With Hearts Aflame: Valentine's Day Box Set Page 16

  "We get it, Lindsey! Moving on!"

  "Moving on, I take my medicine at the door and go in strong—scooch over, Dam."

  Damien scooched. Lindsey sat down very close, crossed one leg over the other and rubbed her toe along his shin as she innocently sipped her drink. Now it was Harper's turn to frown.

  "I give him a smile," said Lindsey, smiling at Damien. "And I'm sending him all the signals." She toyed with a lock of her hair playfully, then let her hand trail down to unhook the first button on her blouse. "I order my drink and when he brings it, I give it a little stir—" She swirled her plastic stirrer through the foam on her cappuccino. "—and a taste." She brushed the frothy end of the stirrer across her lips and licked away the foam with the very tip of her tongue.

  Harper's hands hurt. She looked down and realized she was clenching them into fists. Unlocking them took more effort than it ought to.

  "Very alluring," said Damien, moving back a few inches, all the way against the sofa's arm. "How did he take it?"

  Lindsey shrugged one shoulder and sipped her coffee. "Same way he always takes it. Polite as ever, but zero attraction. Strike one."

  "Proof that the potion does not compel someone against his will if he's not interested," Harper said meaningfully. "Go on."

  "So, okay, no luck with the bartender. However, who should walk in but one of last year's favorite mistakes with a new girl on his arm. I see him, he sees me, so I put the girls on their best behavior—" Lindsey opened up another button and gave her bra a little cup and squeeze, looking demurely through her long lashes at Damien the whole time. "—and we head on over to his table. How do I look?"

  "Cold," Damien replied, stone-faced.

  Lindsey grinned. "The word you're looking for is 'perky'."

  "And?" Harper asked loudly.

  Her sister shrugged again and leaned back in the sofa cushions. "And nothing. Oh, I can tell he's totally into me, but his girlfriend is right there looking daggers at me and him both, so he didn't make a play. Strike two."

  "Which means," Harper declared, "that the potion does not compel him even if he is interested. So there. It's completely harmless, just like I said."

  Damien looked at her and did not reply.

  "By this time, I'm starting to wonder if it even works at all," Lindsey went on. "Plus, time is running out, so I head back to my place and pull out the old Booty Buddy book. And for this experiment, I pick Chaz. He's on the swim team, so he has lots of stamina, plus he has morning classes so he never stays the night. Also hot. Not bartender-hot, but hot in an Orlando Bloomish, Chris Hemsworthy kind of way. You know, the kind of guy who's almost prettier than you are and so feels he's got something to prove? The only reason I don't use him more often is because he doesn't take direction well and he's one of those guys whose previous experience comes almost entirely from the Internet. Way more enthusiasm than technique, if you get me."

  "You have more than one booty buddy?" Damien interjected.

  "Variety is the spice of life, sweetie. Back to my story. Chaz comes over and holy-moley, the boy has become a man. Without grossing you out with too many details, I can honestly say it was the best sex of my life. I mean, it got a little weird there at the beginning, but I have no complaints."

  "Weird?"

  "Yeah, a little." Lindsey shrugged and winked at Damien. "We broke the bed. That should tell you how much I minded. Well! I've got to go. I just wanted to pop in and tell you how it went."

  "I appreciate it. Want me to comp you a bottle for all your hard work?"

  Lindsey laughed and got up to freshen her coffee for the road. "No thanks. Once was enough. I mean, you eat filet mignon every night, you kind of lose the taste for burgers, you know? Besides, I wore him out so bad, he ended up staying over and I can't cope with that. I had to make him breakfast and let him borrow my toothbrush and everything. It was so awkward. I much prefer to hit it and quit it, right, Damien?"

  "Not my style," he replied, but he was smiling just a little.

  "Oh shoot, really? You're one of those 'relationship' guys?"

  "Sorry to disappoint you."

  "Well, you can't win 'em all. So long, Sis. Bye, Damien!"

  "Good to see you, Lindsey."

  "So?" Harper pressed once her sister had gone.

