Читать книгу Under His Spell - Kristin Hardy, Kristin Hardy - Страница 7

Chapter One

August, Salem, Massachusetts

“Nice pair a melons you got there, lady.”

Lainie Trask glanced from the cantaloupes she held to the fruit vendor standing behind his table. Her brown eyes glimmered with fun as she hefted them higher. “They are, aren’t they?”

“Buck for the two of ’em. Can’t do any better than that.”

Lainie handed over a dollar and tucked the fruit into her canvas carrier bag. “And here I thought I already had a nice pair of melons,” she said out of the corner of her mouth to her girlfriend Liz.

Liz glanced at her judiciously as they turned away from the fruit stand. “More like guavas, I’d say.”

Lainie laughed and swept her glossy dark hair back from her face as they walked deeper into the confusion of color, noise and scent that was the Salem farmers’ market. Tables and pushcarts groaned under the weight of baskets filled with crimson tomatoes, sunburst-yellow lemons, green zucchini, the strange, otherworldly fuzz of kiwi.

“Get yer bay scallops here. Bay scallops, fresh off the boat. Hiya, Lainie.”

“Hey, Pete.” Lainie stopped at the stall and studied the seafood on ice, then the man who stood behind it. “Fresh, huh?”

The weathered, sixty-something fishmonger gave her a roguish wink. “Any more fresh and it’d be hittin’ on you.”

She grinned and looked at Liz. “Scallops for dinner?” she suggested.

“Nah, I’d rather go out, assuming there’s anyplace around here you want to go to.”

“There’s a McDonald’s on the highway. We could splurge on Chicken McNuggets. Sorry, Pete.” She gave him a quick smile. “Next time around. Come on, Liz, let’s go get coffee.”

The two women began walking again. “Chicken McNuggets,” grumbled Liz. “You know the owner of Tremolo just opened up a new bar and restaurant two blocks away from me? Small plates to die for and a six-page cocktail menu. You should have come down and visited me in Boston for the weekend.”

“It was your turn to drive up here,” Lainie argued. “I’m sick of driving down.”

“Then move down. I mean, why are you still living up here in Siberia, anyway?”

“Salem,” Lainie corrected, leading the way out of the farmers’ market and onto the main drag.

“Salem, Siberia…it’s north and it’s cold. Same difference.”

“It’s not that far north.”

“Far enough. You don’t belong up here. You belong down in the city. I thought that was the plan. I mean, you don’t have a life up here.”

“I have a life,” Lainie objected. She did, and one she increasingly loved.

“Oh, yeah? When’s the last time you had a date?”

She glowered at Liz. “Don’t start sounding like my parents. It’s not my fault. Most of the people I know are married.”

“Of course they’re all married. You’re living in the burbs. You’ve gotten it out of order. You get hooked up first, then you move to Siberia.”

Lainie rolled her eyes. “Sorry, I guess I missed that part in the manual. Anyway, I don’t even know if I want to date,” she said grumpily.

“You don’t want to date?”

“I mean, come on, be honest, it sucks. You sit around, trying to make conversation, trying to figure out what you’ve got in common, trying to remember why you ever even bothered to say yes. I’d rather be at home watching a movie.”

“But it would be better with some guy’s arm around your shoulders.”

“Well, is it my fault they never ask me out?”

“Maybe you intimidate them.”

“Is that because of my six Nobel Prizes or my seven-figure income?” Lainie asked.

“Ha, ha. No, it’s because you’re…you. I mean, you’re never exactly shy of an opinion.”

“You’re shy of an opinion in my family and you’ll never get a word in edgewise. So I say what I think, is that a crime?”

“No, but maybe it’s a little much for the average Joe right off. Maybe you could tone it down a little.”

Lainie stared at her. “Whatever happened to the ‘be yourself’ advice? Isn’t a guy supposed to love me for who I am?”

“He can’t if you chase him away before he figures you out.”

“Forget it. I’ll stick with my idea about taking time off.” If it took pretending to be a fragile flower for her to lure a guy, she wasn’t interested. It was too much work, anyway. She was happy to give the opposite sex a rest for a while.

Liz wasn’t, though. “I know a couple of nice guys I could introduce you to but you’re G.U.”

“G.U.”

“Geographically undesirable.”

“For God’s sakes,” Lainie grumbled. “It’s only forty-five minutes to your house.”

“The way you drive, maybe. It takes me an hour. Guys don’t want that. They want someone who’s right there. When are you moving?”

Lainie shrugged a shoulder. “When the time’s right.”

“When the time’s right? That’s what you’ve been saying for almost four years.”

“When I find a job down there.”

“Have you been looking?”

“Museum jobs don’t exactly fall off trees. I’ve been keeping my eyes open.” Lainie stopped in front of a storefront with the legend Cool Beans painted above a rendering of a steaming cup of coffee.

