Slightly Spellbound Read online

  Even so, I didn’t think the skeletal creature in my tree was a zombie. If he had been, I’m sure I would’ve heard him hit the ground when he jumped down. Zombies weren’t dainty. They also didn’t climb trees or run off when you threatened them with a weapon. They tried to maul you until they succeeded or you stopped them.

  The creature from the tree seemed smarter than a zombie. There was also the slight glow and transparency to it, which made me think it might be a ghost.

  Frustrated that I couldn’t decide what I thought it actually was, I returned to the kitchen. I’d get back to what was really important: cake. I whipped the batter and added a teaspoon of Kentucky bourbon. I was midtaste when the doorbell rang.

  Mercutio lifted his head and yowled.

  “I’m not expecting company. You?”

  Mercutio stretched and walked to the back door.

  “Okay,” I said. From Merc’s laid-back attitude I decided the doorbell ringer was probably a person and not one who had murder in mind.

  I let Mercutio into the yard, and the person at the front door knocked. I swallowed another teaspoon of batter, then did a rapid tiptoe to the foyer to confirm Merc’s instincts that I didn’t need my gun. I stared through the peephole, my pulse doing a two-step at the sight of the man on the other side of the door. As usual, Merc was right. A gun wasn’t the kind of protection I needed. A chastity belt might’ve helped, though.

  Bryn Lyons is ridiculously accomplished at many things, one of them being his ability to separate me from my clothes. He’s blue-eyed, black-haired, and the kind of gorgeous that the devil might use to tempt a nun to sin. Since I’m not especially nunlike, for me he’s like a chocolate truffle. In large quantities, I might remember he’s too rich for my blood, but intermittently he’s too delicious to resist. I sighed and rested my head against the door.

  My hand hovered over the knob. Why was he here? I often visited Bryn at his mansion in Shoreside Oaks, taking advantage of his giant library of magical reference books, chatting over tea and scones with his gentleman butler, and curling up with Bryn on the fancy cushioned furniture, but Bryn didn’t come to my house. Because I never invited him.

  I’d been raised with a family prophecy that made nine families, including Bryn’s, off-limits. Bryn’s savvy, though, and he might have shown up unannounced because he realized my keeping him out of the old Victorian house wasn’t just about following family rules. It was also a way of keeping our relationship in a holding pattern.

  I stepped back as the chemistry between us thrummed clear through the door. My fingers tap-danced on the knob as his knuckles rapped on the wood. I folded like a falling soufflé and pulled the door open.

  “Hey there,” I said.

  “Hello,” he said, all sparkling blue eyes. Magic as enticing as the smell of cookies fresh from the oven surrounded me. “Would you like to help me celebrate?” he asked, holding up a bottle of champagne.

  I grinned. He’d been doing battle with one of the biggest law firms in Dallas, and as the case progressed, they kept adding lawyers to the team against him. Working until three in the morning, he’d likened it to David versus Goliath, with him holding the slingshot.

  “It turned out okay?” I asked, pulling open the screen door. “When I didn’t hear from you I was afraid to call, but I should’ve known!”

  Under his dark topcoat, he wore jeans and a black V-neck sweater. He looked scrumptiously casual. High-priced suits had been his daily uniform for weeks. It was nice to see him dressed down.

  “I was late returning to Duvall. The client insisted on taking me to dinner to celebrate.”

  “She has a crush on you,” I said. “I would, too! You got rid of the cheating husband who browbeat her for fourteen years. You’re a hero.”

  “I found a loophole in the prenuptial agreement. The judge awarded her ten million dollars.”

  I let out a low whistle and gave him a quick kiss. “Congratulations.”

  A few seconds passed, and I hadn’t stepped back yet to let him inside. He gave me a considering look.

  “Is this an okay time?” he asked.

  “What? Oh sure, I guess,” I said, finally moving aside. “I’m baking.” And seeing creepy skeleton guys. I didn’t tell Bryn that. I didn’t want him to worry. I’d dragged him into more than enough magical messes. He deserved a night off.

  “I have to get up early tomorrow,” I said. “And you must be exhausted. We should celebrate a different night when we can do it up right.”

