared into the hallway we’d just come from, while I eyed the rust-colored upholstery, searching for recognizable stains. I tried not to imagine the assortment of bodily fluids that might or might not have soaked into the heavy tapestry fabric over the years.
Daddy Whatnot wedged himself back into the space, carrying a worn leather bag in his arms like a baby. One of the handles had rotted clean through and hung loosely to the side, while the other appeared almost new. “Go on now. Lie down, and stretch out like a cat ready for a nap in the sun.”
The image of a raggedy black cat flickered in my head before being replaced by my dad. Had he really done something to me to draw me to Liam? Could I forgive him if he had?
I slipped out of my sandals and eased back onto the sofa until my head nestled against one end and my toes brushed the other. The scratchy fabric rasped over my bare arms, and I tensed. “What now?”
“Now you relax and let Daddy do the rest.” He smiled down at me, his lips vanishing under his heavy beard as he showed his teeth. “Close your eyes, and count sheep or something.”
Chloe snorted out a laugh. “Count goats.”
“Am I supposed to fall asleep or something?” I glared at her.
“Nah, nothing like that. But you’re wound up tighter than a virgin on prom night.” He squeezed my shoulders in his giant hands and spoke to me as if I were a small child about to face a firing squad. “Come on now, you need to uncurl those pretty pink toes of yours. And relax your fingers before they break off. I promise, I don’t bite, not unless you ask real nice.” He chuckled again.
I tried to follow his instructions, closing my eyes and counting fluffy white bunnies as they jumped out of a magician’s hat behind my eyelids while Daddy Whatnot shook what sounded like salt into a circle around me. I heard the distinct sound of a match as it scraped the side of a box and ignited, leaving the biting scent of sulfur in the air.
The air around me shifted, and I flinched.
“Now don’t be so jumpy. I’m just gonna light a few candles so we can get started,” he whispered, and even the soft sound sent chills through me.
The hair on my arms rose up to meet his outstretched hands as Daddy Whatnot passed them over me. He never once touched me, but I felt the heat and electricity coming off his skin.
The temperature in the small room dipped as he chanted something under his breath. Goosebumps erupted over my exposed flesh. He passed his hands over me again, and it was as if giant magnets pulled at the life force inside me, drawing answers out through my pores.
Chloe muttered something, but he hushed her, and she immediately quieted. He raised his voice, and at the same time, his hands moved faster over me, not touching but still drawing strength from within me. The tugging grew stronger, almost like cramps spreading through my entire body. He whispered curses under his breath, and his large hands captured my face.
He was so close, his lemony breath swept over my lips as if he were about to kiss me. The kiss never came, but the unbearable urge to squirm fought to break free as he held me still. My eyes snapped open.
Daddy Whatnot hovered over me, steam oozing from his sweaty skin and his face so close it blurred out of view. “Someone’s gone and put a binding spell on you, cher.” I sucked in a quick breath, and he released me, hopping up like a jack-in-the-box and taking the other chair.
Chloe found her voice first. “A binding spell?”
“Nasty things, those binding spells. Powerful magic. But it would seem they missed a step, or maybe…” Daddy Whatnot struggled to catch his breath, using the front of his shirt to mop his face as he studied me from his chair. “Maybe something else got in the way. If they’d managed to complete the spell, you’d have no desire to be free of it. I’d say that makes you one of the lucky ones.”
“Lucky ones?” I shook my head and forced a laugh. Lucky my fiancé dumped me? Lucky I couldn’t control my feelings? I didn’t consider it to be lucky at all.
“Sure. It’s not too late for the spell to be broken.”
Hope blossomed in my chest. “Can you break it?”
“Who, me?” Daddy Whatnot leaned back in his chair and crossed his feet at his ankles. “Nah, I’m afraid that’s above my pay grade, cher. A binding spell can only be broken by the one who placed it.”
Chapter 13
An hour later, Chloe and I sped through the pitch-black night on our way back home. We’d barely spoken a word since leaving the blues bar. I didn’t know about her, but I was numb, operating on autopilot. I had no other explanation as to why my heart continued to beat in a perfect rhythm or why my lungs sucked in breath after breath.
I’d been in shock ever since Daddy Whatnot had explained the principles of the binding spell as he understood them. I was no expert, but it sounded a whole hell of a lot like the magical convergence Jack and I had attempted that first night in the woods, the night he’d tried to convince me he—a total stranger—was the answer to all my magical prayers. I’d long since forgiven his deception, but looking back, it would seem we’d created more than one kind of magic that night. And since neither Jack nor I had known what we were doing, reversing the spell would be next to impossible.
Unfortunately, the witch doctor agreed.
Imagining my life without Jack in it made me physically ill. I loved Jack with every fiber in my being, but how much was real, and how much was the spell? And what about his feelings for me?
