"Sorry." Testing the zipper on his pants to make sure it was still up and locked in place, Will tried to focus in front of him and reestablish a hold on reality. "What are you two up to?"
"Panties shopping," Abby said, tossing her thick, dark hair over her shoulder, exposing a multitude of black and silver necklaces that looked like they were choking the life out of her. "And is your fly down or do you have to like go to the bathroom? You keep grabbing yourself."
"Excuse me?" Will blinked at her. What was with the Murphy sisters today? They seemed determined to make him uncomfortable, and he was equally determined to ignore the question about his crotch. "Where were you?"
"Shopping. I bought a bunch of thongs," Abby elaborated. She dug into the bag on her arm. "Black, and a pink pair, and one with cherries on it...You want to see?"
Only if he was a total sicko. She was a freakin' baby. "No, that's okay." He glanced over at Bree, wanting some help. Somebody needed to rein Abby in, and it wasn't going to be him.
Bree raised an eyebrow at him, a slight smile on her face. "Abby, Will doesn't want to see your underwear. He only wants to see Charlotte's naughty bits."
"What?" He didn't even know what the hell a naughty bit was, but he wasn't about to admit wanting to see it. Even if he did probably want to see it on Charlotte.
The middle sister, and by far the most straightforward, Bree shook her head, fingering the star hanging from her neck, on the outside of her black, capelike winter coat. "I've been pretending I didn't know this for about a million years, and I'm tired of keeping quiet. You're in love with Charlotte. It's totally obvious."
Shit. "To who?" Please tell him it wasn't obvious to Charlotte, because he was going to find himself seriously embarrassed if that was the case.
"To me. I'm empathic, remember? I can sense your feelings."
Right. Bree thought she was a witch who could somehow know accurately everyone's feelings. While Will wasn't going to accept that witches existed just as a matter of course, he wasn't inclined to flat out dismiss the possibility, either. But Bree had been saying that she was one ever since he'd met her and he'd yet to see her do anything magical. Even this revelation wasn't all that amazing. He imagined it wouldn't take much for someone to guess his true feelings for Charlotte if they spent as much time with him and Charlotte as Bree did.
"Can you sense that I don't want to talk about this?" He zipped his jacket back up and dug in his pocket for his keys.
"She loves you, too."
Will did not need to hear that. "No, she doesn't."
"She does?" Abby asked in amazement. "I thought they were just best friends."
"Hello. Yes, she loves him. As more than a friend. She wants him naked, and he wants the same for her. And neither one of them will make a move. Yet we all know they'd make the perfect couple."
It was really annoying and painful to stand there and listen to Bree feed all of his delusions. "Bree, just leave it alone."
"If she gave you a very obvious sign that she was interested, would you go for it?"
He wanted to scoff and tell her it would never happen, but he figured the best way to get her to lay off was to be honest. "Yeah. Sure. But short of her kissing me, with tongue, which is never going to happen, I'm not going to believe she's interested in me."
Bree smiled. That close-lipped knowing grin scared him.
"Trust me, Will-sie," she said. "Bree is going to make everything right."
God help him.
Two
CHARLOTTE SHOVED BOXES UP AGAINST THE GARAGE WALLS with manic fervor, her hands shaking slightly. She had mentally unzipped Will's pants. How the hell had she done that?
She had wanted it to happen. She'd visualized it happening. Then had watched the reality right before her eyes. His jacket, and then his pants, had come undone. The jacket had been wishful thinking. The pants had been some kind of a test to herself, to prove the jacket was a coincidence.
It wasn't. She had mentally demanded his pants unsnap, and they had.
She had the power to strip men with her mind.
Wow. That was truly mind-boggling.
But it had to be a fluke. A coincidence. Not real. Right?
Charlotte remembered how she had mentally chanted, "Down, down, down," while she had visualized Will's zipper descending. And then it had.
Yikes.
"What's the matter with you?" her sister Abby asked from behind her. "You're like throwing those boxes around."