  He stepped inside and handed me the bottle. “You heard he’s back in town.”

  “Who?” I asked, pretending I didn’t know what he was talking about.

  Bryn cocked an eyebrow but didn’t say more on the subject of Zach Sutton, my ex-husband.

  Zach and I had been childhood sweethearts who’d gotten married too young. After the marriage went bust, we should’ve gone our separate ways, but the breakup was kind of a bust, too. We’d had an on-again, off-again relationship for three years. Then I’d needed Bryn’s help with magic and in a matter of weeks, I’d fallen in love with him, too. I can’t recommend being in love with two men at the same time. Knowing I’d have to choose between them had my nerves as frayed as old wires.

  Bryn pulled a piece of rolled paper secured with a gold ribbon from his back pocket. He set it on the side table in the foyer.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Something for you. For the smoked salmon at midnight on Tuesday and the coffee and spice cake at two a.m. Thursday. I appreciated it.”

  “I was glad to do it. You were working so hard!” I said. “You didn’t have to get me a present,” I added, but snatched it up and pulled the ribbon strings to unravel it.

  When I unrolled the paper, my heart about stopped. Sarah Nylan’s secret recipe for amaretto caramel sauce is the stuff of culinary legend. The Hill Country candy maker’s sauce elevates an apple crumble to a five-star gourmet treat. I’d been dying to get my hands on her recipe forever.

  “Holy moly! How did you get this? I’ve written Sarah Nylan twice with recipes to trade and sent her samples of my pastries. I promised never to serve the sauce without giving out her website, but she never responded. I would just order bottles from her, but she can’t keep up with demand. It’s a four-month wait to get one jar. What in the world did you do to get this?”

  Bryn shrugged with a smile.

  “You went to see her, didn’t you? One visit from you and she would’ve handed over her firstborn. What’s a little recipe for caramel sauce?”

  “If you think I coerced her, you could tear it up.”

  “Probably I should. As a rule you should be using your powers for bigger causes,” I murmured. “But I really, really want this recipe,” I said, staring at it like I’d found the Holy Grail.

  “I know,” he said.

  I looked up when I heard the knob turn. He was leaving. A wave of guilt swamped me. He’d been working like a dog, and he’d still found time to do something really sweet for me. Of course, Zach being back in town might have been part of the reason Bryn had gone so far out of his way. Bryn could teach even Nick Saban, who won back-to-back college football championships, a thing or two about strategy.

  “Hang on,” I said.

  “Yes?” he asked, turning back.

  “Oh please,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Don’t look so innocent. You know I’m not going to let you leave without giving you something sweet for this.”

  “Something sweet,” he echoed. “That sounds promising. What specifically?”

  “I’m about to put a cake in the oven,” I offered.

  “That’s a good place to start,” he said, and I had no doubt where he wanted things to end. I knew I should push him back out the door, but his beautiful smile reminded me of all the reasons I’m crazy about him.

  “We’re not going to get carried away. If anything, you’re in trouble with me.”

  “Am I?” he asked.

  “I’ve warned
you a bunch of times to stop doing things to make me fall more in love with you, but you just don’t listen.”

  He smiled. “Yeah, me treating you well, it’s a problem.”

  “It is,” I said, waving a hand impatiently. “You know that I made a promise not to make a decision about my love life until . . .” I trailed off with another vague wave of my hand.

  He smiled and held out his arms in an “I surrender” gesture. “All right. Have a glass of champagne with me so I don’t have to celebrate alone. Then feed me a slice of cake and send me packing.”

  “Really? You’ll behave? You won’t try to flirt your way into my bedroom?”

  He shook his head. “Champagne, cake, home.”

  “Okay, then. See how when we negotiate, we’re both happy?”

  “Sure,” he said with another innocent expression that I didn’t trust. Bryn’s a lot of things, but innocent’s not one of them.

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “As long as you agree that the only sugar I’ll be serving up tonight is cocoa pecan cream cake, we’ll get along fine.”

  “I’d never try to force you into anything, Tamara. You know that,” he said sincerely. “Glasses?” he asked, taking the champagne bottle back from me.

