A Witch's Handbook of Kisses and Curses (30 page)

*  *  *

My palms were sweating as Jed and I waited outside the outdated offices of James H. Mayhew, Esquire. It was late in the afternoon. The reception area had certainly seen better days, with its worn leather chairs and battered tile floors. The secretary’s desk had long been abandoned, so we were left to wait while Mr. Mayhew finished up a phone call. Jed was amusing himself by sorting through six-year-old copies of
Ladies’ Home Journal
and
Newsweek.

This was what a last resort felt like. I had no idea what our next move would be if this didn’t pan out. And the depressing thing was, I was sure it wouldn’t. Jed tried keeping a more optimistic perspective . . . until I threatened to smack him with a rolled-up magazine.

Jimmy Mayhew was exactly what I expected in a small-town lawyer. Elderly, with a full shock of pure white hair and out-of-control matching eyebrows. His
suit was a dapper if unfashionable blue silk, with a tie that set off his clear cornflower-blue eyes.

“So, you’re the appointment Miss Jane referred to me?” he said, flashing some very respectable dentures at me.

Having long since tired of subterfuge, I introduced myself as Mr. Wainwright’s granddaughter. Mr. Mayhew’s white eyebrows shot up to his hairline. He sat back heavily in his club chair while I gave him a brief summary of the events that had brought me to his door. A parade of conflicting emotions crossed his handsome face as I told my story, ending with shocked resignation as I concluded with, “So, we were hoping, Mr. Mayhew, that you might still have that bell he gave you all those years ago and, if so, that you would be willing to part with it.”

“He really had a daughter?” he asked.

I nodded. “You can ask Dick Cheney,” I said. “He’ll vouch for my story.”

“Why would Jane’s shifty friend know anything about it?”

I offered him an easy smile. “Never mind.”

“Well, you do favor him. And if Miss Jane believes you, that’s enough for me . . . Gilbert having descendants would have drastically changed his will, you know,” he said, frowning. “Are you here to challenge it? Because he was very fond of Miss Jane, and I wouldn’t be comfortable—”

“Oh, no,” I assured him. “I think the shop is in very good hands. I was just curious about the bell.”

Mr. Mayhew blew out a long breath. “I haven’t got it.”

My heart dropped somewhere near the location of my feet. Jed gave my hand a squeeze, but at the moment, I couldn’t find it in me to look up at him.

“Gilbert did give me a bell, about twenty years ago,” Mr. Mayhew said. “He asked me to put it in my safe, something about not feeling right about keeping them all together. And then, five years ago, right before Miss Jane started working there, he took it back. Said it was time and that he was going to hide it in plain sight.”

“He didn’t tell you where that might be?” Jed asked.

Mr. Mayhew shook his head.

“And what about your friend Bob Puckett? He was one of your card circle. Would Mr. Wainwright have given it to him?”

“Bobby Puckett died ten years ago,” Mr. Mayhew said, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Miss, but if Gilbert said he was going to hide it in plain sight, then you should look in the most obvious place first.”

“We kind of covered those,” Jed told him.

“I’m sorry I can’t be more help,” Mr. Mayhew said, shaking his head.

I stood, my knees shaking, and took his hand.

“After all this time,” Mr. Mayhew said. “Gilbert has a grandkid. He would have gotten such a kick out of you, young lady.”

“Thank you.”

“You know, I have something for you,” he said, crossing to his bookshelf. “We started playing poker together about fifty years ago. And one night a few years back,
your grandpa ran out of cash. He had a lot of confidence in his hand, so he threw this into the pot.” He took an old linen-bound edition from the shelf and handed it to me. “It was one of his prized possessions.”

I ran my fingers over the cover, stamped in gold:
A Guide to Traversing the Supernatural Realm
. Mr. Mayhew grinned sheepishly. “It’s a first edition. He read that book I don’t know how many times when we were kids. An uncle gave it to him when he was home sick once with a cold, and it sparked his interest in the paranormal. From that moment on, all he could talk about was traveling the world to look for werewolves and vampires. I didn’t really want to take it. He had four of a kind, but I had a straight flush. He never could spot a tell.”

“Family failing, apparently,” I muttered, turning the book carefully in my hands.

“I held on to it,” he said, guilt tingeing his voice. “To teach him a lesson about bringing enough cash to the games. I always meant to give it back . . . I’m sorry. I think he would want you to have it.”

