Bewitching Blend (A Paramour Bay Cozy Paranormal Mystery Book 2) Read online

  Bewitching Blend

  A Paramour Bay Mystery

  Book Two

  KENNEDY LAYNE

  BEWITCHING BLEND

  Copyright © 2018 by Kennedy Layne

  Kindle Edition

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-943420-64-3

  Print ISBN: 978-1-943420-65-0

  Cover Designer: Sweet ’N Spicy Designs

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  Dedication

  Jeffrey—You bewitched me with that very first email…I love you!

  Cole—May your college journey be bewitching in every way!

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  About the Book

  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

  About Enchanting Blend

  Books by Kennedy Layne

  About the Author

  Welcome back to Paramour Bay as USA Today Bestselling Author Kennedy Layne continues her cozy paranormal mystery series that will have you brewing up a cup of tea well past midnight…

  It’s been two months since Raven Marigold discovered she was a witch, and she is handling her situation with grace. Well, if you discount the fact that she caught her blouse on fire and made her cat’s tail go numb for four hours. The bottom line is that Raven is succeeding in her pursuit of this new mystical life she’s been given.

  Someone must have missed that memo, though. Raven finds herself smack dab in the middle of another murder investigation. Every piece of evidence points to the town treasurer as being the guilty party, but she isn’t so sure the case is that cut and dried.

  It is then that Raven gets the brilliant idea of using a bit of witchcraft to help out the handsome, young sheriff. After all, what could go wrong with a bewitching blend, an enchanted spell book, and a haunted inn on the edge of town?

  Chapter One

  “Can you believe that the town of Paramour Bay is being audited?”

  I managed to keep my head down as I packaged the special blend of tea leaves with the added ingredients that were essential to ease Wilma Dawson’s cold symptoms. She’d been sneezing into her delicate lace embroidered hanky almost nonstop since she’d entered the shop, and I had no doubt that her best friend standing beside her would be purchasing the special concoction before week’s end.

  Elsie and Wilma’s endearing propensity for gossip had been keeping me in the know this past month, for which I was remarkably grateful in spite of their bias. Being a newcomer had its own limitations, but the fact that they were both in their mid-seventies didn’t escape me. Their skewed view of certain matters didn’t surprise me at all.

  I really needed to get out more.

  What’s wrong with Ted?

  I ignored the irritating, scratchy voice floating through my head reminding me of the odd man who lived on my property on the edge of town. Ted had technically come with the house. That’s quite a long story, so I’ll leave that for later.

  Unfortunately, my best friend lived over two very long hours away by train in New York City. I saw Heidi maybe twice a month on weekends, but it wasn’t nearly enough. I missed our wine nights during the work week, our coffee sprees on Saturday mornings, and the binging of enthralling television shows that we’d take part in on rainy Sunday afternoons.

  Those were the days…

  “I bet Mayor Sanders is fit to be tied. He doesn’t much care for the county or the state poking their bent noses into our small-town business. You know how he likes to coddle his ego.” Elsie barely took a breather between words as she reached into her handbag and pulled out another hanky, this one dry. “Here. You know, I don’t think it was such a good idea for us to keep our hair appointments today. You should be home and resting in bed with your constitution all fouled up the way it is.”

  “But then we wouldn’t have found out that Gillian Reilly has gone and gotten herself pregnant with twins,” Wilma responded in a rather nasally tone. She delicately wiped her nose before slipping the fancy cotton cloth up her sleeve. “She must be so elated. Gillian and her husband have been trying for quite a few months now.”

  “Isn’t it just the best news? Although, I still can’t believe that Larry summoned the courage to ask Mindy Walsh out for dinner this weekend,” Elsie added on, apparently conceding Wilma’s point about keeping their weekly visit to the salon. They both shook their heads in commiseration and spoke in unison. “Poor, poor Abbie.”

  I couldn’t help but smile, though not at the fact that Abbie’s ex-husband had finally asked another woman out on a date. It was just that these two ladies never failed to entertain me with their reactions to the events in other people’s mundane lives.

  It was rather amusing to hear their opinions.

  One would think that Elsie and Wilma never had time to stop and watch television, but I’d been on the receiving end of being explained the comings and goings of shady characters on various soap operas.

  I was fully convinced that Paramour Bay topped the nefarious plots on any fictional show on TV.

  I wouldn’t say that. Have you seen the last season of “The Walking Dead”? You know, we do have access to Netflix out here in the sticks.

  You must be wondering about the voice I keep hearing inside my head. For that matter, you must be wondering who I am and how I’ve come to be a resident of Paramour Bay. Well, let me quickly catch you up.

  My name is Raven Lattice Marigold, and I’m a witch of sorts.

  Yes, you heard that right. It’s okay if you need to take a minute to absorb such astounding news. It took me more than a few myself. I still have moments of doubt regarding my own sanity.

