A Charming Hex (Magical Cures Mystery Series Book 9) (8 page)

Being the non-romantic person I was, I’d had enough mush for one early afternoon in what was going to be a few days of mush.

“You are hopeless,” Oscar joked and got out of bed.

“I’ve never seen anything so fancy.” I unzipped the suitcase that had been placed on the suitcase stand before we’d gotten there. I took out one angry Madame Torres. “And I’ve never seen anyone so mad.”

Oscar looked over at me as he tied up his swim trunks.

“She’s all black.” I held Madame Torres up to show him. “Madame Torres, you can come out now.” I tapped my fingernail on the glass ball.

“I will not.” Her voice boomed from deep within. “What you have done to me should be against spiritual law.”

“Really?” I asked. “I brought you to this beautiful slice of heaven on Earth and if you’d just take a peek, you’ll know what I’m talking about.”

Suddenly one of her purple eye shadowed eyes took up the entire glass ball. It opened, rolled around to get a view, and then narrowed when it looked at me.

“I guess I can try to come out and get over this sickness,” she groaned. “Do you know what they do to your luggage at those airports?”

I shook my head.

“They open up your stuff and they look at it all. They shook me up like I was a snow globe. Snow. Globe!” she shouted.  I had to turn my head so she couldn’t see my smirk.

“Oh no.” I put her on top of the clothes and rummaged through the rest of the suitcase. “Did they get my book?”

I hadn’t thought about anyone going through my things.

“They tried to take a lot of stuff, but I had to make an appearance.” An evil grin crossed her red lips, exposing her bright white teeth. “I gave them a little spook.”

“Good girl.” I couldn’t help but laugh. “You do love me.”

“I love me. I love my life and I want to go home. That means that I have to keep you safe in order to get back there. A little spook never hurt anyone.” She winked. “Now, go put me over there so I can get a good view of this place while I’m here.”

“Will do.” I gave her a snappy salute and put her next to the bed on the table. “This will make you happy and relaxed.”

I looked into the ball. Madame Torres was sitting cross-legged on a floating oriental carpet already doing mediation.

“Everything alright?” Oscar asked.

“Everything is just fine.” I grabbed my bathing suit out of the suitcase and headed off to the bathroom.

While I was getting my suit on, Oscar left to go to the beach, where I found him with his toes in the surf.

“Let’s take a walk and see what’s down there.” He pointed ahead of us and grabbed my hand.

“I’m not going to lie.” I swung our hands between us as we walked down the beach to anywhere and nowhere at the same time. “This is beautiful. And I thought Whispering Falls was amazing.”

“Our home is amazing, but sometimes we have to feed our own souls and just live like we used to.” Oscar was right. “Don’t you miss living in Locust Grove sometimes? The easy life?”

“You mean climbing in and out of my window, smashing Darla’s flowers and feeding me Ding Dongs?” Those were fond memories. “No, life was hard for me. You were a cop and I was trying to make a living making homeopathic cures. I had no meaning to my life.”

“You are meant to be with me.” He put his arm around my shoulders as we watched the waves roll in and roll out. “As long as I have you, I know life is great.”

“Me too.” My wrist burned and I rubbed the charm bracelet.
And as long as I have you
, I thought as I rubbed the newest charm.

“Newlyweds, huh?” A man from the wedding party jogged up.

“We are.” Oscar agreed. “Oscar and June Park.”

I was going to correct him because I did technically keep my name, June Heal, but for argument’s sake and the fact I didn’t feel like explaining why I had kept my name, I let Oscar ramble to his new friend.

“I’m getting married tomorrow. It was her idea to bring our closest friends and it seemed like fun.” The guy put his hand out. “Patrick.”

They did the man shake and did some more talking as the three of us walked down the beach. I stopped every few feet and looked at the shells to see if there were any I might be able to take back with me.

“We are going snorkeling tonight if you want to go.” Patrick was a friendly sort of guy. He had short blond hair. Tall. Already tan. Fairly well built.

“At night?” I asked.

“Yeah.” He anxiously nodded his head. “Tulip Island has the best night fishing. There are some fish that glow in the dark. It’s a lot of fun.”

“You’ve done it before?” Oscar asked with a curious tone.

