By the time we got everything sorted out, I was more than ready to call it a day. Kimberly was still giving me odd looks, but she wasn’t intruding into my personal space. Hopefully, that would last for another week.
I wasn’t so sure I wouldn’t burst into tears at a single, well-meant question. I was that close to losing it right now.
While my body was exhausted, and my mind too, for that matter, sleep wasn’t easy to come to me. It never was when I was upset and emotional. And I’d never been that emotional in all my life.
There, in the quiet of my room, doors shut between me and the rest of the household, I wept. Long and hard. I owed myself that release.
It took me a while in my grief and heartache to realize that I was no longer alone in my bedroom.
I didn’t even have to open my eyes to know who it was. Her glow could be felt as well as seen.
“I’m not sure I’m in the mood to listen to anything you have to say right now. If you’re here to tell me this is all for the best, you can just leave right now.”
Not the way a High Priestess should talk to her Goddess, but I meant every single word.
“Opal Ravenswind, my beautiful child, I owe you an apology. Please, will you hear me out?”
I took a staggered breath, which was about all I was capable of at the moment, and opened my eyes. There She was beside my bed in all Her glory. Normally, that sight gave me comfort. Tonight, it only made me angry.
My mouth opened, but at the last possible second, I closed it before speaking. If I was about to burn all my bridges to the Goddess, I might as well take a few minutes to let her say her piece first.
She motioned for me to scoot over, and I did. She sat on the edge of the bed and laid one hand on my arm.
“I’m afraid when I made you and your family my team, I might have done you a disservice. The others now seem intent to wreak havoc in your lives. I’ve done what I can to contain their efforts, but the Goddess tree...” A single tear flowed down her face. “They managed to slip that by me. That one wasn’t directed at you, Opal, but at me. A warning that I might not be able to protect all of you as well as I had thought I could.”
I swallowed and stared at her. “You didn’t strike the tree down as an omen for me to stop the wedding?”
She blinked at me. “Why on earth would I have done that? Your union with Orville Taylor is well blessed by me. You should know that. My goodness, but the things I had to do to make that work out in the end. You know, he almost didn’t return to Wind’s Crossing after his stint in the Army?” She gave me a small smile. “Something about not being up to being around the woman he loved while she loved another.”
That lead to interesting future questions, but I didn’t want to get off track this quickly in the conversation. I wanted confirmation of her earlier words first.
“You give our wedding your blessings?”
Her smile said it all. “The two of you are meant to be together, Opal. That has always been your destiny, even if it took you long enough to see that. You should know that by now.” Then her smile slipped. “But, as I said, when I created Team Destiny as you all call it, I also seemed to have put targets on all of you.”
“You’re saying we’re in danger? Orville, Ruby, and all the others?”
“You as well, Opal. The other entities can’t act directly against any of you, though, so there is that small comfort. But they can certainly make it seem like omens are occurring when they are not.” She made a face. “And I’m afraid they can make your lives... rather interesting as the old curse goes.”
The Goddess leaned down and kissed my cheek. The warmth of it went straight to my quickly mending heart. The Goddess’s kisses were mighty powerful things.
“Good is always in danger from Evil.”
I nodded slowly. “But we still have you on our side.”
Her entire body glowed as she beamed down at me. “From now until the end of time, Opal Ravenswind. I will be there for you.”
I hesitated before asking the next question. It was too important to leave it unasked. “If I marry Orville, will I be putting him in mortal danger?”
Her fingers grazed my cheek in a loving caress. “Orville and you alike are in mortal danger from Evil every day of your lives, Opal. That is because of who and what the two of you are. Wouldn’t you rather be by his side to help him rather than send him off to fend for himself?”
I swallowed and resolve filled my body. Evil wouldn’t win. Not this time.
“Goddess, you know I treasure your visits beyond measure, so I hope you won’t take offense when I ask you to leave now. I have a rather important phone call to make.”
She smiled down at me. “I rather thought you might.”
And I was alone again.
Chapter 14
It took Orville four rings to answer. That wasn’t like him at all. Not even at this time of night. I’d personally seen that man come out of a dead sleep and answer a call within seconds. I kind of thought that ability came with the title of Sheriff.
I was just about to hang up and take a drive over to his place when he finally picked up. His voice was breathless. “What’s wrong?”
Hesitating, I listened closely. There were sounds in the background. Orville wasn’t home. “Nothing’s wrong... but you’re on a call, aren’t you? We can talk in the morning.”
“Don’t hang up! Just give me a minute.” I heard some muffled conversation come through, then a minute later he was back with me. “I know you wouldn’t have called me at this godforsaken hour unless it was something urgent. Just tell me already. My night can’t get much worse.”
Now my guilt ratcheted up. Technically, what I was calling for wasn’t urgent at all. It could easily have waited until morning. Why had I thought differently?
“I’m sorry, Orville. I should have waited. I just didn’t want you stewing any longer than necessary. The wedding is back on... if you still want me.”
