Kiss and Spell (Enchanted, Inc.) (17 page)

“I’m not that spontaneous.”

“Remember, we’re
acting
normal, not
being
normal. And speaking of normal, since we haven’t hired someone to replace me in the coffee shop, I’d better get up there. Florence is really grilling me about you, by the way. I think she’s working for them.”

“Then this is your chance to convince her. But before you go …” He slid a notepad and pen across his desk. “Write down a memory powerful enough to jolt you out of the spell, just in case.”

I scribbled a few lines about growing up in Texas, since that was something that hadn’t come up in this scenario at all, and put it in my skirt pocket. “See you after work,” I said as I left the office.

The gray-suited elf was in the store, lurking among the shelves. I fought to keep my eyes from focusing on him as I passed him on my way to the stairs, then forced myself not to turn around when I heard footsteps behind me.

“Sorry that took so long,” I said to Florence when I reached the café. “We’ve got to hire someone new for the coffee shop so I don’t have to juggle this and the assistant manager thing. Owen’s already giving me the info dump.”

“I bet that’s not all he’s giving you,” she said.

“We just went to lunch and then had a meeting,” I protested, willing myself to blush and forcing myself not to look at the gray guy lurking in the background.

“A meeting, hmmm,” she said with a smile. “About what?”

“Well, what to do tonight did come up, but otherwise we were talking about progress at the store.”

“So, that’s what you’re calling it these days,” she said with a wink. She seemed louder and more cheery than normal, probably because of the gray guy.

I was about to reply when she gasped ever so slightly, then gulped. I turned around to see Josh standing at the top of the stairs. “Awkward!” Florence singsonged under her breath.

Chapter Eleven

“Oh, no,” I moaned. Then I noticed Josh acknowledging the gray guy and realized Josh had to be one of the prison guards. He must have been assigned to watch me. No wonder he’d been keen to keep me close. I must have really messed up his assignment.

Josh came toward the counter, and I clutched its edge until my knuckles went white. “Katie,” he said stiffly, then without moving his gaze from me, he said, “Could we get some privacy?”

“Hey, I work here,” Florence sassed back at him.

“Over here,” I said to Josh, moving away from the counter—but not so far that Florence wouldn’t be able to hear if she concentrated hard enough. The gray guy moved with us, and I tried not to look at him. “What is it, Josh?”

“You owe me an explanation,” he said.

I couldn’t say what I really wanted, so I tried to look contrite as I said, “I’m sorry for leaving you in the lurch like that, but I just couldn’t—”

He cut me off. “Couldn’t what? Give me an answer?”

“You mean saying ‘I can’t’ and running off wasn’t answer enough for you? I thought it was pretty clear. But in case you need it more specifically, no. My answer is no.”

“No, you won’t marry me, or no, you don’t want to be with me?” His tone shifted from angry to gentle. “Because we don’t have to get married now. We can take more time to work things out. You not wanting to be engaged doesn’t mean we have to break up.”

“I mean no to all of the above. I knew it wasn’t what I wanted, so I had to get out of there.” It sounded weak, but I wasn’t sure how I should play this scene. In a romantic comedy scenario, the story dictated that I do something big and dramatic instead of talking about it like a normal person would. In the movies, we didn’t get to see Mr. Wrong in the aftermath of the dramatic exit unless something hilariously humiliating that he totally deserved happened to him. We just saw the heroine happy with Mr. Right. Unless …

With a sinking feeling, I realized that this was supposed to be the scene where the heroine reconciled with Mr. Right after making the biggest mistake of her life in ditching him temporarily for Mr. Wrong. If I was still under the spell, I’d realize the error of my ways and apologize, and then we’d have a romantic reunion where all was forgiven. I didn’t think I could pull that off.

Instead, I dredged up every scene I could recall of the heroine explaining herself to Mr. Wrong before rushing off to be with Mr. Right. “It was an epiphany,” I blurted. “I looked at you there with the ring and the sparklers and the music and all that, and although it was everything I thought I wanted, I knew it wasn’t right for me. You were doing the right things, but you just weren’t the right guy. You’re going to make some lucky girl very happy, but you need to be free to find her.” I thought that sounded suitably noble, even if I did have to fight my gag reflex to say it. I didn’t hate him like the prison guard that he was. I was giving him up so he’d have a chance to find happiness.

