Don't Hex with Texas (7 page)

“Ohhhhh!” Mom said, her eyebrows shooting up to her hairline. “Now, where are you staying while you’re in town? Of course, you’ll have to stay with us. We have a couple of extra bedrooms since the boys have all moved out. Katie’s the only one of the bunch who still isn’t married—
yet
.” She fluttered her eyelashes and gave Owen a meaningful look on the word “yet,” leaving no doubt that she expected him to step up to the plate and propose at any moment.

“That’s very kind of you to offer,” Owen began, shooting hesitant glances between her and me.

“I insist! You don’t want to stay at that crummy old motel.”

“Mom!” I hissed. “My friend runs that motel.” It wasn’t exactly four-star accommodations, but it was clean, neat, and safe, except when the office windows disappeared, and even then, nothing had been stolen. Even better, my parents didn’t live there. And I didn’t live there. I wouldn’t have to be constantly aware of him under the same roof, seeing him first thing in the morning, and generally being reminded of all the reasons I hated that we couldn’t be together. I also didn’t think it was a great idea for him to have that much proximity to me. That is, if he didn’t hate me now. For all I knew, he’d have no trouble resisting my nearness.

“I’m sure it’s nice enough, but we have plenty of room, and it’s so much homier.”

“The motel does have free high-speed Internet access,” I pointed out. Nita called it her lifeline. “And cable. HBO, even.”

“Katie, I’m sure Owen didn’t come all this way to play on the Internet and watch TV,” Mom said, taking Owen by the arm. “Of course you’ll stay with us. I’ll be insulted if you don’t.”

She looked like she was about to drag him physically out of the store. Dad came to his rescue by showing up just then with Frank Jr. “I hear Teddy got that formula figured out,” Dad said.

“Frank!” Mom said, dragging Owen over to him. “This is
Owen
. He’s Katie’s
friend
. Here from
New York
.” She emphasized every few words, as though trying to impart some kind of extra significance.

“That’s nice,” Dad said. “Good to meet you, Owen.” Then he turned back to Mom. “And what are you doing out and about? Aren’t you supposed to be resting?”

“I’m not sick, Frank. The doctor said so. I had errands to run.”

Before this got too crazy, I stepped forward. “If Owen’s going to stay with us, I ought to get him over there so he doesn’t have to hang around here all day.” Mom was too busy being pleased about winning the argument to notice him escaping from her. “You can follow me to the house,” I told him. “It’s just on the edge of town.”

Mom jumped right back into action. “Oh, why don’t you ride with him, Katie? I’m sure someone can get your truck home for you. You wouldn’t want
him
getting
lost,
now,
would you
?” There she went, emphasizing words again. This time, I was fairly sure she was telling me not to let this one out of my sight, ever.

Owen didn’t need any encouraging to get out of the store. As we settled into his rental car, he said, “I see you moved to New York for the peace and quiet.”

I laughed, and the strange tension between us eased. “I’ve missed you,” I said. I might have hugged him, but he was driving and I had the strangest fear that he’d dissolve into a magical mist if I broke the spell by touching him.

“Which way do I go?”

I directed him back through town toward our house, trying not to feel stung by the way he’d ignored what I’d said. “You’re probably going to regret staying with us. You’d have been much safer, and you’d have had more privacy to work if you’d gotten a room at the motel.”

“It didn’t sound like I had much of a choice.”

“No, you probably didn’t. She might have kidnapped you from the motel. Then again, it might not have been such a good idea to give her any sense that we might be involved.”

“How else were you going to explain me being here? It doesn’t look like there’s much to do here on business, and it’s not a tourist center. The only reasonable explanation for my presence is if I’m your boyfriend.”

It was the first time he’d ever used the b-word with me, but it wasn’t the best context for it. This was definitely not the way I’d imagined our reunion. Of course, I’d tended to picture us running toward each other across a flower-dotted mountain meadow or him walking into the store, sweeping me off my feet and carrying me away, so my ideas of the reunion were highly unlikely. Still, even my sanest, most rational versions of the reunion fantasy had been nothing like this. I’d been rather partial to the one where I secretly went back to New York, then showed up at a meeting at work as though nothing had happened, much to his shock and delight.

I’d had a lot of time for daydreaming over the past few months, and I’d spent it well.

“Okay,” I said, nodding as though we were agreeing on a business deal. “You’re my boyfriend here to visit me from New York. How do we explain the fact that I’ve never said anything about you?”

“You haven’t?”

“You met my mother. Would you tell her anything?”

“Probably not.”

“And you thought your folks were scary.” His foster parents had been a little intimidating, but they weren’t likely to give anyone a nervous breakdown, unlike my family.

