by Amy Boyles
“Look at me.”
I grimaced. Looking at Thorne meant I had to face things. Had to meet him eye to eye, deal with the thing bunched up inside me.
“Look at me,” he commanded.
“Boy, you are bossy.”
“Stop avoiding.”
I inhaled a deep shot of air, straightened my shoulders and met Thorne’s gaze.
His silvery eyes held a tenderness I hadn’t expected. My heart clenched as if someone had grabbed it and held it tight. My face warmed, and I knew my cheeks must be bloodred.
Blood. Smart thing to think about when talking to a vampire.
“I think you know who I’d rather be spending time with.”
I hiked a shoulder. “I do?”
He sighed, shook his head. “You and I haven’t had any time to chat. But when this is over—”
“Thorne, you’re needed over here,” a production assistant called.
“Give me a minute,” he growled. His expression fell, and he turned back to me. “When this is over, when this mess with Frankie Firewalker is straightened out and she picks Tex or Watts or the trash man for all I care, I’d like to take you out on a date. A real date. Not going out as cover for something else.”
I fidgeted. Thorne referred to a time I’d asked him to dinner but only so that I wouldn’t be eating alone in a nice restaurant when I was supposed to be spying on Kimberly Peterson and her date for the night, Dash, who turned out to be a murderer.
“So you’re asking me out on a date?”
“I’ve been trying to ask you out for weeks, but our schedules haven’t been in line. It also seems like every time I try to ask you, someone interrupts us”—he pointed toward the PA—“like just now. But I’m tired of waiting for the right time, because it seems like something is always in our way. I’d like to take you out on a proper date, Charming Calhoun. That is, if you’ll have me as a date.”
The air gushed from me. I’d sort of expected it but not now. Not here. Not when Thorne was supposed to be having a date with Frankie.
My gaze darted around until it landed on her. She smirked at me.
I realized my hands were still placed on Thorne. I pulled away.
“I’m only doing this for you,” he reminded me. “I’m not interested in her.”
I bit down on my lower lip and slowly dragged my gaze back to Thorne. “Okay.”
He quirked a brow. “Okay?”
I nodded. “I mean, yes. I’ll go out on a date with you.”
A warm smile slowly spread across his face. “Now. Was that so hard?”
“Yes,” I joked.
He laughed. It was warm and throaty. “Great. Now, let me get this ridiculous thing out of the way so that I can get to the real person I want to date.”
I swallowed a knot in the back of my throat. “I’m guessing that would be me?”
He’d started to walk away and stopped, turned back to me. “Charming, you’ve guessed right.”
Then he strode toward Frankie. In that moment the funniest thing happened. I felt light, almost elated. Butterflies whirled in my stomach and my heart sang. I’d opened up to Thorne, really opened up to him by saying I’d go out on a date—with a vampire, a creature I despised.
And I was excited.
Chapter 6
Thorne treated Frankie like a gentleman throughout their entire date. She wanted to feed him shrimp; he almost allowed it.
Though my stomach churned at the scene.
“Here, try this,” Frankie said, shoving a shrimp toward him.
“Looks good,” Thorne said, taking it from her hand before she shoved it in his mouth.
Frankie wiped her fingers before walking them up Thorne’s arm. “You know, Thorne, I feel a very special connection with you.”
“You do?”
“I can just feel that you could be the one.”
Thorne nodded, looked serious. “And you feel this where?”
Frankie fisted her chest. “Here. I feel it here. But do you know what would be the convincing factor?”
“What’s that?”
“The hot tub.”
Thorne’s lips quirked in amusement. My stomach clenched. Please, Lord, don’t let Thorne and Frankie get into the hot tub together. There was no telling what happened underneath the water.
I shivered. That was not a thought I wanted to focus on.
Thorne patted her hand much as a grandfather would do to his grandchild. “Well, I’m not so sure about the hot tub.”
Frankie flicked her hair from her shoulders and leaned in. “Well, I know about it. Trust me. It’ll be fun.”
They finished dinner as the production crew got the hot tub ready. As soon as Thorne could, he approached me.
“You’re the matchmaker on this. Stop the hot tub scene.”
I hiked a shoulder. “Just tell her no.”
He fisted a hand to his hip and shuffled back and forth. “Have you met her? I don’t think she takes no for an answer. Pretty sure it’s not in her vocabulary.”
I nodded, sighed. “I’ll talk to her.”
“Good. I’ve gone as far as I’m going to go with this.”
“Thank you for doing it at all.”
Thorne grunted. I wasn’t sure what that meant, and I didn’t push him. I wasn’t in the mood for getting yelled at, least of all by a moody vampire.
Yes, I still wanted to go out with him.
I crossed over to Frankie’s changing room, where she was getting in her bathing suit. It seemed polite to wait until she came out before having this conversation, but Frankie must’ve sensed my presence.
“Charming, is that you out there?”
“Yes, it is.”
“How do you think the date’s going?”
“Oh, um. Well. I think dinner was great.”
The door swung open, and Frankie appeared wearing a black one-piece suit with a V cut all the way to her navel, exposing bare skin.
