Storiebook Charm (A Spellbound Novel 1) Read online

  “I’m fine,” he said, his voice thick and strained to his own ears. The truth was he was anything but fine, and any second now he was going to flip her over, and—

  Control. He sucked in deep breaths to stop himself from losing it.

  “Are you sure?” Her words rushed out, laden with concern.

  His anguish deepened. Hell no, he wasn’t sure. He was lost. Utterly and completely lost. Heat rose in him like fire burning out of control. He could feel every inch of her. Her breath against his cheek. Her forearms touching his shoulders. Her breasts pressed flat against his chest. One of her knees wedged in between his legs. Her feet entwined with his.

  He couldn’t think straight. Guilt knifed through him over his deception, but greater than that was his desire to have his mouth against hers, his hands exploring every inch of her body. Right now, tonight, he was going to experience the fantasy that had haunted him for so long.

  Chapter 8

  Storie couldn’t move. She should, but she couldn’t. Reid’s hands tightened on her hips, pulling her firmly against him. Was this part of his game? Whatever he wanted, he didn’t have it yet, so now he was being Mr. Charming. Only he was no prince. He was a strategist. And an ordinary human. All the more reason she couldn’t trust him. Of course, he’d grabbed her, flipped her, and buffered the fall. Protected her. But still…

  Her mind felt vaguely fuzzy. Had her powers gone rogue, causing the shelf to shake and tossing her to the ground? The drained feeling she got whenever she tried to do a spell or purposely directed her magic was becoming stronger. As if all her energy was zapped clean out of her body and she needed a minute to recharge.

  She started to roll off of him. Flirting was one thing—and she’d definitely taken it too far—but actually crossing that line with him? Bad idea. Gunpowder and lit match. He’d made it perfectly clear that he wasn’t staying in Whiskey Creek and there was no way in hell she was opening herself up for a broken heart.

  In the back of her mind, she heard the low noises of a machine, but she was locked in place by Reid’s hands, immobilized by the explosive heat of their bodies against each other.

  “What was that?” She searched for the ground to push herself up.

  “Don’t move,” he growled. His grip on her tightened, holding her against him. “Don’t. Move.”

  She stilled. Breathed in. Sweet Jesus, he smelled good. Smoky wood mixed with the evergreen scent of the forest. Her heart thundered. Why couldn’t he have been a wizard? Maybe then she would have let herself have a little fun with him.

  But he wasn’t, and she couldn’t. She was a witch, and no mortal man could accept that.

  She had to divert his attention. Her attention. She glommed onto the first thing she could think to lighten the sexual energy sizzling between them. Behind her, the machine-like sound grew louder. “What happened with the shelf?” she asked.

  His eyes darkened as he looked at her. “Good question.”

  “We should…check.” She struggled to keep the muscles in her arms strong so she could keep holding herself up. Or she could give in to the temptation and get a taste of what she could never actually have.

  Just one taste…

  She dropped an inch, her face moving closer to his, their lips almost touching. Her pulse skittered and she turned her head at the last second, her cheek against his. The movement pressed their hips closer together, but she pulled away.

  “Christ.” The frustration behind his words danced over her skin.

  “You’re leaving,” she said, “and I’m a-a—”

  She couldn’t tell him what she was. I’m a witch, she’d say, and he’d throw her off him, bolt out of there so fast, and she’d never see him again. She shook her head against the crook of his neck.

  He moved his hands to her shoulders and pushed her up until their gazes met. His eyes narrowed. “You’re a what?”

  “Nothing,” she said, a wall going up around her. He might want to get closure on their unfinished business, as he kept saying, but he was not her friend. Not anything remotely close to it, in fact. “I’m just…uh…wondering about that sound.” The low rumble and steady sound of liquid was not like anything she’d ever heard before.

  “I don’t hear anything,” he said, his hands moving back to her hips.

  Her stomach fluttered, heat surging through her. He was making this so difficult. “I do.” She pushed with her arms, levering herself up, but the way he was pinned under her meant moving against him.

