Bewitching the Bachelor

by Suzanne Marie Calvin

  One dark brow shot up. “I have ethics, Bianca."

  "Whatever you say.” She looked away.

  His chuckle was dry. “So you've heard that before?"

  "Just a few times.” She sipped her drink and eyed him tentatively.

  "What will it take for you to believe me?” His eyes were deep, earnest, and searching hers.

  Bianca felt her heartbeat step up a notch. “I'm not sure,” she admitted. She averted her gaze and took on the visual distraction of re-wrapping the remainder of her sandwich. “Miles and Fallon are like family. We've known each other a long time."

  "Do they have gifts like yours?"

  Bianca shook her head. “They have gifts, but not like mine. Theirs are subtler and they haven't fully tapped into their powers yet.” She smiled fondly. “But Fallon is passionate and fearless. She isn't afraid to take chances. Those gifts are invaluable."

  "And Miles?” He looked away, took another drink.

  "Compassion. Unconditional compassion. And a pure heart. He can see someone in pain and instantly surround them with an energy so comforting, it's ... amazing, really."

  "They don't light candles without matches or have visions?"

  "Luke, my gifts are inherited.” She sighed wearily. “Miles and Fallon chose witchcraft. I was born into it."

  "A hereditary witch,” he murmured with a nod that said he understood, though his eyes said he disbelieved. Crumpling his empty sack, he tossed it into a nearby trashcan. “Fallon said Wicca is a religion. Is that different from witchcraft?"

  "Not really.” She tossed what was left of her sandwich into the brown bag. “The spiritual side of Wicca is the unity we have with the universe, with Mother Earth, and so on. It's ... too much to talk about right now."

  His nod was solemn, comprehending. “Maybe another time."

  Bianca shoved to her feet, not sure about the prospect of “another time” quite yet. The tiny voice sitting on her shoulder warned it might be wiser to take Luke Hale in small, infrequent doses. “Fallon is well-versed in the spiritual side of Wicca. You should meet with her."

  He stood too. With a wry smirk, he half-joked, “Trying to pawn me off?"

  "One question at a time.” Bianca smiled, running anxious hands over her skirt, smoothing the creases.

  He laughed and, when their eyes connected, she felt her heart turn over. Heat sprang to her cheeks and she looked away.

  "I need to go. I've got a busy day,” she announced with an abrupt nod. “Good luck with your interviews."

  Luke crammed a free hand into his front pocket, the other wrapped around what remained of his bottled lemonade. “Thank you for your time, Bianca. I'm sure I'll run into you again at some point.” With a lazy grin and a half-wave, he turned, then ambled down Main Street.

  Worry furrowed her brow as Bianca gnawed her bottom lip and watched him go, holding her breath until Luke Hale was out of sight. She couldn't yet make up her mind if he was heaven-sent ... or the devil incarnate.

  Chapter Seven

  The four-foot-high stack of books which Luke helped Abigail pull from dusty shelves in the basement of her downtown office was daunting. It took him two days to review any pertinent information contained in the thick, worn volumes. Still, with Abigail's help, Luke was able to map out most of his family tree.

  "I always thought this was interesting.” She peered over her glasses at the page in a book titled New England Crime and Punishment in Colonial Times. “See ... right here."

  He glanced up from his notepad. “What does it say?"

  "That Rebecca Halestrom, Liam's wife, spent two weeks in the stockade for adultery."

  "Liam's wife was cheating on him?” Luke arched his neck to glimpse the book Abigail referenced.

  She lifted her shoulders. “Appears so. I mean, I wasn't there.” When she chuckled, her soft, rotund body jiggled and her eyes glowed.

  It made him smile, something warm and comfortable gently tugging at his chest. He liked her. And she'd certainly done everything she could, over the past couple of days, to help him.

  "So Liam's wife was punished for infidelity.” He tapped the top of his pen against his chin, thinking. “Who with?"

  "No one ever found out. Says here she wouldn't confess.” Her eyes darted over the paragraph again. “That's why she spent two weeks in the stockade. One for adultery, one for not confessing who her lover was. Hmm...” She scratched the top of her head then smoothed her hair back toward the bun. “Lucky she wasn't whipped. Back then they gave lashings for infidelity, as well as the stockade.” She licked her fingers and ruffled pages. “Interesting."

