by Nova Nelson
Love Spells Trouble (Eastwind Witches 7)
Nova Nelson
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Epilogue
You’re Invited …
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Dedication
For my dreamy husband who leaves no doubt in my mind that I made the right choice when I tricked him into marrying me:
* * *
I know you would follow me through multiple lifetimes if I asked, but that’s really unnecessary. I think one is plenty. You’re off the hook.
Chapter One
Something was different about Tanner.
And I wasn’t complaining.
I stared at him across our table for two, trying to put my finger on it.
Were the Winds of Change behind this? Was it a third-of-a-life crisis as he approached thirty? Or was it his new job as deputy that had helped bring out a confident and decisive side of him, one that wouldn’t have been especially useful in a setting like Medium Rare?
Actually, who gave a shift why? I sure didn’t. So long as he kept me around, I was ready to roll with it.
“If it turns out she’s not any good, just don’t hire her,” Tanner said, skewering a tomato in his dinner salad at Stew and Brew. “You’re the boss now, Nora. The decision’s yours.”
“You’re still co-owner,” I said, pausing a moment from blowing on my tomato basil bisque. “And I guess I just don’t want to get a reputation of being a hard-to-please boss.”
Tanner paused in his chewing then stuffed his mouthful into his cheek so he could say, “I happened to like that you’re hard to please. And besides, who cares if people think that about you?”
I tilted my head to the side. “Quick question: are bodysnatchers a thing here?”
Tanner frowned and shook his head. “Not anymore. Witches killed them pretty much right off the bat when they came to Eastwind.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You sure? I think they might have missed one, because the Tanner I know has gone missing.” He rolled his eyes playfully. “You got a lot of nerve telling me not to care about what people think when I’ve been viewed as a harbinger of death since day one and you”—I jabbed my spoon his direction—“are everyone’s favorite witch.”
“Were,” he corrected. “Past tense. Amazing how quickly things can change when one tries to protect and serve.”
I chuckled. “Sounds like quite the crash course for a people-pleaser like you.”
Tanner nodded, a sly grin spreading across his face. “I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”
Neither would I.
While it was nice to have a date night with my boyfriend, I’d asked him out for a specific reason. We’d made it through the Donovan, um, let’s call it a “hitch,” and now it was time to clear the air once and for all.
It was time to tell Tanner about Roland.
Why had I finally chosen tonight? Two reasons.
First, it was a totally unremarkable day to do it. I didn’t want to wait until I was at a crisis point. Things were going pretty well with us—no, very well—and every day that passed without telling him there was a past-life lover ghost crashing in my bedroom was another splinter of hurt he might feel when he finally found out.
And second, he was finally through the roughest part of his on-the-job training, and telling him wouldn’t risk launching him into a major breakdown. Yes, he might’ve loved the job, but I’d never seen him so tightly wound as he was before it each day and so exhausted as he was when he got off his shift. That was the reason I’d waited almost a month after getting back together with him to come clean about this minor detail.
No, really. That’s it. I was just being a good girlfriend.
Was I worried he would break up with me all over again?
Just a little.
At the same time, though, I couldn’t see Tanner giving up for good what we had. And the Roland thing was mostly not my fault.
Yes, I said mostly. I accept some responsibility for, you know, pulling him through from another plane or whatever and allowing him to haunt my bedroom without banishing him.
I just hadn’t decided what to do about him yet. On the one hand, I was happy with Tanner. More than happy. I was crazy in love. Roland was all but irrelevant now.
On the other hand, Roland had traveled through lifetimes to be with me again, and I hadn’t yet given him that second chance. To banish him would be a forever thing, I was sure. I wasn’t ready to pull the trigger on that, and he’d said himself he would wait for as long as he had to.
Had I considered the possibility of letting him wait until Tanner and I both died and then giving it a shot with him in another life?
Of course I had. Who wouldn’t want to know a love as dedicated as Roland’s was waiting for them in their next life? Sure, I couldn’t necessarily trust his motives in this lifetime, since his desire conflicted with mine, but I did know down to my bones that he loved me in his strange, obsessive way, and everything he did, he did because he thought it was what I truly wanted.
It was slightly obnoxious that he didn’t trust me when I told him what I truly wanted. But then again, sometimes I wasn’t so sure of it myself. Maybe he did know what I wanted at a core level better than I did.
I didn’t think so, though.
“Tanner, there’s something I need to tell you, and I need you to know that I’m handling it the best I can, but it’s complicated and messy, and it might hurt you to hear about it.”
He set down his fork carefully and dabbed at his mouth with a napkin before looking me in the eyes. His posture was rigid and I could practically feel tension radiating off of him. “Is it something with Donovan?”