  A quiet groan slipped from his lips. “You’re killing me, darlin’,” he ground out.

  She stilled, their bodies molded together. “Letting go might help.”

  He cracked a tense smile. “It might.” But he didn’t release his hold on her.

  She would miss that smile. And having him around every day once the grand opening was over. And when he left town. No. She shoved the thoughts away. He couldn’t be trusted, she reminded herself.

  Oh boy. She planked her body and angled her hips up. “You’ve been really helpful with all the repairs,” she said, “but I—”

  He let her go, the spots where his hands had been suddenly cold. Good God, if this was her reaction to his hands on her, buffered by a layer of denim, what would it do to her to have skin against skin?

  “It’s been a pleasure,” he said, but from the sound of his voice, she got that he meant more than the work he’d done around the shop.

  She extricated herself completely, grabbing hold of his outstretched hand to pull him up to standing. He turned to the bookshelf. The loose corbel came off in his hand. A loud scraping followed and the built-in unit creaked to life, swinging open.

  She jumped back. “What’s that?”

  Reid grabbed hold of the edge of the door, his face turning pale. “Looks like a…a secret door.”

  She rolled her eyes at him. “Ya think?”

  He frowned. “Yeah, I think.”

  A rumbling, clearly audible now that it was no longer muffled by the wood shelving, came from inside. Reid started. “Stay here,” he ordered. “I’ll check it out.”

  She scoffed. “No way. My hidden passageway. I’m going, too.” She put her hand on his shoulder as she crept after him, her heart in her throat.

  The threshold opened to an outdoor room. She gazed up at the open sky. A secret room. Amazing. This was the stuff of books and fairy tales.

  But in front of her, Reid pulled up short. He let out a string of curses under his breath, his feet suddenly rooted to the ground.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, moving to his side. And then she saw it. A big contraption right in front of her. If there’d been a little girl, a key, and a boy in a wheelchair, she might have thought she’d been transported smack into the middle of the Secret Garden book. Instead, she looked at a fifty-five gallon wooden mash barrel and a cylinder made of riveted and soldered copper sheets, half-hidden by the trees and brush, but very much there. Several smaller glass containers were stacked along the garden wall.

  “It’s a turnip still,” he said, answering the question she’d been thinking but hadn’t asked.

  “O-kay.” She stared at the contraption. “As in moonshine?”

  He nodded, his frown spreading to his eyes. “As in moonshine.”

  She walked past him, toward a brick wall covered in thick vines, and then inched closer to the rattling still. “Which is illegal, right?”

  He made a noise in his throat. “Oh yeah.”

  She pointed at it, looking over her shoulder at him. “And it’s…working?”

  He walked along the perimeter of the garden room, his hand skimming over the brick walls. “So it would seem.”

  “And out there, beyond the wall, is that Whiskey Creek?”

  “Guess you know why it’s called that,” he said with a laugh. “And over the wall this way is The Speakeasy.”

  Which, she realized, was not a surprise to him. “This is your still? You’re a moonshiner?” She heard the shrill rise in h
er voice, but couldn’t control it any more than she could control the flame circling in her gut, swirling like a tornado as it gained momentum. Emotions out of control meant magic out of control. Fury consumed her, and before too long, her magic would go haywire and who knew what would happen?

  “Not exactly,” he said grimly. “Little Joe Woodson and Gus Malone made their white lightnin’ here.”

  She balled her fists to keep from spewing her own form of lightning from her fingertips. “And who are they?”

  “Gus Malone was my great-granddaddy. Little Joe was his…business partner.”

  She pieced together what she knew, which granted, wasn’t a lot. Kathy Newcastle had said some spirit company wanted to buy a moonshine recipe. Jiggs Malone wanted to buy this place. To expand his illegal business, or to keep it a secret?

  The truth dawned on her and she faced Reid, pure fury lacing her voice and thick in her throat. “So this is why you got Buddy to leave the job. You wanted to take over so you could make sure we didn’t find the hidden door.”