“And just like that, my night got a whole heck of a lot better. Thank you, Opal, I needed to hear that right now.” There was a pause. “Now I want you to remember your words when I give you the latest news, okay? I’m holding you to them.”
“What’s happened?”
“I am on a call. Kenny Driscoll’s body was just found. Method of death looks pretty dang similar to that of Reverend Castle, too, so I’m going to go on the assumption that we’re looking at the same killer. We’ll know more after the coroner gets through with her assessment.”
I took a deep breath. My first thought was that at least the townsfolk couldn’t blame this death on my upcoming wedding, but with that bet circulating around they probably could. In fact, I just might be a suspect myself. Especially seeing as how I’d just visited the man yesterday.
A fact which, what with the fallen tree and all the storm excitement, I had yet to share with Orville.
“You should know that I went to see Driscoll on Monday. Guess that puts me on the suspect list, doesn’t it?”
“Oh, Opal.” I heard a shout from behind him and his muffled answer to them. “Look, I’m going to want to hear all about your visit with Driscoll, but right now, I have to process this scene. Can you come to the station after you drop the kids off at school? Give me a statement?”
“See you then, Orville.” And then a split second later, I added, “Please take care, okay? Evil has its sights on the two of us.”
“I’m not sure I understand that, but I’ll watch my back. You do the same with yours.” His voice lowered. “And Opal? Thanks again for calling. I can handle this a lot better now. Love you.”
He hung up before I could say it back.
I put the phone on the nightstand and rolled over. “I love you, too, Orville.”
And yes, I might have shed a few more tears before I finally drifted off to sleep. But at least these were happy ones.
MY STEP WAS DEFINITELY lighter the next morning. I know that probably sounded terrible, what with there being another deat
h and a possible serial killer on the loose. But it was true all the same.
Kimberly noticed right off the bat too. “It looks like whatever’s been bugging you the last few days must have resolved itself.”
I nodded. “It did. Thanks for giving me my space on that, by the way. I know that couldn’t have been easy.”
She smiled at me. “Believe me, it wasn’t. It’s never easy to watch someone you care about going through rough times.” She stared me right in the eyes. “Especially when they don’t seem to trust you enough to talk to you about it.”
“It wasn’t a trust issue, I promise.” I hesitated. I really didn’t want to go into the whole thing. But I had to give the girl something, and besides, the whole not saying anything for seven-day thing shouldn’t be valid anymore, right? “I guess I was just having cold feet about the wedding. What with everything going on and all.”
Kimberly frowned. “You don’t think Reverend Castle’s death had anything to do with your wedding, do you? That man was scum. Lots of people wanted him... well, gone.”
I shrugged. “A witch puts a lot of trust in omens. And there have been a fair few of them piling up lately.”
She nodded. “I’ll give you that.”
We went through all the motions and actions to get the kids off to school, then drove to the shop. Crapsnackles. A day and a half of the shop being closed because of the power outage, and there were literally people lined up at the door.
What the heck was going on with my shop’s sudden popularity boom?
As it wasn’t quite nine yet, we made our way to the backdoor and let ourselves in. I was halfway tempted to put up another closed for the day sign in the window, but Kimberly seemed pumped by all the business we’d been getting. I hated to disappoint her.
“You think you can handle the shop on your own with that crowd out there? I need to pay a visit to the sheriff. Kenny Driscoll was killed yesterday, and I need to give a statement.”
The odd look was back. “Why would you have to do that? I never thought you were the betting type.”
“I’m not.” Although I had made an exception to that rule on Monday. How could I not place a bet on my own bloody wedding? “But I went to see him on my lunch hour the other day, and he let me know that he had a bet running on the wedding. Guess that kind of makes me a lead suspect at the moment.”
“Oh, Opal, what rotten timing.”
Yeah. Tell me about it.
I helped her run through the shop, making sure things were in functioning order with the power back on in full, then we opened the shop. A few minutes later, I was on my way toward the sheriff’s station.
Orville met me halfway. “Let’s have our little meeting at the Flour Pot.” He didn’t give me a chance to answer, just took my elbow and turned me right around.
Like I was going to argue about a visit to the Flour Pot. They had my Raspberry Delights there. Of course, I probably should be watching my calories right now. I did have a wedding dress to fit into in a few weeks.
Although, now that I thought about it, I didn’t. Not yet. I still had to make the darn thing. The good thing was, I only had to make half a dress. The bad thing was, I had to make two of them.
Once we got our order at the counter, we took a seat at the farthest table from the center of the shop. The owner was a smart man. He didn’t offer free internet here. Nope. He wanted people to come in, get their donuts and coffee, and get out. As such, he only had a few tables, and most of the time at least one was free.
Orville took a bite of his donut and groaned—Raspberry Delights can cause that—before he looked at me. “Okay, I think I’m properly prepared now. Tell me about your visit to Kenny Driscoll.”
“Okay, but before I do... did you know the man had a bet running on whether or not our wedding would actually happen?”
His face scrunched up. That kind of told me the answer. “You knew about that, huh?” He took a deep breath. “You know that doesn’t help your whole being on the suspect list thing, right?”