“There she is.”

Lainie turned to give a brilliant smile to the grinning, grizzle-haired man behind the counter. “Hey, George.”

“You’ve got some kind of sixth sense, don’t you? I just pulled a pan of blueberry coffee cake out of the oven. I shoulda known you’d be here. What is it, some witch thing?”

“That’s me, using my powers for baked goods.”

“Hey, if you’ve got powers for baked goods, come over and do something about my oven,” he invited. “It’s been running hot for the last two months. I’ll pay you in coffee cake.” He waved the pan before her.

Lainie sniffed blissfully. “My powers work best in the presence of an appliance repairman. Get one over here and I’ll come chant a success spell. For advance payment.” She reached for the pan but George pulled it back.

“Nope, I’m not buying it. Maybe I’ll just stick with the repair guy.”

“Probably best,” Lainie agreed. “Does that mean I don’t get any coffee cake?”

“I don’t know. We start the new project next weekend. You gonna show?”

“Have I ever let you down?”

“Not so far,” he agreed, and reached for a plate. “So who’s your friend?”

She grinned. “George, this is Liz from Boston. She was my college roommate.”

“Any friend of Lainie’s,” he said, nodding at Liz. “What can I get you, young lady?”

“Some of that coffee cake and a mocha, if you’ve got it.”

“If it’s got coffee in it, we’ve got it,” he told her, putting together her drink with quick, economical motions.

“Aren’t you going to ask what I want?” Lainie pouted.

He set an already filled mug on the counter and put a slice of coffee cake beside it. “I already know what you want.”

“Marry me, George,” she said seriously.

“I couldn’t afford to keep you in coffee.”

“Wow, that coffee cake was pretty amazing.” Liz patted her belly as they wandered along the Salem waterfront, past docks lined with fishing boats and white sailboats.

“See? There are some good things about Salem.”

“‘Some’ being the operative word. You really are just a small-town girl at heart.”

“I’m not a small-town girl,” Lainie replied, stung. “At least not anymore.” She wasn’t. She’d left the tiny burg of Eastmont, Vermont, where she’d grown up, and she’d never once looked back. She was a cosmopolitan girl who knew her way around a Cosmopolitan, and she fully intended to live in the city one day.

When it made financial sense.

And if lately her visits to Boston had seemed mostly noisy and rushed, that was probably just coincidence. “I’m going to look harder,” she said, as much to herself as to Liz.

“It’s about time.” Liz stared out at a nearby boat where a shirtless deck hand was raising the main sheet. “Yum. You suppose Popeye over there would give us a ride if we asked pretty?”

Lainie grinned. “Down, girl. You’re cradle robbing. He happens to be in high school.”

“How do you know?”

“I know his parents.”

Liz rolled her eyes. “Do you know everyone in this town?”

“I know enough, and unless you want to get arrested, you might want to keep away from Jared. At least until he turns eighteen.”

Liz squinted. “He looks older from here.”

Lainie patted her shoulder. “It’s your eyesight, dear. Anyway, we’ve got a job to do before we can relax.” She steered them toward the shop-lined pedestrian street that circled near the wharf. “I’ve got to buy wedding and shower presents for my cousin Gabe’s wedding.”

“I seem to remember you asking me up to have fun, not do your errands.”

“But this will be fun, and you’ll find it even more satisfying knowing you’re helping me get a little item or two out of the way.”

“Somehow I doubt it.”

“Not at all. So, what should I get?”

“Dish towels,” Liz grumbled.

“Too boring.”

“Candlesticks?” Liz moved to step inside the crafts store they were passing.

“Wow, and you’re calling me small town,” she said firmly, closing the door Liz had opened. With a wave of her hand, Lainie headed toward an art gallery down the way.

“Hey, he’s your cousin, you figure it out,” Liz protested.

“It’s not like I was— ‘The Salem Witch’?” She stopped in front of a gift boutique and stared at the gothic letters painted on the window. “Is that like being the town mascot?”

Lainie turned around and came back to her. “She certainly manages to show up here and there.”

“You have an official town witch. Are you people nuts?”

“Hey, you play to your strengths.”

Liz opened the door.

“What are you doing?”

“Playing to your strengths. Maybe you can conjure up a present for your cousin. Among other things.”

“It’s a gimmick, Liz,” Lainie protested, following her in. “You know this stuff doesn’t work.”

“What? The woman who runs the witch museum says witchcraft doesn’t work? Aren’t you an honorary Wiccan by default or something?”

“Oh, yeah, that’s me, the family witch.”

“So you should feel right at home. Besides, every marriage needs a little magic.” Liz wandered along the wall, studying the candles and herbs, the spell packets and charms. “So, let’s see, how about a potency charm?”

