Hex in High Heels Page 10

  “Blair! Stasi! Girls, would you come over here, please?” Agnes called out.

  Blair was the one to break eye contact as she and Stasi stepped away.

  “And here we thought Jazz and Maggie were the only ones to deal with big bads on a regular basis,” Stasi said.

  Blair tipped her chin upward when Roan glanced at her and smiled. No gauntlet, no firing shot, but war has been declared, and buster, you are so furry toast.

  “You look very nice today, Agnes.” Stasi smiled at the mayor’s wife, who was arrayed in a teal wool pantsuit.

  The woman lit up. “Thank you, Stasi. I do love those new foundation garments you showed me a few weeks ago,” she said in a lower voice. “I know you girls must be careful with your gifts, but is there a way you might be able to make the ground out by the lake more even? Or perhaps move the rocks out of the way and then put them back afterwards? Do you think that would be allowed?”

  “I think we could do that, Agnes,” Stasi replied. “We’ll manage it one way or another.”

  “Good.” Agnes pulled a clipboard out of her huge black leather tote bag and made a few notations. “Also, our elves are arriving early. Roan has graciously offered them rooms at the resort.”

  Damn! She’d forgotten all about that! “I’m just curious, Agnes. How did you learn about Mickey Boggs’s agency?” Blair asked.

  “Roan suggested him. He said Mr. Boggs would be able to provide all the elves we needed.”

  Blair and Stasi exchanged a speaking glance.

  “Did he mention how he knew of them?” Stasi questioned.

  “Oh, he said he’s used the man to provide holiday help at his hotels. He owns five other hotels,” she confided. “We’re very lucky he purchased Snow Farms. We could have ended up with someone who isn’t as helpful… or charming.” She winked.

  Blair mentally visualized herself gagging. “Very true. Oh! Marva’s calling you.” She quickly gave Marva a mental push who appeared startled as Agnes’s name erupted from her fuchsia painted lips.

  “Coming!” Agnes trilled, tottering quickly toward her friend.

  “Let’s see, Jake’s big bad Were brother shows up and buys the resort just miles from where Jake’s settled, even though they apparently hate each other’s guts. We know that same Were has been running around in the forest, and not alone, because we heard him and his furry minions at the last full moon,” Blair mused. “Mr. Fur and Fangs thinks he can scare us into selling him our land. And a royal bitch of a Were is also skulking around town, trying to buy nasty spells. Yep, it’s just another day in the witchy neighborhood.”

  Chapter 7

  “What are you doing?”

  Blair ignored Stasi’s question as she curled up on their rooftop swing with a heavy fleece blanket wrapped around her. The twinkle lights that rimmed the walls were off, leaving them in darkness except for the waning moon overhead.

  “Focusing.” She was staring out through the trees toward a beam of light that flashed a sharp yellow a short distance away.

  Stasi, with Bogie floating beside her, settled on the other side of the swing and pulled up the end of the blanket, draping it over herself and her dog. “You’re not doing a Call, because I don’t sense one.”

  “Probably wouldn’t do me any good if I did do one. He’s so stubborn, he’d find a way to ignore it.” Blair shifted restlessly and combed her fingers through her auburn curls that the evening breeze had ruffled. “Jake is canine domesticus but his Pack is pure wolf. Interesting mix.”

  “All wolves are arrogant,” Stasi agreed. “But Roan does it with a capital A. So listen: I asked Trev if he’d look further into Roan and his Pack for us. He has resources we don’t have access to unless we went to The Library, but The Librarian still hasn’t forgiven me for telling him he sucked.”

  Blair grinned. “I wish I’d been there for that, or at least seen a video of The Librarian’s face when you said it.”

  “It wasn’t one of my brighter moments. Trev said he’s heard of Roan, and Roan’s stepfather, who’s the Pack Alpha. So Vera is Roan’s mom, but we don’t know what her game is, or what happened to Jake and Roan’s dad. Trev says they’ve never crossed paths and Weres tend to have lawyers within their Packs to handle their legal affairs. They like to preserve their anonymity. Still, they have yet to deal with Trev’s people,” Stasi said with a great amount of pride. “He’s also making sure there’s no way Roan can try to trick us out of the land. He said he’ll talk to Mr. Sneed tomorrow.”

