Witch Way to Beauty and the Beach

by Jane Hinchey

  “Look, Liliana,” I began, wanting to clear the air with her, “I know you don’t like me—”

  “It’s Officer Miles.” She cut me off. “And I am not having this conversation with you. I’m here to do a job. I suggest you let me do it or I’ll arrest you for obstruction.”

  Okay then. “Right. Well, I’ll be off then.” I hurried away. It wasn’t until I was halfway up the street and heading toward The Dusty Attic to collect my car I realized I’d lost track of Archie.

  “Damn it.” Swiveling on my heel, I headed back toward the beach. Loath to call Archie’s name and alert Liliana to the fact I was still around, I peered into the darkness, hoping to glimpse orange fur. And that’s when I heard it. A sniffling sound. Confused, I silently made my way onto the sand and toward the huts where Liliana was working. I kept to the shadows, my stomach clenched in case she spotted me and arrested me. I wouldn’t put it past her.

  It wasn’t until I was almost upon her that I realized what I’d heard was the sound of someone crying. Liliana was softly sobbing. I clapped a hand over my mouth and backed away. She would kill me if she knew I’d heard her, witnessed her moment of weakness. Was she crying because of me? Surely not! Maybe she’d known Emily and having to investigate her murder was salt in the wound?

  Archie leaped out, playfully tackling my ankle, and it was all I could do not to scream. Scooping him up, I hurried away, trying to be as quiet as possible while I practically sprinted from the beach. I didn’t slow until I reached the parking lot at the rear of my bookstore. Digging out my keys, I unlocked my car and deposited Archie on the passenger seat before sliding behind the wheel.

  “It’s getting late, huh, boy?” I said, snapping my seatbelt into place and reversing. “We’ll swing by Gran’s house first, then home.”

  The lights were out at Gran’s and at first I thought she must have gone out. Gran never had a shortage of dates and her social life was more active than mine. I sat in the car out front of her cottage, engine idling, debating whether or not to leave her a note, when Archie scratched at the car door.

  “What’s wrong?” He stood on his rear legs, front paws at the window, and looked over his shoulder at me, his eyes beseeching.

  “You want to see Gran?” I asked him, ruffling his fur. “I don’t think she’s home, but okay. I guess we can check. I’ll leave her a note that we dropped in for a visit.”

  Killing the engine, I opened the door and Archie launched across my lap before I could move. I laughed at his enthusiasm and locked up the car, following him to the front door. I knocked, not expecting an answer.

  “Help.” Faint. Feeble. From inside the house.

  “Gran?” Panic rose in me. Had that been Gran’s voice calling for help? With a snap of my fingers I unlocked the front door and hurried inside, Archie streaking ahead of me.

  “Where are you?” Flicking lights on as I went, I stuck my head into each room.

  “Kitchen.”

  I sprinted down the hallway and skidded into the kitchen to find Gran sprawled on the kitchen floor, her face contorted in agony. Quickly rushing to her side, I took one of her hands in both of mine.

  “What happened?”

  “Threw my back out.” She gasped. “It’s been twinging all day and silly me ignored it. Tsk, stupid old body.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me when I called? How long have you been like this?” Now I knew why she’d sounded strange on the phone. She’d been in pain.

  “Can’t reach the phone. Or my wand. Happened shortly after you called. I tried Emily’s number like you wanted and I turned to put the kettle on for a nice cup of tea when snap. Dropped me like a sack of potatoes.”

  “Here. This will hold you until I get a healer here.” I held my hands over her body and pushed my magic into her, numbing her pain. Her face immediately relaxed, and she moved as if to get up.

  “Uh uh.” I placed a hand on her shoulder and held her to the floor. “Don’t move. You’re not fixed; I’ve just eased your pain. Is Agnes still your healer?” Agnes was a member of our coven, the Sisters of the Sacred Flame.

  “Yes.” Archie curled up by Gran’s side, purring. Idly she stroked him. Good. He could keep her calm and distracted while we waited for Agnes. Pulling out my phone, I called her and she promised she’d be right over.

  “How long have you had a bad back?” I asked Gran, sitting cross-legged by her side while we waited.

