Hot hex boyfriend, p.1
Hot Hex Boyfriend, page 1
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2024 by Carol Pavliska
Cover design and illustration by Caitlin Sacks. Cover copyright © 2024 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
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First Edition: September 2024
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ISBNs: 9781538741092 (trade paperback), 9781538741108 (ebook)
E3-20240719-JV-NF-ORI
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Acknowledgments
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CHAPTER ONE
Delia Merriweather did not believe in magic. Not even a little. But as she sat beneath the carefully knotted bundles of aromatic dried herbs hanging from the hundred-year-old rafters in her grandmother’s kitchen, she had to admit things felt pretty magical.
Steam billowed about the room as Grandma Maddie gazed into the giant pot of boiling water, which fogged the thick lenses of her glasses and made her massive halo of silver curls coil and bounce like a nest of snakes.
Delia took a sip of spiced chai tea to hide her grin, because her grandmother looked like a pint-size, legally blind Medusa. “How’s the soup coming?”
Grandma Maddie pointed her face in Delia’s general direction. “Did you just say soup?”
Unfortunate slip of the tongue. “Sorry. I meant to say spell. Or is it more of a potion?”
Grandma Maddie sighed in disappointment over Delia’s question, as if maybe Delia had forgotten that Austin was the capital of Texas, or that the fork went on the left side of the plate and the knife on the right. “We’re casting a spell that includes a potion,” she said with a tone of exaggerated patience. “There’s a blue moon tonight. Surely, you haven’t forgotten the importance of that.”
Delia glanced up at the small sign above the archway in the kitchen that said A FAMILY THAT DWELLS TOGETHER, SPELLS TOGETHER. And it didn’t refer to a game of Scrabble.
Most of the folks in the small Texas Hill Country town of Willow Root considered Delia’s family a bit quirky or eccentric. The rest thought they were off their collective rockers. Because Delia’s grandmother and great-aunts identified as witches. And not New Age witches, either. They were old-school witches of the pointy hat and black cat variety. The fact that none of them could cast an actual spell or concoct an effective potion or utter any valuable curses beyond the occasional f-bomb didn’t alter this heartfelt belief.
Their lack of magic, they said, was due to an ancient hex cast upon their ancestors by an evil witch. This was impossible to prove and, therefore, a perfect excuse.
Delia rose from the creaky cypress table and wandered over to the stove. “It’s been a long time since the last blue moon. I might be a bit rusty.”
The ritual of the Blue Moon Spell was utter nonsense, but it was delightful nonsense, and it didn’t cause a lick of harm to anyone. Delia loved the loony traditions that filled so many of her childhood memories. Maybe none of the other kids were dragged out of bed to dance in the moonlight or to make fairy circles. But Delia wouldn’t trade a single minute of it for all the money in the world.
“A potion is liquid,” Grandma Maddie lectured. “We’re meant to consume it.”
Delia’s stomach growled as she eyed the onions and cloves of garlic resting on the counter. It had been a long time since breakfast tacos, and she’d worked through lunch. “It’s perfect weather for hot—” She stopped herself from saying soup. “Potion.”
The first cold front of the season had blown through early that morning, officially ushering in fluffy sweaters, pumpkin spice anything and everything, and, of course… magic.
“Our spell, if you remember, calls for…”
Delia swallowed uneasily, her appetite waning ever so slightly. “The boiling of an innocent,” she said quickly, as if running the words together would somehow lessen their comical-yet-horrible meaning. The sentence lingered in the air—a reminder that it was all fun and games until somebody mentioned human sacrifice.
“Which is more innocent?” Grandma Maddie asked. “A carrot or a potato?”
Delia grinned. “I’d say it’s a toss-up.”
It had been a long time since Delia had first attempted to cast the Blue Moon Spell that was supposed to break the hex and restore magic to her family. In fact, it had been on her eighteenth birthday, which was when she’d officially (insert air quotes) come into her power as the Blue Witch—an auspicious honor bestowed upon her because she’d been born during a blue moon and also had a birthmark on her left butt cheek that looked like a pentagram if you squinted just right.
On that day, they’d returned home from the town’s fall festival to find a mysterious note poking out from beneath their doormat.
With the blue moon, the Blue Witch’s power will rise.
133.4 MER
p 32
Excitement had coursed through them, because there was a rare blue moon that very night. Aunt Thea had recognized the cryptic numbers and letters as a call number for a library book, so they’d trotted off to the Willow Root Public Library, where, sure enough, a book of magic spells and potions entitled Clavis Hexicus was sitting right there on the shelf in front of God and everybody.
