Witching You Were Here (Wicked Witches of the Midwest Book 3) (8 page)

“No one,” I lied. “Just some guy.”

“What guy?”

“I have to get back to work,” I shifted my gaze to Landon. “I’ll see you at the inn at seven?”

Landon nodded, although I could tell he was worried. “I’ll see you then.”

I didn’t get a chance to move down the street. The next thing I knew, I was in the snow bank in front of the police station and Thistle was on top of me. She might be slight in frame, but she’s powerful in determination.

“Get off me,” I ordered.

“Not until you tell me what’s going on,” Thistle argued back. I could feel her pulling my parka back as she started shoveling snow down the back of it.

“That’s cold,” I said as I tried to shift her off of me.

“It’s snow, what did you expect?” Thistle replied.

I could feel the ice trickling down my back, lodging underneath my shirt and even into my pants. “Stop it!” I bucked up angrily, managing to catch Thistle off guard and dump her into the snow next to me. I rolled over on top of her and started shoveling snow onto her furiously. “Why can’t you just let it go?”

“Why can’t you tell me what’s going on?” Thistle sputtered, coughing as she tried to spit the snow off her face.

“I’m trying to protect you,” I said as I shoveled a particularly big mound of snow on top of her.

Thistle rolled over, taking me with her as she did, and I was at the disadvantage again as she started sliding snow down the front of my shirt. I could see Landon still standing on the sidewalk watching us, clearly unsure of how to handle the situation.

“Protect me from what?” Thistle’s voice was coming out in ragged breaths.

Landon must have decided this was the time for action, because he swooped in and grabbed Thistle by her tiny waist and hoisted her off of me. “This is ridiculous,” he said. “Can’t you guys act like grown-ups?”

Thistle started kicking wildly when she felt the air between us. She landed a vicious blow to Landon’s knee, causing him to drop her back into the snow bank next to me. He didn’t look even remotely amused now.

“Don’t make me shoot you,” he threatened.

“Oh, you’re not going to shoot me,” Thistle scoffed, scooping up a pile of snow and tossing it in his direction.

Landon dodged the pile of snow and fixed Thistle with a pointed glare. “What makes you so sure?”

“Because, if you shoot me, Bay will never sleep with you,” Thistle said knowingly.

“Even if I do it to protect her?” Landon didn’t look so sure.

“You’re not going to shoot her,” I grumbled from my spot in the snow.

Thistle smiled at Landon triumphantly. I smashed a pile of snow into her face when she wasn’t looking and rolled back on top of her. “It won’t be necessary,” I gasped. This snow fight was really draining my energy.

“Get off me,” Thistle whined. “You weigh a ton.”

“I do not,” I shot back. “We wear the same size pants.”

“In your dreams,” Thistle grumbled from beneath me. She couldn’t muster the energy to buck me off, though.

“What the hell is going on here?”

I froze when I heard the new voice. Thistle peered around me curiously, her face glazing over in a confused mask when she took in the figure standing on the sidewalk behind us.

“Dad?”

I don’t know what I expected from this moment. The truth is, I was hoping that I wouldn’t be there when Ted and Thistle laid eyes on each other again. I glanced at Thistle, worry etching my face. I figured she would be fighting off tears – or fighting off the urge to throttle Ted with her bare hands. Imagine my surprise when her murderous gaze fell on me.

“Is this what you were hiding from me?”

“No,” I lied, trying to scramble through the snow to get away from her.

“You’re unbelievable,” she snapped as she rolled to her knees and attempted to follow me.

“I didn’t know!”

“You’re lying,” Thistle panted as she crawled through the snow behind me. “You’re lying and you’re doing it badly.”

I gasped when she managed to not only get a hold of my winter boot, but pull it off as I struggled to get away. I swung around in surprise when I realized that I was missing a shoe and looked back at her angrily. “Give me my shoe.”

“Come and get it,” Thistle taunted me.

“Girls,” Ted began nervously. “I don’t think this is how you should be acting in public.”

Thistle and I both ignored him. “Give me my shoe,” I repeated.”

“You want your shoe?” Thistle arched her eyebrow suggestively.

Uh-oh.

“Here’s your shoe.” Thistle launched my black boot back in my direction, but Landon slipped in between us and caught it easily.

“I’ve had it,” he said angrily. “Enough is enough.” He kneeled down next to me and slammed my boot back on my foot, grabbing my hand and pulling me to my feet when he was done. “You two are acting like children.”

I opened my mouth to argue with him, but I forgot what I was going to say when I saw the snowball make contact with the side of his face. Thistle had tossed it from her spot on the ground.

Landon wiped the snow from his impressive jawline and then turned back to Thistle angrily. “Really?”

I realized what Thistle was doing. She was trying to engage Landon in an argument so she wouldn’t have to deal with Ted. I put my hand on Landon’s chest to stay him. I didn’t want to explain what was going on. I was just kind of hoping he would magically get it.

I reached down and helped Thistle up to her feet. She met my apologetic gaze with her own furious one when she was back on the sidewalk next to me. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” she hissed.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied again.

Thistle looked like she was ready to toss me into the snow again when Ted quickly took a step towards us. “I asked her not to tell you,” he said.

Thistle narrowed her eyes in my direction before turning to her father. “And why would you ask her that?”

“I wanted a chance to approach you on my own terms.”

“So you had Brian Kelly call her down to the newspaper? That makes a lot of sense,” Thistle shot back sarcastically. “That’s really, really creepy.”

“I didn’t think that far ahead,” Ted admitted. “I was really just worried that Bay would stumble on me when I was at the paper one day. I didn’t realize you two lived at the inn together.”