  “A long time, love. It’s just wear and tear, a body getting old, that’s all.”

  “Well, maybe it’s time to slow down, just a tad?”

  “Hah!” She snorted. “I’ll slow down when I’m pushing up daisies.”

  I laughed, but on the inside I worried. Gran wasn’t getting any younger, she’d be eighty-one soon, and I didn’t want to think about life without her.

  “Don’t you be getting maudlin on me, child,” she warned, knowing where my thoughts were heading.

  I forced a smile. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “YoooHooo!” A voice came from the front of the house where I’d left the door open.

  “Back here, Agnes!” I climbed to my feet and greeted Agnes as she bustled into the kitchen.

  “Your back again, Alice?” she asked sympathetically, dropping a medicine bag on the kitchen table and digging around in it. “Boil the kettle, will you, Harper love?”

  I did as instructed, watching as Agnes, a spritely seventy-two-year-old, ground up herbs using the mortar and pestle she’d brought with her. Once that was done she passed her wand over Gran’s body, running it from head to toe three times while chanting a healing spell.

  “Okay, you can help her up.” Agnes stood back with a satisfied nod and I stepped forward to pull Gran to her feet, keeping a firm hold in case she felt dizzy.

  “Thanks Agnes.” Gran grinned. “You’re a doll.”

  “Drink the herbs Alice,” Agnes ordered. “And then we’ll have that whisky you’ve been promising me.”

  I rolled my eyes. I knew where this was leading. Leaving both witches at the kitchen table, I finished making the herbal tea for Gran, sending it floating across the room with a wave of my magic. While she sipped at the brew, I lifted three glasses from the overhead cupboard and sent them to the table too, before following with the bottle of whisky Gran kept in the pantry.

  “You missed your last appointment, Alice.” Agnes was lecturing Gran, and I bit back a smile at the contrite look on Gran’s face. “You know you need regular treatments if you don’t want to experience more episodes like this.”

  I paused in pouring out a shot of whisky. “So this happens frequently?”

  Agnes tapped the glass to bring my attention back to pouring. “It won’t happen at all if she keeps up her treatment.” There was a distinct twang of sarcasm in Agnes tone. Gran gulped down the rest of her tea and the cup settled onto the saucer with a clatter.

  “Tastes just like the swill Harper serves up at the bookstore.”

  I smirked. “Oh good. You’re feeling better.”

  Handing her a whisky, I clinked glasses with them both before gulping down the golden liquid, blinking as it burned a path down my throat before pooling in my stomach, the heat radiating out and warming me from head to toe. Not necessarily a good thing on a hot summer night. Sweat beaded my brow, and I fanned myself.

  “Young-un can’t handle her liquor.” Agnes reached for the bottle and poured herself another shot. “Alice?”

  Gran held her glass out and Agnes dutifully poured. She eyeballed me, but I shook my head. I knew better than to try to keep pace with these two. I’d seen Gran in action before. She could drink anyone I knew under the table and turn up the following morning as fresh as a daisy. I wasn’t falling for it. Not again.

  Leaning over, I dropped a kiss on Gran’s cheek. “You two behave, okay? And, Gran? Please look after yourself. You scared me.” My voice cracked and emotion threatened to consume me.

  “I’m fine, sweetheart.” Gran patted my hand. “An
d as much as it pains me to admit, Agnes is right. I just need to make sure I see her every month so she can top up her healing spell and I’ll be fine. I was so caught up training the kids for the talent competition I totally forgot about it.”

  Smiling tightly, I bid them both goodnight. It had been a long day, and I badly needed to decompress.

  Chapter Seven

  It was almost ten o’clock when a knock at the front door roused me from my semi-catatonic state on the sofa. Archie was snoozing at my feet and the television was blaring, but I couldn’t say what the program was. I’d put it on for background noise more than anything. Gran’s fall worried me. I couldn’t stop thinking about her lying on the floor in the dark, unable to move. Maybe I shouldn’t have moved out.

  Flinging open the door, I blinked in surprise to find Jackson, one arm leaning against the doorjamb, the other on his hip. His five o’clock shadow was more pronounced, giving him an edgy, almost dangerous look.

