Chapter 5 Coco
Coco
“So this is your office,” Cristina says.
I rise from my desk and make a grand gesture with my arm. “Please, enter my domain.”
My friend laughs as she walks in, her gaze brushing over the room.
“I know what you’re thinking: How could a country girl like me wind up with such an elegant space?”
“It is nice.” She playfully punches my arm. “You did good, kid.”
The office is nice, with big windows overlooking Main Street. When I arrived yesterday, the desk was butted up to said windows, but that felt a bit too open, so I moved it into a corner.
Cristina crosses to the bookshelves on the wall. “Wow. You’ve moved in fast.”
“No, those were left by Dot, the woman who had this office before me. I guess she passed away and no one ever took her books.”
“Judging by the thickness of the dust on these shelves, looks like Dot came ages before you.”
She lifts a dusty finger to prove her point, and I smirk. “It’s nothing a little elbow grease can’t fix.”
“True. Not to mention she left quite the collection—we’ve got history of the town, crochet patterns, and then . . .” Cristina sucks in a breath. “Have you seen this?”
“What?”
I walk over as she pulls a black book halfway out from its slot, revealing just enough cover to expose the title: Spells and Craft.
I study the silver swirling script. “Is that real?”
“I don’t know.” Cristina pulls her blond hair over one shoulder and begins braiding it. “But who in town would have a book like that? Not after what happened.”
“Maybe she was one of them.”
“I doubt it. You know what people think about witches around here.” She shivers, stares at the book for one more beat before saying, “You should get rid of it.”
“It’s harmless.”
Worry thickens her voice. “I don’t know.”
“Besides, witches don’t exist.”
Right? That’s not what I am. I’m not a witch. I’m a person with blue sparkles on her fingers who sometimes touches things that just so happen to spontaneously combust.
This does not make me a witch.
I tip my head and give my friend a teasing look. “Do we actually think an old lady who worked in Zoning for twenty years hid a real spell book in this office?”
Before Cristina can reply, I grab the book and open it. The air in the room shifts, and a breeze ticks up the back of my neck, lifting my hair so that it flutters over my shoulders.
The page I’ve opened to reveals a “spell” for removing skin moles. I tap the paper. “Come on. This isn’t magic. It’s an old lady’s remedy book.”
“I don’t know,” Cristina says uneasily.
I push the book back into its place on the shelf. “I’m not going to worry about it. Come on. I didn’t ask you to lunch so we could stare at my boring office. Let’s grab something to eat.”
“I’m so glad you called.” Cristina dabs her mouth with a napkin. “Gloria’s never disappoints. This empanada is amazing.”
I nibble my own golden-brown pastry. The inside is lovely—cumin-infused ground beef with a citrusy tang. The filling sings in my mouth as the buttery crust melts on my tongue.
I moan. “This is the only thing that could make me feel better today—a meal from Gloria’s.”
“Your wish was my command, milady,” my friend jokes.
Gloria’s sits near the end of Main Street, next door to Sparkle Bar, the local watering hole. Across the street is city hall, where only an hour ago I marched inside and dropped off the kill paperwork for the resort.
Then I called Cristina.
The streets of Mystic Meadows bustle with tourists. The unicorn statue in the middle of it all shines bright, its hooves high in the air like it’s leading the town to victory.
“Okay, what’s wrong?” my friend asks. “You never eat this many carbs for lunch. So I’m guessing either your mom called to announce Brittany’s running for president and has a real shot of winning, or you’ve ended a relationship. Since you’re not dating anyone, my bets are on the White House.”
“I eat carbs,” I argue.
“Not deep-fried ones—and not three at a time.”
I eye the trio of empanadas sitting on my plate. “You have a point.”
“So, what’s up? Wait. Did they try to get you to come work in the family business again?”
“No. That ship sailed a long time ago. I did them a favor by taking a position in licenses.”
Mainly I didn’t join the family business because I’m not the star. I’m not some big influencer. Everything with me is so messy my mom doesn’t even see me. If she did, she’d probably turn toward Brittany even more.
Cristina nods in understanding. “So, how is the new job going?”
I groan.
“Come on, it can’t be that bad.”
I steel myself and admit glumly, “When Rowe returns from her honeymoon, she’s going to kill me, is how it’s going.”
“What are you talking about?”
I put this as delicately as possible, given the fact that one of my best friends doesn’t know about my stupid fingers or that I can see ley lines. You saw how Cristina reacted to the book. What will she do if she finds out about my curse—I mean, gift?
“There are, um, certain zoning regulations that aren’t in line with the Summit the Maddoxes are building.
I told Stone very politely and he wouldn’t listen, so I may have gotten some police tape, wrapped it around the building, and went to city hall, filing paperwork to suspend their construction permit. ”
As I speak, Cristina’s eyes get wider and wider and wider. She finally blinks. “I’m sorry. Did you say you killed the Maddox resort?”
I cringe. “When you put it that way, it sounds awful. But believe me, there’s a good reason for it.”
“You told Stone Maddox— Have you seen him by the way? Pane is handsome, but there’s something about Stone.
He’s not as polished as Pane, a little rough around the edges.
In a good way. Here I thought you were going to tell me you met him and had wild sex on his desk. Not that you killed the project.”
“Cristina . . .” I chastise.
“I know, you don’t have wild sex. But I can’t imagine Pane would allow construction to be wrong. He’s built before. The family knows what they’re doing.”
“Yes,” I reply slowly, “but Mystic Meadows is different. We have ley lines.”
My friend puffs out her lips as she considers this. “But how does that matter when it comes to construction?”
“Well, um . . .”
“How is everything, my darlings?” Gloria appears beside our outdoor table.
