Chapter 4 #5
“I only just remembered, I’m sorry.” I run my fingers through my hair.
“It’s all been a lot. Harry’s harmless, but he’s an odd sort.
He’s upset with me because the village garden show is coming up, and I’ve won eight years in a row, and he thinks I should be disqualified.
He believes I’m a witch, and that I use magic to make my flowers bloom perfectly, which he considers cheating. ”
I shake my head sadly to show the officers how silly this is. Rafe leans back and stares at me with those huge ocean-blue eyes.
You do use magic in your garden, don’t you, honey witch? Oh, you are full of surprises.
“He thinks…what?” Wilson’s lips twist with derision.
“Harry believes my whole family are witches.” I shrug.
I don’t like pretending that magic is silly when it’s one of the few things I have left that connect me to my mother and grandmother, but I’ll do it if it will get them to look into Harry.
“It all started with something between Harry and my grandmother. I don’t know what, but he’s always looking over the fence and taking photos of my plants to send to the committee.
This particular day, he was yelling at me.
Warrick stepped in and told him to leave me alone, and Harry didn’t like that, so they got into it a bit.
Eventually, Harry went inside his house.
You never know, he might’ve seen Warrick leave that morning, maybe he went after him and… ”
“Thank you. We’ll have a chat with Harry.” Hayes folds the papers and hands them off to Wilson. He glances around the shop. “This is an ambitious project.”
“It is.” A wobbly smile forms on my lips. “I’m nervous. I’ve never run a shop before, although I did once have a market stall. I just hope people enjoy my mead—”
“Do you think opening a brewery is normal behaviour for a wife whose husband has gone missing?” Wilson cuts in, her voice sharp.
“I don’t know what’s normal. I only know what I’m doing.
And I know that if I did bump off my husband, I wouldn’t be stupid enough to draw attention to myself by opening a shop,” I say.
“Warrick might not have been the man I thought he was when I married him, but if I sit at home and think about what might’ve happened to him, I’ll drive myself to ruin.
So I’m keeping myself busy. If he gets back and throws a wobbly about me opening this shop, I’ll remind him about the lingerie, and we can call it even. ”
If he comes home, the only thing you’re doing is kicking him out and then having a wild affair with someone hot and profoundly inappropriate who will make you scream so hard that you forget his name, Rafe whispers inside my head. I volunteer as tribute.
I rub my burning cheeks, hoping that Wilson doesn’t notice them.
Wilson’s lips purse. She’s unconvinced. Inspector Hayes offers me a smile that I think is supposed to be reassuring but just looks tired.
He swats half-heartedly at the bee clinging to his collar.
“If you’re serving alcohol, you’ll need a license,” he says.
“And certification for your brewing facility. I take it that you have that all sorted?”
Oh, shite.
I nod frantically. “Oh yes, absolutely. That’s all in hand.”
“Good, good. We’ll be in touch if we have any news.”
The door slams shut behind them.
I grip the edge of the counter so hard that my knuckles burn. Rafe leaps off my shoulder with a defiant yowl. A moment later, a very tall, very naked presence presses behind me.
…a wild affair with someone hot and profoundly inappropriate who will make you scream so hard that you forget his name…
“I’m guessing from the expression on your face that you didn’t know about the lingerie or the money?”
I shake my head. It’s all I can manage when Rafe’s bare chest presses into my back, his heart beating against my ribs, his breath warm against my earlobe.
“Then it’s a good thing your husband’s gone missing, because if he were here, I’d kill him.”
From the dark tone in his voice, I believe him.
And his threat should disgust me, because I don’t believe that violence solves problems. But it makes a hot thrill buzz through my veins. My bees dart around our heads.
“You don’t even know Warrick,” I breathe. “He might’ve had a reas—hey!”
I yelp as a hand grabs me under the chin, spinning me around so that my arse is trapped against the counter and a very angry, very naked Rafe is only an inch from my face, his shoulders taut, his eyes blown out – the blue ocean captured by a blackened storm.
“The words he might’ve had a good reason had better not be coming out of your mouth.
Stop defending him. He was cheating on you.
He was hiding money from you, and he’s been making you feel so small for so long that you no longer believe you’re anything without him.