“We don’t live at the inn,” Thistle corrected him.

“Bay said you live together,” Ted looked confused.

“We live at the gatehouse,” Thistle said. “Clove lives there, too.”

“That old rundown shack at the edge of the property?” Ted furrowed his brow in concern. For some reason, though, I couldn’t help but wonder if the concern was real or not. If he was faking, he was doing a good job.

“It was updated and modernized years ago,” Thistle said as she brushed snow from the back of my coat. “It’s really nice now.”

“I can vouch for that,” Landon said after a second.

“And you are?” Ted turned his attention to Landon.

“Landon Michaels,” Landon introduced himself easily.

“And how do you know my daughter?” Ted looked Landon up and down suspiciously.

Landon was taken aback. “I . . .”

“Why do you care?” Thistle interjected. “It’s not like you’ve made me a priority in recent years – or ever.”

“Thistle, I’m going to be in town for the next few weeks for sure and probably the next few months, as well,” Ted said. “I was hoping we could spend some time together.”

“Why would I want that?”

Ted looked uncomfortable under Thistle’s sudden scrutiny. “I’m your father.”

“Since when?”

“There are a lot of things you don’t know,” Ted tried another tactic. “What I did, it wasn’t right,” he conceded. “There were mitigating circumstances, though.”

“Mitigating circumstances?” Thistle’s voice was suddenly shrill. “Like what? You were trying to broker world peace?”

I started to take a step towards Thistle to comfort her, but Landon caught my arm and pulled me back to him. “This isn’t your fight,” he said.

“I’ve done this all wrong,” Ted said, shaking his head from side to side ruefully. “Bay warned me.”

Thistle slid a glance in my direction. “What did Bay warn you?”

“She said she couldn’t lie to you and I should just march down to your store and tell you I was in town.”

“You told him that?”

“Of course I did.”

“And why didn’t you listen?” Thistle turned back to Ted.

“It’s complicated, Thistle,” he said. “I don’t exactly have the best relationship with your mother. And your aunts hate me.”

“Don’t forget Aunt Tillie,” I offered with faux brightness. Landon snickered behind me. “I don’t know why you’re laughing. You’re stuck at dinner tonight and she’s not exactly thrilled with you right now either.”

Thistle choked back a laugh. “You’re lucky you still have balls.”

“What?” Landon looked a little green.

“Nothing,” I said soothingly. “She’s joking.”

“She doesn’t look like she’s joking,” Landon replied.

“Trust me, if she was going to go after anyone’s balls, it would be Ted here.”

Ted swallowed hard.

“Which gives me a great idea,” I said suddenly.

“No,” Thistle shook her head. I hadn’t even said what the idea was and she was already vetoing it.

“What’s the idea?” Landon asked curiously.

“I said no,” Thistle repeated.

“Come on,” I prodded her. “
You know you’re kind of interested to see how all of this will play out.”

“I know how it will play out,” Thistle said. “That old bat is going to go crazy and take whoever tries to get in her way down.”

“It’s also a way to reintroduce Uncle Teddy to the family in a way that’s going to keep you clear of the drama,” I suggested. “Well, maybe not clear of, it but safe from it. They’ll be mad at him, not you.”

Thistle thought about it silently.

“What are they talking about?” Ted asked Landon nervously.

“I think they’re talking about you going to dinner,” Landon said, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

Ted started to shake his head vehemently. “Girls, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“I thought you wanted
to spend some time with Thistle?” I said.

“I do,” Ted looked trapped. “I thought that time would be just the two of us, though.”

“Well, Thistle is going to be at the inn for dinner tonight,” I explained. “I think, since you’ve been slinking around town and hiding from her for days, that you should probably be the one to make the bigger concession. And that would be dinner at the inn.”

Thistle cast a sidelong glance in my direction. She didn’t argue with me, which I was relieved to see. I could also tell she knew exactly what I was doing.

“I think it’s a good idea,” Thistle said finally. “I think that, if you really want to take a step forward here, that dinner at the inn is the best way to start.”

“Your mom will be there, though,” Ted whined.

“You know Aunt Twila doesn’t hold a grudge,” I interjected quickly.

“Winnie and Marnie will be there, too.”

Now they held a grudge.  “They probably won’t make a scene,” I said. “They have guests at the inn. They won’t do something in front of them.”

While Ted wasn’t completely placated, he did seem relieved to know that there were currently guests lodged at the inn.

“One of them is Brian Kelly,” I added. “He’s been staying at the inn for several weeks until he finds a place that he likes.”

“I think he just likes everyone cooking for him and fawni
ng over him,” Thistle disagreed irritably.

“He could like that,” I acquiesced. “He couldn’t possibly like the way Aunt Tillie treats him, though.”

“That’s true,” Thistle nodded her head before turning to glance at her father. “Last week Aunt Tillie told him that if you eat certain mushrooms then your manhood will shrink. She told him that after he ate three bowls of pasta – with mushrooms he couldn’t stop raving about.”

Ted shifted his gaze between the two of us. “What will your Aunt Tillie say?”

“I’m sure it will be . . . colorful,” I said finally.

“At least there will be other people there,” Thistle said. “Including a
n FBI agent,” she gestured towards Landon.

Ted narrowed his eyes as he regarded Landon this time. “You’re with the FBI?”

“Yeah,” Landon said. His attention wasn’t focused on Ted, though. He was clearly enjoying the tag team Thistle and I were currently engaged in.

“What are you doing here?”

“Huh? Oh, just investigating a boat that was found abandoned in the channel.”

“Why would the feds be interested in that?”

Landon turned back to Ted curiously. “We just are. I really can’t talk about an open investigation.”