“I guess I must have broken your heart, which sent you running back home to your family, and you kept it a secret because you didn’t want pity for your heartbreak.”

“But that still makes you sound like a bad guy, if you broke my heart so badly that I had to run home. That wouldn’t go over well with my brothers, and
that
would certainly get in the way of you getting any work done. How about something closer to the truth, that we’d just started getting to know each other when I had to leave because of work, and then you realized how much you missed me and came to see me?”

“That works, too. Okay, let’s go with that one.” Great, I could finally call him my boyfriend, and it wasn’t even for real. Fate could be really cruel sometimes.

I pointed him toward the road to our house, and it was silent in the car for a long moment. “It was the exact opposite, you know. I mean, about you breaking my heart,” I said softly.

“I know.” I had a feeling there were layers of meaning in those two words. It kind of sounded like he meant that I wasn’t the one whose heart had been broken.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you. I was trying to help you.” He didn’t respond to that, and I chewed on my lower lip the rest of the way to our house. When I spoke again, it was to direct him to turn in at the driveway and then park in back.

As he got out of the car, he looked admiringly at the house. “Wow. And you were impressed by my house,” he said. Our house was a rambling Victorian farmhouse with wraparound porches.

“It’s just a farmhouse,” I said.

“Is that a historic marker?”

“Anything in Texas that survives more than a few years is considered historic and gets a marker. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that my grandmother has one tattooed somewhere on her body.”

He took a small suitcase and something that looked like an oversized briefcase out of the trunk, and I led him through the pack of curious dogs into the house through the kitchen door. “I’d bring you in properly through the front door, but I’m honestly not sure it opens anymore. We never use it. I think I’ll put you in Dean and Teddy’s old room.” We went up the stairs, and I guided him to the largest bedroom, which had two twin beds and lots of science fair trophies in it. “It’s not our usual guest room, but it has the advantage of being easy to escape from.”

He looked out the window. “Onto the porch roof, then onto the tree branch and down the tree?”

“You got it.”

“Is there a problem with the stairs that makes this necessary?”

“They squeak like crazy, worse even than that spot in the hallway at your folks’ place, and it’s several steps in a row, so you can’t just skip the squeaky ones. Mom and Dad’s room is right by the stairs, so no one can get up or down those stairs without being caught.”

“With four kids—and three of them boys—I bet your parents kept them that way on purpose.”

“Exactly. I’m still not sure Mom and Dad know about the escape route, and boy, did Dean make use of it. The one downside of putting you in this room is that Dean’s the one most likely to need it. He still moves back home every so often, but he can take Frank’s old room if Sherri kicks him out while you’re here.”

“Complicated relationship?”

“Don’t ask. Now, there are a couple of bathrooms off the hall here, and there’s one downstairs under the stairs. Mom will tell you to make yourself at home and get anything you want to eat or drink from the kitchen, but she’ll spend the entire time trying to force food on you, so that probably won’t be an issue. And now before the whole mob gets here, we should probably talk. The store closes at six today, so that holds off most of the family, but Mom could be back sooner. She’s probably making the rounds to let everyone know about her future son-in-law, so we have a little time. However, my grandmother could show up at any moment.”

He blanched a bit at my recitation of family likely to invade us, and I could tell that he was reconsidering the offer to stay with us. He sat on one of the room’s twin beds, braced his hands on his knees, and asked, “You haven’t had any more encounters with our suspect, have you?”

I thought I detected a hint of worry in his eyes. “No, nothing since the other night, and I still don’t think that was targeting me, specifically, for who I am. You don’t attack a magical immune with an illusion.” I fought back a shudder. “For all I know, the guy was flirting with me. What’s Sam found out? I haven’t talked to him since Wednesday night.”

He went into professional mode, the way he was in meetings at work when he seemed to disconnect his emotions from the situation. “Sam observed the suspect over the course of two days. He hasn’t been able to identify the suspect yet, so we may have to confront him or her directly.”

“So, magical duel on Main Street?”

“Not if I can avoid it. I’d rather have a friendly chat about the responsible use of magic and the need to be registered centrally, then see if I can use him to get to Idris. If he or she isn’t receptive to that, then I might have to take other measures. Having power means you have to abide by the code, whether or not you know about it.”

“I guess this means some detective work for us, huh?” I felt my spirits lifting at the thought of it, and I realized how bored I’d been away from the magical world.

“It means some detective work for me. You’re not a part of this anymore.” I winced inwardly, but before I could say anything in self-defense, we were interrupted.

“Hello! Who’s there?” my grandmother’s voice called from downstairs. “I don’t recognize that car, so if you’re robbing us, you should know that I’m armed.”