  The tension eased from my shoulders. I’d be good for the night at least. Then I really did have to sort things out. It wasn’t fair to any of us for me to keep the relationships in limbo. But it was going to be awful to choose, like trying to decide between hot apple pie à la mode and dark chocolate decadence. Each was perfect in its own way. Too bad men weren’t really desserts. Then each one could have a turn.

  I thunked myself in the head. No matter how good they taste, men aren’t desserts. Get over it, Lady Godiva Chocolates, before you turn into a tart yourself.

  3

  I WAS HALF asleep when a soft yowl and an odd tinkling sound outside my window woke me. I rubbed my eyes and turned my head. Bryn lay next to me in all his gorgeous perfection.

  “Good grief,” I muttered. One glass of champagne, one slice of cake, one funny courtroom story, and here we were. We hadn’t actually made love, but we’d come pretty close.

  I sighed. “You don’t play fair, Lyons,” I whispered. “And I don’t think you ever plan to.”

  The second yowl made me sit up. Was Mercutio trying to get my attention? Hadn’t I left the kitchen window open? Merc knew how to get in that way. I climbed from bed and opened the bedroom window.

  I cocked my head at the tinkling sound. It was a little like wind chimes, but none of my neighbors had chimes that sounded quite like that. It was a little too “nails on the chalkboard” to be pleasant. Maybe that was why Merc yowled. He didn’t like the noise.

  Bryn murmured in his sleep but didn’t really stir. I was glad. He definitely needed some rest.

  “Hello, biscuit.”

  I jerked around to face the chair in the far corner of the room. It was inhabited by the green-eyed ghost of my great-great-grandmother’s twin sister, Edie. Though I’d grown up with Edie and once upon a time we’d been really close, we weren’t on bosom terms at the moment owing to the fact that she’d said some pretty harsh things to me when I got involved with Bryn. I understood her point of view. It was her sister Lenore’s premonitions that prompted the creation of the list of nine forbidden families.

  “Hey,” I said to Edie while glancing over my shoulder to be sure that Bryn was covered. The dollhouse-print quilt my granny Justine had made for me hit him midchest. It was odd for a naked man to be sleeping under that spread. While Zach and I were married, that quilt had hung like a tapestry on the guest room wall.

  The irritating tinkling started again. “What in the Sam Houston is that?” I complained.

  “Melanie’s bluebells. They warn a witch that fae are nearby.”

  I frowned. “I’m half fae. They don’t make that noise around me,” I said, hoping she was wrong about what the ringing meant. I’d had a battle with some really hideous Unseelie fae, and I wasn’t keen to bump into any more of them on a dark night. Or a sunny day for that matter.

  “You have some fae blood, but you’re sixteenth-generation McKenna witch and were raised in a house of witches. The spell on the plants wouldn’t raise an alarm over you.”

  “Aunt Mel bespelled the plants? She shouldn’t have. They won’t like it.”

  “It’s an Earth witch’s garden. Everything in it is under our dominion.”

  “Not the trees,” I said. “Try to make the old ash so much as bend a branch, and you’ll see how much dominion witches have over a garden.”

  Her beautifully sculpted brows rose. “So it’s true, then. You’re toying with becoming a wild one? You won’t survive in the Never. You’re very sweet, but you’re not submissive. You can’t imagine the things they’d do to a Halfling with a rebellious streak.”

  I drew my brows together. “What are you talking about? I’d never go live with the faeries. So far all they’ve ever done is tangle my hair and stab me.” I grimaced. “No thanks. I’m only saying nature’s got to be respected. Those trees are hundreds of years old. A witch who hasn’t even hit forty ought not to mess with them. It’d be like me telling Bryn’s seventy-something-year-old butler, Mr. Jenson, to shine my shoes. I’d sooner eat the shoe polish than disrespect him.”

  “Is that so?” Edie asked, narrowing her almond-shaped eyes. They were heavily lined with kohl, making her look like a Park Avenue Cleopatra. “After all, Jenson does work for Lyons, who’s much younger than his elderly butler. It’s a fact of life that those with the power are destined to make use of it. If you’re not playing lady of the manor at the candylegger’s mansion, what role are you playing? The lord of the manor’s peasant-girl mistress?”