Charlotte stopped shoving the huge empty Christmas tree box into the corner and grabbed the robotic reindeer and dragged him out, determined to be normal. She would put the deer in the yard, plug his ass in, and have a normal Christmas like normal people did, who weren't witches and didn't make men's pants unzip with their minds.
"I'm fine."
"No, you're not." That was Bree's voice now, sounding concerned, but Charlotte couldn't bring herself to look at her sister. Despite being totally different, she and Bree had always been close, and were only two years apart in age. Since they'd moved into their grandmother's house together the year before when Bree had inherited it, they'd gotten even tighter. Bree would know she was hiding something if she looked at her.
Apparently she knew anyway. "Charlotte, come on. You're really upset. Tell us what's wrong. Is it Will? We saw him in the driveway looking a little freaked. Did you guys finally give into the inevitable and make out or something?"
She wished. "No." Grappling with the deer, dragging him across the concrete floor, she glanced at Bree. "His pants just unzipped, that's all."
"Why would that make both of you freak out?" Abby asked, swinging a shopping bag in her hand. "You're like almost thirty and you've known each other for half your lives. I don't think seeing him unzipped would be that big of a deal."
It really wouldn't be if she wasn't totally in love with him and she hadn't made it happen by the sheer force of her sexually frustrated will. "I think I did it. With my mind. Which is impossible, of course, so clearly I've lost that same mind, and the fact that I have these feelings for Will is causing me to have a mental breakdown."
Bree held up her hand. "Stop right there. You're not having a mental breakdown. Now put down the damn deer and let's go in the house and talk about this."
"I have to finish with the Christmas decorations." Charlotte got the reindeer to the driveway and switched her hands to his ears, hoping it would be easier to pick him up that way. He wasn't heavy, just awkward.
Except that her sister yanked the reindeer away from her and slapped him down in a snow bank right next to the garage. "The deer can wait. There's almost a month until Christmas. We need to talk."
"No." But she already knew she'd lost. Bree was much more stubborn than she was and she would keep at her until she confessed the whole thing. Might as well get it over with because she did not like confrontation or having her sisters annoyed with her.
"Go in the kitchen and sit." Bree pointed at the back door.
"Fine." Charlotte figured she could use a little reassurance.
Five minutes later they were sitting around the big round table in the kitchen that Charlotte had painted a distressed white, settled in creaky ladderback chairs, teacups in front of them.
"So what happened?" Bree asked.
Charlotte clutched her teacup with a yellow rose pattern, letting the warmth seep into her flesh. "Okay, this is totally embarrassing."
"We know you dig Will. That's not a secret, so don't worry about it."
"I didn't know you dig Will," Abby said, making a face at her cup as she sipped the tea. "Bree knew, though."
Of course she did. Bree knew everything Charlotte was feeling. It was a creepy sort of ability her sister had, to get in tune with other people's emotions. She was a good judge of character as well. "Okay, I do sort of like him. A lot. For a while now. But he's not interested. So I was just looking at Will, thinking that it would be really, really nice to just unzip his jacket and run my hands across his chest. H
e has a nice chest, you know. Really, really nice. Muscular. He works out a lot. It's a cop thing." Charlotte set the tea down, no longer needing the extra heat. "And then his zipper just went down. Just like..." She gestured with her hand in front of her. "It was totally weird. So I thought, bizarre coincidence, right? So I focused on the zipper on his jeans, thinking while that's what I'd really like to see come undone, it was never going to happen. So I sort of mentally chanted the word 'down' and pictured it unzipping, and then it just was. The snap came undone, and the zipper went down. It was crazy."
Bree didn't back her up on that crazy thing. Instead she just nodded, looking satisfied. "So we finally know what your magical talent is. I've been waiting for years for some kind of indicator from you...Abby and I have known all along what our talents are. I can sense and alter other people's feelings, Abby can insert herself into other people's dreams, and now you can move objects. That's very cool."
Not cool. Charlotte rubbed her temples. "I can't move objects. It was just some kind of bizarre coincidental accident. Like the wind did it and I just thought I did it." Which was ridiculous and she knew it. The wind couldn't have managed what she'd seen. "And I've never moved anything with my mind before."