“I do.”
Then his eyes met mine over the table. “Is that why you went to see him?”
I could totally have said yes. I mean, Orville had made it plain to me that he wanted me to stay out of the investigation. If I said yes, then he would never have to know that I was still encroaching on his job. But this was Orville. The man I was going to spend the rest of my life with. It simply wouldn’t do to go down that slippery slope.
“No. I didn’t find out about the bet until my visit. He was the one that told me.”
He frowned at me. “You went to talk about Reverend Castle’s gambling debt, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
To his credit, he was handling this rather well. He had to know that asking me to stay out of an investigation that the whole town kind of thought was necessary because of me and my possibly hexed wedding was out of line. And I hadn’t gotten in the way of any of his officers, so he really couldn’t grumble too much about it, either.
“And?”
“Well, once I convinced him that I wasn’t there to put a spell on him, he was so relieved that we had a nice little conversation.” I glanced around. No one appeared to be listening in on us. What few people were in the little shop were all at the counter, giving us a pretty wide berth. Probably didn’t want the hex to rub off on them. Can’t say I blamed them all that much, truth be told.
I lowered my voice all the same. “Did you know that Reverend Castle had an illegitimate daughter show up on his doorstep a while back?”
Orville almost choked on the bite he’d just taken. After a brief coughing spree and a drink of coffee to clear his throat, he looked at me. “He what? Who?”
Shrugging, I shook my head. “Driscoll didn’t know the who. Only that Reverend Castle was more than a little worried that the girl might make it public knowledge.”
“He didn’t happen to mention a timeframe, did he? Like when this girl showed up on that doorstep?”
“According to Driscoll, the reverend told him about it a few months ago. He made it sound like it had happened fairly recently before that. Either that or the girl was ramping things up. He said Reverend Castle was pretty upset by it.”
“Well, yeah, I can see that. His wife hasn’t been gone all that long.” Orville paused long enough to polish off his second donut. “Anything else?”
I couldn’t control my blush. And his slow smile told me he was enjoying this a little too much.
“Nothing about Reverend Castle, no.”
By now, he was grinning at me. “You placed a bet, didn’t you?”
I gave him a short nod. “I did. Do you have a problem with that?”
He chuckled. “Not as long as you bet for the wedding to happen.” Then he looked at me. “You did, right?”
“Of course, I did.” Something about his expression made me ask. “I don’t suppose you had any dog in that fight too?”
“I may have put a chunk of green down on the two of us.” He leaned back. “Not sure we’re ever going to see anything from it, though. I think Driscoll left his clients high and dry. No backup bookie that I know of.”
Not something I was going to lose sleep over. If you couldn’t afford to lose the money you were betting, you shouldn’t be betting it in the first place. His clients all just lost, that’s all.
“I don’t suppose you have any way to track down who is new to the town in the past year or so?”
“I have a few avenues I can go down to get that information.” He scratched his chin. “I think the local Welcome Wagon team might be a good place to start. I’d invite you to come along, but...”
“But you don’t want the office to know we’re working on this together.” I got that, even if it didn’t make me all that happy.
“It is what it is, Opal. And it’s only for a few more months. After that, we’ll be a proper team. And the town will just have to deal with it.”
I liked the sound of that. But still.
&n
bsp; “You know you’re going to give me that list of names, right?”
He sighed. “Yeah, I know.”
Chapter 15
Orville might not be a witch, but he was a man of his word. I had the names within an hour.
Even though the more I thought about it, it might not do us all that much good. It’s quite possible the girl was from right here in Wind’s Crossing and only just this year confronted the man. It’s also possible that the girl was simply passing through. But it was a place to start, and I wasn’t about to leave any stone unturned on this.
The shop was still going like mad, though, and I was trying to make it up to Kimberly for taking the time off this morning to meet with Orville. I really didn’t want to ditch her again so soon after that.
So the two of us double-teamed the customers and when lunch hour finally came around, I asked Kimberly if I could borrow baby Pearl. For what it was worth, Kimberly was getting pretty darn good at the Ravenswind look.
“Do I get to ask why?”
“Sure. I’m visiting a new witch in town, and I thought baby Pearl might help break the ice.”
One of the names on Orville’s list had immediately jumped out at me. Patience Goodheart. With a last name like that, I was betting she wasn’t the one we were looking for. But then again, she could have married into it. Either way, having a baby along for the call just seemed like a good thing. Witches, for the most part, loved babies. And no, I’m not taking eating them, either. Hansel and Gretel gave us witches a terrible reputation. A mostly untrue one, too. I mean, sure, there were always rotten apples in any barrel.
She blinked at me. “If you think I’m going to balk at having the shop all to myself for an hour, you’ve got another thing coming. Go for it.”
I didn’t have to be told twice. I strapped baby Pearl’s harness to my chest—I was going to hate it when she got too big for this thing—and we headed out. It was a beautiful spring day, so we hoofed it the three blocks to Patience’s house.
Witch of a Bride (Witch Reborn, #3) Page 9