Lainie rolled her eyes. “I’m thinking Gabe can do without that.”

“Oh, really.” Liz’s eyes brightened. “Does he have any brothers?”

“You’re about a year too late. They’re all spoken for.”

“Just my luck.”

“We could always get you a love spell,” Lainie said, picking one off the wall and scanning the back. “Here. You just make tea with these herbs, light the candle and dance buck naked in the moonlight for three nights running.”

Liz eyed her. “Buck naked?”

“I’m just reading you the directions,” Lainie said blandly.

“I live in the middle of Boston.”

“I’m sure if your dance is quick, you can get it over before you get arrested for indecent exposure. Better yet, do it on Friday night and the spell will probably be effective immediately.”

“I’ve got a better idea.”

“What’s that?”

Liz’s eyes gleamed. “A love spell for you.”

Lainie cast a glance at the ceiling. “Trust me,” she said. “The last thing I need is a love spell.”

It was the fondest wish of Al and Carol Trask to see their children all married off eventually, with families of their own. Lainie didn’t have any problem with the idea in concept; she just had a few differences of opinion with her parents on the particulars. Like, for example, their definition of the word eventually. To Lainie, that meant before she turned, say, forty. Or fifty, if it suited her.

To her parents, twenty-six was high time to start thinking about settling down.

Which was why she was happy, quite happy to be going to her cousin Gabe’s Jack and Jill party as part of the run-up to his wedding to Hadley Stone. After all, Gabe’s wedding would buy her at least six months of peace from the reminders and questions. Given that, springing for a shower gift and driving a couple of hours to the party was a pleasure. She’d cheerfully have driven twice as far, if that were the sacrifice required.

Although, to be honest, it wasn’t much of a sacrifice. She and Hadley had become good friends over the past year. Lainie was looking forward to a nice, long gossip after the party. Besides, it was a perfect day for a drive and she was itching to see the renovated ski lodge where the party was to be held.

Gabe and Hadley had bought the eyesore as a fixer-upper the year before. And fix it up they had, Lainie realized as she pulled in. The grubby, underprivileged-looking buildings she remembered had disappeared, replaced by a soaring complex of two-and three-story cedar-and-glass structures that were the architectural equivalent of a breath of fresh air. The Crawford Arms, the once-faded Victorian grande dame at the edge of the property, had been pulled back from the brink of seediness to boast a subtly gorgeous multicolor paint job and windows that sparkled with newness.

Even the brilliant white stripes on the freshly paved parking lot gleamed. The positively enormous freshly paved parking lot, she amended as she whipped into a spot and turned off her car. In fact, if a natural disaster ever hit the New Hampshire International Speedway, they could probably just move the race to Gabe’s lot. Clearly, her cousin and his bride-to-be knew how to do things right.

Lainie stepped out into the summer afternoon and reached into her back seat to pull out a gaily wrapped package. None of that tired, old white-rose bridal paper for her. A person should make a statement, she figured; all the better if it was red and silver stripes.

A light, warm breeze whisked under her pale aqua skirt, lifting up the short flared silk, making her laugh. Summer might have come late to the north country but it was well worth appreciating when it finally arrived. And appreciating it, she was, with her stretchy, bare midriff top and strappy high heels. After all, in two or three months they’d be back in the frigid temperatures of late fall.

And three-inch heels didn’t go so well with snow and ice.

Nope, she was a summer girl at heart, happy to toss aside her tan-in-a-bottle for the real thing. Fall was for prickly people; winter was for the melancholy; spring was for the ambitious.

Summer was for people who knew how to enjoy life.

Ahead of her, the path curved toward the broad double doors that led into the main lodge. Ski racks flanked the wide cedar porch; come winter, they’d be filled with colorful snowboards and wide downhill skis with their bindings. Come winter, the whole area would be frosted with snow and ice, and crowded with people. She was looking forward to seeing it.

But not before she’d gotten everything she could out of the warm weather.

The breeze whisked at her skirt again, flipping it up as she stepped up onto the porch. Hastily she reached behind her with one hand to push it down. And, distracted for a crucial instant, caught her toe on the underside of the wooden step.

The next thing she knew, she was pitching forward, trying desperately to hold on to the gift package and trying equally hard to avoid doing a face plant on the deck. When the door opened before her, she gave up, dropping the box and groping for the door handle as though it were salvation. The shower gift would survive; her nose might not. Somehow she missed the door anyway, though, and instead found herself doing a four-point landing on the cedar.

“Falling at my feet again, Lainie?” The voice was lazy and mocking, and she recognized it instantly, even before she looked up to see the hand before her eyes.

J. J. Cooper, golden-boy ski racer, finding her sprawled before him just as he had fourteen years before, on the mountain where she’d tumbled into the snow with a broken binding. Then he’d been her knight in shining armor, helping her up, dusting her off and, to her infinite astonishment, piggybacking her down the mountain on skis, his shoulders strong under her fingers.

