Kiss and Spell (11 Valentine's Day Paranormal Short Stories)

by Liz Schulte

  I pursed my lips. “All right. But what about the baking?”

  “That was a little selfish on my part. I like sweets.” He grinned. “It’s why chocolates are a mainstay of Valentine’s Day. I do want a woman who knows her way around the kitchen. But I also wanted to see how she dealt with distraction, working with other people, and how she handled herself under a bit of stress.” He tightened his hold on Elle. “Not to mention, it just helped me have time to observe some patterns.”

  “And the magic?” Esme demanded. “What did you want us to do? Spell your man bits to make them bigger?”

  Jade chuckled.

  I shook my head. “Esme.”

  “What? He ruined my night with my man. Did you know I’m going back out on the road tomorrow for a week? Zane and I had big plans for that new bed of his. I can’t even believe I’m still here. If I had my phone, I’d have called an Uber already.” Her face was so red I expected steam to rise from the top of her head.

  “My apologies,” Eros said, bowing his head to her. “I would send you back immediately, but these two witches have temporarily neutralized my magic.”

  Elle’s eyes widened. “Then how did you morph back into this form?”

  “You did it, love,” he said, gazing at her like a lovesick puppy. “I only needed the touch of a beautiful witch. That’s you.”

  Jade shot me a questioning look.

  I gave her a half shrug. “Elle just found out she has the magic. I think it’s a mild case, though.”

  “Enough!” Esme threw her hands up. “Can we get out of here?”

  “We’ll be going in a second,” Jade told her and turned to Eros. “I want to know why you want your partner to be magical.”

  He gave her an ironic shake of his head. “That’s just it. I want a partner. Someone I can share my work with. Someone who can understand me. Most people I’ve met don’t get it, and after a while, they resent the work I do.”

  “Well, if you didn’t trick people, it might be different,” Jade muttered.

  I tended to agree with her. “Don’t you play matchmaker for a living?”

  He shrugged. “Pretty much. It’s still a hard job finding the right fit for people and figuring out the perfect time they should meet. It’s not like the stories. I don’t just shoot someone in the ass with an arrow and instantly fix their love life, you know.”

  I shook my head. I didn’t know. “Is this how you do it? Spell them and let the dude pick from a pack of women?”

  “No.” He jerked back as if I’d slapped him. “I play matchmaker with a bit of magic. I use my talent to get them to let their guards down. To give someone a chance who otherwise wouldn’t be noticed. That’s all. And that’s pretty much what I did here tonight. Though I admit it was a bit…unorthodox.”

  “Deceitful is the word I’d use,” I said.

  “I was thinking something more along the lines of jackass.” Esme flipped him off. “You owe me, dude. Big.” She turned to Jade. “Ready?”

  Jade nodded, pulled her phone out of her pocket, and sent a text. A second later, her phone buzzed and she said, “The coven is ready to bring us back. Esme, Elle, hold hands with Kat. Lucien and I will do the rest.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Elle said. She hadn’t let go of Eros once during the entire conversation, and now the two were practically glued at the hip.

  Jade stared at her, dumbfounded. “But he tricked you.”

  “He’s been a complete gentleman. Better than the jerk I was dating who had a wife! I didn’t even know until tonight.” A single tear slid down her cheek. “I’d never in a million years knowingly date a married man. I was the last to know, apparently. I’ve had shitty luck with men, and I know a good one when I see one. So I’m staying. I’ll only leave if he asks me to go.”

  Eros brushed the tear away and gave her a soft kiss on her temple. “You don’t have to go anywhere.” Then he produced a blue box—the exact same shade as the one I’d opened earlier that day—got down on one knee, held the ring out to her and said, “Will you be my wife?”

  “Yes!” she cried and threw her arms around him. “I will be the best wife you’ve ever seen.”

  He laughed and scooped her up. “I believe you will.”

  “I can’t even…” Esme started, but despite the derision in her tone, she was smiling at them.

  Jade shook her head. “Let’s go and leave the lovebirds alone.”

