A curse! To make someone sick!
No wonder Vangie suspected her stepmomma of killing her husband. That would make me suspicious, too. But from what I understood, killing spells were complicated and needed a lot of power. Usually only witches and wizards with a certain kind of magic—blood-and-bones magic—could perform lifesaving or life-ending spells with their normal abilities. Even if Oatha had gotten enough power to cast the spell, how would she have enough energy left to cloak the magic well enough that smart wizards like Bryn wouldn’t be able to detect traces on Vangie’s dad’s body?
“The people will have mild fever and body aches,” Vangie continued. “Although if they say any more spiteful things about you, I can’t guarantee it won’t become encephalitis.”
“Encepha-what?”
“Brain fever.”
“Brain fever!” I shouted.
“Shh!” she said, looking around. “May I remind you that you’re talking to me through an open window? Your ex-husband’s neighbors could overhear.”
“Vangie,” I said in a low voice that struggled for calm. “It was real sweet of you to look out for me and my reputation, but the thing you have to understand about Duvall is that if people weren’t talking about each other it wouldn’t feel like home. Also, I might deserve for people to say a few bad things about me today. After all, I cooked one man breakfast and I’m fixing dinner for another.”
“So? Where’s their loyalty? You saved this town from near destruction more than once. If you’ve decided to live your life like an episode of Jersey Shore, that’s no one’s affair but yours.”
“Jersey—wow. When you put it like that, I really have to think about the choices I’m making. But that’s not the issue now. The important thing is for you to lift those hexes this instant.”
“Oh, I don’t think so.”
“This instant, or we can’t be friends.”
She rested her chin on the ledge, crestfallen.
“But we can if you just remove those curses. And I have a surprise. I made you that Chambord torte.”
“Did you really?” she asked, tilting her head.
“Sure, I did. As soon as I have a visit with Zach and go on home, I’ll call you and you can come over. We’ll have a slice together. But first you have to undo your hexes. No spell removal, no torte. That’s the deal.”
“I suppose I’ll have to—hey,” she said, turning her head sharply.
“What?”
A bush rustled like it had been jostled by invisible cats.
“He’s coming,” she said, and disappeared from view.
“Who’s coming? What?” I asked, standing on my tiptoes to look out the window. She was crouched under the sill scanning the quiet street. “What in the world?”
“I cast a bug spell. And by that, I don’t mean insect,” she added when I wrinkled my nose. “It supplies me with a supernatural bionic ear. He’s listening to classic country. Hank Williams Jr. A tired choice,” she said. “Don’t tell him I said so!”
Vangie darted between some tall shrubs, then emerged several houses down and made her way to the street. She got into her car just as Zach’s truck pulled into the driveway.
I took a couple of deep breaths to calm myself and then turned off the burners. I put pork chops, black-eyed peas, and corn bread on plates and set them on the table.
The front door opened, and I saw Zach in the doorway before he spotted me. Several things hit me all at once. First, that he was coming home from working out because his T-shirt and dark blond curls were damp with sweat. Second, he’d let his whiskers grow because he had a mustache and a bit of a beard, and third, he wasn’t alone.
7
EDIE AND ZACH were talking.
Edie and Zach were talking?
As the door opened, she’d been saying something about a truck stop.
“There are worse things in the world than that bathroom,” he said with a laugh. “And I’ll thank my lucky stars if I never have to see ’em.”
“You have company,” Edie said, and they both looked at me.
Dressed in strands of enormous pearls and a feathered headband, Edie looked as glamorous and cool as ever. The spell that had rattled the ghosts didn’t seem to be bothering her now.
“See you later, cowboy,” Edie said to Zach. Then she blew me a kiss and disappeared.
“You’re friends with Edie now?” I asked, taken aback by their cozy togetherness.
“You lost?” he asked, and shut the front door with a casualness I didn’t believe. He tossed his keys on the coffee table and turned on the stereo.
“Someone played a Lonestar song for me on the Duvall-Dyson request hour.”
