Marcy, who was standing in the yard off to the right side of the porch, near a drop-off that led to the woods, glanced up at us. “Or that he was waiting for his soul mate. Like I said before, he and Poppy are meant to be together. But things had to play out the way they did. Fate has its reasons that aren’t for us to question.”
“Yeah, what Blonde Prophet said,” mused Dana with a snort, turning over another pot. She touched something that was carved into the board under it and glanced over at me. “Is that a pentagram?”
“Yes and no,” I said, staring at the mark. While it had a pentagram in it, there were small rune-like marks throughout it. “I’m not sure what it is, to be honest.”
“Did your grandparents worship Satan?” she asked, her eyes wide.
I couldn’t help but laugh at the suggestion. “Uh, no. They were very spiritual.”
“Right, but what spirit were they loyal to?” she questioned, lifting another pot to find another bizarre symbol. “He didn’t go by Dark Lord, did he?”
“These symbols weren’t here when my grandparents lived here,” I confessed, knowing well what had been under the pots since I helped my grandmother each year, shortly after my arrival in the summer, to transfer plants and flowers from her greenhouse to the porch pots. “I’m guessing teenagers probably vandalized the property.”
She lifted a brow. “Okay, but if we end up human sacrifices, I’m going to be less than happy. I mean, how am I going to see how you and your soul mate work out if I’m spread out on an altar by some guy wearing a goat’s head?”
I stared at her. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re slightly disturbed?”
“Other than you?” she asked.
I nodded.
She grinned and waggled her brows. “Basically anyone who has ever met me. Except Marcy. She just talks about my aura a lot. I tune her out when she does. Can we talk about you and Brett now? If she’s right, you’ll be Mrs. Brett very soon.”
“You’re terrible. Honestly. I’ve been divorced about two seconds. I’m not ready to start dating anyone let alone the guy who first broke my heart,” I said, unsure how much I meant any of it. Hearing that Brett was sorry about the letter and wished he could take it back affected me in ways I wasn’t sure of just yet. All I did know was that he confused me and turned me on. “Can we just give me a bit of time to get used to being newly divorced?”
“I’d like some credit for making that happen quickly, despite jerkoff’s shenanigans,” said Dana, blowing on her knuckles in a dramatic fashion.
I rolled my eyes and laughed all the same. She had made the divorce happen for me and I would be forever grateful that she was in my corner. She’d put me in touch with a great divorce lawyer, and then she’d been there every step of the way, checking over every move, making sure it was in my best interest.
“Thank you,” I said sincerely.
“Anytime,” she returned, setting a pot down and lifting another.
Marcy hurried over to Geraldine and then rushed up the front porch stairs, holding my cell phone in her hand. It began to ring when it had not been ringing prior. She smiled. “It’s the kids. Put them on speaker. I want to say hi.”
“She freak you out too, or is it just me?” asked Dana as I took the phone.
I laughed and then answered, putting the call on speaker.
“Hi, Mom,” said Pepper, sounding happy. “Did you make it into Grimm Cove yet?”
“Ask her if Geraldine did anything else or if she kept it together to get there,” said Tucker from the background.
I laughed. “She’s had an interesting few days, but she got me here in one piece.”
“Your mother hit a tree,” said Dana blandly. “She’s fine. Truck is fine.”
“What?” asked Pepper, worry in her voice.
“I bumped a tree,” I corrected. “Dana is being dramatic.”
“She’s fine,” said Marcy, skipping down the front porch stairs in the direction of the side yard once more. “I can’t wait for you two to get here and meet Burgess.”
“Mom, are you really okay?” asked Pepper.
“I’m fine. I just tapped a tree with the truck. Honestly. I’m totally fine,” I stressed, giving Dana a firm look.
She stuck out her tongue at me.
“How is the house?” asked Pepper. “Is it as pretty as in the pictures?”
Dana eyed it and then me. “Uh, define pretty. Possible portal to hell? If so, yes, she’s gorgeous.”
