Whispering Pines Mysteries Box Set 3

by Shawn McGuire

“Not a clue. It’s best if we do as we’re told, though.”

  “Please face each other,” Briar instructed. When we were in place, she said, “River tells us there has been a great deal of tension between the two of you lately.”

  River, standing next to Morgan, looked dark, mysterious, and totally guilty.

  “The November full moon is known as the Snow Moon,” Briar explained. “Rituals for ridding oneself of negative thoughts are especially effective at this time.”

  Morgan spoke next. “We all know how much the two of you care for each other. We want to help you get past this difficult patch.”

  “An intervention?” I looked from Morgan to Briar to River. “Is that what this is?”

  “If that’s how you prefer to view it,” Morgan said. “We look at it simply as help. Even the strongest of relationships needs a little help at times.”

  “Wiccan couples’ therapy,” River mumbled, and I giggled.

  “Arguments,” Briar said in her Mama voice, “stem from either fear, misunderstandings, or anger. Are you angry about something?”

  We both shook our heads.

  “Has there been a misunderstanding?” Briar continued. “Perhaps about your respective roles within your bed-and-breakfast venture?”

  We both paused before saying no, our roles with Pine Time were clear and we were happy with them.

  “Then only fear is left.” She placed her fingers beneath our chins and turned our heads until we were looking directly at each other. “There is no judgment in this space. River, Morgan, and I are here only to support you. Tell each other what these fears are.”

  Tripp and I glanced uncomfortably at and away from each other a few times. After what felt like an hour, he blurted, “I’m afraid I’m going to lose you.”

  I didn’t even know how to respond.

  “Until you,” he continued, “I’ve only had casual relationships. There were women I liked spending time with, but no one I wanted to be with long term. For the first five months, we didn’t move past that same kind of serious dating stage. We hung out, we had fun, but there was no commitment. Other than Pine Time.”

  “That’s because—” I began, and he placed a finger over my lips.

  “I knew I wanted to be with you right away. And now that we’re together, the thought that keeps playing over and over in my mind is that the only woman to ever say she loved me, left me. That’s why I made that boneheaded comment yesterday about not having had my heart broken yet.”

  I pulled his hand away from my mouth. “You’re talking about your mother?”

  He nodded. “Just saying it out loud makes me realize how stupid that is. I mean, you’re not going to leave me, are you?”

  He paled when I didn’t respond right away. Before I could answer his question, I needed to tell him my fear. I knew exactly what it was. It had been playing in my head loud and clear for weeks.

  “I’m afraid you’re trying to change me.”

  He looked stunned. “Why?”

  “Being sheriff and doing whatever it is I was brought to Whispering Pines to do is really important to me.” I glanced at River who gave a single nod of encouragement. “Honestly, it’s as important to me as you are.” I held my hands flat, forming a smooth surface. “You and that need are on equal planes for me. I can’t put one above the other, and sometimes it feels like you’re either trying to set rules around that part of my life or make me choose. My job is what it is. There can’t be rules around it.”

  He stood there, obviously searching for the right response.

  “I’m not saying this right,” I continued, “but what it comes down to is, if you force me to choose, I might not choose you.” I shook my head as my voice strangled. Why couldn’t I say this right? “Tripp, the last thing I want is to lose you, but I set my own needs aside for other people before. First, Randy, when I let my personal connection to him take precedence over what I knew was the right thing to do. And then Jonah. I let him slowly lead me away from what was important to me. By not saying no when he tried to mold me into the woman he wanted me to be, I almost lost myself. I can’t risk that again.”

  Tripp cupped my face in his hands and turned it up to his. “You know that I love you.”

  “I do.”

  “Then trust me when I say, I’m not Jonah. I love you for exactly who and what you are. If I made you feel like I wanted you to choose, it’s only because your job is so dangerous.” He tapped his chest over his heart. “I have this need to protect you that I can’t turn off, but I will be more aware of not trying to control your world.”