“Wasn’t me. Maybe it was the guy you’re sleeping with.”
“Playing ‘Let’s Be Us Again’?” I shook my head. “You’re the only one who could play that for me,” I said, setting napkins on the table.
He opened the fridge and took out a Shiner. “I haven’t been listening to Lonestar lately. I’ve been listening to Lee Brice. A song called, ‘That’s When You Know It’s Over.’”
“Maybe I should listen to that. Sounds like he’s got the answer to the question I’ve been asking myself.”
He leaned against the kitchen doorway, watching me. “Are you still asking yourself that question?”
I nodded, my stomach knotting.
He took a long swig from his beer, watching me the entire time. He lowered the bottle and tipped his head back so he looked over my head rather than in my eyes. “I heard you’re living with him.”
“I’m not.”
“Pretty close to it, though,” he said in a low voice. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to see you.” There was a slight quaver in my voice. “I had to see you.”
He nodded. “Do you remember that time Tara Moore planted one on me under the mistletoe at Jammers, and you and I had that fight in the parking lot that lasted an hour?”
“I remember. Everyone came outside to watch, like it was pregame and they were tailgating.”
“You got the tire iron from the truck and busted her headlights and said next time you wouldn’t stop with her car. You remember that?”
I flushed. “I have a bad temper sometimes. Red hair,” I said, flicking a strand.
He walked over to me and lifted my hand. “My ring hasn’t been on your finger in a long time. You’re wearing someone else’s ring now.”
Damn it, Bryn! You swore he wouldn’t be able to see it!
“It’s not that kind of ring!”
“You’re kissing someone else good-bye in the morning when he goes to work. Sleeping in his bed,” he said, anger rolling in like the tide. “And all day long I’m this close to driving to his house with a tire iron.” He breathed shallow and uneven. “I haven’t carried my gun for three days because if I ran into him, I’d probably use it.”
“I know it seems bad right now.”
“It seems bad?” he said.
“Look at me,” I said, grabbing his arms. “Just look at me.”
He did, his eyes wild with pain.
“Listen to me,” I whispered. “Nothing’s settled. He’s in my life. I care about him. But I care about you, too. I promised I wouldn’t make a decision while you were gone, and I didn’t.” A searing pain shot up my arms and I reeled back. Both arms felt completely numb with that “pins and needles” sensation buzzing through them like they’d fallen asleep. Zach hadn’t touched my arms. I didn’t understand what had happened.
“Did you try to bespell me?” Zach asked.
“Of course not,” I said, shaking my arms until normal feeling returned. “I wouldn’t even know how. And if I did, I wouldn’t,” I said, although I wasn’t a hundred percent sure of myself. I didn’t like seeing Zach in pain. If I had known a spell to soothe him . . .
No, I thought. Not without his permission. People needed to have a choice.
Zach pulled his T-shirt off and in the middle of his massive muscl
ed chest hung an amulet that blazed purple and gold. Since when did he wear any jewelry besides his wedding ring?
“It’s this,” he said. “It protects me from magic. They gave it to me when I finished the human champion training. Like the badge I got when I became a deputy,” he said.
Except a badge never almost paralyzed my arms!
He set the amulet on the coffee table with his keys. “Gone,” he said. “You all right?”
“I guess so,” I murmured, eyeing the amulet. As the light faded, it looked like a plain gold pendant with a purple stone.
“Now you,” he said, nodding toward the ring on my finger.
“I can’t take it off. There’s a spell attached to it that I don’t know how to undo. The ring is connected to a vow.”
Zach was quiet for several excruciating moments. “You exchanged rings with him in a ceremony?”
“No, not like that. We didn’t exchange rings.”
“You did some ritual that involved the rings? Like a blood ritual?” he asked, unsettled.
“No, the rings came after. I just said a spell to save his life.”
“When did the rings come in?”
I tilted my head. “I don’t know exactly when. Sometime that night or the next day. I realized I had it on the day after I made the spell.”
