Witch Is the New Black, page 22
“Like a knife to my gut—over and over.”
“Can I ask you something I’ve wanted to ask you since this all went down?”
“I have no secrets from you.”
“Why didn’t you stop time that night Finn didn’t show up for your engagement party? Maybe you could have found out what really happened.”
“Shhh! You know I’m not supposed to talk about what my magic can do. Using those skills goes against everything we’re taught. It’s not allowed. I only do it in dire circumstances, and that means almost never.”
“You did it in Tijuana for me,” he prompted. Though his voice was softer and sympathetic now.
She stopped walking again and looked down at her beloved familiar, his round, pudgy face at constant war with his long, even chubbier body. She loved Jorge something fierce; seeing him so helpless that night had made her do something she could end up in big trouble over. But in that moment, nothing had mattered but saving him.
“He was threatening to kill you, Jorge. I couldn’t let him take out a helpless animal who couldn’t fend for himself.”
She’d never forget the night she’d met her beloved familiar fifteen years ago. Lost in the streets of Mexico, a little panicked, she’d landed smack-dab in the middle of a brawl between two men over a beautiful, sultry witch by the name of Mariah.
Jorge ended up an unwilling hostage, his plump body pressed up against the sweaty drunk’s T-shirt as he held a knife to his throat and Jorge’s stubby hind legs dangled helplessly.
“I ate a lot of enchiladas that day. Otherwise, I’d have outrun the lowlife cabron.”
Cozy smiled an indulgent smile. Every time he told the story, it got bigger and more dangerous.
“Is that the current story? The last time you told it, you were preparing to eat your way through his chest after you’d wrestled the fifty-inch knife from him.”
“It was a long time ago. My memory’s hazy.”
“The point is, I’m not supposed to use my ability to manipulate time. You know it, and I know it. If I get caught, I’ll end up in magic-abuse jail just like Finn did. So no, I couldn’t use it that night he left. I guess my fear of authority is bigger than my curiosity.”
But it hadn’t been because she wasn’t tempted—it had been because she was afraid to find out exactly what had happened. Of the million scenarios running through her brain on that horrible night, the worst was that he’d fallen out of love and had cold feet.
She didn’t want to know that, to feel it, hear it—worse, see it. And then she’d heard about Galveston and the blonde and voila, mystery solved.
“Have you wondered why he was in jail?”
Of course she had. Incessantly since she’d found out he was back. “Nope, and I don’t intend to give it another thought. He got there by doing something shady, I’m sure. He’s clearly not above shady if he could stand up a town full of people who were ready to toast his engagement just two hours before the actual event.”
Can’t wait to celebrate with the world that you agreed to be my wife. I love you, beautiful.
That’s what his text had said just hours before he’d gone missing. She’d saved it on her phone for months until, in the angry, final stage of her grief, after she’d heard about the blonde in Galveston, she’d deleted it.
“I was there when he stood you up. I remember that night like it was yesterday, Cozy.”
Knife meet heart.
She swallowed hard. “Well, he can’t stand me up any more. So the subject of Finn Donovan is closed. I don’t want to talk about him. I don’t want to hear his name. I don’t want to talk about feelings that no longer exist. Comprende, mijo?”
The soft purr of a car met her ears as it pulled up beside them. Finn leaned out the window, his dark hair high on his head in a manbun, his sharp cheekbones glinting beneath the Christmas lights on the quaint houses lining the street.
“Bonjour, Cozeee! It ees so good to see you! You are pretty as always!” called out Jacques, the talking GPS system in the Pacer that Winnie loaned to her parolees for their transportation to and from jobs.
She closed her eyes and prayed for the earth to open up and swallow her whole. “Hi, Jacques. Good to see you, too,” she called as she began walking again with Jorge glued to her calves.
“Your hair’s pretty like that. It’s longer now. I like it.”
“Hair grows. That’s what happens when you’re gone for months.”
“Can I give you a lift to your place?” Finn asked as he rolled along beside her at a slow pace, the Pacer’s tires crunching the gravel.
Can I punch you in your perfect face with my fist? “No, thank you. We’re fine.”
“I wouldn’t mind a ride,” Jorge replied on a moan. “My feet are killing me, mi corazone.”
Finn braked the car to a stop and popped open the creaky door of the Pacer, still wrapped in an advertisement for a douche product from the days when Winnie was forced to drive it as part of Baba’s punishment while she was on parole.
Winnie often told the story about why she’d kept the Pacer, not just because she loved Jacques but because it reminded her of how far she’d come and how grateful she was to Baba Yaga for showing her the error of her ways.
It would be comical, like rolling-on-the-ground belly-laughing, with Finn in his ridiculous pink shirt and bunny slippers, hopping out of a car that sported a big douche on the side of the passenger door. But none of this was amusing.