  “Can I come in?” He straightened, his eyes traveling over me from head to toe. Goosebumps danced across my skin and my breath hitched in my throat. There was something different about him tonight. Something… primal. I felt it coming off him in waves and my inner witch sighed in delight.

  “Sure.” Turning away, I left the door open and headed back to the sanctuary of the sofa where a bottle of red wine, already opened, waited. “Glasses are in the kitchen,” I said, refilling my glass. I heard him opening cupboard doors until he found what he was looking for. Helping himself to the wine, he settled in an armchair and took a sip.

  “It’s good.”

  “I know.” God, such banal conversation. Why was he here? Drinking wine in my living room. Not that I was complaining, I always had enjoyed having him around, but my recent record with men and relationships wasn’t good and I no longer trusted my own judgement. The way Jackson had looked at me when I opened the door was not the way a man looked at a woman he considered just a friend. Another shiver danced over my skin.

  “I thought I was doing the right thing,” he suddenly blurted out, swirling the wine in his glass, his eyes tracking the liquid as if fascinated by it, “but at every turn I was just hurting someone. Her. You.” He sighed. “I think I knew from the very first moment I set eyes on you that we could have something… special. That there was a connection between us.”

  I froze in place, not daring to believe what I was hearing. Biting my tongue, I waited for more. He delivered.

  “But I’m a decent man. An honorable man. I thought the feelings I had for you were a passing fancy. I liked Liliana. A lot. And the last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt her. But when you were in Australia, with him? It tortured me.” He looked up and our eyes met. I could see the pain reflected in the green depths and my heart hurt. I’d had no idea. I thought the crush I had on him was one hundred percent one sided.

  “And that’s when I knew unequivocally that it would never work with Liliana. That it wasn’t fair to her.”

  “So you broke up with her.”

  He heaved a big sigh. “She took it incredibly badly. She knew it was because of you.” Before I could protest his eyes snapped back to me. “Oh, I never told her how I felt about you. Just how I didn’t feel about her. But she knew. She’d sensed it from the beginning, I think.”

  I suspected he was right. Flashes of them together, of her staking her claim on him with a hand on his arm and a glare at me. She’d suspected something wasn’t right in her relationship, all right. A woman sensed these things.

  He laughed, a desperate, anguished, laugh. “And then you came back from Australia, without him.” He swallowed, eyes beseeching. “You and he… did you?”

  I cocked my head. He wasn’t asking what I thought he was asking. Was he? But the way his fingers were clenching the stem of the wineglass, so tight it would surely break, and the almost desperate pleading in his eyes.

  “Nothing happened with Blake.” I wasn’t one to kiss and tell, but I also wasn’t one to prolong someone’s pain, and I could see that the very thought of me and Blake together was torturing Jackson. “We shared a kiss or two, nothing more.”

  Silence settled over us, thick and heavy, yet the relief on his face was unmistakable. He relaxed into the chair, the grip on the wine glass easing. When he spoke next, it was to continue with the telling of his relationship with Liliana. “I was a free man, but I couldn’t tell you how I felt because she was so hurt. I couldn’t do it to her, I couldn’t rub her face in it. So I waited.”

  My heart stopped in my chest.

  “But now I’m done waiting.” He stood, placed his wineglass on the coffee table and in one long stride was in front of me, hands tugging me to my feet. My mouth dropped open, but I had no words. I vaguely wondered if I was dreaming, if the whisky I’d had at Gran's house, combined with the red wine, had addled my brain and conjured him up from my imagination, for surely this was a dream come true.

  “Harper,” he whispered it against my lips, and it was the most erotic thing I’d ever experienced. One big hand wrapped around my nape, the other slid to the small of my back where he tugged me against him, our bodies flush. My heart went into overdrive, the blood rushing through my body at an alarming speed, heat and fire sizzling my nerve endings everywhere we touched. Wrapping my arms around his neck, I pressed against him.