"This was different because you focused. You channeled your emotion--you are in love with Will, and love, grief, and anger are the most intense emotions we experience. All your want and desire was behind the urge to unzip his jacket, and then with the pants, not only did you want him physically and emotionally, you added a chant to your visualization. And it worked, obviously. You really need to hone and train your talent now that you're aware of it."
While she wasn't going to argue that all her want and desire had been behind the urge to strip him naked, she took issue with the outcome of Bree's conclusion. "I don't want to be a witch! I'm not a witch." She wore sweater sets from J.Crew, for crying out loud.
"It's not like you have a choice. You are what you are." And her sister looked downright gleeful about it.
"Bree, I'm telling you, I'm not a witch. I have no talent to hone. I'm unhonable." Charlotte felt a little hysterical at the very thought of being Charlotte Murphy, the coffee-shop-owning witch.
"Now you have to go to the Jules festival on the winter solstice with us this year."
"Not." Bree had been trying to convince her to attend the witch ceremony for about five years and every year she flatly refused to go. Her sister gave her dire warnings about denying a piece of herself, but she usually dropped the subject after a week or two. But Charlotte had the feeling she was in trouble this year. Bree was going to hound her mercilessly now that she knew Charlotte had supposed magical powers.
Which she didn't. She was almost sure of that. Just to test it, she focused on her teacup sitting on the table and tried to move it. She even did an up, up, up chant while mentally focusing. Nothing. Whew. Major relief. No broom shopping in her future.
"Try something else," Bree suggested. "Try to move Abby's necklace."
You know, that was really annoying, how her sister could guess what she was thinking. "How did you know I was trying to move something?"
"I can sense your feelings, remember?"
"Or you just guessed because I got quiet."
"Is that how I know you chanted 'up' to the teacup?" Bree's look was smug, her black painted fingernails sliding through her equally dark hair.
A shiver rolled up Charlotte's spine. "I was just staring at it, that's how you knew."
"Try to move the necklace. Please."
"Fine, if it will prove I can't." Charlotte concentrated on the star dangling from Abby's neck on a black leather strap. She pictured it swinging outward toward her in a graceful arch, suspending in the air.
And almost peed her khaki pants when the necklace did just that.
"What..."
Her entire face went hot and her heart raced as she watched that star glint in the light from the overhead chandelier, a full ten inches out from Abby's neck. As Charlotte turned her head to the side to get a better look, terrified and fascinated simultaneously, the star turned onto its side, mimicking her motion.
"Dude," Abby whispered, her eyes crossing as she looked down, trying to see the necklace in front of her chest.
"Charlotte," Bree said, her voice low and awed.
Charlotte couldn't speak, her throat tight, her mind struggling to accept what she was seeing. "How can I be doing that?" It was utterly illogical. Yet she was clearly responsible for the movement. Even she couldn't deny that.
She didn't like it, but she couldn't deny it.
"I told you. It's your magical talent. And it's strong considering you've never used it before."
Charlotte pushed back her chair quickly and stood up. The necklace plopped against Abby's chest. "I don't want any magic," she said, knowing she sounded a little petulant, but feeling panicked. "I just want to be a normal family, a normal businesswoman who runs a Caribou Coffee. I want a freaking Bing Crosby Christmas just once, where everyone wears holiday sweaters and sings Christmas carols and eats sugar-and-butter-laden snowmen cookies. Is that too much to ask?"
Instead Murphy Christmas get-togethers involved tarot readings, offerings to the goddesses, and lectures from her mother on how the origins of Christian holiday traditions sprang from earlier Pagan and Druid worshipping. It was all very interesting, and she appreciated the open-mindedness of her parents, and how they wove spirituality and a respect for both nature and other humans into their daily lives. But having wassail wasn't nearly as exciting as pie and sugar cookies, and a Yule log was never going to replace a Christmas tree. That was why she tended to go overboard with the decorations now that she had her own house. Well, now that she was living in Bree's house, who allowed her to indulge in her love of snowmen, reindeer, nativities, and Disney character yard inflatables.
