“There’s no time like the present, right?”
I have to admit. This was a new side of Joe I’ve not see before. Kind of a bad boy. Like he could have been in the cast of The Outsiders, or something. And if I’m being completely honest with myself, I’m more turned on than I’ve ever been in my entire life. I don’t care that we’re about to commit a felony. It’s hot, and it’ll hopefully lead us to the answers we need.
We start down the street, our pace hurried and purposeful, and when we get to the corner of Main and Sussex, Joe grabs my hand. God, that feels good. It makes me all warm and fuzzy and desirous at the same time. There’s a protectiveness about the way he holds onto me, too. No one’s ever wanted to protect me like this. Control me, yes. But this is totally different, and I don’t want it to end. We have to find that will.
When we arrive at the door of the law office, Joe turns to look at me. My heart is racing. I’m not sure I can do this.
“Don’t freak out, okay?”
I furrow my brow. “Why would I—”
Before I can even finish my sentence, the door to the law office swings open. Joe barely even touched it.
“How did you—?”
“I may have had a short run as a juvenile delinquent,” he says, his tone tentative, but a proud smile on his face.
“I’m learning more about you by the minute.”
“Are you ready to run away yet?”
“Please,” I say. “It’ll take way more than that to scare me off.”
“Good.” Joe’s voice is gruff, causing my heart to race even faster, but this time with desire.
The next thing I know, he wraps his arm around my waist, pulls me close to him and then presses his lips to mine. I know I should resist, because I have no idea if I’ll be able to stop. But instead, I melt into him, letting my body mold against his, and open my mouth for him.
Shit. I push him away. “We can’t,” I say, trying to catch my breath.
He’s breathing hard too as he runs a hand through his hair. “I know.”
There’s a moment of silence as we both try to compose ourselves. At long last, Joe speaks.
“Biddleman’s office is down this way.” He holds up his phone, letting the glow of the backlight illuminate the way.
When we reach the end of the hall, Joe turns the handle on the glass door. It opens and we both stand on the threshold, staring into the darkness.
“You think it’s in here?” I wonder.
“It’s the best place to start.” He shines the phone around the room until it illuminates a file cabinet. “There.”
I push ahead of Joe and tug on the top drawer. “It’s locked.”
“Nothing is ever really locked.” He’s standing behind me now, so close I can feel his warm breath on my hair. “Try again.”
“Okay.” I’m skeptical as I go to tug the drawer again. “Still locked,” I say when it doesn’t budge.
“Come on, Candy,” he says. “You’re better than that.”
I flip around to look at him, my jaw dropping in the process. “You want me to use magic?”
He laughs. “Of course I do. How do you think I opened the door before? You didn’t really think I went to juvie, did you?”
I swat at his shoulder with the back of my hand. “Yes,” I admit. “And I actually thought it was kind of hot,” I add with the implied nana-nana-boo-boo in my tone.
“I still know how to break into stuff,” he offers as a kind of consolation prize, and I giggle into the darkness. I feel like a high school cheerleader flirting with the star quarterback. “But so do you.” His tone has turned serious again. “Come on. Give it a try.”
“My magic doesn’t work like that,” I say. “I need my…spoon.”
The word spoon hangs in the air for a second before we both crack up. Thank God he finds this whole thing just as absurd as I do.
“I know,” I say, coming down from my mirth. “It sounds so stupid.”
“You’re right, it does. But not for the same reason you think it sounds stupid.”
“Oh?” I stare up at him, tempted to kiss him again.
“You don’t need the spoon. You just need to believe in yourself.” He grabs my shoulders and gently turns me around to face the file cabinet again. “Now go on. Try again. Visualize the lock, see it bending to your will. See the drawer sliding open effortlessly at your bidding.”
“Joe—”
“Come on. No time for doubts.”
He’s right. There isn’t time for doubts.
I stare at the file cabinet for a moment and then close my eyes. I quiet my mind, just like I do when I’m baking, and then I do as he instructed. I picture the lock. I hold the image in my mind for a moment. Once I’ve got it so secure in my mind’s eye that I’m almost convinced I’m actually looking at it, I move it. I watch it turn slowly sideways, barely registering the scraping sound I’m hearing in the real world. It’s unlocked. At least in my mind it is. And now I’m picturing the drawer sliding open, revealing all those little folders and tabs to us.
Something hits me in the stomach and I open my eyes. The drawer is open in front of me. My jaw drops. “Oh, my God,” I whisper.
“Told ya you could do it.”
I’m too dumbfounded to say anything else, or to move, even. So Joe nudges me out of the way and starts thumbing through the files with one hand, while holding up his phone with the other.
After a few mere seconds, he pulls a folder out of the drawer. “Here we are.”
“You found it already?” I can hardly believe it was that easy.
“We’ll have to hope the will is actually in here. But even if it is, our work won’t be done.”
Right. Because all the document will help us with is getting a code to the safe.
He closes the drawer, moves to the desk and hands me his phone. I hold it close to the contents of the folder so he can read the documents. There are a lot of documents in this one folder.
“Your dad’s really thorough with his legalese, isn’t he?”
