Witching You Were Here (Wicked Witches of the Midwest Book 3) (15 page)

“What adventure?” Landon turned to me curiously.

“No adventure,” I said evasively. “We were just doing some recon on Operation Make Aunt Tillie pay.”

“That’s not what we’re calling it,” Clove scoffed. I could tell she was already half drunk.

“And how is that little endeavor going?” Landon asked.

“We’re going to order Mrs. Claus voodoo dolls so Thistle can stick pins in them,” I said.

“Will that work?” Landon looked interested.

“No,” I shook my head. “It’s more like psychological warfare.”

“I don’t think Tillie is going to fall for that,” Landon said.

“She doesn’t need to fall for it,” Thistle said. “We just need to distract her for a little while.”

“And that will distract her?” Marcus asked.

“You’d be surprised at how easily distracted she is,” I said.

“Why don’t you just steal the recliner and get rid of it?” Landon asked.

I raised my eyebrows as I looked to Thistle. That wasn’t a bad idea. She smacked her head in realization. “We can hold the recliner ransom.”

“How are we going to get it out of there?” Clove asked.

“You’re going to distract her while Marcus and Landon carry out the chair,” I said.

“How did we get involved in this?” Landon asked.

“It was your idea,” I reminded him.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I want her going after me,” he said.

“The chair is too heavy for Thistle and me to carry. We need you. You can get it out of there in a few minutes.”

“We won’t tell her you were involved,” Thistle promised.

Marcus still looked doubtful. “I don’t want to get on her bad side. She likes me. She always makes sure I get an extra slice of pie.”

“She likes you?” Landon looked impressed.

“I weed her gardens in the summer.”

“Which garden?” Landon was suspicious. It was a well-known fact that Twila and Aunt Tillie maintained a small pot garden in the summer. They didn’t think anyone knew but, the truth was, everyone in town knew. Even a few high school kids had tried to find it. Instead they found themselves with a poison oak rash in a rather uncomfortable place thanks to a cloaking spell around the infamous pot field. We’re not talking dirt weed here.

Marcus looked uncomfortable. “Her vegetable garden.”

Landon didn’t look like he believed him.

Thistle suddenly burst into a fit of hysterical laughter. “Our family is crazy.”

Landon tipped his head back and drained the rest of his martini. “That’s putting it mildly. Your family is certifiable. I can’t believe some of you – especially your Aunt Tillie – haven’t been locked away.”

I know I should have been insulted, but the truth hurts sometimes.

“Bay!”

It took me a second to get my bearings – and when I did, I found that I wished the blissful darkness that had previously cocooned me was still in place. When the early morning light filtered in and collided with my sleep crusted eyes, followed closely by the drum that was beating inside of my head, I had to fight the urge to scream. That would just hurt more.

“Who is yelling?”

I rolled over when I heard the voice and just about bolted out of my own bed when I saw Landon lying beside me. What the hell?

Last night’s events started running through my mind. There had been a cold excursion to a burned-out inn, warm pizza and chocolate martinis. I rubbed my head ruefully.
Lots and lots of chocolate martinis.

I slid a sideways glance at Landon. His dark hair was sprawled out on the pillow next to me. Thankfully, he wasn’t naked. I quickly glanced under the covers and breathed a sigh of relief. I was still dressed, too.

I felt Landon shift next to me and watch me warily. “Don’t worry, I didn’t take advantage of you.”

“I was just checking,” I rasped. Man, I needed some water – and half a bottle of aspirin. A pot of coffee wouldn’t hurt either.

“You really thought I would do that?”

“I couldn’t remember,” I admitted. “I didn’t exactly expect to find you here. Not that it’s not a nice surprise,” I added hurriedly.

“You said I shouldn’t leave because it was snowing. You don’t remember that?”

“Not really,” I replied. “The last thing I really remember was plotting to steal Aunt Tillie’s chair.”

“You still think that’s a good idea?” Landon raised his eyebrow but the effort must have been taxing to him because he immediately raised his hand to his forehead and started rubbing it absentmindedly.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “All I can think about right now is a bottle of water and a handful of aspirin.”

“Let’s throw some dry toast on that, too,” Landon said. “We need to eat something and I want something bland enough that my stomach won’t rebel.”

I couldn’t help but laugh – which caused another shooting pain to course through my head. “Your stomach rebel a lot?”

“Only around you, apparently.”

I struggled to my feet, lurching forward two steps until I regained my equilibrium. “This is why you don’t drink on work nights,” I lamented.

“I don’t think drinking that much is ever a good idea,” Landong muttered.

“That’s not what you said the last time Aunt Tillie got her wine out,” I reminded him.

“Yeah? Well you didn’t see me the next morning. I was thinking the exact same thing then as I am now.”

“Then why did you drink last night?”

“I can’t remember,” Landon groaned. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“It always does,” I agreed.

I watched as he struggled to get out of bed. He was wearing the same white T-shirt he had worn under his flannel shirt the night before. He had stripped out of his blue jeans, but he was wearing a pair of boxer shorts that actually made me smile. Landon saw me looking at his shorts and rubbed the stubble on his chin ruefully. “This isn’t doing much for my street cred, is it?”

“No,” I shook my head. “I think you look tough. Even if you are wearing T
eenage Mutant Ninja Turtle
underwear.”

“I’d come up with a suitable lie for wearing them if my head didn’t hurt so much.”

“You can think of one over coffee,” I said, moving towards the bedroom door. I paused, though, when my hand hit the doorknob. “Did you hear someone calling my name a few minutes ago?”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s what woke me up. Someone was yelling my name.”

Landon thought about it. “It was probably just Thistle or Clove. They’re probably hung-over, too.”

