Maggie Shayne - An Enchanted Season

Will lifted the ladder sideways and headed toward the garage with it. “Still amazes me that you have blond hair and your sisters are both brunettes. You don’t look anything like them.”

“I know. And you know how my mom feels about it. It drives her insane that I look like Malibu Barbie. Without the chest. Or the tiny waist. Or the bikini.”

Will laughed. “Oh, I don’t know. You might give Barbie a run for her money.”

If that were a compliment, she’d take it.

“And I’m sure your mother doesn’t care that you have blond hair.”

“Yes, she does.” Charlotte followed him, picking carefully over the snowy ground. “You know that Murphy girls are supposed to be weird. Interesting. Into crystals and piercings and flowing skirts. That’s Bree and Abby. I’m odd blonde out who turned the tarot shop I inherited from my grandmother into a Caribou Coffee. That’s blasphemy in the Murphy house, you know that.”

Will figured there was some truth to that, but he also thought Charlotte worried too much. “They’re proud of you, Charlotte. Even if they don’t always get you.” Will kept the ladder firmly in his hands so he wouldn’t touch her. He was frequently tempted to touch Charlotte and almost always managed to control himself. Occasionally he couldn’t resist and gave her a nudge or a shoulder rub or a quick peck on the top of her head, and she didn’t seem to mind that.

The one time he had given in to hope and tried to kiss her full on the mouth, five years earlier, she had shot him such a look of horror, asking, “What are you doing ?” that he had pulled back quick like and had never made that mistake again.

He was in love with Charlotte, and he suffered that knowledge in silence.

It was a hard lot in life and he saw no end in sight to the dilemma. Eventually he figured one of two things would happen. He’d either drop dead of sexual frustration, or Charlotte would fall in love with some schmuck and get married. If it was the latter, well, he’d have to pull up stakes and move out of state, because he could not watch her carrying on with another man. No frickin’ way.

“What are you doing the rest of the day?” she asked him, with obviously no idea of the direction his thoughts had been running. “I’ve got to head to the shop in an hour for the Saturday night rush.”

Since Charlotte had defied Cuttersville’s fear of coffee with whipped toppings and her own family’s franchise disdain, and opened a Caribou Coffee, the Midwest equivalent of a Starbucks, right smack downtown, her business had been booming. It had become a favorite Saturday night hangout for a lot of folks, young and old alike. Will thought her business savvy was amazing.

“I guess I’ll just put up my own Christmas tree and call it an early night. I’m on morning shift tomorrow.” Not that work would stop him from staying up all night if he had a good reason—he just didn’t have a good reason. Unless Charlotte reacted the way he wanted her to his pronouncement, the way he knew she would.

She frowned at him. “You can’t put your tree up by yourself! That’s…that’s…”

A cry for help? He was well aware what he was doing, and he should feel pathetic that he was playing off her sympathy, but he was too determined to spend as much time with her as possible to care. He shrugged and tried to look lonely, but stoic. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Yes, it is. Tree trimming is something you do with the people you lo—family and friends. I’ll come over after work and we can do it together. It will be fun. I’ll make you watch cheesy Christmas movies with me, because you know how much I love those.” She glanced down at his arms. “Are you going to set that ladder down? It must be heavy.”

Yes. He was going to set the ladder down and he was going to close the three feet between them and he was going to put his mouth on hers, and slide his hand inside her jacket and cup her breast. His tongue was going in her mouth and taking possession, licking and sliding and mating, until she was weak with wanting him. Then when he stripped her clothes off and took her against the garage wall, she was going to understand, accept, embrace the fact that he wanted her as his friend, his lover, his life partner.

Or he could just shrug and lift the ladder onto its wall-mounted hooks.

But before he could do either, Charlotte’s eyes went wide.

“Are you okay?” she asked. “You look sort of…angry.”

It was lust, not anger. Pure sexual desire that threatened to make him lose control as she stood in the middle of the garage, her puffy coat covering all her curves, her fur-lined collar up around her ears, and her nose pink from the cold. He wanted her, he didn’t know what the hell to do about it, and he was starting to get weird and desperate. But before he could formulate any sort of reply, he felt movement on his chest.

Thinking there was a spider or something crawling up his coat, Will swatted at it, glancing down.

“What are you doing?” she asked, taking a step forward.

“There’s something on me.” And crazy enough, even though he couldn’t see a damn thing, his jacket zipper was actually descending. “What the hell?” It was just gliding right down, like someone was tugging it. It wasn’t falling, it was being pulled. By nothing.

“Uh…Charlotte…”

“Your zipper’s going down,” she said, coming to a halt. “How is that possible?”

If he knew, he wouldn’t be freaking out. He grabbed at it and tried to stop it, but the zipper was already undone at the bottom and the two sides of his jacket had fallen apart. “That was really weird. That’s what it was like when I felt someone touch my ass. It felt totally real.”

Charlotte was frowning. “There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

He was starting to doubt that himself, since he was the one being accosted. “I’m a cop, I don’t believe in that stuff, either. But this is Ohio’s most haunted town according to those paranormal investigators.” Will shot an uneasy glance around the garage. It was an old structure, the garage originally a carriage house to the hundred-and-twenty-year-old Victorian Painted Lady that Charlotte lived in with her sister Bree. “And I know what I felt. And you saw what just happened.”

“It was just a defect in your zipper.” She was still frowning, her lips pursed together.

He would be willing to accept that if it made any sense at all, but it really defied the logic. “Okay, so let’s just get out of here and we’ll pretend nothing happened. I’m cool with that.”

She nodded but didn’t say anything.

Will took a step forward right as he felt the unmistakable sensation of his jeans unsnapping and the zipper starting to come down.

“Holy shit…” He stopped in his tracks and glanced down at his pants in disbelief. His black boxer briefs were showing.

Charlotte screamed. “Will!”

And just as fast as the zipper went down, it went back up, and though the snap seemed to struggle a little, it finally closed, too.

“Not only is this garage haunted, the ghost is a pervert,” Will said, holding on to his pants with both hands. If Charlotte ever saw him naked, it was not going to be because some frisky spirit yanked his drawers and had him standing in front of her buck naked from the waist down.

“Maybe you should go,” Charlotte said, wide-eyed. “I’ll finish putting all these leftover lights and boxes away. I’ll see you tonight at your place after I close the store.”

Then her gaze dropped down to the front of his jeans and the tip of her tongue peaked out and slid across her bottom lip.

Yep. Time to go.

Will almost ran into Charlotte’s sisters as he got the hell out of the garage and moved down the driveway, darting a glance back over his shoulder.