Hex and Candy

by Ashlyn Kane

  Leo shook his head. “New acquaintance. I’m broadening my horizons.”

  With the kind of life-altering events Leo had been through recently, Cole figured that made sense. “Club scene kinda sucks all of a sudden, eh?”

  “You could say that. And all of a sudden I’m crazy jealous when my coworker gets a flower delivery from a secret admirer. Jimmy didn’t even have a clue who it was from.”

  Cole had never been much of a fan of clubbing. He liked dancing, but the club scene made him feel self-conscious, which made it hard to let go and enjoy himself. “Well, I have good news and bad news, and then more good news.”

  Hooking a foot under the stool at the counter to pull it closer, Leo sat. “What’s the good news? The first one.”

  “I know how to break the curse.”

  Leo brightened, or maybe the rest of the world just dimmed a little in comparison. “Seriously? What a relief.” He laughed, and the tension that had held his shoulders just a shade too high relaxed and left him even more ridiculously handsome. Then he paused. “Why do I have a feeling about the bad news?”

  With a wince, Cole admitted, “I know how to break it… but I can’t actually do it.” When Leo’s face fell, he hurried to continue, “Which is fine! It’s the kind of curse that will end in its own time. Meanwhile, I can try a few things to loosen it, and we might be able to get you out that way. And if you get to the end of your rope before then, I can break it by force—but I almost never recommend that.”

  Leo gave him the hairy eyeball. “Why not?”

  Cole waved a hand. “Consequences. Scarring, illness, unpleasant pustules. One client got the hiccups for three days. Athlete’s foot. A thunderstorm that knocked out power in three counties. Ooh, one time there was a microplague of aphids. Poor guy’s garden has never been the same.”

  “Oh.” Now Leo’s shoulders were sagging. Damn. “Can you tell what the consequences will be?”

  “Sometimes. Mostly not.” Cole shrugged. “Some are worse than others, obviously. Sometimes nothing happens.” In this case, he didn’t want to find out firsthand if he didn’t have to. Someone had put a lot of thought and effort into that spellwork. “I usually only recommend a force break if the curse is actively causing harm.”

  “Yeah. Well, I guess at the risk of athlete’s foot, that makes sense,” Leo joked weakly. “Did you say there was more good news?”

  “I did! At least, there is if you like pie.” He chose his words—and his mentality—carefully. He didn’t want to fall prey to the curse.

  Leo looked around as though he expected a pie to magically appear (which sadly Cole couldn’t do), so apparently they were a go for pie. “I like pie.”

  “Good! And you’re off work tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, I go back Monday.”

  Perfect. “There’s a festival two towns over—apple harvest. That means candy apples, apple donuts, apple turnovers… and more apple pie than you’ve seen in your life.”

  “Sounds incredible.”

  “And if you like hay rides, terrible carnival games, and second-rate handicrafts, it’s even better.”

  Leo laughed. “Well, when you put it like that, it sounds like something I shouldn’t miss.”

  “Pick you up at eleven?” Cole suggested. He tried not to sigh in relief when the words came out unimpeded. “The pie-eating contest is at noon, if you’re interested in getting a stomachache.”

  “I think I’d rather leave the festival with my enjoyment of pie still intact,” Leo said wryly. “But the rest sounds good.”

  Cole tried to say it’s a date, his inner flirt winning out in spite of his best efforts, but the words didn’t come. Of course. He shook his head to clear it. He should know better. “Great. See you then.”

  Chapter Six

  SUNDAY morning promised what Leo considered unseasonable heat for mid-September, but maybe his delicate northern constitution just hadn’t acclimated yet. He stepped onto his balcony in jeans and flannel, expecting comfort, only to immediately turn around and change into shorts and a T-shirt. He was just about to go downstairs to meet Cole when the glare of sun through the sliding doors suggested a ball cap might be an appropriate addition.

  Cole arrived almost silently, in a tiny white car that made Leo do a double take until he realized it was electric. He let himself into the passenger seat, surprised to find his knees did not, in fact, hit him in the chin.

  The fairgrounds were located, appropriately, in the midst of a huge apple orchard. Cole parked his pillbox between a battered Ford pickup and a soccer parent SUV, and they climbed out into the sunshine.