  I looked him in the eye. “Sounds like a fair compromise. I promise not to treat you like Jonah.”

  He smiled. “And I promise not to push my mother’s mistakes onto you.”

  “Good.” Briar clapped her hands softly. “This is very good. Your fears are intertwined with your love for each other.”

  Morgan stepped forward then and withdrew a small canvas bag from beneath her cape. “A full moon night is also an excellent time to perform a partnership or binding ritual.”

  Tripp and I looked at each other, and I said, “Woo-woo.”

  “Mindset and intent,” Morgan corrected with narrowed eyes. She reached into the bag and withdrew two obelisk-shaped pink crystals. “Rose quartz heals both spiritual and physical ailments. It promotes self-love and inner harmony. And, among other things, it brings about forgiveness and opens the heart to give and receive love.”

  She handed each of us a crystal and then withdrew three lengths of leather cording, a small wrought-iron cauldron with a chunk of patchouli incense inside, and a folded paper.

  “I would like to guide you through a binding ritual. It’s nothing legal, of course. The intent is to bind the two of you spiritually and emotionally. To bring you closer in heart and mind.” She paused for us to absorb that and then asked, “Would you like to proceed?”

  “I would,” Tripp said without hesitation.

  I nodded. “I would too.”

  She handed us the other items from the bag and took a small burning stick from the fire. “Light the incense and cleanse your crystals with the smoke before entering the circle.”

  Tripp held the cords and the paper while I held the incense to the flame. Once lit, I returned the incense to the cauldron.

  After holding our crystals over the incense smoke, Morgan instructed, “Enter the circle and place the cauldron to one side. You’ll notice that two stones opposite each other on the circle are out of place. Each of you, take a stone and put it in place to close the circle.” Once we’d done that, “Now sit cross-legged in the center of the circle knees to knees, one of you facing north, the other south.”

  I chose the north-facing position, and Tripp sat with his knees pressed lightly against mine. Next, we were to read the words on the paper out loud to each other.

  Tripp went first. “On this night, beneath this Snow moon, in the presence of those who love us, I commit to you. I promise to always respect you for who and what you are and to never again reflect past hurts onto you. I love you with all that I am.”

  After I’d repeated the words to him, Morgan instructed us to secure a length of cord around each other’s left wrists symbolizing our bond.

  “Now take the longer cord,” Morgan said of the remaining piece, “and tie the two crystals together as a further sign of your commitment to each other.”

  Tripp wrapped the crystals. As I tied the cord, I thought of Lily Grace’s “two pink cylinders side by side” vision. That might be her best one yet.

  “The final step,” Morgan said, a smile brightening her face and happy tears gleaming in her dark eyes, “is to remove a stone together, breaking the circle and releasing your commitment into the world.”

  We did and as we stepped out of the circle, hands clasped tightly, Briar proclaimed, “So mote it be.”

  Pitch crowed and Meeka barked as our three friends wrapped us in a hug. We celebrated with sparkling grape juice, sin
ce Morgan couldn’t drink champagne, and sat around the fire pit until Briar started dozing off again.

  “Thank you.” I wrapped my arms around Morgan, the baby preventing too tight a hug. “I’m so grateful I’ve got people who step in and rescue me from myself.”

  “The two of you are perfect for each other,” she murmured in my ear. “You do realize that.”

  “I do.” I pulled away and asked, “What about you and River? You must have more quartz and cording.”

  “Tonight is for you and Tripp. There will be other full moons.”

  Tripp and I didn’t speak of our ceremony until we were home and tucked into bed.

  “What did we just do?” he asked, pretending dread, but I heard the thrill in his voice.

  I was lying contently in his arms with my head resting on his strong chest and shifted so I could look up at him. The light from the full Snow Moon illuminated the room perfectly.

  “We proclaimed our intent,” I said, smiling. “I’m sorry we’ve been fighting, but Briar was absolutely right. The arguments stemmed from our fears. I believe with all my heart that for as much as we were each drawn to this village, we were drawn here for each other as well.”

