Casting Spells (20 page)

The truth was I couldn’t help myself.

And in case you were wondering, that wasn’t hyperbole. I literally couldn’t keep myself away from him. It had to be some strange offshoot of the protective charm at work because nothing this powerful, this core shaking, could possibly exist without magick.

In a perfect world, he might have been The One. Yes, I had known him only a handful of days. It was too soon. I knew too little. I wanted too much. But that didn’t change the fact that he was The One I had been waiting for. The legendary Mr. Right you always hoped was just around the corner.

And how thoughtful of whatever magickal forces were at work that they picked a great kisser. If this was as far as it was going to go—and believe me, I was all about setting limits—this was just about as good as it gets.

I was sinking deeper into his kisses, getting lost in the heat, when I opened my eyes and saw Gunnar watching us from the hallway.

Luke and I leaped apart like guilty high school kids.

“Sorry,” Gunnar said, looking both embarrassed and a little hurt. “I was in the back making copies. I didn’t know you were here.”

“I thought you had a meeting.” Luke didn’t sound very friendly.

“Canceled,” Gunnar said. “I figured I’d use the time to knock off some paperwork.”

“How do you know Gunnar had a meeting?” I asked Luke.

Gunnar was right there with the answer. “I bumped into Sugar Maple’s finest near Carrier and Martin. I think he was on his way to the cemetery.”

“The cemetery?” I turned to Luke. “Why were you going to the cemetery?”

Luke turned to Gunnar. “I didn’t say I was headed for the cemetery. I said I was going for a walk.”

“Sorry,” Gunnar said again. “I could have sworn you said you were headed for the cemetery.”

“You were the one who pointed out I was headed for the cemetery,” Luke said. “Not me.”

“Did you go to the cemetery?” I asked Luke. I wouldn’t have believed the human heart could beat so fast and not explode.

He glanced pointedly in Gunnar’s direction. “The road was blocked. A power company crew was trying to fix some downed wires.”

“That’s news to me,” Gunnar said.

“They told me they’ve been out there for two days.”

Gunnar looked over at me. “Did you know?”

“No,” I said through gritted teeth. “I didn’t.” I don’t know what they taught them in Boy School, but pissing contests weren’t all that much fun to watch.

Gunnar didn’t move. Luke didn’t blink. It was like being trapped in a room with a pair of crash-test dummies. I knew that Luke was being all territorial and Gunnar was being protective, but enough was enough. Sooner or later a girl had to take a stand.

“You know what?” I said. “I have a business to run.”

And it would have been a terrific exit line if I hadn’t bumped into the table and sent all of the maps and graphs and extracts sliding to the ground.

I should have stopped and helped Luke pick them up but I didn’t. I shoved past Gunnar, stormed past Lilith, and pushed my way out the door into a minor snowstorm and a sidewalk thick with tourists.

I dashed across the street and into Sticks & Strings, where I had left poor Lynette to hold down the fort.

“Thanks a lot,” Lynette grumbled as she grabbed her coat from the hook near the door. “You missed a vanload of seniors from New Hampshire on a yarn crawl. They’ll be back around four. And that doesn’t count the walk-ins.”

I showered her with thanks and apologies, which she brushed off with good-natured humor.

“Just make sure you’re front row center tomorrow night for the opening,” she said, then raced off to the final dress rehearsal for this year’s
A Christmas Carol.

“I promise.” She was my friend so I didn’t tell her I had seen so many performances of her Mrs. Fezziwig that I could recite the lines with her.

I had lied to a county official, pissed off my closest friends, and left the man who could blow our cover alone in the library with access to everything he needed to destroy our way of life forever. And it wasn’t even three o’clock yet.

I flipped through the pile of messages on the counter. A question about Fiesta La Boheme in the Alaska colorway. Two workshop requests. One very annoyed knitter in California demanding to know where her order was. If I returned the call now in the mood I was in, I would probably bite their heads off and leave ’em for dead.

One of my regulars popped in for a skein of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino in a gorgeous mossy shade of green. Fortunately she wasn’t in the mood to chat.

I rattled around the store, unable to settle down to any one task. I knew I should be tearing the place apart looking for the Book of Spells, but my hands itched to start another pair of socks. Penny was playing in the corner with a catnip-filled mouse one of my regulars had knitted for her so I used the opportunity to fluff up the roving in my mother’s basket.

Usually the roving fluffed back to full abundance the moment Penny leaped out of the basket, but today, for some reason, it hadn’t. I bent down and moved things around a little, but there was no denying that for the first time I could remember there was less roving there today than there had been yesterday, which was further proof that my entire life was spinning out of control and all I could think about was whether to cast on toe up or top down.

In my defense, it was a great pair of socks. I had used roving from my mother’s stash, hand-painted it in the colors of a Hawaiian sunset, then spun it into a lovely (if I do say so myself) fingering weight yarn. I wasn’t up for anything difficult, just a plain old cuff-down stockinette, but by the time I finished the 2/2 ribbing and had launched myself down the leg, the world was beginning to make sense again.

The thing about working a basic sock was the way it freed your mind to roam. If I were Sorcha, where would I have hidden the Book of Spells? Closets were too easy. Basements flooded. A safe-deposit box was too bureaucratic. Her cottage had been absorbed into the next dimension with her so I could scratch that off my list. Which pretty much left 98 percent of Sugar Maple to be searched.

“Are you speaking to me now?”

I jumped at the sound of Gunnar’s voice.

“Quit sneaking up on me,” I said, irritated. “Somebody should force Fae to wear cow bells.” He was standing a few feet away from me, snow glittering in his hair and across his shoulders. He looked tired, uncertain, very much my dear friend, and my heart melted.

