Casual Hex

by Vicki Lewis Thompson

  “If my penis could talk, I am sure it would agree with you.”

  She laughed at the mental image of a talking penis. She pictured it in cartoon form on YouTube, although it was probably too X-rated a subject for that venue. “Would your penis have a sexy accent, too?”

  His blue eyes sparkled. “Ah. Mademoiselle, she loves zee ac-cent,” he said, deliberately emphasizing it. “I must keep zee ac-cent com-ing.”

  “Which will keep me com-ing. Seriously, Marc. Tell me you’re not planning to stay at the Holiday Inn for the next two nights.”

  “I am. But we can still have sex. We just need to be creative. And we have proven we are good at that.”

  Her beautiful insides, already primed by his kiss, heated another notch or two. Still, she hated to give up two long, glorious nights with him in her fluffy bed. “You do realize I have to work in the shop most of the day, right?”

  “I expected that. I can amuse myself.”

  “If you insist on this Evansville thing, you leave us with so little time. Don’t worry about gossip. Stay with me.”

  “For dinner, yes.” He gave her a lingering kiss.

  “And dessert?” she murmured against his warm mouth.

  “Mm. Oui.”

  “And a second dessert?” All this talk of her beauty was giving her confidence in her seductive powers. She rubbed against him and gazed into his eyes. If they hadn’t been layered in all sorts of winter gear, the rubbing-bodies part might have been more effective.

  His blue eyes darkened. “I will enjoy as many desserts as you care to serve. But I will be leaving your home by ten.”

  “Spoilsport.” Privately she plotted how to keep him there. Sessions in her claw-foot tub seemed to work pretty well. She’d just see about this proposed curfew of his. She finally had a Frenchman in her bed, and she didn’t want to miss a moment of all that French culture.

  “The sun has risen,” he said. “Our sneaking-to-seethe-plants plan may soon be compromised.”

  She sighed with reluctance. She’d been so excited about showing him the plants, but compared to standing in the snow, kissing him, or returning to her bedroom to kiss him some more, viewing the plants didn’t seem all that significant.

  She’d read about passions this all consuming, but she’d never experienced one firsthand. Now she understood why perfectly sane women turned into blithering idiots. She was in danger of doing that herself.

  She would consider closing the shop for the day, but he probably wouldn’t let her do that, either, for fear of the talk that would cause. “You still haven’t answered the condom question.” She was nothing if not persistent, and he might as well discover that now.

  “Condoms are not a problem.”

  She looked into his eyes and saw uncertainty there. She hoped it didn’t mean that he was giving up on the concept of having a complete sexual experience with her. “Aren’t you planning to indulge in anything that requires them?”

  “I did not say that.”

  Perplexed, she studied him for several seconds. Finally she understood. “You brought them!”

  “I debated the question for a long time. I hated for you to think that I—”

  “That you hoped we’d get it on? Oh, Marc, that might be the nicest compliment you’ve paid me so far, and you’ve paid me a bunch.”

  “You are not offended?”

  She gazed up at him. “I’m flattered. Flattered to think that somehow, through e-mails, without exchanging pictures or personal stats, you were intrigued enough to think we might connect, that we might choose to have sex.”

  “By French standards, it is too soon. I should have spent more time, prepared the groundwork for what happened. In France, a woman is not rushed into bed.”

  “Not even if a man is overcome by his desire for her?” That was the part Gwen loved. If they’d connected as he’d hoped, then he’d planned for a slow seduction. But he hadn’t been able to hold back.

  “There are exceptions, of course, but generally speaking, a Frenchman—”

  “I adore being the exception to the rule.” She kissed him quickly and stepped away. “Now let’s go check those plants. As we say in America, we’re burning daylight.”

  Chapter 12

  ‘We should use this sex bench more often.” Magnificently naked, Ambrose straddled the bench, and Dorcas, equally unclothed, straddled him. They’d managed a simultaneous orgasm, something they were infinitely capable of, but they hadn’t put that kind of care into their sex life recently. This morning they had, and she felt satisfied on many levels.

