Baffling Blend

  Baffling Blend

  A Paramour Bay Mystery

  Book Eleven

  KENNEDY LAYNE

  BAFFLING BLEND

  Copyright © 2020 by Kennedy Layne

  Kindle Edition

  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 & Cole—I love you!

  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 Phantom Blend

  Books by Kennedy Layne

  About the Author

  It’s a baffling time when quirky dreams become reality in the next mystifying installment of the Paramour Bay Mysteries by USA Today Bestselling Author Kennedy Layne…

  It’s that time of year when winter’s icy grasp is still hanging over the area, yet a few hopeful hints of spring are dangling in the crisp air. You know that moment when the feeling of regret has everyone on edge, thinking that maybe they should have gone ahead and taken their vacations in the deep south where the sun is still shining and warm, the birds are merrily chirping, and dreams are just dreams.

  That’s not the case in the quaint coastal Connecticut town of Paramour Bay. Raven Marigold is flummoxed when not one, not two, but three shockingly realistic dreams have come true in the span of only one week. She might be a witch, but she knows for certain that she isn’t psychic. When a fourth dream reveals a wicked witch casting a fatal spell upon one of the Marigolds, it’s a race against time to prevent her nightmare from coming true.

  Bring your comfy pillow and a magical dreamcatcher if you want to help Raven and the gang attempt to solve this latest mystery pertaining to a vision of winter’s most frightening forecast!

  Chapter One

  March was definitely a month that could give an individual severe whiplash. Connecticut somehow managed to conjure up warm temperatures in the fifties one day, only to then have four to five inches of snow dumped from an overcast sky the next. It could wreak havoc on one’s mood, and it was completely understandable why some of the residents in the quaint coastal town of Paramour Bay had become annual snowbirds migrating south for the winter months. How else were they able to keep their sanity in check?

  “Maybe you need one of those light therapy lamps,” Regina said, appearing to seriously ponder over such a purchase. We’d spent the last five minutes debating on whether or not Mother Nature had been a bit hormonal this year. The answer was a resounding yes. “I’ve heard they are very effective for treating Seasonal Affective Disorder. This weather would make anyone SAD.”

  “I don’t have Seasonal Affective Disorder,” I denied while observing my mother’s right brow arch higher than the left in mockery. Okay, my reply had come across as rather terse. Mom probably thought that I fell into the hormonal category, too. I mean, there was definitely no refuting the bad mood that had settled over me. In my defense, her unsolicited advice was wearing on my already irritable disposition. It was seriously a recipe for disaster. All I wanted at the moment was to be left alone so that I could think over my current dilemma. “What I need is for you to go and enjoy the long weekend that you planned with Beetle. I didn’t get much sleep last night, but I’ll be just fine as soon as I have another pot of coffee.”

  In my personal opinion, coffee was the cure for everything mood-related. There was nothing like the rich, delectable taste of dark Colombian coffee first thing in the morning, followed by the welcoming rush of caffeine racing through my bloodstream to get my day started off on the right foot. Granted, the first cup hadn’t quite done its job efficiently, but I was more than willing to give the beverage another shot at its ancestral mission.

  “Did you have another dream?” my mother asked with an unusual tentativeness that I hadn’t heard in quite a while. It wouldn’t do to have her stay back and get in the middle of what was clearly turning into quite the subconscious quandary. She’d want to walk headfirst into whatever might be brewing, and I was pretty sure I needed to proceed with a certain amount of caution. “Raven, please tell me that it wasn’t like the last two dreams. Two so-called premonitions can be chalked up to a happenstance, but not three. Three represents a divination or omen.”

  I purposefully kept my back to her and my head down while I poured myself the sanity-saving nectar. My taste buds were already salivating, and my brain was now chanting a mantra of caf-feine, caf-feine, caf-feine!

  Okay, so maybe I was a bit more sleep-deprived than I’d originally thought.

  Anyway, Mom had been planning this weekend getaway for a while now, and I wasn’t going to have it ruined by a dream that may or may not come true. The question that remained was how could I get her to leave without spilling the truth.

  Thankfully, I was saved by the bell…literally.

  “Good morning, ladies,” Candy greeted with a smile. Our local hairdresser was always upbeat, and today was no exception to the rule. Her bright red hair currently had a blue streak in the middle of her bangs, displaying her unique creativeness when it came to hair dye. “Did you hear that we’re getting three inches of snow tonight? Brrr. That calls for my favorite blend of Chai tea steeped to perfection and enjoyed in front of a roaring fireplace.”

  “Good morning,” I replied louder than I’d intended. I winced when the throbbing in my temples began to beat a little harder than before. The pain was well worth it if it meant that I didn’t have to answer my mother’s question about my horrifying dream last night. Lying definitely wasn’t my forte, and she could spot one of my fibs from a mile away. “You’ll be happy to know that I received my inventory yesterday, and your favorite Chai tea blend was among the many boxes. I was just saying goodbye to my mother. She’s heading out of town with Beetle this morning to visit some honeymoon spots.”

