Witchful Shrinking (Midlife at the Magnolia #1)

Chapter 1

Asix-foot tall wolf I haven’t seen in thirty years smiled at me from the doorway of my musty office.

“Hey, Simone.”

My head snapped up off my desk. I blinked at least a dozen times, rubbing crusty sleep out of my eyes and begging my brain to wake the hell up. He kept talking, his lips forming sounds that seemed a lot like words.

I gaped at him, my mouth drier than a week-old muffin, which the amplified grumbling of my stomach told me I would totally eat if it were on a plate in front of me.

A wolf. Talking to me. On a Thursday.

Maybe I was still asleep. Maybe I’d slipped straight from afternoon nap to trauma-induced coma. Given that I’d spent the last six days glued to this exact spot, alternating between sobbing hysterically and screaming at the universe, anything was possible.

Memories from my pre-college life leaked out of my subconscious every time I laid my head down lately. It made sense they’d manifest in the form of an old friend. Who may or may not be a giant dog. That had to be it. I was having another weird dream. Just one more step toward madness.

“Simone?” The wolfman’s words broke through my rambling musings. Thick brows furrowed over warm brown eyes. He took a cautious step closer. “CC, are you okay?”

Hearing my old nickname wrenched away the last dregs of my sleep-induced fog. I most definitely would not dream about being called CC again. Even I wouldn’t be that cruel to myself.

There was a crick in my neck bigger than the Gulf of Mexico, so I peered at him sideways through one half-open eye until I could see him more clearly. It was not an animal. Silly Simone. It was just a man.

A muscle-packed, broad-shouldered, expensive-suit-wearing hulk of a man.

“Hey,” I managed. “I know you.” I stood up too fast, my body protesting the movement by barraging my left hip with an army of pins and needles.

Rather than fight back, my leg surrendered, and I crumpled into my crappy mesh chair.

It slid away as if sick of me, rolling against the wall behind me.

I sort of hovered mid-air, half my butt in the seat.

“I’m gonna need a minute.” I held up one finger, rubbing at my angry hip joint with a balled fist and mentally clawing his name out of the back of my brain. It was embarrassing enough he’d caught me sleeping at work. I wasn’t about to admit I only half-remembered him.

Although, to be fair, I couldn’t remember much of anything these days.

Not that I was in the habit of being fair to myself, but given what I was going through, surely I could manage the smallest bit of slack.

In the past week, my life had been flipped inside out and dumped upside down.

I was a junk drawer of a mess right now, so the name of my old running buddy wasn’t exactly at the tip of my tongue.

Old running buddy! Could remembering that be enough of a win? Probably not. I scrunched my eyes closed and flipped through my mental rolodex—my brain would never go digital—until I came up with his file. Finally, a name floated to the surface.

“Ethan?” I managed to stand and round the desk then hobbled closer to greet him, extending a hand I prayed didn’t have dried chocolate on it. “My goodness, I haven’t seen you since high school.”

That wasn’t entirely true. While I hadn’t seen him in person, the tight-end-turned-attorney’s wide smile was once plastered across every billboard in the greater New Orleans area. His confident voice had been the start of every commercial interruption on football Sundays for years.

“Ethan Mosely. Leading the Pack in Louisiana Justice.” I lifted my head to grin at him. At only five feet, I usually had to look up at people. But Ethan straight up towered over me. “You’re still tall.”

“Long time, CC.” He dipped his chin, tightly coiled curls teasing his eyebrows and the tops of his ears. “How have you been? You look great.”

I held his gaze for a moment, trying to read his emotions for sincerity.

Yep, he meant it. He thought I looked great.

My mother had always called my ability to tell what a person was feeling borderline supernatural, but I figured I just read subtle cues better than other people.

Either way, it was nice to know I didn’t look like a swamp rat. At least in his eyes.

“Come on in, and I’ll tell ya.” He followed me toward the desk, taking the single comfy chair I kept across from it while I slid back into my mesh menace. “Can I get you anything to drink? Coffee or tea? Water?”

It was silly to offer it once I’d already sat down, and even sillier because I didn’t have anything to offer.

I scanned the array of paper food bags overflowing from the small trash can beside my desk and the thin layer of grime covering the shelf on the opposite wall.

Plenty of junk and self-help books. Not a clean cup in sight. Definitely no coffee or tea.

