“Actually, no. She grounded my powers and then turned me into a bush.”
“What?”
“Well, more of a shrub.” I backed away, retreating down the steps of the porch. “See you at home,” I said nonchalantly. “Tell the Moores I said hello.”
“Come in and tell them yourself.”
I pretended not to hear her.
My daughter exhibited selective hearing when she didn't like my suggestions, so I was simply borrowing from her playbook.
* * *
Over in my house, I was just about to dig in to a heaping plate of mixed fridge leftovers topped with festive potato chip crumbs when the doorbell rang.
“Nobody home,” I called out. “Also, I gave at the office, I'm not a registered voter, and the purple welts that cover fifty percent of my body are extremely contagious.”
The person on my porch leaned over and called into the house through a screen window. “Zara? It's just me, Chet.”
“Did I say fifty percent? The purple welts have spread to ninety percent of my body.”
He replied, “Can I come in?”
“You probably could if you tried a little harder. The door's not locked.”
He let himself in. A minute later, he found me in the kitchen, with my fork poised to excavate the mountain of leftovers before me.
“I don't see any purple welts,” he said.
“They've retreated to just my bathing suit areas.”
He looked down at the floor and rubbed his forehead. “Is everyone this colorful where you're from?”
“Of course not. I would have never left and moved here to Wisteria.”
He looked up and tilted his head. “Your hair's different,” he mused.
“Does it still look messy? Someone else had their hands in it this morning, and you know how that goes.”
His dark green eyes flicked down to my food quickly.
I let the innuendo hang in the air, testing him.
He didn't ask who'd had their hands in my hair, but he was thinking about it. Good.
I got up and poured myself a glass of water. “Can I offer you one of these? We have it on tap.”
“No, thanks.” He kept staring at my food. He'd not shaved that morning, and his lean cheeks bore a dark shadow, making his face appear longer and more angular but still handsome. Sexy, even, though I told myself not to notice.
His dark eyebrows shifted together and then rose in synchronicity with my fork. His dark green eyes settled on my mouth. I ate a few bites self-consciously.
After a moment of only the sound of my chewing, he said, “You told your daughter you weren't hungry. You lied to her.”
I swallowed and wiped some crushed potato chips from the corner of my mouth. “Just a little white lie.”
“Do you lie to your daughter a lot?”
“Do you listen in other people's conversations a lot?”
“You were in my house.”
“I was on your porch, which is not the same.”
“Are you always this infuriating?”
“According to other members of the Riddle family, yes.” I settled on my chair at the kitchen island once more and stabbed my food with my fork. “If you came over here to heckle me while I eat, go ahead and take a seat.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “I'll try to behave myself.”
“Why start now?”
He winced. “Am I really that awful?”
“Your attitude could be improved by a bottle of tequila. You didn't happen to read my mind and bring over a bottle of Jose Cuervo, did you?”
“Who told you I could read minds?”
I nearly dropped my fork. “You can read minds?” I suddenly remembered taking the clicker pen thing from him on Saturday night. I'd stuck it in a drawer, meaning to get it back to him, but then I'd been distracted by ghosts and such.
“Not exactly,” Chet said. “I don't read minds, but I can sense other things.” He studied me for a moment, his nostrils flaring. His eyes flicked down to my lower legs. I was sitting on a stool with my legs crossed. My skirt had ridden up, so he could see my bare legs from the thighs down. And he could smell my skin.
“Oh.” I felt my cheeks heating up. He was smelling me, I knew it. If he had a wolf's keen sense of smell, he could probably track my cycle better than I could. And how did I feel about that?
His chin lifted and his nostrils flared again.
My body tensed. I did not appreciate being smelled. Not like this.
“Stop sniffing me,” I said. “Not without my permission.”
He tilted his head to the side teasingly. “Do I need your permission to look at you with my eyes? What difference does it make what sense I use?”
I uncrossed my legs and smoothed my skirt down over my knees. “Bad doggie,” I said.