  Epilogue

  A Week Later

  “I told you I’d be on time,” Lucien said, casting an appreciative gaze down my body.

  I was wearing skin-tight jeans that left very little to the imagination, a halter top blouse, no bra, and spiked boots with four-inch heels. My outfit wasn’t exactly rocker-chic, but at least I’d managed to make my man’s eyes glitter.

  “Only a week late.” I winked at him and handed him a ticket. Esme had sent tickets to my shop for her show at the House of Blues, and Lucien and I were using the opportunity to celebrate our own personal Valentine’s Day. No one ever said love was reserved only for February fourteenth.

  Not even Cupid.

  Eros and Elle were already sitting in the front row when we got there, both of them beaming.

  “You just have to come to the ceremony,” Elle gushed. “It’s going to be next February after Valentine’s Day. You know how busy Eros is that day. And we set a long lead time so we can be absolutely sure this is the right move for both of us. Not to mention I have to order the dress, the cake, flowers, pictures, and…”

  I tuned out, letting her ramble about the perfect wedding, and leaned my head against Lucien’s shoulder.

  “What about you?” he asked.

  “What about me?” I tilted my head and smiled up at him.

  “Marriage. A wedding. What do you think?”

  “I—”

  The lights cut out and a spotlight went up on the stage just as Esme bounced out wearing a sheer top over her black lace bra, cut up stockings, a tight leather skirt, and her thigh-high boots. “Good evening everyone. Before we get started, a gentleman in the front row has a question to ask.”

  I let out a shocked gasp as Esme reached her hand out to me.

  “Come on Kat, get your ass up here,” she demanded.

  A roar of approval went up through the crowd as Lucien followed me to the stage.

  I stood there in complete shock as he got down on one knee, holding my hand. Tears filled my eyes before he even got one word out.

  “Kat, my love. I think this might have been a long time coming, but on Valentine’s Day I saw a man so determined to find his partner, he went to unimaginable lengths to do it. That night I realized with a full heart, I’d already found mine.”

  “Awww,” the crowd said on a sigh.

  “And now I want the world to know it, too. Will you do me the honor of marrying me, of being my wife, my partner, my best friend?”

  I gaped at him, too stunned to say anything as the tears ran unchecked down my face.

  After a few beats, Esme chuckled into her microphone. “Kat, I think this is where you give the man an answer before he has a heart attack.”

  I glanced at her. She gestured to Lucien who was still kneeling, still staring up at me with a mix of hope and terror on his face.

  “Yes!” I blurted.

  He jumped up and enveloped me in a crushing hug. “Thank the gods. If you’d said no—”

  “I wouldn’t have,” I whispered in his ear. “I’m yours, completely and totally, forever.”

  Esme’s band started playing Cupid, by Amy Winehouse.

  Lucien and I both froze, then threw our heads back and laughed.

  When we finally caught our breath, Lucien pushed a red curl behind my ear and mouthed, “I love you.”

  I nodded. “I know. I love you, too.”

  He let out a breath, brushed my lips with a kiss, and whispered, “Mine.”

  * * *

  For more books in the Bourbon Street world check out:


  The Jade Calhoun Series

  The Pyper Rayne Series

  Coven Pointe

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  TEQUILA SHOTS & VALENTINE KNOTS

  Tricia O'Malley

  Summary

  Valentine’s Day has arrived in Tequila Key and Miss Elva, the resident Voodoo Priestess, has been asked to concoct a love potion for a couple that needs some extra spice in their marriage.

  When her pirate ghost, Rafe, sees the potion and thinks it is for Miss Elva – all hell breaks loose.

  Tequila Key’s Lonely Hearts party is about to get a lot hotter – and a lot more enticing – as Miss Elva works against the clock to break the potions aphrodisiac effects.