  “We will, I promise,” Dorcas said. “But now we should probably shower and get dressed.” They could magically shower and dress in an instant, but the older they got, the more often they chose the nonmagical way. Dorcas had become quite fond of hot showers and towels warmed by a heated rack.

  “I suppose we do need to get going. We haven’t even had breakfast yet.”

  “No, and there’s plenty to do today.” She gave him a quick kiss and disentangled herself. “We need to find the rest of your staff, for one thing.”

  “I know.” He sounded like a little boy who’d lost one of his mittens.

  “Then we also have to check on Gwen, Marc and the plants, not to mention George, who has definitely regressed.”

  “Looks like it. By the way, thanks for finding that entitlement charm on Sabrina’s collar. The guy’s obviously a liar, which I find hard to believe. He was so sincere.”

  “Uh-huh.” Dorcas’s irritation with Ambrose had evaporated. Her husband was guilty of wanting to buy something special for the cat he loved, which wasn’t a crime. If he tended to believe the best of everyone, that wasn’t so terrible, either.

  “I will get a full refund once he’s back. Or else.”

  “Oh, don’t bother fooling with that. Sabrina loves the collar, and I’ll bet I can get that charm off. I just need a free evening to work on it.”

  “Those are in short supply these days.”

  “I know.” She started toward the bathroom. “I’d better take the first shower so I have time to do my hair.”

  “Will those burgundy streaks wash out?” Ambrose called after her.

  “Nope!” She went over to the tub and turned on the water.

  “At least the sparkles will be gone, right?”

  She stuck her head around the door frame. “I bought more sparkles.”

  “Oh.” He glanced down at his lap. “I have sparkles on my dick.”

  “How festive.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Dorcas, could you please change your hair back to the way it was?”

  “Negative. Look at it this way, Ambrose. With this hairstyle I feel twenty years younger.”

  “So?”

  “So a woman who feels twenty years younger should be more interested in sex, don’t you think?”

  His expression changed from annoyed to hopeful. “Really?”

  She nodded.

  He climbed off the bench. “In that case, how about a quickie in the shower?”

  She couldn’t help smiling. He was so predictable. “How could I possibly resist a wizard with sparkles on his dick?”

  Marc had seen many unusual plant behaviors in his years of botanical research, but finding a species of tropical plant growing in the snow was a first. He took some preliminary pictures with his BlackBerry, but he would come back with his digital camera later.

  Once he had some shots, he crouched down next to one of the plants. “So the Lowells discovered these?”

  “Right. Not many people go into the Whispering Forest other than Dorcas and Ambrose. Jeff Brady, the guy who owns the Big Knobian, snowshoes in here sometimes, but he stays on the road. I didn’t go in here myself until this thing came up about the plants.”

  Marc fingered one waxy leaf. Then he glanced up at her. “Do you believe the woods are haunted?”

  “No.” She hesitated. “I mean, not logically, but I grew up hearing stories of people who swore they h
eard someone whispering, but when they turned, no one was there. And others say they saw disembodied eyes through the trees.”

  Marc stood and glanced around him. “Practical jokes, perhaps?” He pulled his borrowed gloves from the pockets of his borrowed coat and put them back on. It was damned cold out here.

  “Not many practical jokes last for more than a century,” she said. “The stories go back further than that, actually. Lucy Dunstan has some old diaries where the pioneers mentioned the same phenomena. I’m sure there’s some reasonable explanation.”

  Marc was becoming more intrigued by the minute. Nature-based religions fascinated him. He had seen several varieties along the Amazon, and he could be standing in a hotbed of another variety right here in Big Knob.

  The street grid, the founder’s name and now the haunted forest were making him wonder what might be bubbling under the surface of this supposedly quiet little town. If a secret Wiccan community had flourished here ever since the early 1800s, the members might find it to their advantage to perpetuate the haunted forest myth.