“Oh yeah, man. Me and my family used to come here all the time, so my fiancée wanted to come here.” He pointed to someone off in the distance. “In fact, that’s my brother. I’ll see you tonight.”

He didn’t give us a chance to turn down his offer before he took off in a sprint toward his brother and the rest of the wedding party. They had already gathered down on the beach in their swimsuits. Drinks were flying.

“Hi!” The brunette from earlier flagged us down. “Patrick said you two were joining us for snorkeling tonight. I’m Juliette.”

“Hi,” I greeted her. “I’m June and this is my husband, Oscar. I hear congratulations are in order.”

“We are so excited. This is the first time I’ve been here, but Patrick raved about it until I gave in.”

“You gave in?” I asked, recalling just a few short minutes ago Patrick had told us that it was her idea to come here.

“Oh yes.” She laughed. “What girl wants to give up the dream of a big church wedding to get married in a bathing suit.” She shook her head. “One in love. Anyway, Patrick and his family have been coming here for years. Unfortunately, his parents were killed in a terrible house fire. Gas stove they believe exploded and that’s why Patrick won’t get a gas oven.” Her brows furrowed. “Terrible really. And now it’s just the two of them. Peter and Patrick.”

“It’s just me and Oscar. Both of our parents are deceased and we have no siblings.” The wedding party looked like they were having all sorts of fun without the bride. “Who is that out there?” I wanted to change the subject when I saw a pair of flippers pierce the water in the distance.

“Oh, that’s Peter. My soon-to-be brother-in-law.” She shifted her weight and folded her arms. “He was really affected by the death of his parents. They coddled him a lot and he was in the home when his parents died. In fact, Patrick was the one who found him almost dead in the basement and saved his life.”

“Really?” I couldn’t imagine what that must’ve been like.

“Yes. So now we have custody of him, though he’s going to be eighteen in a few months.” She let out a heavy sigh. “He didn’t want to come because he hates to be in crowds. Patrick reminded him that Tulip Island was secluded. When he saw you and Oscar getting on the plane, he freaked.”

“That’s so sad.” I really wanted Peter to be happy and for a split second I wondered if I could do a little spell to help him.

“He’s special.” She smiled and waved at him when he saw us looking at him. He waved back with something in his hand.

“Special?” I asked.

“He needed help all through school and went to special schools.” Juliette smiled.

“Oh.” I lifted my chin in the air. I wasn’t sure what to say.

“Anyway, I insist that you come to the rehearsal dinner before snorkeling and you must come to the wedding.” She tapped my arm. A pulse of lightning rushed through me, causing me to catch my breath.

 “Sure,” Oscar confirmed. “It’s just us on this island so we might as well make the most fun of it.”

He looked at me. I felt sorry for him because I could relate to how he had to be feeling, thinking about losing his parents at a young age like me.

“Of course we will.” My mouth dried. “We wouldn’t miss the dinner, snorkeling or the wedding.”

“Wonderful.” She bounced on the balls of her feet. “I’ll be sure to tell Mr. Victor to include you in all the details. I’d better get back to the group. Would you like to join us?”

“I think we are going to continue to walk around and take a look at the beautiful island.” Oscar took me by the hand. “We will see you tonight.”

“You two are so cute.” Her button nose curled and she scurried off, back to their group of eight.

“What was that about?” Oscar asked. “You looked frightened.”

“Not frightened.” I made myself smile at him. Playfully I kicked up the water on him. “I thought it was our honeymoon and it was supposed to be just us.” I snuggled him closer by putting my arm in the crook of his. “Not us and another couple. And we were supposed to have dinner at the tiki place Gene talked about.”

“We have the next few days alone. We can be cordial and reschedule dinner.” Oscar’s manners was one thing I had fallen in love with years ago. “Maybe we can be like Patrick and make this a family thing.”

“Hey!” I punched him in the arm. “You know I don’t want children.”

It’d come to be a bad topic over the past couple of months since we got married. After all we’d been through, finding out we were spiritualists, we had decided that children weren’t an option in our future. I was sticking to that. But leave it to Oscar to be all emotional about family and family traditions.

“Never say never.” Oscar smacked me on the tushie and ran out to sea, diving into the depths of the sea green ocean.