  “I think so too.” Then he gave me a kiss that warmed every inch of me.

  We debated about going out onto the patio to enjoy the crisp air and light from the full moon but decided it was much more comfortable in bed. Besides, we could still see the moon through the windows.

  We stayed awake talking about everything—our recent fights, Randy threatening me, our binding ceremony, our bright and secure future—until three in the morning. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d done that. It had to have been during my first week or two here, before I became sheriff and we got the go-ahead from my parents to turn this place into a B&B. Few and far between was better than never, though.

  Meeka woke us at eight, needing to go outside.

  “We should install a doggie door,” I groaned.

  “That would be great,” Tripp agreed, “until the winter wind starts whipping across the lake and straight into the house.”

  “Always have to be practical, don’t you?”

  “One of us has to be.” At my mock glare, he laughed and kissed my forehead. “Joking. I’m just joking.”

  He got up to let Meeka out and then started breakfast. I lay there a little longer, inspecting the leather cord tied around my wrist. We had guests coming tomorrow, so it would be back to normal B&B life for Tripp.

  As for me, I’d take things as they came. Hopefully, I’d get a break from Whispering Pines’ dark cloud for a few days, although I’d stay on guard for Flavia and her vigilantes. I had a sketchbook and plenty of places around the village where I could practice my new hobby. Yule was coming in a few weeks and there was a metric ton of Gran’s decorations in the loft over the garage I should put out. Or I could help paint the attic. Or I could sit and sketch Tripp while he painted the attic. So many options.

  Chapter 1

  The pyramids were bugging me. Or, at the moment, the lack of them. I’d removed them from and returned them to their longstanding spots in the bookcase in my father’s childhood bedroom half a dozen times. Currently they occupied the storage box on the floor next to the bookcase.

  I dug out the model of the Great Pyramid of Giza and centered it on the eye-level shelf. The model of the Pyramid of Kukulcan at Chichen Itza went on the shelf directly below it. There were others. My dad had been obsessed with the structures, along with all things ancient and buried, as a kid. These two were the most impressive of his collection, meticulously carved from small blocks of pine, precisely positioned, and hand-painted. The others were made of Legos or popsicle sticks.

  “Jayne,” a croaky, half-asleep voice from behind me made me jump. “Again with the pyramids?”

  I turned to find Tripp, my boyfriend and business partner, standing in the doorway wearing only his pajama pants despite the chill in the air.

  “He should see them,” I explained. “They’ll remind him of his childhood and everything that’s good about the village.” Not that everything about the village, or his childhood for that matter, was good, but I wanted to amplify those things that had been. I stepped back and took in the display. “What do you think?”

  “I think your dad is going to see his daughter first. What we’ve done to the house will be a far second. His old things are a nice touch but not worth obsessing over.”

  “But shouldn’t his room make him feel nostalgic?” I pondered my own question for about the hundredth time. “Or, since the rest of the house has been updated, do we act like this isn’t his room anymore?” I looked from Tripp to the pyramids and back twice. “What do you think?”

  “I think”—he took my hand and led me toward the door—“it’s three in the morning and your brain is doing that thing brains do in the middle of the night.” He turned off the light and shut the door behind us. “The room is spotless. The bathroom sparkling. The towels are fluffy and the bed cozy. What more could he want?”

  “Chorizo.”

  He closed his eyes and let out a little sigh. “What?”

  “He likes chorizo sausage with scrambled eggs for breakfast. And pepper jack cheese.”

  “Would you like me to call Lorena and have her meet us over at Sundry in ten minutes so we can get some?”

  Now he was being a smart aleck. “No. But we need to get some if we don’t have any. And blueberries. He likes blueberries.” As we climbed the stairs to our third-floor attic apartment, another thought struck me. “At least he used to. What if he doesn’t like any of that anymore? What if his diet has completely changed? What if he has completely changed?”

  “Oh, God.” When we got to the top of the stairs, he wrapped his arms around me. “Babe, you’ve got to stop this. You’re driving yourself insane. Me and River too. I promise you, the only thing your dad is going to care about is seeing you.”

