I sighed as Bethel checked her watch. She had her feet up and had taken her socks off. She kept wiggling her gnarled old toes as she asked, “Did you learn anything from this whole process?”
Lowe and I exchanged glances, but my cousin was not going to help me out with this. Her look said that I was the one who’d been at the dance hall, so this was my problem.
“I learned a lot about cauldron work,” I told my grandmother. “You helped us in the field. The mixing of ingredients is a delicate process. There are many ways for it to go wrong.”
She nodded soberly. “Yes, that’s true. You must be very careful with that process. It helps to have two experts working with you when you start. Bara is not known to step outside her lab often, but I imagine you caught her attention.”
“I guess so,” I said.
“Did you learn anything else?” she asked.
I made a show of thinking about it, but I knew what she wanted me to say. She wanted me to say that I would stop snooping. She didn’t like that I had embraced the process so thoroughly.
At last I said, “I learned that I need a hobby here, and I think I’ve found one.”
Over her shoulder Lowe smirked, but before Bethel could respond there came a knock at the door. Tiger had been placid a moment before, but now the cat bounded off the couch and raced out of the room.
“I think we all know who that is,” said Bethel. “Shall you see him alone? No, of course not. What do you take us for? Individuals who would wait up without hearing the conclusion? Go let him in.”
My grandmother was one of the most confusing individuals I had ever had the misfortune to live with. I hurried to the front door.
Quinn Merchant was indeed the one standing there, waiting to be let in. For the first time since I’d met him I thought he looked tired. There were dark circles under his eyes and the smile he gave me was tiny.
“I thought you might still be up,” he explained.
“Wanted to hear the news,” I told him. “How are you doing?”
He shrugged. “Kelly’s family is glad the case is solved. At least for now.”
“Is Kyle going to be safer?” I wondered.
“He’s going to be safer in that Damien has now been revealed for what she is,” he said. “There’s no more worry that Kyle will tell anyone, since we already know. We just have to hope that he doesn’t know who any Vixens are, or any of their secrets. But for that he does have to wake up. I’m hoping Damien’s arrest will send them a message, but I doubt they’ll take it in. If they keep coming after him, it won’t end well for anyone.”
“Has Damien said anything?” I asked.
“No, not yet,” he said. “She’s hissing and spitting and being furious. She’s threatened such a long list of individuals that I’m not sure whether to fight with her or give her a prize.”
“Must be a difficult decision, though I don’t think sheriffs give prizes for being the most difficult criminals. That might just encourage some of them,” I said.
“Oh, right. I didn’t think of that. Good point,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “I’d be fired for certain.”
The moon was behind him. His hair looked silver in the light, and he appeared more boyish that way. If I looked carefully, I could see that he was favoring one leg over the other because of his injury. Otherwise he stood tall.
“The Coven Council wouldn’t fire you, would they?” I asked. The possibility had never entered my head. I tried to imagine the Twinkleford Sheriff’s Department without Quinn. I failed.
He shrugged. “I have no idea. No one wants the job. That’s how I got it in the first place. My dad wanted better things for me, so he tried to ensure that I wouldn’t get it. I told him there was nothing better than helping the town that had saved my life.”
Unspoken between us was another reason. He was just as determined as I was to find out who had caused the explosion that had ruined his leg and killed my mother.
“It’s the only place I want to be,” he assured me.
I smiled. “That’s a good thing. If you weren’t around to keep Bethel in line I’m not sure what would happen.”
“Chaos. Pure and simple,” he laughed.
We stood there on the porch in the cool air and moonlight. Now something else was unspoken between us, and I was having trouble stringing coherent thoughts together. He looked really good in the moonlight.
Suddenly his face brightened. “How many dates do we have to go on before I can ask you to be my girlfriend?”
I coughed, too shocked to do much else.
“A few?” I managed to get out.
He nodded his head as if that was a serious answer. “You realize that’s not an actual number?”
I nodded numbly.
“Okay,” he said, “I guess you’re right. I’ll just have to decide what a few is. All we’ve done is go to dinner. We haven’t done anything impressive yet.”
“What would that be?” I asked.
His smile widened. “You’ll just have to wait and see.”
My heart beat in my chest. If we kept standing there I was liable to fling myself at him and start kissing him. To stop myself from being foolish, I cleared my throat and stepped back into the house, clearing the way.
“Come in. Bethel wants to talk to you. Get ready for a long night,” I said.
“Are you coming too? This is going to be the fun part,” he said, following me into the cottage with Tiger tagging at his ankles and talking away in cat.
I would have given anything to know what the cat was saying.
The End
~
Pointy Shoes and Cauldron Blues
(The Rhinestone Witches, Book 3)
Table of Contents
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Epilogue
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Books by Addison Creek
Chapter One
“What are you doing tonight?” Lowe asked. We were sitting across from each other at the kitchen table getting dinner ready. The light was fading outside. By the time we finished dinner, evening would have fallen.