  “Ohhh, boy!” Candy exclaimed in delight, advancing toward the checkout counter to get any juicy details she could about my mother’s trip. “Raven mentioned that the two of you were looking at a cute little bed and breakfast in Maine. It’s so pretty there this time of year. Where else will you be exploring this weekend?”

  While Candy kept my mother busy with small talk, I took advantage of the brief respite to collect the two boxes of Chai tea that I’d stored on one of the shelves. It was also the perfect time to make introductions. I don’t want there to be any confusion regarding the dreams that my mother had mentioned, because it made me seem as if I am some sort of psychic.

  Believe me, I am far from some sort of fortune teller who could see the future, though there were times that I wished I had those types of psychic abilities. I’m simply a witch who happened to have a couple of dreams this past week that by chance came true. Really, I’m ninety-nine-point-nine percent sure that they were just coincidences or maybe some kind of déjà vu.

  Who am I kidding?

 
If I’m being honest, I’m pretty sure I am on the verge of having a major panic attack, but I was still holding out hope that newbie witches went through some odd growing pains like this from time to time.

  That is a reasonable assumption, right?

  Well, that’s what I’ve been telling myself to get me through the day. It wasn’t like my third dream had come true yet, so maybe the other two had merely been flukes in the epic comedy that was now my life.

  Do you want a little cheese with that whine? All I want is my morning nap, but you make it rather difficult to sleep with those anxiety-riddled thoughts of yours turned up to max volume, going on and on about those silly dreams. So what if you dreamt that Pearl’s hair turned blue and it just so happened to occur the next day? It was a simple coincidence that Candy lost one of her contacts that afternoon, which led to reading a label wrong on one of her bottles. As for the other dream regarding the good ol’ sheriff being called out of town, it was probably due to a seed planted in your subconscious from a previous conversation. It happens all the time. You witches are worse than a gaggle of geese.

  That annoying yet sometimes very wise voice belonged to my inherited familiar, Leo. I had better start at the beginning, because it was the only way to help you understand my current predicament.

  And trust me…it’s a doozy.

  My name is Raven Lattice Marigold, and this odd chapter in my life all began the day I received a phone call concerning my grandmother’s sudden death over a year ago. She’d generously left me everything she owned, from her tea shop to the charming yet somewhat peculiar cottage bordering the bay on the edge of town. It was terrifying on the outside and adorable within.

  And…

  Leo rolled over on his cat bed in the display window of Tea, Leaves, & Eves. He sighed in resignation, already accepting that we were going to have a very lengthy conversation after my mother left on her trip. He needed to help me get to the root of these dreams since he was technically my advisor on all things supernatural.

  And I am way underpaid.

  You see, Leo had been Nan’s familiar for most of her life, but she hadn’t wanted me to learn about my lineage and navigate my newfound future without a little bit of help. Let’s just say that Nan had used a bit of dark necromancy magic to hold Leo back on this realm while she crossed through the veil.

  Normally, a familiar followed his or her supernatural companion into the next world. The consequences had been quite harsh, leaving Leo looking a bit haggard with a bent tail, crooked whiskers, a bulging eye, and several tufts of hair sticking out every which away. Oh, and short-term memory loss. That was a bit of a glitch in the grand scheme of things.

  Hey, I’ve come to accept my rugged handsomeness, thank you very much. Seeing as your mother already pointed out that you’re looking a little worse for wear this morning, you are the one who might be in need of a facial mask to rid yourself of those dark circles around your eyes. You’re beginning to resemble a raccoon, which causes me to think of Joey Butter Fingers, the infamous raccoon familiar. With Beetle leaving town, I don’t have enough edible catnip treats to deal with those haunting memories right now.

  “Here you are,” I exclaimed, turning back around to face Candy and my mother with a smile on my face. I didn’t want a trip down memory lane regarding the time a corpse had gone missing in the cemetery, either. “Two boxes of Chai tea. I think the idea of spending the evening in front of the fireplace with a cup of tea in hand sounds perfectly lovely.”

  I wasn’t pulling anything over on my mother, but Leo had thankfully managed to grab her attention away from me with what came across as a very sincere gesture. It was hard not to listen in on their conversation as I rang up Candy’s purchases.

  …declare with my paw upon my prized catnip stash that I’ll let you know the second anything out of the ordinary happens. Do you really think I want to deal with Raven’s so-called premonitions on my own? Let’s face it, your daughter’s accident-prone tendencies might be the reason I’ve lost a few more tufts of fur. Besides, you know her antics send me into induced asthma attacks, and you’re taking my go-to supplier with you.

  I hid a smile as Leo continued his mission of getting my mother on her way, even though he was going to miss getting his extra treats every morning from Beetle. The town’s former accountant also happened to be my one and only part-time employee. His employment made dealing with my mother somewhat difficult from time to time, but the positives outweighed the negatives by a million to…well, maybe five.

