Don't Hex with Texas (6 page)

“It was probably some kid,” Nita said as we left the theater, still munching our leftover popcorn. “The crime rate has really gone up in the last year or so. Some of the kids have even tried to form a gang. Not that they know what to do with a gang, but it’s a lot of pranks like that. I remember when you could leave your purse on the seat beside you during a movie and it would be totally safe.”

“Yeah, kids these days.”

The two of us were still giggling about sounding like old-timers when Nita shrieked. “What is it?” I asked.

She didn’t bother answering. Instead, she grabbed the wooden advertising sign from in front of the antiques shop next to the theater and beat it on the ground a few times, all the while shouting, “Take that, and that, and that!” Then she grabbed my arm, shrieked again, and took off running across the square. I had to struggle to keep up with her.

“What is it?” I asked again when she’d slowed down enough to talk.

She pointed shakily toward the sidewalk near the movie theater. “Snake! There! Sidewalk! Dead now!”

“You killed a snake on the sidewalk by the movie theater?” I translated.

She nodded furiously, and I couldn’t help but look for something high to stand on top of. “What kind of snake was it?”

“Dead. If you really want to know, you can go look for yourself, but I don’t think much of the head is left.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” I had a feeling there wouldn’t be anything to find, though. I hadn’t seen a snake at all. I suspected it had been little more than an illusion, but was Nita the target, or was I? I looked up to see Sam sitting on a tree branch nearby, and I felt a lot safer. His job was protecting people against magical threats, and I had a feeling he’d know what to do with a snake, too. “Are you okay?” I asked Nita.

“I need ice cream,” she announced. “Killing snakes makes me hungry.” We got into her car and went to the Dairy Queen for sundaes, then headed back to the courthouse square so I could get my truck and go home. Unfortunately, my truck wasn’t there.

“Boy, you were right about the crime,” I said, staring at the empty parking space. I didn’t care enough about the old truck to be too sad about it being stolen from me, but it was going to be inconvenient.

“Look, there’s something on the curb,” Nita pointed out. A piece of paper sitting on the curb fluttered from under a rock placed on top of it.

I retrieved the paper, then moved under a streetlamp to read out loud: “Sis, borrowed the truck since Sherri left me stranded. I still had a key. I’ll get it back to you later. Get a ride home with Nita. Dean.” I looked over at Nita. “Can I get a ride home?”

“No problem. That just keeps me out later, which is okay with me. Too bad there aren’t any bars in town so we could make it a real girls’ night out.”

“We both have early mornings tomorrow,” I reminded her, “and seeing as we both snoozed a little during the movie, I don’t think we’re up for a late night. Besides, your mom would kill you if you went out drinking, and then she’d be convinced I led you to your ruin.”

“I have
got
to get away from here. I’m too young to act like a senior citizen. Well, come on, let’s go.”

When we were back in her car, I said, “Drive by Dean’s house first. It will make life easier if I can pick the truck up now.” But the truck wasn’t there, just Sherri and Dean’s cars. It looked like Dean had started and then forgotten some kind of ambitious building project on the front of the house, which might explain why Sherri was peeved at him. “Oh well, never mind. I guess you’ll have to take me home. I wonder where Dean is.”

The truck was parked in the driveway at my parents’ house, which wasn’t a huge surprise. Dean ran straight home every time he and Sherri had a fight. Nita glanced over at me and said, “We’ve got empty rooms at the motel if you need a place to hide.”

I unbuckled my seat belt. “Thanks for the offer, but this shouldn’t be too bad. I’ll just go to my room and ignore it all. And thanks for the night out—it was fun.”

“No, it wasn’t really what I’d call fun, but it was about as close as you can get around here, and thanks for coming along. See you soon!”

I got inside to find Dean sitting at the kitchen table, being consoled by Mom with various pastries. “Someday she’ll learn to appreciate all the things you have to offer her,” Mom was saying as I crept through the kitchen. The only time Mom ever said anything against Sherri was when Dean and Sherri were fighting, which meant I got to hear Mom criticize Sherri at least once a month.