“I know Clove will be.”

“Didn’t she pass out on the living room floor?”

“Yeah, I seem to remember something like that,” I acknowledged. I threw off the feeling of dread that had washed over me when I had reached for the doorknob the first time and instead pushed it open and walked into the living room. I immediately wanted to go back to bed.

“Well, well, well. Isn’t this a pretty picture?”

I swallowed hard when I met Thistle’s glazed-over gaze on the couch. Marcus was sitting next to her in a random state of undress. On either side of them were my mom and Twila, while Aunt Tillie was sitting in the big chair in the corner.

“What are you doing here?”

“Checking up on you after the storm last night,” Aunt Tillie said.

“What storm?” I asked in a wobbly voice.

“We got like a foot of snow or something,” Thistle gritted out. She looked like she wanted to murder someone. I was guessing Aunt Tillie was on the top of that list.

“We got six inches of snow,” my mom corrected her. “It was mixed with ice, though, so it was more dangerous.”

“Huh.” I sank into one of the kitchen chairs that was placed around our small dinette set in the little room between the dining room and kitchen. We never used the table. It had essentially become a stopgap for magazines, old copies of The Whistler and random tabloids that we liked to thumb through.

“You don’t usually check on us for snow,” I said, looking around the room for Clove and Marnie.

“Marnie was convinced that we needed to come down here for some reason. She thought that there might be trouble,” Aunt Tillie said.

Aunt Marnie wasn’t clairvoyant, but she did have a sense for uncovering trouble. She was always the one that busted us for drinking in a field when we were teenagers. It was beyond annoying.

“We have a phone,” I reminded Aunt Tillie.

“That’s what I suggested,” Aunt Tillie said. “I knew you weren’t in any real trouble.” Aunt Tillie looked Landon up and down, pausing to stare at his colorful boxer shorts a little longer than necessary. “Not any trouble that you didn’t want to be in, that is.”

I rolled my eyes at Aunt Tillie. “Nothing happened.” I don’t know why I felt the need to explain myself. I wasn’t a child anymore. Aunt Tillie just brought it out in me sometimes.

“Really? Because it looks like you had an overnight visitor,” my mom answered shrilly.

“Who?” I feigned ignorance.

My mom’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “Landon.”

“So?” I was starting to feel belligerent. My head was really pounding.

“What will people in town think?” My mom looked scandalized. “You don’t let gentlemen callers spend the night.”

“Who cares? Marcus spends the night here all the time.”

Thistle shot me a murderous look.

“He does?” Twila looked down at her daughter with a disapproving frown.

“Thanks for that,” Thistle said dryly.

I shrugged. I wasn’t exactly at my intellectual best. “Where is Clove?” I changed the subject.

“In the bedroom with Marnie,” Aunt Tillie chortled.

“Marnie thinks she needs rehab,” Thistle interjected.

“Why?” I found myself looking towards the coffee maker longingly. Landon followed my gaze and walked over to the countertop contraption and started filling it up wordlessly. He didn’t seem too bothered by our morning guests. Of course, he could just be using his cop training to remain calm in a tense situation.

“She thinks we drink too much,” Thistle said with a laugh.

“That’s why she thinks Clove needs rehab?”

“Well, you’re all making unsafe choices,” Twila said carefully. “You have strange men staying in the house overnight. You could get the herpes.”

“They’re not strange men,” I grumbled. “Landon is a federal officer and you’ve known Marcus since he was a little kid. Neither one of them has herpes.” At least I didn’t think.

“That doesn’t mean that it’s okay to have a . . .” Twila looked around nervously and then lowered her voice. “That doesn’t mean it’s okay to have an orgy.”

“Do you even know what an orgy is?” This wasn’t the first time she’d been convinced we were having wild sexual parties at the gatehouse.

Aunt Tillie looked at Twila with interest. She wanted to hear the answer, too.

“It’s people having sex in the same house,”
Twila said obstinately.

“No, it’s not,” I shook my head irritably. “An orgy is when a lot of people get together and have sex with each other. Everyone. Like as a group.”

Twila looked confused. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“She’s saying that two guys spending the night with their girlfriends is not an orgy.” Clove appeared in the doorway of her bedroom. Her face was tired and blotchy and her eyes were mired with an emotion I couldn’t quite read. I think it might have been fury. I wanted to correct her notion that Landon was my boyfriend, but this didn’t exactly seem like the appropriate time.

“So, are you going to rehab?” I asked, trying to stifle the mad desire to laugh.

“You’re not funny,” Clove muttered. She smiled at Landon, though, as he handed her a cup of freshly brewed coffee.

“I don’t think having parties like this, at your age, is a very good reflection of us,” Marnie said, appearing in the door behind Clove.

“We didn’t have a party,” Thistle argued. “We had pizza and chocolate martinis. And what age? We’re in our twenties; we’re not dead.”

“Too many chocolate martinis,” Marcus whined from his spot next to Thistle. I couldn’t help but notice he was clad in only boxer shorts and a T-shirt, too. Clove, Thistle and I were all still dressed exactly alike from our adventure the night before.

“You got that right, brother,” Landon agreed, sliding into the chair next to mine and pushing a cup of coffee towards me.

“That’s not exactly a raging kegger,” I agreed, sipping the coffee gratefully.

“I don’t know what that is,” my mom said dubiously. “But if that’s some sort of drug reference, it’s not funny.”

“The fact that you’re accusing us of having a problem when you’re the ones with a pot field is just ridiculous,” Thistle barked out.

Twila’s
face went completely ashen as she looked at Landon guiltily. “She’s making that up.”

“I’ve seen the pot field,” Landon said dryly. “I saw it when I went looking for you guys out in your little field a few months ago.”