Yep. I had nothing to offer.

“I’m covered, thanks.” He opened the briefcase I hadn’t noticed he carried and extracted a massive thermos.

It was more battered than a war tank and a hideously bright shade of orange you could see from space.

It bore the logo of our high school alma mater.

He unscrewed the lid and leaned back, propping his foot on the opposite knee while he took a sip.

“I can’t believe you still carry that thing.” My sudden laugh lightened the load on my shoulders. Strange memories from my youth had been surfacing more often than I cared to admit lately. His goofy grin and stupid thermos were a reminder they weren’t all terrible.

Despite our awkward start, it was nice to see a familiar face.

Still, a cold prick of panic tapped at my throat as the situation settled over me.

I didn’t have any appointments on my calendar.

I didn’t even have a calendar anymore. It wasn’t going to be long before my landlord showed up and shut down my failing business.

So why was an attorney in my office?

“How’s the personal injury biz these days?

” I kept my voice even, adrenaline surging through me.

He seemed genuinely happy to see me, but there was a sense of nervousness in the way he avoided eye contact.

My now-wide-awake instincts shouted a warning.

This was not a social visit. “Was I unfairly injured in a car wreck and don’t know it? ”

“Oh no, I’m just Ethan Mosely now.” His embarrassed chuckle filled the room, but it did nothing to soothe my concerns. “I gave up ambulance-chasing five years ago and moved back home. I’m in family law now.”

Family law. My stomach twisted itself into a giant knot.

“I see.” I swallowed down the urge to throw up. Why was hurling always my default when I was upset? “You’re here because you’re Jeff’s attorney.”

Any goodwill I’d managed earlier dissipated. It was a cheap trick for that bastard husband of mine to hire someone from the hometown I’d fought so hard to forget. In the week since we split, I’d done little more than drown my sorrows in junk food and reality TV.

I’d wallowed. Meanwhile, Jeff already had a divorce lawyer with a fierce reputation and an emotional connection to me.

No wonder he’d barely managed to send his estranged wife a few texts and calls but never come to find me.

He was already planning his escape. As if he were the one who needed escaping.

“You can tell your client to go straight to hell, Ethan.” A dam of tears threatened to burst behind my eyes. Pressure built in my throat. “I hope that cheating pile of dirt finds vomit in every pair of shoes he touches.”

“Go straight to hell?” Ethan clasped his hand over his mouth, and his eyes grew about three sizes. He was looking at me like I had sprouts growing out of my ears. “Vomit in shoes, CC? What are you talking about?”

“Well, that's what I did when I caught him in bed with another woman. I hope he told you that part when he hired you, because it sure makes trying to squeeze the nothing I have left out of me even harder.” My voice was becoming more shrill by the word. I wanted to stand, to kick Ethan’s perfectly round ass out of my office, but I was rooted to the chair I’d slept in since I left my house.

My heart was pounding ten miles a minute against my chest. I pressed my lips together and bit down on the inside of my cheek to keep the world from swimming around me.

If I didn’t get it together, I was headed toward a breakdown.

What’s worse, I was gonna going to lose it in front of a put-together old friend.

What would I tell one of my patients right now to help them? My mind was blank. It had been so long since I’d treated a panic attack that I didn’t know the answer. I wasn’t a great therapist on the best of days, let alone under duress. My dust-filled, coffee-devoid office was a testament to that.

Aside from Ethan, I’d only seen one other person in the past week and that had led to disaster. A strange woman who rushed into my office for an unscheduled session. I’d fumbled my way through her bizarre issue, which left me with a throbbing headache impossible to ignore.

I’d gone home early, rather than manage the pain in my empty office.

That’s when I walked in on my husband having sex with his physical therapist.

“CC.” It took several minutes for me to register that Ethan was saying my name. I squinted at him, hoping to sharpen my focus. “CC, can you look at me? Can you take a deep breath?”

My throat was burning like I’d swallowed fire. All I wanted was to go back to my wallowing. Or to dive into the bag of emotional support M&M’s I kept in my top drawer. I fixed my eyes on him, attempting a very weak glare.

“What?”

“I’m not Jeff’s attorney. I’m not here because of him.” He reached across the desk, his large hands covering my fingers, which I’d been weaving in and out while my emotions spiraled. “I don’t even know who Jeff is, sweetie. If anything, I’m kind of your attorney now.”