  “So how come you’ve never been to the apple harvest before?”

  “It’s my first year here,” Leo said. “I moved down from Toronto in January.” Not, in retrospect, the best time to move house in Ontario; it had taken three hours just to get through London.

  “No wonder you haven’t had time to do more than clubbing.” Cole locked the car and led the way toward a sea of booths. “This time of year there’s something going on almost every weekend, but to be honest it’s all agriculture related. Corn harvest festival, apple harvest festival. Oh, there’s a monarch butterfly migration festival.”

  Leo looked over at him. “You’re joking.”

  “No, they come through here in the tens of thousands. Look, we’re not all fancy like Toronto; we have one club, two bars, a handful of gastropubs, and this.” He waved his hand expansively, indicating—trees, mostly, and other green stuff, but Leo understood what he meant. “People need something to do.”

  “So they make pie.”

  “Hell yeah they make pie, city boy. Come on, we’ll get you a sample. I hope you didn’t eat an early lunch.”

  They passed a miniature tractor pulling a tiny train of plastic barrel cars full of children, and suddenly they were in the thick of things. A Johnny Cash cover band was playing on a stage at the far right; Leo felt for the lead singer, who’d donned a black suit for the occasion. Sweat prickled under his cap.

  “So you’ve got your standard fair crafts,” Cole narrated as they started down a row. “Kitschy home décor, some handmade pottery, some art. Last year I got this T-shirt.”

  Leo glanced at it—it was brown, a little lighter than Cole’s eyes, and said Hard Core, with an eaten apple between the words. It was also a little snug; Leo could see the peaks of Cole’s nipples. He looked away, the sun hot on the back of his neck. “Cute.”

  “You should see the apron.”

  Just as he said that, they passed a booth selling less traditional crafts, one of which was an apron with a lewd slogan. Leo cleared his throat.

  Cole looked over. “Ugh, no, I wear it at work! Children might see it!” He said this loud enough that the stall owner looked up sharply and rolled her eyes. “Jeez,” Cole said, this time at a lower volume. “Sorry I wanted someone to think of the children.”

  Leo snickered.

  A few steps later Cole steered him into a tent where two older women were offering samples of various homemade jellies on crackers. Leo meant to save room for pie, but he accidentally stuffed his face with four different samples while Cole methodically read each label.

  “These are amazing.”

  “This one’s particularly good with pork,” said the shorter of the two ladies. “It can be used as a marinade or a sauce.”

  Leo couldn’t imagine using a jelly as either, but he decided it would make a nice snack with crackers and cream cheese when he came home from a late shift, so he bought a jar anyway.

  “Sucker,” Cole said. “That’s going to sit in your cupboard for a year. Trust me, I know.”

  Leo didn’t care. He was out. Having fun. With another person. “Didn’t you promise me pie?”

  “We’re working up to it,” Cole said loftily. “Want a pickle on a stick?” He looked like he wanted to say more, so Leo waited, but after a second Cole just let out an exasperated huff. “I don’t even get to make a dirty joke? That’s terrible, man. I
’m sorry.”

  “We’ll take it as understood,” Leo said as they came upon the pickle booth. He didn’t quite know what to expect until a tattooed man pulled a seven-inch skewered cucumber out of a barrel and presented it to a delighted kid. “But I’ll pass anyway. Thanks.”

  Cole shrugged. “Suit yourself. One for me, please.” He forked over five bucks and collected his prize.

  “How are you going to have room for pie?”

  “Don’t be silly.” Cole took an enormous, crunchy bite. Juice dripped down his chin, and an expression of utter contentment came over his features. He chewed slowly, then swallowed, obviously savoring every second, before wiping his chin. “I fasted.”

  No one ever died of blue balls. As a health professional, Leo knew this. But he still felt like he was dying inside. Cole wasn’t even his normal type, though he was cute, with his broad, open face and brown eyes and naturally mussed hair. Then again, Leo’s normal type turned out to be the kind of guy who cursed him for moving on, so maybe—

  No. Once this curse broke, he was swearing off men for at least a month. And it wasn’t fair to lust creepily after the guy who was volunteering to help him out in the first place and was going out of his way to make Leo feel like less of a loser. Get it together.