“And that would be my grandmother,” I said with a sigh. “I knew we wouldn’t have long.” I got up and called downstairs. “It’s just me, Granny. I’ve got a friend visiting.”

“That Indian girl from the motel?”

“No, Granny, a friend is visiting from out of town.” I gestured to Owen, and he got up and followed me downstairs. “Granny, I’d like you to meet Owen. He’s here visiting me from New York. Owen, this is my grandmother, Mrs. Callahan.”

Owen tried to shake her hand in greeting, but she braced both her hands on the top of her cane and gave him a good, long stare. “With coloring like that, you must be Irish,” she said. “It’s good to see someone from the old country.”

I bit my tongue before I echoed my mother’s usual reminder that she’d never been to the old country, but I figured her Texas accent—she hadn’t yet gone to Lucky Charms land—was clue enough for someone as smart as Owen. “I’m not entirely sure what my heritage is,” he said. “I suppose there could be some Irish.” Owen actually didn’t have the slightest idea who he was. He’d been orphaned young and didn’t know anything about his parents. I didn’t know the whole story, but I pictured him as a baby left in a basket on the front steps of a church. That’s the way it always happened in books.

“Ah, you’re Irish, I’m sure of it. I think you may even have a touch of the magic running through your veins.” And there she went into the land of marshmallow stars and clover. “I’d guess you often see the wee folk, as well.” She tapped the corner of her eye with a gnarled finger. “I can tell, I can. They say I have the Sight.”

“Mother, you’re not telling those stories to Owen, are you?” My mother’s voice came from the kitchen. She then appeared in the living room. “Mama, would you mind making us some coffee? I’m sure Owen could use a pick-me-up after making such a long trip.” Granny gave Owen a long, searching look before she wandered back into the kitchen. Mom then dropped her voice to a whisper and said, “Don’t let her fool you. She’s never been outside Texas. We are of Irish descent, but everything she knows about the old country, she learned from watching movies. And if she has the Sight, well, then it’s got cataracts on it as bad as the ones she had on her eyes.”

“She’s very seldom right,” I agreed, but she had been right about Owen having magic in him. Had she actually seen that, or was it more of her usual blatherings?

“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” Mom said, “I need to start getting things ready for dinner. I’ve invited the whole family over to get to know you better.”

It looked like getting time to investigate—let alone time to work out whatever was going on with us—was going to be a real challenge.

F
ortunately, Owen didn’t react in the way I wanted to, which was to run screaming from the house. He also didn’t react in the way I halfway expected him to, which was keeling over in a dead faint. Instead he said softly but with a firm undertone to his voice, “That’s very nice of you, Mrs. Chandler, but I was looking forward to catching up with Katie tonight.” With that he put his arm around me, proving finally that he was here for real and wasn’t just a cloud of magical mist. Oh yeah, he was definitely real and very solid, and I wanted even less to spend the evening with the entire family. I’d forgotten just how good it felt to have his arm around me.

Mom faltered. “Oh. I suppose I could see that. Yes. I’m sure you’re tired from traveling, anyway. You already met the whole family. I should let you rest before you have to keep them all straight. You two go on and have fun catching up.”

“Thank you for being so understanding. Now, I think I’ll go finish unpacking, and then I’d like Katie to show me around the town.” With his arm still around me, he steered me back toward the stairs.

“Wow, that was some trick,” I said once we were safely up in Dean and Teddy’s old room. “I’d have suspected you of using magic if I didn’t know she was immune. Though I suppose you are the dragon whisperer, and Mom isn’t too far from that.”

“You met Gloria. I learned a lot from her. That’s the way she always gets her way, by being polite and firm at the same time and by asking for something that they’d look like a heel for saying no to.” Gloria was his foster mother, and quite a formidable woman. Putting her in the same room with my mother could possibly be dangerous—or else result in a cage match to which we could sell tickets.

“Well, you really pushed my mother’s buttons,” I said, sitting on one of the twin beds. “The only thing she wants more than to show you off to everyone is to give us enough time alone to make sure something eventually happens. And by ‘something’ I mean an event involving a church, flowers, and a white dress. Fair warning.”

He hung his clothes in the closet, shoving aside the coats and other winter wear stored there. “Don’t worry about that. I’ve got plenty of experience there, too. You saw what Christmas was like.”

When we’d been in his hometown for Christmas, the mothers of all the local marriageable young women had literally fought over him. Yeah, there was magic involved, but I got the feeling the inclination hadn’t been buried too deep beneath the surface. “It’s never a dull moment, is it?” I said.