  He glanced at her and went over to wipe down the cappuccino machine. "I don't know what you're expecting, but if it's my seal of approval, you're still not getting it."

  "Why not?"

  He fixed her with a level stare. "Nothing has changed. You know how I feel about this."

  "I don't believe you! You wanted it tested, I tested it! It works, it doesn't affect anyone against their will and it's completely harmless! What more do you want?"

  "I want you to pour it down the drain."

  "Are you kidding me? Look, it's already made. If I dump it out now, I lose money. What are you always telling me about wasting inventory?"

  "How much are you charging for a bottle?"

  "Six bucks," she said defiantly.

  He pulled out his wallet. "I'll buy them. All of them."

  "No!"

  "Why not?"

  "I... Because you don't want them, you just want to stop me!"

  "And you don't want the money, you just want to throw magic around. And when you throw it at people who can't possibly defend themselves—"

  "Defend themselves against what? Great sex?"

  "—then you're nothing but a bully."

  "A bully?" she echoed, blushing. "A bully! Aren't you over-reacting just a little?"

  "Aren't you?" he countered. "Look, I'm tired of arguing and I know I'm not getting anywhere, so I'll make it really simple for you. I want no part of this. I won't sell them. If you want to make potions for other witches, that's one thing. Selling unsuspecting normals a magic spell is something else entirely and if you genuinely don't understand that, I can't explain it."

  "I sold a thousand blessing charms last year! I sold three hundred fairy jars and at least as many dream prisms and you had no problem with any of it!"

  "That's different."

  "Yeah, it is! Because they were total fakes and somehow you seem to think lying to people and telling them something's magic when it isn't is more moral than giving them the genuine article! Well, I think that's a load of crap!"

  "No, you don't."

  She gaped at him for a moment, utterly derailed. "What do you mean, I don't?" she demanded. "Don't you tell me what I believe and don't believe!"

  "You gave Mrs. Emerson a real blessing charm when her daughter was having surgery. I saw you do it. It took five seconds and cost exactly nothing in materials. You just pretended to drop it and while you were down picking it up, you waved your hand and gave it a tap and that was it. The genuine article, just for her."

  "She needed it."

  "I'm not arguing that," he said. "I'm saying, you could enchant everything in this store if you wanted to, but you don't. If it bothers you so much to sell fake charms and fake spells, why don't you sell real ones? Why don't you get up right now and start witching up the place?"

  "B-because... "

  "Because unfocused magic acts in unpredictable ways," he answered for her. "And if people don't know and don't really believe something's magic, they can't control it."

  "They don't have to," she said, exasperated. "Not for this! It wears off on its own in just a few hours!"

  He clapped a hand over his eyes and rubbed them without speaking for a long time. "I'm not going to convince you this way," he muttered at last.

  And as frustrated as she was, Harper couldn't help but wonder what other ways he might try, given the chance.

  "I have always believed in letting people make their own mistakes," he was saying. "And I guess I have to stand back and let you make this one too. But there are going to be consequences." He shook his head, then collected his jacket and headed for the door.

  "Where are you going?" she asked in a little voice.

  "Out
."

  "Are you coming back?"

  He paused, the winter wind rushing in around him and looked back at her.

  She stood there with her stupid sign in both hands and snow blowing in from the parking lot to smear all her hard work, practically in tears but unable to just shut up. "Are we still friends?"

  He let the door close and came back, reaching across the counter to grip her shoulders. "You make me so mad sometimes," he said seriously, not sounding mad at all. "But I can't stop loving you."

  It was the first time he'd said anything like that and she wasn't ready to hear it. She could say nothing.

  "I'm not holding you hostage over this, Harper. Whatever you do, I'll still be there when it's over. Okay?"

  "Okay."

  He released her and stepped back. "But I can't stay here and watch you do this. I'm going home."

  She nodded, her eyes burning. She wasn't doing anything wrong, she told herself. She wasn't!

  "Call me if you need me," he said. "Come over if you want."

  She nodded, silent.

  He walked out into the wind and was gone.

  Harper stared at the door until her vision blurred. Then she slowly hung her sign up and went upstairs to get her potions.