“So are you speaking to me?” he asked again.

“I shouldn’t be but I am.” I motioned for him to take off his coat and hang it up. “There’s coffee in the back. Help yourself.”

He did, then sat down across the worktable from me. “Go ahead,” he said with a weary smile. “Unload on me.”

“That wasn’t funny back there, Gunnar. That was the human equivalent of bearbaiting.”

“Harmless male jousting.”

“I’m not talking about the pissing contest,” I snapped. “I’m talking about the phony road crew and the downed wires.”

“I thought you’d thank me.”

“Thank you?” My head was threatening to explode. “You were at the Town Hall meeting. We agreed we were going to stay away from magick tricks. The last thing we need is for him to start seeing Sugar Maple through curious eyes.”

“Think about it,” Gunnar said. “The state wants to see our death certificates and the new cop was heading over to the cemetery. Do you really want him to start matching names and dates?”

“How did you do it?” I asked. “Some kind of spell?”

“The Pendragon boys owed me a favor.”

“What if he decides to go back to the cemetery tomorrow?”

“Then we come up with Plan B.”

“I hate this,” I said. “I wish Suzanne Marsden had never set foot in Sugar Maple.”

“So do I,” Gunnar said. “So do I.”

There was something about his tone that made me shiver. The fact that he looked like he was in pain didn’t help. We sipped our coffees in silence for a few minutes.

“Wait a second!” I put my mug down on the tabletop. “If you don’t do spells, how do you explain the flying brandy snifter last night?”

He looked at me with a blank expression. “What flying brandy snifter?”

“The one that hovered over the dinner table like a helicopter then dropped into the cop’s lap.”

“I’d be glad to take credit for it but unfortunately I’m not responsible.”

“You have to be. I mean, who else could have done it?”

“Maybe it was you.”

I thanked him for my first laugh of the day.

“Something’s different, Chloe,” he said. “I think you’re getting your powers.”

“If I had powers, I wouldn’t be tearing through the shop looking for the Book of Spells, would I?”

That got his attention. “What do you mean, looking for it?”

“If you’d bothered to answer my call last night, you would know what I’m talking about.”

“You called?”

“Twice,” I said. “And Janice used blueflame.”

He looked puzzled. “I didn’t get any messages.”

I gave him the abridged version.

He was up to speed in an instant. “I’ll search the old church and the cottages in the woods. We have to find it as soon as possible. I’ve never seen Isadora this driven.”

That was one of the many things I loved about Gunnar. When times were tough, I could always count on him.

“There’s no way I’m going to let that woman get her—” An odd expression crossed his beautiful face, and I felt my own face grow hot with embarrassment. “I’m sorry. She’s your mother. I should have—”

He reached for my hand. “No apologies. Not between us.”

The touch of his hand was comforting and as familiar as the touch of my own. We were friends. Friends sometimes held hands or threw their arms around each other. Casual. Spontaneous. Not even remotely romantic.

But this was different. His touch was different. I tried to gently slide my hand out from under his but he increased the pressure slightly, just enough to let me know this was significant.

“Gunnar.” My tone was light but regretful. “Nothing’s changed.”

“You have,” he said. “I’m losing you.”

I started to say that he couldn’t possibly lose me because I had never been his to lose in the first place, but this wasn’t the time for a semantics debate. He pushed back his chair and drew me to my feet next to him.

“I wish I felt the way you want me to feel, but I don’t.” And I never would. There weren’t many things I knew for sure in this always-changing world, but the impossibility of Gunnar and me was one of them.

I also knew why this was happening now. Suzanne’s death had set off a chain reaction in Sugar Maple that Luke’s presence was intensifying to an alarming degree. We were all trying to hang on to the safe and familiar for as long as we could.

He moved closer and this time I didn’t move away. I had to make sure or I would spend the rest of my life wondering. He was Gunnar. He was part of my childhood, part of my life. And if there was even the slightest chance for a future with him, I needed to find out.

He kissed me with more passion and more heat than I had expected, but for me there were no fireworks, no sparks, no melting into him. Nothing that would ever make the loneliness go away.

He was my best friend, and no matter how much I might wish otherwise, that was what he would always be.

“I’m sorry,” I said, resting my forehead against his chest. “Really sorry.”

I couldn’t look at him. Call me a coward but I just couldn’t do it.

“I’m not going to give up,” he said. “We could make a life together, Chloe, right here in Sugar Maple.”

Oh, how I wished I could hand him my heart. There were no secrets between us. We were both part of Sugar Maple. We both wanted the same things. If only that were enough.

He held me close for a second and then pushed me away.

“The cop won’t be around forever,” he said, “but I will.”

15

LUKE

 

The librarian kicked me out right after Chloe made her abrupt exit.

“I asked you to treat our documents with respect,” she said with more heat than you would expect to find in an academic type.

I made the mistake of pointing out that Chloe was the one who had knocked the documents off the table, which earned a snicker from Goober and another severe reprimand from the surprisingly fiery librarian.

I decided to cut my losses and save my research for another day. Besides I had managed to filch a stack of newspaper clippings and hidden them under my jacket. The Griggs Hardware truck was parked in front of the old pet shop. Wiping monkey spit off the walls sounded pretty damn good to me right about then.

“Johnny went out for pizza,” Paul said as I shrugged out of my jacket and grabbed a paint brush. “Pepperoni and mushroom.”

“Great.”

There were no crazy sparks flying around the room. No golden-boy agenda. We didn’t have to talk. Paul had his radio tuned to one of those oldies stations. Hell, if he cranked it up a few decibels higher, we wouldn’t even have to think.