As the significance of that revelation sank in, tiny tremors of guilt danced down my spine. I had no idea how my life had spun so spectacularly out of control. Just a few weeks ago, I had been madly in love and planning a wedding. Now I had to figure out what my next step would be and how to remove whatever magic had inextricably linked me to not one but two men.
The threat of fresh tears burned behind my eyes. “How am I going to explain this to Jack? He’ll never forgive me.”
Chloe opened her mouth then clamped her lips together and shook her head. That was the closest thing to an answer I’d gotten from her since we’d left the voodoo priest.
“I wish I could pretend I didn’t know.” I turned to stare into the darkness outside my window, watching shadowy trees whip by in a blur. “I wish I could just have Liam’s spell removed and go back to being happy with Jack. But I can’t. Even if I never told him, I’d know. And I know him, Chloe. If I tell him about the spell, he’ll end things. He hates magic now.” He hates me. “He won’t want anything to do with me when he realizes I accidentally bound him to me.”
“Hey.” Chloe broke her silence. “Don’t forget there were two of you out in the woods that night. If you did bind yourself to Jack, he helped. In fact, it was his idea, as I recall.”
She had a point. Jack had suggested the magical convergence in the first place. But at the time, all he wanted was an excuse to see me in my underwear—and out of my underwear. And dear God, that’d worked out spectacularly too. “It-it was an accident.”
“Accidents happen, sometimes even happy accidents. You and Jack could live happily ever after if you would just accept that your love started out as a minor case of magic gone wrong.”
I spun in my seat to face her, nearly st
rangling myself on the seatbelt. “I can’t do that! How would you feel if you found out Jon only married you because of magic? Could you live with that?”
Chloe’s grip tightened on the steering wheel until her knuckles went white. “I guess not.”
“You know what the worst part of this is?” I sniffled.
She shook her head before whispering, “What?”
“I have like seven texts and twice as many missed calls from Jack.” I scrolled through the messages on my phone, alternating between staring at Jack’s handsome face smiling up at me from the display and reading his heart-wrenching pleas.
“How’s that the worst part?”
“He says he believes me about the spell.” I choked back a sob. “And that he’s sorry. God, he’s begging me to forgive him because he has no idea he only loves me because I somehow hocus-pocused him into a relationship.”
Chloe scoffed. “You don’t know that for certain.”
“You heard what Daddy Whatnot said. That has to be why the second binding spell wasn’t completed. The first spell wasn’t finished because we didn’t know what we were doing, and the second one was left open because of the first. So there’s a distinct possibility that I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to decide which one I want more.”
Chloe’s mouth dropped open. “You still can’t decide?”
“It’s complicated.” More so since I realized the magnitude of the situation.
My phone buzzed in my hand as the first chords of “Magic Man” played.
“Jack?”
I nodded.
“Well, go on! Answer it.”
I shook my head, staring at Jack’s smiling image on the display. “I have no idea what to say.”
“How about, ‘I need more time’?” A sad smile curved her lips. “At least text him. He’s probably going out of his mind.”
“You’re right.” I keyed out a quick text letting him know where we were and when we expected to be back then powered my phone down and tucked it into my pocket. “I’m not ready to talk to him yet. It’s all too much at once.” With Jack, Liam, and the whole thing with my dad, it was no wonder I was overwhelmed.
For several long minutes, the roar of the engine and the rushing wind were the only sounds inside the car. Then Chloe cleared her throat. “You know, maybe you’re looking at this the wrong way.”
“What do you mean?” She had my undivided attention.
“I mean, you need to approach the problem from a different direction, you know, like that old saying about eating an elephant.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. What does my love life have to do with eating an elephant?”
I couldn’t see her eyes, but I’d known her long enough to know she’d rolled them. “No, no. Listen. It goes like this: how do you eat an elephant?”
“Fine, I’ll bite.” I blew out a breath. “How do you eat an elephant?”
Chloe laughed. “That’s exactly it! You eat it one bite at a time. You need to tackle your problem the same way. You need to start at the end and work your way backward. Solve what’s going on with your dad, get him to remove the spell with Liam, then you can figure out what’s going on between you and Jack. If you can fix the one, the other may just fall into place.”
The beginnings of a smile tugged at my lips. “I know I’ll regret saying this, but Chloe, you might actually be a genius.”
“I think I might be.” She beamed. “So since you can’t fight two wars at once, no talking to Jack until you figure out what’s going on on the other battlefield.”
“Sounds like a good strategy to me.”
Game on!
We pulled into Chloe’s driveway just after two in the morning, and I dragged my frazzled carcass from the car with one goal in mind: sleep. I wanted nothing more than to collapse into Chloe’s guest bed and sleep. For as long as she’d let me.
“Ivie!” The hair on the back of my neck stood on end as a disheveled Jack hopped up from the front steps and practically ran to my side.
“Jack.” Seeing him again make my insides flutter. His calloused fingers brushed my cheek, and my pulse jumped. “Wh-what are you doing here?”