Was it any wonder that her twelve-year-old self had fallen madly in love with him? She’d pined, positively pined over him for the four long weeks that stretched from that Thanksgiving weekend encounter to Christmas vacation. Writing his name in her notebooks, she’d dreamily imagined how he’d look at her with those denim-blue eyes and hold her hand when he came back from his ski academy for the holidays, her grown-up high school boy.

Of course, when he had, he’d demonstrated quite clearly that he had no interest in a skinny little kid like her. He hadn’t insulted her, he hadn’t been mean. He’d just been…oblivious. Ski god J.J. was exclusively interested in the very curvy and very grown-up blondes who buzzed around him like a bunch of flies, Lainie had thought ungraciously. He hadn’t even bothered to snub Lainie when she’d hung around, desperate for his attention. He’d barely recognized her at all, until she’d crashed before him, trying to daredevil ski in a desperate attempt to attract his attention from the inept ski bunny he was escorting around. “A little kid like you shouldn’t be up here,” he’d scolded, hauling her up like a sack of potatoes. “You could get hurt.”

“You’re so sweet to help that poor little girl,” the ski bunny had cooed as they’d schussed off, leaving a redfaced, furious Lainie to watch them go. Clearly, J. J. Cooper had no use for Lainie.

And from that moment forward, Lainie had had zero use for J. J. Cooper.

She scowled and rose, ignoring the hand and smoothing down her skirt. “Well, well, well. Speed Racer. How lucky can a girl get? Here I figured you’d be in training by now.”

He raised a brow. “Why, Lainie, I didn’t realize you kept such track of me.”

“I prefer to keep an eye on minor annoyances. It helps me avoid them.” She dusted off her hands. “Let me guess. You’ve broken training to show up here.”

“Considering that, as best man, I’m the host, it seemed like the right thing to do.” He leaned over to pick up her box, tucking it under his arm. “Want an escort in?”

Lainie folded her arms and stared at him. It wasn’t fair that he’d been genetically gifted with the blond-haired, blue-eyed looks of a careless beach boy, the crooked grin of a man who didn’t sweat the small stuff, a chin and jaw only sharpened by his Vandyke. He’d also wound up with the preternatural athletic talent to be one of the top skiers in the world, a millionaire, a media darling.

And with, of course, the preternatural ego to go with it.

“I’m fine. Why don’t you go inside and find your posse?”

His eyes crinkled irritatingly. “You should know I’d never bother with a posse when I have you.”

Scorn radiated off her. “Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere in New Zealand embarrassing yourself on camera?” She could cheerfully have bitten her tongue the minute the words were out.

As for J.J., he just grinned. “And here I didn’t think you cared.”

“News bulletin,” she told him, reaching for the package he held just out of reach. “I don’t.”

He lifted the box just a few inches higher. “But you do keep track of me. I’m flattered.”

“I keep track of nor’ easters, too, mostly because I’m hoping they’ll go somewhere else. And if you’d give me back that box, I’d go somewhere else myself.”

He burst out laughing. “Oh, Lainie, life just isn’t the same when you’re not around.”

“That’s funny, life’s always the same when you’re around,” she said sweetly. “You’re nothing if not predictable.”

That wiped away the smile. “Maybe when it comes to going fast.”

She shook her head pityingly. “Oh, Speed, everything you do is predictable. Where do I start? Let’s see… I’m betting that your last six girlfriends—the ones for this season, I mean—bought their lipstick using euros.”

“Give me a break. I live in Europe seven months out of the year. Who else am I supposed to date? After all, you never come to visit me,” he said with a leer.

Lainie folded her arms. “Okay, how about the CD changer in your car?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s got at least one oldie disc by Lynyrd Skynrd.”

“Lucky guess.”

“Not a guess. Like I said, Speed, predictable.”

It was his turn to scowl. “None of that counts.”

“Speaking of your car, twenty bucks says you bought a new one a week after you hit the ground in Montpelier last spring.”

“Yeah, so?”

“You did buy a new car, didn’t you?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. The question is what?”

Given his image, the ultrasexy sports car would be the obvious pick. But she knew better. “The biggest mean-ass four-by-four hemi on top truck in midnight-blue metal flake.” She smiled in enjoyment. “And if they didn’t carry it in midnight-blue metal flake, you had them do a custom job for you.”

To her infinite pleasure, his mouth fell slightly ajar.

“Well, am I right?”

He recovered. “You could have looked right out in the parking lot and seen it.”

“Maybe, except that if I know you, you tucked it away in the back row.” When he was silent, she merely crossed her arms and looked satisfied. “Oh, yeah, Speed, I know you. I know you through and through.”

And she plucked the package from his hands and walked inside.