Christmas was about family, and she loved hers tremendously. But Christmas also showed very clearly how fundamentally different she was from them, and how isolated she felt sometimes as odd blonde out.
"That is a lot to ask actually. But I'm willing to have a traditional American Christmas with you--I'll even put on a reindeer sweatshirt," Bree said, though her face reflected her feelings on wearing emerald green cotton.
Charlotte thought Bree looked sincere, but she couldn't believe what she was actually hearing.
"I'm not wearing any reindeer sweatshirt," Abby said. "But I can sing Christmas songs and bake cookies."
"Are you guys serious?" Charlotte looked at her sisters and smiled, truly touched. "You'd do that for me?" That was so sweet.
"Of course we would. We love you. If this is that important to you, we're willing to put up with a little commercialism. I'm sure Dad will be cool with it, too, though I can't vouch for Mom."
"Christmas doesn't have to be about commercialism or giving tons of overpriced gifts. I just want to be together, and for once, I want you all to understand and appreciate what I like." Everything was always about everyone else's interests, never hers, and she was touched beyond belief that Bree and Abby were willing to suck it up and give her a traditional Christmas celebration. "You guys are awesome to do this. It means a lot to me."
"I just have one small request in return," Bree said, her green eyes lifting from her teacup.
Here it came. Charlotte braced herself. "What? You want me to go the Jules festival? Fine, I can do that."
"No. I want you to admit you're a witch. By casting a lust spell on Will."
Three
"WHAT? A LUST SPELL?" THAT WAS SO APPALLING, ON SO many levels, she didn't even know where to begin.
"Oh, now that's an awesome idea," Abby said, sitting up straighter and tossing her hair over her shoulder.
Who was this child? Charlotte glared at her baby sister. "No, it's not. I'm not a witch, and even if I was, why would I want to force Will into feeling lust for me? That's just...yucky." Humiliating. Desperate. Pathetic.
"Will wants you, Charlotte. Trust me. He just needs a pus
h."
Did they have to keep making this harder for her? Every day she questioned, wondered, wished that Will could feel more for her than friendship, but he didn't, and at the end of every day she counseled herself to be content with what she had. She really didn't need them encouraging her futile dreams.
"He loves you. I can feel it."
"Stop it!" Charlotte was tempted to cover her ears. Bree's words seared into her heart, inciting the dull ache there to a painful throb.
"How long have you felt this way about him?" Bree asked, her voice gentle, hand sliding across the table to touch hers.
Even though she didn't want to do this, even though she wanted to keep all her feelings neat and tidy locked away, even though she was embarrassed to realize how long she'd suffered in unrequited love, she also wanted the comfort her sister was offering. She wanted someone else to know how hard it had been, how unsure it had made her feel about herself, her future, wondering when she would ever give it up and move on.
"Remember when my dog died?"
"Trixie?" Abby's eyes went wide. "That was a long time ago."
"Yeah. Six years ago. And Will came over, and he said all the right things, and he took Trixie and buried her in the yard for me." Charlotte swallowed hard against the lump in her throat. "And I knew right then, that Will Thornton was a good guy, through and through, and that I loved him."
Crap, she was going to cry. She wanted him so bad she could just about taste him. It was pitiful.
"Then all the more reason to do the lust spell. Don't you want to know, once and for all, if there's a chance for you as a couple?"
"You guys really would be a good couple, now that I think about it," Abby said, dipping her finger into her tea and licking it. "You're both like really nice and into hard work and justice and all that."
Charlotte blinked. "Thanks, Abby. I think that was meant to be a compliment." Then she sighed. "But yeah, I guess I do want to know once and for all. I mean, I already know he doesn't feel that way about me, but I think I really need to see it in a totally obvious way. Maybe then I can figure out a way to move on, get over him. Because at this rate, I'm going to be ninety and still lusting after him."