“So, we need to have a talk.”
“About what?” I said.
“A few things. First… the girl.”
I nodded, thinking again about my poor finances. Trish Tarkington… couldn’t she have planned to go crazy on her honeymoon? After I got my check? Then I remembered part of her big plan, the last minute substitution of the flower settings…
“She was going to enslave her entire wedding. She was growing those flowers for every single guest.”
“That’s what happens when people who aren’t controlled use magic,” Hank said.
“I’d pick my words different. Controlling people was the bad thing she did. It doesn’t become a good thing just because a so-called good guy starts calling the shots.”
Hank made a motion with his head which didn’t indicate much of anything. If he agreed or disagreed, I didn’t know.
“About the books. It’s the job of my—”
“You stole the book from me. You stole it and then ran right to Trish Tarkington.”
He sipped his tea, then looked at it. “This tastes a lot better when it’s not just thrown in your face.”
“Hmm,” I said, not cracking a smile.
“I didn’t steal anything. I secured an unregistered magical work so that it could be examined, cataloged, and if determined to be safe to be put back in your hands.”
I stared, and waited for him to say the right thing that turned that pile of dosh into a joke. He stirred some sugar into his tea, but did not continue.
“Okay, first things first: that book is my property. You’re never going to see it again. Nor the other book of Grand-Mere’s which I still have to figure out how it got in that woman’s hands.”
“I’d guess the Jiggs had it, and sold it or lent it to her. So two of Grand-Mere’s books are now found, and they’re here. Which means they have to come with me. And if you have any of the others…”
Other books? What? I don’t think my eyebrows even went up, though I was shouting on the inside.
“Why do they have to come with you?”
“So that this sort of thing doesn’t happen again. When we’ve looked through the books and determined what content can be used in your—”
“I will stop you right there. I do not have any intention of giving you that book, or any book. Whatever big powerful group you think you’re a part of, you didn’t do anything to stop what happened here before you came or after - Wilhelm Spengler still died, my sister was still kidnapped while you stood by.”
“I was caught off guard. I wouldn’t have been if I’d known about the books. I did release your sister from those ropes with a pretty awesome fire trick,” he said, waggling his eyebrows.
“Thank you for the help, but this is my family. These are my books. And even if you tried to take them by force, you wouldn’t know where to start. That tea was $4.95, and I won’t be pouring you any refills,” I said, and I stood up from the table.
“Mimi,” he said, then he stopped. When I gave a little glance over my shoulder, he looked frustrated. With me, sure, but also probably with himself. He was doing a job. I understood that.
And I was protecting my family. I didn’t care whether or not he understood. It was just what had to be. He stood up, walked to the counter and pulled a $5 bill out of his pocket. He tried to hand it to me, but when I wouldn’t reach out to him he placed it on the counter. Then he leaned forward to speak quietly.
“I’m going now,” he said. “I will be back, though. This doesn’t have to be a conflict.”
“‘Do it my way or else’ is the very definition of conflict,” I said. I opened up the till, pulled out a nickel, and put it on the counter. “Your change.”
He took it, then winked at me. Whatever that wink meant, if it was I’m actually on your side or this ain’t over or whatever, I couldn’t tell. I didn’t want to be able to tell. He was the king of ambiguous motions today, and I wasn’t about to let him know what I thought about him, either.
“Be seeing you,” he said as he went out the door.
I sighed, and avoided the shaking heads and muttering of how dumb the poor tea shop girl was from the Groves. I headed back into my kitchen, and was met by my cat.
Kashmir and I gave each other a long look. His demeanor was placid, nonchalant as a cat always was, but he did not lick his paws or move his tail. He just looked, and waited.
“More books,” I said. “Grand-Mere had more books and you had to know.”
“I had hoped—”
“Kashmir, have you been lying to me?” I said.
“Pfft,” he hissed out. “I do not need to lie to you, just not tell you all I know. Would you like to hear all I know? Have you several decades to sit and listen to the wisdom I have accrued in service to several witches of your family?”