“Huh? Oh, no. Not him.”
His chest expanded quickly as he began breathing again. “That’s good. But you said ‘not him.’ Does that mean there’s someone else?”
“It’s someone from a past life,” I said. Then the rest tumbled out in an avalanche. “He was tracking me through multiple lifetimes, and now he’s here in spirit form, and I could banish him, and I feel bad. I don’t know what to do, and I’ve been sitting on this for a while and—”
He held up a hand to stop me. “Slow down.” He looked more amused than angry, and I would take it, even if that amusement was derived from my misery. “You have a ghost from a past life hovering around you?”
I nodded.
“Is he here right now?”
“No.”
He grabbed his fork again and stabbed his salad. “Okay then. I’m not threatened by a ghost.”
“He wants me to find a way to give him his body back.”
Tanner paused and set down his fork again. “Well, are you going to do that?”
“I promised him I would, but I was sort of brainwashed at the time. Now I’m not sure. Yes, I made a promise, but I don’t necessarily want to keep it.”
Dimples appeared on Tanner’s cheeks as he repressed a grin. “Nora, I know your life didn’t start the minute you met me.”
“But it kinda did,” I said.
He smiled. “What I mean is, you’re allowed to have past loves. And if they can’t seem to get over you, well, I don’t blame them. I’d probably track you through lifetimes, too, if I had the faintest clue how that was possible.” He reached out and placed a hand over mine. “I can tell this has been bothering you. How about we make a deal.”
“A deal?” This was not how I’d envisioned this going. The old Tanner had flipped out when I’d told him about Donovan, and now this new version was okay with a past lover hanging around? Something to be said for a little self-confidence, I suppose.
And probably for it not being his best friend again.
“Yeah. You do what you have to do with this situation, and if you slip up and, I dunno, kiss this ghost—is that even possible?” I shrugged. “Do your best and just, you know, don’t give me minute-by-minute updates on everything that happens. Better yet, don’t tell me any of it. I’m happier not knowing. But if you decide you want him instead, please, just be honest with me.”
“What?” I laughed before I could stop myself. “I don’t think I understand.”
“I’m saying, what I don’t know can’t hurt me. But please don’t try to have us both. I’m not sharing you. Period. At the same time, I know you’re not perfect, and from what I’ve heard, it’s easy to relapse with someone you used to love. Does that make sense?”
“Sort of.” I squinted at him. “It almost sounds like you’re trusting me to handle my business.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, I guess I am.” He squeezed my hand before letting go and returning to his salad. “Chalk it up to being in way over my head with this new job. I’m already handling half the town’s business for them.”
“And you don’t have time to worry about me.”
He popped a crouton into his mouth. “Exactly. No offense.”
“None taken …” I stared at him, baffled. I’d never had a man trust me like that.
It seemed like a bad idea, to be honest. I hardly trusted myself.
But it also felt like a weight had been lifted. I had breathing room. If I slipped up and kissed Roland, presumably in my sleep or if he followed me to the in-between plane where I could physically interact with spirits, I could simply stop kissing him whenever my head returned to me. And I wouldn’t have to carry the guilt of having made that mistake.
A rogue piece of lettuce flapped out of Tanner’s mouth, splashing dressing onto his face. It was hard to rectify the man sitting across from me, with caesar dressing across his cheek as he battled a leafy green, with the profound gifts he’d just given me: trust and forgiveness.
More than that, his forgiveness had granted me permission to start forgiving myself.
The thought made me itch.
What was that like?
I had to ask it: “Is this, like some weird thing that you’re going through because you’re twenty-nine?”
He looked up. “Huh?”
“Yeah, I read about this once. When people are an age that ends in nine and staring down a new decade of life, they reevaluate everything and make major changes.”
He laughed. “If you don’t like it, I can be jealous of the fact that some lover from the past is trying to win back my girlfriend and she hasn’t put a stop to it. I’ll do anything you ask, Nora, even if it’s being a jerk.” He arched a brow at me.
“No, no,” I said, backtracking. “I like this version of you. I liked the old one, but for obvious reasons, this one works out better for me. As long as you mean what you say, I’ll consider myself even luckier than I realized and attribute it to the Winds of Change.”
He groaned. “Don’t get me started on those.”
“I know, I know.” The stories had been rolling in from all directions for the last few weeks since the first winds had swept through Eastwind. The effects so far, according to Ted, were relatively mild. A few younger witches had hit an early puberty, a handful of Eastwinders had suddenly decided to sell off their property and move to another realm, and the number of people dyeing their hair a new color was at a record high.
And all the while, the tensions between witches and weres simmered on.
Tanner had gotten the worst of everyone’s strange behavior, being the one to mediate the petty spats between long-time neighbors and friends.