  He would love to have time to explore the area and see if he could find any evidence that the forest was used for conducting Wiccan rituals. All his reading had convinced him of the gentle nature of Wicca, but most people did not share that view. They thought witches were scary creatures who wore pointed hats and rode on broomsticks.

  But he already knew Gwen would rather avoid talking about the possibility of Wiccans having lived here, perhaps still living here. He might have to go elsewhere for his information. “You mentioned that Lucy Dunstan has some old diaries,” he said. “Who is she?”

  “The town historian. Her son, Jeremy, owns Click-or-Treat.”

  “Jeremy is married to your best friend, Annie.”

  “Right. He owns the Internet caf’ I’ve been using to e-mail you, the same place where you can get high-speed access and e-mail Josette.”

  Josette. He kept forgetting about her. Some big brother he was. She was going through a crisis in school, and he needed to make sure she was okay. After that he could look into this other matter, which he believed was somehow connected to the out-of-place bromeliads.

  Then there was Gwen. His time with her was limited, especially if he insisted on his plan of sleeping in his hotel room in Evansville. His sense of responsibility, his innate scientific curiosity and lust were pulling him in different directions.

  Josette had to be given top priority, though. He had neglected her long enough. “How soon does the caf’ open?”

  Gwen looked at her watch. “We have another thirty minutes or so. We could be there in about fifteen minutes if we continue along the walking path around town and cut in where Fourth and Fifth intersect.”

  “At the point of the star.”

  “Yes.”

  “This walking path . . .” He hated to upset her again, but his curiosity was killing him.

  “Connects the points of the star,” she said with obvious reluctance. “I thought of that last night.”

  “So there is a circle around the star, after all.” He was becoming more excited with every new detail.

  “Yes, but it doesn’t mean anything. Over the years people created the obvious shortcuts. That’s all the walking path is—shortcuts.”

  “I am certain you are correct.” But he wanted to talk to Lucy Dunstan and find out more about Isadora Mather. He could also Google Isadora while he was on the Internet. Gwen would not approve. She would not appreciate his wanting to poke around in the forest, looking for ritual circles, either.

  He could hardly blame her. She had grown up with a certain set of beliefs about the town where she had lived all her life. He, however, had been exposed to many different cultures and ways of thinking.

  But more than that, his parents’ deaths in an avalanche during a skiing vacation had taught him that nothing stays the same, no matter how much you might want it to. Their deaths had forced him to embrace change instead of resisting it, but Gwen obviously enjoyed the predictability of Big Knob. She had no interest in hearing that it might not be quite so predictable.

  Yet even as he recognized how different they were, he was drawn to her in a way he had never been attracted to another woman. Others had needed to stage an all-out seduction in order to interest him. Gwen had only to glance at him a certain way, or dampen her lower lip with her tongue, or draw in a sharp little breath, and he was filled with an unquenchable thirst for her.

  Three days would never be enough to slake it. He already knew that, already was planning how to get her to Paris or make another trip over here. Whatever linked them was powerful. He smiled to himself. Almost like magic.

  “You still think the town was laid out by witches, don’t you?” Her gaze held a mixture of fear and defiance.

  He stepped toward her and took hold of both her hands. “I do not know what to think. You must admit it is intriguing to have a town arranged this way and stories of ghosts in the woods.”

  “The forest isn’t haunted.” Her chin lifted, as if daring him to contradict her.

  Instead he was blindsided with a dose of lust. He tamped it down. Now was not the time.

  He noticed, though, that she had chosen to talk about the haunted forest instead of the street grid. He had a feeling she was no longer so ready to do battle on that front.

  Maybe he should leave the subject alone, but he could not. “If the forest is not haunted, how do you explain the stories about disembodied eyes and whispering continuing all these years?”

  “People are naturally superstitious.” Her tone was cool and logical. “They were probably even more superstitious a hundred and fifty years ago. Wind became whispers, and the eyes of animals in the dark became disembodied. The myth was passed down and grew more entrenched.”