I smiled up at him. “Thank you, Mr. Mayhew.”

*  *  *

I leaned my head back against the car’s seat, clutching Mr. Wainwright’s book to my chest.

“Hey, hey.” Jed slid across the seat and tried to put his arm around me. Instinctively, I pressed my hand against his chest to push him away, but my arm went limp. I let him wrap an arm around my shoulders and pull me close. “It’s OK. We knew it was a long shot.”

“I don’t know what to do now,” I said. “I don’t know
where to look. And I looked closer at those locator spells. You’re right. That is definitely some Dark Lord, point-of-no-return sort of stuff.”

“You tried one of them, didn’t you?”

I held up my thumb and forefinger, measuring a tiny amount of evil. “Just a little one.”

“And since we just harassed a perfectly nice old lawyer, I’m assuming it didn’t work?”

I shook my head and buried my face in his shoulder. He stroked my hair away from my face to press a kiss against my forehead. “You’re exhausted. Let’s get you home, honey.”

I closed my eyes and stayed quiet for most of the ride home. What the hell would I do now? I had used up all of my luck, all of my happy coincidences and convenient clover patches.

What had I missed? Although I’d already done it a dozen times, I reviewed each find in my head and the steps that led up to it. Could anything be repeated? Mined for more information?

And I was back to blind luck again.

I must have dozed off, because I woke to Jed carrying me up the porch steps and using my keys to unlock my door. I should probably have objected to this. He was still the guy who had lied to me for months and stolen priceless artifacts from me. But he also smelled like the forest and fresh laundry, and every time his chin brushed my forehead, a little thrill zipped up my spine.

I let him stretch me across my bed, opening my eyes long enough to catch his hand and drag him down next
to me. Jed scooted in behind me, pulling my back against his chest, and laid his face against my hair.

“If you keep all that sad to yourself, it’s going to leave a bruise,” he murmured against my neck.

“I don’t think there’s such a thing as emotional contusions,” I whispered back, wrapping his arm around my waist as I rolled onto my back, facing him.

“I meant here,” he said, drawing a finger over my heart.

I stared intently at the ceiling, willing away the anxious despair that seemed to have a choke hold on my throat. “What was Nana Fee thinking, leaving this task to me? I never showed any interest in being the family’s leader. No one ever asked me if I was ready or even wanted the job. It was just shoved in my lap because I happened to be a good nurse. And I am drowning here. Why didn’t Nana send Penny or Uncle Jack or someone who actually embraces their abilities and might have gotten through this with some dignity?”

“Maybe she knew you needed it more,” he suggested gently, playing with a lock of my hair. “You needed to come here so you could get to know your grandfather.”

“If she was that concerned, she could have sent me here before Mr. Wainwright died. She could have told me about him, let him know me,” I shot back, my tone more than a little bitter. “She could have let my mother know him. Then maybe she wouldn’t have turned out to be such a . . .”

Jed propped himself on his elbows. “What?”

“Anna McGavock wasn’t a good mother. She wasn’t
even a good person.” I smiled to cover the odd little sob that escaped through my nose. “Everything she touched was tainted by her bottomless need for whatever she thought she deserved but wasn’t getting. Nothing was ever enough. Maybe if she’d known her father, she wouldn’t have felt like she had some missing piece she had to make up for. Or maybe she was always meant to turn out to be a cancer on the backside of humanity. Who knows?”

“The Kerrigans told me she died a while ago,” he said quietly, and the mention of his former employers didn’t exactly calm the little storm of nerves brewing between my temples.

I took several deep breaths, nodding and concentrating on slowing my heart rate. The last thing I needed was some magical spike that took out the bedroom windows. “I got a call from the Florida State Police about three years ago. They said that her remains had been found in some burnt-out fleabag motel in Sarasota. It’s a wonder they were able to contact me. We hadn’t spoken in more than ten years.”

Jed tilted his forehead against mine, tucking my body against the curve of his hip. “I’m so sorry.”