“Never!” I yelled as his head bobbed up out of the water and I popped a squat in the sand. “I said it! Never!”

I barely got my toes buried and my book out of my bag when I heard yelling behind me. It was hard to make out what they were saying with sound of the waves crashing up against the beach. But there was some crying.

I looked back and saw Patrick. His head was bobbing back and forth, first finger pointing, then rubbing his hands together and finally nervously running his hands through his hair.

“I love you. This is right. You and I both know it.” He assured her, (I’m assuming her was Juliette).

I’d heard of cold feet before, but I never experienced it. My only issue when I got married was not having my parents with me.

Evidently, Patrick made it all better with more words because when I turned back around, they were in each other’s arms, playing kissy face. I couldn’t see Juliette’s face, but I could see the smile on Patrick’s face. It was the first time that my intuition told me that he was really in love.  I turned back around to watch Oscar’s feet bob up and out of the water from all his diving.

“Boys will be boys.” Juliette appeared next to me.

“Hi,” I said. The line between my eyes creased. There was no way she’d had time to walk from the palm tree to here within seconds.

“You look confused.” She laughed. “Juliette. I just met you back there.” She pointed behind her.

“Yes. I know. Weren’t you just. . .” I blinked my eyes a couple of times. I noticed the bag in her hand. “Where have you been?”

“Looking for treasure.” She giggled.

“Treasure?” I asked, a little curious.

“That’s what I’m told by Peter.” She held up a map that had been drawn by what looked to be a child. “He claims his dad told him about it. He insisted we go up to the volcano and look for it. Since Patrick was going to play around here, I thought I’d go and play with Peter.”

“That is so sweet.” I noticed Peter was looking through his own bag of treasure. He pulled out a bottle of chocolate milk and sat in the sand to drink it. “Well?”

“Well what?” she asked.

“Did you find any treasure?” I asked.

“He found some beautiful treasure, didn’t you, Peter?” Juliette’s smile was tender and caring. “Put down your milk and show Mrs. Park what you found. He loves chocolate milk.”

“June,” I corrected her. “You can call me June.” I gulped realizing more than ever that I had taken on the same attitude as Darla and how she didn’t like to be called anything but Darla.

I sat up on the edge of the beach chair and watched the pride on Peter’s face as he gently took out of the bag different colored shells.

“Treasure.” He held out a beautiful piece of lava rock that had solidified.

“That’s beautiful.” I pushed myself up a little more to get a better look.

“He had the most beautiful shell collection from all the times his parents had brought him here, but lost it all in the fire.” She rubbed a loving hand down Peter’s back. He didn’t seem to pay much attention to it.

My heart warmed. It was good to see Juliette taking on the mothering role for her soon-to-be brother-in-law.

“I hope you find a lot of treasure,” I said to him and looked over when I heard the sand shuffling behind me.

“Treasure?” Violet asked as she stood behind us.

“Yeah.” Juliette laughed. “Peter thinks there is treasure near the volcano.”

“The volcano is off limits.” Violet didn’t find the cute treasure hunt at all cute. “Gene should’ve told you that when he took you to your villa.”

“He did, but we were fine.” Juliette drew back.

“If it weren’t off limits, then we would take you. Stay away from the volcano.” Violet’s voice was stern, not at all wavering.

“Chill out.” Juliette shook her head.

“Everything okay here?” Patrick jogged up. He looked at Juliette with the dead eyes I’d seen before.

“It’s fine.” Juliette kissed his lips. His eyes wandered to Violet and the look of love glistened in them as he looked at her.

“It’s not fine.” Violet turned on the balls of her bare feet and trotted off.

Patrick and Juliette strolled off. Juliette kicking the surf water up at Patrick as he grabbed her, picked her up and cradled her in his arms.

“This is when I tell my father that sometimes it’s best to just shut down the island.” Anger spilled out of Violet’s mouth. She had returned and sat next to me.  In the sunlight, the freckles danced across her nose and even along the tops of her shoulders.

“It’s a beautiful treasure not to share with the world.” I dragged my bag across the sand and took out my sunscreen.

“People like her will make it not so beautiful.” Violet’s eyes narrowed. “Plus, Patrick should’ve told her because he and his family have been here so many times that they know what is off limits.”