Where There's A Witch, There's A Way (Witchless In Seattle Mysteries Book 13) Read online

  Where There’s a Witch, There’s a Way

  Dakota Cassidy

  Copyright

  Where There’s a Witch, There’s a Way

  Published 2021 by Dakota Cassidy

  Copyright © 2021, Dakota Cassidy

  ASIN: B096KXQ6Y8

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from Dakota Cassidy.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, locales, or events is wholly coincidental. The names, characters, dialogue, and events in this book are from the author’s imagination and should not to be construed as real.

  Acknowledgments

  Cover artist: Renee George

  Editor: Kelli Collins

  Author’s Note

  My darling, amazing, fantabulous readers,

  Thank you for joining me for book thirteen of the Witchless in Seattle Mysteries! Please note, the Witchless in Seattle series is truly best read in order, to understand the full backstory and history of each character as they develop with every connecting book.

  There are some underlying mysteries still yet to be revealed. Though, I do promise the central mystery featured in each addition to the series will always be wrapped up with a big bow by book’s end!

  Also, please note, I’m prone to taking artistic license with locations and such, so forgive any places near and dear to your heart in Seattle and surrounding areas if they’re not completely accurate or don’t actually exist.

  Thank you for continuing to join Stevie, Win and gang on their adventures—it means the world to me!

  Dakota XXOO

  Chapter 1

  “Spy Guy?”

  “Mini-Spy?”

  “I’m looking over your preliminary list of, for lack of a better phrase, ‘must haves’ for our pending nuptials.”

  Win curled the top of the newspaper he was reading downward. He gazed at me with one deliciously blue eye from across the back patio table where we were having our breakfast on a gorgeously warm late-spring day.

  “And?”

  “Aaand… I don’t think Adele is available. In fact, I’d bet my intestinal tract she’s not available.” I took a deep gulp of my coffee and smiled at him, inspecting my freshly acquired manicure.

  “That’s quite a roll of the dice. But how do you know she’s not available, Dove? Have you asked?”

  I tilted my head to look at him with mischievous eyes. “You mean as in, have my people call her people?”

  He shrugged behind his paper, his wide, muscled shoulders lifting under the early morning sun. “Well, why not?”

  I tapped the newspaper with a fingernail. “Because my people are busy enough. What’s wrong with your people? Are they suddenly broken?”

  I grinned as I looked over the top of the paper at him, plucking a piece of my divine apple fritter from my plate and popping it into my mouth.

  “No, Stephania. Don’t be a greedy little piggy. My people are busy with the royal family. Do you have any idea what it is to arrange private air travel for William, Kate and three children? It’s hellish at best. Throw in Elizabeth and her tea taster and it’s madness.”

  I fought a fit of giggles, but then I caught myself to fact check. “Wait. The queen has a tea taster? Is that for real?”

  His raven eyebrow rose above the rim of the paper as though I were mad not to know this sort of important information.

  “Don’t all people of import have someone to take the fall for them should their food be poisoned? It’s a centuries-old practice, Stephania. Surely, you know this? It’s fifth grade history.”

  I broke first, throwing my head back and laughing until tears fell down my cheeks. “A tea taster?” I sputtered. “Really, Win?”

  We’d rather fallen into this game, my fiancé and I. One where we would list the most outrageous wish on our list of must-haves for our pending wedding and discuss over breakfast—as seriously as we could and for as long as we could keep a straight face until one of us began to laugh uncontrollably.

  So far, Win had informed me, there was no way The Backstreet Boys were singing at our reception as they carried me out on a palanquin dressed as Cleopatra at our Julius Caesar/Roman Empire themed wedding. Nor would there be a fountain flowing with a purple stream of glistening grape Fanta, and he’d absolutely put his foot down about a drive-thru wedding in Vegas.