He made a good show of acting distraught, waving his hands in the air and making a pained expression. “Did I do something wrong, something that made you upset?”

“No, you did everything right. It’s not you. It’s me.” I had to bite the inside of my lip to keep from laughing. I didn’t think anyone ever actually said that.

“There’s someone else, isn’t there? Your boss.”

“Don’t you think it’s a bad sign for us if I could be attracted to anyone else?”

He reached for my hand and grabbed it, holding it too tightly for me to pull free without making a scene, and this wasn’t supposed to be a scene. I felt the tingle of magic grow around me, and my thoughts went hazy. He was putting the whammy on me again. Was it the little whammy to make me like him or the big one to make me forget who I was? Or would the little one not work without the big one? I desperately tried to hold on to any memories I could of my true self. I remembered kissing Owen, being part of magical battles, working in my family’s store back home—all the things that weren’t supposed to be a part of this world. My name was Katie Chandler, I was from Cobb, Texas, and I worked for Magic, Spells, and Illusions, Inc. I wasn’t part of this world, and I wasn’t in love with Josh, or whatever his real name was.

“Come on, baby, how can you resist me?” he purred, making sad eyes at me.

I didn’t know about magic, but that was enough to break any spell. “Seriously?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “You’re resorting to puppy dog eyes? That, right there, is why we’re not right for each other. You want a girl you can win stuffed animals for at the fair, and I am
so
not that girl. We don’t even have the same idea of what’s romantic.” For instance, his whole romantic proposal scenario left me cold. I didn’t want to be surrounded by strangers for what was supposed to be a private moment. If I knew Owen at all, if he ever did propose, it would just be the two of us there. He wouldn’t make a big production out of it.

“So, it’s really over, then,” he said. “You won’t give me another chance?”

Had I ever been this whiny and needy about a breakup? Maybe in high school—at least, I hoped that was the only time. “Yes, it’s over. Thank you for the good times, but I think it’s best if both of us move on, really. I’ve got a new job at the store, and I’m really enjoying it here now. I don’t need you to take care of me.”

Ever so slightly, Josh glanced at the gray guy, and I saw out of the corner of my eye that the gray guy nodded. “Okay, then,” Josh said, backing away, but still holding onto my hand. “If that’s the way you want it.”

It occurred to me that if I’d stuck with Josh while retaining my memories, I might have had a chance to learn something. But I wasn’t that good an actress. He’d have probably figured me out before I learned anything useful. “It is the way I want it,” I said firmly.

He gave my hand one last squeeze, and I blinked as another wave of magic hit me. I had a moment of haziness, and then my head cleared. “Well, then, have a nice life,” he said.

“You, too,” I added, smiling fondly. He glanced over his shoulder, like he was looking for someone, but no one was there, and then he left.

As soon as he was gone, Florence exhaled loudly and said, “Good riddance to bad rubbish. If you hadn’t sent him away, I would have.”

“I guess I should have said something more before I ran off last night,” I said sheepishly. “When a guy asks a question like that, you owe him a real answer.”

“I can picture him kneeling in that restaurant with you already out the door.”

I winced. “How humiliating!”

“Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. Now, let’s get this place ready for the afternoon coffee break rush.”

The rest of the afternoon, I had the nagging sense that there was something I was forgetting, something I was supposed to do. I must have been pretty obvious about it, since Florence asked me at one point, “Did you leave the iron on, or something?”

“What? Why do you ask that?”

“Because you’ve got that look.”

“Oh. I guess there is something I’ve forgotten, but I can’t remember what it is. I suspect there’s some errand I was supposed to run today, but in all the excitement, I’ve totally forgotten. When my electricity or telephone gets cut off, I suppose I’ll know, huh?”

“Ah, new love. It makes fools of us all,” she said with a melodramatic sigh, but in spite of her teasing tone, she looked serious.

“Yeah, when you go straight from having one guy propose to realizing you’re in love with another guy, it really messes with your mind.”