  Blair thought of the elderly wizard who’d handled their business for the last 130 years and knew he wouldn’t mind Trev’s involvement. Ebenezer Sneed had talked of retiring soon, and she and Stasi had discussed having Trev’s firm handle their business dealings when that happened. It might be a good time to start making that transition.

  “I get the feeling that Roan doesn’t intend to cheat us out of the land, even if he doesn’t mind using intimidation to get it. He probably wants a fair and square deal so he can proclaim he did the two little witches a favor by taking all that nasty ole land off their hands.” She continued watching the ray of light, then stood up, dislodging the blanket. Stasi quickly grabbed it up, watching with a knowing eye as Blair purposefully pulled on her high-heeled boots.

  “Are you going where I think you’re going?” she called after Blair, who’d already headed for the stairs.

  “You betcha. I’m going for some answers, and he’s giving them to me whether he wants to or not.”

  “Okay, I’ll just sit here and watch the fireworks.”

  Blair stopped and looked over her shoulder. “Don’t wait up.”

  Stasi grinned. “I hadn’t planned to.”

  “Light come to me and guide my way. Make it so,” Blair whispered, holding up her cupped palm. A second later a tiny ball of light appeared in her palm, sending out a golden glow that lit up the path before her. “So much nicer than a flashlight.” She took off down the narrow path between the trees that was behind the main part of town and led to a few of the smaller roads where many of the residents lived. When Blair reached Jake’s A-frame cabin, she was surprised to see the light she’d viewed from her place hadn’t come from there, but from the building behind the house that she knew was his workshop. Sounds of Keith Urban rolled outward, along with a deeper voice that she was astonished to realize was Jake’s.

  “What do you know? The dog can sing.” She tried knocking on the door, but soon realized there was no way, even with his Were hearing, that he could hear her over the loud music. Or was he ignoring her? “Knock, knock, knock, let it rock. Make it so.” She made a fist and tapped on the door, almost getting blown off her feet as the pounding sound echoed around her so loudly it was like a small thunderstorm. “Whoa.” She windmilled her arms to keep her balance, then quickly jumped back when the door was thrust open.

  Jake’s dark expression couldn’t have been more forbidding. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “And hello to you, too.” She tried walking past him, but he stepped to one side, effectively barring her entrance. For one moment a cold ball of uncertainty plopped in her stomach. “Oh… uh, if you’re not alone…” She was going to go home and drown herself in the tub. She was going to go home and find a spell that would turn a Border Collie into a warthog. She was going to go home and sulk for the next hundred years.

  Jake’s tension seemed to leave his body. “I’m alone.” He stepped outside and closed the door behind him, setting the lock.

  Blair craned her neck, but he’d closed the door so quickly, she couldn’t catch a glimpse of the interior. “Don’t tell me. You’ve got mega doggy quarters set up in there. Equipment for doggy agility tests, a big bed, abundance of toys.”

  He looked as if he wasn’t sure whether to bark or laugh, so he blended the two together. “Why are you here?”

  “I was out taking a stroll and thought I’d stop in and say hi.” Her smile didn’t thaw his cold demeanor. “Hi.”

  “Tr
y again.”

  “I want to see what’s behind the curtain.” She sighed when he looked confused. “You know, don’t go behind the curtain… The Wizard of Oz. Didn’t you ever read or watch the classics? We all like Margaret Hamilton’s The Wicked Witch of the West portrayal much better than Billie Burke’s version of the good witch Glinda with all that tulle and the crown and wand. Wayyyy over the top. Although none of us wanted the green skin.” She stopped as if she’d run out of breath.

  “I was more a Playboy and Dog Fancy man myself.” Jake stared down at the golden glow still in her palm. She shrugged and released the light. Like a firefly, it drifted off into the dark night until it winked out of sight.

  “Invite me in for coffee?”