  I, in turn, had nixed the idea of entering the venue of our wedding via bungee cord from an F-16, and found it equally disturbing that he’d suggested a destination wedding in the treacherous mountains of Annapurna in Central Nepal as a Survivor-like themed nuptial.

  That particular must-have made me laugh until my stomach hurt, but Win’s spy background works to my detriment in our game, meaning Mr. Mission Impossible was far better at a poker face than I’d ever be.

  He never cracked. Not even when I had to hold myself up by clinging to our kitchen island to keep from collapsing with laughter.

  If there were ever a staring contest between us, the title for best in show would go to Win.

  He set the newspaper down and reached for my hand, bringing it to his lips, his blue eyes dancing. “Is that laughter I hear? I believe the score is now in my favor, wouldn’t you agree, Dove?”

  I rolled my eyes and chuckled. “It’s always in your favor because you’re aces at keeping a straight face. As you often remind me, it was once your job as a spy to play all the parts. So the Academy Award for Best Actor in the making of a Tale of Two Opposites Plan a Wedding goes to, Crispin Alistair Winterbottom.”

  Grinning at me, he kissed each of my fingertips before asking, “Ah, Dove, is that jealousy I hear in your dulcet tones?”

  “You wish,” I teased, looking down at the list he’d texted me, my engagement ring sparkling in the sunshine. “My green-eyed monster aside, do you really want a string quartet? You can’t dance to one of those. It’s nice background music, but who wants to Electric Slide to Vivaldi?”

  “But you can have a delightful cocktail hour with one, Mini-Spy. I don’t suppose you want people doing The Wobble while we’re mingling before our meal, do you?”

  I cocked my head. “Fair point, Wedding Planner Spy. So maybe both a live band and a quartet? Or quartet and DJ?”

  He looked at me thoughtfully before he ran his finger down the length of my nose. “Are we sure we don’t want to pursue the Adele angle?”

  I leaned forward, cupping my chin as some cherry blossom petals fell from the trees we’d planted along the water’s edge in our backyard. “I vote we scratch Adele and see if Mozart’s busy. Or maybe Chopin? I mean, how busy could he be—seeing as he’s dead and all? What do you think, Arkady? Can you pull some afterlife strings and inquire about his schedule?”

  “Strings. Hah! I see what you do there, my malutka. Funny Mini-Spy has come out to play, dah?”Arkady teased.

  I grinned upward, the morning sun obscuring my eyesight for a moment as I imagined my handsome Russian somewhere in the clouds. “How are you this morning, my favorite glazed donut?” I asked in return.

  “I’m well, and you, my sweet pashka?”

  “Good. I am most good when I hear you and Zero are making with the wedding plans. I cannot wait for big day. This will make me so very happy when you are Mrs. Zero.”

  Arkady was one of our biggest supporters, and even though he physically couldn’t be with us
, he’d promised to walk me down the aisle beside my father, making me tear up with gratitude for our friendship.

  “Maybe Win’ll be Mr. Mini-Spy? What do you think about that, my handsome Russian?”

  Win chuckled. “We haven’t talked about that, have we, Dove? Whether you wish to take on my fake name? Do you want to be Mrs. Christoph Alexander Winningham? Or would you prefer to keep your maiden name of Cartwright?”

  As the petals from the cherry trees continued to fall to the ground like a snowstorm of flowers, I paused. We hadn’t discussed that. One of the few things we hadn’t talked about since we’d become engaged.

  “You know, I hadn’t really given it much thought. Let me consider, okay?”

  He took a sip of his coffee with a nod. “Of course, Dove. Whatever you decide, I’m quite fine.”

  And that was true, I decided, as a warm breeze swept the back of Win’s dark hair and the scent of lavender from our bushes near the French doors leading to the kitchen drifted to my nose.

  Everything had been quite fine. We’d gotten engaged late last summer, and since then, we’d enjoyed a restful fall and holiday season, filled with family and friends and absolutely no murders.