“I daydream about dull moments.” He knelt beside the large case and asked, “Is there a safe place to hide this where we don’t have to worry about anyone trying to get into it? Normally, I’d shove it under a bed and make it invisible, but with your mother being magically immune, that won’t work.”

“I think my grandmother may be, too. Or crazy. Or maybe both. Why, what is it?”

“Supplies, some reference material. Basically, everything magical I have with me. It’s locked, but if I were a host, I might be suspicious about a locked case like this.”

“You can hide it in my room. She might get nosy and poke around in here to see what she can learn about you, but she thinks she already knows everything about me.”

“Good idea. Thanks.”

I stuck my head in the hallway to make sure the coast was clear, then gestured to him and led him down the hall to my room. Only as he crossed the threshold did I rethink my offer. This meant he would see my childhood room. It was pink. Very pink, as in explosion at the Pepto Bismol factory. Everything was all ruffles and lace, like a room fit for a fairy-tale princess. I’d tried to temper the effect as I got older by covering the pink floral wallpaper with posters, but since the posters were of castles or were from romantic movies, it didn’t help much. I’d barely been aware of my surroundings since I’d been back, but walking into this room with Owen, I couldn’t help but be slapped in the face with how awful it was.

“I’ll have you know, I picked out the decor when I was five,” I said in a preemptive strike.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were thinking it.”

“But I know better than to say anything. Where should I put this?” He hefted the case. “I wouldn’t want it to clash with your decor.”

“Very funny.” I lifted the pink ruffled and flounced bedskirt. “Here, slide it under the bed, up by the head. Even if someone gets crazy enough to vacuum under the bed, it should be hidden somewhat there because of the nightstand.”

He knelt and placed the case as I directed, then stood up and looked around the room. “I never really saw you as the pink type.”

“That phase only lasted a couple of years. Two years later, it was purple, but Mom wouldn’t let me redecorate. In high school, I wanted to go all modern with red, black, and white. Now I think I’d do it in pale blue and white.”

He raised an eyebrow, but refrained from further comment. “Are you ready to go?”

“Can you give me five minutes to change clothes? I’m kind of a mess from work.” Once I had the door shut with him safely on the other side, I frantically pulled off my clothes, then put on a nicer pair of jeans and a clean shirt. I tugged the ponytail holder out of my hair and ran a brush through it. I limited makeup to a little lip gloss because I didn’t want to look like I was trying too hard.

Feeling much better about myself, I found him in Teddy and Dean’s room. I gave him a quick tour of the house, avoiding the kitchen where Mom and Granny lurked. In the backyard, the dogs ran to greet us, going straight to Owen. I was a bit insulted at the snub by my own dogs. The dogs escorted us to the edge of the yard where we could see the fields, which were laid out in stripes in various shades of green. “We don’t really farm as a business anymore,” I explained, “but those are Teddy’s test crops. He plants different kinds of seeds and tests them with all kinds of fertilizers to see what works best.”

“That would be the formula he was talking about?”

“Yes, and like I warned you, don’t ask him about it. It’s like someone asking you a question about how magic works. Now, over there is the barn, which mostly serves as a storage shed. We have a few head of cattle—again, for comparing different kinds of feed—and some horses that are more pets than anything. And there you are. So I guess we need to go talk to Sam?”

He produced the keys to the rental car and said, “Yeah, we’re set for a meeting in fifteen minutes.”

“Then I am part of the investigation, huh?”

“Only because it would be suspicious if I went off by myself so soon after getting here. That would raise too many questions with your family.”

That wasn’t exactly an enthusiastic invitation, but it didn’t stop me from getting into the car with him. I couldn’t blame him for being a bit hurt and upset about the way things had happened, but I was sure he’d understood. And hey, it hadn’t been a picnic for me, either.

As we drove away, I noticed the kitchen curtains moving and knew we were being watched. Mom and Granny probably thought we were off for a big, romantic night, but except for the one moment when he’d put his arm around me, he’d been acting anything but romantic. He seemed almost as distant as if he were still in New York rather than right there beside me.

“I guess we’re heading to the square,” I said when the silence in the car grew oppressive.

“No, that’s too public for a meeting. It takes too much power to conceal something that complex. We’re meeting somewhere else.” It was my hometown, but he seemed to know his way around already, turning onto side streets without hesitation. We pulled up in back of the town’s Catholic church, where a lone gargoyle sat on the roof ridge. He swooped down to join us.

“Ah, that’s more like it,” Sam said. “I need a little recharge from perching on a church every so often. I was afraid if I sat on that courthouse much longer, I’d turn into a lawyer. So, what’s the plan, boss?”