The restaurateur is in her sixties (probably) and emigrated from Cuba thirty years ago.
Her dark hair is streaked with gray, and she wears a pink apron with the name of her shop scrolled across it.
She’s built like a grandmother and smells like spice and cinnamon.
Her personality is warm, welcoming, and I feel like she’s a second mother to me, even though I don’t actually know her beyond the restaurant.
But you know, a person can dream.
“The food is great,” I tell her.
“Wonderful.” She pats my shoulder. “Enjoy, and let me know if you need anything.”
“We will,” Cristina says brightly, but as soon as Gloria’s gone, she shoots me a pointed look. “So you’re killing the project.”
“Yes. No.” I drop my voice and lean forward, hoping to make her understand. “All Stone Maddox has to do is make some changes and everything will be fine.”
“What kind of changes?”
“Just a few small ones,” I lie.
The last thing I want to admit is that Stone needs to break all the concrete that’s been poured and start over. The more I’ve sat with this, the more I’ve realized that if the resort hadn’t been built directly on ley lines, none of this would probably matter.
But it was, and here we are.
She shrugs. “I know Pane, and he’s pretty reasonable. Like, very reasonable. I don’t know Stone at all, but if what you’re saying is something that has to be done, I’m sure they’ll fix it.”
“Well, he was pretty angry.”
Cristina’s gaze scans the street. “Speak of the devil. Here he comes now.”
“What?” I screech.
I turn and sure enough, a huge white SUV comes to a screeching halt outside city hall.
The door flings open and Stone Maddox steps out, slams the door, and yells, “Dammit!”
Then he opens the door again and pulls something out.
“What’s that?” Cristina asks.
“A lambicorn. According to him, it showed up on the site today.”
“Oh my gosh! It’s so adorable! I want to pet it.”
She rises and I yank her back down. “Don’t. Do you see how mad he is?”
Stone charges into city hall with the lambicorn kicking the air playfully as it follows behind.
I slowly eat my empanada, watching the door with bated breath. A few minutes after he enters, Stone storms back out, his face even redder than before.
Oh no. This can only mean one thing: He tried to get my filing thrown out but it held, and now his construction is for sure delayed.
He’s going to kill me.
Stone’s gaze tracks across the road and finds me.
I duck down and my nose lands squarely in my lunch. My stomach is in knots, and now my nose drips with empanada juice.
“Did he see me?” I squeak.
“Yep.”
“How does he look?”
Cristina pauses. “Can a person look angrier than a volcano?”
“Considering that volcanoes are filled with lava, I don’t think so.”
“Then he’s officially hit world-obliterating anger level.”
This is not good.
I peek through the slats in the small fence sectioning off part of the sidewalk for Gloria’s diners, and spot Stone Maddox, looking bigger than life, being escorted by a kicking and bleating lambicorn that I think may have just passed gas and shot a rainbow from its butt.
I turn my face back to my plate.
A second later, a shadow falls over me. I squeeze my eyes shut. I do not want to look up. I do not want to look up.
Then comes Stone’s casual voice. “Whatcha doing?”
I don’t answer, thinking maybe he’ll go away if I ignore him.
“Baaaaaaaa,” the lambicorn bleats beside him.
I feel a tap on my shoulder. “You. Whatcha doing?”
It appears I don’t have the power of invisibility, which to be honest, is really too bad. I would trade my blue sparky fingers for it in a snap.
I slowly unfold and look up. The jade of Stone’s eyes has turned molten with fury and a shadow falls over his jaw, making his scowl look even gloomier, darker, more foreboding. And why, under all this fury, does his sharp gaze rattle me more than the fury does?
I wipe my nose with a napkin and play dumb. “Are you talking to me?”
He sneers in disgust. “Was I talking to you? Yeah, I was talking to you. You got my project shut down.”
“It’s not my fault,” I argue. “The materials you’re using—”
“Look at this town!” He throws his hands up. “It’s fine. It’s perfect! There’s nothing wrong with it.”
He’s so loud people turn to look. At him. At me. At us. Arguing. I spot Mrs. Malfree walking her portly black pug, who wheezes with every step. Mrs. Malfree knows my mom, which means she’ll be ratting on me within five minutes. A call from Mom will be incoming by the top of the hour.
I can just hear her now: Brittany’s never gotten into a street fight before. Does your sister need to have a talk with you?
I want to scream.
Stone shoves his finger in my face. “You need to march over to that building”—he cocks his head toward city hall—“and un-file your paperwork. Then I never want to see your face again.”
I grind out, “No.”
He blinks. I guess he’s not used to someone standing up to him. “What did you say?”
“I said, no. I won’t do it. I stand by my filing.”
“All right.” He drums his fingers impatiently on the white fencing. “Then show me.”
“Show you what?”
“Where my construction is ruining this town.”
“What?”
He pushes away from the fence with very muscled forearms. Muscled fingers, too. “If you’re so certain I’ll destroy Mystic Meadows, prove it.”
My stomach flips over. His building is weakening the lines, but there might not actually be proof of that yet. All I spotted was a brown patch of grass. What if there isn’t anything else to shore up my case?
And what if there is?
I drop my napkin and say to Cristina, “This will only take a minute. Hold my empanadas.”
She reaches for my plate. “Do you actually want me to—”
“No, I don’t. It’s a saying.”
Stone wipes a hand down his tired-looking face. “She meant it like guys do when we say, Hold my beer. Little Miss Pretends-to-Be-Mayor is trying to be funny.”
Our gazes latch and we glare at one another.
It is on. I will find proof his resort is destroying my town. I will find it right now, because if I’m wrong, I won’t just embarrass myself. I’ll prove that I am nothing more than what he says—a nobody playing mayor.
Just how much can one heart break in a day?