  "How would someone get out of the usual lashings for infidelity?” Luke pondered aloud.

  "Maybe one of the committee members was sweet on her,” Abigail mused with another chuckle. “Who knows."

  "Something I've never come across is a copy of Celia's curse,” Luke said, closing one book and grabbing another entitled The Diary of Liam Halestrom. “It's not in Liam's diary, but I read somewhere that he'd written it down prior to his death."

  "It was in his suicide note.” She tugged the eyeglasses from her face then rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Bianca's great-great-grandmother Bridget paid a lot of money to recover the only copy of that suicide note."

  Luke nodded. “I'll ask Bianca about that.” He made another notation on his pad.

  "Have you spent any time with her?” she probed curiously. When he nodded and gave her a thin-lipped smile, she took it as an invitation to further pry, “So, what do you think about magic now?"

  He couldn't look away because she was practically nose-to-nose with him, her blue eyes keen and unwavering. Managing confidence, he answered, “I haven't seen anything I can't explain."

  She laughed from her belly. “Oh, Luke, I've watched Bianca open a door without ever touching the knob."

  "There's a plausible explanation for everything you've seen, I'm sure."

  She smiled, wiped her glasses with a tissue, and put them back on her face. “One time I brought her a fern, a lovely plant, a gift from my aunt just before she passed on. The fern was in a horrible way. Dry. Losing leaves. Nearly dead.” Starry-eyed, she sighed. “Bianca touched that plant, just stroked the leaves. Then she whispered something I couldn't quite hear all of, but it rhymed, like a poem. Right before my eyes I watched that fern come back good as new.” Laughing, she admitted, “Damn near peed myself."

  Out of courtesy, Luke mustered a kind smile, but he felt sorry for poor Abigail. No one could bring dead plants back to life. She'd been duped.

  Apparently, Bianca's real “gift” was the knack for making people see things that weren't real. Like healed plants. And candles lit without matches.

  When Luke uncovered then published the truth, the gullible people of Clover Falls would stop buying into the fairytales. Then Bianca Honeywell would have to stop fantasizing and start accepting a reality that was far less than magical, at least most of the time.

  As if Abigail knew exactly what he was thinking, she smiled and said, “Bianca has the gift of magic. Once you see it for yourself, you'll believe."

  He shook his head, chuckling. “Oh, Abigail, you could charm a fish out of water, but I'm sorry to say you won't sell me on stories of magical plant healings."

  Her cheeks crimsoned. “Bianca sells herself without anyone's help,” she huffed testily.

  "Okay,” he humored her. “Whatever you say."

  "For a nice boy, you sure are terribly frustrating.” She sighed, pulling up from her chair. Patting his back, she said, “I've got work to do, so I'll leave you to yours. Like I said yesterday, feel free to use the copy machine upstairs to make copies of anything you might need for your article."

  "That's very kind, Abigail, thank you."

  She focused a moment on his smile, turned a nice shade of pink, then wagged her head and chuckled softly as she left him in the basement.

  It was dark, dingy, and stocked with floor-to-ceiling shelves of books, newspape
rs, and other paraphernalia. And it smelled ... unpleasant. Like mothballs and mildew. With the underlying aroma of what might have been a decaying rodent. Trying not to further assess the rank fumes, he angled the small, rickety desk lamp to cast more light on what he was doing.

  He gave the family tree he and Abigail had charted another once-over. He'd even made notes of how each Halestrom man had died, hoping it would somehow help prove there wasn't a curse, just a lot of bad luck in his lineage.

  Then, maybe, the insistent, nagging voice in his head would cease. The one that kept reminding him, forebodingly, that his birthday was in just a few days. As if turning thirty marked his end.

  It was the damned curse he refused to believe in that had him apprehensive about his birthday. Wasn't it impossible to live in fear of something you gave absolutely no credence to?

  He raked fingers through his hair, scraping hard against his scalp, punishment for letting his mind wander again.

  For years, Luke had told himself that love and relationships were for men afraid of being alone. Confirmed bachelorhood, now that was the ticket. Now, seeing thirty looming ahead of him like a locomotive without brakes made Luke reconsider what life might be like if he married and had a family. But not at the expense of falling off a roof, choking on a chicken bone, or dying in some other odd, inexplicable manner.