And yet the moment he’s gone, you remember that you have dreams, and you take steps to make them real.
You’re clever, and capable, and utterly enchanting, Autumn Abernathy, and underneath all that self-doubt is a wild streak that would drive any decent man to ruin.
That bastard disappearing from your life is the best thing that could happen to you, and even if this meadery is a huge disaster, which it won’t be because of your aforementioned brilliance, you’d still be better off without him.
If I can convince you of that, I’ll have more than earned your help breaking my curse. Are we clear?”
My heart cracks against my ribs.
His finger traces a line over my cheek. “I said, are we clear, honey witch?”
“Y-yes.”
“Good. Now.” Rafe steps back. I don’t even realise that I’m leaning forward, my body chasing the heat of his. “Let’s not give him another moment of our energy. We need to focus on our next challenge. You don’t have a liquor license?”
“I didn’t know I needed one!” I put my face in my hands. “I guess that makes sense. I don’t even know how to get one. How’s that for brilliant?”
He lifts me under the arms like I weigh nothing and plops me on the counter, fitting himself between my legs. Why is he doing this? Why is my body reacting like this? I’m married, I’m still married. My husband is missing.
Rafe drops my phone into my hands.
“Google it. I’ll wait.”
It takes me three tries to get my trembling fingers to navigate to the parish council website and find the information on liquor licenses.
It’s a wall of text. I start trying to read it, but tears spring in the corners of my eyes.
I’m already raw from Warrick’s cheating, and utterly aware of just where Rafe’s body presses against mine, I can’t let him see that—
“You read it.” I press my phone into Rafe’s chest. “I’m too scared.”
He lifts an eyebrow at me, but takes my phone from my hand and scrolls down the page.
I try not to look at the colourful watercolour tattoo that covers his chest – a large, black violin surrounded by bright, perfectly-rendered orchids.
I can’t look away from it. Did it hurt? How come the ink doesn’t shift with him when he becomes a cat?
My throat closes over all the questions I don’t dare ask.
“Hmmmm.”
“What?” I tear my gaze from his nipple to look at his face. He frowns at the page.
“Near as I can gather, you need three distinct licenses. One to manufacture alcohol, which you’re supposed to apply for before you make a single drop—”
“Oh, no.” I bury my head in my hands.
“—a personal license for selling it, and a license for the premises you’re selling it from. We have to fill in forms, so many forms, more forms than I’ve ever filled in in my life, and you’ll have an inspection of your production facility, and then you need to sit a test about the alcohol laws.”
Tears spring in the corners of my eyes. “Okay, I guess I can’t do this. I should have thought about licensing beforehand. I can’t believe I paid for this shop before I knew that this was impossible.”
“Weren’t you listening?” Rafe holds out my phone. “It’s not impossible. It’s just paperwork. Why are you giving up?”
My mind scrambles for all the reasons so I don’t have to tell him the real reason. “First of all, I’ve already brewed the mead. It takes a year to mature. They’ll know I’ve been brewing illegally. And they have to inspect and approve my facility.” I groan. “My facility is the garden shed.”
Rafe grins. “They don’t have to know that.”
“And I have to sit a test. I haven’t sat a test since college, where I failed all of them. I don’t have time to study all the rules and get the shop ready. And it probably costs more money than I have—”
Rafe prises my hands off my face. I look into a pair of fathomless blue eyes.
The steel of his gaze holds me. “You’re not giving up.
I won’t let you. It’s purely selfish on my part, you understand.
We have a bargain. I help you, and you un-curse me.
While my painting skills have been invaluable, I can see where you need me.
I will help you study. I’m a cat. We’re motivated by rewards.
Paperwork is just paperwork. And you have money.
You have all the money in your bank account, and someone conveniently paid your husband forty thousand quid over the last two weeks. ”
“But the mead—”
“I heard a rumour that you’re a witch. Even if you have to tip out everything you’ve already made, I bet you can replenish your supplies quickly.”
He’s right.
“They’ll fail me on the garden shed.”
“They won’t.” Rafe grins. “For I have a cunning plan. What do you say, O Mistress of Questionable Fermentation, are we doing this?”