“Did he put it on you while you slept?”
I nodded.
“Without your knowledge or consent?” he asked in a coaxing tone of voice, like he was leading a witness into pressing charges against someone.
“I notice you took off your wedding ring,” I said. “You were wearing it when you left town. You took it off when you thought I was living with him?”
He nodded.
“I stayed at his house while they were fixing Momma’s.”
“You could’ve stayed here,” he pointed out. That’s what he’d asked me to do when he’d left town.
“I did stay here sometimes. And I picked up the mail and watered the plants. Made sure the grass got mowed.”
“Darlin’, come on.”
“What?”
“I’ve got plenty of friends and family. There’s no shortage of people who’d keep the place up for me while I’m out of town.”
“Including me. I’m your friend, too. Or at least I could be, if you’d let me.”
He moved close. “When I was six years old, I jumped my bike from ramp to ramp to show off for you. And Mrs. Peach said, ‘Like all daredevils, that boy’s got more guts than sense.’ And you said, ‘That’s why I like him.’ And she said, ‘One of these days he’ll break his neck.’ And you said, ‘No, he won’t. I’m keeping him.’”
Zach gripped my shoulders. “Afterward,” he said, “I told GW about it and he asked if it had made me mad when you’d said that. I told him the truth. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I liked it.’ And GW said, ‘Well, then I guess she is keeping you.’ And I said, ‘So long as I get to keep her, too.’”
Zach leaned forward till our breath mingled. He smelled musky and sexy. My belly and things lower tightened.
“We’re not friends, Tammy Jo,” he said in a voice infused with fierce passion. “I can get friendship from anyone. You’re my girl. I’m your man. That’s who we are.” He leaned back a fraction of an inch, releasing me. “Now if you didn’t come to say good-bye to me, put your arms around my neck and welcome me home with some sugar,” he said, snaking an arm around my waist and pulling me against him.
It was like the million times Zach had come home from football practice in the hundred-degree heat. He’d stride in, aching and sweating, in need of a shower and food and often an ice pack for his knee. But before he saw to any of that, he’d get a kiss from me. I was that girl, the girlfriend of the football star, of the town’s golden boy. I was the girl he’d lost his virginity to and the one he’d married. A thousand memories passed through my mind in an instant and my arms seemed to move of their own accord.
It felt so right to hold him. I gave him the kiss he asked for, and he gave me plenty in return.
Let’s be us again. Yeah, this is us, I thought wildly as his hands slid under my butt and picked me up. With my legs wrapped around him, he pressed against me, teasing my body with his hardness that was so close to where it needed to be to do me the most good.
He walked into the bedroom and tossed me on the bed. He pulled off his shoes, tossed them aside, and joined me. The kisses were hot and wet, bruising my neck and collarbone. Feverish and frantic, we started to peel off my clothes, beginning with my sweatshirt.
He kissed me, groaning against my mouth as he moved. “Oh, darlin’,” he said. “Tell me you missed this as much as I did.”
“I did.”
He unbuttoned my jeans, but I grabbed his hand before he lowered the zipper. My body wanted to go farther, but I thought of Bryn and couldn’t.
“I missed you, but hold on,” I said, breathless and dizzy. Our hearts slammed inside our chests, almost kissing between our ribs. “I can’t sleep with you until things are settled. No matter how much I want to.”
“Hell.” He rolled onto his back, catching his breath. “You’ll be the death of me, baby girl.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“Me, too,” he said, but there was a smile in his voice. He’d felt how much I still wanted to be with him. Apparently that counted for something.
“If it makes you feel better, I haven’t been making love with him either. It doesn’t seem right.”
“So everybody gets to go to bed frustrated?”
“Unless you want me to sleep with you sometimes and him others.”
He cast me a sidelong glance. “No, that’s definitely not what I want.” He turned his head and kissed me again, but he didn’t try for more. “You made dinner. We best eat before it gets cold.”