They’d dutifully carried it to the circulation desk, where Justine Tarte had entered it into the library’s system, only to find it didn’t exist.
“Well, what do we do?” Grandma Maddie had asked.
Justine had shrugged and handed it back. “It doesn’t belong to the library.”
Grandma Maddie had discreetly tucked it under her arm, and they’d made a hasty exit.
That night, beneath a blue moon, Delia had opened the dusty, leather-bound book to the Blue Moon Spell, only to discover that she didn’t have what it took to break the hex. Because the potion had called for ingredients far more heinous than eye of newt or hair of hound, and things had suddenly become very real and very batshit crazy and very illegal in all fifty states.
Delia had slammed the book shut with a shudder of disgust, and after a moment of stunned silence, her aunt Aurora had finally said what they’d all been wondering: Are we supposed to boil a fucking baby? To which the ever-practical Aunt Thea had responded: Where would we find a pot that big? Followed by Aunt Andi’s proclamation: But I’m a vegetarian!
The end result—Blue Moon Non-Baby Vegetable Potion—had since become another beloved Merriweather tradition, albeit not a very often one, since blue moons happened only, well, once in a blue moon.
Somewhere along the way, Delia had come to realize that there was no such thing as magic. The book had been a joke. Everyone in Willow Root knew the Merriweathers believed themselves to be witches, and someone had played a mean, nasty prank.
Grandma Maddie blindly grabbed a handful of herbs from the rafters above her head and dropped them into the pot. Then she nodded at a mound of potatoes on the counter before squinting up at Delia. “Care to do the honors?”
A birthmark on the ass was a birthmark on the ass, so Delia had to be the one to cut the sacrificial potato. Just as she picked up the knife, the back door opened, and then slammed shut, rattling the stained-glass window above the sink. Aunt Thea rushed in, red-faced and panting. “Oh my Goddess, Madora. Did you actually start without us?”
“Six o’clock sharp means six o’clock sharp,” Grandma Maddie snapped, looking at her watch. “Timing is important. The magic is in the details.”
“So’s the devil,” Thea said, removing her jacket and hanging it on the back of the chair. Thea was an accountant, so she knew about details. “And speaking of devils, there’s a gang of them outside, singing their silly little songs.”
Delia groaned. For as long as she could remember, local kids had been gathering outside their home to chant and taunt and occasionally throw eggs at the “witch house.”
The house, for its part, cooperated fully by being in a constant state of disrepair, although it had a lovely turret tower, which happened to be Delia’s bedroom.
“They’re such darlings,” Grandma Maddie said. “Did you give them any candy?”
“I cackled at them,” Thea said. “And they ran.”
“What good fun,” Grandma Maddie said.
The back door opened and slammed shut again, followed by stomping and cursing as Delia’s other great-aunts, Aurora and Andi, became momentarily lodged in the mudroom doorway before bursting into the kitchen. “Are we too late?” Aurora asked, brushing leaves out of her hair. “I’m starving.”
“We’re just getting started,” Delia said.
Andi stepped in front of her twin sister, holding up a green bag with the image of a black broom on it. “I brought sage from the shop.”
Andi and Aurora owned a bookstore called the Crooked Broom, whose inventory was about ten percent books and, in the words of Delia’s mom, “ninety percent crapola.” Its shelves overflowed with things like crystals, tarot decks, incense, and, of course, Grandma Maddie’s teas and herbal remedies.
“We need to smudge,” Andi said. “Before Delia breaks the hex.”
“Says who?” Grandma Maddie asked.
“Says a bunch of New Age malarky,” came a low, sultry voice from the doorway.
Delia clapped her hands. “Mom! You came!”
Fiona Merriweather crossed her arms and cocked an eyebrow. “I heard there would be soup.” Tall, lithe, blond, and graceful, she looked very much like the Good Witch Glenda if the Good Witch Glenda was slightly jaded and full of sarcasm. In other words, the exact opposite of the rest of the shorter, rounder, and merrier Merriweathers. Delia had inherited the blond hair, but her eyes were dark brown, and at a whopping five feet and three inches, she lacked her mom’s height. Her body had decided to invest square footage in boobs and hips instead.
“There will definitely be potion,” Delia said, winking at her mom with the gentle reminder.
Fiona considered herself to be in recovery from witchcraft, so she didn’t suffer these rituals very often. She’d even moved out of the house in an effort to distance herself from it. But like Delia, she found her family difficult to quit.