  Chapter Four

  She sold no bottles that first day, but a few the next day and a few more over the weekend. On Monday, she got her first repeat customer—Mrs. MacGuire, giggling and blushing like a schoolgirl as she picked up a dozen bottles, saying they were joke gifts for friends in one breath and adding that she hadn't seen Mr. MacGuire 'that way' since their honeymoon in the next. Over the next three days, sales steadily climbed, so that she had to make a second batch just to get through the week.

  And then, the returns.

  "I don't know how you did it," one lady said, handing her empty bottle with a blush and a scowl. "If it was hypnosis or... or mushrooms or what, but if I thought I could get away with it, I'd sue."

  Another woman turned in three of the five bottles she'd purchased, saying that once was funny, but if 'that' was going to happen every time, she was not interested.

  Mr. Lak Ng, who had been a loyal customer since the store's opening, told her stiffly that he would not be back.

  Most baffling of all was Mrs. MacGuire, who, only one week after stocking up with such girlish glee, came in one morning to return half of her purchases. "It's just not my thing, dear," she said and that was all she would say.

  Although most people seemed happy enough with the potion (if she took it for granted that no feedback meant a positive experience), these unexpected sour notes unsettled her. No one seemed willing to actually tell her what the problem was, so after several futile inquiries, Harper gave up and called Lindsey.

  "It was fine," Lindsey said, sounding puzzled. "Worked great. I already told you everything there is to tell, unless you want a play-by-play from the bedroom."

  "You said it was weird," Harper reminded her. "What specifically was weird about it?"

  "Oh. That." Lindsey laughed. "That was nothing, I'm sure."

  "What? Tell me!"

  "Well, it's... I don't know, it's a bit embarrassing."

  "Really! You couldn't wait to tell me that time you hooked up with Pluto at Disneyland and he kept the costume on the whole time, but now you're embarrassed?"

  "Okay, okay. He spanked me."

  Harper's brain went immediately, perfectly blank. "Pluto?"

  "No, you idiot. Chaz. Big deal, right?" Lindsey laughed again. "But the thing is, I wasn't expecting it. He's never done it before, not even a little slap on the ass during... you know. But that night, it was practically the main event. Everything else was great," she hastened to add. "He rocked my world. I wasn't kidding about the bed breaking. But, yeah, it started with a spanking, which he seemed to think was super sexy. Like, there was all this kneading and rubbing and really getting into it in-between the whacks."

  "Ungh," said Harper.

  "It was sort of sexy," Lindsey said dubiously. "Not my thing, but I guess it was his. It was just weird that he never done anything like that before. Or since. But it was fine, other than that. Really great sex, once the sex got started."

  "Ermm."

  "But you know the weirdest thing about it," Lindsey continued, "was that I think I asked him to."

  "W-What?"

  "We were making out against the wall, you know how it is, banging into furniture and knocking pictures down. Everything was going so hot and then I have this kind of vague memory of saying something like, 'Let's make love,' which is bizarre enough because that is way cornier than I usually get. I mean, who says that, really?"

  "Uh-huh," she said weakly. "But you didn't actually say—"

  "No, I totally did! At least, I think I did. I said, 'Spank... ' No! It was, 'I want you to spank me,' and he took me over to the bed and did it."

  "Oh."

  "It was fun, I guess," Lindsey concluded, still sounding confused. "Honestly, though, it may not have even happened. That whole part feels kind of fuzzy, like remembering something I only saw in a movie. And once the sex started, well, that was a total showstopper. Look, I've got to go. Are you okay?"

  "Yeah."

  "Okay then, see ya. Say hi to Damien for me."

  Harper shot a panicked glance over at the coffee corner, as if her sister's casual words had somehow summoned him like a disapproving genie. Then she banged down the phone, snatched up the trashcan she kept under the counter and swept the rest of the cheerful little heart-shaped bottles into it with both arms. One of the potions evaded her, tumbling to the floor and landing upside down. Funny how much a heart looked like a bottom in that position, especially when full of pink potion. A round, rosy, well-spanked bottom.

