Page 4 of Love's a Witch
The same woman who now stood in the open doorway to our dilapidated home, her walker wrapped in silk ribbons, both her housedress and eyeglasses dripping with sparkles. A sleek gray bob of hair framed a happy face just giving over to age, and a falcon preened its feathers at her shoulder. Broca MacGregor, ladies and gentlemen. The legend herself.
“You look like you’re waiting on news of the mysterious passing of your rich husband,” I called.
“Husband?” Broca said in the same tone as if I’d just pointed out a cockroach. “Why marry them when they’re so much more fun when they’re courting you?”
“Says the woman with five ex-husbands.” I rounded the car and popped the trunk for our luggage while Lyra and Nova bounded out of the car to go embrace our grandmother, who had arrived to town earlier that day. Likely being carried on a throne by several strapping males. As matriarchal witches, Broca was plagued by the same curse as us. She’d spent the last eight years methodically working her way through the men of Europe, each suitor more extravagant than the last.
“Which is how I know men are easily digestible as lovers, but barely tolerable as husbands.”
“Must we discuss your lovers already?” We’d only just arrived, having traveled all night, and I’d need a glass of wine before I could handle such a conversation. Reaching in the trunk, I pulled out a suitcase and put it on the ground.
A flurry of snowflakes landed beside it.
Shite.
Groaning, I straightened to see all three women glaring at the sky. Broca’s falcon—her familiar, named Iris—cried out in protest and took to the air, disappearing toward the hills.
One very brokenhearted witch, centuries ago, had cursed our ancestor with a highly inventive, if not deeply annoying spell. The result of which had forced every MacGregor since to never be able to fully settle in one spot for very long, as natural disasters and oddball curses would descend upon any town we were in. Even better? When we did step into our magick at the age of twenty-five, we’d often have to deal with it being unpredictable.
“Does it have to be snow?” Lyra asked, stomping the heel of her Christian Louboutin stiletto into the ground.
“It’s better than the caterpillar infestation.” Nova zipped her leather coat, squinting at the dark clouds that now clustered over us.
“Ew.” Lyra rounded on her. “I thought we’d agreed never to bring that one up again. I couldn’t sleep for months after.”
“Likely due to the caterpillars that had nested in your hair. Maybe they burrowed into your brain.”
Lyra gasped and patted her luxurious tresses. It had taken a three-day weekend at a high-end spa to ensure not a trace of caterpillar slime could be found on Lyra before she was able to move on fromthatparticular iteration of our curse.
“Caterpillars don’t burrow. They go into their closet and come out looking fabulous.”
“It’s a chrysalis, not a closet, Lyra.”
“To-may-to, to-mah-toe.” Lyra shivered as a blast of wind tossed snow at their feet.
Grinning, their bickering an odd source of comfort for me, I reached the front door. “Broca, let’s get you inside and get the heat on.”
The house itself was a simple rectangle, with four bedrooms and two bathrooms upstairs and an open living room, kitchen, and dining room on the first. Though the house had been built in a time of small rooms and closed doors, likely to keep heat in, somewhere along the line walls had been removed to create one big living space, and two brick pillars acted as the main foundational supports in theroom. I used to run circles around those pillars as a kid, my father chasing me—on a good day, that is—while my mother drank coffee in her chair by the window where sunlight spilled inside for a good portion of the morning.
Leaving the suitcase at the door, I walked slowly next to Broca as she navigated toward that same chair and helped her sit. Lyra crossed to the kitchen to dig in the cabinets, likely looking for tea, while Nova checked if the water was running. Looking around, I sighed. Dusty sheets covered the rest of the furniture, cobwebs clustered in corners of the windows, and more than one light bulb had long ago burned itself out.
A knock sounded at the door, and we all turned. Before I could cross to answer it, let alone fully take stock of the condition of the room, the door swung open.
“Who just opens someone else’s door?” I asked, already crossing the room, ready to do battle.
My mouth dropped open.
The sexiest man I’d ever seen in real life filled the door.
A face made for fairy tales, with muscular arms shown in their best light under a T-shirt, never mind the snow swirling outside, had me frozen to the spot.
I gaped at the gorgeous man that hulked in the doorway. Unruly dark hair, those soul-searching blue eyes, and a sharp jawline marked with dark stubble made me want to look twice. And a third time, for good measure. The man was made for fantasies, not real life.
“Oh my,” Lyra breathed from across the room, and I silently nodded in agreement.
“Ladies.” This man’s voice, like whisky-soaked sugar, made heat bloom in my chest. My magick unfurled inside me, as though stretching after a long rest, ready to greet the world. It may be ready, butIwas not. And the last thing I needed was for it to make its first appearance ten seconds into my unwanted return to Briarhaven. Though my twenty-fifth birthday was still two days away, theknowledge that I was about to step into my power had been humming through me for years now. For most witches, it was meant to be a celebratory day. For me? It was like waiting for a gavel to slam down as a judge declared my sentence.
“Unfortunately, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