She just wanted him to go away. Disappear so he wouldn’t be close enough to touch—close enough to prod for answers. She didn’t want to know the details about Galveston and blondes; it would only serve to torture her.
“Hop in, Jorge.”
Cozy gave Jorge the look. “If you get in that car, I’ll put you on the biggest diet of your life, pal. It’ll be kale and carrots for the rest of your days. You’ll never see a drop of gravy again.”
Jorge grumbled, his sagging double chin quivering. “You heard the boss. I think she’s just being petty. I mean, I feel like we can bridge this gap, can’t we, Finn? Make nice for the sake of the season? For the sake of the potential debris y’all will leave in your wake if you ever properly duke this out. Whaddya say, Jefe?”
“I’m willing if you are, Cozy,” Finn rumbled deep and sexy, sending a tremor of awareness through her limbs.
“Not in a thousand lifetimes,” she volleyed from behind her clenched teeth, pivoting on her toe and stumbling over Jorge, dropping her clipboard, her purse and her sheets of carefully ordered music.
The papers scattered along the sidewalk, picking up gusts of the light breeze and flying in all directions.
Finn jumped out of the car, ready to lend a hand, grabbing as many papers as he could manage.
It was then everything hit her all at once, as she watched all the efforts she’d made to keep her life in a nice, neat package fly wildly across the road. The contents of her purse scattered about the sidewalk, her clipboard on the edge of Roscoe Brown’s dried-up lawn with the inflatable waving Santa.
Her anguish over Finn’s disappearance, her frustration once she’d learned he hadn’t been hurt at all but rather, was perfectly fine. The endless nights of deconstructing their relationship to look for flaws she might have missed, only to put it back together again so she could relive some of the best memories she’d ever made with another individual.
The war—the unmerciful, Godforsaken internal war—she had with herself for still loving Finn so much, she ached, even after all these months.
It all caught up with her. Right there on the corner of Hexed and Toiled-Trouble lanes. Tears began to seep from the corners of her eyes and her shoulders began to shake as she dropped to her knees to gather sheet music.
“Cozy,” Finn whispered, pulling her up from her knees and brushing a lock of hair from her face with gentle fingers, his eyes soft and sympathetic. “Don’t cry. Please.”
Yanking her arm from his, she stared up at his beautiful face, swiping angrily at her traitorous tears and her far too willing body.
“It’s a little late for that.” She shook her head as though she could shake off the pain he was causing by showing back up here—sentenced to do so or not. “Leave me be, Finn. Go away. Go back to Winnie’s, do your time, and then go away. Please.”
And still he said nothing. Offered no explanation, not a single word of apology. But his eyes…his eyes roamed her face, picking up the lights on the festively decorated houses.
It was as though he were sending her some kind of signal—the way he used to when he was caught in a conversation with one of the seniors who liked to gab too long. The “help me” signal.
But he blinked and they shuttered, glazing over until he had that half-cocky, half-amused expression he’d worn so well earlier today.
“It doesn’t have to be like this, Cozy.”
Her expression went from pleading to flabbergasted. “It doesn’t? How should it be, Finn? Should I forget what you did to me? Should we start hanging out at Skeeters and share a bucket of chicken wings and a beer? Maybe we could sit up and talk all night about prison life and the benefits of co-showering? How exactly is it supposed to be, Finn?” she rasped.
He clenched his jaw, the muscles in his arms flexing with tension. “I don’t know. Just not like this.”
“Tell you what, Fugitive, when you figure out how it’s supposed to be, you let me know. Until then, it’s nothing. Absolutely nothing. I don’t want your rides, your jokes, your presence. So if you’ll excuse me, I have music to reorganize.”
Snatching the sheets he’d gathered from his hand, she turned her back and began to walk as quickly as she could until she hit the corner, where she made a mad dash for home, Jorge huffing and puffing behind her.
And as the wind began to howl and leaves scattered across the street, she had to stop and ponder the kind of constitution she apparently possessed.
What woman in her right mind would still want to be held, kissed, touched by the man who’d left her high and dry without so much as a glance over his shoulder?
What did it say about her fortitude that she wasn’t repulsed by the very sight of him?
What?
* * * *
Finn held the disposable phone he kept hidden under the bushes at Winnie and Ben’s up to his ear. As he sat in the parking lot of Paris’s version of the Eiffel Tower with the red cowboy hat on top and waited for the voice at the other end to pick up, he took a moment to allow the tightness in his chest to ease.
Thankfully, the parking lot was deserted. Rolling down the window, he leaned back in the seat of Winnie’s ridiculously wrapped Pacer and exhaled long and slow.