He frowned. “Witch.”
I went back to eating. “What else can you pick up on with your keen shifter senses?” Did he know that I was currently powerless, grounded for being irresponsible with my magic?
He replied, his voice low and smoky, “I can tell that you're in need of a drink right now, and I don't mean that glass of tap water.”
Where had this sexy, flirty version of Chet been on Saturday, during our date? I chewed my food slowly and swallowed.
“Go on,” I said, curious to see where this would go. If my memory served, since Saturday, I'd shifted into the fertile zone of my cycle. Was that the reason for his increased interest in my company? On an animal level, did he sense it? As much as the idea repulsed me, it was also a bit exciting. Intoxicating.
“Let's see how well I can read you,” he said. With his eyes on me, he moved around the kitchen, stopping in front of one cabinet, and then another.
I clapped my hands girlishly. “Oh, goody. A parlor trick. People do not appreciate old-fashioned parlor tricks like they used to.”
He circled the entire kitchen twice, and then returned to the cupboard where I kept a few bottles of wine. With his eyes still locked on mine, he whipped open the cabinet.
“Here's the wine,” he said. “I read it in your body language.”
I raised my eyebrows and kept eating. Was my body language also telling him he'd been inside my kitchen a few times now and probably knew the wine's location from having seen it? Was my body language telling him he was full of crap? Or were my eyes telling him where to find the corkscrew and the wine glasses?
He found the wine glasses and corkscrew immediately. I made a small noise to let him know I was duly impressed with his parlor tricks.
He poured two glasses of wine, grabbed a fork, and joined me at the kitchen island.
Without asking permission, he helped himself to a bite of my food. He'd presumably eaten with his family and my daughter, over at his house, but here he was stealing my food.
He took another bite.
And I let him.
He looked into my eyes as he chewed. When I stared back at him, the rest of his face faded away. The whole world went dim, and it was just those eyes, those dark green eyes staring into me.
I wondered, was my body language telling him I found his food-stealing simultaneously aggravating and sexy? Or that dueling over the few cashews on the plate was about as intimate as I'd been with a man in years? That watching him lick his lips in such close proximity to my lips made me unable to think of anything but kissing him?
“This is decent,” he said.
Using my eyes only, testing his body-reading powers, I asked if he meant the food or the company.
He didn't look away. Both, the amused creases around his eyes seemed to say. I knew he was smiling without looking at his mouth.
We finished the plate in silence, eating slowly and sipping the wine. The bottle he'd opened was a white dessert wine, still warm from the cupboard, and about as sweet as Mountain Dew, but it was the best wine I'd ever had. Because I was sharing it with my strong, sexy, masculine neighbor.
We finished clearing the plate, and Chet s
aid, “Save your magic, because I've got this.”
Thanks to my grounding, I didn't have any magic to save. I stayed seated, smiling as he loaded the plate and both forks into the dishwasher. He put the plate in facing the wrong direction, according to Zoey's dishwasher rules, but I wasn't about to complain.
“Now we just need dessert,” he said.
He looked right at my mouth, and I thought of offering myself for dessert—for about the thousandth time—but I bit my lower lip and kept my saucy quips to myself.
He turned away quickly and rummaged through the pantry cupboards. With his back to me, I admired the way his lightweight waffle-knit shirt hugged his body and showed off the contrast between his muscular shoulders and slim waist. Whether it was the magic of Wisteria or his shifter powers, something was keeping Chet Moore in peak physical condition. I had a feeling it would take an awful lot of physical activity to wear him out. The thought manifested itself as a small whimper in my throat.
“What?” He turned around quickly. “Did you say something?”
I coughed into my hand and pointed at the open cupboard. “Fig newtons,” I said. “Zoey and I buy the ones we don't like, so they last longer.”
He picked up the foil-wrapped box without taking his eyes off mine. He repeated my words, his voice as low as a growl. “So they last longer?”