  “I’m not playing anything,” I snapped, but an icy breeze blew in and made my teeth chatter, which took some of the authority out of my voice.

  Bryn stirred.

  “Go away,” I said flatly. “You shouldn’t be in here. You know how he feels about ghosts.” Especially you.

  One time, Bryn had even blocked Edie from reaching me. I’d been furious when I’d found out, but Bryn had reason to distrust ghosts, and Edie actually wasn’t wholly trustworthy. She’d kept so many secrets from me.

  Edie sighed. “Has it really come to this? After all the times I watched over you and played with you when you were a child? You’d really ban me from your life for the likes of him?” She floated from the chair and rested on the bed next to Bryn. “I admit he’s quite beautiful. But those black Irish good looks come with a black Irish heart. He can’t be trusted.”

  “I say he can.” Most of the time. I twisted the ring that had to stay on my finger. To save Bryn’s life I’d made a special vow that tied us together. The day after, I’d woken with a ring on my right middle finger that was linked to one on his left. Removing the ring made my finger burn and ache, the pain spreading with every minute that passed. But constantly wearing it made me uneasy. Bryn claimed the oath I’d made had activated the rings and the best he could do was make them invisible to people. I worried Zach might see through the spell, the way I could when I concentrated. I wondered if Bryn was telling the truth when he said he couldn’t loosen the binding spell on the rings so we could get them off without the pain.

  “What do you know of Lyons’s nature?” Edie demanded. “You’re a prize he’s trying to win. He’ll suck the power from you the way wraiths suck the marrow from witches’ bones. If he’s charming now it’s because it suits his purposes. I bet he’s always sweet.” She said it like it was a dirty word. “I’ll bet he gives you lots of presents. That’s how they get you. The pretty boys are the most dangerous. Take it from someone who knows.”

  She wasn’t wrong about Bryn being able to siphon power from me, but she was wrong about him only wanting me for that. When he’d been forced to tell the truth, he’d confessed he was in love with me.

  She trailed a finger over Bryn’s collarbone.

  He jerked his shoulder forward a
nd back like he was trying to dislodge an insect that had landed on him.

  “Don’t touch him,” I said.

  She glanced at him and then at me. “You haven’t even bothered to put on a robe. You slip toward the wild without even realizing it.”

  I clucked my tongue. “As if you haven’t seen me like this a million times. A locked bathroom door never stopped you from floating right into the shower to tell me something. I’d have a head full of shampoo and soap in my eyes and you’d be reminding me to pick up lavender potpourri or whatever else you wanted from the store.”

  “And from the time you were fourteen, you always yelled at me to get out until you were dressed. But not today.”

  My heart pinched with fear. She was right. I’d felt myself becoming more fae and establishing a connection to things outside myself. I longed for . . . well, I really couldn’t say what I longed for. I only knew that a feeling nagged me. A sense that something was missing and I must find it. Unsettling.

  I glanced at Bryn, biting my lip. He mistrusted faeries. I’d been full fae once under the influence of a spell, and the only thing Bryn cared about was turning me back. If I became too fae, he wouldn’t love me. That thought made my heart ache, and my mind skipped through memories from the past few weeks. Baking strawberry rhubarb pies while Mr. Jenson recounted Bryn’s boyhood adventures in Ireland. Trying a spell that left me covered in maple syrup. When a breeze blew papers against me that stuck, Bryn joked, “the Tammy Jo version of being tarred and feathered,” which dissolved me into giggles. Most of all, I thought of lying with Bryn under the skylight in his bedroom. The Great Gatsby movie was coming out, and I’d said I wanted to read the book. He got it from his library and read me his favorite passage, his voice low and mesmerizing. I’d made him keep going, and we hadn’t fallen asleep until halfway through. The next morning, I stayed in bed to finish it. Over dinner, we talked all about it. Daisy being fair-weathered made me mad, but Bryn defended her, and we argued about the people in the book like they were real. Finally, I got so irritated I threw a buttered roll at him. He’d shot me a look, wiping butter off his cheek, and said, “If you’re going to resort to throwing biscuits, I’m going to ban food from our book clubs.” I burst out laughing and he’d grinned. I never enjoyed a book that much in my life.