The twins laughed.
“I can’t wait to see Grimm Cove for myself,” said Tucker.
I heard honking in the background and stared down at the phone in my hand. “Are you two in the car?”
“What? Us? No,” said Tucker so fast that it was evident he was lying.
Dana laughed hard. “The kid would never make it during a police interrogation. He’s like the worst liar ever.”
Tucker laughed.
Pepper groaned. “I know. He is. We’re headed to grab some dinner away from campus. We need a break. We’re going stir-crazy here with exams.”
Marcy chuckled. “See? She is a much better liar.”
I stared at her and then the phone again. “Pepper, what’s going on?”
“Hang up now, dearie,” said a soft feminine voice from the other end of the phone that sounded very familiar.
“Who is that?” I demanded.
“Lady at the restaurant. She’s going to seat us. Gotta go, Mom. Love you,” said Pepper, hanging up fast.
I blinked up at Dana and then slipped my phone down the front of my shirt so that my bra could hold it. “Weird. For two seconds there that voice sounded just like my grandmother’s.”
“Since she’s no longer among the living, I doubt it was her,” added Dana, her focus returning to the pots. “I don’t think the key is really here. Try one of those famous rhymes that you used to do when we were in college. They always seemed to work. That or we’re going to need Marcy to ask someone from the other side for a hand. Remember how Eugene would help us find lost things every time Marcy asked him back then?”
I laughed so hard that I barked at the mention of Eugene. He’d been the name of the spirit Marcy had invented, telling us a wild tale of him having been the janitor of the building we lived in throughout college at one point prior to his passing. He’d taken a shine to us and looked after us like we were his granddaughters—at least that was what Marcy claimed.
Marcy was very convincing, and for a while nearly had me believing that a ghost really was living with us. After some time, I realized that Marcy was just different and that her oddities made her special. They were part of her charm.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Marcy from below. “Eugene isn’t here. He couldn’t possibly help find the key.”
“How silly of us,” said Dana.
I grinned.
“All Poppy needs to do is ask,” said Marcy. “Even though there are different forces at work, one pushing and one pulling, she’s powerful, and if she just asks, it will be.”
Dana nudged me. “Hear that? She says you should rhyme too.”
The small sayings I’d do had started when I was little and just stuck throughout the years. They’d been one of the many peculiarities I’d gotten from my grandmother. If I had believed in magik, I’d have thought for sure my grandmother had been a real witch. Not just a Southern woman with a deep knowledge of herbs and home remedies.
When I was very young, that’s exactly what I did think—that she was a tried-and-true witch. It was my mother who talked me out of believing it, pointing out that there were no such things as real witches or real magik. Even with that knowledge, I had to admit the idea of witchcraft had always appealed to me on some level.
Giving in to Dana’s request that I try to locate the keys by asking, I smiled wide. “Okay, here goes my attempt at a locating rhyme.”
She grinned.
“Spirit guides, please help us look around, so that what was lost now ca
n be found.”
“Perfect. Now we wait for you to do that witchy thing you do,” Dana said, making me laugh.
“I don’t think it’s going to work, but…” My voice trailed off as the strangest of sensations feathered over my arms quickly and then stopped.
“Found it!” Dana exclaimed as she turned over another pot.
Sure enough, there was a key.
I’d looked under that very pot only moments before and hadn’t noticed it there.
She lifted the key and smiled at me. “I bow to you, oh powerful one.”
“Dork,” I said with a roll of my eyes.
Nine
Brett
Brett came out of the upstairs bathroom with a towel around his waist and water streaming off him to find his best friend leaning against the hallway wall. Brett wasn’t too concerned with his state of undress around the man. They’d known each other since birth, grew up changing in the same locker rooms for sports, and if that wasn’t enough, they were both wolf-shifters, so they’d seen each other naked more times than he could count.
Modesty wasn’t something afforded to shifters.