  “Isn’t that something a guy would say?”

  “It’s the new millennium. Women can do the asking now.”

  “It probably didn’t stop you during the last millennium, either.” He headed for the back door and Blair stayed on his heels, determined to shatter the door to splinters if he dared close it on her again. But this time, he pushed it open and gestured for her to enter first as he reached inside to flick a switch.

  Blair walked into the kitchen and dining area and took a quick look around. The last time she’d been in his house, she’d only seen the living room—and for a short time, at that—before he’d taken her home.

  “I’m impressed.” She idly ran her fingertips across the counter but couldn’t find a smudge of dirt or grease. She wouldn’t have been surprised to find even the top of the refrigerator dust free—and she couldn’t say the same for own fridge. “There’s days even our kitchen isn’t this clean.”

  “What did you expect? Dirty dishes piled in the sink, pans covered with congealed grease?” He sounded amused. “I may like a good roll in the dirt, but that doesn’t mean I like to live in it. I even change the sheets once a week.”

  “Were they changed recently?”

  If she hoped to trip him up, she was sadly mistaken. Jake lounged against the sink and crossed his arms in front of his chest. He watched Blair circle the cooking island and investigate the breakfast nook with built-in table and benches against the windows for a great morning meal view. The idea of Blair sitting there with a cup of coffee in the morning was tempting.

  “Did you want to check the cabinets, or maybe bounce a quarter off the sheets?” he asked, eying the moonstone pendant set in gold resting between her breasts. He wondered if it was a trick of the light that the stone glowed from within as if it had a life of its own. For all he knew, it could have. While he’d observed Blair a lot since he’d first arrived in town and discovered the sexy witch, he still knew only a fraction of who she really was.

  On that last Samhain night, he’d seen a witch with great courage who faced down an angry mob intent on destroying her and her friends. He still remembered the ferocity that etched her features and lit a fire in her eyes as she echoed the spell Stasi had begun. A spell that shattered the illusion spell surrounding the forest Fae who were bent on killing them.

  He hadn’t thought twice that night when Reed Palmer, disguised as a human, ran toward the three witches with a blazing torch in his hand. Jake had shifted without hesitation. The dog saw danger to one he cared for and there was only one thing to do. He destroyed a creature who deserved to die.

  He knew if he hadn’t acted quickly that night, Blair wouldn’t be standing in front of him right now, looking like a bright ray of sunshine. Her dark auburn hair glinted copper and gold and curled around her face with a life of its own. He knew from experience how silky it was to the touch. But he still didn’t know if her whole body felt just as silky. For once she hadn’t responded to his retort, but stood watching him with a look he wasn’t sure he could read. She called to him like a Siren luring a mariner to his doom.

  Still, some dooms were a very good thing, if a hexy seductress was involved.

  “Why me?” he asked, the words sounding strangled in his throat.

  “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I admit in the beginning, it was this lust at first sight thing, because we all enjoyed watching you work with your shirt off.” She winced. Definitely too much information when she was trying to make him think she wasn’t some crazed stalker. “It’s just something I feel inside that warms me up when I see you.” She shifted from one foot to the other, waking up Fluff and Puff, who grumbled in unison. The usually self-assured witch suddenly looked unsure. “I thought…” she waved her hand in the air and for once no magick sparkled around her, only uncertainty. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “For thinking the feeling was mutual. Because you kissed me—more than once, I might add. And when we went out to dinner that night, I thought there was something there, but I guess I was mistaken. I promise I won’t bother you again.” She started to brush past him, but he grasped her shoulders and turned her to face him.

  “You’re not mistaken, Blair, but you have to understand something. My life is complicated.” If she only knew!

  “And mine’s not?” she laughed. “Jake, even to many of my own kind, I’m considered an outcast. Thirteen of us stood together and refused to name the witch who cast an illegal spell. We all were expelled from the Witches’ Academy and banished to the outside world for one hundred years—as long as we stayed out of trouble. That was in 1313, and we’re all still out here! The Witches’ Council keeps adding time to our banishment because we don’t adhere to their antiquated rules. For all I know, just saying that could add a few—or fifty—years on to mine. Sometimes I think they have some crazy agenda for us, but they don’t bother giving us any hints. Stasi and I have changed our identities so many times, it’s amazing we haven’t suffered from personality disorders.”