Joe gives a little chuckle. “You have no—”
He cuts off as he stares at a piece of paper.
“What?” I ask.
After another moment of scanning the document, he holds it up and says, “Bingo.”
Last Will and Testament
“Yup. That looks about right.”
Joe sits down in the chair and scans the pages of the will. About ten pages in, I’m starting to worry. That’s kind of an important part of his legacy. If no one can open the safe, then the secrets of their book of spells dies with him.
“Wait a sec,” I say, a thought occurring to me.
“Yeah?” Joe says without looking up.
“You just said, ‘nothing is ever really locked.’”
“Mmhmm.”
My brilliance is overcoming me at the same time I’m wondering why I didn’t think of this in the first place. “Why aren’t we using magic to open the safe? Why waste our time when we have the power to open the safe itself.”
Joe has stopped reading, and he’s looking at me now. I’m holding the phone up to illuminate his face. He’s trying to keep from laughing.
“That would be great,” he says, a chuckle bursting from his throat. “And thank you for thinking of it.”
“Don’t patronize me,” I say, feeling stupid all of a sudden but not quite sure why.
“Of course not! It’s just…my dad is Joseph Vandermark, III. A sixth generation warlock. The single most powerful man in this town, and maybe even the country. There’s no way he left that safe unprotected.”
“Oh,” I say, fully understanding now why I’m feeling stupid. “But what makes you believe that he hasn’t protected it even from those who have the code? Surely he would have put something in place should his lawyer get any ideas.”
Joe drops the papers back to the desk and furrows his brow. Ha! Not as stupid as we all thought, am I?
“Damn it. I hadn’t thought of tha
t.”
Now I feel badly. I’m lowering morale, and we don’t have time for that. Even if this isn’t the way to go about opening the safe, it’s at least a start. And every wrong direction will lead us in the right direction. Won’t it?
“Or, maybe I have no idea what I’m talking about!” I blurt out. “Keep looking.”
Joe turns back to the document and flips to the next page.
“Oh, my God,” he says, his voice barely a whisper.
“What?”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
My heart is racing. “What?” I repeat. “What is it?”
“It’s bull shit, that’s what it is.”
Oh, God. I’ve never heard him raise his voice, and certainly not with such vitriol. It must be bad. “Tell me,” I demand, and then I realize he doesn’t have to tell me anything about his father’s will. So I tack on a tentative, “I mean…if you want to.”
“This is just like him. Miserable old codger. I can’t believe he would do this.”
I’m not going to ask again. I’ll just wait for him to willingly share whatever horrific news this is with me, no matter how desperate I am to know what’s going on.
“I go away for a few years and now I get nothing?”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing.” He hands me the will and I shine the phone at it.
I hereby bequeath my estate and all its contents to my nephew, Steven Vandermark.
“All its contents?” I repeat, just as flabbergasted as Joe. “Why?”
Joe shakes his head as he stands and walks toward the window. He looks like some kind of hot movie star in the middle of an intense dramatic scene, with his muscular body silhouetted in the pale moonlight. I have the strongest desire to cross the room and wrap my arms around his waist. Then he’d turn to me, see my face illuminated by the moon, and he wouldn’t be able to resist my moist, waiting lips. He’d descend on them and we’d undress one another in the pale blue light. We’d drink our fill of each other’s physiques before he lowered me to the ground and—
“Why did I even bother coming back?”
Crap. I’m jolted back to the present, a little hot and bothered from my illicit fantasy. Not that I have an answer for Joe. I look down at the will again and flip forward a couple of pages.
“Hold on,” I say, my adrenaline starting to course through my veins at lightning speed. “Not everything.”
I look up in time to see Joe turn from the window. “What?”
“Look at this.” I hold up the page and he crosses the room to take it from me.
“Well, I guess that makes sense,” he says after a few moments. “I’m the only one who can run it, after all. Of course…I’ll have to live on the street.”
My stomach gives a flip that nearly threatens to empty its contents right here on the lawyer’s desk. That wouldn’t bode well for a future in crime for me. But my first thought—my first ridiculously foolish thought—is to suggest we get an apartment together. I mean, it makes sense, if you take out that whole magical people can’t be together component. We both like each other. A lot. We’re both nearing thirty and still living with our parents. It’s logical, isn’t it?
“We—” I cut myself off. I can’t suggest it. It’s too soon and there are already too many other things to figure out. “You’ll figure it out,” I say finally.
Joe takes a deep breath and tosses the will back on the desk with a sort of sad smile. “Yeah, I guess,” he says. “But unfortunately, we didn’t find what we came looking for.”
I put the will back together and open the manila folder to stick it back in its place, but something catches my eye. It’s a smaller envelope that simply reads The Boat on the outside.
“You have a boat?” I ask, picking up the envelope.
“Have you seen my father’s home?” Joe says, his tone dripping with sarcasm. “Of course he has a boat.”
I’m intrigued by the fact he’s using he instead of we. Clearly, he’s already taken this will thing to heart.
“Oh.” I frown at the envelope. There’s something about it that strikes me as odd. “I think you should open this.”