“’Night, everyone!” I said casually once I was safely in the living room.

“Did you have a good time at the movies?” Mom asked.

“Just fabulous. And how did you know?”

“I saw you heading over there after you left the café,” Dean admitted. In other words, he’d blabbed about my night out, even though I was an adult and allowed to go out with a friend. On the other hand, that meant Mom had known where I was and hadn’t panicked, so I decided not to complain this time. I was a lot more disturbed by the magical activity I’d seen, some of which was actual criminal behavior instead of just the semi-benign manipulation the wizard had been doing earlier.

As soon as I was sure everyone in the house was sound asleep—including Dean in the bedroom he used to share with Teddy—I did something I hadn’t done since I was in high school. I opened my window and crawled out onto the porch roof, then went from there to an adjacent tree that allowed me to climb fairly easily down to the ground. The boys had made far more use of that escape route than I had, but I’d been dragged along once or twice. It was the only safe way to get out of the house without alerting my parents because there was a really squeaky spot on the stairs that woke everyone up if you hit it, and we’d never figured out a way to avoid it.

Dean had left the truck parked far enough away that I could start it without waking everyone, so I drove back downtown to the square, where I found Sam. “I never saw you as a night owl,” he said when he landed next to the truck.

“I needed to talk to you, and I figured this might be one time when I wouldn’t be interrupted. It’s nearly impossible for me to get away for any length of time around here.” I told him what had happened in the theater and then with Nita’s snake outside the theater. He flew quickly over to that stretch of sidewalk, poked around a bit, then flew back to me.

“Nothing,” he reported. “If there was any blood or if anything had died over there, then someone must have done a really good cleaning job. The sign’s kind of banged up, though. Say, do you think the bad guy is targeting you?”

“If he’s targeting me, it can’t be because he knows me from my work at MSI. He’d have known I was immune to magic and wouldn’t have seen an illusion of a snake. It was probably random, targeting two women who would probably react to a snake by screaming and running. He just didn’t count on Nita being so violently anti-snake.”

“I still don’t like it. It hits a little too close to home. Why here, and why do all these things seem to be happening around your family?” I opened my mouth to answer him, but he held up a wing to silence me. “Answerin’ those questions is my job. You’re out of this. Keep your eyes open, of course, but this ain’t your fight anymore. Now you go home and get your beauty sleep, and I’ll take care of everything.”

Getting back up on the porch roof was a little more difficult than getting down, but I made it safely back to my bedroom with only a scratch or two. I was out of practice for that kind of sneaking around. It was hard getting to sleep, but I kept telling myself that Sam had things under control. All I had to do was keep Mom from seeing anything she shouldn’t until Sam had wrapped things up and caught the bad guys.

Over the next day or so, I resisted the urge to run by the square every time I needed to go through town, and made more offers to run to the grocery store for my mom than I used to when I was in high school and had a crush on one of the bag boys. That was the only way to keep her completely away from the area of maximum magical activity.

Friday morning, I had the pleasure of dealing with some of the less glamorous aspects of the business (which was pretty nonglamorous to begin with). Dean wasn’t to be found and Dad was making deliveries, so I got to help Teddy and Frank unload a shipment. By the time we were done, I was drenched in sweat. I found a T-shirt advertising cattle feed left from a vendor’s visit in my office and changed into that so I wouldn’t be too hideously smelly for the rest of the day. I was afraid to look in the mirror at what my hair and face looked like, so I hid in my office, catching up on paperwork.

Just after lunch Beth showed up. I took Lucy off her hands while she worked the register. I was getting ready to head home when Beth called me from the front of the store. “Katie, someone’s here to see you.”

I had the usual reaction to being told that someone wanted to see me—racing pulse, pounding heart, a bit of a shiver down my spine—but it went away more quickly than usual. With Sam in town and on the case, the odds of anyone else showing up were pretty slim. It was most likely a salesman or, God forbid, Steve Grant.