  But the truth is, I’m an actual bona fide witch…a beginner, really. My stomach still gets those odd butterfly sensations every time I think about my evolving gift. My mother kept referring to it as the family curse, but my grandmother managed to lure me here to Paramour Bay for a reason—to discover my true calling.

  You see, I was your average everyday woman living in New York City just trying to get by when I received a phone call that my Nan had passed away. We’d been estranged for years due to my mother, so don’t get too choked up. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my mother wanted no part of our family legacy and had endeavored to keep me in the dark about all of it. Had I known, it would have made this transition a lot easier for all of us.

  You can imagine the shock I went through in discovering the dark family secret—the Marigolds were honest to goodness, dyed in the wool, real witches.

  Anyway, a long story short, Nan ended up leaving me her quaint little tea shop called Tea, Leaves, & Eves in the very small town of Paramour Bay, Connecticut. There were some stipulations contained in her last wishes, of course, but we’ll get into those provision
s later.

  Right now, the most important thing you should know is that Nan used a bit of not-so-white magic—for a good reason, I might add—to keep her familiar alive so that I had someone to clue me in on the rites and practices of my birthright. It probably wasn’t one of her best incantations in hindsight, but that’s where Leo enters the picture.

  Mr. Leo to you.

  I continued to ignore him, as usual.

  Elsie and Wilma couldn’t hear Leo, though they could see the ruffian as he lounged in the warm rays of the morning sun shining through the large display window at the front of the shop. What little heat the sunshine provided was rather deceiving, seeing as it was the first week of December in Connecticut. Flurries were expected in the forecast later today, which meant Leo would probably remain in that exact same spot until the clouds moved in and took away his heat source.

  Unfortunately, there was a slight problem with Leo’s rather tragic appearance. My explanation that he was a rescue cat who’d been in a dreadful accident seemed to hold with the townsfolk, though.

  Just say it. I resemble Frankenstein’s pet cat.

  It was true, but I usually tried to keep my opinions to myself. It wasn’t easy, because he could read all of my thoughts.

  Nevertheless, Leo tended to be overly sarcastic. It was easy to forget he had feelings, but he certainly was not a powerful witch’s familiar that I wanted on my bad side. I shuddered to think of the level to which he’d stoop in order to get his point across.

  Nevertheless, I can sum up Leo’s appearance in one word—horrific.

  I’m being serious.

  His whiskers were bent at every odd angle imaginable, his orange and black fur had tufts sticking out everywhere, his tail resembled a wire hanger bent at random ninety-degree angles, and his left eye was noticeably larger than his right. Truthfully, it was a bit disconcerting to look directly at him. It also didn’t help that he was overweight and his legs were rather short, similar to an Oompa Loompa household cat.

  You should have seen me in my glory days.

  “Did Mindy say yes to Larry’s dinner proposal?” I asked, giving the two women my attention as I rung up Wilma’s sale on my new cash register. I’d even gotten one of those credit card machines to make purchases easier for my customers, though it hadn’t been used in the few days the small device had been sitting on the counter since all of my customers paid in cash. They’d done so for years with my Nan. “I think it’s good for Larry to move on after his divorce. And Mindy is an absolute sweetheart.”

  Still on the subject of my looks, have you seen the latest style? I’ll have you know that long hair and scruffy beards are back in. I’m no different than those GQ models with a five o’clock shadow.

  “We’d heard from a friend that you and Mindy had lunch together the other day,” Elsie said with a sparkle in her eyes before sidling up to the counter. She didn’t seem to care that Wilma was digging in her sleeve for the hanky she’d stored up there just ten seconds ago. “It’s good to see you making friends, my dear.”

  I could just imagine what the residents of Paramour Bay thought of me after my initial arrival. It had been like falling through a trap door.

  Did I mention that I found a dead body in the back of my shop?

  I did, and it had come right on the heels of my arrival. Of course, it had caused all kinds of excitement seeing as the last murder to have taken place in this tiny town was over fifty-three years ago.

  Let’s just hope I hadn’t started a trend, because I’m relatively sure the townsfolk would run me out of town on a rail. I shuddered to think what these good citizens would do if they discovered I was actually a witch.

  I would go into more detail about the murder investigation, but Wilma was staring out the display window while repeatedly shoving her elbow into Elsie’s side. I didn’t even have to follow their stares to know that Sheriff Liam Drake was leaving the station to walk next door to the diner for lunch.

  My heart fluttered when I saw that he glanced my way.

  “Here you go, Wilma.”

  I set the brown paper bag of tea leaves that I’d sealed with one of the shop’s gold re-sealable stickers on the counter rather abruptly, along with her receipt. If they wanted more gossip to spread around town, they’d have to find it elsewhere today. The last thing I needed was to be fodder for the gossip mill after my name had finally managed to fade from the spotlight.