Jeffrey’s expression said he had something on his mind that Brett wasn’t going to like hearing.
“What? Are you going to give me more shit about how much I blew it with Poppy the first time?” he asked, holding his towel up with one hand. “I already know. You’ve been reminding me for like twenty years.”
“When you told me she was here, in town, for good, I’ll admit I was excited for you,” said Jeffrey, his voice sounding anything but stoked.
Brett strolled past his friend on his way to the master bedroom. “Yeah. The excitement runneth over.”
Jeffrey followed behind him. “Something about this is bothering me.”
Brett went for his dresser and opened the top drawer. He moved aside the small box containing the engagement ring he’d bought for Poppy years ago. He pulled out a pair of boxer briefs, dropped his towel, and slipped them on. He then faced Jeffrey. “What? Don’t think I’m ready for what having her will mean?”
“Are you asking if I think you’re ready to give up dating random women who mean nothing more to you than romps in the sack in favor of a lifelong commitment to your mate?” questioned Jeffrey.
Brett nodded.
“I think you’ve always been ready for that. In fact, had you not screwed the royal pooch twenty years back, I’m guessing it would be the two of you with kids in college now,” said Jeffrey as he put his thumbs in the beltloops of his jeans. The shirt he had on was one Brianna had gotten him for his birthday a few years back, right before she went through the man’s closet and threw away everything that didn’t match or had holes in it.
Jeffrey, like Brett, cared very little for what he wore and hated clothes shopping.
Thankfully, Brett’s mother and sister still oversaw most of his wardrobe. He knew it was more out of a need to avoid being embarrassed by what he’d wear without their help than actual niceness.
Whatever.
It meant he didn’t have to go clothes shopping, so he was totally fine with that.
“So what is the issue?” demanded Brett, before facing his dresser once more and grabbing a red T-shirt that had the Grimm Cove police badge emblem on the front right breast area. He pulled the shirt on and then went to the standing wardrobe. He grabbed a clean pair of jeans and had them on in seconds.
He didn’t want to waste another moment before getting back to Poppy. He’d taken the world’s fastest shower, wanting to get the sawdust and paint off him before he saw her again.
He’d told her thirty minutes, and he intended to be over to her place prior to that.
Jeffrey sighed dramatically. “Brett, the timing of her arriving in town isn’t suspicious to you?”
He thought about what his friend was saying. “No. Why would it be?”
“She shows up now, while we’re how many bodies deep in a serial killer issue?” asked Jeffrey.
Brett ran his hand through his wet hair. That was all the brushing it was getting. “And what? You think Poppy is our killer? You do remember her freaking out and crying for a week straight when she found that trap in the woods that a fox got stuck in? The fox survived but the woman still cried about it for seven days. Hell, I smelled like fox that entire time because she kept making me take her to the animal clinic to check in on the little guy.”
Jeffrey’s lip curled. “I remember. I was torn between wanting to chase you for dinner and pissing on you to let you know who was in charge.”
“Thanks. So, what about her coming to town seems off to you?” asked Brett, all ears.
Jeffrey put his hands up. “Don’t freak out until you hear everything I have to say.”
“Okay. Go.” Brett grabbed a pair of socks and then went to work putting on his boots.
“We just learned three of the victims of the serial killer are witches from prominent family lines,” said Jeffrey. “And I know for a fact your gut is telling you all the signs are pointing to this killer targeting witches, and that you think the rest of the victims will end up having been witches who were practicing too.”
“And?” asked Brett, a pit starting to form in his stomach.
“Think about it, Brett. You’d have already jumped to the conclusion I’m about to suggest if you weren’t head over heels in love with Poppy.”
Brett stared blankly at his friend.
“She’s from a very powerful line of witches,” said Jeffrey. “While she, herself, might not actually be one, that doesn’t take from the fact she’s a Proctor. And if the killer is hunting powerful lines of witches, who in the hell do you think he’ll set his sights on next if he hasn’t already done so?”