My eyes bulged. There really wasn’t anything coy about that suit at all. No, it was definitely come-and-get-me material.
Frankie modeled her attire by turning all the way around. “You like my suit?”
“Yeah,” I lied. “Very classy.”
“I thought so, too.” Frankie clapped her hands. “Now. We’re about to enter the hot tub. Where’s Thorne?”
She started to stomp off toward where the crew had set up the tub, overlooking the sunset. I quickly followed.
“Here’s the thing about that. Thorne’s not going—”
We reached the tub. Frankie shrieked. A jolt ran straight to my toes.
“What?” I said.
She pointed. A finger of fire snaked from her hand and darted into the water. The flame hissed as part of it extinguished on contact.
But the rest of the flame lived. It dipped below the surface. When it came back into sight, the flame was coiled around something.
“How do you do that without extinguishing the flame?” I murmured.
“Talent,” she huffed. Her gaze pinned on the thing she’d retrieved. Fury burned on Frankie’s face. “Who put this in here? Who would do that?”
I blinked as the flame pulled away and dropped the object on the ground.
A hair dryer lay lifeless on the ground. Water pooled around it.
“Who dropped that in the tub?” Frankie demanded.
Crew members surrounded us, each of them denying they had anything to do with it.
Vic, the host, charged up. “Frankie, what’s going on?”
She pointed at the hair dryer as if it were an abomination. “That was in there.”
Vic placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “I’m sure it just fell in by accident.”
Frankie scowled. My mind raced back to the black roses, the note, the cockroaches that crawled from the flowers, and I understood Frankie’s fear.
She wasn’t convinced the hair dryer was an accident. Frankly I wasn’t either. This was either a very serious warning or attempted murder
.
I sighed. As much as I wanted Thorne to be away from Frankie, it looked like we might be needing him on set after all.
My gaze darted around until it landed on him. I pushed through the crowd.
“What is it?” he said. “The hot tub not the right temperature for her?”
I shook my head. “No. It’s more serious than that.”
His brow cocked to the sky. He was skeptical.
Time to convince him. “I think someone just tried to murder Frankie.”
“Well, I can’t say I’m surprised,” Mama said that night when I told her. “It’s not as if Frankie is loved by many. She’s mean, nasty and has used many people in her life.”
“It could be that Frankie’s doing all this herself,” Rose offered.
“Are you kidding?”
“Not at all.” Rose picked up Pig and set the animal on her lap. The pig grunted happily as Rose rubbed her head.
“Frankie,” she explained, “is the sort of woman who craves attention. I wouldn’t be surprised if she planted the roses and hair dryer.”
I scoffed.
“I’m serious,” she said. “Didn’t you say that Frankie asked you to walk her to the door?”
“Yes.”
Rose snapped her fingers, and a peach appeared in her hand. She fed it to Pig.
“Peaches now?”
Rose shrugged. “You keep saying chocolate is bad for her, so I thought I’d give her some fruit.”
“Those pits are awfully big.”
“She hasn’t choked on one yet,” Rose said.
I wasn’t convinced that Rose had moved from one bad food to something better. In the end time would tell.
“But it makes sense,” Rose said. “She asked you to see her to the door, where the roses were discovered. She also made sure you were with her when you walked to the hot tub, where it appeared Frankie had also been threatened.
“It doesn’t take a brainiac to put two and two together,” Rose added.
I bit my tongue, unsure of who the brainiac was in this conversation—Rose or Pig.
There wasn’t time to ponder the question as Mama interjected. “I wouldn’t put it past Frankie. She’s always looking for attention.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s so annoying.”
“Well, even if it’s annoying, it’s still possible that someone wants her harmed.”
“Are you stopping the dating game?” Mama asked.
My cell phone rang. I picked it up from the counter and glanced at the name. “It’s the mayor. I put a call in to her.”
I excused myself and answered. “Mayor, there might be a problem.”
“I’ve already heard about what happened with the hot tub,” she said, “and Charming, I don’t think there’s anything to worry about.”
“But Mayor—” I argued.
“There are no buts. I spoke to Frankie herself, and she insisted we continue with the show. She wants to find her soul mate the same as anyone else. Besides,” the mayor added, “this is great exposure for our town. Charming, you’ve helped so much. You broke much of the curse that plagued us, and now I need you to just make sure the rest of the dating show goes smoothly.”
The mayor kept talking, not allowing me to get a word in edgewise. “All we’re talking is a couple of days. The hot tub incident was an accident. No doubt about it.”
“Only no one admitted to throwing the blower in there.”
She scoffed. “It probably just fell. Simple as that. Now,” Winnifred used her voice that meant she was wrapping up the conversation, “if we’re done talking, I have lots of preparations to make. India and I are meeting with the new PR people in the morning. We’ll have all hands on deck for the dating show tomorrow night. After what happened with the hot tub, I’ll be sure to be there. I’m not going to let anything get in the way of Witch’s Forge’s comeback, Charming. Absolutely anything. Is that loud and clear?”
I sighed. There was no battling the mayor. She was a steamroller if nothing else.
“I understand.”
“Good. Now if that’s all you wanted to discuss, I wish you good night.”