  He threaded his fingers together behind his neck, pacing, but remained silent.

  She blew past him, back out to the tearoom. “Isn’t it?” she demanded, whirling around again to face him. He’d used her, just as she’d known he would. He was not to be trusted, and she’d been a fool to fall for his charm. “Isn’t it?”

  Slowly, he nodded. “Storie, I’m sorry. I—”

  At least he didn’t flash her some flirtatious smile in hopes that she might brush off how illegal and unethical and…how plain horrible he was to almost seduce her, all to keep her from finding this room. “Sorry for lying? Or for getting caught?”

  “Storie—”

  She flung up her hand. “What am I supposed to do? Turn you and Jiggs in to the police? Become an accomplice?” Her voice raised an octave. “How could you hide this from me?”

  But she didn’t give him a chance to actually respond. Didn’t want to hear more lies. She turned on her heels and bounded upstairs, knowing full well that she was a fool for thinking she could trust a mortal man, let alone Reid Malone.

  Storie pulled open the secret door and ushered Harper into the room. “Moonshine? Are you sure?” Harper stared at the still, then at her.

  “Oh yeah,” Storie answered. “Dead sure.”

  “I never thought I’d see one of these,” Harper said after Storie showed her the turnip still. “White lightnin’. ’Splo. Sugar whiskey. Moonshine.” She paused for dramatic effect, looking just like Piper and Scarlett when they were giving their mama attitude. The two women stared at the contraption in silence for a good while. Finally, Harper said, “Looks to me like Gus and Little Joe were the ’shiners, but who were the bootleggers?”

  Storie stared at her. Stared at the turnip still, so named because of its odd shape, then at the brick wall dividing her property with The Speakeasy. And she added it all together. “Old Jiggs Malone changed the name of the saloon to The Speakeasy back when I was a senior in high school, right?”

  “Don’t know. I didn’t know you then,” Harper said.

  “Well, he did. Coincidence?”

  Harper shook her blond head, her layers of hair falling perfectly back into place. “No, no coincidence.”

  “I don’t think so, either. Kathy said that saloon’s been in the Malone family forever. Goes back four generations, at least, far as I remember. And it’s situated right next to our moonshine operation—”

  Harper bristled. “It’s not our moonshine operation—”

  But Storie continued. She’d been working the details of how things must have been a few generations back. “So the Malones had to have been the bootleggers. And Jiggs probably changed the name of the saloon as a nod to his family’s part in bucking Prohibition.”

  Harper tapped her fingers against her cheek. “And you think Little Joe and Gus brewed their white lightning then sold it at The Speakeasy, which really was am old speakeasy? They were the moonshiners and the bootleggers?”

  Harper nodded. “That’s exactly what I think.”

  But that didn’t answer all her questions. “Reid probably makes a fortune with his mineral holdings, right?”

  “A fortune and a half, at least.”

  “So why would he risk that so his dad can moonshine?” It didn’t make sense, but Storie had worked too hard to open this place, and she wasn’t about to let the man next door deceive her and rip apart her dreams, one bottle of moonshine at a time.

  No, she was pulling the plug.

  “I knew there was a way in from that side of the moonshine room.”

  Reid stared at his dad. “You said it was a little operation, Pop. That turnip still is hardly small. How could you not tell me?”

  “You were busy running the bar. Figured it was better that you not know all the details. Just made sure there wasn’t a way into our bar from the other side. Guess that didn’t work out since there is a way in.”

  Reid growled, barely containing his anger. It was one thing to know his dad was brewing whiskey, but quite another to see the scale of the operation.

  Behind the bar, Jiggs doubled over, coughing and hacking. After a good twenty seconds, his system calmed and he straightened back up. “Son,” he said, “this was a speakeasy. Plenty to hide during Prohibition. The card room used to be closed off, don’t you remember?”

  Reid masked his concern over his father’s failing health. He knew there wasn’t an endless amount of time left, which was why he’d looked the other way about the moonshining in the first place. His dad wanted to leave a legacy with Gemstone Spirits. Who was he to stop that from happening?

