Every Witch Way But Wicked (A Wicked Witches of the Midwest Mystery) (2 page)

“You’d be surprised by what is profitable in Hemlock Cove,” I chortled. “This isn’t a normal town, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“No, I noticed,” Brian smiled warmly. “I just didn’t realize that you could actually make a profit selling pewter unicorns.”

“Mrs. Little is one of the richest women in town,” I reminded him. “She does more than make a profit. She makes a killing.”

I paused outside of Hypnotic and waited for Brian to catch up. I noticed that Thistle and Clove had
gone all out this holiday season. Thistle, an accomplished artist, had even painted the front windows of the store with a garish tableau of witches and vampires. I glanced over at Mrs. Little’s front window, which was decorated with paper cats and sparkly witches, and smirked to myself. The dark picture Thistle had painted must be driving her crazy. It was a short trip, though. That’s what made it so much fun.

“This is your cousins’ store?” Brian asked, looking at the window painting appreciatively. “Did they have to hire someone to do this? It’s pretty impressive.”

“No, Thistle did it,” I said simply. “She’s pretty talented.”

“I’ll say.”

I led Brian into the store. My cousin Clove was standing behind the counter bagging herbs. She looked up when she heard the wind chimes at the door tinkle signaling our entrance. Her long black hair was tied into a loose braid at the nape of her neck. At only 4’11”, Clove is diminutive in size but big in attitude. She seemed surprised to see that I had a guest with me.

For his part, Brian hadn’t noticed Clove yet. He was busy looking around the store, taking in the homemade candles, the variety of herbs and an entire stand of home oils.

Clove raised an eyebrow in question, but she didn’t say anything. My family isn’t exactly known for thinking before speaking, but Clove was “trying something new.” A week ago, our other cousin, Thistle, had accused her of being a blabbermouth. In an attempt to prove she was not a blabbermouth, she’d been making a concerted effort to think before she spoke. The plus side was that she hadn’t blabbed any secrets in a week. The downside was that she often forgot what she wanted to say while she was thinking of what not to say. I didn’t think her new endeavor would last that long. Truth be told, I actually missed her chatterbox nature.

I watched Brian look around for a few minutes, but I was starting to get impatient. “Where is Thistle?”

“She’s in the back,” Clove said carefully. “She’s doing work.”

I smirked to myself. I could tell by the way Clove was biting her inner lip that Thistle was not working. She was probably mixing potions – but Clove didn’t want to say anything witchy in front of Brian.

“This is the new owner of The Whistler, Brian Kelly,” I introduced him to Clove.

Brian tore his gaze from the shelf of wax skulls Thistle had made last week and greeted Clove with a bright smile. “This place is great.”

“Thank you.” I could see Clove blush a little. She was obviously attracted to Brian’s good looks. Of course, Clove’s attractions usually lasted about five minutes, so I didn’t know if she was in this for the long haul.

“Who made the skulls?”

“My cousin, Thistle,” Clove answered. “I thought they were a little garish, but they’ve been selling really well.”

“I bet.”

“So, you’re Bay’s new boss,” Clove said. I saw her dimple come out to play. She had listened to me complain for two days straight about having a new boss. I hadn’t told her how good-looking Brian was. “You’re not what I expected.”

“What did you expect?”

“Someone older,” Clove said honestly. Someone less attractive, I mentally supplied. If Clove picked up on my projected thought, she didn’t let on. “So what do you think of The Whistler so far? Bay is doing a good job, huh?”

“She’s doing . . . the best with what she has,” Brian said finally.

Clove’s frown mirrored mine. What was that supposed to mean?

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Clove, Brian and I all swung in surprise as Thistle exited the back of the store and entered the front display room. Her short-cropped hair was dyed a violent shade of purple – a mix between lilac and fuchsia actually – and it brought out the warmth of her skin tone. After six weeks of blue hair – which Thistle’s mom, Twila, swore up and down made her look like a twisted clown – Thistle had finally broken down and changed the hue. In truth, Thistle had grown tired of the blue after a few weeks. She’d kept it for another three weeks just to irritate Twila. She had just dyed it purple the night before. I couldn’t wait until the rest of the family saw it.

“You must be Thistle,” Brian greeted her warmly.

Thistle didn’t return the smile. “What did you mean when you said that Bay was doing the best with what she had? This is Hemlock Cove, not Detroit. She can’t manufacture stories.” The tone of Thistle’s voice was deadly.

“That’s what I meant,” Brian said sheepishly. He could sense the sudden shift in the room. We were a pretty impressive force – especially when we all had PMS.

Clove was suddenly nervous. “I don’t think he meant anything bad by it,” she supplied.

“How do you know?” Thistle challenged.

“I don’t. I was just . . . Don’t be a pill.”

“A pill?” I raised my eyebrows. “Have you been spending time with the aunts?”

“I don’t know why I said it,” Clove grumbled. “It just came out.”

I walked over to the comfortable couch in the middle of the room and slid into it. I spent as much time on that couch as I did on the one at the
guesthouse where the three of us lived together. It was housed on the property of The Overlook, a local bed and breakfast run by our mothers. And, no, they still didn’t get the irony of renaming the inn after the creepy hotel in
The Shining
.

“Brian wanted a tour of the town,” I said, trying to break the frosty silence that was still emanating from Thistle.

Thistle shot one more dark look in Brian’s direction and then made her way to the couch and plopped down beside me. “Why is he here?”

“He wanted to meet local business owners,” I replied. “He wanted to start at the top.”

Clove glowed under the compliment. Thistle merely softened – slightly. “What do you want to know?”

Brian sat down on the chair across from us. I couldn’t help but notice that it was the furthest sitting surface from Thistle. She was fairly frightening when she wanted to be.