“I’m not,” I admitted, in a voice so soft it was a wonder that he heard me. “It was a relief.” And now the tears were slipping down my cheeks in earnest, gathering in the hollow of my throat. “It was a relief to know that she wasn’t coming back, that she couldn’t hurt us anymore. She had a particular talent for hurting Nana, who always seemed to think she could just
love
Mom out of being
bat-shit crazy. Every time she hurt us, it only proved that I was right not to trust her. For Nana’s sake, I pretended I was just as shocked as she was when Mom was arrested in Jacksonville for soliciting or that time she took Nana’s money for rehab, only to spend it on a three-day bender in Atlantic City. But I’d come to expect it. I feel guilty for not loving my own mother, but I feel even worse for letting Nana believe that I did.”

I sniffed. “I feel like so much of my relationship with Nana was a lie now. I don’t know what to believe anymore. I’ve known all my life that my grandmother didn’t want to discuss my grandfather. And I thought I understood it. I’d been angry at my grandfather for years, imagining him as some sort of cad who fathered my mother and ran. But I realize now the part Nana played in all this, and I didn’t realize how angry I was at Nana Fee until I came here and saw what I had missed, not knowing him. She sent me on this wild-goose chase to the middle of nowhere, after giving supposedly sacred objects to a man who was some sort of book hoarder. What if Jane wanted nothing to do with me? What if his shop had burned down? What was she
thinking
?” That last bit was muffled by a hiccuping sob, which was mortifying.

“You’re not used to bein’ angry with her, huh?”

I shook my head, wiping at my cheeks. “I’m also not used to crying in front of some man while lying in bed with him.”

“I’m not just some man.” His tone was indignant. I chuckled, but he cupped my face in his hand and forced
me to look at him. “Look, you know my secrets. You know things I’ve never told a soul outside of my family. And I gather you’ve never told anyone about your mother or your grandmother. That means something, Nola. I don’t take it lightly.”

I nodded and tucked my face into the crook of his neck. “I know.”

I settled my weight against Jed’s side and breathed in his spicy woods scent. I closed my eyes and let that scent soak into my skin. I knew Jed didn’t take this sort of admission lightly. This was an intimacy he was sharing with me, an emotional bond one didn’t forge with a convenient fling. The question was, how was
I
supposed to take it? How was I going to walk away from someone who knew so much about me? Did I really want to?

*  *  *

Hours later, the room was dark, and the windows were open. I turned over toward Jed. Bright beams of moonlight poured through the window, highlighting the smooth planes of his face. Jed’s completely normal, human face. I sat up, my fingers pressing against his cheeks.

He inhaled sharply, sitting up. The moment his eyes opened and he caught sight of the windows, his face shifted. His skin was blue and smooth. Inky black markings highlighted the sharp cheekbones and arched brows over a leonine nose. He had fangs, long, shiny, and white. His eyes were wide and round and an electric, unearthly green.

I reached out to touch the strange blue flesh but felt
only Jed’s warm, smooth skin. I traced my fingertips along his long nose, over the ridges of his cheekbones. He purred, the vibrations of the rumbling sound traveling down my arms to my heart. It was an illusion. He was still Jed underneath. I could feel his eyebrows under my fingertips. I leaned forward and kissed the blue, feline nose.

Jed flinched, drawing back from me as if I’d slapped him. The only thing I felt against my lips was Jed’s plain old human nose. I chuckled, making the blackened eyebrows crease. I leaned forward, taking one of the soft lips between my own. He jerked away. I sighed, pushing up to my elbows so I could thread my hands in the inky black hair and pull him down to me. I claimed his mouth. This was my mouth. No matter what form it came in, it was mine.

Outside the windows, a cloud passed over the crescent moon, and the room was dark again. Under my fingertips, Jed’s skin became his regular golden peach. His features shifted back to human. I laughed aloud, kissing him again. He dove for me, attacking my mouth with a zeal that made me glad he didn’t have real fangs. He threw my leg over his hip and thrust forward, grinding his hard length against flesh that was already warm and wet for him. I cried out, the first tense pulse of pleasure seizing through me as he tugged my jeans away. He growled, nipping and biting down the length of my throat as he tore the material at my hips and threw it over his shoulder.

My nails bit into his shoulders, welting the skin, and I
was rewarded with a pleased rumble. He knelt over me, and I moaned at the broken contact. He trailed his hand between us, sliding it over my breastbone, down the line of my stomach, and between my legs. I shrieked when his thumb stroked over that little hard nub. He chuckled, so I reached up and tweaked his nipple in retaliation. He yelped and grinned down at me, redoubling his efforts.