  Harper ran to the door and locked it, flipping the welcome frog over from Open to Closed right in Mrs. Moonchild's startled face. Then, grabbing her potions, she ran upstairs to her apartment and locked that door too.

  She paced in her living room for several minutes, circling the trashcan and occasionally raking her hands through her hair. She had sold almost two hundred potions, most of which were surely being saved for Valentine's Day itself, which meant that sometime tonight, dozens of unsuspecting people were going to take a drink and find themselves bottoms up. How could she stop it? Potions was the one thing Harper was really good at, but if there was a way to nullify their power from home, she didn't know how. No one in her family could possibly help. The Hickeses could barely be called witches anymore. She needed...

  She needed a Hedgewick, she realized. She needed the Hedgewick, the one whose own grand book of spells was just downstairs, full of charms and potions and star charts and recipes and promising right there on its introductory page to tell her how to conjure spirits.

  Back down to the shop she raced, fumbling the key out of her pocket and running the book with her up to her apartment, already flipping frantically through pages. Out came the cauldron. Feather of owl, tooth of wolf, garlic and mugwort and willow and sage. Blue smoke billowed up, turned white. Drifted down and drew together and there, peering curiously around her kitchen, was an old lady in a long dress and bonnet.

  "Are you Verity Hedgewick?" Harper asked tremulously.

  "I was," said the smoke in a wispy sort of voice. "And who are ye?"

  "Harper Hickes. Your great-great-great... something or other. I need your help," she said, lunging out for a bottle and holding it up. "I tried to make your love potion and ended up making a... a spanking potion!"

  "Eh? How in heaven's name did ye manage that?"

  "Please, just tell me I can fix this by tomorrow!"

  "I'm quite certain I never penned a love potion," the smoke grumbled, uncorking the bottle and taking a judicious whiff. "Folk be needing no encouragement to indulge themselves in that sort of thing... ye used rosehips."

  "Instead of roses, yeah. I wanted a more temporary—"

  "Roses direct the focus to the will of the one who drinks," the smoke announced, stopping
up the bottle and setting it decisively on the table. "Ye used rosehips. Your own energy overpowered that of the one who drinks. Ye bottled your own desires."

  "What? What does that mean?"

  "It means," the ghost said in a terse, irritated way, "that when your Molly Frolicsome drinks from yon bottle, expecting her fine fellow to play her through all her wanton humors, she gets instead your fantasy."

  "But how do I stop it?" Harper wailed.

  "Stop it?" The ghost blinked and looked annoyed. "Do ye know nothing of witchery, girl? Drink the potion, bring all your focus onto the, eh, unwelcome desire and any counter curse should do to banish the magic you've let slip. Nothing could be simpler!"

  "How am I supposed to bring my focus onto... onto that?"

  The smoke sniffed. "I'm sure your good husband will be happy to see that accomplished. And not done soon enough, I say! For shame, playing about with potions at your age." The smoke glowered and began to dissipate.

  "I... I was just... "

  "Oh aye, I know what ye were just about. I raised up eleven children and every one of them running about behind my back, putting wings on the cat and turning good ale green just because they could. And you, a grown woman! If ye'd had more of what ye'd bottled up, ye'd not be in this predicament. I weep for the future."

  She was gone, leaving Harper alone with her failed potions and a roomful of thinning smoke.

  Focus her desires? Much as she wanted to pretend she didn't know what that meant, she did and she didn't have time to be timid. Reluctantly, she dug her phone out of her pocket and stared at it. Maybe Lindsey would loan her a booty buddy if she asked. Maybe she could just find a bar and pick a guy up herself; how hard could that be? She didn't have to call the number she was even now dialing. He was the last person she wanted to know about any of this.

  The phone rang twice and he picked up. "Harper," said Damien. He sounded like he might be frowning already. "What's up?"

  The call was brief. He asked a few questions and would not take "I don't know" for an answer. He didn't raise his voice, didn't rub it in, didn't say he'd told her so. Half an hour after he hung up, he was letting himself in.