My cheeks felt hot again. If being embarrassed made memories stick in a person's brain, this moment was going to make my top ten list.
“They're still tasty,” I said.
“Tasty,” he repeated, savoring the word. “Where shall we take these?” His eyes flicked up at the ceiling briefly.
Up? I raised my eyebrows. Up to my bedroom? Bad doggie.
“Living room,” I said, leading the way. “Don't forget the wine. We'll need it to wash down the fig newtons.”
We moved into the living room, where he stared at the sofa for a good thirty seconds before wisely settling into a chair. Who knew what kind of dangers might have befallen him if he'd chosen the sofa? He could have gotten girl spit on his face. Not to mention the very real specter of sofa-burn.
I settled on the sofa by myself, and we ripped into the unopened box of fig newtons.
As we nibbled our fig newtons and sipped our wine, both of us kept glancing over at the front door. At any moment, my daughter Zoey would be returning. She would probably roll her eyes if she knew she was serving as our chaperone, even in her absence.
“How was the big family dinner over at your house?” I asked.
“The usual,” he said. “Shall I bore you with the details of getting a ten-year-old boy to eat more vegetables by hiding them in every kind of food?”
I clutched a fig newton to my chest. “How could a person do such a thing?”
“You wouldn't say that if you tasted my zucchini chocolate cake.” He licked his lips. “It's very moist.”
I shuddered.
“Zara,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “Are you one of those silly women who can't handle the word moist?”
“Moist, moist, moist,” I said. “I might be a silly woman, but I'm not that kind.”
He looked down at my feet. I'd taken off my boots and socks when I'd arrived home, so my feet were bare. I was sitting with my legs pulled up to one side on the cushion next to me. I wiggled my toes. He didn't look away.
“What else do you bake?” I asked lightly.
His nostrils flared, and his gaze traveled up to my bare shins. “I've got a great recipe for banana bread, but the bananas have to be ripe.” He paused. “Really ripe and sweet.”
I folded my legs and pulled my feet closer, so I could cover them with the hem of my skirt.
“You can hide a lot of veggies in smoothies,” he said.
“Oh?”
Once the conversation turned to smoothies, Chet really got chatty. Soon he was comparing the use of raw kale versus raw spinach in blended beverages. We talked for a while about worrying over various health studies and never knowing which foods were currently poisoning the country's youth.
I told him about some of the wacky cleansing diets I'd heard about. We both laughed, and I shifted on the sofa, exposing my legs again.
He looked down at my bare legs and stopped talking.
The living room was so very quiet, even the air seemed to stop circulating.
I got the weirdest idea he was going to offer to massage my feet. Any minute now.
And what if he did?
How could I refuse?
How could I accept?
I imagined Chet Moore's perfect hands reaching for me, his long fingers encircling my ankles, his palms cupping my heels as he drew my feet toward his lap. Even seated in the chair across from me, he wasn't that far away. If I straightened my legs and angled my body a few degrees, I could do magic—I could make the space between us disappear. Then I could watch the strong muscles in his forearms work as he massaged the tension from my soles.
He cleared his throat and sat up straight in his chair. “Where was I?”
His gaze was still on my feet. I wiggled my toes.
He cleared his throat again.
I shifted my position on the couch, taking pleasure in noting how he couldn't look away from my bare ankles, or the few inches of calf visible below my long skirt. I pointed my toes, uncrossed and recrossed my legs. He watched without moving. He seemed to have stopped breathing.
There was a small tapping sound, the impact of an insect hitting the room's picture window.
He jerked his head up straight. “Raw kale is packed with nutrients.”
“Okay.” I nodded slowly, making a mental note. Speaking of magic, if I ever needed to kill romantic tension with two words, talking about raw kale seemed to do the trick.
“The organic is more expensive, but not by much,” he said. “Do you shop at the Golden Apple Market? They have the best prices on produce.”
I kept nodding. Best prices on produce.