“But in a good way.”

I kept that strange feeling the rest of the afternoon. At the end of my shift, Florence told me, “Now, you go down and see that adorable new guy of yours. Do you two have plans for tonight?”

Plans, there had been something about plans, hadn’t there? “Just going out to dinner,” I said with a shrug. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d forgotten something important.

“Well, have a good time, and in case you were wondering, you did the right thing. You made the right choice.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure. I hope you are.”

“Yeah, I guess I’m sure.”

“‘Guess’ and ‘sure’ don’t usually go in the same sentence. But I bet when you see him, you’ll know, and there won’t be any ‘guess’ about it.”

I hovered in the doorway of Owen’s office when I got downstairs, watching him work. His dark hair fell across his forehead as he bent to study the document on his desk, and my fingers itched to go over to him and push it back. He looked so at home in the office cluttered with books and papers. He belonged there, and I belonged with him. Florence was right. Now I was sure.

I rapped lightly on the door frame. “Ready for dinner?” I asked.

“Just a second. I have some things to finish. I do still have a store to run, or at least look like I’m running,” he added with a crooked smile. “Come in, and shut the door behind you so we can talk.”

“Of course you’re running a store,” I said as I shut the door. “Why would you need to look like that’s what you’re doing?”

He glanced up at me then, frowning. “Katie? Is something wrong?”

“Josh showed up, demanding an explanation. That was about as pleasant as you might imagine.”

“Josh showed up?” he asked warily.

“Oh, you don’t have anything to worry about. I broke up with him definitively. He didn’t take it too well. He tried to talk me out of it, but I know he’s not right for me.”

“Is anything else wrong?”

“Other than that, things are fine, and I think I shouldn’t have to worry about him anymore.”

“Do you think he knows anything?”

“Well, obviously he knows about us—he’d already figured that out. I didn’t think there was any point in hiding it.”

Owen got up from his desk and came around to stand next to me. “There’s nothing else you think he knows?”

“What is there for him to know? It’s not like it’s any of his business.”

He placed his hand against my cheek and leaned down to kiss me, then straightened and looked at me like he was waiting for something. “Mmm, that was nice,” I said. “I hope there’s more of that to look forward to this evening.”

“Katie …” he said, his voice sounding strained.

“Yeah? What’s wrong?”

“Don’t you remember the other plans we had for this evening?”

“We talked about dinner. Any other plans remain unspoken or implied, but if you want to spell them out, I’m game.”

I didn’t understand the alarm in his eyes. I’d never had a guy look that disturbed after a kiss before. Was my breath bad?

“Katie, check your pocket,” Owen said, his voice rough with emotion.

“Why?” He was starting to worry me.

“Just, please, do it. Check your pocket.”

He sounded so upset that I figured it wasn’t worth arguing about. With a shrug, I reached into my pocket and found a folded piece of paper. “Oh, that’s probably what I’ve forgotten,” I said as I pulled out the paper. “It must be my to-do list.”

When I unfolded the paper, I saw that it was covered with my handwriting, but it wasn’t a to-do list, and it wasn’t anything I remembered writing. “My brother Dean figured out he was a wizard, and he used his powers to break into all the stores on the Cobb town square,” it said. That was not was I was expecting to see, but even so, something clicked in my head, then everything went hazy and cleared again. As soon as my head felt clear, I started shaking violently in the aftershock. I looked at Owen and whispered, “Whew, that was a close call.”

“You’re okay now?” he asked. “You remember?”

“That we’re being held in some wacky elf prison? Yeah, I remember.” I sank into the nearest chair before my legs could go out from under me. “It’s a good thing you made me write that down. But why didn’t the kiss work? Isn’t that supposed to be what works in fairy tales? It worked before.”

“It may be that our relationship is now the same in both worlds, so it’s not enough to do the trick anymore. A memory from your family involving magic was a great idea. It has nothing in common with this reality.”

I studied the life-saving piece of paper in my hand. “Do you think I’ll need a new one?”

“I hope we don’t need it again.” Even so, I refolded it and put it back in my pocket. I looked up to see that he was still frowning at me. “I take it Josh really was here?” he asked.