  He didn't believe in any damned curse. This was all Bianca Honeywell's fault.

  They'd had sandwiches at the park the day before, after which he had thought about her all night. Then he'd run into her again that morning, at the little corner produce stand on Main and Elm. She'd purchased mangos and asparagus. He remembered, because he had written it down—as if it mattered.

  Granted, thinking about her was unavoidable. After all, he was writing an article about the Halestroms and the Honeywells. It was how he thought about her that had him losing sleep and wishing he could, for just a day or so, separate his brain from what was below his belt. The two worked independently most of the time anyway. Even more frustrating was that he looked for her, enjoyed running into her, and became disappointed when he didn't.

  With a groan, he forced himself to focus, flipping to the back of a thick volume entitled Memorable Articles from the Clover Falls Gazette. There, he searched the index for Mark Halestrom.

  The book had a one-paragraph blurb. Mark was murdered, at the age of thirty, the night before his wedding. May the twentieth, 1975.

  Luke tugged the mouse connected to a relic of a computer. Surprisingly, the ancient operating system had enough memory to hold local newspaper articles dating as far back as 1950. It took some surfing and a lot of patience but he finally found what he was looking for.

  He read from the computer screen, swearing and smacking the side of the monitor when it flickered off and on. The night he was murdered, Mark's body was found in the church vestibule of St. Margaret's, where he was to be married. A jeweled dagger was the weapon of choice, thrust into his heart. Though his fiancee was a suspect, there wasn't enough evidence to back the allegations, and she'd had a solid alibi. The killer was never found.

  The kicker was ... the woman Mark Halestrom had planned to marry was none other than Blythe Honeywell.

  Bianca's mother.

  * * * *

  "You're wicked.” Still, Bianca couldn't resist laughing.

  Fallon grinned broadly, her fist clutched around the small poppet she'd crafted. With its dark hair and a tiny press pass pinned to its chest, there was no doubt the doll was supposed to be Luke Hale.

  "I figure we can have some fun with this,” Fallon joked, plucking a strand of yarn from his head with a vicious jerk.

  "Oh, Fallon, you sure know how to brighten my day.” Bianca patted her friend's cheek, then snatched the poppet from her hand. “But no."

  "You're no fun.” She puffed her ruby-painted lower lip into a pout. “What's the point of being a witch if you never use magic in situations like this?"

  "Some things just have to run their destined course.” Bianca inspected the doll. “You did a great job, but I don't think you captured his eyes."

  "Aha! So it's the eyes that get you.” Fallon flashed a cheeky grin. “Personally, I like his ... pecs."

  "Sure you do.” Laughing, Bianca tossed the poppet into her nightstand drawer, though it wasn't easy to resist pitching it into the garbage disposal. Or flushing it down the toilet.

  "There's always that little three-fold law hanging over your head, isn't there?” Fallon followed her out of the bedroom.

  "It hangs over your head, too, my dear,” Bianca sang back. “Remember, harm none, or suffer what you do three times over. Karma's tricky, and with an infallible memory."

  "What do you think came back to Celia? You know, for placing that curse?"

  Bianca sighed, her heart heavy. “I suppose her hell was here on earth. I hope she came back and found someone who loved her instead of hanging her again."

  "Yeah. Her life was kind of a bummer.” Fallon yanked a grape from the bountiful fruit basket on the dinette then popped it into her mouth. Straddling a chair, her dress hiked up in unladylike fashion, she added, “I wonder if she knew placing that curse would destroy the lives of her descendents, too."

  "That's the problem with black magic. Someone always suffers. Iced tea?"

  "Sure. Thanks. So ... has Luke been around?"

  Bianca lifted a brow at her friend's less-than-subtle grilling technique. “Actually, I ran into him in town yesterday,” she off-handedly replied, deciding to omit the tidbit about having had lunch with him. “And I ran into him again this morning."

  "Literally?” Fallon's snide little smirk was interrupted by the grape she stuffed between her lips.

  Bianca laughed. “Don't I wish.” And she realized with a start that she was only half-joking.