  “And you’d know it if you were?”

  She punched his arm in retaliation for his wry comment, but the blow was half-hearted.

  “I’m just saying, you don’t hold the patent on complicated lives. It’s how you handle it that counts.”

  Jake was silent for so long, Blair thought he was either going to usher her out of the house or be his stubborn self and refuse to answer.

  “I’m a throwback in my Pack,” he said finally. “A dog, Border Collie at that, and not a wolf like the others.”

  “But you’re a very handsome Border Collie.”

  He waved off her attempt at humor and directed her to the spacious living room. “If I’m going to say anything more, I’m going to need some Dutch courage.” He pulled open the refrigerator door and brought out a bottle of beer. He held a second one up in silent question. “Or if you’d rather, I’ve got some Chardonnay.”

  “The beer is fine, thanks.” She wandered around the family room and realized she was stepping into strictly guy territory. She smiled at the big screen TV, complete with a sound system that looked as if it belonged on the Starship Enterprise, a navy couch that showed more than a little wear, and dark burgundy easy chairs meant for lounging while watching the big game. “Wow. Do you need a PhD to operate all this?” She perused his DVD collection and was surprised to see some of her favorites there. She smiled as she fingered the plastic case marked Young Frankenstein.

  “No, a Master’s degree works just fine.” Jake gestured for her to take a chair, but she chose the couch, pulling off her boots and curling up in a corner before reaching out for the bottle he held out to her. He settled on the coffee table in front of her, holding his beer bottle by his fingertips, dangling between his thighs.

  “So your Pack are wolves, but you were born Canis lupus familiaris instead of Canis lupus,” she mused after taking a sip of her beer. “Any chance you were adopted?”

  Jake chuckled. “Unfortunately, not a chance—in human form, I’m the spitting image of my father, while Roan is identical to my dad in wolf form.” Blair didn’t miss the way his grip on the bottle tightened.

  “But they let you live, even though you’re not wolf.” She rolled that over in her mind. “I don’t know
a lot about Weres, but I do know they don’t like to keep anyone they consider unworthy. That they’re pretty rough on them and are known to toss them out of the Pack at best, kill them at worst.”

  “I walked away from the Pack because there was nothing there for me. I haven’t looked back since. I’ve made a new life and am happy with it.”

  “Is that why your last name is different than your brother’s?” she asked, her gaze holding his steadily.

  He was silent for a moment, meeting her eyes with a proud look that turned her inside out. “When I left the Pack, I walked away with only the clothes on my back and left the family name behind. Thanks to finding someone who could create valid looking ID, I left Jake Thorpe with the Pack and turned into Jake Harrison.” He tipped the bottle upward and allowed the cold, yeasty brew to flow down his throat. When he straightened up, he noticed her pendant emitting a soft glow. “Why is that happening? I don’t recall seeing it do that before.”

  Blair looked down and frowned. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s picking up magick I’m not sensing. Just be grateful we don’t have red hearts dancing around. Let me tell you, those red hearts dancing around Stasi and Trev’s heads for weeks was enough to make me scream.” She stroked the moonstone, rubbing her fingertips over the milky blue surface with the lightest of touches. The stone appeared to shine even more.

  Jake stared at her hand, feeling a reaction as if she was touching him instead. Stroking him with the same feather light touch she gave the stone. He couldn’t remember ever being this hard just from watching a woman. But then, Blair wasn’t just any woman.

  “Change of subject noted, answered, and now ignored. So why weren’t you thrown out of the Pack or killed immediately?” She noticed he didn’t wince at the latter words. She hadn’t expected him to. Even if she didn’t know a lot about Pack behavior, she did know that they didn’t tolerate differences well, and Jake’s canine nature would be abhorrent to his kind.

  Jake sighed. “You’re not going to give up, are you?”