Boosting Lucy up on my hip, I made my way out to the front of the store, a fake-pleasant smile plastered on my face as I prepared to deal with a salesman. And then I froze in shock and horror.

Owen Palmer was standing live and in the flesh in the middle of Chandler Agricultural Supply.

“Oh. You,” was all I could think of to say.

W
e stared at each other for a long moment. I’d thought I’d become pretty good at reading Owen, but I hadn’t the slightest idea what was going through his mind. Normally I could gauge by the color and intensity of his blushes, but given sun exposure and the Texas climate, I couldn’t tell how much of the redness on his face was an emotional blush and how much was possibly sunburn or heat.

Beth, being the sensitive soul that she is, beat a strategic retreat to the other side of the store, where she busied herself straightening shelves that were already in good order. It was nice of her to do so, but it didn’t seem to do Owen and me much good since neither of us managed to say anything.

Finally, he cracked the slightest hint of a smile, and a spark of humor lit his eyes as he gestured toward Lucy. “I know you haven’t been gone that long.”

It took me a second to realize I was still holding the baby. Meanwhile, I let my breath out in a big whoosh of relief. It certainly didn’t sound like he hated me. “She’s my niece,” I explained. “She belongs to Beth, the one who made such a nice show of giving us some privacy. Beth’s married to my youngest brother.”

In all the scenarios I’d daydreamed about the reunion I couldn’t help but hope for one day, I hadn’t ever imagined it this way, with me explaining my family tree to him. I also hadn’t looked quite like this. Why did he have to show up when I was at my worst, wearing grubby jeans, a T-shirt three sizes too large, my hair straggling out of a ponytail, and no makeup? It wasn’t fair at all.

The store’s phone rang, but it only rang once, which meant Beth must have picked it up and couldn’t be eavesdropping on us very intently. I decided to take advantage of that. “I wasn’t expecting you,” I said. “I mean, with Sam here already.”

“With Idris involved, this isn’t a one-man job anymore. I want to get to the bottom of this.” He kept his voice low, which was probably a good idea, since Beth’s ears were practically out on stalks as she tried to listen in, even if she was on the phone. I thought I detected a note of bitterness in his voice, but that could have been my guilty conscience playing tricks on me. He wasn’t scowling or looking angry.

“Well, um, it’s good to see you,” I said.

He opened his mouth, but then saw Beth heading back our way, closed it, then after a pause said, “It’s kind of hot here, isn’t it? I mean, for April.”

“It’s just April in Texas,” I said with a casual shrug. Actually, we were in the middle of a bad heat wave and it was unseasonably hot, but this was a game we Texans couldn’t help but play with Yankees who complained about the heat, even if we were suffering almost as badly.

“Katie, I need your help with something,” Beth said as she reached us. The apologetic look on her face appeared to be genuine.

“Excuse me for a second,” I said to Owen and turned to follow Beth, but she stopped and frowned.

“You’ll need your hands free.” She took the baby from me and handed her to Owen. “Here, would you mind holding her for a second? Thanks.”

I should have intervened on Owen’s behalf, but Beth dragged me away too quickly. I didn’t think he had much experience with babies or small children. He was an only child, and all of his friends that I knew of were childless. Sticking him with a baby was cruel and unusual punishment, but Beth was such a natural with kids that she didn’t realize not everyone else was.

“What did you need?” I asked Beth before she had a chance to ask me about the incredibly handsome guy who’d come to see me.

“A customer’s going to be coming by to pick something up, and it’s on that top shelf.”

I knew right away what Beth needed. Her one flaw, as far as I could tell, was that she was deathly afraid of heights. She didn’t even like climbing up on a stepladder. “Okay, I’ll get it. Tell me what you need.”

“I’ll hold the ladder steady,” she hurried to offer. “I need that cedar bird feeder up there.”

“You mean the one left over from the fall? The one we didn’t manage to sell? What does someone need a bird feeder for at this time of year?”

“I don’t ask. I just sell. And I guess there might be people who feed birds year-round so they can look at them.”