  He nodded. “That makes sense. So why not walk in the woods on a regular basis, even at night?” He wanted to know what she was telling herself about these superstitions.

  She looked sheepish. “After hearing these things from the time I was old enough to understand, I can’t come in here without getting a little spooked. I would never come here at night. I know that’s illogical, but—” She went very still and her eyes widened. “Did you hear something?”

  Now that she mentioned it, he did. Someone or something was coming, its footsteps crunching against the snow. Ghosts would not crunch, he told himself, but all this talk had spooked him a little, too.

  “I didn’t tell you about the rock,” she murmured. Looking scared, she edged closer to him. “Something dropped a rock on one of the bromeliads the night before last.”

  The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. “That rock over there?” He tilted his head toward a good-sized boulder.

  “Yeah. There were five bromeliads out here after Dorcas and Ambrose dug one up.”

  The crunching grew louder. “That is a big rock.” He tried to imagine the strength it would take to move it, and adrenaline spiked through his system.

  “Dorcas thought maybe a bear might have wandered over from Ohio.”

  “Judging from the size of the rock, it would be a big bear.” He tried to remember what little he knew about bears. About all he could recall was that they were very fast. They could outrun humans. “If it is a bear, you run and I will distract it,” he said.

  She squeezed his hands. “Fat chance.”

  “I am serious, Gwen. You must—”

  “Hello!” called a male voice.

  Gwen’s shoulders slumped in obvious relief. “It’s Ambrose,” she said. “Dorcas and Ambrose must have come out to check on the plants. We’re here!” she called out.

  Dorcas and Ambrose. Marc was beginning to believe it was more than coincidence that the Lowells had found the plants. He knew from Gwen’s e-mails that the couple was relatively new in town. He vaguely remembered Gwen mentioning they had moved here from Sedona. And unlike the locals, they enjoyed hiking around in the Whispering Forest.

  Marc added Sedona as something else to G
oogle once he got the chance. He would like to pay a visit to the Lowells’ house, too. Madame Lowell had invited him and Gwen for dinner, but considering the way things had turned out, he was glad they had stayed at Gwen’s.

  He still disliked the idea of spending hours with them when he could be alone with Gwen. But he would consider going over for a cup of coffee. With the research from his student days, he would know what to look for.

  Madame Lowell came into the clearing first, followed by her husband. They looked almost like Parisians with the understated elegance of their fur-trimmed silver jackets, slim black ski pants and fur-lined boots. Marc felt a sharp pain in the vicinity of his heart. Had his parents lived, they might look something like this now.

  Dorcas smiled at them. “Monsieur Chevalier, I’d like you to meet my husband.”

  Marc stepped forward, hand outstretched. “I am glad to meet you at last, Monsieur Lowell.”

  “Call me Ambrose.” His grip was firm and his gaze was clear and assessing.

  “All right.”

  “And please call me Dorcas,” said Madame Lowell. “I feel as if we’re friends.”

  Or accomplices. Marc might have been an unwitting one, but he could not complain, considering how everything was turning out with Gwen.

  He smiled at Dorcas. “But of course. And my friends call me Marc.” He had met Dorcas the night before, but his jet lag had kept him from noticing how attractive she was. Ambrose was a perfect match for her, with his square jaw and touches of gray at his temples.

  Neither one of them looked as if they belonged in a little town like Big Knob. They appeared to be a middle-aged couple who had done well and were now easing into a comfortable retirement. He could picture them in a home on the French Riviera, maybe, or the American equivalent, which was probably somewhere along the California coast.

  But instead they were here. Maybe if you were a successful couple involved in Wicca, you preferred little out-of-the-way towns with a forest nearby that was purported to be haunted. Maybe the Lowells had been brought here by the Big Knobians who were descended from Isadora Mather, the woman who had inspired her husband to create a town along the lines of a Wiccan symbol.