Karma's Spell (Magical Midlife in Mystic Hollow Book 1), Lacey Andersen [best book club books .txt] 📗

better than this. Your father would have wanted better than this for the pack. Respect what our world has given you, understand?”

They all sort of lined up and nodded at her, contrite. There were a lot of muttered, “Yes, ma’am’s” through the crowd, even from Nathan himself.

One guy, however, sighed softly under his breath and mumbled, “Old ladies always want everything cleaned.” Then he turned, heading toward the cliff.

I glared. Who was he to call us old? And then he tripped, epically, his hands flailing out around him before hitting the ground. Everyone turned to look at him. The guys started laughing. He turned and frowned down, as if searching for what could’ve tripped him. Except, there was nothing on the ground.

I felt Deva and Carol staring at me.

My cheeks felt hot as I looked at them. Oops. I really had to learn how to control this whole karma thing before someone figured out what I could do.

“Well, uh, thanks again for the info,” I said, giving an awkward wave.

Nathan was grinning at the guy on the ground. “No worries.” Then he shouted toward him, “Fall came a little early this year, huh?”

I rolled my eyes. Man, I did not miss being twenty sometimes. I liked to think I had never been so obnoxious, but the truth was I probably was.

We turned and began to walk back to Deva's car. It wasn't far, but we did have to weave through the trucks and cars once again. As we left I heard Nathan say, “Hell yeah, donuts!” I guess that answered the question of what was in the box.

“Are shifters normally clumsy?” I asked softly.

Deva snorted. “No. The opposite. That was all you.”

Darn. I was kind of hoping I was wrong, but I guess I should be growing accustomed to all these weird things being connected to me. I just wondered if I should feel bad about it or just accept that my powers knew what they were doing.

“That’s what he gets for calling us old,” Carol whispered.

I grinned. Okay, so this one I wouldn’t feel guilty about. “Glad my uncontrollable powers are funny to you.”

“Oh, they are,” Deva said, a twinkle in her eyes. “But you should’ve seen us when we were learning to use our powers. It was, well, it was a mess.”

I thought of them in high school and frowned, my thoughts combing over a thousand tiny moments. But I couldn’t think of a single moment that suggested they were somehow trying to balance being teens and being witches. I was going to have to ask them about it one day.

Just as we reached the sedan, a truck pulled up next to our car. An old blue pickup with peeling paint. And who should be in the truck? No one other than Daniel himself.

I hated that my pulse sped up a little. His arm was lying along his open window, and the breeze had ruffled his auburn hair. His tanned skin was a little flush, and his gaze locked with mine, his expression unreadable. He seemed so wild in that moment, almost like this was how he was meant to be, that my breath caught a little. My ex was never the kind of guy who left the windows down, even though I loved the feeling of the breeze on my face. Did Daniel feel free in the wind the way I did?

“Hey,” he called. “What are you doing here?”

I debated about not telling him, but the impulse was dumb. He knew why we were there. I just hoped that he didn’t think we didn’t trust him. Yeah, most of the reason I trusted him was some stupid instinct that said I could, but the feeling was still there. And it wasn’t something I could ignore. Nor could I pretend the idea of hurting him didn’t bother me.

“We had to look into it,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

I knew he'd said he would talk to them, but he wasn't moving fast enough for me. Then again, most people didn't. Something about burning the candle at both ends for years as I built my business had created this strange person inside of me that had to do everything myself, and right away. Some small part of me knew it was because if I waited on my ex to do anything, it wouldn’t get done. But this situation wasn’t just about my control issues, as toad-man had called them, it was about getting my brother home safely, at all costs.

Daniel smiled after a moment, and my gaze pulled to his soft-looking lips. “A guy stops for a few minutes to check out some police reports, and ends up running behind. I guess I should’ve expected that from Emma and the Private Psych crew.”

“Private Psych crew?” I asked, frowning.

He glanced toward Carol and Deva. “Didn’t they tell you that little shop of Beth’s is more than just catching cheaters? These ladies end up being involved in a lot of supernatural investigations, and they end up solving a lot of them too.”

I glanced at my friends. “Really? You guys acted like it was no big deal.”

Carol shrugged, a grin stretching her lips. “You know I’m not one to brag.”

Man, I was impressed. My friends really had done a lot since I was gone.

“For the record,” he said, drawing me from my thoughts. “I don’t think the shifters are involved, but we still need to talk.” He glanced over at where Nathan and the boys were still semi lined up, confused looks on their faces, and I could see the questions dancing in his eyes as he looked back at us.

Carol got a guilty look and headed for the car, as did Deva. So I followed them, wondering how typical it was for Deva to be able to command a bunch of unruly people to obey her.

"I agree. They don’t seem to know anything, but someone does," I said as I slid into the passenger seat of Deva's car. I automatically reached for the