  “Smart,” Leo said finally, probably a beat too late.

  Cole hummed happily, nodding. “Come on, I think I smell candy apples.”

  At the candy apple booth, Cole wanted Leo’s opinion on four different glazes; fortunately the seller offered candied apple slices, so Leo could save both his fillings and his blood sugar. Sort of. “Too plain, wrong kind of apple,” he said of the first, sitting at a picnic table safely out of earshot of the candymaker.

  Cole hummed in acknowledgment as he chomped on his own slice.

  Leo thought the second was pretty good, but Cole declared it too heavy on the cinnamon.

  The third was salted caramel. Leo fell in love in a single bite. Cole must have seen it on his face, because he passed over his own slice.

  Leo couldn’t even muster the spine to politely decline. “Fank you,” he murmured around the second and final bite, pulling Cole’s slice toward him.

  “Don’t thank me,” Cole laughed. “I’m getting a whole one.” He didn’t eat it right away, though, just asked for a wrapped one and put it in a bag.

  They wandered through the rest of the fair, occasionally bumping shoulders. Leo ate too much pie. On the stage, not-Johnny-Cash gave way to a much more talented and less overdressed not-Linda-Ronstadt. Cole picked up a cork gun for his niece and a stuffed dog for his nephew, and Leo got in the spirit of things and purchased a few cheesy Christmas decorations.

  “What?” he said defensively when Cole side-eyed his cheerful wooden reindeer. “It’s cute, and I actually have room to decorate down here, unlike my place in Toronto.”

  “Whatever you say.” His phone chirped, and he pulled it out of his pocket, his eyes going wide when he saw the hour. “Huh. Where did the time go?”

  Leo was starting to regret that he hadn’t put sunscreen on the back of his neck now that he’d been out in the sun for four hours. “Shit. I was going to do laundry before I go back to work tomorrow.”

  Cole turned in the direction they’d parked the car. “It’s okay. I should probably take you home anyway. Gran is really intense about family dinners on Sunday.”

  Leo’s parents had immigrated from Europe, but their families had stayed behind, so it was just them and his sister. “Yeah? Sounds nice.”

  “It is, until you skip a week and bad things mysteriously happen.”

  Okay, that was intense. “Your own grandmother cursed you?” Leo frowned.

  “No, Gran would never.” Cole made a thoughtful face. “Just, sometimes the universe likes things a certain way, and it makes it known when you’re doing the wrong thing.” He shook his head. “I guess that sort of thing doesn’t happen to you? One time I tried to avoid breaking up with my boyfriend and ended up with strep throat. Couldn’t kick it till I had a talk that was both literally and metaphorically painful.”

  Ouch. “Can’t you just, you know, break that? Or brew some potion to make you all better or something?” Come to think of it, any number of his patients could probably benefit from some magical intervention.

  Cole shook his head. “It doesn’t work like that. It’s tough to see your own curses, especially if it’s just a tiny simple thing that’ll wear off quickly. And magic can’t cure a physical illness. It can only treat the symptoms.” He glanced over as they passed the train cars again. “Sometimes I roll a potion into a batch of candy. Gumdrops for Gran’s arthritis, mints for upset stomach.”

  “You should sell those at the hospital gift shop.”

  “Those aren’t for sale. Probably have to market them as herbal remedies, what with the ingredients list. Allergies and all that. Can’t be too careful.”

  Cole dropped Leo off and Leo retrieved his bounty from the miniscule trunk. They waved goodbye and Leo went upstairs to see about some crackers and jelly for dinner.

  He was halfway through folding the first load of laundry when he realized he was still humming Linda Ronstadt.

  AS always on a Sunday afternoon, Gran’s was a paradigm of ordered chaos. Cole parked down the block, retrieved the pies from the back seat, and jogged into the family swarm.

  “You’re late,” Kate hissed as he swept past her on the way to the dessert table set up on the porch.

  “I have an excuse!” he half lied. He had been working, sort of, tugging at the bonds of the curse as Leo ate his way through candy apples and pie. He proffered the desserts. “And it’s not like I showed up empty-handed!”