I was halfway up the ladder when she asked, “So, who’s the guy?”

I wasn’t sure what to tell her. Explaining Owen’s presence was a nowin proposition. If I said he was here on business, they’d want to know what business could possibly bring him here, and then they’d ask about the business. If I said he was my boyfriend, he’d have the whole family ganging up on him, and it would be incredibly awkward for both of us, considering that I was the one who’d broken up with him and it didn’t appear that he’d come to beg me to go back with him. The truth was, of course, out of the question.

“He’s someone I know from New York. I haven’t yet had a chance to ask him what he’s doing here, since someone had to drag me away to climb a ladder for her.”

When I got back down with the bird feeder, she had the good grace to be blushing prettily. As a fair-skinned redhead, she could almost out-blush Owen in the rare instances when she was embarrassed about something. “Sorry about that. And no, it was not a ploy. I really do need this. Mr. Ward is coming by to pick this up, and you know what he’s like. If it’s not waiting on the front counter when he gets here, the whole town will hear about how lousy our service is. I wouldn’t put it past him to run stoplights and speed to try to get here before we can have it ready for him, so I didn’t dare wait.”

“It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. I just hope Owen survives your daughter.”

Much to my surprise, Lucy was snuggled up against Owen’s shoulder, looking utterly blissful. I could hardly blame her. Even at nine months old, she had good taste in men. Owen didn’t look quite as comfortable as she did, but he wasn’t as panic-stricken as I’d feared.

“Sorry about that,” Beth said to Owen as I put the bird feeder on the counter. “Minor business emergency. And now I’ll relieve you of my daughter.” She reached for Lucy, who whimpered and clung desperately to Owen’s shirt. “Oh, come on, you’re not abandoning me already, are you?” she asked the baby. “Come back to Mama. You can play with…um?” She gave me a pointed look.

“Beth, this is Owen Palmer, a friend from New York. Owen, this is my sister-in-law, Beth. And your new biggest fan is Lucy.”

“Nice to meet you, Owen,” Beth beamed. “Lucy, you can play with Mr. Owen later, okay? Right now, I’m sure he and Auntie Katie would like to talk.”

It took all three of us to detach the whimpering baby from Owen’s shirt, and Beth whisked her away before the whimpering could escalate into a full-scale tantrum. “My, but you do have a way with the ladies,” I teased. The quick flush that spread across his cheeks was a great relief to me. It meant he couldn’t have changed that much since I’d been gone.

But he had changed in other respects. I saw what Marcia meant about him looking thin and tired. That made him look older and more serious than I remembered him being. “So, I guess you flew here?” I said. “I mean, not like flying, just…”

“American Airlines,” he finished my sentence, another one of those sparks of humor lighting his dark blue eyes and almost making me swoon. It looked like the effect he could have on me hadn’t changed at all.

“Good, good,” I said, nodding. “And you had a good flight? I guess you flew into DFW and drove down?”

“No, for that leg of the trip I got out my flying carpet.”

“Really?”

Then he really smiled, for the first time since he walked in the store. “No, not really. That takes a lot of energy, and the magic lines here are weak enough that I thought I’d better save my strength. I got a rental and drove. It was an interesting trip. I guess I got to see a good part of the state.”

“Yeah, that’s a nice drive, a good cross-section of Texas.” I wanted to scream with frustration, even as I kept the small talk going. I’d missed him desperately for the past four months, and here we were talking about his travel arrangements instead of talking about us or even talking about the situation that had brought him here.

And then it was too late to get into the good stuff because my family started swarming. If I hadn’t been absolutely certain that Beth would never do such a thing, I’d have halfway suspected her of calling them all to tell them about my visitor. As it was, I had a feeling it was pure, dumb luck. First, Sherri showed up, at least half an hour late from her lunch break. She tottered in across the store’s uneven wooden floor in high-heeled sandals. Her skin-tight pedal-pusher jeans gave the impression that they once might have been regular jeans but had shrunk severely in the wash. She took one look at Owen and sucked in her stomach while inflating her chest.