  He looked over his father’s shoulder at the room behind the bar. He remembered tearing down the walls and helping to frame a new door, but he’d been a kid. He had no recollection of what the room had been before they’d gotten their hands on it.

  “You should have told me, is all.”

  Jiggs shuffled out from behind the bar, facing Reid. “So you could stop me? Hell no. I want my grandkids to remember their pappy and to have something concrete. Apple Pie Moonshine, courtesy of Jiggs Malone. That’s what your young’uns are gonna remember ’bout me.”

  Grandkids? Good God, maybe the old man was losing touch quicker than Reid had realized. He wasn’t anywhere near having kids. He shook away the image of Storie. “They’ll remember you in an orange jumpsuit, if we’re not careful. Come to think of it, there won’t be any kids if I’m in the cell next to yours.”

  “Gemstone Spirits don’t care it’s bootlegged liquor. They want to buy the recipe for my white lightnin’ ’cause they tried it. Came by here more than a year ago, back when Teddy still had some of that damn oil of whatever it is, and they tasted the Apple Pie Moonshine. They never forgot how good it is.”

  Reid stared at him, his jaw slack. He’d risked everything trying to help his father, and all he’d gotten in return were lies. Just like the lies he’d told Storie. “You’re kidding. She’s not going to let me back in there.”

  That realization seized his gut.

  “Son, I never kid about whiskey. Gemstone Spirits wants to taste the ’splo before they fork over the money, or the deal’s goin’ south. You gotta convince her to let you back in so you can finish searchin’.”

  Reid propped his elbows on the table, rubbing his forehead. Unbelievable. How had he ever agreed to be part of this mess? “You have to promise,” he said after he calmed down. “You can’t run that still anymore. I don’t want either of us going to jail, Pop.”

  Jiggs crossed his heart and held up two fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

  Reid grimaced. “Great. Except you were never a Boy Scout.”

  The wrinkles in Jiggs’s face multiplied as he cracked a smile. “Our little secret.”

  He added it to the long list, belonging to both Jiggs and him.

  He had no idea how long he had before Storie called someone in to clear it out of the garden room, but afterward the deal with Gemstone would definitely
be dead and that would absolutely kill Jiggs.

  His dad’s eyes, a network of thin red veins snaking through them, were wide with anticipation.

  “I’ve looked everywhere,” he finally told his father. “It’s all normal stuff in the kitchen. No magical elixir. Whatever Ted Bell gave you, I think it’s all gone.”

  Jiggs swung his cane out from under him, jabbing it point blank at Reid. “You’re a Malone, son, and that means you ain’t no quitter. It’s there, somewhere. I feel it in my bones, and you gotta find it.”

  His head ached. Christ almighty, give him strength. “No, I’m not a quitter, Pop, but I know when something’s hopeless. Storie isn’t hiding some secret ingredient. All her dad left her was that old gas station. It’s been torn apart. There’s no hidden anything, besides your moonshine room.”

  “What about upstairs? You said you ain’t been up there yet.” Jiggs plopped onto a hard backed chair, stretching his bad leg out in front of him. “You said that was off-limits. That’s probably where she’s hidin’ it.”

  “Maybe,” he said reluctantly. He’d given plenty of thought to what he’d find upstairs, but the mystery ingredient that was worth a multibillion-dollar price tag to Gemstone Spirits wasn’t the thing that kept him awake at night.

  He lay there for hours conjuring up how beautiful and mysterious she was, and about what he wanted to do with her.

  “Time’s runnin’ out, son. Gemstone Spirits’ll walk away with their offer if I can’t get the moonshine right.”

  “They’re buying the recipe for an illegal whiskey, Pop. You really think you can trust them, anyway?”

  Jiggs scoffed, propping his cane back on the ground and levering himself to standing. “Your mama said I’d never amount to nothin’, and aside from you, son, so far she’s been right. I need me that deal. I need to know I did somethin’ worthwhile with my life.”