“You think it’s not about the boat?” He takes it from me, clearly skeptical about my hunch. And maybe he’s right. Maybe he’s about to make a big fool out of me, but still…
“So?”
He’s pulled out a few small folded pieces of paper and he’s staring at them intently, his brow furrowed. Finally he says, in a voice that’s slightly confused but mostly lacking emotion of any kind, “It’s in the coffee shop.”
“What?”
He looks at me, his face still contorted with confusion. “It’s in the coffee shop,” he repeats, and finally I get it.
“Oh, my God.”
I jump out of the seat and we both scramble to put all the papers back the way we’d found them, shove them in the drawer and dart out of the law office as quickly as we can. Joe grabs my hand once we’re on the street and we half walk-half run all the way back to the shop.
“Any idea what we’re looking for? Or where to even begin looking for it?”
“None at all!” Joe replies, and for some reason that tickles us both.
We’re giggling like school children as he opens the door of the coffee shop, and it’s in that moment that I realize I’m not just falling in love with Joe. I’m already head over heels for him. My giggling stops and I stare at him, entranced, as he dashes across the shop toward the back. He can’t see me, of course, since it’s still dark. But I don’t care.
The lights come on overhead and Joe peeks his head out of the door behind the counter. “You coming?” he asks, and that prompts me out of my love-struck trance into action.
“On my way!”
Twenty-four
Two hours later, my eyes are crossed. I’m exhausted, but Joe whipped us up a pot of coffee before we officially started with the search, and we’ve drained it completely. So, in spite of being completely bushed, I’m also edgy and wired. My nerves are all humming as the caffeine courses through my veins.
“It’s almost two,” Joe says as he slides a box of inventory back on the shelf.
I can’t help but be engrossed with the way his muscles work under his t-shirt when he does heavy lifting. My tongue darts out to lick my lips as a little frisson of desire shoots through me. I should be desperate to hit my pillow right now, but in truth, I don’t want this evening to end.
“I know,” I reply, heaving a sigh I hope will settle my jitters just a bit. And alleviate my lust.
“Should we call it quits until tomorrow?”
The fact he wants to keep searching tomorrow makes my heart extremely happy. “Probably. I’ve just gotta run to the bathroom before we go.”
“I’ll finish cleaning up.”
I trudge from the backroom into the main shop and make my way to the restroom. It’s a single stall bathroom with this really cool wallpaper. It’s cream-colored with black cursive writing all over it. The writing is almost illegible, like those old diaries you see in museums, but in my amped up state, I attempt to read it while I empty my bladder.
“Gifts…given…by fate,” I read aloud, squinting to try to make out other parts of the script. “Lovers…curse…”
My stomach churns and then drops, as if I’m on the Great American Scream Machine. Oh, my God. It can’t be. No. No way would they put something like this in plain sight. It doesn’t make any sense, but…
My heart is racing so fast now, and combined with the ridiculous amount of caffeine I’ve had, I’m a little worried it’s going to give out. But I don’t have time to focus on that right now. I have to get to Joe.
I finish my business and wash my hands before I run like a mad woman to the back of the store. I stand panting in the doorway and Joe turns to look at me, concern in his eyes.
“Candy? Are you okay?” he asks, and I’m touched by the tenderness in his voice. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Better,” I say, smiling. “Way better. Follow me.”
I retreat to the front of the store with Joe on my heels. I lead him to the women’s restroom, fling open the door, and gesture proudly inside the small room.
“Go ahead,” I say. “Read it.”
He moves inside and deciphers the words with the same squinty-eyed stare I’d used.
“It’s it, isn’t it?” I ask, and Joe nods slowly. “Hard to believe your dad would put it in plain sight, huh?”
Joe’s lips turn up into a smile. “Only, it’s not.”
“It’s not?” I’m confused. “It’s not the anecdote or it’s not in plain sight?” The former would be a huge disappointment and the latter would simply not make sense.
“It’s not in plain sight,” he clarifies. “At least, I don’t think it is.”
“What are you talking about?”
“This is an illusion, Candy,” he says as if that should explain everything.
“Oh, good. Thanks for clearing that up.”
He ignores my sarcasm as he gently puts his fingers to the wallpaper. “Only the magical eye can see this. It’s perfect. My family’s curse affects the male bloodline. The odds that the men in my family would spend much time in the ladies room is slim. And any other magical female—such as yourself—would more than likely use their own shop’s bathroom nearby. But even if not, what are the odds they would know what they were reading?”
“Then what does it look like to the non-magical eye?” I wonder.
Joe shrugs. “Maybe Holly can fill us in sometime, but for now…we have a curse to break.”
~*~
Magical lovers free to practice
Turn the Curse upon its axis
Combine the gifts given by Fate
And then ye shall be free to mate
When the moon is full and at its peak
Then it’s time these words to speak:
I wish I may, I wish I might
Have the love with me tonight
For now and forever, till death do us part,
Bind our talents, bind our hearts
“Well, that seems pretty straight-forward, doesn’t it?” Holly says with a shrug.
The Matchbaker (A Romantic Comedy) Page 26