Brett’s first reaction was to deny that Poppy could be a potential target for the killer. That she’d be in any kind of danger at all, but as he thought harder on what Jeffrey was saying, he realized just how right his best friend was.
If he set aside how excited he was to have Poppy back in Grimm Cove and really looked at the timing of her arrival, and all the facts he had so far in the case, he’d see her as a target too.
Hell, she might very well be the end goal.
For a second, Brett thought he might vomit at the implication his woman was in mortal danger. He ran toward his bedroom door, to go straight to her, when Jeffrey caught him halfway there and basically tackled him backward.
Brett thrust Jeffrey off him and ran for the door again, needing to get to Poppy in case Jeffrey’s theory was correct.
Jeffrey tackled him from behind again and the pair fell into the hallway and onto the floor with a thud.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” he demanded.
Jeffrey did his best to keep Brett in place, which had to be yanking on the man’s alpha side, since Brett was hard to subdue on a normal day. Factor in his mate being in danger and he was downright lethal. “Dude, stop! You run over like this and you’ll lose control and shift in front of her. You want her finding out what you are—what we are—like that? Huh? You want to scare her away right when you’re finally on the same page in life?”
“Shit. No,” said Brett, the fight slowly draining out of him. “I don’t want that, but I don’t want her hurt either. Jeffrey, you’ve seen what the killer does to his victims. I…I can’t ever see her that way. I can’t. I love her, and I don’t want anything to happen to her.”
Jeffrey moved off his back and stood.
Brett rolled over and stared up at his friend.
Extending a hand, Jeffrey grinned. “Nice to hear you confess to being in love with her out loud. And of course we’re not going to let her be hurt. But I do think her arrival is suspicious. You don’t think someone did something to lure her here, do you? Like a spell or something?”
Brett sighed. “As much as I want to argue that point with you and say she came because of some pull to me, I know that isn’t the case. In fact, she couldn’t get away from me fast enough, and I didn’t
miss the fact she was annoyed her friend invited me over to help.”
Jeffrey pulled Brett to his feet. “Well yeah. You broke her heart. Of course she’s annoyed with you. That’ll pass. Probably.”
He thought more about what Jeffrey had suggested. Had someone meddled to get Poppy to Grimm Cove for their own nefarious reasons? Another thought hit him. “The twins! They’re at school. They could be targets too!”
“Calm down,” said Jeffrey. “You already have guys watching them. On my way over, I made a few calls to others near Yale who owe our pack favors. I asked them to get into contact with the guys you have guarding the twins and to help make sure they’re safe.”
Unable to stop the swell of emotions in him, Brett gave his friend a manly hug, patting Jeffrey’s back aggressively. “Thank you.”
Jeffrey had to peel Brett off him. He chuckled. “No problem. But save the huggy crap for your woman. Let’s go help her get moved in, and then how about we find a way to tell her what’s really going on in Grimm Cove and what we are. Maybe if we form a united front, she won’t freak out and run away from you for twenty more years. She has to already suspect something about the town. I mean, her grandparents were two of the most powerful witches I’ve ever met.”
Brett expelled a slow breath. “Yes, but you know as well as I do that Poppy’s parents decided not to practice the craft and not to raise her with any real knowledge of it. I spent years watching Poppy explain away her grandparents as being eccentric and superstitious. She’s got some hard denial going on.”
“Then help her see past it,” said Jeffrey. “And for the love of flea and tick medication, tell the woman who she is to you and what that means. If you don’t, I will.”
Brett nodded. “What about her friends? Telling Poppy the truth right now means they’re going to find out. We don’t tell humans our secrets.”
“Yes, but we do if it means they may be in danger too, and if they’re really her friends, they’ll want her safe, no matter what that means they learn. Plus, if we have to, we can call in a local witch or Fae to wipe their memories.”
Cloudy with a Chance of Witchcraft: A Paranormal Women’s Fiction Romance Novel Page 8