He kept his keister in the sunbeam, forcing my best friend and her sweet poodle crossbreed to pick their way around him when they came in. Bijou stepped on Bixby’s tail accidentally on purpose. She was another of my ghost dog rescues and was utterly devoted to my best friend Renata Scott and me, but Bixby was a necessary evil.
My dog glared at me. “Is that any way to think about your familiar?”
I grinned. “Another figure of speech. And if you’re going to trip Ren when she’s carrying…” I paused to allow her to announce the treat of the day.
“Apple turnovers,” she said, smiling. Ren was stunning, even in a stained apron with long raven hair tucked into a net. “Hope that tickles your fancy, Janelle.”
Anything coming out of Flour Girl, her bakery next door, made my tastebuds happy. Our daily morning meeting, even more so. Ren and I were estranged for many years while I was traveling around the country working in upscale resorts. It was a terribly lonely life, despite being surrounded by people. Renewing our friendship and finding new ones was the best thing about coming home to Wyldwood. Owning Whimsy was a close second.
Footsteps on the stairs let us know Sinda Joffrey had left her basement studio, where she created the stunning jewelry now on display. Despite being in her early seventies, she was attractive and vibrant. In fact, I could swear she had less gray hair than when she arrived in town to help me launch the store. She certainly moved more easily.
“What were you two arguing about?” she asked, as we gathered at the polished oak counter.
I pointed at Mr. Bixby, who was up and ambling toward us. “He was determined to be an obstruction.”
“Stupid wiener boy tried to trip Renny-Ren-Ren.” The insult came from Bijou, who was prepared to put her life on the line for Renata. Tiptoeing around an overconfident dachshund wasn’t part of the bargain.
“Now, Bijou,” Ren said. “I know he baits you but try to avoid the w-word.”
Wiener was in our lexicon of forbidden words, along with sausage and sundry others. I had a couple in there myself.
“Like witch?” Bixby asked, lifting an imperious paw in a request to take what he considered to be his rightful place on the counter.
“Hey, I’m not the one who dissed you,” I said, doing his bidding anyway.
“Wiener is an absolute affront to a dog like me, whereas witch isn’t an insult. It’s just a statement of fact. And one that’s becoming harder to deny.”
I looked around our small circle. “How do you feel about the word, ladies?”
They both shook their heads. “Even if I qualified I wouldn’t like it,” Ren said, passing around serviettes. “But someone with my level of magic wouldn’t dare claim that label.”
Bixby strutted across the counter to inspect the pastries. There was a treat for him, as always, and we saved it for last. Bijou had already sampled the goods during their creation. The apricot dog with the build of a ballerina had a sensitive palate and could assess the optimal balance of ingredients. What’s more, she could detect toxins in trace amounts, an ability that had come in handy too often.
Bixby directed his long muzzle at Renata. “Ruthann gave all of you the label when she enrolled you in witch school.”
“Mayor Longmuir called it the Wyldwood training program for up-and-coming magicals,” I said. “And happily, she hasn’t mentioned it again. I’ve seen her twice recently for Christmas committee meetings.”
“Probably just something she threw out to scare us into keeping a low profile,” Ren added.
“Which aligns perfectly with our goals anyway.” I picked up a turnover and smiled. “Business started booming right after Thanksgiving and it’ll likely be crazy through Christmas.”
Sinda nodded. “I can barely keep up with demand now. It’s hard to believe the pet-focused designs people scorned at my old store down south are so popular here.”
“Pupular, you mean.” Taking a bite, I blew out a few crumbs by accident. Mr. Bixby caught them before they landed. In some ways—not many—he was a typical dog.
“I was never a typical dog.” He hoovered the last bit of flaky pastry. “Even as a pup I was destined for great things. Too bad it took a second lifetime to achieve them.”
Renata’s fingers touched the pendant dangling from a gold chain around her neck. It was in the shape of a poodle with a citrine gem for an eye. I had a similar one in the shape of a dachshund with an emerald chip. These designs represented Sinda’s visions of dogs from another realm. It was a ghost gallery of canines awaiting another turn at life, or so I’d come to believe. I’d rescued five so far and rehomed them with the right person in this dimension. It was a unique calling among my kind, as far as I could tell, and one I wished I’d discovered earlier. I spent most of my life running from my destiny and may have turned toward it long ago had I known it would bring me a pack of special dogs and people.
That said, my other gifts were less rewarding and frequently got me into trouble. I was a psychic with little command of an ability I often found overwhelming. Reading minds wasn’t uncommon here but my other power was a different matter. I was able to deliver an electrical charge through my fingertips, like a human taser. It had been known to create quite a mess of someone’s mental circuitry. My firepower was hard to calibrate but it had come in handy to put a few criminals away. That, more than anything else, put me on the mayor’s radar. Not to mention the local police and the visiting chief, Drew Gillock, whom I’d very recently started dating.
Sinda touched my arm lightly to interrupt my musing and send a little healing energy into me. “Are you worried about it, Janelle? The mayor’s so-called training program?”
“Yeah, a little. My mother raised me in the school of skepticism. She trusts no one magical, probably even me. Everyone has distinctive abilities. If you show your hand—your skills—they could be turned against you. A training program might be a way of exposing what we can do.”
“I can’t do anything.” Ren moved the plate toward Sinda to encourage her to have a second turnover. “Except bake.”
Sinda took her up on the offer. “That’s not true, dear. You see auras, for starters.”
“What good is that? While I’m studying someone’s color palette, I’ll be taken down by an ability that’s actually useful.”
Bijou leaned against Ren’s leg. “I’ll never let that happen, Renny. Never never never.”
I touched Ren’s arm, passing along the soothing energy Sinda was feeding me. “Think about it, Ren. Being able to identify the bad guys even before contact is half the battle. I bet Angus MacDuff had a pitch-black aura. If I’d seen that, I would have known he was trouble long before he went ballistic in the mayor’s office.”
“Your own psychic abilities could have helped,” Mr. Bixby reminded me. “If you hadn’t been so caught up with your magical malady.”
There was no disputing I’d been preoccupied by Minerva’s disappearance. The time I lost tracking her down and returning her would have been better spent sorting out the Angus MacDuff problem. One of the most powerful magicals in town, he’d been trying to force a marriage of his convenience onto his daughter, Cassandra, and Blaine Parkin. Both bride and groom got cold feet but ultimately tied the knot after a fair bit of commotion that saw Angus carted away by the police. Not the regular police, but the ones who managed magical infractions. Their operations were still a mystery to me.
“You may be right,” I told the dog. “But we got where we needed to be in the end. Minerva is back, the couple is happily married, and Angus, a murderer in the making, is off the streets.” I popped the last luscious bite of turnover into my mouth and mumbled, “Justice has been served.”
“Are you quite sure about that?” Mr. Bixby turned suddenly on the counter, hackles rising. “Because it sure looks like the same aspiring murderer is on our street right now.”
CHAPTER TWO
Iturned quickly, hoping the dog who was never wrong had made his first misstep. Unfortunately, the large gruff man we’d successfully evicted from Mayor Longmuir’s office was striding across Main Street outside the store. The look on his face told me he wasn’t coming to stock up on Christmas gifts.
“Why isn’t he in jail?” I plucked Bixby off the counter and held him close. “Angus tried to kill Blaine and would have succeeded if not for us. He attacked the mayor, too.” I signaled for Ren and Sinda to move behind the counter. “If he comes in, call Drew while I try to talk Angus down.” Chief Gillock had become a voice of reason on the local non-magical police department. “Obviously the magical cops can’t be trusted. I wouldn’t know how to call them anyway.”