“Quinn is coming by. He wants to go for a walk,” I murmured, a blush already flaming my cheeks.
“Ohhhh?” I knew Lowe was smirking without even looking at her.
Bethel bustled in. “I assume you’re going out with Quinn again? Like you’ve been doing all the time since you found out he had a sham marriage?”
“It wasn’t a sham marriage,” I grumbled. “It’s complicated.”
“Isn’t it always?” Bethel sniffed.
“You like him,” I informed her. I knew it to be true.
Bethel fluffed her gray-stranded hair. “Always good to have a handsome man around, isn’t it, Lucy?” The hat bird was perched in the windowsill. Without missing a beat the bird shook her head.
Bethel crowed with amusement. “You’re correct. Sometimes men are a damned nuisance. Can’t very well send them to clean the
kitchen floors, can you? They think that’s our job.”
Bethel proceeded to roar with laughter, while Lowe and I exchanged looks. When Bethel started providing her own entertainment, whether it was making jokes or hiring the Vampire Tango Club to perform at the potluck, it was bad.
“Tell Quinn we say hello,” said Bethel.
Our meal was uneventful, but my heart was beating hard the whole time. Quinn and I had now been on several dates, each one better than the last. What I was realizing about them was . . . I wanted them to continue. Sometimes he’d start talking – maybe he was giving me an opinion on the weekly special at the chocolate shop (right next to the sheriff’s office; he tried every option), or telling me a funny arrest story where he chased down a burglar, only to realize that the burglar was in fact a man breaking into his own house to get shoes so that his wife wouldn’t find out he was on a fishing trip with his friends and not away at work – and his eyes would light up. He loved telling those kinds of stories. Oceans swam behind his gaze, and a warmth entered his voice.
We kept having amazing conversations, that was the problem, I decided, but to be officially dating the sheriff when he’d tried to arrest my sister was problematic, I had to admit. Ethel wouldn’t be pleased.
I threw on a jacket and hurried out to the porch. Lisa and Lucky were outside enjoying the brilliant sky before the sunset faded. They waved and smiled at me. I waved back. Quinn was coming straight from work and meeting me at the trolley stop. When I asked him what was so urgent, he simply told me he didn’t want to waste time going home before he saw me.
His car was parked next to the trolley station when I got there. As soon as he saw me he got out to open the front door.
“You look wonderful,” he said, giving me a big hug. I hugged him back, wrapping my arms around him. He shifted his weight to close my door and return to the driver’s side. His limp seemed more pronounced when I couldn’t see his legs. We had talked about that, too. He told me he would always have a limp, and he didn’t mind one bit. He cherished the reminder, he said.
“How was your day?” I asked.
He steered the car back onto the road and we continued with the small talk for the entire drive. Recently he’d been telling me where we were going on dates, but tonight he wanted it to be a surprise.
I hadn’t minded, just plied him with questions about what I should wear. He laughed until he nearly cried and informed me that as a man, he didn’t usually think about such things. Then he said I should wear something comfortable with waterproof shoes. That hadn’t helped as much as I would have liked. There was a lot of water in Twinkleford.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“To the lily pond,” he said.
I frowned. “There’s a lily pond?” The sun had sunk low, and now everything was faded and dark blue. I found this time of day comforting. Maybe I just found Quinn comforting.
“There sure is. It’s another one of my favorite places,” he murmured as we drove down a series of winding, quiet country roads.
“All of your favorite places involve water,” I pointed out.
He smiled, white teeth flashing. “Surprise surprise.”
We reached the lily pond after short drive, and Quinn parked in a small patch of dirt. We climbed out, and I gasped. Not that I hadn’t believed him about the beauty, but my imagination hadn’t done it justice.
The pond was surrounded by weeping willows, but they were far enough back from the water’s edge so as to not obscure the water itself. The surprise was covered with large, pure white lilies. I could hear the croaking of frogs and the songs of other insects. Some I felt certain I had seen in my previous life as a non-witch. Some I was sure I had never heard of.
Quinn pulled a blanket from his trunk and we sat down by the water’s edge. For a long time we just talked. We were sitting close, and I felt as comfortable with him as I ever had with anyone.
“I have a question,” he asked, and he looked out at the water.
I was breathless. I was sure I knew what he was going to ask.
“Can Ethel ever forgive me?” he said. His eyes turned to mine.
That was not the question I had expected. I looked away.
“My sister has been through a lot. She’s still not home. I didn’t know I had a sister until recently. We haven’t spent enough time together for me to speculate,” I said.
Quinn’s shoulders drooped a bit. I knew that wasn’t what he wanted to hear.
“But I would like to think she could do an awful lot on behalf of her sister,” I murmured. I spoke carefully. There was no way I should make promises I couldn’t keep.
“That was important for me to ask first,” he said.
“Is there a list of things you’re going to ask?” I said. How was that romantic?