“You haven’t been able to identify our culprit?”

“Hey, Katie-bug here’s the local.” He turned to me. “You know the townfolk. Did old Prances in Robes ring a bell with you?”

“There wasn’t anything particularly distinctive about him—or her. I guess it would help if he’d walked with a limp or had a certain gait that looked familiar, or maybe wore personalized cowboy boots under his robes so they showed when he took a step. I don’t think I even saw his feet.”

“What’s your assessment of our local wizard?” Owen asked Sam.

“Pretty basic magic. Really rough, not a lot of power or control. I’m most worried about him using magic as a pickpocketing tool.”

“Yeah, that does put things closer to the dark side, which isn’t a good introduction to magic,” Owen mused. “I’m curious to see these lessons and how well they work. We don’t often see people learning as adults.”

“How do people learn they’re magical?” I asked.

“It’s an inherited trait, so parents are generally magical and then they know to look for the signs in their children.”

“But what if someone slips through the cracks and doesn’t find out that they’re magical? Couldn’t that happen?”

“I suppose there might be someone with latent magical talent out there who never knew. Families can drift apart and lose traditions, and if they’re not in a place with strong power lines or other magical people for them to learn from, they might not ever realize what they’re capable of. I imagine that’s what we’re dealing with here, someone who figured out he could do strange things that were useful and is enjoying the power.”

“Which is what we gotta put a stop to,” Sam growled. “It ruins things for all of us if some wacko goes out and shows off.”

Owen took my hand then, and shivers went all up and down my spine—not the magical tingle I had from Sam’s veiled presence. I heard a car drive by on the adjacent street, more slowly than normal. “That’s the third car in the last few minutes,” Owen said. “They can’t see Sam, but what they do see looks like us having a deep conversation.”

I was all for giving them a show, but holding my hand seemed to be as far as Owen was willing to go at the moment. “By this time, my mom will have already heard that I’m with a guy in back of the Catholic church.”

Owen turned back to face Sam, and I saw that the gargoyle’s stone face was etched with amusement. “We’ll check around and see if someone shows signs of being our culprit. You keep an eye out for magical activity and let me know if anything else happens.”

Sam saluted him with one wing. “Got it, boss.”

As we got back into the car, Owen said, “If you’re showing me off around town and introducing me to people, that gives us an excuse to talk to any suspects. Do you have any suspects?”

“Not many. There’s this weird guy who used to be Teddy’s friend. Mom swears he made the pharmacist give him his prescription for free. I’m still not sure if that’s another one of the magical things she spotted or if that one’s all in her head. Frankly, I can’t see him working hard enough to learn how to do a real spell. If he flunked out of A&M, he’s not going to be able to learn magic. Then there’s Sherri, I guess, but she’s not the magical kind of witch.”

“This isn’t witchcraft we’re dealing with, anyway. It’s entirely different.”

“The first place we have to go is the motel so you can meet Nita.”

“Is she a suspect?”

“No, but she’s my best friend around here, and wouldn’t it look funny for me to show off my handsome New York boyfriend to everyone in town without first introducing you to my best friend? Besides, something weird happened at the motel a few nights ago. A window disappeared entirely, like that time you made the restaurant windows vanish. There wasn’t any broken glass lying around, and nothing was stolen.”

“The motel is the pink place on the north side of town, right?”

“That’s it.”

“You must really like it, then.”

I groaned. I’d clearly never live down the pink room. At least Owen was showing signs of a sense of humor instead of being more stone-like than Sam.

Nita was sitting behind the front desk, reading a pastel-covered book with a stiletto-clad foot on the cover. She glanced up when the front door bell jingled, took one look at Owen, and her jaw dropped. It seemed to take her a full minute to realize I was with Owen, and then she looked even more shocked. Owen, as usual, blushed furiously, which had the effect of making him even more adorable.

“Hi, Nita,” I said, wondering if I needed to do CPR or at least check for a pulse. “You’ve got to meet Owen, my friend from New York who’s here for a visit. Owen, Nita and I have been friends since fourth grade.”

Owen hit her with one of his heart-melting smiles and said, “Nice to meet you.”

“Huh? Uh, New York, yeah,” she stammered. Then she pulled herself together. “And you left New York? With him there? And you never told me about him?”

Owen’s blush deepened. “It’s a long story,” I explained. “I didn’t really want to talk much about it.”

Her eyes got even wider, then she narrowed them meaningfully at me. In other words, we would be talking later. Now recovered fully and back to her usual perky self, she asked Owen, “So, how long are you in town?”

“A few days.”

“Do you need a place to stay? We have vacancies. Lots of vacancies.”