Easy Magic (Boudreaux #5)

This man is…I don’t even know.

“He’s not for me,” I whisper as I pull another broom out of a closet and join him, pushing as much water as we can out the front door.

“I don’t think you’ll be able to open today,” he says. “And I’m going to need help getting the water shut off. The valve is rusted.”

“I can’t afford to close,” I reply. “I have a sale that I’ve advertised for two weeks, and this is the busiest weekend before the end of tourist season.” My shoulders drop. “I’m sure I can clean this up enough to open.”

He watches me and shakes his head.

“It’s dangerous. Customers can slip and fall.”

“Oh.” I glance about and blink tears away. What the hell? What’s up with the tears?

“Are you okay?”

“Fine.” I nod and quickly brush the tears away. “Just tired, and this was unexpected.”

He’s quiet for a moment as he watches me closely, and then he pulls his phone out of his pocket and makes a call.

“Eli? Sorry to wake you, but I need some help.”





Chapter Two


Beau

“This is a fucking mess,” Eli says as he and I survey the damage. “The water must have been running all night.”

“I can see,” I remind him, my voice calm, as I glance to the other side of the room where Mallory and Eli’s wife Kate are gathering products into baskets and talking a mile a minute. Kate smiles and nods at something Mallory says, and then they move on to another set of shelves.

“Are you awake?” Eli asks, waving his hand in front of my face.

“What did you say?”

“I said that I’ll have my assistant call in a crew to come clean this up today. She’ll have to close up for a few days.”

“Impossible,” I reply, shaking my head. “She can’t afford to do that.”

Eli stops and turns to me. “How do you know that?”

“She told me.”

He blinks. “Are you sweet on her?”

“Are you sixty? Who says that anymore?”

He rocks back on his heels, a slow smile sliding over his smug face.

“You are.”

“Fuck off. I’ll have a crew come take care of this today. But thanks for coming to help me get the water shut off. The building should have new plumbing.”

“Don’t change the subject. You have it bad for the little shop girl.”

“I barely know her,” I reply honestly and walk away from him, stepping outside to call the owner of the construction company that works for Bayou Enterprises.

“It’s barely six in the morning,” Eli says just as Larry answers.

“Good morning.”

“You’re awake,” I say, shrugging at Eli. “Good. I have a priority job this morning.”

“I can’t fit you in until next week,” Larry replies, and I cock a brow.

“I need you this morning.”

“I’m sorry, Beau, but I’m not exactly at your beck and call.”

Larry recently took over for his father, and doesn’t quite understand how this works.

But he’s about to.

“I pay you between three and five million dollars a year to be at my goddamn beck and call, and that doesn’t include the work I have you doing on my house, which is currently three fucking months behind schedule. So I’m going to lay it out for you, Larry. You’re either available for me this morning, or you can be permanently unavailable for me.”

Eli’s lips twitch and I narrow my eyes.

“Fuck,” Larry whispers. “What do you need?”

I explain the situation in Mallory’s shop.

“Okay, I’ll take the plumber off of your house and send them over this morning.”

“What time can we expect them?”

“By eight.”

“Good.”

I end the call and shove my phone in my pocket.

“You almost fired our contractor.”

I nod and shove my other hand in my pocket, touching a coin my father gave me long ago.

“We pay him too well for him to try to get out of a job.”

“Agreed,” Eli replies, mirroring my stance.

“They’ll be here by eight. That gives us time to help clean up some more and see what she wants to do for business today.”

“You usually hire people to do this for you,” Eli replies, true surprise in his voice.

“I’m not above manual labor,” I remind him.

“Okay.” He shrugs.

“She’s our tenant, and she’s the girls’ friend.”

“True.” That smug smile is back.

“Fuck off,” I mutter, rolling my eyes, and march back inside. “The guys will be here in a couple of hours.”

“We have a plan,” Kate says with a smile. “We’re going to set up some tables on the sidewalk, with most of the sale items on them. She can take cash and credit on her phone, and as the stock sells, we can replace it from inside.”

“Does this work for you?” I ask Mallory, who’s biting her lip and setting my teeth on edge with pure lust. Jesus, she’s the sexiest little thing I’ve seen in, well… maybe ever. She intrigues me, and she turns me on with just a look. Since when is lip biting my thing? Apparently, since now that I know Mallory.

“I think it’s against city code for me to have merchandise set up outside,” she says with a shake of her head.

“I’ll take care of that,” Eli replies.

“Do you have the city in your pocket?” Mallory asks, propping her hands on her hips.

“No, but I can call in a favor to two,” Eli replies. “It’s just for one day, Mallory. I doubt anyone would say anything.”

“Okay,” she replies and sighs. Kate reaches out to rub her arm, and Mallory flinches and relaxes, in the span of a millisecond.

But it’s there.

“We will help,” Kate says. “I’ll call Declan too.”

“He’s probably just going to bed,” Eli says. “Wake his ass up.”

“Don’t do that—”

“Yes, do that,” I interrupt Mallory and wink at her. “He won’t mind.”

“He really won’t,” Kate says. “Declan is the most easygoing brother.”

“Careful,” Eli says, but pulls Kate in his arms and kisses her soundly.

“I love you,” Kate tells him, “but easygoing is not how I would describe you.”

“Let’s get to work.”

Mallory raises a brow at me.

“I think I’m the boss here,” she says, and all of the blood immediately moves to one area of my body. Her independence and bossiness is damn hot. “I need to pull the rest of the product from the shelves, make sure everything is dry, and then I need to go up to your place so I can change my clothes.”

“Why?” My eyes travel up and down her petite body, not finding one thing wrong with the way her clothes hug her body.

“Because I wore this yesterday,” she replies. “I have a change of clothes here.”

She can get naked in my loft all she wants. I’ll never say no to that.

I’d rather also be there when that happens, but I’ll take what I can get.

“And one more thing,” she says, holding up her hand. “Thank you. All of you. I can’t tell you how much I really appreciate all of your help.”

“We’re happy to do it,” Kate says with a smile. “Shit happens, and then you clean it up.”