He looked bemused at my annoyance. His arm was now draped warmly around my shoulder and I wanted it to stay there.
“Just one more thing. Right now. I’m asking it but I’m not actually going to say it,” he said.
Now I was totally confused and he could read that on my face.
He pointed to the pond.
The lilies and lily pads moved. Brilliant white and deep shades of green formed a succession of patterns.
“This might work better if you stand up to read it.” His voice sounded dry and just a little hoarse. Was he nervous?
I frowned and clambered to my feet, bracing my hand on his sturdy shoulder. I might have been imagining it, but a smile brushed his lips at my touch.
The instant I was standing I cried out in delight. It was just too perfect to resist.
“Jade, Will You be my Girlfriend?” was the question. I grinned down at him as I clapped a hand over my mouth.
“You don’t do anything halfway do you?” I muttered, still grinning like a fool.
He got to his feet. He moved slowly, deliberately, and I found that it was hard to breathe. He wrapped his arms carefully around my waist and smiled down at me.
“Not when it comes to you,” he murmured.
A long time later he drove me home. When we had first discussed our relationship, I hadn’t been certain. But the last few dates had showed me otherwise. Quinn Merchant was now my boyfriend. I had my first real boyfriend, and he was the sheriff of a magical town who was brave and who adored me. Oh yeah, and he was pretty cute, too. I couldn’t wait to tell Lowe and Bethel. My grandmother probably wouldn’t be surprised, but I still wanted to see her face when she heard the news.
Quinn and I said our goodnights and I couldn't keep the smile off my face. He couldn’t either. What this meant for our future I had no idea, all I knew was that tonight I couldn’t be happier. I nearly bounded into the cottage. I would remember tonight forever.
And so I had. In the middle of the night I rolled over in my bed and hugged my pillow to my chest. That had been weeks ago, a perfect night for the two of us and many date nights since. I was Sheriff Merchant’s girlfriend. Now I wasn’t just Jade Rhinestone, I was connected to another. A good man.
I had thought of that evening often since he’d shown me his romantic side and asked me his question. I wouldn’t have said I wanted him to until he had. Then I had felt warm all over. Tonight the happy moments were part of my dreams. Quinn had asked me to be his girlfriend and I had accepted.
Now for everything that came after.
We were a couple: a new coven witch and a half-mermaid in a magical town where goats talked and Vixens put up posters broadcasting deadly threats. My sister, whom I barely knew, disliked my boyfriend. Understandably so. He had accused her of murder.
Everything was going to be fine.
I was certain of it.
Truly.
Chapter Two
Outside, snow was falling. In the magical town of Twinkleford, snowflakes were always large and visible, offering every intricate design in their brilliance. On this occasion it looked like white diamonds were stacking themselves on the ground one after another, all in the mos
t brilliant white and silver shades. The sun was bright in a deep blue sky and everything wore a silver tinge.
As my grandmother said, “If you’re going to live in a magical town, you might as well make it pretty.” Twinkleford had succeeded on that front.
Our garden was shut down for the winter, but that didn’t stop the fairies and pixies from continuing their everlasting war. Instead of going inside to hibernate and rest, they created elaborate snow forts and continued battling. We were never sure who was winning. The one time I asked my grandmother about it, she merely laughed.
The white unicorns who lived in our fields were hard to see in the snow. One afternoon we – my grandmother Bethel, my cousin Lowe, and I – had spent several hours covering them in blankets that made them more visible and hopefully warmer.
The seasons had changed fast this year, and the snow had come on suddenly, starting to fall with little warning. Strips of brilliant blue would appear in the sky, then the clouds would line up into what appeared to be deliberate rows and start dropping snowflakes the size of my face. I had never seen anything like it.
The weather was already remarkably cold even before it snowed. Once the snow started falling, the air actually warmed up.
Recently, I had relocated to the magical town of Twinkleford. My grandmother had run amok through a wedding to retrieve me lest the handsome sheriff find me first.
As it turned out, my grandmother’s life was an unusual one. She was one of the founding members of a witch coven. Despite the fact that she had been disgraced and relegated to the trailer park neighborhood of Twinkleford long ago, my grandmother continued to thrive against all odds.
She had wanted me to pass my cauldron, spellcasting, and crystal ball reading examinations so that I could become a member of the coven. In this way, the fabled Rhinestones would be able to stay in the coven, since each witch family had to have one member per generation. With my sister Ethel on the run for a murder she hadn’t committed, I was our only chance.
Talk about long shots. But I had passed the examinations, and the Rhinestones remained members.
Not all was happy and quiet in this town where I now found myself at home. There was a threat rising known as the Vixens, a vicious group of witches who put up nasty messages, attacked fellow witches, and had finally crossed the line into murder. More than once, in fact. With the Vixens running rampant, the quiet life in Twinkleford might never be the same again.
The Rhinestone Witches Omnibus: Books 1-3 Page 46