  “That’s a beautiful lattice top,” Kate commented, taking the pie to set it next to Great-aunt Hilda’s marshmallow salad. “Okay, I forgive you, but there’s still Gran.”

  There was always Gran, but Cole didn’t look for her right away. Instead he mingled, catching up with family. Julie was pregnant with baby number two and due to pop in November. Her first, Ella, hung on Cole’s leg and gave him a running commentary: “Mommy’s aura is green like plants ’cause she’s gonna have a baby, but sometimes it’s gray ’cause she didn’t get enough sleep.”

  Cole scooped her up and sat her on his hip. “All right, little lady,” he said, directing her to the rest of the family. “Give me the lowdown?”

  Kate was dealing with a shipment mix-up—she’d ordered three boxes of merino and ended up with mohair.

  “Orange,” Ella whispered in that child’s whisper that ensured everyone in a ten-foot radius could hear her.

  Cole suppressed a smile. “What about me?”

  Ella squinted at him, then squished his nose with one little finger. “Sunshine. With pinky streaks at the outsides.”

  How masculine. “Sounds pretty.”

  “You are pretty, Uncle Cole.”

  He play-bit at her fingers. “Thanks, pumpkin. Who should we do next, hmm? Your dad? Auntie June?” He lowered his voice. “What about—”

  Behind him, someone cleared their throat. “You were late.”

  Damn. Cole spun around, Ella tucked into his shoulder, giggling. “I was getting pie,” he said. “And working! Very serious business.”

  Gran harrumphed, but the hint of a smile lurked under the corners of her downturned mouth, and she couldn’t hide it from Cole. “Don’t be late again,” she admonished, shaking her finger.

  Ella’s giggles tickled Cole’s neck as Gran moved past to tend to the grill.

  “What about her?” Cole whispered.

  “Uh-uh.” Ella shook her head.

  Yeah, fair enough. Cole wouldn’t risk crossing Gran either. “Good choice,” he told her. “Let’s go see what’s cooking.”

  Kate found him later, over the day’s second slice of apple pie, as Cole sat with Ella and her stepcousin Theo at the kids’ table. “Gran says you were working this afternoon.”

  “This whole family is full of gossips,”
Cole said to Ella.

  “As if you’re innocent.” Kate set her tarot deck on the table and looked at him expectantly.

  Cole squirmed. “You wouldn’t.”

  “Not if I don’t have to,” Kate agreed. Then she lowered her voice. “Gran’s deck was out when I went into the dining room to grab a serving spoon earlier. Guess whose photo was on the table.”

  Damn. She never did like waiting to find things out in their own time. “You don’t think I’m going to have to drop the case, do you?”

  “No. But you might want to be careful about how much extra time you spend with your client unless you want to field questions about it.”

  Cole let out a long breath. “When I came over the other day I found her staring into the koi pond,” he admitted.

  Kate raised her eyebrows and twisted her lips in sympathy. “That thing’s basically a widescreen TV when she uses it.”

  “Yeah.” Of course Gran couldn’t just use a crystal ball. She needed the bigger picture. Literally.

  “So the question is.” Kate tapped the deck. “You wanna know what she knows? Or what?”

  Cole shook his head. “Not now. Not here.” Not where Gran could overhear without even resorting to using magic to spy on him. And maybe he was better off not knowing, period. He and Kate weren’t likely to get an exact duplicate reading anyway, and a little knowledge could be dangerous. “That could have consequences.”

  Shrugging, Kate picked up the deck and shuffled one-handed. “Fair.” Then she tilted her head toward Ella, waiting for Cole to nod reluctantly before she said, “Maybe Ella will save us?” She gestured over her shoulder, where Aunt June’s husband, Todd, was taking advantage of his mostly captive audience to repeat the story of how an unexplained microstorm had made his colleague late for an interview, thus ensuring he got the promotion. Gran might be a bit scary, face-to-face, but she would never hold anything against a child.

  Ella smiled at Kate and reached across the table, wordlessly flipping over the top card of the deck.

  Justice, upside-down.