“What?”
“Is it possible to do a spell that would make me . . . you know, less . . . tongue-tied or something?” Rachel blurted, gesturing impatiently at her mouth, and then slapped her hand against her forehead as her own words filtered into her consciousness. “I am so pathetic. Listen to me, asking you to cast some spell that will make me less of a geek!”
“You’re not a geek, Rach.”
“Yes I am,” she moaned, burying her face in her arms folded on the coffee table. “I’m not used to guys, especially drop-dead gorgeous guys, and I don’t know what to say, and all I want is for once, just once, to be, I don’t know . . . sexy.”
“You are sexy,” Dagne insisted, and bonked Rachel on the top of her head with her chopsticks. “Anyway, this guy is already under your spell, and it’s only a matter of when he’ll find you again, and he will be crazy about you. You, Rachel.”
“That’s so nice,” Rachel said with a smile. “But I am hardly convinced. Come on, please?”
Dagne sighed, pulled the heavy spell book from her canvas bag. “You’re such work, you know that? Living in some high school drama and worried about a perfectly fine ass. You think you have to look like your sisters to be desirable, and that’s so maddeningly dumb for someone so smart that it just makes me want to scream. Open your eyes! In fact, look at your eyes. You have those gorgeous blue-green eyes, and all that black heroine hair, and you are very shapely. Do you know how many women would kill for that shape? I wish I had your curves—but okay,” she said, holding up a hand as Rachel opened her mouth to argue, “if you want a spell to make you desirable, we’ll do one.”
“Finally!” Rachel said cheerfully, and got up, removed all the Chinese food containers as Dagne searched the spell book.
“Aha!” Dagne said at last, and began jabbing her finger at one musty, pink page. “Got it. The spell should encompass his senses. So, for example, scent. Every time he smells a certain scent, he’ll want you.” She looked up, her eyes shining. “We have to be outside this time. This one is all about the moon. Do you have gardenia oil?”
Rachel laughed. “No. Does anyone have gardenia oil?”
“Rose oil?”
“No.”
“Come on, you have to have something that smells really good, something natural.”
Rachel thought a moment, suggested slowly, “I have Mexican vanilla.”
Dagne thought about it. “Okay, let’s use that,” she said, and sprang to her feet, headed for the kitchen.
Rachel was right behind her.
They managed to find substitutes for everything Dagne said they needed—and Dagne assured her, with what Rachel thought was false bravado, that it was quite all right to substitute in spell work. Skeptical, Rachel nonetheless stomped outside with Dagne, behind the garage, where the elm tree lay across Mr. Valicielo’s fence. And they even managed to complete one spell—the scent spell—before the police arrived, called by Mr. Valicielo, naturally, who was convinced someone was sneaking around wanting to steal his backyard gnomes.
The two cops who came—cute guys—looked at Dagne like she was a freak when she explained she was casting a spell.
The blond one told them both to stop casting spells and go inside and quit bothering the neighbors. Fortunately, Dagne did not argue, because she and Rachel were freezing to death. But, Dagne noted cheerfully, all was not lost. If everything went according to plan, Rachel would wake up sexy.
And vanilla, apparently.
The spell-casting made Rachel sleepy, and she slept soundly, with the curious scent of vanilla all around her, while a dream of Flynn the Knight romped round her mind.
Only this time, he was naked.
While Rachel was dreaming of him naked, Flynn opened the door to his corporate apartment, walked inside and dumped his trench coat, and headed straight for the fridge. He grabbed a kitchen towel, opened the freezer compartment, and filled it with several ice cubes. Then he got a beer and walked over to the cheap, fake leather couch and lay down, his head propped on one arm folded slung behind him. He took a swig of beer, then put the towel with the ice on his left eye.
Ouch. That really stung.
He knew the moment he laid eyes on that dodgy waterfront pub there would be trouble; he could tell by the way all the blokes had sneered at him and Joe when they’d entered the establishment. Nevertheless, he never dreamed that the situation would actually result in fisticuffs.
Flynn couldn’t help himself—he smiled broadly. And immediately winced at the pain it caused his bruised eye.