He rested his forehead against mine, and his warm breath caressed my face. “I missed you, sweetheart.”
So much for battle strategies. I melted into Jack’s arms, sucking in a greedy lungful of sweet hay and mint soap. His scent was nearly my undoing. The inexplicable draw I felt toward him erased every worry lodged in my short-circuiting brain. “I’ve missed you too.”
“Hey, um, I’m gonna head inside. You know where I am if you need anything.” Chloe slipped past us and into the house, taking her brilliant plan with her.
“Thanks, Chloe,” Jack said over my shoulder before turning his full attention back to me. “I’ve been a complete ass. I went to see your father and—”
“Wait. What?” I froze and pulled my lips from his throat. The butterflies in my stomach took off and left a churning mess in their wake. “You went to see my dad?”
He coiled a lock of my hair around his finger and used it to tug my face back to his. “I had to find out if you were right, if he’d actually do that to his own daughter.”
I untangled my hair from his hand and stepped back. The mention of my dad brought me back to the present. “By that, you mean the spell?”
He nodded and gave me a sheepish grin.
“So you didn’t believe me until my dad confirmed it?” My temper spiked, and I took another step away from him, watching his face as the weight of my accusation hit him.
“No.” His eyebrows knitted together, and he shook his head. “No, Ivie, that’s not at all what happened.”
I crossed my arms and waited. Let’s see him dig himself out of this one.
“Your dad told me I was being ridiculous. He said he’d never do something like that to you. Basically, he told me you’d fallen for Liam because you could be yourself with him. And I’ve gotta tell you, that hurt.” Jack flexed his fingers as if he wanted to reach for me, but he tightened them into a fist and dropped his hand to his side.
I let out a breath, my shoulders deflating. How could I be mad at him for not believing me when the truth was so ridiculous that I didn’t believe it myself? “Jack.”
“No, wait. Don’t you see? Your dad was right. I haven’t been fair to you. At all. Magic is part of who you are, and I’ve been such a dick about making you give that up.” He took a step in my direction, his eyes pleading with me. “Sweetheart, I love you. Every part of you. And if that means your hair turns red or your sex drive cranks up a notch, I’ll have to learn to live with it. Honestly, there are worse things in life than having a wife with a ridiculously high sex drive.” His smile lit up the night.
My head spun from information overload. Nothing made sense anymore. “I don’t understand. How did that revelation make you suddenly believe me about the spell?”
He moved closer, reaching his hand out to cup my face. “Because you’ve always been honest with me. You’ve never held any part of yourself back, and I was stupid to think you would start now. Whatever’s going on with you started the day you went to the lab to help your dad with that damn spell. It has to be the reason for all the craziness. I don’t know what happened, but I know you haven’t been acting like you. And magic is the only explanation I can come up with that makes any sense. I’m so sorry I didn’t believe you when you first told me.”
Jack leaned in for a kiss, but I backed away, shaking my head.
“Ivie?” A whisper of pain etched across his face, and I would have done almost anything to erase it.
I covered my face with my hands. The one thing he needed right then was the one thing I couldn’t, in good conscience, give him. Why couldn’t things be easy? Why couldn’t
everything go back to the way it was? “Please don’t look at me like that. This is way more complicated than you realize.”
“Ivie?” The soft, lilting voice startled me, and I spun away from Jack to gawk at Liam’s smug grin.
My already-churning insides twisted into a pretzel, making me suck in a sharp breath. “What are you doing here?”
“I’ve missed you.” His words echoed Jack’s, and the feeling of déjà vu hit me like a pair of Louboutins to the skull.
“You…” An uninvited zing ripped through me, and I fought back the urge to move toward him. Something was seriously wrong with me. It was as if Liam was the Death Star, and he’d caught me in his tractor beam. “You’re not supposed to miss me.”
“I completely agree.” Liam ignored the dangerous expression on Jack’s face and stepped between us. “You should never be so far away from me.”
I took a quick step back, tripping on one of Chloe’s stepping-stones. Both Liam and Jack reached out to catch me. “Stop! Both of you, please.” I steadied myself then pressed my fingers into my temples to force back the impending headache. They had me so confused. Tough decisions had never been my forte.
Jack growled on my left side, and on the right, Liam scoffed.
“Can’t you see Ivie and I are meant for each other?” Even though he’d directed them at Jack, Liam’s words sliced through me. “She should be with someone who embraces who she really is, not someone she has to hide that side of herself from.”
“Ivie knows she doesn’t have to hide herself from me.” Jack shouldered Liam out of the way to take my left hand. He seemed buoyed by the sparkling diamond on my ring finger.
“Things have changed.” Liam turned to me and raised an eyebrow as if waiting for me to say something.
I darted my eyes from Liam to Jack then back again. “What?”
Liam flashed a shy smile. Even the darkness couldn’t hide the pink tint staining his cheeks. “Well, after last night, I sort of expected you to agree with me.”
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