“You know Veronica Lovelace put a sign on her front gate that says All Witches Entering the Premises Will be Eaten?” he said. “I’ve had to go up to Hightower Gardens three times this week to run off witches who are loitering outside her gates just to agitate her. Don’t they have better things to do?”
“Did she let you onto her property without trying to eat you?”
He rolled his eyes. “Of course. She makes an exception for the help.”
“Also, she happens to like you for sneaking her deliveries from Medium Rare when we thought someone was poisoning her food with silver.”
“She’s not going to like me for long. I’m about to tell her to stop sending us emergency owls.”
“Nora. Tanner,” said a familiar female voice to my left. “So nice to see you two enjoying a night out together.”
When my eyes found the speaker, I couldn’t make sense of it. Why was she addressing us like we were old friends?
“Evening, Mayor,” said Tanner. There was a civility to his tone, but no sign of warmness.
Mayor Esperia nodded at him. “Nora, I’ve been meaning to check in with you, see how your lessons with Oliver are going.”
“Fine,” I said. What was her angle? No way she gave two lynx licks about my lessons.
“Also,” she said, lowering her voice as her eyes scanned the surrounding tables, “I never thanked you personally for what you did for Grace. And you, too, Tanner. I understand I also owe a debt of gratitude to Landon, Eva, and Donovan as well.” She beamed.
“You really don’t,” said Tanner, “because we didn’t do it for you. We did it for Grace.”
I snapped my head around to stare at him, wide-eyed. Did he really just mouth off to the mayor?
When I looked back at Esperia, she seemed equally as off-balance. “Of course. It’s just that we narrowly avoided a real mess, you know? What with three Coven members trying to frame a werewolf for murder. I shudder to think where that could have led in this community. However, the fact that it was witches who cleaned up the mess helps quite a bit. It shows the rest of the town that the witch community holds itself to high standards of accountability and that when something happens, we take care of it. We don’t try to cover it up.”
Tanner nodded. “With all due respect, Mayor, the fact that we’re witches might’ve helped us get to the bottom of it, but I believe everyone there that night would have done the same thing regardless of what creatures we were, and regardless of what creatures Hunter, Annabel, and Jackie were. It’s not about species for us, it’s about right and wrong.”
This time when the mayor smiled, it held much less mirth. “Well, yes, you’re certainly free to believe that. All the same, that show of witchly responsibility has turned a situation that could have derailed the promotion of important legislation into a gain for the cause.”
“The Werewolf Protection Act,” I said. “That’s what you’re talking about?”
She nodded. “Yes, but we’re thinking of expanding it now. Werewolves aren’t the only threat to the peaceful existence of witches in Eastwind.”
Tanner laughed. “You’re right. In the case of Grace Merryweather, it was actually witches who presented the threat. Seriously, Mayor Esperia, you should come out with me on the job one night. You’ll see what’s really going on in this town. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’re trying to have a date night.” He motioned to the spread on our table.
I couldn’t take my eyes off Tanner, not even to see whether the mayor was ready to throttle him.
From the corner of my eye, I watched her leave. Still, my gaze was locked onto him. “You just told off the mayor.”
He rolled his shoulders back. “Did I?”
But there was that half-grin. “I guess I’m just sick of everyone blaming everyone else for their trouble.”
“You’ve only been working this job for a month and you’re already jaded?”
He nodded. “Yep. I gotta tell you, I understand Stu Manchester a whole lot better now. Considering how many years he’s been at this, it’s a wonder he isn’t crabbier than Ruby when she’s missed her morning tea.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” I said, “but I think the jadedness suits you.”
He grinned hungrily at me, and not just because there was no way a grilled chicken caesar salad was enough food for him. But then his grin went slack and his eyes grew wide as he stared at something over my shoulder.
I turned to see what it was, and when I spotted it, his reaction instantly made sense.
Chapter Two
Liberty Freeman entered the restaurant, and just ahead of him walked one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen. Tandy Erixon, the Barbie-like xana who’d murdered Bruce Saxon, didn’t hold a candle to this woman.
“Who is that?” I breathed.
Tanner was too dumbstruck to respond, and I wasn’t even mad. I couldn’t stop ogling the woman, either. She had thick, black hair that spiraled in loose curls down her shoulders and back. Her skin was the color of toasted almonds. There was a passion in her dark eyes that made her thick lashes seem almost indecent, and every step she took was like smoke wafting on a gentle breeze. Her full hips swayed hypnotically until she paused and waited for Liberty to catch up. He put an arm around her shoulder—a smartly protective gesture, I thought, considering the way everyone was staring at her—and they approached the empty table the hostess had gestured to.