This was damn well killing him. He’d only seen Cozy twice now, and it was as though she’d sawed his heart right out of his chest and crushed it on the ground.
Her beach-blonde hair had grown longer, falling to well below her bra strap, lengthy curls the color of a white-hot summer sun, soft and wavy, hair he wanted to run his fingers through just one more time.
She was still as much of a girl as she’d ever been, and it still turned him on just as much as it once had. Nails painted red, white-lace fitted shirt beneath a short denim jacket he distinctly remembered her calling a shrug, and jeans that hugged her rounded hips and long legs. Shiny gold hoop earrings had fluttered in the breeze against the lightly tanned column of her neck, paired with a thin gold chain attached to a locket her parents had given her.
When her blue eyes had looked up into his after he’d kissed her, confusion, anger, raw pain in them, he’d almost broken right there.
And all he’d wanted to do was haul her to him, crush her against him. Hear her call him honey while she rested her head on his shoulder and drove her arms up under his because she was cold.
His mouth grew to a thin line when he finally heard the voice on the other end pick up.
“Yeah?”
“Why so long to pick up? What the fuck are you doing, your hair and nails?”
“Sorry, brother. Busy night,” the gruff voice answered.
“Did shit go down?”
“Shit’s always going down. Tonight was just the tip of the shit. Whaddya need, man? My hands are full here.” There was a grunt and a loud thwack that sounded like a fist hitting flesh before silence and nothing but the static on the line.
“Tell Pembroke I’m in for now. Also tell him I want out. Soon.”
“Donovan, don’t be a goddamn pansy. You were the one who offered to take the hit. It’s been a long shit-eating road, but we’re so close. I can taste it. You knew what we needed. You’re our best shot at this. Just keep trying to get in touch with them for a little longer.”
“She’s killing me, Orson. I knew it would be a bitch, but I didn’t know it would screw with my head like this. She’s damn well killing me.” He rubbed his aching chest as though there were a gaping wound.
Orson barked a laugh into the phone. “All broads’ll kill you eventually, Loverboy. That’s what they do. Did ya talk to Ridge yet?”
Finn gritted his teeth and squeezed the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. “He’s next on my things to do.”
“That oughta be a real cheerful conversation. Sorry I’m not going to be there to see Ridgie-boy smash your face in. What about the people in town? Everyone hate your bloomin’ yellow guts?”
“Like I gave them all the damn clap. Especially the seniors at Hallow Moon, where, in case you were wondering, I’m cleaning toilets, you bunch of shits.”
“And wearin’ pink like a fucking prom queen, Petunia. We got eyes on ya. Don’t think we haven’t spent a solid couple of minutes almost pissing our pants laughing about your new ex-con wardrobe.”
“You all suck.”
“Donkey balls, buddy. Look, I gotta go. I blow slimy chunks at this therapy thing, right? Call Weaver the next time you need somebody to wipe your tears. He’s sensitive.”
Now Finn barked his own laugh. “Fuck you, Orson.”
“Ah! There’s my boy. Now go get ’er done and quit dickin’ around in the lady pool.”
“Later.” He clicked the phone off and popped open the back, yanking out the sim card and setting it on the dashboard.
He used a hard fist to crush it, sweeping up the leftover tiny pieces and stuffing them in the pocket of his pants to dump down the toilet at Ben’s.
As he wondered where to ditch the phone, he thought about Cozy. About how much he loved her and about how much he wanted all this to end.
When he turned the key in the ignition, Jacques sprang to life, almost making him smile. “Bonjour, Finn Donovan! Take ze left out of ze parking lot and onto…”
He tuned Jacques out and headed back to Winnie’s before he broke curfew. If the way she’d given him the death-wish glare this morning over breakfast was any indication, she’d meant what she said about sticking to the rules. He’d hate to break one and find out what she was really capable of.
Turning onto Ben and Winnie’s road, he drove slowly, soaking in the Christmas decorations and remembering how he and Cozy used to do their annual seasonal walk through Paris to see all the lights. Then they’d hit the diner in town and have hot chocolate and her favorite blueberry scones.
Fuck, he missed her.
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About Dakota
Dakota Cassidy is a USA Today bestselling author with over thirty books. She writes laugh-out-loud cozy mysteries, romantic comedy, grab-some-ice erotic romance, hot and sexy alpha males, paranormal shifters, contemporary kick-ass women, and more.
Dakota was invited by Bravo TV to be the Bravoholic for a week, wherein she snarked the hell out of all the Bravo shows. She received a starred review from Publishers Weekly for Talk Dirty to Me, won a Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award for Kiss and Hell, along with many review site recommended reads and reviewer top pick awards.
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eBooks by Dakota Cassidy
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