  Fallon wagged a finger at her. “I knew you had a snippet of black witch in there somewhere,” she teased with a shrill cackle. “Rumor around town is he's leaving no stone unturned. Everyone I've come in contact with lately has talked to him, at least once."

  "Peachy.” Bianca tossed lemon wedges into frosted iced tea glasses and tried to pretend that Luke Hale poking around town—her town—wasn't maddening.

  "I passed his motorcycle this morning,” Fallon mentioned in an overtly casual tone. “At Abigail's office."

  Bianca shrugged. “That's someplace he'll get the straight scoop, at least. Abigail's a terrific lady. She'll make sure he gets the facts."

  "So,” Fallon mused aloud, “he didn't even bat an eye when you lit those candles, huh?"

  Bianca shook her head and replied with a dull, “Nope."

  Her friend laughed. “I imagine that pissed you off.” She dangled a full bunch of grapes over her mouth, snatching one, then recalling, with a naughty grin, “God, Miles nearly fell over in a swoon the first time he saw you do that."

  Bianca giggled, remembering also. “He was white as a ghost. Poor Miles.” She poured the iced teas. “It's going to take a lot more than simply lighting candles though to convince Luke Hale. He's set on writing an article that will disprove curses, witches, and magic."

  Fallon clucked her tongue and shook her head in mock dismay, though something wicked gleamed in her dark eyes. “Poor guy. He's in for a rough ride, isn't he?"

  Handing her friend a tall glass of iced tea, Bianca sipped her own, considering. “We'll see. I'm not sure what's going to happen yet."

  "You could shock the sugar out of him by levitating."

  Bianca shook her head vehemently. “I'm not very good at that. Last time I tried, I had a bruised backside for two weeks.” Sipping her tea, she added, “Besides, I don't like feeling as if I have to perform just to win him over."

  Fallon gave a half shrug. “If you reconsider and decide to spring something on him, just make sure it'll knock him on his ass. And if I can be there to watch, well, then that would be the cat's meow.” She winked, plucked the lemon wedge from her glass, then bit into it without a twitch.

/>   "You're naughty.” Bianca giggled, wincing as Fallon enjoyed her lemon wedge.

  "Naughty ... but nice. By the way, you're supposed to meet Miles at the park this afternoon. Don't forget."

  Bianca slapped a palm to her forehead. “Shoot! The tree planting! I completely forgot."

  "He thought you would.” Fallon tucked an ebony-dyed lock of hair behind her ear, dark eyes glowing. “Did you remember to order the trees?"

  "That I remembered. But they still need to be picked up from the nursery. I'll have to phone Mr. Martin to make sure he has them ready for me. Sheesh!” Bianca snatched up the telephone to call the owner of Martin's Nursery as Fallon jerked to her feet. Pointing a finger at her friend, Bianca commanded, “Don't go anywhere. I'll need your help."

  "Ugh!” Fallon rolled her eyes. “You know I hate planting trees with summer camp kids, B."

  "Too bad. You owe me.” Into the phone, she said, “Hello, Mr. Martin. It's Bianca. I'll be picking up the trees this afternoon. Yes, for Tree Day. Will that be okay?"

  Looking like a defiant teenager, Fallon grumbled. “Bianca, I have plans this afternoon—"

  "I don't want to hear it,” Bianca warned, lifting a hand. “No, not you, Mr. Martin. I was talking to Fallon. Yes, I'll come by in an hour. Thanks a million."

  She hung up the telephone, eyeing her friend. “Who cleansed and protected your house when you thought you saw trolls hiding in the closets?"

  "There weren't any trolls. That stupid movie we saw together spooked me,” Fallon asserted in her own defense. “And you told me that cleansing and protecting my house was your pleasure."

  "Just like helping the kids renew the park will be your pleasure.” Bianca gulped her tea, set the glass down, and inspected her friend's attire. “You might want to change into shorts and a T-shirt, dear. Kids and dirt are messy."

  * * * *

  Abigail told Luke where he could find Bianca. Tree Day. It came the same time every year, Abigail had said, during the July waxing moon. That was when Bianca helped summer camp kids plant trees at the park.

  Luke thought it was ... endearing. But he didn't tell Abigail that.