Page 9 of Sugar, Spice, and Magical Midlife

“I don’t think so.” I frowned down at Lenny while he drooled all over my freshly mopped floor. “I just knocked him out.”

It occurred to me that I should probably keep hold of my wand, just in case Ric turned out to be a succubus. I gasped when blood trickled out of Lenny’s ear and pooled on the floor.

A car engine revved, and I jerked my gaze to the troll outside the window whose head barely cleared the steering wheel of his silver Prius.

Ice solidified my limbs as panic threatened to split my skull in two. “Damn, Gus! Cursed troll. He’s looking for any excuse to close down my bakery.” I latched onto Lenny’s ankles, gruntingwhile desperately trying to drag him to the back room. “Help me move him!” I cried. “Please!”

With a curse, Ric threw Lenny over his shoulder like he weighed no more than a sack of potatoes. I chased after Ric’s long strides through the swinging doors into the back room and out into the alley behind the shop. I should’ve stayed behind to clean up the pool of blood and drool, but I had to help Ric hide Lenny.

“Where are you putting him?” My eyes widened with alarm when he marched straight toward the dumpster.

“With the rest of the trash,” he grumbled, unceremoniously dropping Lenny’s limp body into the dumpster and closing the lid.

Great Goddess! I was so royally hexed!

I raced back into the bakery, fingering my wand, spell poised at my lips as I prayed I wasn’t too late to clean up the mess.

Imagine my surprise and relief when I found Ethyl serving Gus a steaming cup of coffee. Gus stood a few feet from where Lenny had fallen to the floor.

I shot Ethyl a quizzical look while smoothing hands down my apron.

“Hi, Gus.” I tried my best to sound calm and collected, knowing I sounded neither, but Gus seemed too engrossed in salivating over the display case to pay me any heed.

I tossed a glance behind me, thankful that Ric had stayed behind. Des was still focused on his computer game, too oblivious to know our world was only a thread away from falling apart at the seams.

After smearing greasy fingers all over the glass case, Gus finally looked up at me with eyes that nearly crossed and a wrinkled piggish nose. I thought he was sneering, but his eyes were so close together, he could have been giving himself dirty looks.

“I’ve had reports that you’re using magic to sweeten your products.”

“If by magic you mean Stevia syrup”—I held up my hands and forced a smile—“then guilty as charged.” I actually used real sugar combined with a calorie reduction spell, but he didn’t need to know that.

He rubbed a graying, bushy beard with long, knobby fingers. “I’m going to have to take some samples to the lab.”

I knew that by ‘lab,’ he meant his stomach. There was no way he was tracing the magic in my secret family recipe. The obnoxious little troll wasn’t that smart.

I turned up my nose, resisting the urge to look over the counter and see if he was standing in a puddle of blood. “That’s fine.”

“Here.” Ethyl pulled out a pretty pink box already wrapped in a bow. “We baked up a delicious pumpkin streusel coffee cake.”

“No, not that.” I forced a note of desperation into my voice. “We put a lot of work into that coffee cake. I’m saving it for mybestcustomers.” I realized I was being overdramatic, but it didn’t matter. Gus always fell for my tricks.

His eyes lit up like a sugar-addicted pixie on Halloween. “I’m craving pumpkin. I’ll take the coffee cake.”

Jutting hands on my hips, I made a big show of scowling at my apprentice. “Fine!” I just hoped that after Ethyl had accidentally dropped the coffee cake on the floor this morning, she’d brushed off all the dirt. Well, most of the dirt, anyway.

When Gus marched back out the door and drove off, I let out a shuddering breath, my shoulders slumping in relief.

I peered over the counter, amazed to see not a drop of Lenny blood in sight. I walked the floor, spinning a slow circle. “Ethyl, did you clean up the blood?”

Ethyl shot me a quizzical look, reminding me of her miniature dragon, Puffy, whenever he was looking for the origin of his fiery fart. “What blood?”

I wondered if maybe Puffy had licked up the mess, but I didn’t smell his lingering sulfuric breath. He usually slept in the back ovens well past noon.

I slowly turned, eyeing my son, who was laughing while he killed bad guys in his wizarding game. I slid out the chair across from him and waved a hand in front of his face. He pulled off his headphones, looking at me with wide, innocent eyes.

“Des, did you clean up Mama’s shop floor?”

He puffed up his chest, flashing a dazzling smile. “Yep.”

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