  “Mom, you’re running late,” I reminded her, not willing to let Candy leave the teashop just yet. Her presence was keeping me from another round of questions about my latest dream, and I still needed time to sort through the details of the nightmare myself. “Drive safe, have fun, and don’t join any cults.”

  Candy laughed and lightened the underlying mood, which was exactly the outcome that I’d been hoping for in order to achieve my goal. Sure enough, my mother finally put on her long red dress coat that matched the color of her lipstick and nails. At least she wasn’t wearing the black leather outfit she seemed to be in favor of lately. I wasn’t a prude by any means, but I shouldn’t be subjected to seeing my mother sporting black leather pants on her way out of town with a man. She slowly picked up her purse around the time that I handed Candy her purchases in a paper bag with the teashop’s name branded on the side.

  “Is the bed and breakfast nearer to Portland or Bar Harbor?” Candy inquired, leading the way and allowing me to breathe a little easier. The bell above the door chimed merrily as the two women exited the teashop, though I didn’t miss the glare my mother had tossed me over her shoulder. I would definitely pay for my little scheme, but I didn’t have to worry about that until next week. “I think there is a…”

  The glass door finally closed, allowing me to climb up on the stool that I kept behind the cash register. I slumped over the counter, simply too exhausted to stand anymore.

  I believe that I deserve the edibles that Beetle left in the top drawer. That was a stellar diversion, wouldn’t you say?

  I moaned in displeasure at having to move, but I managed to lean back far enough to open the drawer. Sure enough, Beetle had left a little baggie of catnip edibles with a sticky note that reminded me to give one to Leo every morning at nine o’clock sharp.

  One a day? Has the man lost his grip?

  Leo’s dry, cackled laugh reverberated around the small teashop.

  My BFF is a funny one, isn’t he? A joke, for sure. It’s two a day.

  “Thank you, Leo,” I replied genuinely, truly appreciative of his help. He had a tendency to do his own thing in his own time, but he’d come through for me this morning. “My dreams coming true isn’t a newbie witch thing, is it? We need to figure out something, because this stress is enough to do me in. I might even have to start taking the magical blend that I created for Wilma’s insomnia. She says it works like a charm.”

  The residents of Paramour Bay had become like family to me. Even though the Marigolds were the only witches in town, the other townsfolk certainly had their idiosyncrasies. Pearl was colorblind and thought that her purple hair was silver. Well, that was before Candy had turned it blue. Elsie and Wilma were attached at the hip like Siamese twins, though they were the best go-to gals for the latest gossip making the rounds around town. I had many more regular customers that had their little peccadillos or eccentricities, but I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.

  Leo was still enjoying one of his two edibles, so I managed to find enough gumption to get up from the stool to collect my coffee that I’d left on one of the high-top tables. I decided to try and put some of the pieces of the last week together on my own, hoping that he’d jump in if I’d gotten something wrong.

  “You might be onto something,” I mused after taking a much-needed gulp of my coffee. “The first dream was actually about Liam needing to leave town abruptly. His sister had emergency surgery for appendicitis, but I do recall Liam saying
a day or two beforehand that she’d mentioned being nauseated. My subconscious could have simply linked the two ideas together, like you said.”

  Liam Drake was the sheriff of Paramour Bay, but he was so much more than that to me. He also happened to be the man I was dating, which made it all the more likely that my subconscious had picked up the change in vibes surrounding him. A day didn’t go by that we didn’t spend time together. Not seeing him today wasn’t helping my mood, either.

  You’re attuned with Mother Nature, Raven. Let’s face it. You harness the energy she provides to create magical blends in order to help the residents of this town with their various ailments, so why would it come as a shock to find that your subconscious is sensitive to picking up subtle clues in your daily life?

  When Leo put it like that, it made my assumption of premonitions seem rather absurd.

  I was a witch.

  Of course, I was attuned with Mother Nature…even her hormonal imbalances.

  Exactly. Did I mentioned that I simply love my BFF? These edibles that he left are the ones he ordered from New Zealand. I’m really liking the unique tangy yet minty flavor.

  I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about the other dream. Pearl had been walking around with blue hair that she believed was white due to her colorblindness, and the blunder had actually come true. Where would I have picked up any type of hint that the universe threw out about a hair catastrophe? There shouldn’t have been any sign that a mistake like that was going to happen.

  “Wait just a split second.” I stepped forward just as Leo swallowed some of his other edible. His left eye bulged a bit when I finally stomped back around the cash register, which was a clear tell that I was right. He’d been hoodwinking me all along. “I knew it! You were being too nice to me this morning, especially with Beetle leaving town. Why?”

  Leo visibly gulped down the last bite of his edible treat, narrowing his green eyes in clear contemplation of vanishing into thin air. He’d done it before, and he’d do it again without hesitation.