  When I started talking about the type of soap in his shower, Tripp kissed me. And not a quick little smooch. It was a kiss that made me completely forget what I’d been saying. At some point, he picked me up, still kissing me, and carried me to our bed where he peeled off my robe. The kissing led to other things people didn’t usually do at three in the morning. Afterward, we drifted off to sleep again, wrapped in each other’s arms.

  Moments later, or so it felt, Tripp’s unbelievably annoying crowing rooster alarm went off. Which meant it was five o’clock.

  “Sorry.” He scrambled to shut it off.

  That alarm had caused a small but very real fight between us when I moved into the house from the boathouse across the backyard. My phone alarm woke me each morning with the sound of happily chirping birds. A gentle sound that made me think of blue skies dotted with small puffy white clouds and warm spring breezes. His about knocked me out of bed with fear that the apocalypse was striking.

  “I can’t oversleep,” he’d argued. “If I don’t get up, our guests don’t get breakfast.”

  When I threatened to return to the boathouse, he agreed to a gentler alarm if I agreed to give him a shove when it went off. Meeka, our West Highland White Terrier, helped once she’d learned the routine. If Tripp wasn’t up within five minutes of the alarm going off, she leapt onto his side of the mattress and nuzzled her cold, wet nose into his neck.

  “Sorry,” he repeated now. “Not sure what happened. I meant to turn it off altogether so we could sleep for a while. We don’t have anything we have to do until ten.”

  Good plan. The attic was cold this morning. As was the village as a whole. The temperature had dropped a couple days after Thanksgiving, and other than a rogue day or two where it climbed all the way to a balmy thirty-four degrees, it had stayed below freezing for all of December.

  “You’re not sleeping,” Tripp mumbled a few seconds later, his eyes closed. “I can tell by your breathing. You’re thinking about your dad again, aren’t you?”

  “No.” I feigned offense. “I
’m thinking about Rosalyn. I think she’s on a vegan kick lately. Or is it paleo?”

  “She’s keto this month. She emailed me a list of all the foods she can eat. Sundry doesn’t stock Barramundi or seaweed chips in the off-season, but we’re good otherwise.”

  I smiled and snuggled back in, laying my head on his chest. “I love that you two talk without me. So we’re really ready for them?”

  “We’re really ready.”

  “Okay.” The sound of his reassuring voice rumbling in his chest and the steady beating of his heart lulled me back to sleep . . . for almost an hour when my phone rang at six o’clock.

  I stared at the image of my mother’s face on screen. Why was she calling at six in the morning? Did Dad change his mind and wasn’t coming? Had his flight been delayed and he wouldn’t get here until tomorrow? I’d have to go through the whole nerves and pyramids thing for another day. Oh God, had the plane crashed?

  “Why don’t you answer it?” Tripp mumbled into his pillow. “You’ll get the answers to your questions a lot faster that way.”

  He knew me so well. I clicked the answer button and croaked, “Mom?”

  “You’re still in bed?” She sounded astonished by this. Similar to if she’d found out people no longer cared how their hair or skin looked. Or something else equally catastrophic for a day spa owner.

  “First time in months,” I said unapologetically. “Besides, it’s six in the morning.”

  Mom made a little disapproving hmm sound. “I thought running a bed-and-breakfast meant getting up early to feed the guests. Are you only running a ‘bed’ now?”

  Running a bed. That was kind of funny. “River is our only guest at the moment.”

  River Carr, our dark and mysterious long-term renter, had made an agreement with Tripp. If it was only the three of us, Tripp didn’t need to worry about breakfast as long as River was free to use the kitchen. With the exception of the handful of just-passing-through guests we’d had over the past month, Tripp hadn’t had to make a big breakfast since Thanksgiving weekend. That would change soon.

  “Dad and Rosalyn will be here this afternoon,” I continued, “so we’re taking advantage of the quiet.”