  During the winter, we’d spent much of our downtime from Madame Z’s binge-watching shows on Netflix, cuddling on the couch in front of a cozy fire, and hanging out with Dana while he adjusted to befriending a talking bat.

  We cooked often—or should I say, Win cooked. I oohed and ahhed my appreciation. He’d even flown in a fancy Michelin-star chef to give us a cooking lesson, wherein I burned almost everything I touched and he made sushi worthy of a Bon Appetite magazine cover.

  Surprised? Me neither.

  I now see why Win had once been such an incredible spy. He was pretty much good at everything—and I do mean all the things.

  In short, we’d been enjoying being engaged to one another. We went on dates to museums and the movies. We dined out. We took long drives along the coast.

  Sometimes we simply sat in his swanky Aston Martin on the beachfront with the heater blasting, a jazz station on the satellite radio, and talked about all the things newly engaged couples talk about. For instance, how many children we wanted—of which we agreed to, in unison, blurt out our desired number.

  I yelled two.

  Win blurted five.

  When I picked my jaw up off the floor, I put the kibosh on that number with the speed of light and the reminder he’d need to find a much younger fiancée than this girl. I’m pushing thirty-eight and my baby-making days will soon be on the fritz. In fact, they might be already.

  That aside, five?

  Five children?

  Five mini-mini-spies possibly little replicas of Win?

  Nope.

  I love children. I think I’ve proven that with my brush with motherhood not so long ago.

  I can’t wait to start a family with Win. He’s an amazing man. I love him. He has the key to my soul. But five children with his razor-sharp mind and the ability to charm their way out of almost any situation?

  Not on your life. Not when I’ll be well over the age of forty. It will only aid in speeding up my mental decline, not to mention my bones aren’t getting any younger. Especially when I’ve spent so much time either running away from or fighting off killers. Surely, that was aging me at a rapid pace.

  Who wouldn’t age ten years every time some bananapants killer held a knife to their throat or a gun to their head?

  Anyway, we’d settled on three—children, that is—not killers.

  Maybe.

  We didn’t disagree that we wanted to start a family rather quickly. Though, we did plan to spend a year or so simply enjoying marriage and each other. We also agreed it would be nice to adjust to sharing space twenty-four-seven. Win still lived in his lavish guesthouse to keep the gossips’ tongues from wagging, and I had to love his protective nature when it came to my reputation.

  It was archaic and even a little caveman-ish, but I respected his traditional view on our housing.

  And as to Madame Z’s? Neither of us wanted to give that up. She was who had brought us together in the first place, and when I first came back to Eb Falls, after the dust of her murder had settled and Win and I had struck this crazy bargain that had turned into the romance of a lifetime, I’d promised myself to always honor Madame Z’s legacy by tending her shop.

  Besides, who was getting any rest when there was always some ghost or another popping up out of nowhere, wanting our attention?

  Yes. The ghosts were still making regular visits, but none of them since we’d been engaged had any serious mysteries to solve.

  Mostly they’d either dropped in to wish us well or ask us to help with a mundane task. I don’t know if someone had mentioned the afterlife might want to give us a chance to be a newly engaged couple, but it had been quiet.

  As had my powers. I’d had enormous hopes that things were turning around when I was able to whip up a spell or two. Okay, so the things I’d conjured weren’t exactly helpful. I mean, who needs an iceberg in their backyard or a dinosaur in their house, right?

  But the point was, I was conjuring. And then it all went kablooey. My fingers couldn’t zap a bug, let alone a spell.

  Win had held me and listened to me sob when he caught me in a moment of utter frustration and a complete meltdown. Then he encouraged me to pick myself up, brush myself off and stop putting pressure on myself to be a witch again—which in my mind was my ultimate goal.

  I wanted to prove Adam West wrong. I wanted to spite him. I wanted my powers to come back so I could stick my tongue out at him and rub it in his abusive warlock face.

  But Win reminded me that wasn’t what was important, and it wasn’t what was really troubling me.