  _____________________________

  Tequila Shots & Valentine Knots

  ______________________________

  An Althea Rose Novella

  TEQUILA SHOTS & VALENTINE KNOTS

  (An Althea Rose Novella)

  by Tricia O’Malley

  Copyright © 2016 Tricia O'Malley

  All Rights Reserved

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without express permission of the author. This includes reprints, excerpts, photocopying, recording, or any future means of reproducing text.

  If you would like to do any of the above, please seek permission first by contacting the author at: tricia@thestolendog.com

  “Well played, Tequila. Well played.”

  Chapter One

  “That should be enough to add a little zing back into the bedroom,” Miss Elva chuckled as she spilled a dash of oyster powder into a brilliant red liquid she was stirring in a copper bowl in her pint-sized kitchen. Howlin’ Wolf poured out his pain on the CD player behind her and she sang along as she stirred, pitching her deep alto voice to match his gravelly one.

  As the liquid began to turn crimson with purple undertones, Miss Elva stopped singing and focused on infusing the potion in front of her with the touch of magick she carried – old magick – the kind many of the new sect of ladies dabbling at witchcraft these days didn’t seem to understand.

  “Hacks is all they are,” Miss Elva grumbled as she finished up her spell and went back to humming along with Howlin’ Wolf as she considered how to package her love potion.

  Love Potion No. 7, to be specific. Love Potion No. 9 was nothing to be trifled with.

  Miss Elva bumped her considerable girth around the kitchen, shaking her hips as she sang along to the music, her mind on the couple she was concocting the potion for. Sheila had come to her because her marriage had ground to a halt in the bedroom. Miss Elva had done a quick reading of her energy just to make sure that there wasn’t anything else going on that was contributing to the absence of the bedroom boogie-woogie. All she’d found was a lot of love between the two that just needed a little kick to get moving again. And Love Potion No. 7 was the perfect antidote to their problem.

  Tonight would be a perfect night for it too – being Valentine’s Day and all. Miss Elva was already considering what outfit she would be wearing to the Lonely Hearts Valentine’s Day party at Lucky’s Tiki Bar later that evening. She’d need to make a statement, of course.

  “What are you doing?” a voice demanded.

  Miss Elva continued to concentrate on stirring the liquid as she spoke over her shoulder.

  “Making a love potion,” she said to Rafe, who was hovering just behind her.

  Rafe, her pirate ghost, had been acquired when her friend Althea had botched learning how to cast a circle. He’d slipped easily through the veil and although Althea and her white witch best friend, Luna, had tried to get rid of him, it had only taken one look between Rafe and Miss Elva to seal his fate.

  Some might call it love at first sight.

  “You’re…what? What is this? I demand you explain to me what this is, my lovemountain,” Rafe exclaimed, zipping around the room, his hat wobbling in his fury.

  Miss Elva held up her finger to shush the ghost as he zipped around frenetically, muttering under his breath. Her iPhone began blaring the lyrics “I like big butts and I cannot lie…”

  “Hello?” Miss Elva said, turning to roll her eyes at Rafe as he buzzed angrily around the room. She tuned out his dramatic cries – “My lovemountain! How could she do this!” – and focused on the voice on the other end of the phone as she pushed backwards through the swinging door that separated her kitchen from her living room.

  It was like walking into a different world. Where her kitchen was kept supremely clean and her pantry as organized as a pharmacist’s shelves, her love of worldly oddities exploded in the front room.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t like expensive things – just that her taste was eclectic.

  Miss Elva dropped onto a Restoration Hardware khaki-colored canvas couch, displacing a skull pillow decorated in red and gold beads. Pulling her neon blue caftan out, she tucked her legs underneath her and considered the vase full of peacock feathers in the corner.

  She really needed to change those feathers out.

  “Do you want me to come pick you up tonight?” Althea Rose, Tequila Key’s resident psychic and all-around black sheep, asked through the phone.

  “Don’t you have to pick up Luna?” Miss Elva asked. Luna, Althea’s best friend, was also her partner at the Luna Rose Potions & Tarot Shop, found in the old section of Tequila Key. Though the rich of the newer side of town pretended to ignore the shop, Miss Elva had seen most of them sneaking in for readings at one time or another, or picking up a magical charm here and there. The girls ran a tight ship, and Miss Elva was happy to call them friends.