Something fuzzy rubbed up against the inside of my head, like a cat announcing its presence with a tickle against your shin. My tongue felt thick and heavy, but it wasn't from the wine.
Chet was looking at my calves again. We'd both gone quiet again, but I was slipping away.
A ghost was squeezing into my head, fuzzing everything. It must have been the talk about the cost of organic produce, or the discounts at the Golden Apple Market. If it was the cheapest place in town, surely that was where Mr. Finance Wizard, whoever he was, had done his shopping while alive.
The ghost elbowed his way in, and everything got distant.
Not yet, I thought. Please, hang on a minute, ghost!
I tried to get Chet's attention and send him a message, but my mouth wasn't working, and my toes could only say so much.
I felt myself getting squeezed out, squished into dark oblivion.
And then nothing.
Chapter 18
Thursday morning, I woke up with the troubling notion that something was wrong. My alarm clock was buzzing, but I didn't reach for it right away.
I folded my bed covers down and took a cautious peek.
I was alone, and still wearing the skirt and blouse I'd been in the previous night.
The last thing I remembered was eating fig newtons and drinking sweet white dessert wine with Chet. Had I blacked out from drinking half a bottle of dessert wine? I was a lightweight drinker, but that seemed ridiculous. Plus I didn't feel hungover.
More bits of memory came back. Chet had mentioned discount grocery stores, which had brought back my friendly penny-pinching ghost, Mr. Finance Wizard—whoever he was. When the ghost moved in, I'd been rudely shuttled out of my head. After that, I could remember nothing of the previous evening.
And since I was still wearing my clothes, I couldn't have gotten into too much trouble. It was possible the ghost had chaperoned me to safety.
I finally rolled over and turned off my buzzing alarm clock.
A voice down the hall called out, “It's about
time.”
I replied, “And a chirpy good morning to you, too, sunshine.”
She grumbled back, “Too early for sarcasm.”
“If it's too early for sarcasm, it's also too early for eye rolling. So, just stop it.” I paused. “Zoey, I can hear your eyes rolling. I can hear them rattling through the walls.”
She groaned and said something, presumably snarky, muffled by bedclothes.
I smiled and straightened up for a yawn and a good stretch. I always found it amusing that Zoey and I took turns being the annoying morning person. Sometimes she gave me a hard time in the morning, and other times I enjoyed being the perky one. We didn't have a set schedule for switching back and forth, but it seemed to work out about fifty-fifty.
I rubbed my eyes and checked the front of my alarm clock. Had my ghost made plans? If he had, he'd been sloppy. Unlike yesterday, there was no sticky note reminding me of any appointments I'd made while under the influence of supernatural forces.
I got up, showered, put on fresh clothes, and began playing a fresh round of What Did I Do Last Night?
Downstairs, I found the kitchen looking the way I expected it to be. Zoey had corrected Chet's placement of the plate inside the dishwasher. The dessert wine bottle had been rinsed and put into the glass recycling bin. Both of the wine glasses were next to the sink. Chet must have put the glasses there, not knowing I'd bought the kind with the short stems specifically so they could go in the dishwasher.
I checked the living room. Exactly what I was expecting to find, I wasn't sure. Claw marks in the sofa, maybe? I snorted at the thought, even as it sent a shiver up my spine. I wondered how we had left things the night before. Had Chet even noticed he was sharing recipe tips with a frugal old man's ghost?
The coffee maker let out its happy hiss to let me know the morning's first brew was ready.
Dark, dangerous witch's brew, I thought as I poured a mug.
Upstairs, the shower was running. Zoey had zipped into the bathroom right after me.
I brought my mug of coffee up to the bathroom, where I took a seat on the sink counter. Zoey didn't find this unusual or try to kick me out; many of our best conversations had taken place through the opaque shower curtain. We bought a clear shower curtain once, with rubber duckies printed on it, but we soon realized our modesty and the clear shower curtain were driving us apart. Ever since then, only opaque curtains and unlocked doors.
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