  No matter how much I loved my new life here in Eb Falls, losing my coven, losing my friends from that coven, still hurt. Being shunned hurt. Not being able to share the joy of my new life with them hurt.

  Though, it was then I discovered what I loved most about Win; his ability to tell me the truth without calling me a petty child—even if I was absolutely behaving like one.

  Regardless, I’d taken his advice and busied my mind with other things. I read everything from self-help books to murder mysteries (duh, right?), I ran on the treadmill, I’d taken up knitting. I wasn’t very good at it, but we had a lot of scarves, or maybe Bel had used the right word when he called them shawls, because they were unnaturally long. But the act of knitting did what it was supposed to do.

  Take my mind off my loss of powers.

  Bel buzzed in from across the lawn, landing on the table between us, reminding me we were opening Madam Z’s for the season today.

  “Mom and Dad, are we going to work today?” he teased, a breeze ruffling his white fur as he waddled toward me and hopped into my palm.

  I was thrilled the tourist season was finally beginning. As much as I loved spending time with Win and meandering through each day as it blended into the next, I needed something to challenge my mind.

  If nothing else, a client who wanted to talk to a loved one would certainly fit that bill. Maybe they’d even have a mystery we needed to solve. One where no one landed toe up in the morgue would be ideal.

  I didn’t miss the murder aspect that had been so prevalent in our lives, but I do admit to missing the thrill of the chase—the mystery before things got ugly.

  Win folded his newspaper into a neat square, setting it on the patio table with a smile, his crisp white shirt highlighting his tanned skin and dark hair that had grown to just past his chin.

  He looked at Bel with a fond smile. “Ah, old chap, we can always count on you to remind us work calls, can’t we?”

  I stroked the top of Bel’s head as the sun glinted over his fur. “You coming with for opening day, or do you want to stay here with Whiskey and Strike?”

  Our other two rapscallions for pets were busy basking in the luxury of the sun, lying side by side in a patch of buttery yellow rays, th
e green grass beneath them swaying in the soft breeze.

  “I think I’m gonna stay here today. I wanna enjoy the sun as much as possible after all that stinkin’ rain and ice this winter.”

  Wiping my mouth with my napkin, I understood. Bel hated the cold, being from a tropical region, but he put up with it because of me, and a day would never come when I didn’t think he deserved to enjoy the fruits of the labor he’d put into raising me.

  “I get it. You sunbathe, we’ll go make the rent money.”

  He chuckled, hopping up my arm to my shoulder, where he nuzzled my earlobe. “I knew you’d understand. Now, lunch is packed, your chariot awaits, off you go.”

  I dropped a kiss on his snout and set him on the table as I rose. “Oh, make sure Whiskey doesn’t have those liver snap treats, would you? They upset his tummy. Give him the baked ones instead. Strike is in love with bananas. So maybe that could be his afternoon snack? Also, would you give the dryer a quick tumble about thirty minutes before we’re due home? I was lazy and forgot to take my clothes out last night.”

  “You got it, Boss.”

  “Oh, and one more thing…well, maybe two.”

  Belfry bowed his head. “Yes, mistress. Shall I press your sheets and gather the wildflowers in order to freshly pluck their petals for your evening bath?”

  I snorted at him and dropped another kiss on his head. “As nice as that would be, I just wanted to tell you I love you. Have a good day, buddy.”

  “Enjoy the day, Belfry. I’ve left some freshly cut pomegranate for your lunch in the fridge for you. Don’t forget to eat. We probably won’t be back to ensure you do. I think I shall treat my intended to a lunch by the water.”

  Bel buzzed to his shoulder. “You’re awesome, Winterbutt. I take back all the cruddy things I said about you.”

  Win cocked his head with a smirk. “I shall pretend I didn’t hear that, mate.”

  “You’re a good egg, Winterbutt. Have a good first day back at Madame Z’s.”