“I just wanted to get a feel for the town, and the business owners,” he said smoothly. He flashed a sexy smile in Thistle’s direction. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that it was entirely wasted on her. Even if Thistle wasn’t in a constant state of flirt with the local stable owner, Marcus, Brian wouldn’t be her type. She’s Bohemian chic, not business casual.

“The town is pretty set in its ways,” Thistle said blithely. “The town has an identity that isn’t going to shift. Even if you want it to.”

“Why would I want it to shift?”

“You just have that look about you,” Thistle challenged.

“I love the town,” Brian replied. “I can’t imagine a cooler place to live.”

He said the words earnestly, but I don’t think any of us – even Clove – believed him.

Clove decided that the best way to ease the tension was food. We all agreed on Chinese, and Clove placed the order. It would be twenty minutes before the food arrived, and we were all stumped for a topic of conversation.

If it was just the three of us, we would have talked about the revenge we were currently plotting on Aunt Tillie for her latest curse – which Thistle was convinced had given her a mustache. That wasn’t really an option, so we settled on the upcoming Murder Mystery Weekend that the town was hosting.

“This is the first time the town has done something like this?” Brian asked.

“We do a lot of town events, bonfires and reenactments,” Clove explained. “This is the first time we’ve done a murder mystery that everyone is involved in. We have events all week leading up to the actual murder mystery this weekend.”

“Do you know who the murderer is?”

“We’re not on the planning committee,” Thistle said wanly. “Our mothers are, but they won’t tell us what is planned.”

Brian chuckled throatily. “Don’t they trust you?”

“Not even a little,” I said ruefully.

“Sounds like a fun family.” He was shooting for levity.

“Only if you’re into masochism,” Thistle shot back.

Brian searched all three of our faces for traces that Thistle was joking. I don’t think he was encouraged by the grim set of all of our jaws.

“I can’t wait to meet the rest of your family,” he said finally.

“Famous last words,” Thistle muttered.

After lunch, Brian made a hasty exit. He said he wanted to introduce himself to a few more business owners, but I think he really just wanted to get away from Thistle.

The truth is, Thistle is often grumpy – but she’s usually not overtly hostile. Planning revenge on Aunt Tillie had been consuming her for three days straight. I don’t think she’d been getting a lot of sleep.

I promised Brian I would meet him back in the office a little later in the afternoon, but I wanted to talk to Thistle and Clove about some things before I returned to the office.

“You just want to gossip about my dimples,” Brian said charmingly at the door.

Clove blushed when his gaze landed on her. I flashed him a fake smile. I could tell Thistle was fighting the urge to shoot him the finger.

When he was gone, I turned to my cousins. “What do you think?”

“I think he’s an ass,” Thistle said simply.

“I think he’s hot,” Clove sighed dreamily.

“I think he’s up to something,” I interjected.

“Like what?” Thistle asked suspiciously.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I just get a weird vibe off him.”

“He’s probably evil,” Thistle said.

“He’s probably just a nice guy who spent a lot of time in the city and is out of his element,” Clove corrected her.

“You’re so naïve,” Thistle grumbled.

“And you’re so . . . witchy,” Clove’s voice had risen an octave.

“We’re all witchy,” I smirked.

“Keep an eye on him,” Thistle warned me. “I don’t trust him.”

“You don’t like him,” Clove countered.

“It’s the same thing.”

We lapsed into silence for a few minutes and then I turned to Thistle expectantly. “So, what do you have planned for Aunt Tillie?”

“I haven’t decided yet,” Thistle said stiffly. “It’s got to be epic, though.”

“I’m still not sure she cursed us,” Clove said dubiously.

“We all grew mustaches overnight,” Thistle scoffed. “Do you remember what waxing them felt like? It hurt. Then they didn’t grow back, although you had what looked like razor burn on your upper lip for a week. That’s definitely a curse.”

Clove frowned. “I still don’t understand why I had such a bad reaction to the wax.”

“Probably because she was really mad at you,” I said. “And she took it out on all of us to make a point.”

“I told you, I am not the one that stole pot from her field,” Clove challenged. “I think it was Twila.”

“It doesn’t matter. She thought it was you because you looked stoned that night.”

“My eyes were red from the pollen in the air,” Clove practically shrieked.

Thistle and I watched Clove suspiciously. Neither one of us were sure Clove wasn’t actually the one that had stolen from Aunt Tillie’s pot field. We hadn’t even known about the field until a couple of weeks ago. In the time since, Clove kept going for “walks” in the middle of the day. None of us were especially known for hiking through the woods, so you can understand our suspicions.

“I’m not going over this with you again,” Clove said stubbornly. “It wasn’t me. Maybe it was the two of you and you’re just blaming it on me?”

Not likely.

“You know Bay and I get our life highs from a bottle, not from herb,” Thistle replied snottily.

“Only a guilty person tries to push blame off onto someone else,” I supplied.

“I hate you both,” Clove grumbled.

Thankfully for all of us, the door at the front of the store jingled. We all turned to see a handsome man walk through the door. He was dressed in simple jeans and a white T-shirt, but you could tell how impressively built he was thanks to the snugness of both.

“Hi, Marcus,” I said sweetly, shooting a glance in Thistle’s direction. I couldn’t tell for sure, especially because she had so much makeup on, but I could swear her cheeks were reddening.

Thistle and Marcus had been flirting for a month. Marcus was now running the town stable, and Thistle was suddenly interested in picking up feed for the inn’s horses on a regular basis.

They hadn’t gone out on a real date yet – but it was only a matter of time.

“Hello, ladies,” Marcus greeted us amiably. “You all look especially pretty today.” His gaze fell on Thistle – and lingered there. “Your hair looks amazing.”