“But all you can talk about is book book book. Meow, find the book. Hiss, find the book. Hack hack hack, find the book.”
Kashmir’s eyes opened wide, and his tail whipped from side to side. Lips peeled back against tough looking fangs.
“Do not mock me, or my kind.”
Some small part of me wanted to hiss at him, but instead I just settled down on the ground, again, and sighed.
“Oh, Kashmir, I’m not, I’m just so frustrated. I feel like I’m butting heads with everyone all the time, just trying to stay afloat. And the tea shop’s going to close, I know it, with the wedding and everything. I don’t know what to do.”
“Duck.”
I looked at him, wondering if I heard him right. “What?”
“Duck. Down. Lower your head.”
After a moment more of hesitation, I just sighed and ducked down my head. With a loud thump, Kashmir leapt forward and slammed his head right into mine.
“Agh!” I said, reeling back. He whipped around, and slammed his head into my knee. He was a big, muscly cat, and it hurt, darn it…. But it was accompanied by a purr like I’d hardly ever head him use.
“There, we have butted heads. We live.”
“You little…” Then I laughed and reached out for him. I didn’t pick him up (unforgivable) but I did scratch him on his back where it was hard for him to reach. A moment of this, and then we both looked at each other again, all that growing animosity gone.
Two seconds later, I heard a little chirping. Coney had flown from whatever hiding place he’d found in the kitchen, and landed down on Kashmir’s back. Kashmir didn’t even bat an eye at the bird.
I smiled at both of them for a long moment, and then got back to the subject.
“The books…”
“There are three that still exist. The second one you don’t need. Gardens? Feh, places filled with stinky plants a cat gets yelled for using for its proper purpose: hunting rodents and fertilizing.”
“Eww,” I said, grimacing. “And the third?”
Kashmir put one paw on my knee. “The third… is dangerous. It is really the first. Grand-Mere wrote it long before she had children, when she was early in her powers. It is a true book of magic, but one that would get her burned for writing. That’s why we look for the book of Circe, which has the advantage of being too old to hurt anyone for writing it.”
“I don’t understand. It’s all just magic, right?”
“There is no just magic. It’s all dangerous, and it can’t be controlled. Many people think it is their job to control the people who might use it. You’ve learned that yourself.”
“I learned a few things this week, and it all boils down to Grand-Mere was right. She was right we have to work together. She was right that I need to protect my family and myself. And there’s a last thing she was right about.”
Kashmir leaped up to a counter, and walked halfway down it. Eventually, he turned around, and said, “And I suppose I have to ask what that third lesson was?”
“You already know: never date a warlock.”
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Also by J.D. Winters and Dakota Kahn
In the Sister Witchcraft Series…
Sister Witchcraft: Bewitched, Bedeviled and Bewildered
Sister Witchcraft: Confessions of a Teenage Slayer
Sister Witchcraft: Undercover Coven
In the Moonhaven series…
Moonhaven 1: Even Witches Get the Blues
Moonhaven 2: That Old Witch Magic
The Destiny Bay Cozy Mysteries Series by J.D. Winters…
#1: A Ghost for Christmas
#2: Ghost On Duty
#3: A Ghost In Time
#4 Cloudy with a Chance of Ghosts
#5 Little Ghost Lost
#6 Mele’s Ghostly Halloween Caper & Sami’s Story
The Kate & Blake Cozy Mysteries by Dakota Kahn…
#1 Kate & Blake vs The Ghost Town
#2 Kate & Blake vs The Cat Heir
#3 Kate & Blake vs The Billionaires
About the Authors
J.D. Winters is a pen name for Helen Conrad, an award-winning, bestselling author of more than 90 romances published under various pseudonyms with Harlequin, Silhouette, Loveswept and others--as well as the extensive series, Destiny Bay Romances. Cozy mysteries are a new venture, less romance, but more fun!
JD Winters Website
Dakota Kahn lives and writes on the Central Coast of California, assisted by a large record collection and a meddlesome cat.
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Never Date A Warlock (Sister Witchcraft Book 4) Page 23