“Well, hello there,” she cooed. I could hardly blame her for noticing him, since he was quite the hottie. He wasn’t what I’d really consider a hunk, since to me that implied big and brawny. Owen wasn’t all that big, and he had a slender frame, but he had a good amount of muscle packed onto that frame. At least, I was pretty sure he did. I hadn’t seen him without his shirt on, except for one time when I was bandaging an injured shoulder. But when he hugged me or even put an arm around me to steady me on the subway, I could feel that he had some solid muscles under his clothes. To go with that body, he had a face straight off a sculpture, all square-jawed and strong-cheekboned.

What I could blame Sherri for was flirting openly with him while being married to my brother. Fortunately, Owen wasn’t impressed at all with Sherri’s type, yet another reason I was so crazy about him. He took a subtle step away from her and gave her the kind of look he usually reserved for unsavory things left on the sidewalk. “Sherri, this is my friend Owen from New York,” I said stiffly. “Owen, this is my other sister-in-law, Sherri. She’s married to my middle brother, Dean, and she works here, too.”

Before she could properly throw herself at him, Teddy ran through from the back of the store, waving a piece of paper. “I think I’ve figured out the formula!” he shouted. “Twice the growth, and no weeds! Is Dad around? He’ll want to see this!” Then he was gone.

“That was Teddy,” I explained to Owen. “My youngest brother. Whatever you do, never ask him about fertilizer, how to grow greener grass, how to get more yield from your crop, or which seeds to plant. Trust me on this.”

Owen looked the least bit shell-shocked as he nodded. Molly then showed up, dragging a screaming Davy. “Is Frank around? I need him to watch Davy for a while.”

“Last I heard, he was making deliveries.” I very pointedly did not offer to watch my nephew, even though it might have been interesting to see what Owen could do with him. He’d tamed dragons, so a bratty preschooler couldn’t have been too much more difficult.

Just then, she noticed Owen. “Oh, I’m sorry, was I interrupting something? I shouldn’t barge in on you like that when you’re with a customer.”

I dutifully made introductions. Sherri sidled up to Owen and said, “So, how long are you in town for?” But before he could answer, George Ward came into the store and Sherri was all over him like white on rice. Mr. Ward may have been older and married, but he was rich, which moved him up the scales in Sherri’s world. Little did she know, but Owen probably could have bought and sold George Ward a few times over. I didn’t intend for her to find out, or else Owen might end up clubbed and dragged off to her lair.

“I’ll go see if Beth can watch Davy,” Molly said. “She and Teddy are good with him. It was nice meeting you, Owen.”

Owen looked dazed. “Do you have a chart?” he asked softly.

“I’ll draw you one.”

Our momentary respite ended when Mom showed up and things really got interesting. I wasn’t sure what she was doing at the store when she was supposed to be resting, but she had a radar for detecting interesting or embarrassing events in her children’s lives. She headed straight toward us, as though she already knew Owen would be there.

Then she managed a double-take reaction that was almost too good to have been unplanned. “Oh!” she said when she saw him. “My! Katie, who’s your friend?”

If I hadn’t already introduced him to the rest of the family I might have tried to pass him off as a customer before hustling him away from the store. Instead, I gritted my teeth and repeated my rote introduction. Owen didn’t have Rod’s natural (and sometimes unnatural) charm, but he was the kind of guy mothers can’t help but like, all clean-cut and polite. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Chandler,” he said.

She actually blushed, which may have been a first, as I would have thought she was incapable of being embarrassed. At least, she always acted like she didn’t understand the concept of embarrassment around us. “Oh!” she said, fluttering a hand, “Please, call me Lois. So, you came all the way from New York to see our Katie. You must be a
very special
friend, indeed.” Her tone left no doubt as to what she meant by “very special.”

It was Owen’s turn to blush, and I could feel my own cheeks flaming. I wasn’t sure what to say. While I froze and panicked, Owen took a step closer to me and said, “Well, Katie is rather special.” I was afraid I’d drop to the floor and die, right then and there.