“Yeah,” I said as he got up. Dragging a breath into my chest and letting it out as a sigh, I rose. I pulled my sweatshirt on and followed him to the kitchen.
After a few awkward first moments, we settled in, eating and talking. It was great, but I reminded myself that Bryn talked with me, too. And in Bryn’s case, I didn’t just get his attention when I’d crashed a car or he’d been away for weeks. For years, Zach had taken me for granted and made it seem like the commentators on ESPN had more interesting things to say than I did. Of course, I’d been with Zach for years. How many new things were there to talk about? He hadn’t cared about bakery squabbles or town gossip. I didn’t much care about the New England Patriots’ offense even when they played the Cowboys. There were bound to be lulls in conversations when a couple had been together since they were five years old.
Maybe after a few years, Bryn wouldn’t be so interested either. The difference, though, was that Bryn was more of a talker than Zach and always would be. During Bryn’s short breaks from working on the Dallas case, he’d encouraged me to tell him what was going on in Duvall. And his wisecracks as I gossiped had left us laughing so hard I’d about come out of my shoes.
“I need a shower,” Zach said, standing. With a devilish display of dimples, he added, “You could wash my back.”
My body gave a little lurch of interest, but I chastised my hormones. “Not tonight, I can’t. Wouldn’t be right. I’ll go home and—”
“Naw,” he said. “Stay. He had a lot of nights with you when I was gone. We don’t have to fool around, but I want more time.”
That warmed my heart; he was willing to make a real effort. I nodded. “Go on, then. Wash the salt off. I’ll be here.”
He grinned and hauled his shirt over his head, giving me a glimpse of big rippling muscles. As he headed into the bathroom, I wondered if he’d try to seduce me into more than kissing. I shook off the thought. That was one way Zach was better than Bryn. Zach wasn’t tricky. He did what he said he’d do. There were no hidden agendas.
Zach had always been the All-American Boy. Handsome, hardworking, and as loyal as the rivers run deep. I couldn’t just let him go. He’d been the most import
ant person in my life for more than a decade. Never seeing Zach would be like losing Momma or Aunt Mel or Georgia Sue. I couldn’t stand it.
With a pang of guilt, I wondered, What about Bryn?
He’ll deal with it.
Bryn understood my attachment to Zach. And the vow meant Bryn and I were connected forever. Even though that complicated things, in my heart it was also a relief. Bryn might get mad about me spending time with Zach, but unlike Zach, Bryn couldn’t cut me completely out of his life.
After Zach’s shower, he was tired, and we ended up back in his bed. I borrowed one of his jerseys to sleep in, and we lay next to each other in the dark, talking softly, barely touching until he slipped my hand into his.
“Did you have them play the Lonestar song?” I whispered.
“You know I did,” he said matter-of-factly.
“How come you didn’t say so?”
“I thought you were here to settle things with me, to say good-bye so you could be with him. I didn’t want to hear it. Couldn’t stand to.”
“Do you feel better now that you know I still love you?”
“A hell of a lot better,” he said. “Instead of wanting to kill him and you and myself, now I just want to kill him.”
“No one is getting killed. Everything’s going to be okay now.”
His low laughter was not reassuring. “There is no way everything’s going to be okay. I’ve seen the way he looks at you. I know what he feels. If you won’t choose between us, if you don’t force one of us out of your life, the last man standing wins.”
“No,” I said as I drifted toward sleep. “It’ll be all right.” I won’t let either of you go. I’ll keep you both in my life. One as my boyfriend. The other as a friend.
We’ll make it work.
Somehow.
8
AS I WOKE, I heard the trees whispering, “Across the sea. Ride across the sea.” And I saw myself astride a galloping palomino pony. There were so many vines twisted through my hair that from a distance it looked green. Hooves beat the ground, and burning iron arrows whizzed by, cutting my thigh. I galloped faster and faster, my heart pounding. I looked over my shoulder and saw a pair of silver horsemen—the color of mercury. I sat up in bed, panting.
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