“Good night,” I said and hung up.
I returned to the kitchen and slumped against the wall. Broom rushed up to me and swept the floor at my feet.
“The mayor says we keep going.”
“If it makes you feel any better, Rose and I can come along,” Mama said. “You know, to be an extra set of eyes and ears.”
As much as their presence would have been helpful, I shook my head. “No. It’ll be fine. There are plenty of folks around who can help if something happens. I convinced Thorne to come back tomorrow, too, just in case we needed police presence.”
Mama quirked a brow. “Isn’t that dangerous? Putting him so close to Frankie?”
I shook my head. “No. He asked me out. He’s not interested in her.”
Mama and Rose exchanged a charged look. Pig snorted. Broom bounced up and down.
“What?” I said, confused.
Mama’s face split into a wide grin. “Oh, I just knew it! I knew the two of you would finally come together.”
Rose plumped her white curls. “I just can’t believe Thorne was able to resist my maturity, is all. You must have something special, Charming.”
I scoffed. “It’s only dinner.”
Mama rose. She took my hands and spun me around. “But dinner can often lead to more dinners and then the first thing you know, you feel special about someone and then, well, wonderful things happen.”
“Is that how it was with you and Dad?”
Her bright smiled faded. Mama slowly nodded. “It was.” She snapped her fingers. “Wait here.”
She disappeared from the room. Rose patted Pig. “But I think you should take Pig with you tomorrow, if nothing else.”
“Pig? Why?”
“Well, if she can sniff out a truffle buried under the ground, then I’m sure she can sniff danger.”
I nodded. “You think so?”
“Oh, I know so. No doubt about it. Take Pig and if there’s someone who means to harm Frankie, this here swine will find them.”
Might as well play along even though this was the craziest idea Rose might have ever had. “And what will Pig do when she finds them?”
“Oh, she’ll attack for sure.”
I frowned. “What?”
“Pig,” Rose said, “show Charming what we’ve been working on.”
She settled Pig on the ground. The little potbellied creature glanced uncertainly at Rose.
“Go on,” Rose said, trying to pump some courage into her. “You can do it. Get ’em!”
Then out of nowhere, Pig launched herself at a stuffed teddy bear that lay on the floor. She got it between her teeth, shook it side to side and then tossed it in the air.
Then Pig hovered over the teddy bear and growled something fierce.
This little piggy had the meanest look on her face, and it was the absolute cutest thing I’d ever seen. It was nearly impossible not to laugh, but I somehow managed.
“Wow. Pig is something. But I’m not sure I can take her with me.”
“Oh, I insist,” Rose said. “Pig will go with you, and she’ll help out. I promise you won’t regret this decision.”
Honestly I found that part hard to believe. I figured I would definitely regret something, I just wasn’t sure what.
Mama swept back into the room carrying a glossy cedar box. She settled it on the counter and smiled at me.
“What’s that?”
“This,” she said mysteriously, “is what I wore on my very first date with your father. I’ve been saving it for you, waiting for the right time to give it to you. You never dated, and I think there’s something special about Thorne.”
She raised her hand to stop me from protesting. “Not that I’m saying you’ll get married or anything, but I believe y’all have a connection.”
I stared at the box, and the weight of my mother’s words fell hea
vy on me. She’d saved whatever lay inside for me. Waiting until the right time.
Our relationship hadn’t always been perfect. For most of my life I believed my mother considered me worthless as a witch, but over the past few weeks I’d come to realize that she loved me very much.
And I loved her.
“Thank you,” I said. “That’s very kind.”
“I hope you like it.”
She slid a golden bar from the lock and lifted the lid. Inside lay an aquamarine heart. The pendant had been slid over a delicate silver chain.
My breath hitched. It was an exquisite piece of jewelry.
“It’s gorgeous.”
“I knew you would like it.” Mama pulled it from the box. The heart dangled heavily on the chain. “I should have waited until the night of your date, but I just couldn’t.”
I smiled at her and lifted the box. “You can give it to me then. I won’t take it now.”
She gently placed the heart atop the lined surface. The chain pooled around the stone. “I will.”
I gave Mama a hug. When we parted, Rose pointed to Pig. “So what do you think, Charming? Will she be your new attack pig?”
I grimaced. Part of me didn’t want to hurt Rose’s feelings. Heck, all of me didn’t want to hurt Rose’s feeling.
I nodded toward Pig. “Sure. I’ll take her with me to the set tomorrow night. Maybe she can catch whoever’s threatening Frankie.”
Pig grunted in pleasure. I gave her a light tap on the head before going up to bed.
Chapter 7
The hot air balloon flew overhead, its bulbous fabric fat and full. Though Watts had said he wanted to do the hot air balloon ride with Frankie, the mayor had insisted on putting Tex in the hot air balloon, for ratings.
“How are things going, Charming?”
Mayor Winnifred Dixon sauntered up, followed by India, who shuffled behind.
I shielded my eyes to get a better look. “Looks good from here. Nothing strange happening yet.”
The mayor nodded. “Good, good. Let’s hope it stays that way.”
Pig pranced up to me, her nose high in the air. “What on earth is that pig doing here?” she said.