  Besides, there was absolutely nothing going on between me and the good sheriff of Paramour Bay.

  If you think that’s true, I’m not so sure this witch thing is going to work out for you.

  I had to bite my tongue so that I didn’t yell at Leo for trying to instigate me into saying something about Liam in front of Elsie and Wilma. An outburst of any kind would certainly have them wagging their tongues for days to come. The town seemed to hang on their every word.

  “I hope you feel better, Wilma,” I conveyed sincerely before grabbing the folder I’d put together last night for my upcoming meeting. It was my first official sales appointment since I’d taken over the tea shop. I have to admit that I’m a tad bit nervous. “I’m going to close up the shop for around thirty minutes while I walk over to the Paramour Bay Inn. Gertie wants to place her annual order for the guests, and I’ve put together a list that I think will give the visitors to our small town a variety of choices to drink during their stays.”

  Their shared glance of unease had the hairs on the back of my neck standing to attention.

  “What?” My gaze bounced from Elsie to Wilma and then back to Elsie. She was more likely to spill details than her friend. “What’s wrong? Tell me straight away.”

  “We heard that those auditors booked five rooms at the inn,” Elsie finally shared, slipping the strap of her purse over her shoulder while Wilma took her bag off the counter. I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right, because I was expecting them to tell me that Gertie had decided to go outside of Paramour Bay to purchase her tea. That would have been catastrophic. “You know what that means, don’t you?”

  “That the auditors needed a place to stay?” I asked, truly lost in this conversation.

  You aren’t the only one. These two give me a headache.

  Leo stretched his legs when one of those snow clouds I talked about earlier must have floated by and cloaked the warm rays of sunshine. He even yawned, though Elsie and Wilma had no idea that he’d done so on purpose to show his level of boredom.

  How you listen to these two go on and on about their idea of conspiracies is beyond me. We have more important things to do, anyway, now that we’ve found Rosemary’s spell book.

  I guess now would be a good time for me to admit that the tea blend I’d put together for Wilma’s cold had a magical spell attached to the leaves, along with the sundry material components I’d added to the blend. Don’t get me wrong, the antioxidants of the tea were extremely healthy. I’d also added ginger root, lemongrass, orange peel, and other ingredients to name a few to aid in equalizing the body’s balance.

  You’re leaving out the health invocation I taught you last week. You know, the one you didn’t manage to mess up?

  What Leo didn’t mention was that I almost hadn’t learned any spells at all, thanks to the protection wards that my Nan placed on the spell book before she died.

  Remember the body I mentioned earlier? The one I’d found in the storage room of the tea shop on my first day?

  Well, that man had actually been a wizard from a competing family who’d been trying to steal my grandmother’s spells for ages. She must have known that was a possibility, so she’d bound the special book with several wards that protected the family incantations that had been handed down through the generations.

  I’m getting off topic, though.

  Thankfully, Wilma decided to say something that garnered my attention.

  “Of course, the auditors needed a place to stay, but Elsie was referring to the fact that there are five of them.” Wilma leaned over the c
ounter as she lowered her voice. I pulled back slightly, not wanting to catch her cold. The last thing I needed was to get sick before the holiday season kicked off. “Two men and three women are looking into the town’s finances. You should really try to find out why they’re here when you go over to the inn this afternoon.”

  Elsie nodded her head, as if encouraging me to do Wilma’s bidding.

  “Aren’t they here to audit the town’s finances?” I must have missed something earlier in the chinwag train, because an audit was just an audit, right? Why were these two acting like it was the end of the known world? “I’m sure this is a very common practice.”

  “That’s not what we heard,” Elsie shared as she stole a glance toward the exit.

  Were they expecting the auditors to waltz in here and have them slapped in irons for gossiping about them?

  We could only hope.

  Leo wasn’t helping my cause, which was to close up the shop for thirty minutes while I walked down to the inn to meet with Gertie. Technically, the fact that she had five guests might very well be good for my business.

  Late season guests were unusual. We did get a few folks coming through town in the fall for the color tour. Connecticut was practically a fireball with autumn colors almost all the way through to Halloween, if the winds weren’t too bad. Unfortunately, that season had passed.

  “Did you know that Oliver Bend is the town’s treasurer?” Elsie asked me the question as if that piece of information meant something, when clearly I only ever knew the real reasons for the goings-on in this little town thanks to these two women. If they hadn’t told me about Mr. Bend, then I wouldn’t have known a thing about him. “Oliver just bought a cottage on the other side of the lake.”

  Wait. I did recognize the name Oliver, but just not his surname.

  He was one of your grandmother’s clients, though he hasn’t been in to see you yet. Eczema on his elbows, I believe.

  “Don’t forget that his wife also bought a late model minivan last month,” Wilma chimed in, always the follower of the two. It was now obvious what direction they were taking this conversation. “You tell us. Where do you think that they are getting that kind of money?”