  It was entirely possible fireworks went off. Or maybe it was just static electricity, but the zap that shot through me when our lips finally touched set off an avalanche of feelings. Want. Need. Lust. With a sweep of his tongue he demanded entry, and I gave it, lost in the touch of him, the taste of him. He was like nectar I couldn’t get enough of, each taste more addictive, more demanding.

  The kiss went on forever and ended all too soon. The jarring sound of his phone had him tearing his mouth away with a curse and I smiled, a satisfied, purely feminine smile.

  “You could ignore it,” I purred, running my hands through his hair, luxuriating in the thick strands sliding through my fingers.

  “I could.” He growled, dropping his mouth to my neck, the scrape of his stubble intoxicating. “But I won’t.” Dragging himself out of my arms, he crossed to the other side of the room, putting distance between us, before barking into his phone. “What?”

  I watched, dazed and heated with passion as Jackson listened to whoever was on the other end of the line, all the time, his eyes hot and dark, were on me. I swallowed. He looked like he wanted to eat me alive, and heaven help me, I was all for it.

  He ended the call, and I knew what was coming. “You have to go.”

  He nodded. “I have to go. But before I do, there’s just one thing.”

  “Oh?” Please let it be another kiss, but he stayed where he was, one corner of his mouth curling up in a smirk as if he knew exactly what I was thinking. “Will you go out with me?”

  I blinked. Once. Twice. “As in… a date?”

  “As in exactly like a date. Come with me to the talent competition.”

  “But what about Liliana?” I bit my lip, wanting nothing more than to go on a date with Jackson but mindful of the other woman’s feelings.

  “I broke up with her weeks ago. I’m done waiting. Liliana has been punishing me for something I didn’t do, something that hadn’t happened. I figure since she’s all pissy about it anyway, I may as well do what I want and be damned.”

  He’d never looked hotter than he did in that moment with blazing eyes and a flush across his cheekbones. “Stop looking at me like that,” he growled, stalking close, dropping a rough kiss on my cheek before heading out the door. “I’m taking your silence as a yes. I’ll pick you up at seven Saturday night.”

  “Okay,” I squeaked, turning to look at the closed door with my hand over my thundering heart. I heard Jackson’s car drive away, then turned to Archie, who cracked open one eye to look at me from his position on the end of the sofa. “What just happened?”

  Meow? Scratching his ears, I sat back down and took a hefty gulp of wine. Just as
I was reaching for my phone to text Jenna and tell her what had just transpired, it rang. Jenna’s name flashed on the screen and I wondered if I was suddenly developing psychic abilities.

  “I was just going to text you.” I smiled, my excitement palpable.

  “Oh? Well, I have news.” Her voice was low, as if she didn’t want to be overheard.

  “Are you at work?” I couldn’t hear any background noise, had expected her to be at Brewed Awakening with Monica, but from the lack of chatter and general rowdiness, I’d say not.

  “I’m about to leave,” she whispered, “but this couldn’t wait.”

  I sobered. She sounded serious. Deadly serious.

  “What is it?” My voice dropped, and I wondered why on earth I was whispering.

  “Shit. Someone’s coming.” It sounded like she’d placed her hand over the phone, as if to muffle the sound. I waited, wondering what on earth was going on. I could hear shuffling and then she was back, whispering, “Someone’s here.”

  “Wait, someone who shouldn’t be there, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  The phone disconnected, and I immediately dialed Monica.

  “Where are you guys?” Monica demanded, the background noise of the pub loud.

  “I’m so sorry! I thought Jenna was with you. I asked her to tell you I couldn’t make it—look, I’ll explain everything, but…. can you get down to the Tribune offices? Jenna’s there and someone is in the building. I think she needs help.”

  “On it.” The dial tone buzzed in my ear. Clutching the phone to my chest, I sucked in a deep breath, trying to still my panic. Monica could get to Jenna faster than the cops. I just prayed she was fast enough. But who could have broken into the Tribune’s offices? And why? None of this was making any sense.

  Half an hour later Jenna and Monica were in my living room finishing the rest of the wine and my heart rate had finally settled to a normal rhythm.

  “So someone was definitely in the offices?”

  Monica nodded. “I saw him. Dressed in black, wearing a balaclava.”