“The more Merriweathers, the merrier,” Grandma Maddie said. “Oh, and, Fiona, is Hartwell’s cat still out there? I saved him some tuna from my lunch.”
Fiona gave Grandma Maddie a quick peck on the cheek. “No black cat crossed my path,” she said. “And, Mother, you really shouldn’t feed strays.”
“He’s not a stray, Mom,” Delia said. “And even if he were, we couldn’t let the poor thing starve.”
“Yes,” Grandma Maddie said. “Especially now that Hartwell is gone…” There was a slight tremor in her voice, and she seemed to lose her train of thought.
Delia reached over and squeezed the older woman’s hand.
Hartwell Halifax had been their next-door neighbor for as long as Delia could remember. Two months ago, he’d suffered a massive heart attack and died, alone in his home. Since then, many attempts had been made to get Hartwell’s cat to come inside and stay, but he always managed to sneak back to Hartwell’s house next door.
Before any serious level of melancholy could set in, Fiona dropped her purse on the counter and said, “This is damned inconvenient. I have an open house tomorrow, and not a single room has been staged.”
“Sorry, Mom,” Delia said. “I’ve had a crazy busy week. But everything is on-site. Amy is going to help me first thing in the morning. The place will be fully bedazzled before anyone arrives. Promise.”
Her mom crossed her arms. “You haven’t bitten off more than you can chew, have you?”
“Are you kidding?” Delia said. “This is how dreams are made. By swallowing whole chunks without chewing.”
“That’s gross, dear,” Grandma Maddie said. She nodded at the knife in Delia’s hand. “Get back to chopping.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Starting a new business was exciting, but it was also utterly bone-deep exhausting. And Delia should know, because she’d done it about a billion times. There’d been Delia’s Dog Grooming, after which she’d tried her hand at personal training, followed by her short stint as a handy-girl (turns out she wasn’t very handy), before launching Merriweather Merry Maids, where she’d been the only maid and not a very merry one. Something had gone wrong with each and every one of those ventures, but this one—Southern Charm Interior Decorating and Design—felt different. It felt like an actual calling.
Ever since Delia was a child, she’d been somewhat obsessed with bringing order to chaos, particularly, the chaos of their home, which seemed to be structured around whatever the opposite of feng shui was. She’d eventually given up, retreating to her overly pink and highly decorated round turret bedroom, where she watched hours and hours of HGTV.
Last year she’d taken the bull by the horns and enrolled in an online interior design program. She’d loved it and had graduated with top honors. But unfortunately, she was having a hard time convincing local residents that the same girl who’d recently cleaned their homes was now qualified to decorate them. Living in the witch house probably didn’t help, and so far, her mom’s real estate business was her only real client.
Fiona straightened. “Speaking of open houses, guess who agreed to have one?”
“Who?”
“Try to guess. He’s the last person you’d expect.” Fiona winked and nodded in the direction of Halifax Manor next door.
Delia gasped. “No way. You can’t be talking about the asshole. And, oh my gosh, you’re listing the house?”
The left corner of her mom’s mouth curled up, and she nodded.
“That’s fantastic,” Delia said.
“Who is it?” Aurora asked, fanning away the sage smoke. “And shall we spill his blood? Maybe all we’ve been missing these many blue moons is the blood of an asshole.”
“No, no,” Thea said, eyebrows drawn. “The spell calls for the blood of a witch’s true love. Not the blood of an asshole. Unless, of course, they’re one and the same.”
Andi held up a finger and began ticking off the so-called ingredients. “A boiled innocent. The blood of a witch’s true love. And an angry spirit.”
“An agitated spirit,” Thea corrected. “There’s a difference between angry and agitated.”
After the soup, there would be a short but dramatic séance, where they’d try to provoke dead ancestors with insults. It was absolutely the best part of the evening.
“I could have sworn we needed an angry something or other,” Andi said.
“What if we literally need an angry asshole?” Aurora asked. “And all that’s required is someone with hemorrhoids?”
Delia snorted. “Hemorrhoids might explain Max Halifax’s disposition.”
Max Halifax was Hartwell’s nephew. He’d arrived in Willow Root shortly after Hartwell’s death in order to settle the estate. When Delia and her family had marched over with an apple pie (to offer their condolences and also because they were nosy), Max had opened the door like a startled serial killer caught in the middle of dismembering a body. He’d accepted the pie and condolences as if he were accepting a subpoena, and then… he’d shut the door! Without even inviting them in!