  Being a Voodoo Priestess could get lonely at times.

  “Luna’s going out to dinner with Mathias,” Althea said.

  “Hmpf. I don’t blame her now, child. He sho is yummy,” Miss Elva laughed her deep, rich laugh, its tremors setting all her parts to jiggling.

  “I can’t deny that,” Althea snorted.

  “What about that man of yours? Isn’t Cash coming to the party with you?” Miss Elva leaned over to adjust a pile of shells and sea glass she had displayed in a cerulean blue bowl on her glass coffee table.

  There was a long pause on the phone, and Miss Elva straightened.

  “You are still carrying on with that fine hunk of man, aren’t you?” Miss Elva demanded.

  “I… it’s not entirely clear where we stand. We – we might just be too different.” Althea’s voice sounded tinny through the phone – as though the wind had been knocked clear out of her sails.

  “That man’s an idiot,” Miss Elva immediately declared, ever loyal to Althea.

  “He’s something, that’s for sure,” Althea muttered, and Miss Elva heard her Boston terrier, Hank, bark at her in the background. “I’ve got to let Hank out – I just got home. I’ll pick you up in two hours for the party. Sound good?”

  “Mmm, just enough time to primp.”

  “I’ll expect you to look fabulous as always,” Althea laughed through the phone.

  “Child, ain’t no one in this town can hold a candle to Miss Elva when it comes to good style,” Miss Elva laughed and pushed the off button on her phone.

  “Rafe! Come help me get ready.”

  Chapter Two

  “Rafe, I can’t read your mind, you know. Though I do have considerable talents, reading the mind of a ghost is damn near impossible,” Miss Elva mused, swaying gently on the rocking chair tucked in the corner of the front porch of her weathered shingle house.

  Set on a road cluttered with houses and duplexes, Miss Elva’s house stood out, one of the few with a wide front porch and a second story. Relaxing in her rocker in the corner of the porch was one of her favorite things to do – alone, that is. A stiff wooden visitor’s chair, with no cushions for comfort, was placed next to her rocker; the message was loud and clear.

  Too many damn pe
ople around all the time, Miss Elva thought to herself as she rocked in silence and eyed an angry Rafe. Nobody took the time anymore to just sit in silence and contemplate the world around them.

  “You know, you can stay home tonight if you’re going to catch an attitude with me,” Miss Elva observed coolly, turning from Rafe to scan the street for Althea’s car.

  “You would leave me behind?! This… this! I can’t!” Rafe huffed and zipped around the corner of the house. Miss Elva paid him no mind as she rocked slowly, knowing his temper would cool eventually.

  Dealing with ghosts was a tricky business.

  You’d think Rafe would be grateful, what with her convincing Luna not to kick him back through the veil. Already the ghost was forgetting to whom he owed his allegiance. Miss Elva just shrugged and left Rafe to his snit.

  A jaunty beep-beep caught her attention, and she raised a hand as Althea pulled her car to a stop at the curb.

  “Child, I was just getting to wondering where you were,” Miss Elva called as she eased herself out of the chair, then stopped to pose dramatically at the top of her stairs, her head thrown back with her hand to her hair.

  “You never cease to impress, Miss Elva,” Althea called with a smile.

  “Don’t you forget it, child,” Miss Elva chuckled as she reached the car and slid into the front seat, the air conditioner immediately cooling her warm skin. A good thing, too, as Miss Elva was dangerously close to breaking a sweat – unforgiveable in the pretty caftan she was sporting.

  She’d seen this particular caftan on a quick trip up to Miami the month prior. Unable to resist the sparkles, she’d snatched it up and sought out a matching tiara immediately. A screaming fire engine red, with hand-beaded crystals in red, pink, and white – the caftan had all but proclaimed it was meant for Valentine’s Day. The frosty pink tiara only added to the outfit; Miss Elva shimmered and shone with every step she took.